Stalin's postion in the party bureaucracy
‘Stalin’s position in the party bureaucracy made him Lenin’s likely successor’ Do you agree?
I agree to this only to a small extent, as there were a large number of other factors that affected the successor of Lenin. Josef Stalin was born into a peasant background in Georgia. Stalin was ‘safe’ in the eyes of the public and the Bolsheviks due to his perception of him. He was considered a pedestrian to them due to his background. Stalin wanted the idea of socialism in one country. After Lenin’s death Stalin opposed the idea of socialism spread across the world and the idea of permanent revolution, although this was against the ideas of Lenin this was appealing with the public and the right wing members of the party due to the first world war, the civil war and the 1915 revolution. This is because they felt that no more violence was needed. Stalin was General secretary of the Central Committee, he was also commissar of nationalities and also organised the rabkin. Stalin had a large power base but this was not the main reason to why he came into power.He was also liked by Lenin in the beginning of his political career due too the fact when he first met him Stalin impressed Lenin by standing up to him on matters of Marxist doctrine. By the time of Lenin’s death their relationship was different as we can see in Lenin’s testament that wasn’t released until after his death. Lenin wrote Stalin ‘Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution’. Stalin managed to convince the politburo to ignore this and covered the testament up. Lenin praised Leon Trotsky in his testament.
Stalin’s closest rival in the struggle power was Leon Trotsky. Trotsky unlike Stalin was not from a peasant background, this lost him votes as they felt he thought higher of himself he also was very arrogant which also lost him many votes. People
I agree to this only to a small extent, as there were a large number of other factors that affected the successor of Lenin. Josef Stalin was born into a peasant background in Georgia. Stalin was ‘safe’ in the eyes of the public and the Bolsheviks due to his perception of him. He was considered a pedestrian to them due to his background. Stalin wanted the idea of socialism in one country. After Lenin’s death Stalin opposed the idea of socialism spread across the world and the idea of permanent revolution, although this was against the ideas of Lenin this was appealing with the public and the right wing members of the party due to the first world war, the civil war and the 1915 revolution. This is because they felt that no more violence was needed. Stalin was General secretary of the Central Committee, he was also commissar of nationalities and also organised the rabkin. Stalin had a large power base but this was not the main reason to why he came into power.He was also liked by Lenin in the beginning of his political career due too the fact when he first met him Stalin impressed Lenin by standing up to him on matters of Marxist doctrine. By the time of Lenin’s death their relationship was different as we can see in Lenin’s testament that wasn’t released until after his death. Lenin wrote Stalin ‘Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution’. Stalin managed to convince the politburo to ignore this and covered the testament up. Lenin praised Leon Trotsky in his testament.
Stalin’s closest rival in the struggle power was Leon Trotsky. Trotsky unlike Stalin was not from a peasant background, this lost him votes as they felt he thought higher of himself he also was very arrogant which also lost him many votes. People