Joseph Stalin became the leader of the USSR after it’s first leader Vladimir Lenin died. Stalin’s rise to power was violent and ruthless, however the result was just what he wanted to achieve. In this essay I will analyse the rise to power of Joseph Stalin as well as look at the steps, which he took towards becoming a totalitarian leader of the USSR. Joseph Stalin was studying to be a priest but he was expelled for his revolutionary activity.
Stalin has attracted Lenin’s attention because of this revolutionary activity and Lenin was helping Stalin to rise in party leadership. This can be considered Stalin’s first step towards becoming a dictator. This clearly shows that his way up in the party leadership began from being promoted by Lenin. After Lenin’s death, there were five main people struggling to achieve the position of a leader of USSR. These were: Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin. Stalin wanted to become the leader of USSR. His main rival was Leon Trotsky because he had the support of the Soviet people.
Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev joined together to oppose the continuation of the New Economic Policy (a new and more capitalized economic policy, which was supposed to revive the Soviet economy that was ruined after the Civil War. NEP allowed farmers to earn extra money).
The Essay on Stalin And The Ussr
1879-1953, Russian revolutionary, head of the USSR (1924-53). A Georgian cobbler's son named Dzhugashvili, he joined the Social-Democratic party while a seminarian and soon became a professional revolutionary. In the 1903 party split (see BOLSHEVISM AND MENSHEVISM) he sided with LENIN. Stalin attended party congresses abroad and worked in the Georgian party press. In 1912 he went to St. ...
Their wishes appeared to go against Lenin’s. Trotsky had a policy called ‘Permanent Revolution’. He wanted to spread communism to the neighboring countries. Stalin had a different point of view – he believed that at first it was important to establish and strengthen communism in the USSR.
Stalin was able to appoint his supporters on key positions in the communist party. He was able to do that mainly due to the fact that Trotsky was busy gaining the support of the people because he wanted to convince them about the benefit of ‘Permanent Revolution’ and also he believed that it is important to have the support of the nation. As a historian Norman Pereira said about Stalin putting his supporters around him: ‘He was an arch-bureaucrat who put together a coalition of party
secretaries who had no truly revolutionary intent and were preoccupied by a concern for bureaucratic privilege. ’ Stalin sided with Bukharin. Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev were announced as traitors to Lenin as they didn’t want the continuation of the NEP (New Economic Policy).
They were expelled from the party. Later, Trotsky was killed by Stalin’s NKVD (secret police) in order to eliminate him as a competitor completely. The two of his very important rivals and his main rival were no longer an obstacle for Stalin.
Bukharin has originally sided with Stalin to get rid of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. After they were gone, he wanted to continue the NEP, as this is what Stalin told him they should do. In 1927 Stalin sent soldiers to arrest anybody who was making profit as a result of the NEP. Bukharin now accused Stalin of being a tyrant. Due to that, Bukharin was expelled from the party as Stalin had appointed his supporters on key positions in the party, making it possible for him to expel Bukharin.
Stalin became an undisputed leader of the USSR. Conclusively, I believe that Stalin has used several methods to rise to power, most of them being manipulative such as assigning his supporters to key positions in the communist party and alliance with Bukharin in order to eliminate other rivals. In the end, he has successfully become a dictator of the Soviet Union who will later lead the country through its biggest challenge – the Second World War.
