Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928

Bolshevik government (Council of People’s Commissars), Smolny, Petrograd, Lenin in the center, Stalin, hand on face, standing against the wall, early 1918, during the brief time when Left SRs, such as Prosh Proshyan, commissar for posts and telegraphs (to Lenin’s right), joined the Bolshevik-dominated government. Trotsky is absent (likely at the negotiations with Germany at Brest-Litovsk).

Maria Spiridonova, famed terrorist, leader of the Left SRs, Petrograd, 1917. Spiridonova could have put an end to Lenin’s rule in July 1918 but did not.