Was Stalin the Most Successful Candidate to Succeed Lenin?

Stalin was not the most likely candidate to succeed Lenin. By looking at the facts and the background history of Stalin, it is quite clear that he was not the favoured candidate. The cons outweighed the pros and numerous reasons such as Lenin’s testament, Stalin’s poor revolutionary record, not being an intellectual thinker and being a dull and uninspiring person all led Stalin to being a less favoured candidate. Lenin was the overall leader of communist Russia, and was very well respected. His word was law, and they carried weight in the party. Therefore, Lenin’s testament would have made the party biased against Stalin due to the fact that he criticises Stalin by calling him “rude” and by mentioning that he proposes “the comrades to find a way to remove Stalin from that position and appoint to it another man who greatly differs from Stalin.” By mentioning such a thing makes it clear that Lenin does not think highly of Stalin for he wants to remove him, and if Lenin, the great leader of the Communist party does not want Stalin as secretary for he believes he holds too much power, then surely being the leader of the Communist party is more power than Stalin needs? Stalin was not a revolutionary man with people such as Trotsky having a far greater revolutionary record than him. He was a man of little initiative and preferred to take on the role of a follower rather than that of a leader. This would have been a problem for the party required someone with initiative and great leadership to steer Communist Russia in the right direction- something which Stalin lacked. He was also not an intellectual thinker. This was a bad thing, for being an intellectual thinker was one of the qualities the party looked highly upon. To be an intellectual thinker meant that you would be able to lead Russia into great heights and prosper, so for Stalin to fall short upon such qualities did little to improve his favour. By being from the South, the opposing parties could