The Stalin Era was originally published in 1956 by Mainstream Publishers in New York. According to my research into copyright law, works published prior to 1978 required deliberate renewal for their copyright status to be maintained. I delved into the U.S. copyright office’s records, and could only find the initial copyright registry; no record of any renewal exists. For works published in 1956, copyright lasted for 27 years, meaning that the work would have fallen into the public domain after December 31, 1983.
Anna Louise Strong died in 1970 without having renewed this copyright. Even if she had, it would have subsequently expired after 2010, as U.S.C. Title 17 § 301 clearly dictates. Some calculation techniques put the expiry at 2026, but from my reading, the life of the author + 70 year term is inapplicable to works published prior to 1978, and regardless would not apply from publication date. As such, this work exists now in the public domain.
I have worked carefully to format this text as printed in the initial publication. There may be errors, and those errors are entirely my own, and will be fixed as I find them. As a work of history and social commentary, it is of vital importance, and a perspective rarely seen in Western English-language publications. As such, I present it to you now, in honor of Anna Louise Strong, and in honor of the tireless work and sacrifice of the people of the Soviet Union and all they accomplished for socialism.