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.
Furthermore, Stalin’s use of devious tactics also played a large role in securing his position in the party, as they allowed him to undermine his opponents and strengthen his position by reducing support for them. Overall, although the main reason that Stalin was able to succeed in the leadership struggle was his ability to manipulate the party machine, Stalin’s devious tactics and his alliances were also vital in securing his position as leader. Stalin’s ability to manipulate the party machine was extremely vital in securing him success in the leadership struggle, as it allowed him to eliminate Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev from the struggle. As General Secretary, Stalin was able to control who sat in Party Congress. By placing his supporters in Party congress, Stalin was able to ensure that his opponents could not gain any power or support, therefore ensuring that these opponents could be ruled out of the struggle.
HOW IMPORTANT WAS STALIN’S USE OF THE LENIN LEGACY IN EXPLANING HIS VICTORY IN THE POWER STRUGGLE IN THE YEARS 1924 – 1929? After Lenin died in 1924, a power struggle arose when he hadn’t elected a member of the party to continue in his footsteps as leader of Russia, this caused the heated climb that Stalin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin had to face to have power. It was Stalin who won, much to everyone’s surprise, and there are many factors as to why he won. One of them was the Lenin Legacy, which he manipulated to his advantage. 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.
How far does Stalin’s position as General Secretary explain his success in defeating his rivals in the years 1924-29? Following Lenin’s death in 1924, the Communist Leadership in Russia was thrown into disarray. Months of ideological confusion, full of proposals of ideas for the future of socialism, bought about potential contenders for party leadership and amongst these was Joseph Stalin. Throughout the next 5 years, a great power struggle occurred between the contenders but Stalin eventually emerged successful as the new leader of the USSR. It was Stalin’s position as General Secretary and other factors that that contributed to his success.
How did Stalin's dictatorship develop? Stalin made his way into becoming dictator by a series of manipulative and clever tactics he would use to aid his influence. After Lenin and his party took over the election of the Provisional government which had been elected after the fall of the tsarist regime through a series of well-aimed political hits and armed threats; Stalin ascended the ranks of the government through extensive manipulation and threats as well as gaining the strong loyalty of some socialist idealists. In 1922 Stalin received the majority vote to become the General Secretary of the Communist party; a role that really no one else in the party really wanted as they deemed it unimportant and much like “House-chores”. 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 then intended for a mass increase in resource production to take place, which in fact did occur over the coming plans. Another political reason was that Stalin needed to develop a reputation that would supress that of Lenin. This was very important for Stalin as people viewed him as Lenin’s underdog, stating that Stalin lived in his shadow constantly referring to him whenever possible. This therefore retained Lenin’s god-like figure, which angered Stalin. He then decided to talk about Lenin’s mistakes to the Bolshevik Party, which came as a huge
How significant were ideological disputes in accounting for Stalin’s emergence as leader of Russia? Ideological disputes accounted greatly for the rise in power of Stalin in 1929; however his cunning and mischievous ways, his ability to manipulate situations to his advantage and capitalise on the mistakes of his contenders, all allowed him to succeed in Russia after the death of Lenin in 1924. Biding his time Stalin was gradually moving up in the ranks and attaining more power within the Bolsheviks party and eventually got an influential position; General Secretary of the party. So not only the ideological disputes with the other contenders but his new powerbase as the general secretary led to his rise as the Russian leader. Stalin’s emergence as a successor and a dominant figure within the Bolshevik party really came when he got the influential position as general secretary in 1922.
Despite all that it is fair to say that Lenin was a successful leader without whom November revolution and hence the crucial change in Russia would not be possible. He played a significant role in the Russian history that Stalin wanted to inherit. To successfully revive the economy and stay in power he often used all possible means such as approval of the cold-blooded execution of the entire Imperial family, including women and children, usage of the "Cheka," to take innocent hostages at random–and shoot them, if necessary–to secure the grain supply, institutionalisation of terror as a method of state policy, establishment of both the system of deportation to concentration camps and the practice of political
Stalin emerged as the leader of the Bolshevik party in 1929 due to a variety of lucky events and carefully considered political decisions that caused him to eliminate all his opponents, including his most significant rival, Trotsky. Amongst party members Stalin was known as “Comrade Card-Index,” one who assembled and dealt with party paperwork, however they were not aware of “what power [he] was accumulating wherein,” which subsequently brought about their downfall. Stalin becoming leader of the USSR in 1929 was greatly aided by him taking on many seemingly boring and undermined positions within the party. However they enabled him to accumulate power and influence throughout the whole Bolshevik party, which proved key to his success and to Trotsky’s downfall. Previous historians saw Stalin’s pre 1924 career as a “dull grey blank” (Nicolai Sukhanov-1922) however recent research has shown it as significant to his uprising.
Assess the reasons why Stalin emerged as leader of the USSR by 1929? Stalin emerged as leader of the USSR by 1929 for many reasons including: Party members tended to support Stalin's changes of policy line an example of a very popular policy was the ‘socialism in one country’ which was supported by many members of Russia. His control of the party machine was crucial factor in his success, as he was a skillful politician who outmaneuvered his opponents but he was also lucky. The weaknesses and errors of Trotsky’s judgments’ were important factors in his defeat. Moreover, Stalin was against the NEP, so he advocated industrialization which again strengthened his support.