Why did Stalin rather than Trotsky emerge as the leader of the USSR in 1929?

by peterealdoc2 (student)

At the time of Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin’s political future was hanging by a thread. He was, in the opinion of historian Stephen Lee, ‘the least impressive of all the candidates for succession’, and Leon Trotsky was regarded as the most likely emerging leader of the USSR. However, within five years, Stalin had outmanoeuvred a series of political opponents to become the absolute leader of the Soviet State, a feat accomplished by his unscrupulous politics and propagandist actions, his facade of moderateness and temporarily centrist stance on key issues like the NEP and the spread of the Revolution, as well as exploitation of the broad power base built up by Stalin throughout his political career to manipulate majorities. However he could not have succeeded in his quest for leadership without a series of misjudgements on Trotsky’s part, such as his failure to canvas support for himself amongst the Bolshevik elite, and most crucially his underestimation of the often pragmatic but distinctly un-idealistic ‘comrade card index’.

Despite not playing a key role in the October Revolution of 1917, Stalin had steadily built up his reputation in the Bolshevik party through his administrative work and holding of key positions, all enabling him to secure a strong power base with which he could successfully emerge as the next leader of the USSR. The most important of these positions was his appointment as General Secretary in 1922. This position, coupled with the fact that he was the only member of the party in both the Politburo and the Orgburo, enabled Stalin to control both the membership of the party and the appointment of key positions as well as what information other people received, and also by setting the agendas for party meetings, he was able to control what was discussed. These bureaucratic positions were designated to Stalin because he ‘posed as a moderate, often a centrist’, seemingly with no idealistic desires other than to follow Lenin, contrasting with other prominent members in the party, including theorists such as Trotsky and Bukharin. As a ‘skilful politician with a superb grasp of tactics’ according to M. McCauley, Stalin steadily promoted those who supported him into more prominent positions; therefore, by the time of Lenin’s death Stalin was ‘assured of his majority beforehand’ in important Politburo meetings and governmental business according to I. Deutscher.

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It was contrary to Lenin’s wishes that Stalin emerged as the leader of the USSR after his death; in his Last Testament, Lenin asserted that Stalin was ‘not capable of using authority with sufficient caution’ and suggested that ‘a way of removing Stalin’ should be found. However, the Testament was never to be published thanks to Stalin’s political skill and formation of a ‘Triumvirate’ with the left-wing Zinoviev and Kamenev, who then persuaded Lenin’s widow to maintain its confidentiality, for fear of strengthening Trotsky’s position with its publication. Trotsky was particularly disliked by many other Bolsheviks who suspected him of remaining true to his Jewish-Menshevik roots, by many more due to his aloof-intellectual manner, and was suspected as a ‘Bonapartist threat’ according to S. Lee; compared to Trotsky, Stalin was regarded as a useful yet non-ambitious ally, safe behind his facade of moderateness, which is why he was welcomed alongside Zinoviev and Kamenev in the Triumvirate. Stalin, even as part of the Triumvirate, was far less committed to its polices than Trotsky was to his; rather, the motivation of the Triumvirate came not from political stance by rather from their joint desire to politically isolate Trotsky.

Stalin’s political stance on key issues like the NEP and especially the Revolution itself was also hugely important in his securing of the leadership position in the USSR after Lenin’s death. Again, due to his political skill and ability to ‘correctly [read] signs of the economic times’, Stalin invariably sided with the majority and appeared to the public as a ‘detached Leninist and guardian of the doctrine’ according to I. Deutscher. Stalin’s utterly unscrupulous politics extended to his abandonment of both the Triumvirate and left-wing politics to gain the support of Bukharin and the right wing with his promotion of Socialism in One Country, a policy that was too gaining support with the public. Thanks to Stalin’s control of the party built up from his power base and also due to the ban on factionalism implemented by Lenin back in 1921, Stalin was able to successfully oust rivals Zinoviev and Kamenev from power too late for them to realise his lack of principles, with Bukharin correctly stating that ‘he changes his theories according to whom he needs to get rid of next’. This dramatic change of policy displayed Stalin’s pragmatic approach of supporting the most popular motion and ability to ‘bend like a reed’ regarding his policies overwhelming the less flexible ideals of his rivals.

