In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance.

Toward this end Stalin wrote an article in May 1905 called "Briefly About the Disagreements in the Party" which was a defense of BolJoseph Stalinvik goals for the Russian Social Democratic Party against attacks from the MenJoseph Stalinviks. The next month Pravda publiJoseph Stalind stories with text regarding the purported "Jewish bourgeois-nationalist" plotters. Writing in Pravda the official newspaper of the Party both Stalin and Kamenev reflected a shift in Party policy toward Alexander Kerensky's provisional government.

Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War. Despite heavy human and territorial losses Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive battles of Moscow and Stalingrad. He held this nominal post until abolishing it in 1952 concurrently serving as the Premier of the Soviet Union after establishing the position in 1941.