How Stalin Became a Leader of Russia

How and why did Stalin win to be the leader of Russia? Stalin’s manipulative personality Joseph Stalin was known to have a manipulative personality. He was persuasive, educated, determined however also arrogant (due to his role as General Sectary). Also Lenin is rude as Lenin said in his testament “Stalin is too rude”. After Lenin died during the struggle for power Stalin was reasonably quiet at the beginning. This makes him sly and sneaky because we get the impression he is up to no good. Stalin also lied about the date of Lenin’s funeral to Trotsky.

This meant that Trotsky didn’t ttend the funeral which made Trotsky look really bad and disrespectful. Lying about the funeral date makes Stalin look cunning and his personality doesn’t seem like a nice person. However these factors aided him to become future leader of Russia. Stalin’s choices of policies (NEP and socialism in one country) During the beginning of the struggle for power after Lenin died Stalin formed an alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev in 1923, this was purely to keep Trotsky out of power.

However in early 1925 Zinoviev and Kamenev split from Stalin, he Joined with Bukharin instead because Stalin said he was in favour of NEP. Zinoviev and Kamenev were removed from the party because they were against NEP. However in 1928 Stalin ended his alliance with Bukharin and rejected NEP; he had more communist ideas which appealed to young communist followers which helped him win the vote in 1929 which meant he won and became the leader of Russia.

During the beginning of the struggle for power he was neither left not right wing (of communist ideas, all members of communism were left wing) – Stalin stayed in the middle. By doing this he didn’t seem like a threat to anyone as he slowly crept up to have power. Stalin’s use of General Sectary Stalin being General Sectary he was able to promote his followers but also demote and even fire people who opposed him. In my opinion without his General Sectary post many of his rivals who were in the power struggle wouldVe defeated Stalin early on.

He allied himself with whoever seemed strongest at that point and because he was General Sectary he had authority to spy on people using secret police and another murder not Just the person who had opposed him, but also their whole family. Lenin almost predicted that Stalin’s role of General Sectary is a bad thing because he has too much power “Stalin has unlimited authority concentrated in his ands” Also as he was General Sectary this made him popular with the communist followers because he had a big role in the communist party.

Stalin’s use of Lenin’s legacy Betore Lenin died ne nad written a testament about Stalin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. In the testament Lenin hadn’t said any good things about Stalin. Lenin said negative things such as “l am not sure whether Stalin will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution” and as seen in future events Stalin didn’t use his role of General Sectary properly, he used it to promote his followers and fire his opponents. He also used it as an excuse to murder which isn’t acceptable. l suggest the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite, and more considerate to the comrades” Lenin suggested that Stalin should be removed from his General Sectary post, if he was he may have not become leader of Russia at all? However Stalin kept his post as General Sectary. All of the members of the communist party decided to keep Lenin’s testament a secret because Lenin had said bad things about all of them so it would be a better idea not to tell the public.

At Lenin’s funeral Stalin spoke about Lenin which is strange, because Lenin and Stalin never got along. Stalin had an argument with Lenin’s wife before Lenin had died. Because Stalin had spoken at Lenin’s funeral this makes people respect Stalin more, and he gained more popularity. Stalin’s opponent’s weaknesses TROTSKY In Lenin’s testament Lenin described Trotsky with outstanding ability, very able and intelligent. However he was very arrogant and there was an element of mistrust. Trotsky decided to stay on his own during 1923-24 which also made him weaker.

He ecame an enemy of Stalin and Stalin lied to him about the date of Lenin’s funeral which then meant Trotsky was unable to turn up which made him very unpopular. He was also very ill which meant that he missed important meetings. BUKHARIN Lenin described Bukharin as very popular and likeable. However he wasn’t fully communist and his commitment must be questioned. During 1923-24 Bukharin was in the right wing (of communist ideas) but he didn’t play a big role in the struggle for power. However he teamed up with Stalin during 1925. Bukharin became an enemy of Stalin in 1928 and delayed Bukharin’s plane so he missed an important meeting.

However he was still considered the favourite of the party until he arranged a secret meeting with Zinoviev and Kamenev, Stalin found out and told everyone so Bukharin became unpopular because people couldn’t trust him which weakened him greatly. ZINOVIEV AND KAMENEV Zinoviev and Kamenev were described as too cautious because they didn’t play a big role in the October revolution. This means that their commitment must be questioned. They allied with Stalin very early on in 1923 however they ended their alliance with Stalin at the end of 1924 because they no longer wanted NEP and ntended to become more industrialised.

However they became unpopular because they challenged Bukharin’s authority in 1927 (this is when Stalin and Bukharin were together). A vote proved this which made them weaker. They were never re-elected after that vote and feared Stalin and Bukharin more than Trotsky. However they made an alliance with Trotsky and were in favour of left wing communism (world revolution). Because of this the three of them were expelled from the party. This weakened them the most, they were re-admitted after they publicly apologised but Stalin only used Zinoviev and Kamenev for their tactics.