America 1930

How did Stalin create a personal dictatorship in his rule of the USSR in the period from 1924 to 1941?

Background

In my essay I will discuss how Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvilli came to power after Lenin died. He was not initially the favourite to succeed into the leadership but through his strengths and his opponents’ weaknesses he defied the odds. Once in power, he used fear and force to maintain his rule over the USSR and during his rule he was not challenged by anybody else.

Josef Stalin (meaning ‘man of steel’) became leader of the USSR in 1924 after the death of Vladimar Lenin. From 1929 to his death in 1953, Stalin ruled over the USSR with total authority and rarely gave much away to his opponents which resulted in him often being underestimated and his opponents never really saw him as a threat. Although Stalin was ruthless, he transformed the USSR from a backward country to one of the greatest powers in the world.

But how did such a man rise to become one of the most powerful leaders of the twentieth century?

There are many accounts of how and why Stalin was able to gain power but most Historians agree that it wasn’t just one single thing that brought him to power but more a combination of his strengths, the weaknesses of his opponents, his political skills, and in some ways simply pure luck.

Stalin builds his foundations

Lenin died in 1924 and most people thought that his great friend and ally Trotsky would become the new leader of the Bolshevik Party. There were other people in the Party who contested the leadership but Trotsky was always the favourite to become leader. Rather than having one person lead the Party, some believed that a committee would be a better way of leading the Party and the country.

Trotsky was popular with the people and he was a brilliant speaker. He was also one of the main leaders of the Bolshevik revolution and a hero of the Civil war as leader of the Red Army. Stalin, on the other hand, had little involvement in the war due to his disability (he had a deformed arm) and he was not as intellectual as Trotsky. Because Stalin was not in the public eye and did not appear to command support from other members of the Party, he wasn’t considered to be a threat. This was one of Trotsky’s weaknesses in that he totally underestimated Stalin.

The Soviet leadership consisted of professional people who were Socialist who were very skilled at talking and debating politics. Stalin on the other hand didn’t get involved in the debates because he was not a naturally good spokesperson and therefore didn’t contribute to the political debate as much as others. At this time, he had no original ideas and Stalin was considered as very dull and uninteresting by some. In comparison, Leon Trotsky was well educated and extremely clever although some other members of the Party considered him to be arrogant and often offensive. Unfortunately for him, Trotsky didn’t realise that he was actually losing

some of his support by doing this to other Party members and he totally failed to see that Stalin could be a threat to his road to power.

What Stalin lacked in intelligence he made up for in terms of his work rate. For example, during his early years of party membership, Stalin attended Party meetings abroad and became editor of the newspaper Pravda (meaning ‘truth’). During this time Stalin made many allies and formed many allegiances gaining support little by little. He would call upon this support in the future when he needed it to further his own ambitions.

Following the revolution in 1917, Stalin became a member of the Soviet Cabinet as Commissar for Nationalities having been a member of the central Committee since 1912. This was where he began his real work to become leader.

Stalin was not an intellectual but he was politically clever and knew how to develop his own position. For example, he took on boring but very important jobs such as general secretary of the central committee and it was this position where he had the authority to hire and sack people into and out of important positions. This enabled him to eliminate those who stood in his way of his own ambitions and put his friends and allies into positions of authority. In this role, he was also involved with peasants and workers who joined the revolution and eventually became Stalin’s main source of support. To these people he was one of them and a hero and thought of as ‘one of the people’.

Stalin overcomes the threat of Trotsky

In May 1922, Lenin became ill