Why did stalin emerge as the leader of the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin - page 1
Keywords: Russia 1917- Stalin Bolsheviks Lenin Why did stalin emerge as the leader of the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin
By Henry on 26/09/2008
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 1 of 4 pages: 1 2 3 4After the communists overthrew the Tsar in 1917, the leader of the Bolsheviks, Lenin, became the leader of Russia but he would only harden his control after five years of civil war. In 1922 after the communists won the civil war Lenin became in charge of the Soviet Union, but after only two years of leading his country without war, Lenin died of natural causes, and the Soviet Union now faced a difficult decision on who was to replace him, as Lenin’s shoes were big to fill.
From 1924 a power struggle for the leadership of the Soviet Union began and realistically there were five contenders, Stalin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev and Zinoiev. Trotsky, the most obvious choice, was Lenin’s right hand man during the revolution of 1917, and was the leader of the Red Army which he could possibly use to his advantage, he was also intellectually respected and that would come in handy during the struggle with the other contenders. Trotsky’s main problems were that many people were scared of him and they thought that he would use the power of leading the country to his advantage and whilst the party wanted a collective leadership they feared that he would take over and rule himself. He was also Jewish and in that anti-Semitic time that did not count as a plus point for him, also being rich and famous did not help either.
The issue that dominated the party conferences in the mid-1920’s was how to improve the USSR’s industry and economy, the two sides of the coin were the left wing with Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoiev wanting to leave the right wing NEP led by Bukharin, which improved industry in a more long run by encouraging the peasants to become richer which would in turn make them buy more consumer goods which would lead to the growth of manufacturing industry. Bukcharin believed conflict with the peasants may lead to economic collapse and it might endanger the Communist state, and on the other side of the coin the right wing wanted to start the rapid industrialisation, which entailed the militarisation of labour, breaking the stranglehold the peasants had on the economy and squeezing more grain out of them to pay for the industrialisation.
There was also another debate on how to spread communism. The two side were the left wing party, who wanted “Permanent revolution” which continued the revolution all
Last 5 comments…
There have been no comments posted for this article, but you need to register if you want to be the first!