The main reason that Stalin was able to rise to power was his ingenious defeats of both the left and right wings of the Party. The key figure Stalin had to take down from the left wing was Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was important because in effect, it was his leadership of the Red Army during the Civil War that had won the war for the Reds. If it hadn’t been for Trotsky, the Bolsheviks may not have been in the position they were by 1924. The first step Stalin took towards removing the threat of Trotsky was to lie to him about the date of Lenin’s funeral.
The leadership of the Bolshevik party, after Lenin had been forced into exile in Switzerland, didn’t press for an armed uprising. They even considered joining the Provisional Government, after they attended a democratic congress. However, with Lenin’s return he succeeded in convincing the Central Committee to put an armed uprising in their plans. Despite this some leading Bolsheviks, Zinoviev and Kamenev were unsure that this uprising was a good idea and spoke out against Lenin in a newspaper article which alerted Kerensky of the danger. Although, Kerensky did not act decisively with this knowledge, this shows that without Lenin at the front of the Bolshevik party the rest of the Bolshevik’s weren’t as eager to rise and seize power.
In the end, Lenin's ideology won in the SDLP congress, and him and his group became known as the 'Bolsheviks' (men of the majority) and Trotsky's group become known as the 'Mensheviks' (men of the minority). While these two groups had effectively the same goals and aims, they treated each other as enemies due to the minor dispute on how to run the party. This weakened their overall threat, as their numbers were divided; and thus their potential power was halved. The Social Revolutionary Party (SRP) was a socialist political
The Total Dictatorship of Joseph Stalin The Revolution of 1917 led to the totalitarian dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin perverted the revolution of Lenin and Stalin did not follow Lenin’s example. When Stalin took over he picked up where Lenin left off but took it much further. He convinced the people that he was the only one they could trust after the death of Lenin. Stalin did this on his own; he lied to the people and accused the government of being enemies of the people.
Finally, Stalin was also responsible for recruitment. In 1921, roughly one quarter of the communist Party’s members were serving in the red army and were therefore loyal to Trotsky. However, the recruitment drive known as the Lenin Enrolment in 1923-25 enabled Stalin to increase the size of the party and thereby reduce Trotsky’s influence. Bukharin had a certain control over the media and education and this was seen as a threat to Stalin, but Stalin had none of this and had used his organisational powers to appoint Bukharin’s deputies and restrict his ability of using the media effectively. Also, the 1921 ban on factions prevented minority groups within the party from challenging the leadership of the party, so Stalin used
Many historians have said Alexander II was considering the formation of a parliament in Russia. Furthermore, the assassination caused Alexander III to rule in reactionary nature in which many counter-reforms were created to limit the impact of the Great Reforms done by his father. This supports the view that the People’s Will were highly unsuccessful, even in the taking out of Alexander II. It can be said that the only example in this period of effective political opposition was the October 1917 revolution, where, unquestionably, the Bolsheviks took power and let their political vision be known. They were extremely successful in both the short term and the long term.
Lenin like the Tsars had absolute power in Russia to the extent that he could ignore advice from his party and single handily dictate changes. The tsars also had an almost identical amount of power with examples being Nicholas 2nd ignoring everyone’s advice and going to the front in 1916, Lenin ignored his party in signing the treaty of Brest – Litovsk and introducing the N.E.P. This evidence shows that like the Tsars Lenin did have absolute power within his government. The only real contrast between the Tsars and Lenin is that the Tsars had some, very weak local Government, with the Zemstva. In
In the case of the Provisional Government they changed it from autocratic to democratic and Lenin changed it to a one party state; although the result was different the basis was the same. In some cases all of the rulers passed reforms that they had no choice whether to or not, it was simply necessary. All of the Tsars wanted to uphold their autocratic position, Alexander III most of all due to what happened to his father, so keeping absolute control was essential. Nicholas II was the only tsar to make any major political reforms due to the Tsar’s wanted to keep their power. However, Nicholas II had no choice to create the Duma because of the 1905 revolution; so he reluctantly did so he did not completely lose his position.
Where the two governments differ is in the respect of tolerance towards cooperation with others. In Alexander III's Tsarist autocracy, minsters were personally chosen by the Tsar, and could only advise him-he still had to make the decisions himself. In addition, all other political parties in Tsarist times were banned, through methods such as arresting members of opposing political parties and censoring the press. In Lenin's Communist dictatorship, Lenin instead chose to work with members in committees such as the Sovnarkom and the Politburo in order
What in your view was the short term significance of Trotsky in the period 1917-1927? Trotsky played a key role in the Bolshevik party, encouraging revolution which saw the Bolsheviks gain power in 1917. He built up a strong Red Army during the civil war, which was used to ensure the survival of the Bolshevik government. He was seen by many as the second man to Lenin and the most likely candidate to take over as leader after Lenin’s death which portrays his significance. However, evidence suggests that after Lenin’s death he lost his power considerably, eventually being banned from the Communist party.