Explain how Stalin was able to create a personal dictatorship in the USSR in the period between 1924-1941.

As for not being the favored choice Stalin managed to outmaneuver Trotsky to become extremely dominate within the Politburo. Trotsky in the past had made himself very unpopular within the party as he had switched sides in 1917 and that he was arrogant where as Stalin had been in the party since its formation and was loyal party member who had influence over the party and was well liked within. It is also rumored that when Lenin died Trotsky was in southern part of Russia and so Stalin told Trotsky that the funeral was a day before that day which it really was so that Trotsky was unable to make it back in time and so he missed the funeral. Whereas the real funeral was the day later and he would have been able to make it and so Stalin was shown as Lenin’s chief mourner and closes companion. Also Lenin had warned against Stalin’s appointment as Party leader “comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has great power in his hands, and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution. Therefore, I propose to the comrades that a way be found to remove Stalin from that post

Comrade Trotsky on the other hand, is a distinguished not only by his outstanding ability. He is personally probably the most capable man in the present council committee but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.” showing that the former leader and the Russian people’s hero himself thought that Stalin was incapable of leading the party.

Stalin also used other party members to his advantage to get in to power. He used Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin against each other to become the leader in 1929. Stalin forms a Triumvirate with other leading politburo members, Zinoviev and Kamenev. The three then worked to cut of there opposition Trotsky and Bukharin because between them they controlled important post and positions within the party. Stalin then switches sides and allies with Bukharin in a duumerate turning against his old allies Zinoviev and Kamenev. Between Stalin and Bukharin they expel Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky from the communist party, Trotsky is then later sent into exile in Siberia at this point Stalin turns against Bukharin and has him expelled from the country in 1929.

As well as using other members of the party to his advantage he also used the people. Both Stalin and Trotsky had different ideas on how the future of the party should be run. Trotsky wanted a “permanent revolution” involving the helping and encouraging other countries whereas Stalin believed that they should make Russia itself strong first then encourage other countries to become communist he called this “socialism in one country”. Stalin’s idea/ plans for the future were much better received by the Russian people because they were tired of war and if they went along with what Trotsky wanted then they would be in a constant war and Stalin’s idea involved the Russian people doing something about their own futures and the way that they want to live.

In helping the Russian people Stalin’s position was strengthened through collectivization and modernization of Russia. Russia needed modernizing so that it would be able to resist the ever increasing threat of invasion; it had to be expanded in the three major areas coal, oil and steel. In order to do this agriculture would have to be increased