• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Russian Best

Russian Life & People Digest

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Questions and Answers
    • History and Politics
    • Culture and Science
    • People and Language
    • Lifestyle and Attributes
    • Russian Sports
    • Food and Drinks
    • Traveling Russia
    • Economy and Geography
    • Russian Military
    • Books & Movies
Browse: Home / History and Politics

How did the death of Lenin affect the rise of Stalin’s power?

Question by : How did the death of Lenin affect the rise of Stalin’s power?
How did the death of Lenin affect the rise of Stalin’s power? Did the death help Stalin to finally come to power? Any information about how he rose to power after Lenin’s death? Thanks

Answers and Views:

Answer by Spellbound
Stalin had been gradually accumulating power even when Lenin was alive, the post of General Secretary allowed him to ensure that his supporters were assigned to key posts in the Central Committee.

Lenin’s death meant that ALL the rivals for power tried to claim that they were the true upholders of Lenin’s legacy, and that everyone else was not.
After Lenin’s death he waited, allowing other Politburo members to state their preferred policies – he then ganged up on groups of them, using his alliances and his party contacts to destroy the opposition. His did this twice in the 1920s, destroying Trotsky and his supporters and Zinoviev and Kamenev and their supporters. This left him as the undisputed ruler by about 1928.

Once he was the undisputed leader – the Vozhd (meaning Boss) he continued to use the position of General Secretary of the Communist Part to promote loyal supporters and demote, or expel from the party those who he could not be sure about. From the mid 1930s began to use show trials – public events where the accused had to follow a script, nearly always ending in a guilty verdict, and purges – expelling great numbers from the party and arresting people arbitrarily. Fear became one of the main weapons Stalin used against the Soviet people. No-one was safe – loyal Molotov was forced to divorce his wife when she was arrested, her crime? She was Jewish! Stalin also bugged the offices of the other members of the Politburo and collected information on them.

On his way to power he was cautious and did not cause the deaths of anyone – he waited until he could destroy people without any political opposition.
The Great Purge which happened after he gained total power consumed about 2.5 million people.
In the purge he had Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Radek, Rykov and Tomsky (all leading old Bolsheviks) all arrested, tried and executed. He had Trotsky assassinated in Mexico in 1940, this was the last of the important old Bolsheviks he had killed.
In a nutshell, he came to power by manipulating those around him, by exploiting the posts he held for maximum political effect, and by being utterly ruthless in his pursuit of power.

See:
The Road to Terror by J Arch Getty & Oleg Naumov
Stalin, A Biography – Robert Service
http://goo.gl/jNKEl

Read all the answers in the comments.

Add your own answer!

See other posts in History and Politics

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Popular Posts

Pushkin's Tatiana writing a letter to Onegin

Onegin’s Tatiana Was Only Thirteen?

Russian shashlik

My Favorite Russian Food

Dacha – Home Away From Home

Subway Dog

Subway Dogs of Moscow

Cape Cod on the Rocks

What is a cocktail with vodka and cranberry juice called?

Categories

Recent Comments

  • Pat on What does Nazdrovia actually mean?
  • Ted on Where can i send free SMS messages to Russian mobiles?
  • PutinPow on What does Nazdrovia actually mean?
  • bigdogg on What does Nazdrovia actually mean?
  • HAMISH A McDONALD on What Russia would be like today if Nicholas II had not been executed?

Copyright RussianBest.com © 2025 · About · Privacy Policy · Disclaimer: RussianBest.com is an informational website, and its content does not constitute professional advice of any kind.