Stalin

• There was some passive opposition within the party; left and right oppsiiton and the United Opposition group (Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev)
• There was a challenge to Stalin's leadership at the party congress in 1934
• Stalin managed to defeat all attempts to challenge his power from United Opposition and the Right Opposition. Furthermore, he got rid of the old bolsheviks and his enemies in the purges
• There was some intellectual opposition to Stalin such as Osip, mandelstom and Bulgakov
• Stain used the early purges to scapegoat experts and made it hard to challenge the regime's economic reforms