The novel explores what might have happened had Joseph Stalin been raised in the United States, postulating his parents having emigrated a few months before his birth, instead of remaining in the Russian Empire.

During the 1932 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Illinois, the party had decided on two front runners: California Congressman Joe Steele, and; incumbent Governor of New York Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Realizing he might lose after another day of voting, Steele directed one of his aides Vince "The Hammer" Scriabin to have Roosevelt burned alive at the New York State Executive Mansion in Albany.

When the New York State Executive Mansion is set ablaze, Roosevelt is burned alive in the fire since he could not escape in time due to him being rendered immobile by polio.

Additional political foes find similar charges leveled against them, including Senator Huey Long, who flees to his power base of Louisiana, but is assassinated regardless.

In 1936, Steele and Garner are reelected in a landslide against Republican candidate Alf Landon and his running mate Frank Knox, who only carry eight electoral votes from Maine and Vermont.

When Japan attacks Pearl Harbor in 1941, Steele sets up tribunals to demand answers from commanders General Short and Admiral Kimmel, and has them executed for incompetence.

Minus MacArthur, the war follows much the same path as in the real world with the notable exception of the Manhattan Project, as Albert Einstein does not approach President Steele to propose an atomic bomb program.

Meanwhile, the Soviets liberate the Korean Peninsula from the Japanese in mid-1945 and established the puppet state of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea with Kim Il Sung as its ruler.