He took part in bank robberies and terrorist activities for the Bolsheviks, which helped him to weave himself to the top and by 1912 he was one of the Bolsheviks top 6 leaders. He edited the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda for short time before he was exiled to Siberia in July 1913. On his return he resumed the role of editor but Trotsky overpowered his role in the October revolution. So why, in the end does Stalin take power instead of Trotsky? All is answered in this Essay.
Between 1917 and 1922 Stalin consolidated his power. He had 3 important jobs in the party. He was head of the worker and the peasants. He had to liaison between the politburo and the orgburo, and, most important of all, he was General sectary, this meant that he could tamper with other party members files and see what they got up to, he could use this factor against them.
The job as the general secretary gave Stalin a lot of power. It allowed him to look through all the personal files of all the party members. Nobody thought that Stalin was a threat to his power in the party. He was known as the ‘Grey blur’. However Lenin had second thoughts about Stalin. He realised that Stalin could do great things in his position.
Before Lenin died he wrote bad things about Stalin. He wrote about how he had enormous power in his hands. He also wrote how Stalin was organising himself around the sneaks of the party.
Luckily for Stalin, he was listening in on the conversations Lenin was having about him and he knew that when Lenin died he would publish a passage about his views on Stalin. Stalin had time to act before the death.
While Stalin was preparing, he knew that many Bolsheviks and peasants resented troskys promotion. He also knew that many of the party members did not agree with Trotsky’s idea of permanent revolution and spreading communism to other countries. Stalin’s idea of socialism in one country was much more popular.
Another point that gave Stalin a head start is Trotsky. He was not a public speaker, he could not communicate with the public as well as Stalin. He was more of a Tactician.
Stalin knew that images were important in Russia. He had organised so that he would carry the coffin so it would make it look like he cared about Lenin even more than before. Cunningly, knowing that Trotsky was on sick leave when Lenin died Stalin also told Trotsky the wrong date for the funeral so it seemed that Trotsky had forgotten. Stalin also had the idea of embalming Lenin as at that time the pharaohs had just been discovered in Egypt. This gave Stalin a step forward as well.
Stalin’s opponents underestimated his power because of his supposed lack of intellect. However they did not know what Stalin had achieved during the stage when he was General secretary. He used the information that he had found out to bribe the other members of the party. In 1924, Trotsky was defeat at the 13th congress of soviet party and his fall of power was very fast. He was eventually expelled from the politburo in 1927 and eventually thrown out of Russia in 1929.
After several attempts of murder, Stalin finally succeeded in murdering Trotsky in 1940 in Mexico, done by one of his agents.
One by one each person of the party was either murdered or banished until Stalin became the main leader of Russia.