Stalin’s rise to power

• Lenin's Testament was written

  1924
• Lenin's Testament


  Notes addressed to the Central Committee that were highly critical of the main contenders for power
• What Lenin's Testament said


  • Accused Trotsky of arrogance and being too willing to use violence
  • Accused Stalin of impatience and rudeness
  • That Zinoviev and Kamenev had been disloyal to the party immediately before the October Revolution
  • That Bukharin did not fully understand Lenin's ideology
• What happened to Lenin's Testament


  1. Lenin's widow Krupskaya handed it to the Politburo

  2. It was supposed to be published in the Party Congress in May 1924

  3. Key members of the Central Committee declined to read it out
• How had Lenin caused a Power vacuum

  • Decisions were supposedly made collectively but in practice Lenin had dominated
  • His leadership was based on his personality and his authority
  • Instead of encouraging democracy, he introduced the ban on factions in 1921
  • He had had created a huge bureaucracy carrying out orders from superiors
• How a power struggle started before Lenin's death


  1. Lenin had become unwell towards the end of 1921, and in May 1922 he had the first of a series of strokes

  2. By mid-1923 it was obvious that Lenin would never return to government

  3. When Lenin died, there was no obvious successor

  4. A collective leadership was therefore established to govern Russia
• What happened when Lenin died


  • Lenin's coffin was displayed in Red Square and crowds of people queued to pay their respects
  • The Politburo preserved his body in a mausoleum in Red Square
• How a cult of personality formed


  1. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad

  2. Lenin's statue was built in every Russian city

  3. Children were named after the Communist leader
• Collective leadership


  When power is not focused on one person but shared amongst everyone
• Cult of personality


  When a public figure is presented as a great person who should be admired and loved
• Trotsky


  • Recognised as a hero from the October Revolution and Civil War
  • Inspirational speaker and intellectual
  • Known for his political skills and organisational ability
  • Known to be arrogant and dismissive of those who were not as intellectual as him
  • He failed to build a power base of followers
• Zinoviev


  • Lenin had once called him his 'closest and most trusted assistant'
  • Strong power base in Leningrad
  • One of the best speechmakers with a commanding presence
  • Had opposed Lenin in organising the October Revolution
  • Vain and prone to mood swings also underestimated Stalin
• Kamenev


  • Had helped form Party policy and was close to Lenin
  • Had a strong power base in Moscow
  • Effective at reaching compromises between people
  • Opposed to Lenin's April Theses in 1917 and his desire to work for a revolution in October 1917
  • Seen as lacking ambition on his own
  • Underestimated his opponents
• Bukharin


  • Popular in the party, close to Lenin and Trotsky
  • Widely regarded as the best theoretician in the Party
  • An expert on economics and agriculture
  • He had no party base and wanted to avoid fighting
  • His popularity made him a target
  • Underestimated Stalin
• Tomsky


  • Had a long history of fighting for the Bolsheviks, which meant he was widely respected
  • Strong base of support from being General Secretary of trade unions
  • Hatred of Trotsky blinded him to the threat of Stalin
  • His power base in the trade unions made him a clear target for Stalin
• Rykov


  • Had a long history of fighting for the Bolsheviks, which meant he was widely respected
  • Good administrator – he had helped implement war communism and the NEP
  • Supported by the Sovnarkom
  • His policy of heavy taxation on vodka was very unpopular
  • Opposed Lenin over the timing of the revolution
  • Lacked a power base, too moderate
• Stalin


  • He could claim to be a true the very beginning, in 1903, and had been loyal to Lenin through the whole period from 1903 to 1921
  • His role as General Secretary meant he could appoint supporters to key roles in the party
  • He had fallen out of favour with Lenin prior to his death
  • Colleagues saw him as ill-educated, rude and crude. Lenin had criticised him in the Testament
• Stalin's position


  • Stalin held key positions within the Communist Party
  • In 1919, Stalin was made head of the Orgburo
  • In 1922 he became Secretary-General, which put him in charge of the party organisation
  • These positions gave Stalin the opportunity to appoint lower and middle ranks of the party and gave him significant powers of patronage
• How Stalin consolidated his position


  1. In 1924, Stalin initiated the Lenin Enrolment

  2. From May 1924, this enrolment drive allowed 128,000 people to join the Communist Party

  3. Stalin justified this by arguing that the party needed new working-class members

  4. Because they were interested in getting well paid party jobs they tended to support Stalin, who was able to promote them within the party
• NEP vs Rapid industrialisation


