Sentence Outline
- Introduction: Looks at the events just before Stalin assumed power immediately after Lenin’s death
- Body: Looks at how Stalin came to power and how he tightened his grip using government machinery as well as how he eliminated his opponents all the way through the World War and how he managed to secure Victory over Germany after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union without warning.
- Conclusion: This part looks at the final major events before the untimely death of Stalin and the different theories that explain how he died.
Introduction
Until he died in 1953, Joseph Stalin was the communist party of the Soviet Union’s Central committee General Secretary since 1922. After the death of Lenin in 1924 Stalin ascended to the top most position of the Soviet Union authoritatively. He had a hard-line stand against the opposition and Lenin didn’t particularly like his strategy towards Georgia. Lenin’s association with Stalin went to an all time low after Lenin had to go into semi-retirement after he suffered a severe stroke. This paper looks at Stalin’s rise to power between the years 1924 to 1929.
On January 21, 1924, Lenin died due to a heart attack. Immediately after his death, Stalin’s disagreement against Kamenev and Zinoviev got even worse prompting him to closely associate himself with Nikolai Bukharin. Instead of extending the revolution as Zinoviev, Kamenev as well as Trosky had always opined, Stalin reasoned that the Bolsheviks should concentrate more on building communism in countries under their control. The trio, Zinoviev, Kamenev as well as Trosky eventually got evicted from the Central Committee due to their views then eventually got driven out of the party.
Trosky ultimately got banished from the Soviet Union while Kamenev and Zinoviev got readmitted into the party once again. In total disregard to the then Lenin’s New Economic Policy, Stalin advocated for central management of the economy as well as a much faster industrialization process of the Union. Since factionalism was totally prohibited then in the Soviet Union, Stalin exploited it to his advantage. Stalin was the Supreme leader by the first year of the Five-year plan in 1928 leading to the banishment of Trotsky in the Soviet Union the following year, (p,33).
After the death of Lenin due to a heart attack on the 21st of January 1924, his funeral arrangements were bestowed upon none other than Stalin. Against his wishes, Lenin’s body was embalmed and put out for public display in a lavish funeral organized by Stalin. Because the immense power and influence Zinoviev and Kamenev enjoyed in the central committee, they made sure Lenin’s critical testament written about Stalin was never made public.. Finally Lenin’s testament was made public to the provincial leaders only during a party congress meeting. This was one rare opportunity Trotsky could have seized to ask for Stalin’s Removal from his powerful position but he didn’t, (p,45).
Stalin’s difference of opinion with both Zinoviev and Kamenev several months after Lenin’s death deepened facilitating Stalin to closely associate himself with Nikolai Bukharin whom in the thirteenth party congress got elevated to the Politburo. In December 1925, Stalin launched an open attack on both Zinoviev and Kamenev at the Fourteenth Party Congress acknowledging openly how both of them requested for his assistance to get rid of Trotsky from the part,. (p,58).
Rather than stretching the revolution to other territories under the Soviet Union, Stalin was in favor of Bolsheviks promoting communism in countries under his control. Like-minded members of the party were drawn to Stalin’s side while on the other hand Zinoviev, Kamenev and now Trotsky were all ideologically opposed to Stalin’s approach. This led the three forming an opposition that was against everything Stalin proposed. This led to Stalin denting the image of his new found enemies by stating that both Zinoviev and Kamenev voted against the revolution while Trotsky was not a Bolshevik before the revolution, (p,59-62).
Many party members were in agreement with Stalin’s policy of central economy control as well as swift industrialization unlike Lenin’s previous economic policy that was not very popular with the party members. In 1927, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trosky were expelled from the party after their sustained opposition to Stalin’s policies. However after tendering open apology letters after six months of expulsion, both Kamenev and Zinoviev got accepted back as party members with the exception of Trotsky, (p,68-69).
Stalin had to act swiftly to implement collectivization of agriculture after a crucial deficit in grain supplies towards the end of 1927. This led to Stalin personally going to Siberia to supervise the forceful seizure of hoards of grain from helpless kulak farmers. Despite strong condemnation of the act from both premier Rykov as well as Bukharin, majority of the party members applauded the seizures. Bukharin was against Stalin’s idea of using kulak farmers’ money to implement his swift industrialization policy. With the support of other Politburo members, Bukharin was eventually evicted from the politburo after Stalin blamed him of capitalist tendencies as well as factionalism towards the end of 1929, (p,79).
Widely looked at as a positive antidote to war, Stalin embraced and focused on building “Socialism in One Country” which eventually earned Stalin a popular appeal from the less privileged section of the society as a ‘man of the people’ as majority of the Russians were indeed worn out from both the civil war as well as the world war, (p,83-85).
Stalin imposed a ban on factionalism and turned it into law getting rid of anyone who could dare oppose him or his policies. In 1928, Stalin had become a very powerful leader and eventually sent Trosky into exile due to his opposition against his policies. Stalin was in control of both party as well as the country after having outsmarted Bukharin’s Right Opposition and firmly pushing for his policy of collectivization as well as industrialization, (p,86).
As other leaders like Sergei Kirov as well as the Ryutin Affair gained popularity, it was until the Great Purge of 1936 till 1938 that Stalin did achieve supreme power. Stalin guided a very powerful secret police as well as intelligence agencies that would be his ears and eyes on the ground. Stalin’s intelligence network were strategically positioned in all major countries around the world and was referred to as Rote Kappelle spy ring (p, 157)
Stalin never differentiated between propaganda, espionage nor state-sanctioned violence and incorporated all of them into NKVD. To make sure that all foreign communist parties stayed loyal to both the Soviet as well Pro Stalin, he infiltrated agents by exploiting the Communist International Movement. Just to test how well his secret police and foreign espionage could work together, Stalin gave an order to have Trotsky killed in Mexico by the secret police in 1040.
