Question by : why was there no clear successor to lenin in 1924?
i’m stuck on this question in the AQA textbook, and was wondering if someone could just help me by just clarifying the main points. perhaps a teacher or ex student could help, but even if you don’t know the aqa history your answer will be appreciated. i just want someone with a clear understanding of the topic to explain it to me. i need this answered by tomorrow please. thanks for reading.
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Answer by Spellbound
Lenin’s concerns over who was to replace him were largely due to ego, he thought that no-one was capable of seeing Russia’s problems, or the “correct” Marxist solution as clearly as he could. Lenin’s ego was the main reason why no one candidate emerged whilst he was alive.
He was concerned about all the the prospective candidates, seeing such flaws in their characters that he thought none of them were suitable for the position. He outlined all of his concerns in his testament. In many ways he was right, Bolshevism was, in reality, Lenin’s project, anyone who disagreed with him was either thrown out of the party, branded a Menshevik, or worse.
After Lenin’s stroke in 1922, the senior Bolsheviks could not agree on an individual who had the intellectual and moral authority to replace Lenin, so they compromised, and picked three leaders – Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev to rule until he either got better or died. This was made official once Lenin died.
His arguments with fellow Marxists went back to his early days in exile, when he disagreed with the founders of the Russia Social Democratic Labour Party Georgi Plekhanov and Pavel Aksel’rod, this disagreement led him to form his own faction of people who followed his ideas – the Bolsheviks.
See:
Lenin, A Biography – Robert Service
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/12/lenin.htm
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/fi/vol02/no01/editors.htm
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ammianus says
Lenin was a dictator, not a king, and led a political party, not a nation as such (it just so happened that his political party was in control of the Soviet Union at the time). Thus, there was no succession by family or birthright for anyone – the Bolshevik party had to choose a new leader collectively,rather than just watch one inherit the position.
Ideology and policy were divided among party members at all levels.The issue was the survival of the Revolution and thus,by extension,the party itself.Trotsky and his followers wanted to export the revolution, backing Communist revolutionaries in other countries (using the Red Army if necessary) to overthrow hostile capitalist and democratic governments elsewhere.Only then, argued Trotsky,would the Revolution in Russia be truly safe and irreversible. On the other hand,Stalin argued that Russia had to modernize and industrialize, thus becoming strong enough to defend itself from outside threats. The Revolution would then be secured internally, as the whole population would benefit from this policy of Socialism in One Country.
It should also be remembered that, before he became ill, Lenin was a powerful and ruthless leader. Everybody had to follow his orders or suffer the consequences.As he was ill for some time before his death, this left a power vacuum with Lenin too ill to give the party membership any clear indication of who he wanted as successor.
So, the more powerful figures in government and the higher echelons of the party jostled for position, to secure there own places and influence in the new regime that would emerge.