Of Bolshevik Successors

In January of 1924 Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik party died of a stroke. This caused a major panic as to who would become the next leader of the party.

There were five main candidates that wanted to become leader of the party. These people were: Leon Trotsky, Grigori Zinoviev, Leon Kamenev, Nicolai Bukharin and Joseph Stalin.

Stalin used many tricks to get himself into power in 1928. One of these was the “Lenin Cult”. The Lenin cult was Stalin’s idea and consisted of putting the image of Lenin everywhere, including: Statues, plaques, posters, newspapers and photographs. Stalin would even alter photo’s to show him and Lenin as best friends. The Lenin Cult was very important to Stalin success because it made him seem like he was very close to Lenin and so people thought Lenin would want Stalin to become his rightful successor.

Stalin’s main support came from the Politburo and the older Bolshevik members. The Politburo was a bureau of the Central Committee tasked with taking day-to-day political decisions. Trotsky did not have the support of the older Bolsheviks as he used to be a Menshevik and only joined the Bolsheviks in 1917. However Trotsky was very popular with the Red Guard, although he did not use this popularity for his own gain. Trotsky could have taken power using the army but decided not to as it wasn’t what he believed in.

In Lenin’s last testament he commented on the men, and wrote who he thought should become the next leader. Lenin said about Stalin that he had “unlimited authority concentrated in his hands” and suggested that “comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post.” Stalin was the General Secretary of the Party. Lenin also said that he “is too rude and this defect”. Lenin suggested that Bukharin was the more suitable candidate.

Stalin persuaded the Central Committee to get rid of this document to prevent people from finding out that Lenin did not want Stalin as leader. This showed Stalin in a bad light.

Although Kamenev and Zionoviev agreed with Trotsky politically they very much disliked him personally and so they formed an alliance with Stalin to prevent him coming to power. They also doubted his loyalty due to the fact that he only joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 where as Stalin had been a member for over 20 years.

Stalin had a fairly weak position in the party as the General Secretary he was able to use this position to gain popularity. Being General Secretary meant that Stalin was able to allocate important jobs to his close supporters, and ensure that none were given to anyone likely to oppose him. In fact he was even able to drive out opponents, likely to support Trotsky.