  • The NEP was criticised for not conforming to communist principles
  • Lenin had insisted it was a 'temporary measure' to help Russia recover from the Russian Civil War, so the was divided on how long they should continue with the policy
  • By 1925, NEP was causing industrial and agricultural concerns as workers' standards of living declined and peasants were hoarding grain rather than selling it
  • Also Marxism taught that only an industrialised economy could make a socialist society work
• What the Left wanted


  • To abandon the NEP in favour of state controlled, rapid industrialisation funded by 'squeezing the peasants'
• What the Right wanted


  • To continue with the NEP with the peasants becoming richer
  • The state would then use the taxes to fund gradual industrialisation
• What Stalin wanted


  • Inconsistent attitude
  • Initially opposed the Left when trying to defeat them, but turned on the NEP once the Left had been eliminated
• 'Permanent revolution' or 'Socialism in One Country'


  • All theories of Marxism-Leninism had assumed it was impossible for revolution to survive in a single country against all the capitalist countries
  • But Marxist theory was contradicted by real-world events
  • Revolutions in Germany and Hungary were crushed
  • Defeat in the Russo-Polish War blocked the Revolution from extending West
  • The USSR were the only communist country
• What the Left believed


  • Believed in the theory of Permanent Revolution
  • Thought Russian communism could not survive alone as it didn't have the economic resources and the proletariat was too small and underdeveloped
  • Spreading the revolution would mean communist regimes in more developed countries could support Russia
• What the Right believed


  • Believed in the theory of Socialism in One Country
  • Thought a world revolution was unlikely
  • Aimed to strengthen the USSR as a workers' state could be created to rival the capitalist powers
• What Stalin believed


  • Supported Socialism in One Country in 1924
  • It appealed to Russian patriotism, portraying Trotsky's ideas as out of touch
• Industrialisation


  The process of modernising and improving the industry of a country as opposed to agriculture
• Permanent Revolution


  The concept that continuing progress in the USSR was dependent on communist revolution in other countries
• Socialism in one country


  The policy of focusing on perfecting communism in Russia before turning focus outwards
• Outcome of the power struggle


  • Stalin: By December 1929, Stalin secure as leader of the Soviet Union due to his strong base of supporters and political manoeuvring
  • The Left: After they were expelled in 1927, Kamenev and Zinoviev criticised their past actions and were allowed to re-join the party in 1928. Trotsky refused to do this and was exiled. He moved around until, in 1940, he was murdered in Mexico on Stalin's orders
  • The Right: Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were initially allowed to stay in the Party after admitting their mistakes
  • Show trials: Bukharin, Rykov, Kamenev and Zinoviev were all executed after show trials were held against them in the late 30s. Tomsky committed suicide before he could be put through the same ordeal
• The Great Turn


  • A radical change in economic policy that rejected the NEP
  • It committed to rapid industrialisation under state control and the collectivisation of agriculture
  • It began in 1925 when the 14th Party Congress committed to industrialisation and continued in 1927 with the 15th Party congress announcing the end of the NEP
• Why Stalin introduced the Great Turn


  • He knew that a country that was not industrialised was a weak country
  • To fight a modern war, a country had to have a well-developed industrial base to manufacture the huge quantities of weapons and munitions that would be required
  • To make the USSR much less dependent on Western manufactured goods. To achieve this, it was especially important to build the heavy industrial plants that were needed for industrial production
  • He believed that socialism could only be created in a highly industrialised state where the majority of the population were workers
  • To prove he was the successor and equal of Lenin
  • To catch up with the West, not just in military terms, but also in the standard of living that people enjoyed
• Collectivisation


  A policy where the agriculture of the country worked towards a state goal and the state would redistribute the produce
• Command economy


  The top-down approach that entailed the state controlling the economy to work towards a shared goal
• Kolkhoz


  A supposedly voluntary organisation of farms pooling their resources
• Sovkhoz


  State owned collective farm
• The First Five Year Plan - 1928


  1. Gosplan would set targets for different industrial sectors

  2. A command economy would bring a centralised approach to managing the economy
• Rapid industrial growth under the First Five Year Plan


  • Overall industrial production was planned to increase by 300% between 1928 and 1932
  • Heavy industry (coal, iron, steel, oil & machinery) was prioritised
  • Light industry (house hold products & chemicals), although a lower priority were still expected to increase production by 100%
• Investment in infrastructure under the First Five Year Plan


  1. The plan called for huge increase in the supply of electrical power in order to transform the economy and society

  2. There was significant investment In infrastructure, especially rail