The huge increase in the size of the party also changed its character, from an elitist group of theorists to a wide base of bureaucracy. After the “Lenin Enrolment” the majority of party members were from the working class and the peasant class. Stalin was quick to recognise this and presented himself as a hard working Georgian farm boy, an old Bolshevik who suffered exile in Siberia for his party and who understood the working classes.
If Trotsky would have become closer to the Bolshevik bureaucrats then he could have become more successful, as to them he was just an arrogant individualist whom they had nothing in common with. Trotsky did nothing to change their perspectives on him. He was a brilliant theorist but didn’t have much interest in paper work. He saw the party’s transition towards bureaucracy as anti-revolutionary, which led him to accuse supporters of Stalin as being “worms who crawl from the upturned soil of the manured revolution”. This quote means that Trotsky is criticising Stalin’s supporters of being willing to do anything for Stalin in their loyalty to him. Trotsky’s lack of political tact and his arrogance towards the party membership left him without support within the party.
Even if he did ignore the main body of the party, Trotsky still could have gained and maintained power if he skilfully forged alliances with the politburo. But his individualisation led him to trouble again because his constant bickering with Kamenev and Zinoviev, led to Kamenev publishing his own pamphlet “Lenin or Trotsky” which showed the contrast between the two. The pamphlet said that Trotsky was an ex- Menshevik who joined the Bolsheviks only when it was clear that this would be the winning side. This angered Trotsky and Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev all formed a triumvirate, where they all joined together to keep Trotsky from gaining power. Trotsky’s only hope by this time was to release Lenin’s testament, which condemned all three of the triumvirate and dismissed Stalin to such an extent that Stalin’s chance of succession would have been ruined. However luckily to Stalin’s advantage this wasn’t ever published. The testament was slightly critical of Trotsky but it showed that he was Lenin’s choice of successor. It also showed Trotsky’s fundamental flaws, his naiveté and ruthlessness, but if he had tried to publish the testament, tried to gain more support, or condemned Stalin of his management over the Georgian affair then he would have almost certainly weakened Stalin’s position. Trotsky didn’t want to take any action which he thought would damage the party and so wasn’t willing to form an opposition to Stalin or use the Red Army to seize control. This meant that he would never be able to change his position to one of power.
Stalin’s gain of power was due to his ruthless ambition and political skill and whenever Trotsky offered a solution, which deviated, from Marxism-Leninism then Stalin would say that he was a factionalist. Trotsky seemed unLeninist. Stalin tried to show that he was a voice of authority when he spoke as he always used the words “as Lenin said” this made Trotsky out to be a dissident. This also showed that Stalin was a natural successor to Lenin, especially as Stalin was present at Lenin’s funeral and had it arranged that Trotsky didn’t turn up.
Trotsky was true to the Marxist doctrine by saying that revolution should be permanent and spread across the whole world. Stalin attacked Trotsky for going against the words of Lenin and Marx in the past and now ignored their doctrine and took a different approach. He suggested that Russia could save itself and that Bolshevism should remain only in Russia. He showed that he was the saviour of Russian people and showed Trotsky to be the opposite again, anti-Russian. Stalin was able to disgrace Trotsky in the eyes of the Russian people and would later have him exiled.
Stalin now had Trotsky’s opposition silenced. All he had to do now was remove his only remaining threat, which were Kamenev and Zinoviev. To do this he allied with the Bukharin over NEP. He objectives like the Pravda newspaper to misrepresent them. He sent Kirov to undermine Zinoviev’s position as Leningrad party secretary. By 1927 Kamenev and Zinoviev had been weakened so much that they recanted all opposition to Stalin. Again Stalin exploited his position in the party to remove all opposition.
In conclusion Trotsky ruined all of his chances to gain power whereas Stalin was skilful enough to exploit his power. The challenge never really began between him and Trotsky due to the fact that he was able to make people believe that he was Lenin’ chosen successor. By the time Stalin had complete control in 1929, the Bolsheviks didn’t have much in common with Lenin’s ideological elite group. Stalin moulded it into a dictatorship supported by a mass bureaucracy, of which he had control.
