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

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

I think there are a number of main factors to consider when investigating this issue. The first thing to consider is the fact that Trotsky and Stalin come from completely different backgrounds. Trotsky was from a prosperous Jewish farming family whereas Stalin was from s peasant stock in Georgia. This meant he understood the peasants situation, as he had been there himself and peasant made up a lot of the population therefore he was quite popular already.

Trotsky believed in war communism. This made him unpopular because it caused a famine in 1920-21. 7 million Russian people died and therefore people didn't like Trotsky supporting this kind of behaviour. They didn't want to have a leader who would think it ok to cause famine. However, Trotsky was not too concerned about amassing supporters and wasn't to bothered by this. Stalin, however, was a supporter of the New Economic Policy, which was less tightly constrained than the war communism that Trotsky supported. Stalin was only a supporter of this policy publicly, because he introduced collectivisation when he was elected. This was all propaganda by Stalin.
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Stalin wanted to concentrate on communism in just one country - Russia. Trotsky wanted Russia to be the focus for the spread of World Communism but the Russian people thought it would be better to sort out their country first before concentrating on any others.

Trotsky was the most obvious successor after Lenin. He was the best known of the communist leaders after Lenin. He was extremely able as he had organised the Bolshevik takeover and saved the entire Bolshevik government. He had a reputation outside the Soviet Union and was well known across Russia. Despite all ...

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