significance of the struggle of Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky for power and the reasons for the success of Stalin

Question 1

part 1

Answer 1

• Stalin’s rise to power in the Soviet Union was a complex process with many causes
• He was a tireless worker and his early career had been supported by Lenin
• His position as General Secretary of the Communist Party enabled him to promote his own supporters and control crucial votes
• During Lenin’s absence (due to illness) the government was run by the triumvirate (Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev) – all of whom were anti-Trotsky
• His economic and political pragmatism enabled him to outmanoeuvre the Left and then the Right, while always staying with the majority in the Politburo
• He was ruthless in his treatment of his opponents
• His opponents played into his hands and underestimated the threat from Stalin until it was too late to act effectively against him
• He manipulated events to create a sense of crisis or emergency so that his opponents could be accuse of being lukewarm about the revolutionary cause
• As General Secretary, he always claimed to speak for the Party, and his opponents were therefore hesitant to attack him as to do so would be to attack the Party – thus no public debate took place
• He had the support of ruthless, shrewd men with strong power bases of their own
• His deification of Lenin and his deliberate association of himself with Lenin meant other members of the Party were reluctant to criticise Stalin for fear of therefore being seen to be critical of Lenin

Question 2

part 2

Answer 2

• Debate over economic policy was divided between the Bukharinites who sought moderate development based upon the peasantry, and the Trotskyites who argued for rapid industrialisation based upon attacks on the peasantry
• His contempt for the old Bolshevik Left and his impatience with the moderate Right was shared by many other leading Communists
• Stalin initially supported Bukharin, but by 1927 he had decided to confront the rural classes and force industrialisation upon the country
• Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, p200 “In the years following Lenin’s death, Stalin played a waiting game, leaving it to the other side to move first, and then exploiting its mistakes… In the final phase, when he had destroyed the left opposition and turned against Bukharin and the right, he took great care to keep the quarrel confined within the inner circle until he was sure, after more than a year, that he had isolated Bukharin and only then moved against him in public. Stalin’s persistence was phenomenal; so, in this period, was his patience and caution”  
• Orlando Figes, Revolutionary Russia 1891-1991, p180 “When did Stalin come to power? It is difficult to say with exactitude because of the confusion Lenin left behind over the question of his succession. Lenin’s leadership was based on his personal authority – the Bolsheviks were his party – and he needed no official post to sanction that power. After his death it was not immediately possible for any single leader to assume that same authority. Stalin made an early claim as his sole successor when he made a speech at a memorial meeting just one week after Lenin’s death pledging to complete the revolution Lenin had begun. But in truth Stalin was obliged to operate in a collective leadership. It was not until the 1930s that he broke its last restraints on his dictatorship”
• Trotsky, L, On the Suppressed Testament of Lenin, 1932 “In the eyes of Lenin, Stalin’s value was wholly in the sphere of Party administration and machine manoeuvring. But even here Lenin had substantial reservations… Stalin meanwhile was more and more broadly and indiscriminately using the possibilities of the revolutionary dictatorship for the recruiting of people personally obligated and devoted to him. In his position as General Secretary he became the dispenser of favour and fortune”
• Wood, Alan, Stalin and Stalinism, p28 “Although intellectually Trotsky’s inferior, Stalin was by far the cleverer politician”
• Wood, Alan, Stalin and Stalinism, p28 “He had outmanoeuvred his arch-rival on every possible front, not least through his skilful manipulation of the ‘cult’ of Leninism which was established immediately after the Bolshevik leader’s death”