Stalin’s personality helped him to assess his rivals and recognise when he needed to change his tactics in order to rise to power and his manipulation of the power blocks successfully is evidence of this. First, using the Triumvirate Stalin began to eliminate his main enemy – Trotsky. However as soon as Stalin felt that the Triumvirate had gotten him as far as it could in his quest for power he switched his support and formed the Duumvirate with Bukharin in order to eliminate Zinoviev and Kamenev. Stalin’s successful maneuvering within the power blocks was vital for Stalin to be able to rise to power, because his opponents were not as talented as he when it came to political tactics. His ability to create and destroy alliances with people that may even have considered him a friend was one of the main reasons that Stalin was able to become leader of the party.
The biggest mistake of Stalin’s opponents was that they underestimated Stalin greatly, they saw him as what Trotsky named him ‘The Grey Blur” however they did not realise that he possessed a vital role within the party that he was using to his advantage and therefore they did not manage to stop his rise to power. It was not even evident to his enemies when Lenin’s Testament was leaked to Stalin by Lenin’s secretaries who of course would have been appointed by Stalin that Stalin’s role was a very powerful one in the right hands – and those hands just happened to belong to Stalin. The biggest mistake was made by Zinoviev and Kamenev who sided with Stalin to form the Triumvirate against Trotsky, they were too worried about the threat of a military dictatorship under Trotsky to realise in enough time that they had sided with their biggest threat. This mistake meant that Stalin could eliminate his biggest threat before he eventually turned on Zinoviev and Kamenev and eventually Bukharin too.
Trotsky was the favourite to take over the party after Lenin’s death because of his big personality and being donned a ‘Revolutionary Hero’ as well as ‘Hero of the Civil War’. He had the support of the Red Army and kept to a strict ideology, and although he had powerful supporters he also had powerful enemies making it easier for Stalin to defeat him in the struggle for power. The fact that he was either loved or hated meant that Stalin knew exactly who to try and gain support from in order to get rid of him – such as Zinoviev and Kamenev who were far too worried about the threat that Trotsky posed to realise that Stalin too posed a threat to them gaining power. Trotsky was too willing to make private deals with Stalin and then publically speak out against him making him seem untrustworthy, for example when Lenin’s testament was leaked by accident it was Trotsky who made a deal with Stalin allowing the testament not to be read to the entire party so that Trotsky could make a speech on economic policies that he had in mind. Trotsky severely underestimated Stalin and this caused him to lose his position as Commissar for War and had he been more aware of Stalin’s abilities, Stalin might never have been successful in his attempts at rising to power.
Stalin used the ‘cult of Lenin’ to his advantage claiming that all of his own ideas were what Lenin also had believed and therefore that they should be carried out in honor of the late party leader. Lenin’s policies that had been left behind were also used to Stalin’s advantage. Everyone within the Bolshevik Party had respected Lenin greatly and Stalin recognised that he could use this to his advantage in order to gain support and rise to power to succeed Lenin. Trotsky was not present at Lenin’s funeral, claiming that Stalin had given him the wrong date, and regardless of that the non-appearance made Trotsky seem to be disrespectful of his former leader and so it made people think less of Trotsky – whether Stalin did actually give Trotsky the wrong date or not cannot be proven, but it is a very likely story. Stalin had Lenin’s body embalmed and put on display against the wishes of Lenin’s family to try and create a further image of importance about the former leader that he could use in order to show that he had been very loyal to Lenin so that the people would see him as a good contender to take over the leadership of the party.
In conclusion, it is evident that without his powerful position within the party that helped create a large powerbase for himself, Stalin would not have been able to rise to power and defeat his rivals in the years 1924-29. He successfully manipulated his friends and rivals, playing them off each other to his own advantage so that he could eliminate them as a threat against him getting into power. However, there were other factors that also allowed Stalin to rise to power, but these other factors such as the mistakes of his opponents, are not quite as vital as Stalin’s position within the party.
by
rosievmc (student)
