There is a number of historians such as McCauley in his book “Russia 1917-41” that claim that “luck” favored Stalin rather than his opponents and that Sverdlov and Lenin died at the “right time” for Stalin which makes the story more or less simplistic and mysterious. While this may be true to some limited extent, and they can be indirect causes to Stalin’s rise to power, they should not be taken as a solid foundation for the analysis because the death of Lenin and Sverdlov could be potentially beneficial to any of the contenders for leadership not only Stalin and that because Lenin and Sverdlov would die at some point anyhow plus the question being addressed is “why was it possible for Stalin to come to power” not “why was it possible for Stalin to come to power at a particular time frame”. Lenin might have a distaste for Stalin as expressed in his Testament which if read out to everyone at the Party Congress might put an end to Stalin’s political career yet this remains speculative and Lenin’s Testament was not wholly beneficial for any contender so one may not say that if made public, Lenin’s Testament would solely damage Stalin’s image.
Stalin’s accumulation of power, at least by acquiring key positions was largely due to his own hard-work and capability. He began the his political career as a common Bolshevik revolutionary then was appointed as the editor for the “Pravda” – the official newspaper of the Party for a short amount of time. From 1919 to 1922, Stalin advanced swiftly, first being appointed by Lenin as the man in charge of the Orgburo and secondly, he obtained the post of the first General Secretary of the Party which took care of the organization of the Party. In my view, his holding of key positions in the Party must be seen as one of the most important indirect causes to his rise to power as the leader of the Soviet Union. This view is definitely shared by structuralist historians such as E.H. Carr in “The Bolshevik Revolution”. They argue that Stalin inherited a “bureaucratic machine” that favored people like him to be leaders and the old values of the Tsarist bureaucracy were no doubt still lingering in the USSR at the time. No doubt an author has compared Stalin to “the Red Tsar”. Stalin’s colleagues might have been right that all the work that Stalin did was tedious but they were completely wrong if they thought it was useless. The reason for that is by having a complete control of the organization of the Party, Stalin was able to appoint his own supporters to key positions in the party. With that sort of power, Stalin could easily increase the amount of support for him and decrease the support for his rivals. Later on during the struggle against both the Left and the Right, voting played a decisive role and at that point, Stalin’s control of the Party members proved to be absolutely vital to his victory in the votes. As some would say, Stalin’s victory was also the triumph of the bureaucracy.
Historians from the “Liberal school”, most notably Robert Conquest believe that it was Stalin’s personal qualities that made the difference. It is true by holding positions that although might be powerful underneath the surface and appear to be loaded with tedious and mindless work, Stalin was underestimated by his rivals who thought he was “dull”, “mediocre” and more suitable for “paper work”. This was very favorable to Stalin who always lurked around waiting for his opportunity to strike a deadly blow to his rivals. By underestimating Stalin, the others gave him the liberty to lay out his plans safely without catching attention of the others and thus when he dealt his blows, his opponents were completely overwhelmed by surprise such as the case of the Right when Stalin sharply turned from supporting the NEP to favoring rapid industrialization which he previously had criticized. To some extent, this could be seen as both an indirect and direct cause depending on the particular circumstance.
It has been mentioned previously that Trotsky though for most of the time isolated, was arguably the most dangerous opposition to Stalin because he had exceptional intellect, he was a great orator and was very popular among his subordinates and young party members. Yet he lacked what Stalin had in abundance that is political cunning and the realistic rather than idealistic approach to problems. Stalin intended to build his own power base through the support of his appointed Party members while Trotsky did not set out to build his own power base for this contest. Unlike Stalin, Trotsky had distaste for political struggles inside the Party as it destroys the unity of the Party which Trotsky as someone being very loyal to the Party, wanted to avoid as much as possible. And according to historian E.H. Carr, Trotsky did not possess the qualities required from a true leader as he did not earn respect from his equals while Stalin was compared to Gengis Khan by Bukharin, he was seen as a person who would sacrifice anything else to his preservation of power.
Other contenders from the Left such as Kamenev and Zinoviev were inferior to Trotsky intellectually and were lured into Stalin’s trap by allying themselves with him to defeat Trotsky and in the end Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky all together were expelled from the Party being accused of factionalism. It is worth mentioning that Kamenev and Zinoviev allied with Stalin because Stalin could to a certain extent, control the number of votes and by allying with Stalin, they greatly enhanced his power because the two also had supporters of their own now supporting also Stalin. Stalin’s control in the Orgburo and the Politburo had definitely played its role effectively.
When Stalin was trying to remove the oppositions from the Left, he allied himself with Bukharin and those on the Right by supporting the NEP and criticizing the program of rapid industrialization which was favored by those on the Left. Yet as soon as the Left was defeated, Stalin opportunistic as he was, turned against the NEP and called for rapid industrialization and the co-operation of the peasants. At this time, the NEP had run out of steam and rapid industrialization seemed to be favored by the majority and furthermore Stalin was backed up by the majority of the voters thus he won the vote and was able to remove key leaders from the Right from key positions and emerged as the victorious party. Not only this shows that the power to control voters was important, it shows that Stalin had a unique grasp of what the people wanted and was responsive to the mood of the times therefore he always had many people favoring his policies. “Socialism in One Country” can be of a great example. The Soviet people who were mainly Russians favored this rather than “Permanent Revolution” as advocated by Trotsky since it gave Russia a special historic role and it appealed to Russian nationalism.
It is now clear why it was Stalin who emerged as the powerful leader of the Soviet Union in 1928 but not any of his opponents. Firstly, Stalin was a strong figure, a shrewd politician who knew how to get essential support and knew how to “play his cards” at the right time. He was brutally determined to become the sole leader of the country at any sacrifices. On the contrary, his rivals on both the Left and the Right not only lacked the political cunning which Stalin had in abundance, they failed to grasp reality and thus underestimated him and gave him all the opportunities to strike back at them. And finally, one must not forget that only because Lenin and Sverdlov had already died, there was an empty post for the leadership of the Soviet Union.