Sergei Kirov’s increasing popularity in the 1930s became a cause of worry for Stalin after Kirov got only 3 nay votes that turned out to be the least for any candidate against 1,108 Stalin’s nay votes. It’s widely believed that Stalin was involved in the killing of Kirov due to his increasing popularity and then implicated Trotsky, Kamenev and Zioviev who were then opposition leaders. During the investigation into Kirov’s death, Stalin further put antiterrorist laws in place that had left no room for defense lawyers, prosecution or appeals but punctuated with swift with executions, (p,99).
After these new laws were firmly put in place throughout the country, several military leaders, high ranking officers as well as Red Army officers were accused of treason and quickly executed under Stalin’s orders. All these atrocities led to Trotsky to say that “river of blood” is what separated Lenin’s era to that of Stalin’s. Stalin eventually got rid of his final opponent from the previous party leadership Trosky who was living in exile in Mexico in 1940. The killing went on with the NKVD undertaking several operations that targeted mainly foreign nationals such as Koreans, Ethnic Germans as well as Poles who were eventually incarcerated and swiftly executed in their thousands.
As the executions went on, no effort was spared to rewrite the textbooks of the Soviet history that gradually ended up focusing on only two individuals, Lenin and Stalin. The prominent people executed by the NKVD were erased from the history books as though they never existed. nearly 700,000 people had been brutally killed at the end of the execution terror with many of them who were just simply ordinary citizens doing ordinary jobs. It’s believed that the actual figure of the victims is twice as much. (p,106).
A cult of personality was created in the Soviet Union by Stalin that revolved around himself as well as Lenin by renaming most of the cities, villages as well as towns after his name. Stalin Prize and Stalin Peace prize were also started in his honor. He also offered himself a prominent role in the revolution in an effort to rewrite the Soviet history. Despite Stalin being between 5 ft 5in and 5 ft 6 in, he had statues created to portray him at Alexander the 3rd’s size as well as height, (p,183).
The cult of personality reached unbelievable proportions and even harshly criticized by Trotsky when Stalin’s name was integrated into the new Soviet national anthem. It became over emphasized so much so that films, paintings, music, poetry as well as literature entirely concentrated on Stalin that almost equated him to god-like stature especially when he implied he single handedly won the Second World War. Stalin simply couldn’t get enough of the cult that encircled him.
After the death of over 160,000 citizens of Lithuania, Latvia as well as Estonia, the three states were incorporated into the Soviet Union by June 1940 when Stalin asserted that he will “solve the Baltic problem”, however, the Soviet Union was granted 10% of the Finnish territory (eastern region of Karelia after entering an interim peace when Soviet Union faced a solid resistance when it tried to invade Finland. After the failed invasion of Finland, Stalin had to strengthen his military by improving its propaganda methods as well as modifying its training, (p,81).
Despite having received tip offs from his generals as well as spies, Stalin still believed that the Soviet Union cannot be attacked by Germany until they had defeated Britain. After the initial stages of the German attack, Stalin hesitated and retreated to his dacha thinking it was a rogue General who must have authorized the attack but not Hitler since they had an agreement. It turns out it was Hitler who authorized the attack and at the end of 1941, the Soviet military not only had 4.3 million casualties but the Germen forces were 1,050 miles inside the Soviet Union. (Lynch)
To be able to counter the Germans, Stalin had to talk to the British diplomats who partly agreed to Stalin’s agreement of mutual assistance and aid pact. With the British assistance, Stalin was able to push back the German troops that were 20 miles within of the Kremlin to 40-50 miles from the Kremlin resulting in German’s major defeat since the invasion. The Soviets had regained half of its territory that the Germans taken by the end of 1943. The final victory for the Soviet Union was achieved when the Red Army along with the allied forces outnumbered Hitler and his German forces with Hitler eventually committing suicide while German soldiers surrendered shortly thereafter, (p,168).
After the war, Stalin was out to have political power in Eastern Europe in 1945 at the conference at Yalta; however Churchill and Roosevelt convinced Stalin not to split Germany. Apart from asking for political power in Eastern Europe, Stalin also wanted to keep Poland which again both Churchill and Roosevelt resisted and eventually Stalin opted to re-organize the existing communist puppet government on a wider democratic basis.
Conclusion
In an effort to dominate Central Europe under Stalin, the Soviet Union, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia as well as Bulgaria founded the Comecon in 1949. On suspicion that the Soviets were behind the Greek Communists, Britain and the United States backed the anti-communists in the Greek Civil War, however the suspicion was not valid since Stalin was not involved in Greece as he thought the movement was still premature. Stalin’s one major last foreign policy he made before his death was his wish for German reunification and disengagement of superpower from central Europe but unfortunately the US, Britain and France turned his wish down due to apprehensions they had about Stalin’s intentions.
After an all-night dinner at his Kuntsevo home on 1st march 1953 along with his interior minister Lavrentiy Beria as well as his future premiers, it’s said Stalin suffered a stroke that could have paralyzed his body on the right side since Stalin never emerged from his room. On the other hand, the other theory suggests that Stalin was assassinated by Beria who bragged of taking him out after poisoning him.
Works Cited
Lynch, Michael. Access to History Stalin’s Russia 1924-53. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.