Joseph Stalin Dbq

Stalin was able to gain control of the Soviet Union through a series of political maneuvers that would change the face of the Soviet Union. His actions would tear the fabric of the revolution and would create a new way of doing politics in the Soviet Union. Stalin would go against many of Lenin’s teachings and would distort the history of the revolution to suit his needs. Each of these actions made is possible for all power to be consolidated to Stalin or to people he controlled never again would he openly face opposition.

Josef Stalin was merely an unknown Georgian revolutionary with little power. Shortly after the 1917 October Revolution this would change. His ruthlessness and drive would propel him into the upper echelons of the Soviet

government. In 1922 while the Soviet government was being organized and positions were being doled out many of the leading revolutionaries passed over the position of general secretary which was believed to offer no power and no glory with little chances of moving up. They simply deferred the position to the lowest member of the inner circle. However, this was hardly the case and soon Stalin would realize the power the position held. After Lenin’s first stroke Stalin began to consolidate power to his position and began to become the only one Lenin had contact with while he was recovering. He began to shape the policy of the Soviet Union with the swipe of his pen and by bending Lenin’s ear. However, a test of his power was shortly ahead of him. In 1922 Lenin and Trotsky began to communicate about policy through Lenin’s wife. The news of this leaked to Stalin who in turn cursed at Lenin’s wife. This greatly angered Lenin who began talking to Trotsky about removing Stalin from power. Luckily for Stalin he would not have to worry about their plan for long. In 1924 Lenin died of a stroke. This left Trotsky alone to oppose Stalin. As General Secretary Stalin was put in charge of planning Lenin’s funeral. He was also in charge of sending the notifications to the inner circle of when the funeral was to be held. He realized this was his moment to attack Trotsky. Stalin purposely sent Trotsky Lenin’s heir apparent the wrong date and time. This made Trotsky the only party official not to attend Lenin’s funeral. Stalin quickly stepped up to fill Trotsky’s place at the funeral and stole the lime light. However, this hardly effected Trotsky’s standing with the public but it sent a clear message that Stalin was going to take charge. Soon there was little to be done to stop the Stalin steam roller.
This simple act of not sending Trotsky the correct notification would propel Stalin from little known Georgian revolutionary to major contender for Lenin’s position. This would become obvious when the politburo convened to discuss what was to be done with the power vacuum that was left in the wake of Lenin’s death. Stalin took this opportunity to align himself with the leftists Kamenev and Zinoviev who disagreed with and were wary of Stalin but disagreed with Trotsky even more. Their hope was to remove Trotsky from the party and then face off with Stalin. This plan worked effectively short term until Trotsky was able to bring up Lenin’s last memo about Stalin. In it Lenin explained that Stalin was too power hungry and too barbaric to be allowed to have power within the party and that he should be removed immediately. His allies however had most of the power within the politburo and therefore Lenin’s last memo was quickly written off. The noose was quickly closing around Trotsky’s neck. January 1925 Trotsky was removed from his post as the People’s Commissary of War. The pretext that was used for his removal was that he would use the military to instate himself as the leader of the Soviet Union. He was quickly placed in positions that had absolutely no power and had no connection with each other. They were also positions in which he had no experience or expertise. During this time Stalin began to quarrel with Kamenev and Zinoviev. It was clear to Stalin that he would need Bukharin’s help to rid himself and the party of Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev. He began by creating a sharp divide between him and the “Trotskyites”. This was based on the principle of single state socialism which he supported and international revolution which Trotsky supported. He stated that Trotsky’s views were unattainable and that the party needed to focus on what was going on at home and not on spreading communism to the rest of the world. Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev tried to bring the divide before the politburo only to find Stalin’s supporters well entrenched in the politburo. As the struggle continued Kamenev and Zinoviev’s support for Trotsky began to erode and they began looking for a way to distance themselves from Trotsky. Shortly after in 1926 Trotsky was removed from all of his positions and expelled from the politburo. The following year he was removed from the central committee limiting any power he once had in the government to nothing. That same year the 10th anniversary of the October revolution Trotsky was expelled from the party. Finally in 1928 Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union and was exiled to Turkey. These events allowed for Stalin to destroy Trotsky’s image and to effectively remove him from power. This stopped him from becoming a serious threat to Stalin’s power for the time being.
Next Stalin turned his attention to Kamenev and Zinoviev who had just sided with Trotsky in a few years long battle for control of the politburo and eventually the whole of the Soviet Union.

