The Power Struggle

Charlotte Lewis

Task:

Research the factors that led to Stalin’s victory in the power struggle for leadership of the USSR after Lenin’s death:
a. Alliances
b. Use of Lenin’s work
c. Stalin’s position in the party
Explain which one you think is the most significant factor.

Alliances

Alliances performed an extremely important role in the leadership struggle. First, the alliances allowed Stalin to stay in the background while the other contenders fought each other in public. In 1924, it was Zinoviev and Kamenev who openly battled with Trotsky, while in 1927, it was Bukharin who spoke out against the United Opposition. In this way, Stalin avoided himself from unimportant quarreling and increased the respect of the party. Secondly, the alliances allowed Stalin to deal with his opponents in turn: in 1924, the Triumvirate was able to defeat Trotsky; in 1927, The Duumvirate dealt with Zinoviev and Kamenev. Finally, Stalin’s alliances allowed him to maintain a majority support in the Politburo and because of this, Stalin was always part of the government and never associated with an opposition group.

Use of Lenin’s Work

Stalin’s command would prove one of the goriest recorded in history. Famine and fear killed millions of people; in addition, millions more found themselves committed to imprisonment in the horrifying Siberian gulags (the punishing system of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics consisting of a network of labor camps). Subsequently, when the Soviet Union revealed crimes made by Stalin in the 1950s, the officials claimed that he had corrupted Leninism; he had betrayed Lenin’s initial vision of a communist utopia. However, these declarations contained little truth: while Lenin disregarded Stalin at the end of his life, Stalin endured a fairly faithful disciple of the Soviet Union’s founder. The terrors, assassinations and deprivations of the 1930s were purely served to build on and intensify what Lenin had initiated during the Revolution. Lenin and Stalin brutally discharged the peasantry; both confined their political enemies in deliberation camps and both created large- scale famines. Lenin had organized an obscure and bloody path to Stalin's succeeding terrors.

After Lenin’s death, the Soviet Union held up Lenin’s writings as works of logical prodigy, however this glorification comprised nothing more than empty publicity, all down to the fact that Lenin wasn’t a great intellectual. Although, more than anyone else, Lenin laid the foundations for a state so rough that it would withstand for seventy years and be so powerful that it would ultimately challenge the United States for world supremacy. It is this achievement that protected Lenin’s place among the most significant figures of the century. But significance isn’t the same as greatness. Lenin possessed, and acted upon, a great vision:
He was an optimist; he seemed, more than Stalin, to have truthfully believed in the requirement of the Revolution to purify Russia of the evils of Tsardom and draining poverty.

Like his brother Alexander, whose death set him on the road to discrimination, he noticed that his country, and the world as a whole, contained clear flaws and injustices. However, when it came to actually alleviating these flaws and building his own utopia, Lenin keenly turned to murder, terror, and brutal domination. Having forsaken religion as a young man, he quickly renounced all philosophies of decency as well, calling it "bourgeois"; from his point of view, and from that of all the Bolsheviks, the ends justified the means. They were convinced that when Marx's "scientific" estimates of revolution came true, their bloody actions would find vindication. But history has not been so kind–to the Bolsheviks or their victims.

Stalin’s Position in the Party

When Lenin died in 1924, everybody was convinced that the adept leader of the Red Army, Trotsky, would become leader. This was thought acknowledging the contents of Lenin’s testament and what was said about Stalin. Below are two separate paragraphs that I’ve chosen as my evidence to prove my point:

“Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.”

“Stalin is too coarse and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.”

From these two sources, it is easy to understand that Lenin didn’t have a positive opinion about Stalin and wanted to encourage the other members to vote him out. However, in the end, Stalin took power with the aid of his position within the party. He had several positions including being the General Secretary of the party, Head of Central Control Commission and Head of the Workers’ and Peasants’ inspectorate. These positions intended to limit his power acknowledging the fact that it was only a party position and not a government position. Nevertheless, Stalin realized that it gave him the authority to attain information on party members, promote and demote people and to expel those who opposed the party, or appeared to oppose him. Those he promoted were those who were loyal to him, and those he demoted were those who were loyal to Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and his other rivals. This helped to increase his popularity in the party because he won the hearts of those who originally liked him and so this allowed him to have a stronger chance of getting the power he desired. Russia was not a democracy so popularity amongst the people was irrelevant.

Stalin’s intelligence gathering, initially logging party members’ associates and their attitudes on different political issues, grew into active intelligence gathering – Phone taps, apartments bugged, etc. The fear of Stalin grew in proportion to his power, so people were reluctant to speak about anything that may get back to the Vozhd. Politburo colleagues knew Vozhd as the boss.

After growing up in Georgia, Stalin conducted activities for the Bolshevik (Communist) party for twelve years before the Russian Revolution of 1917. After participating, Stalin took military leadership positions in the Russian Civil War and Soviet-Polish War. Stalin was one of the Bolsheviks' chief technicians in the Caucasus and grew very close to Lenin, who saw him as a capable and loyal follower. Stalin played a decisive role in engineering the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia, embracing a particularly hardline approach to opposition. His connections helped him attain high positions in the new Soviet government, eventually becoming General Secretary in 1922. Lenin grew critical of Stalin, and many other Bolsheviks at this time, but in 1922 a stroke forced Lenin into semi-retirement. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin overpowered documentation of Lenin's recommendation. Thereafter, Stalin politically isolated his major enemies, such as archrival Trotsky, and had them dismissed from government altogether. This eventually led him to be the sole uncontested leader of the Party and the Soviet Union.