One reason is that Stalin’s opposition (Lenin and the rest of the party) had a number of weaknesses. These weaknesses were to help Stalin in his climb to power. A number of these weaknesses were present well before Lenin died. The earliest came from the fact that Marx’s dialects didn’t clarify exactly how socialism was meant to be achieved so no one could accuse Stalin of going against communist principles in terms of how he became leader. Secondly, the party had never been very strong because there had always been a well defined split in between those on the left and those on the right of it. Trotsky belonged to the left, believed in war communism (a communist world revolution that would involve rapid industrialisation and collectivised farms) and he hated Lenin’s New Economic Policy. He worked to a certain amount alongside Kamenev and Zinoviev but they were not close as they did not like Trotsky’s arrogance and his Bonapartist ways of doing things. On the other side of the party was Bukharin. He believed in a more gradual and realistic approach to communism, being all for the NEP. This split meant that the party did not work as a team in any way at all and it was a much weaker organisation and did not work together to prevent Stalin’s rise to power as a result. Thirdly, Lenin’s situation was also another great weakness to the party. Because of the respect that so many members from all over the party had for him, he could be seen as a keystone to the whole structure of the party. He kept it together and kept it well oiled. For the last three years of his life, he was seriously ill, suffering from a number of strokes. Nevertheless, he remained at the head of the party. He was often absent to begin with and as his situation worsened, he could hardly walk and talk, let alone rule the biggest nation in the world. To add to Lenin’s weakness, his deputy died of influenza in 1919, meaning that he did not have anyone to help carry out his duties whilst he was dying. This meant that, yet again, the party lacked structure and direction, making the split evermore prominent. Furthermore, to add to the weakness of the party, the democratic centralists in it were constantly showing the discontent at the fact that their party’s members were gradually losing more and more power to the Bolsheviks. The workers’ opposition were also causing trouble for the party because they resented the fact that the soviets’ power was disappearing, despite the fact that Lenin had supposedly heavily supported them (“All Power To the Soviets”). The party was a very weak structure by Lenin’s death in 1924 and Stalin made the most of this disorganisation and lack of communication in his climb to power.
To add to its weaknesses, Stalin’s opposition also made a number of mistakes that turned out to be critically vital to Stalin’s rise. The first of these involve Lenin’s political testament. Despite the fact that Lenin’s testament heavily criticised Stalin, it turned out to be a triumph for Stalin. In his testament, Lenin didn’t really want to show any big amount of favour for any of the contenders for power because he probably aimed to have a collective leadership in the party, another step towards communism. Therefore, as well as showing a certain amount of praise to each of them, he also criticised them heavily for their defaults. Whilst Trotsky is described as having “excessive self-assurance” and “preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work”, Bukharin is suspected of being “scholastic” and having “never made a study of dialects” and Kamenev and Zinoviev are accused of not having cooperated in the October Revolution. Another mistake made, concerning the testament, was the fact that it was all kept very quiet because of these criticisms. This meant that very few people knew that Stalin was meant to have been removed as general secretary and so no course of action was carried out. Despite what he feared, Stalin was allowed to continue as general secretary and hence continue his steady climb up to power. The other mistakes that the Stalin’s opposition made concern the NEP. The NEP was a problem to start with because it helped create the split amongst the party. Although the NEP could be considered as a necessary course of action, it caused much conflict within the party. Realising that things were getting out of hand, Lenin made forbidden all internal debate within the party. This was a mistake in terms of Stalin because now Stalin could be even surer about what he was doing, without fearing other party members ganging up on him.
Added to his opposition’s mistakes, Stalin had a number of successes that helped him become ruler of the USSR. He was very good at exploiting other people’s weaknesses and mistakes and turning them into his own strengths and successes. An example of this is the fact that Stalin knew about Trotsky’s arrogant attitude. So when Lenin died, Stalin lied to him about the date of the funeral in order for Trotsky to look disrespectful when he didn’t turn up. Added to this, Stalin made sure that he was chief mourner in order to boost his image. Stalin, who was the “man in the middle”, was very flexible in terms of his policies and he could allow himself to switch sides of the party in order to defeat other party members. Stalin first sided with left members Kamenev and Zinoviev, forming the Triumvirate. In 1924, upon Trotsky’s request, the Triumvirate allowed Trotsky to make a speech to the party’s congress but only on the condition that he kept Lenin’s testament quiet. Trotsky agreed and Stalin then accused him of going against Lenin’s dying wishes. Trotsky was then forced to resign as minister of war. Being flexible, Stalin then formed an alliance with Bukharin and as a consequence, Kamenev and Zinoviev joined Trotsky again. This gave Stalin the opportunity to accuse them all of plotting against the party and he hence got them all expelled and Trotsky exiled to Mexico. Lastly, Stalin destroyed Bukharin and the rest of the right by becoming anti-NEP and favouring rapid industrialisation. By 1929 Stalin had expelled Bukharin from the Politburo. He was now the single leader of the USSR.
Stalin had many successes that he used in his climb to power but these were based on his number of strengths that he played to. Stalin was extremely determined but also ambitious in the way that he was power hungry and interested in his own personal gain. Caution was also another great strength of his. About people inside the party he said “We have internal enemies. We have external enemies. This, comrades, must not be forgotten for a single moment.” This could perhaps be considered as his greatest natural strength because people in the party were often tricked (Stalin’s successes often involved betrayal and cunning), whereas this didn’t happen to him in any big way whilst he was climbing to the top. This is perhaps partly due to another one of Stalin’s strengths; he was the underdog out of all the contenders for Lenin’s throne and so no one took much notice of him or of his acts. Stalin’s position in the party was also another strength of his. Being in the middle, he could allow himself to be flexible with his policies and this was a big advantage when it came to the insecurity of the NEP. He was also general secretary for the party, giving him the possibility to arrange meetings and appointments to a certain extent.
In conclusion, despite the fact that Stalin started off as the least likely contender to become ruler of Russia after Lenin’s death, it is much easier to understand why after this fantastic essay. However, there are also other questions concerning his death that can be raised. Was Stalin what the USSR needed at the time? And would that help explain his rise to power? Was a leader like Stalin, who eventually went on to become the most feared dictator of the 20th century, the kind of leader that would have always emerged from Marxism? American historian Stephen Cohen argues that the system that Lenin set up in the USSR was fated to find a leader like Stalin and that “Stalinism” was the inevitable cause of it all. I disagree completely. I believe that, had Lenin survived longer, he would have no doubt ensured that a different, “safer” leader (or leaders), more similar to himself, would have been in charge after his death. Stalin gave communism a very bad image and he put the most of the world of it. Had Stalin not risen to power, would there now be some states that had turned to communism and were now thriving, and better off than ever before?