After their perceived disloyalty they were expelled from the politburo and then the central committee. Stalin who still felt extreme hatred for those who opposed them had them expelled from the party and exiled in Russia. After a short time waiting for cooler heads to prevail they were reinstated to the party and given back a place in the central committee but in much lower positions. Their betrayal would not be forgotten by Stalin. The time where he could finally rid himself of all opposition was fast approaching and within a few years he would be the sole leader of the Soviet

Union.
During the previous five years Stalin worked with Bukharin to expel Trotsky and his followers but that truce was short lived. Within a year of Trotsky’s expulsion from the Soviet Union Stalin turned his sights to Bukharin and the right faction. Stalin held the belief that the Soviet society should be industrialized and collectivized at lightning speed Bukharin however disagreed. He held the belief that socialism in the Soviet Union should be achieved at a “snail’s pace”. This flew in the face of Stalin. This stance effectively signed the death warrant of Bukharin and his followers. Stalin would not allow anyone to question his authority or decisions. Up until the sudden power shift in the politburo in favor of Stalin Bukharin had humiliated him forcing him to concede major decisions to Bukharin and his followers. It was not until Stalin’s shadow government of secret police and secret departments had done enough political maneuvering that this would change. The shadow government quietly removed Bukharin

supporters from lower level positions and replaced them with Stalin’s supporters that he was able to challenge Bukharin’s power.

By then it was too late for Bukharin. By the end of 1929 Bukharin had been removed from the politburo and any position of power he once held. This left him at Stalin’s will who at that point had not forgiven anyone who openly or privately challenged him. Bukharin was forced to plead with Stalin for forgiveness and to renounce his beliefs of “snail’s pace” socialism but, Stalin did not trust Bukharin. He was not willing to concede any of his new gotten power back to someone he did not control. Stalin’s suspicions were realized after he received transcripts of Bukharin’s wire tapped phone conversations with Zinoviev and Kamenev. In the conversations Bukharin made it clear that he would not renounce his positions and that his former enemies should align themselves with him and remove Stalin. This was the last straw for Stalin. Bukharin was quickly barred from any position of power he once had and his followers would soon share the same

fate.
Within a few years the perfect opportunity for Stalin to finally remove any and all opposition forever soon presented itself. It came in the form of a dead old party comrade. Sergei Kirov was a member of the old guard. His loyalty lied with Lenin, the party, and the cause. This meant shortly after Lenin’s death when there was infighting in the politburo he was isolated choosing not to side with either the right or the left. He supported many of Stalin’s plans but felt that it was not the right time to enact them and that Stalin’s five year plans were ineffective. This sent a clear message to Stalin that Kirov was a threat to his power and his future plans for the Soviet Union. The point at which it all became clear to Stalin was September 1932 when Stalin tried to remove Ryton because a plan was uncovered that Ryton and his faction wanted to remove Stalin from power and reverse collectivization. Kirov responded that they should not shed Bolshevik blood and that Ryton should not be removed and executed. Kirov’s open defiance was not to be tolerated by Stalin. By 1934 Kirov was becoming a headache for Stalin. He also posed a major threat because he was the party boss of the cradle of the revolution, Leningrad, where the opposition to Stalin was strong. If pushed Kirov could have possibly started a rebellion which could spread to the peasants in the country side who were disenfranchised since forced collectivization. By December 1934 Kirov was dead from a gunshot wound. Within days of his assassination people were being interrogated. This event also allowed Stalin to pass a decree stating “1) Investigation agencies are directed to speed up the cases of those accused of the preparation or execution of acts of terror 2) Judicial organs are directed not to hold up the execution of death sentences pertaining to crimes of this category in order to consider the possibility of pardon, since the Central Executive Committee of the USSR does not consider as possible the receiving of petitions of this sort. 3) The organs of the NKVD are directed to execute the death sentence against criminals of the above category immediately after the passing of sentences.”(Page 37, Kirov Murder) This decree would give Stalin more leeway in the future to rid himself of his opposition. Stalin’s justification for the decree was that party bosses should be able to carry out party business without having to worry about assassination attempts. He also likened the decree to the Red Terror of 1918 after an attempt to assassinate Lenin was carried out. The politburo fully approved of his decree. The assassination of Kirov opened the door to remove the entire opposition from the Leningrad ruling class and in the future the whole of the Soviet political body.

