The Collected Works of Stalin Volume 5 continues the essential chronicles of the beginnings of the Soviet state in the years 1921 to 1923. A period dealing with the intense difficulties (and remarkable successes) of resistance to the imperialist assault upon the burgeoning socialist project, including the formal establishment of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. The speeches, articles, reports and other writings collected in Volume 5 reveal the breadth of Stalin's contributions, interests, and activities in this period, all prior to his becoming General Secretary of the Soviet Union. As with other volumes, Stalin's perennial topics of interest make an appearance here: his focus on the economic construction, including topics related to the New Economic Policy; his continuing theorisation of the correct approach to the national question; the significance and utility of party organs such as Pravda; the role of women within the revolutionary movement; and his thoughts on many wider strategic and tactical questions that confronted the world's first socialist state. This collection also contains two important documents as appendices: the Declaration of the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and a treaty for the same. This ongoing critical republication of Stalin's Works is aimed at activists, scholars, and those interested in discovering the real historical legacy of the worker's movements of the 20th Century-for contemporary application, as well as the dispelling of historical falsities. Volume 5 is a profoundly useful collection that will serve anyone interested in questions of the challenges of building a socialist project in a world ruled by imperialism.