Ideology and the nature of leadership and Lenin's testament (9)

Question 1

When did Lenin die?

Answer 1

January 1924

Question 2

What did Lenin’s death create?

Answer 2

A power vacuum

Question 3

What was Marxist-Leninist ideology of power?

Answer 3

Power was supposed to be shared by a collective leadership, not held by any single, dominating leader.

Question 4

What was Lenin like as a leader?

Answer 4

Very forceful and it was difficult to imagine a future without a single figure of authority directing policy.

Question 5

What was collective leadership?

Answer 5

Collective leadership by a committee of equals. It was an ideological view and was mainly advanced by those who feared Trotsky.

Question 6

What had Lenin’s role as a leader been shaped by?

Answer 6

His Marxist ideological beliefs, e.g. made him refuse any “power sharing” with “bourgeois elements” and also by the events and pressures of the revolution.

Question 7

What did Lenin’s dictatorial style enable him to do?

Answer 7

Strengthen his authority as a leader and establish the concept that the party could never be wrong.

Question 8

When was the ban on factions?

Answer 8

1921

Question 9

What was the ban on factions?

Answer 9

To eliminate factionalism within the party in 1921.

Question 10

What had the ban on factions cemented?

Answer 10

The idea of a leader who commanded loyalty and obedience to the “party line”.

Question 11

When did the power vacuum suddenly start to shape?

Answer 11

1922 at the the time when Lenin became seriously incapacitated following his first stroke.

Question 12

Who were part of the “triumvirate” and what did they try and do in 1922-23?

Answer 12

Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin had formed to block the ambitions of Trotsky.

Question 13

What was Stalins position and status in 1922-23?

Answer 13

Stalin at the time was General Secretary and was unpopular and underrated by his colleagues but his was central in these alliances.

Question 14

Who did Stalin join and why?

Answer 14

Stalin joined forces with Kamenev and Zinoviev to prevent Trotsky’s ascendancy.

Question 15

Who else was an influential man in countering the Left?

Answer 15

Bukharin

Question 16

Name three men who circled round the edges of this unacknowledged power struggle?

Answer 16

Rykov, Tomsky and Radek

Question 17

In summary what was Lenin’s testament?

Answer 17

It was a “political will” setting out his view of future dangers.

Question 18

Where was his testament meant to be read out?

Answer 18

At the Party Congress after his death.

Question 19

When was Lenin dictating his testament?

Answer 19

Over several days in late December 1922 and added a postscript in January 1923.

Question 20

What did Lenin’s testament say about Stalin?

Answer 20

Lenin was particularly harsh in his criticisms of Stalin, the party’s General Secretary since April 1922, partly because of Stalin’s brutal actions in crushing opposition and dissent in Georgia, and partly because Stalin had recently insulted Lenin’s wife (Krupskaya).

Question 21

What did Stalin do in Georgia?

Answer 21

During the civil war, Lenin appointed Stalin as Commissar of Nationalities. When the Red Army moved in to seize control of Georgia, Stalin told his party colleagues that Georgia had been won back from the Mensheviks by a mass uprising in favour of the Bolsheviks. However turned out that Stalin had crushed Georgian independence by brute force, not by popular uprising.

Question 22

Why was Lenin’s testament not read out at the Party Congress in 1924?

Answer 22

Because Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev who had all been heavily criticised in the testament, managed to persuade their colleagues not to publish the testament.