A fatal role in all this was played by Zinoviev and Kamenev, who were motivated by petty considerations of ambition and jealously to open up a campaign of calumny against Trotsky. When Lenin described Trotsky in his Testament as the most capable member of the Central Committee it offended Zinoviev in particular, who regarded himself as the natural successor to Lenin. Of course, such things as personal animosities, jealousy and rivalry can never determine the outcome of broad historical processes. They rather fall under the heading of historical accident. But as Hegel explained with such profundity, necessity expresses itself through accident. By acting as they did Kamenev and Zinoviev undoubtedly facilitated Stalin's task and greatly accelerated the process of bureaucratic degeneration.
Lenin did not trust Kamenev and Zinoviev, and warned in his Testament that their conduct during the October revolution was not an accident. Again, his judgement was shown to be correct. Stalin used them for the purpose of discrediting Trotsky, and then turned against them. More correctly, they turned against Stalin when they realised where he was leading the USSR. For a time they participated with Trotsky in the Left Opposition. Then, typically, they capitulated to Stalin when things got difficult. Stalin was a man who went against everything he was supposed too and in a very unkind way, Stalin had planned this sadistically.
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The things that might have prevented Stalin from becoming leader were that the people are not sure whether he will always be capable of using such a large authority efficiently and correctly. Lenin had a political will against him, as he disobeyed him in every way, which is not a good thing to do when you want to be the next leader of Russia. He was also less intelligent than Trotsky. Trotsky is distinguished, not only by his outstanding ability, “he is personally the most capable man in the present central committee”. But he has displayed excessive self assurance and pre-occupation with the purely administrative side of work. Stalin seems to not have such qualities as Trotsky, and is a huge dis-benefit to him. Stalin was also unknown outside of Russia, this means he is not internationally viewed as a good politician, so no-one outside his own country has any idea of anything about him, nor has he done anything worthy of making his name across the globe.
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The strengths that might have made Trotsky leader are that Lenin’s political will supported him, as former leader of Russia and loved by the people, so the fact that he supported Trotsky before he died puts Trotsky in the good books with the people of Russia. Lenin said “comrade Trotsky is distinguished not only by his outstanding ability. He is personally the most capable man in the present central committee”. Trotsky was more intelligent than Stalin because Trotsky had more experience with the Bolsheviks as leader, he also lead the Russian revolution and ended the civil war which would have kicked them out of power. This meant he was also well known outside the USSR which was a large benefit and recommended as a politician. Trotsky was a brilliant public speaker aswell, he got the support of the workers which was not normally done, and the workers made up a large amount of the Russian population, he got their support using the Petrograd soviet.
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There were things that went against Trotsky from becoming leader of Russia; first of all he was Jewish in an anti-Semitic nation, the people of Russia wouldn’t want him to lead because they are against his religion. Trotsky was seen as too clever and arrogant, he was disliked by leading communists because of this. He wrote a book called “lessons of October” saying what a great job he had done in the revolution and putting down the other leaders. People were also suspicious that he only joined the Bolsheviks in 1917, although this was mainly because he only returned to Russia in 1917 as before he became a Bolshevik 1898 was arrested as a Marxist and exiled to Siberia. He escaped in 1902, joined Lenin in London, and in the abortive 1905 revolution was president of the St Petersburg Soviet. He then worked as a revolutionary journalist in the West. Another failure was that he stuck by communism during the civil war and was responsible for food rationing, which wouldn’t make people very happy as it is an essential part of life. At the same time he was responsible for Krondstadt, it was when Leon Trotsky announced that he was going to order the Red Army to attack the Krondstadt sailors. However, it was not until the 17th March that government forces were able to take control of Krondstadt. An estimated 8,000 people (sailors and civilians) left Krondstadt and went to live in Finland.
He also believed in permanent revolution, going to war to make all nations communist.
