With the public attending Lenin’s funeral and with Trotsky absent, Stalin provided a speech to the public. “There is nothing higher than the calling of the member of a party whose founder is Comrade Lenin…Leaving us, Comrade Lenin ordered us to hold high and keep pure the great title of member of the party. We vow to thee Comrade Lenin, that we shall honourably fulfil this commandment…Leaving us, Comrade Lenin enjoined us to keep the unity of the Party like the apple of our eye. We vow to thee, Comrade Lenin. That we will honourably fulfil this, thy commandment…” This speech made to the public gave them the perception that Stalin was Lenin’s disciple, and the person to carry on Lenin’s unfinished work.
With Trotsky absent from Lenin’s funeral and Stalin using this opportunity to raise his profile, Stalin put himself as the candidate most likely to succeed Trotsky, although Stalin himself did avoid one major problem that could have ended Stalin’s career. Lenin’s testaments which criticised each party members and explained who he believed would be the best candidate had Stalin down as the worst successor because of his rude and ignorant personality. This meant that Stalin efforts would have amounted to nothing, and he was lucky to escape it when Zinoviev and Kamenev urged that it should not be published to the public. Reasons to this could be because:
It was not very flattering towards the two, and they didn’t want it to come to the attention of the congress if they were to become leaders.
The views of Trotsky were heard when The Thirteenth Congress in 1924 saw hostilities between Stalin and Trotsky out in the open. At this time Stalin was in effective leadership with Zinoviev and Kamenev. Trotsky was slowly being defeated with Stalin on the rise. Despite Trotsky’s efforts he was defeated because the congress was filled with “well instructed Stalinist delegates” along with supporters of Zinoviev and Kamenev. Because of the ban on factions within the party, Trotsky was unable to rally supporters inside and outside of the party, and was also unwilling to cause splits in the party.
Now looking like he was resigned to not gaining leadership of the party it was made worse when Zinoviev and Kamenev launched a campaign against Trotsky. They questioned his loyalty within the party and his opposition to Lenin in 1917. Trotsky retaliated and this argument inside the left wing of the party allowed Stalin to build his upon his power base once more making it look even more inevitable that he would defeat Trotsky, who he considered his main contender for the leadership. Stalin almost completely rid of Trotsky as a threat when Zinoviev and Kamenev allowed Stalin to bring in supporters of him in to key positions within the party effectively forming the majorities on committees and at the conferences. This mean any voting within the party would have been in favour of Stalin.
Now that Stalin’s power base had been completed and he had his own supporters in key party positions it allowed him to kill off any threat to his rise to the leadership. Stalin decided to do a radical switch to the right wing of the party to provoke a reaction of the three men Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. He shelved left wing plans to industrialise and collectivise, which forced Zinoviev and Kamenev to join forces with Trotsky called ‘United Opposition’ which was a wrong move for the three because it was considered factionalism and the three were expelled from the party. Zinoviev and Kamenev were readmitted after admitting their errors but were later disgraced and executed.
Now that Stalin had got rid of the left side, he went about trying to create just one side within the party, his own. After appealing to the right with his ‘Socialism in One Country’ policy he then used his tactics of appearing to be on your side to then becoming aggressive and switching to being against you.
Now that Stalin had just his side, and the right wing of the party he decided that if he was to be sole leader of the party then he would have to get rid of the right wing. After using ‘Socialism in One Country’ to appeal to the right wing, he then went against Bukharin, who was leading the right wing of the party and advocated the rapid industrialisation and collectivisation – the very policies he had just smashed to get rid off the left wing.
Bukharin mounted a strong defence for the NEP but at the congress in 1929 found himself completely outvoted by Stalin’s supporters, as well as the left wing supporters who supported the anti-NEP line. This effectively ended Bukharin stance as a possible leader of the USSR and any resistance to Stalin’s position was non effective. Because of this Bukharin and other right wing leaders, Rykov and Tomsky, were removed from the Politburo and other party bodies.
In conclusion to how Stalin emerged as sole leader of the USSR and why he defeated Trotsky and Bukharin to the leadership, came down to Stalin’s actions, and his willingness to act upon weaknesses and opportunities presented to him to develop and progress his power within the party. Trotsky was defeated because of a combination of weaknesses and errors of judgements on his part, this allowed Stalin to exploit this, and effectively Trotsky helped remove himself from power. With Bukharin it was more to do with what had happened in the left side of the party, and the way he was allowed to employ his own supporters in key positions within the party by Zinoviev and Kamenev, which meant that when Stalin opposed and attacked the right wing of the party he was always going to get outvoted, so it was imminent that Stalin could defeat Bukharin after the left wing had been obliterated.