One of the most important examples of how Stalin’s political initiative is the role he played immediately after Lenin’s death, orchestrating the funeral into a national event and so highly praising of Lenin that he triggered the former leader’s ascension from man to Soviet god. Figes goes as far to say that ‘[Leninism] became a sacred institution to consecrate the Stalinist regime’; it was by developing the Cult of Lenin that Stalin depicted himself as the rightful Bolshevik heir. The focus put on Lenin’s funeral by Stalin also highlighted the fact that Trotsky was not present; therefore Stalin was able to simultaneously strengthen his own case for party leadership and weaken that of Trotsky.

The concern raised by Lenin’s Last Testament for Trotsky’s political future, his ‘excessive self-assurance’, would become the reason that Stalin, rather than he, would emerge as Russia’s new leader in 1929. Trotsky was unconcerned by what he referred to as the ‘drudgery of politics’; he was wholly disinterested in the threat from the Triumvirate and ‘refrained from attacking Stalin because he felt secure’ (I. Deutscher). With publications such as his 1917 ‘Lessons of October’, Trotsky criticised Zinoviev and Kamenev for their opposition of Lenin’s decision to take power in the Bolshevik Revolution; however his criticism was misaimed, as Stalin stayed in the background and allowed his opponents to tear each other apart. Accepting the suppression of Lenin’s Last Testament, which presented Trotsky most favourably and would have caused irreparable damage to Stalin’s reputation, was one of Trotsky’s most crucial misjudgements, second only to his lack of obtaining adequate support within the Government.

According to E. Carr, Trotsky ‘could not establish his authority among colleagues’ after the death of Lenin, and it was this lack of support that prevented him from being the former’s successor. It is true that Trotsky’s surrendering of his position as Commissar for the Army and Navy to the Triumvirate was an important misjudgement due to the potential power base it could have provided him with. Nevertheless, in a government that was increasingly filled with Stalinist supporters, it became next to impossible for Trotsky to gain enough support to challenge Stalin. Despite his best efforts and most outstanding speeches in 1926, after forming the United Opposition against Stalin with Zinoviev and Kamenev, a primary account from a United Opposition meeting asserted that the former ‘hero of the revolution had become an object of pity’. As a result of their previous criticisms of each other, the United Opposition remained too damaged to be of real threat to Stalin and thus enabled him ‘[to inherit] Lenin’s mantle through political infighting’ in the opinion of Evan Mawdsley.

Historians such as M. McCauley claim that ‘Stalin had luck on his side’ and that without the deaths of Lenin and Dzerzhinsky, head of the Checka and anti-Stalinist, he wouldn’t have been successful in realising his desire for leadership of the USSR in 1929. However, it was other politicians’ underestimation of Stalin that was a more decisive factor than the deaths of either Lenin or Dzerzhinsky. This can be evidenced through Figes’ account that ‘by the time Lenin came to realise this [underestimation of Stalin] it was...too late’ as he had already infiltrated all areas of the Politburo and Orgburo with his supporters and was therefore already on the way to succeeding Lenin before the Bolshevik leader had even died.

Trotsky was ‘the one man capable of stopping Stalin’ according to Figes. However, due to his failure to consolidate his own position within the party and hugely underestimating the potential threat from Stalin thanks to his wide power base, Trotsky left himself vulnerable to being ostracised from the Government and thus essentially paved the way for his opponent to become Lenin’s successor. It was his power base that was the reason Stalin emerged as the new leader of the Bolsheviks; it was his power base that enabled him to exert control over different areas of the party and manipulate party membership so as to guarantee himself majorities against his rivals, most significantly against Trotsky. As for Trotsky himself, ‘lacking a power base, he could be no more than a ‘prophet in exile’’ according to Stephen Lee, powerless to stop Stalin succeeding as the leader of the USSR in 1929.

Ciara Lally