The novel shares the same basic premise as the short story; Iosef Dzhugashvili's parents left Georgia and moved to California a few months before Iosef was born. Rather than becoming Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, Iosef becomes "Joe Steele", American lawyer and Democratic politician, eventually becoming a congressman from California. Similarly, the families of several of Stalin's OTL cronies, specifically Vince Scriabin, Lazar Kagan, and Stas Mikoian, also arrived in California, although this improbable plot contrivance is never addressed.