Explain why Stalin and not Trotsky emerged as Lenin’s successor.
Throughout the Russian revolution, Trotsky always appeared as Lenin’s right-hand-man. However, after Lenin’s untimely death in 1921 it was Stalin, and not Trotsky who emerged as Lenin’s successor. In this essay I am going to investigate why it was Stalin that emerged as Lenin’s successor and not Trotsky. I am going to investigate the personalities between the two, their support in the communist party, their policies and their power-bases and to see how these differences would have helped or hindered either Trotsky or Stalin to succeed Lenin.
On the 21st of January 1924, when Lenin had died it was Stalin that led the mourning and then made a series of speeches declaring his loyalty to Lenin’s ideas. It was Stalin that had Lenin’s body embalmed and put on display in Red Square, Moscow. Trotsky was not present at Lenin’s funeral because he was on sick leave in the south of the USSR. This was Stalin’s first step in succeeding Lenin. Publicly, it appeared that it was Stalin who truly respected and revered Lenin and it was Stalin who had showed the most consideration towards Lenin’s efforts in securing the Russian Revolution. Stalin’s public performance put him directly into the public eye and Stalin’s popularity with the people greatly increased whereas Trotsky’s former popularity with the people was came into question when Trotsky was absent from Lenin’s funeral.
After Lenin’s death, the biggest conflict within the Politburo was between the two opposing policies outlining Russia’s future. The two opposing sides were the Left-Opposition and the Rightists. The Left-Opposition consisted of Trotsky and two other members of the Politburo: Zinoviev and Kamenev. They believed that the USSR must become an industrial state. They believed that if Russia was to remain an agricultural country under the N.E.P, it would not have the capability to defend itself against the western, communist hating countries. However, the Rightists believed that the government must continue Lenin’s N.E.P. They believed that the N.E.P would encourage the peasants to grow more crops and then the peasants could sell their produce to the towns. This would benefit both the peasants and the towns. The Rightists consisted of Bukharin, Tomsky, Rykov and Stalin. Trotsky’s economical intentions promised yet more hardship and struggle to a newly formed and recovering country. On the other hand, Stalin’s aims for Russia’s future were digestible and the easier option for the ordinary people of Russia to accept: Instant gratification. Stalin’s policy allowed peasants to retain their own land, keep their produce and sell any of their excess crops for profits, rights peasants had on obtained since 1923. Trotsky’s aims were flawed with the guarantee of hardship, something everyone in Russia had recently suffered and therefore his aims were unpopular with the people of Russia. Trotsky’s policy was most unpopular among the peasants as Trotsky proposed to fund the industrialisation of Russia through increased peasant taxation.
