Another very important reason in why Stalin emerged as leader was Tactical maneuvering of Stalin and his making and breaking of alliances. Stalin was so determined to take power he was quite prepared to use dishonourable tactics in his bid for power and started a campaign against his strongest rival, Bukharin. He attacked Bukharin’s followers at lower levels of the Party. He also was very good at manipulating the Party for instance telling Trotsky the wrong date for Lenin’s funeral to reduce his popularity. This helped him seize power as
Stalin was able to see that he could gain credibility by using Lenin’s Legacy, since Lenin was the leader of the Communist Party and was the reason to all the great ideas and change that was brought to Russia. This meant that if Stalin was associated with Lenin he could win votes and support from members of the party, earning him his win. At Lenin’s funeral, Stalin claimed falsely that he was Lenin’s disciple and was to continue his work. Lenin’s wife disagreed as she knew the truth to what Lenin thought of Stalin, however, none of the members of the Communist Party did and fell into the trap of Stalin’s word. Not only this but Stalin used Lenin’s Legacy when he once again falsely claimed he was there at the beginning of the original Russian Revolution, when he was actually in exile.
Lenin’s real opinion of Stalin was highly negative. He was so concerned about Stalin becoming leader that he made a plea in his testament to do anything to stop this. ‘I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead.’ As well as his view to not see him as leader, Lenin described Stalin as ‘rude’, but more importantly, favored Trotsky to be his successor in the testament, stating that he was ‘most capable’ individual to lead Russia. If it wasn’t for Stalin using his role as secretary of state to keep this document hidden, these opinions of Lenin would have influenced the public hugely, as his death alone attracted millions of people to pay their respects. Stalin not only stopped a negative opinion of him costing leadership, but he completely turned that opinion upside down, persuading the public that he was very close to the much loved Lenin.
Rise to power Josef Stalin was a keen, intellectual man who knew how to make sure he was viewed well by the public. He tricked his political opponent Trotsky into not coming to Lenin’s funeral so that he could present himself as Lenin’s close friend and get people to dislike Trotsky. He was clever and ensured that he became close to members of the communist party so he could have support by them. this boosted his power. He turned his opponents against each other while keeping his eye on the prize and being sure to never do anything that would endanger his chances of becoming the leader of the Soviet union.
Stalin had many powerful positions within the communist party, including head of the Central Committee and head of the Secretariat. As head of the central committee he had the power to investigate and discipline members of the party. He abused this power by expelling members of the party that were suspected of disagreeing with his ideology. The party members obeyed Stalin because if they didn’t they would lose their jobs and knew that supporting Stalin would gain them promotions. Being head of Secretariat was considered an unimportant role by senior members of the communist party, but this made Stalin responsible for various branches of the Party bureaucracy, this included interpreting and implementing the politburo decisions.
Moreover, Stalin was against the NEP, so he advocated industrialization which again strengthened his support. These reasons build to why Stalin emerged as leader of the USSR by 1929. Firstly, a strong reason why Stalin became the leader of the USSR was, in 1925 his policy of ‘socialism in one country’ proved very popular with party members. Trotsky believed in ‘permanent revolution’ and as stated above Stalin believed in ‘socialism in one country’. Trotsky wanted to help communists in other countries to the revolution and push forward the revolution in the USSR.
The people adored him at first, His April Theses kept his Marxist beliefs in check, and he used it in order to rule Russia in a communist manner. The people liked his speeches, he was well spoken and an inspirational speaker especially in his speech of “Peace, Land and Bread” in which he spoke of making Russia for the people. Lenin was precise, and careful with his methods and rules. He never left any chance of fault. By creating the Cheka, his secret police, he kept political parties at bay and kept order through fear.
Sebastian Pasha 5th September 2014 How significant were the personalities of the contenders to succeed Lenin in accounting for Stalin’s defeat of his opponents in the years 1924-1929? Stalin’s defeat of his contenders in the struggle of power between 1924 to 1929 was mainly due to his personality. For instance, he was compared to a ‘grey blur’, allowing him to slip under the radar and play behind the scenes, therefore seeming to be no real threat to the others. However he was quite the contrary. In addition, numerous factors such as his acquired powerbase and his policies aided him greatly to secure the highest position of authority in Russia.
This meant that he had a lot of control in the power struggle situation as he could ruin what other people know about and certain times of events. An example of this is when Lenin’s funeral is organised, Stalin tricks Trotsky into not turning up at the funeral as he gives him the wrong date for it, which meant that Trotsky looked arrogant and selfish as he was not there and did not care for the glorified leader. This also helped Stalin, as he could manipulate the funeral and make the audience believe that Stalin cared about Lenin and that he was his true disciple and would continue Lenin’s work. The next event and factor that led to Stalin winning the power struggle was when Lenin’s wife gave
What the other members of the soviet party such as Trotsky did not realize however; was that Stalin would use the position to gain a mass of followers for his socialist ideals and would use it as a stepping stone to achieve greater political influence and manipulate his way even further in the ranks. He had gained so much power and influence that in 1922 Lenin had asked for his removal from the party as he had “gained too much power”, he would advise his party this in a document that is now called “Lenin’s Last testament” a document that has a numerous amount of varying theories into its actual creation, either way the testament was for the most part underplayed and Stalin manipulated the party rules and the people in the party to for the most part ignore the document; much to Trotsky’s disappointment. After Lenin’s death in 1924 Stalin would not hesitate to preach his socialist ideals, which would be successful as the government did not choose to open up it’s meetings to the public in order to appear “healthy and stable”. By wanting to appear stable the party made it relatively simple for Stalin to use threats and targeted attacks to crush