Explain why Stalin, and not Trotsky, emerged as Lenin's successor.

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2. Explain why Stalin, and not Trotsky, emerged as Lenin’s successor.

As Lenin approached his final years of power, he was left with two main concerns. Firstly, he was becoming increasingly alarmed about the gradual movement of partial communism to full communism. This tied in closely with his second, and more important concern of who was to become his successor. As Lenin became increasingly ill, there was rising tension between the two likely candidates to replace Lenin. Initially, it looked as though Trotsky was the rightful heir. Having served well in planning the revolution, he was well respected by troops, an extremely good public speaker, an outstanding organiser, and a keen writer of revolutionary ideas. Stalin on the other hand was seen as dull and humourless and didn’t get on personally with Lenin, yet there are a number of reasons why he emerged as Lenin’s successor.

To begin with, whilst the to important leaders of the Communist Part, Kamenev and Zinoviev agreed with Trotsky Politically, they very much disliked him personally, and therefore formed an alliance with Stalin to prevent him coming to power. Trotsky also suffered constant attacks from older party members who distrusted him. His domination of the Red Army, combined with his extreme communist views, led them to become suspicious that he might use their support to become a dictator. The fact that he only joined the Bolshevik party in 1917 caused them to doubt his loyalty, unlike Stalin, who had been a trustworthy member for over 20 years.

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Trotsky found himself in a rather difficult situation, after becoming a sort of victim of his own success with the Red Army. In spite of the fact that Trotsky had made himself extremely popular among the troops, by ensuring that he was there to help them out in the field, he soon found himself extremely distant from the Politburo and the circle of powerful leaders, with little role. He therefore failed to use his popularity within the army to help his cause, and become Lenin’s successor.

In contrast with this, Stalin was able to use his position to ...

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