Stalin’s personal dictatorship was complete control by Stalin himself. Stalin used various ways to establish a personal dictatorship. In order to do this Stalin instituted a party purge to silence the opposition of Riutin and his supporters, the assassination of Kirov, executed delegated party congresses, The trial of the twenty-one and general Purges.
Between the years 1929-34 Stalin faced opposition from within the communist party
A purge was the systematic elimination of opponents by Stalin, The assassination of Kirov allowed Stalin to use it as an excuse to begin the purges. In 1932, Kirov had helped to defeat Stalin on an important issue concerning Mikhail Riutin, who had circulated a document that was highly critical of Stalin. Stalin was furious and demanded Ruitins execution. However the central committee and the politburo refused to order Ruitin’s execution, Stalin viewed this as a betrayal. In December 1934, Kirov was murdered by Nikolayev who claimed was working for a secret terror group who wanted to overthrow the soviet government; however Zinoviev and Kamenev were arrested for the conspiracy of Kirov’s Murder. This murder rid Stalin of his most powerful rival, whilst allowing him to imprison two of his old opponents, basically “two birds with one stone”. The Murder of Kirov allowed Stalin to establish dictatorship because with the death of Kirov, it gave Stalin an excuse to purge and the purges became more systematic and far-reaching.In the spring of 1937, Stalin argued that the conspiracy against the Soviet people was not restricted to the forty or so people involved in the show trials, and so the start of the purges against the party and army began. The effects on the party were dramatic. Between 1934 and 1938, some 330,000 party members were convicted of being enemies of the people. Stalin had never fully trusted the Red Army because the