Stalins Rise to Power
Stalin first became interested in politics when as a theology student; he began reading illegal the works of political philosopher Karl Marx. He eventually gave up his religious education to devote his time to the revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy. After becoming involved in the movement, Stalin joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. When the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party split into the Menshevik and Bolshevik factions, Stalin was drawn to the more militant Bolsheviks, who were led by Vladimir Lenin. Upon the Bolsheviks upheaval of the monarchy, Stalin became an active member of the new government and held many different influential positions. He was eventually elected a member of the Communist Party's highest decision making body, the Politurbo, and the Central Committee's Orgburo (Organizational Bureau). The Orgburo supervised the work of local party committees. It was the next body in the Communist Party hierarchy after the Politurbo. In 1922, after Lenin suffered a stroke, St
In 1925, Stalin again used his shrewd political maneuvering ability to join with Bukharin and Rykov in a new coalition against his former partners Zinoviev and Kamenev. The plan, which was financed by exploiting resources in the countryside, resulted in the near collapse of Soviet agriculture and the deaths of millions of peasants from famine. At the same time, he pressed forward with a program of rapid industrialization, which began with the first Five-Year Plan in 1928. Policy Initiatives In the late 1920s Stalin decided the New Economic Policy (NEP), which Lenin had introduced to stimulate postwar economic recovery by encouraging limited private enterprise, no longer worked. Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev formed what was known as the "Left Opposition" in order to block Stalin's control of the party. In the "testament", he called for Stalin's removal from the post of general secretary. It was this difference of opinion, along with Stalin's shrewdness and thirst for authoritarian power that ended Trotsky's ascension in Communist Party. Through political maneuvering, Stalin was able to discount and suppress Lenin's testament, as well as join with Kamenev and Zinoviev to gain control of the party. Stalin believed the Soviet Union had to industrialize rapidly in order to strengthen the Communist regime and enable the country to defend itself against foreign enemies. The rate of economic growth was declining and peasants were not producing enough grain to satisfy demand. Instead of giving the peasants economic incentives to raise production, Stalin chose to implement a policy called Collectivization that forced them into state-owned collective farms. Trotsky also objected strongly to Stalin's theory of "socialism in one country," which claimed that the success of Russia's revolution did not depend on the revolution spreading to the rest of the world. If they would have combined forces much sooner, they would have had a better chance in taking away Stalin's power, however, personal issues got in the way. alin was elected general secretary of the Communist Party, a position that gave him control over appointments and established a base for his political power.
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