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How Far Do You Agree That the Struggle for Power Following Lenin’s Death in 1924 Was Caused by the Ideological Differences Between the Contenders for Power? Essay Example

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How Far Do You Agree That the Struggle for Power Following Lenin’s Death in 1924 Was Caused by the Ideological Differences Between the Contenders for Power? Essay Example
How far do you agree that the Struggle for Power following Lenin’s death in 1924 was caused by the ideological differences between the contenders for power?

After the revolution in 1917 Lenin led Russia. However, in 1922 he began to suffer strokes later resulting in his death in 1924. As he didn’t see him self passing away so early he had left no clear set of plans as to who should take over from him or how the country should be run. This was the first time such an event had happened as the hierarchy of the Tsars before him was clear. His death created a huge power vacuum at the top of Soviet politics between: Trotsky, Stalin, Bukarin, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who all tried to take over the leadership of the Communist party. Different ideological plans were significant in the Struggle for power, but so were personality factors, institutional factors and tactical manoeuvring.

A great deal untied the five contenders for power. These being; that they all believed the changes made due to the revolution had to be preserved, they had a common desire to build a modern socialist society, and they all thought that one day the revolution would spread through Europe. Despite all this, they were split on how this vision would be achieved so to win the Party over they had to convince them that their strategy would protect the revolution and build socialism in Russia. Trotsky represented the left(radical) interpretation of Leninism, Bukharin represented the right(moderate) and Stalin was in the centre, which allowed him to adopt and change certain ideological standpoints at crucial points during the struggle. Kamenev and Zinovev began on the right side but later switched to left in 1925, this lost them credibility within the Party as people saw them as unreliable and unable to make a decision. The three main debates they had were: industrialisation, world revolution, and the future of the revolution.

The industrialisation debate came around because Lenin’s view that the
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