Explain why; at the time of Lenins death in 1924 there was no obvious successor to lead the USSR.

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12 marker: Explain why; at the time of Lenin’s death in 1924 there was no obvious successor to lead The USSR.

Lenin’s death came as a great shock to many Russians in 1924; he led the October Revolution in 1917 he was seen as father like role to Russians. He had built up a new government and allowed many of his fellow Bolsheviks roles positions in his new Soviet State, and these figures all thought that they have the power and influence to lead Russia.

Lenin knew that he was ill and that he would not be able to keep on making key decisions and attending committee and politburo meetings. He felt that the people in his government saw this as an opportunity to try and assert their power and then after his death have a good chance of becoming the leader of The USSR. He wrote a testament, damning five of the people that held high authority in his new government: Trotsky, Stalin, Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. If this were to be circulated in the party it would mean that people lower down in the party would be questioning these people too, they might feel that these individuals had too much power. However, these were the leading communists and there did not seem to be any other Bolsheviks that were capable or ready to become a leader. Lenin called Trotsky ‘excessively self-assured’ Lenin thought that Trotsky focused too much on himself and not enough on the Russian people. Lenin also called Stalin the other main contender for the role of leader ‘too rude’ and stated that he has been placed with too much power within the part as Secretary-General; this has made him quite arrogant. Lenin calls for Russians to remember that although Zinoviev and Kamenev are quite underestimated, that they were not loyal to the October Revolution and therefore not the most trustworthy or loyal. Lenin feels that Bukharin is very intelligent, and would be good at the administration aspect of leadership but not a good enough orator to be seen as a strong leader by the masses.

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  This really set the cat among the pigeons; it showed that Lenin did not have confidence in one single successor, showing negative aspects of all of the possible candidates. Although this was suppressed by Kamenev and Zinoviev from being read at the 23rd party conference, Stalin had the most to lose if this had been read, being very critical of his personality and power. Ultimately, it showed that there was going to be a power struggle, and that there was no obvious successor.

Lenin’s Testament highlighted some major concerns of his, that there were five possible successors but ...

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