1924-25 - Defeat of Trotsky

• Lenin's wife presented his testament to the Politburo after he died.
• Publishing the Testament would have wrecked Stalin's career.
• Zinoviev and Kamenev both spoke out in defense of Stalin and the three of them formed a "Triumvirate" to defeat Trotsky.
• Trotsky only joined the Bolsheviks in mid-1917 but immediately became one of the leading figures.
• Trotsky was rather arrogant and there was a genuine fear in the party that he could use his role as leader of the Red Army to seize power for himself.

  • This belief was entirely false.
• Trotsky made a series of speeches complaining about the bureaucratisation of the party.
• Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev felt that Trotsky's anti-bureaucratisation speeches was an attack on their power bases.
• The "Triumvirate" of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev used their positions to ensure they would win votes while Trotsky failed to mobilise his supporters.

  • This may have been for several reasons such as a fear of factionalism accusations, a desire for party unity or just outright arrogance.
• Stalin's argument for "Socialism in One Country" was more popular than Trotsky's "World Revolution".