Another ideological method that was central to his success of emerging as the leader of the Soviet Union by 1929 was accusations of Trotskyism . This was due to Stalin defending himself by accusing Bukharin of Trotskyism because Trotsky had been the first to make the claim about bureaucracy . This can be viewed as a weakness of Trotsky because this accusation of Trotskyism attempts to show that Trotsky’s ideology was far from Leninist . This greatly caused decline in Trotsky’s support because many wanted a leader who was close to Lenin and followed Lenin . Therefore , this is one of Stalin’s strengths because he was
For Lenin, the party was to be a group prepared to seize power as soon as possible yet on the other hand, for Martov, the main purpose of the party was to spread propaganda and raise the level of consciousness of the proletariat. This was because he did not believe that Russia was ready for a Marxist revolution for many years. Lenin believed that is the Mensheviks had their way, it would take years to start the revolution; they would just waste time on useless discussion and argument. Martov, replied that the revolution would fail if it did not have the support of the whole working class. The social democratic party remained spilt on the issue.
The death of the creator of the Soviet Communist Party and founder of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin, left the young Soviet Union craving the leadership from a man of the same stature. At first, the brilliant leader of the Red Army and also the appointed candidate by Lenin, Trotsky, seemed to be the one to take control of the USSR. Instead, Joseph Stalin took control of the Soviet Union, using many vindictive political moves and his position as General Secretary. As the leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin strengthened and stabilized the structure of the nation to become a world superpower and industrial colossus. In many ways, Stalin transformed himself to replicate Lenin by adopting his ideas and goals, although the way in which he met these goals are highly controversial by historians.
Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin were both powerful, ambitious leaders that worked their way into positions of power. Stalin took over after Lenin died to lead the USSR after the Russian Revolution. Hitler became leader of the Nazi Party and gained the people’s support with promises of a strong leader that resisted western powers. On their rise to power, both Stalin and Hitler became leaders of political parties, eliminated opposing parties, and promised a better future for the people and country, but Stalin used the people’s support as leverage in his power struggle with Trotsky while Hitler used his passion and the economic situation in Germany to become leader of the Nazi party and gain support over the socialists. Both Hitler and Stalin started their journey towards power by joining political parties.
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
By 1929, Joseph Stalin who was one of the members of the ‘collective leadership’, defeated the rest and became the dominant force of the USSR. His success was part of a power struggle which began even before Lenin’s death. Stalin’s victory was not inevitable, nor was it a result of his political skills alone. There was a whole list of factors which combined to assist his victory. When Lenin was alive he made several criticisms about Stalin which were not made public.
To what extent was Lenin’s leadership the reason why Bolsheviks were able to consolidate their power between 1917-1924? By the early 1920's Russia was in the authoritarian grip of a one party dictatorship. The Communist Party as the Bolshevik's had become. It had a ruthless leadership which was ideologically motivated to hold on to power at any cost. This was a dramatic change from the Bolshevik party's position in 1917 when the party enjoyed widespread support amongst the peasants, workers and soldiers who saw in the Bolshevik's the best hope for popular revolution.
It is estimated that between 50,000 and 140,000 people were killed in this campaign during the Russian Civil War. The Cheka was created by Vladimir Lenin to deal with threats to his new regime. It was led by Felix Dzerzhinsky and used to inflict the Red Terror, operating outside of the law and answering to no one. The Cheka was extremely important in allowing the Bolsheviks to establish their power and influence people’s view of their new government. It is speculated that the Bolsheviks would not have retained power for very long if it had not been for the workings of the Cheka during that time period as they
There were many short and long term effects of the Russian revolution. Firstly the short term effects following the Russian revolution were that Lenin hoped the constituent assembly (parliament) would show the rest of Russia how good the Bolsheviks could be for the Russian nation and how popular their leadership was. However they only gained 161 seats, compared to the social revolutionaries who won 267 seats. Obviously the Bolsheviks had become popular in Petrograd, but beyond the capital the population hadn’t been more in favour of the social revolutionaries and hadn’t been convinced by Lenin’s promise yet. In reaction to this, he shut down the assembly in order to keep power for himself.
For Stalin, what he did was entirely legal. He was an elected member of the Politburo, he was appointed to be General Secretary of the Communist Party and to the Orgburo (Organisational bureau). He had considerable power available to him because he held high office. When he accused his rivals of ‘factionalism’ he was applying a resolution that Lenin had proposed and that had been accepted by the 10th Congress of the Supreme Soviet in 1921. When his rivals were expelled from the Politburo, they were removed because the majority of the members voted for this.