Abstract
The first part of this article examines the construction of the history of the high politics of Late Stalinism by reviewing five episodes in the period c. 1946 to 1953. I suggest that these episodes are usually narrated as examples of monolithic orthodoxy or neo-pluralism and conclude that a third narrative could be added: pressured elites. The second part of the article analyses these three narratives as cultural artifacts, and avers that they depend for their effect on a variety of rhetorical and literary devices which tell us as much, if not more, about the construction of history as they do about the past. The article concludes with a consideration and how non-narrative histories of Late Stalinism might be imagined.