The three main issues in the struggle were the nature of leadership, ‘Permanent revolution’ versus ‘Socialism in one country’ and the NEP. Firstly, most party members didn’t like the idea of a dictatorship and preferred ‘collective’ leadership. The civil war lead to Lenin’s power being more centralised and party members felt that it would be more appropriate to have a ‘body’ run the state, as it was a more Socialist way. Trotsky was the main person people feared would become dictator because as he was the commander of the Red Army, he had the power to crush his opposition and his certainty of which way the party should go arose many fears. They also thought that Trotsky was likely to cause divisions in the party, which they feared as they needed the party to stick together in order to transform the population into Socialists. Stalin was not feared, as he remained a figure very much in the background, building up his powerbase and using his many positions for example as a member of the Politburo, Secretariat and Orgburo to influence decisions to suite him, however, even though Stalin’s rivals also held some key positions, no-one had Stalin’s abilities to influence or use his opportunities wisely.
Secondly, there were the conflicting ideas of ‘permanent revolution’ versus ‘Socialism in one country’. Trotsky he wanted permanent revolution as he believed that the Russian economy was very underdeveloped and Communist revolution would only succeed with the support of the working class in more industrialised European countries- he felt that constant revolution would lead Russia into becoming Socialist Stalin's ‘Socialism in one country’ was much more appealing to the Russian patriots and nationalists (and also the right-wing party members) as it meant they didn't have to rely on other countries becoming Socialist to succeed, however, this opposed Lenin’s previous theory of ‘Permanent revolution’. No revolution, meant there was no need for expensive efforts – this made Stalin appear as the ‘national protector’ while Trotsky looked like an enemy. As Trotsky’s power begin to decrease, Stalin felt that he no longer had to share power with Zinoviev and Kamenev, and soon began to attack Trotsky’s belief in the need for world revolution. Zinoviev and Kamenev had always supported the idea of world revolution, as they felt without revolution, the Soviet Union could be overthrown by Capitalist nations, however, they did not speak out against Stalin, as they were reluctant to speak in favour of Trotsky, whom they had been in conflict with. In 1925, Stalin introduced ‘Socialism in one country’ and soon after openly began to support the policies of the Right-wingers as he was convinced that Kamenev and Zinoviev wouldn’t join forces with Trotsky. Kamenev and Zinoviev attacked Stalin’s policies, who said they were creating disunity and had them expelled from the Central Committee. They soon joined forces with Trotsky and formed the United/Left Opposition. In 1926, Stalin, with the support of the Right-wingers, used the party machine to reject the Left-wing opposition, who had made many attempts to hold demonstrations and appeal to the party; all three were accused of breaking the ban on factionalism made in 1921 and were removed from their positions, leading to their expulsion from the party in 1927. Trotsky had been sentenced to internal exile (and complete exile from the USSR in 1929).
Lastly, the New Economic Policy (NEP) also caused problems as the contenders all had different opinions about it. The Left-wing Communist criticised the NEP while the Right-wing Communists were supporters of the NEP. All party members agreed that industrialisation was needed to rebuild USSR’s economy, but most despised the NEP as they didn’t like its outward manifestations that did not suit a socialist sate. By 1925, even though the economy had recovered, there were serious problems such as food shortages and low wages which couldn’t keep up with the high prices. The Left-wingers felt that rapid industrialisation was required – breaking the hold of peasants on the economy and making them pay for industrialisation, while the Right-wingers felt it was appropriate to keep the NEP as it encouraged peasants to become wealthier and they could then contribute to the economy by buying consumer goods – thus there would be no conflict with them.
As we can see from these three examples, the Left and Right wing were divided on their views and Stalin used these divisions to slowly break down the part. After having removed all competition from the Left, he began to defeat his opposition from the Right: he began by replacing Bukharin’s supporters with his own supporters, who were mainly young, uneducated citizens, who could easily be moulded to follow an older party member, i.e. Stalin. Bukharin was the chief spokesman of the Right-wingers and believed that it was necessary to have an industrialised USSR to be able to make a Socialist USSR, however, he did not believe in rapid industrialisation as a rapid pace would lead to the destruction of social harmony. In 1928, Stalin turned against the NEP and attacked the Right-wing. He began rapid industrialisation (thus was implementing the Left-wing idea), forcing the peasants to co-operate. Bukharin tried to get the NEP back on track, but was outvoted in congress, the majority of whom were Stalin’s supporters – as Stalin remained in control of the Party’s organisation, Bukharin and his followers wanted to remain loyal party members and didn’t want to be accused of factionalism, but this ‘up rise’ against Stalin lead to the removal of Tomsky, Bukharin and Rykov from the Politburo and other bodies within the party; they continued to remain in the party, but only until they admitted their errors, however, they had no power within the party. By this time, Zinoviev and Kamenev were back in the party as they had petitioned to be allowed back in 1928, but Trotsky refused to recant his views and was deported to Turkey in 1929. In December 1929, Stalin became the acknowledged leader of the USSR.
There are many reasons for why Stalin emerged as the Leader of the USSR: luck favoured him, he was politically skill full and cunning, he had good personal qualities and characteristics, he adopted policies welcomed by the majority and other leaders such as Trotsky were responsible for their own downfall. Luck came upon Stalin with the death of Lenin and the fact that Lenin’s testament was not read out, as this would have left Stalin with almost no authority in the party. He was politically skilful and cunning in that whenever there was a chance of a job he took it; Stalin had a total of five jobs and his most powerful being General Secretary and a member of the Politburo. Stalin used his power to hire his supporters in key positions(many were poorly educated and easy to dominate) and firing those who opposed him (by 1929, he had replaced or defeated all his opponents). He was able to control the party, but because he stayed in the background while having these positions, he was able to build up a powerful powerbase, while all the attention remained on other party members, whom he played off against each other - he used this technique as well as shifting from one side to another to eliminate his opposition. Also, Stalin held a practical manner and was a skilled orator and a political genius - he was also on of the only members with proletarian roots. Another factor that helped Stalin was that the party was centralised, making it easier to control (this began with Lenin). J.N. Westwood said that ‘… Although Stalin seemed to win every trick… he did not need to, he could stand back and watch his rivals dig their own graves, occasionally offering his spade to one or other of them.’ In effect, all the leaders made mistakes, which allowed Stalin to in the struggle for power. The main mistake was their underestimation of him and not realising that by taking key positions, he was getting stronger in terms of power.
Overall, I believe that the many positions helped Stalin to gain power; I don’t feel he wanted to become leader of the USSR in the beginning, but with his growing power, I feel that he realised he would be a good leader, as he was ambitious, hard working and cunning enough to remove all opposition within the space of a few years, without them realising quick enough that it was him and not being able to do anything about it. One more thing I feel let Stalin climb the ladder to power was Trotsky’s mistakes: his previous hatred of Lenin, his criticisms of party members, his arrogance and dismissiveness, the fact he didn’t attempt to build a stronger powerbase and also because he didn’t like getting involved in the ‘drudgery of politics’. If he had improved many of these things and had paid attention to Stalin’s every action, I feel that there would have been a large possibility of Trotsky having emerged as leader of the USSR, maybe resulting in a different history that has been recorded. (Even though there were other leaders, I don’t feel they were at the political level/ability or Stalin or Trotsky).