Stalin’s first victims after Kirov’s assassination were Zinoviev’s followers. He claimed that Kirov’s assassin confessed that he had orders from Zinoviev to kill Kirov. Slowly as people were interrogated and forced to confess more and more party bosses became trapped in the drag net. First it was Zinoviev and Kamenev who were named by underlings who had alleged connections with the assassin. Each time someone was questioned another person was named. The list would later include Trotsky who was out of the country and his followers, other splinter groups, and later Bukharin. During this time Stalin threatened the use of force against their families unless they confessed to the murder. Stalin’s first target had no connection to the assassination of Kirov but to Kirov himself. Quickly he purged the leadership in Leningrad and Moscow of all the officials and officers that did not support him and him alone. Most of these underlings were executed or deported to Siberia so that they could never pose a threat to him again. This post-Kirov purging spread to include other changes. Stalin quickly changed the Soviet constitution mainly the voting system in which he took away voting rights of splinter groups so that opposition could never gain any real power again. As the months rolled on thousands of workers were deported to different regions in the Soviet Union. This was done to send the message that no one is to challenge Stalin’s power and that any opposition would be met with unrelenting force. During this time the show trials were well under way. Every trial showed the power of the Soviet Union and the ability to force the enemies of the state to confess to their crimes. Each time another opposition member was named and executed. Each time more propaganda was released to the public touting the power and glory of Comrade Stalin. Each person played right into Stalin’s hands. No one was safe from Stalin now. Every old score was to be settled even if they were outside of the Soviet Union Stalin would make them pay for crossing him. Trotsky’s death clock was ticking and Stalin was well under way to rid himself of the hero of the revolution.
During the time since he was expelled from the Soviet Union Trotsky had spent the vast majority of his time fighting Stalin abroad. He had decided to try and destroy Stalin’s credibility abroad in the hopes of Stalin being expelled from power due to his inability to lead. But with each successive speech he pushed Stalin further into a corner. If Stalin had any hopes of cementing his power as the leader of the Soviet Union he would have to deal with the Trotsky issue once again this time permanently. Stalin realized that the more Trotsky talked the more he was able to turn people against Stalin especially after the people’s loss of Bukharin and other top party officials who had been more popular than Stalin. During the show trials Trotsky was put on trial absentia. This allowed Stalin to deal a death blow against Trotsky without Trotsky being able to defend himself. Following a guilty verdict Stalin set in motion a plot to assassinate Trotsky. By 1940 Trotsky was dead in Mexico by the hand of a Stalin sympathizer. The hero of the revolution was dead and Stalin’s power was solidified never again to be questioned by any opposition in the Soviet Union.
Each of these events allowed Stalin to consolidate power to his position and to move up in the political ladder finally taking Lenin’s spot as head of the Soviet Union. Many of his former comrades in arms would become victims of his rise to power. Hundreds of the party’s old guard was brushed aside to make way for Stalin’s supporters. These actions forever enshrined Stalin into the mantel of the Soviet Union.