Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1941 until his death in 1953, governed the country as its General Secretary from the late 1920s until his death. He had initially been part of the country's informal collective leadership with Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, but consolidated his power within the party and state, especially against the influences of Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin, in the mid-to-late 1920s.
Prior to the October Revolution of 1917, Stalin was a revolutionary who had joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) led by Vladimir Lenin, in 1903. In Lenin's first government, Stalin was appointed leader of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities. He also took military positions in the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War. Stalin was one of the Bolsheviks' chief operatives in the Caucasus and grew closer to Lenin, who saw him as tough, loyal, and capable of getting things done behind the scenes. Stalin played a decisive role in engineering the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia. His successes in Georgia propelled him into the ranks of the Politburo in late 1921. At the 11th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1922, the leaders decided to expand the party's Central Committee. This decision led to the creation of the office of the General Secretary which Stalin assumed on 3 April. Stalin soon learned how to use his new office to gain advantages over key persons within the party. He prepared the agenda for the Politburo meetings, directing the course of meetings. As General Secretary, he appointed new local party leaders, establishing a patronage network loyal to him.Isaac Deutscher, Stalin - a Political Biography, 2nd edition, 1961, Swedish , pp 184-233
In 1922, Lenin's health was rapidly deteriorating alongside his relationship with Stalin. Lenin and Trotsky had formed a bloc alliance to counter bureaucratisation of the party and the growing influence of Stalin. Lenin wrote a pamphlet, "Lenin's Testament", urging the party to remove Stalin as General Secretary fearing his authoritarianism.Salisbury, p.266-269 (the book has numerous illustrations.) When Lenin died in 1924, the party was thrown into chaos and a vicious power struggle began. Stalin, through his office as General Secretary, received advance knowledge about Lenin's Testament and sought to delay its release. Upon its release to the party, Stalin offered to resign as General Secretary, but this was rebuked to maintain the image of party unity. With his position secure, Stalin focused on consolidating his power and leveraging antagonisms among party leaders. Many were members of the Politburo, and rivalries extended beyond that. Several People's Commissars were involved in the Party's internal personal as well as political struggles. The main factions within the party included the intellectual "left wing", and the trade unionist "right wing". In this environment, Stalin painted himself as a moderate labeling his faction "the centre" while quietly building alliances with both sides in the mid-1920s.
Stalin then pivoted to focus on Trotsky. Stalin forged an alliance with fellow Old Bolsheviks to oppose Trotsky in the party apparatus. Defeating Trotsky was difficult as he had a prominent role in the October Revolution. Trotsky developed the Red Army and played an indispensable role during the Russian Civil War. Stalin feuded with Trotsky quietly, to appear as "The Golden Centre Man". Prior to the Revolution, Trotsky frequently snubbed Stalin, mocked his lack of education, and questioned his effectiveness as a revolutionary. Stalin's theory of "Socialism in One Country" was a contrast to Trotsky's "Permanent Revolution". Trotsky's downfall was swift: he was first removed as Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (January 1925), then removed from the Politburo (October 1926), and lost his seat on the Central Committee in October 1927. Stalin expelled him from the party in November 1927, and sent him to Alma–Ata in Kazakhstan in 1928. Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union in February 1929, lived the rest of his life in exile, and was ultimately assassinated in August 1940. With Trotsky out of the way, Stalin then pivoted to form an alliance with the party's right wing. Using his position as General Secretary, Stalin began to fill the Soviet bureaucracy with loyalists. After Lenin's death, Stalin traveled across the USSR to deliver lectures on Leninist philosophy and began framing himself as Lenin's successor. As the 1920s progressed, Stalin used his position to expel critics, such as Bukharin, within the party and tightened his grip. Bukharin was an outspoken critic of Stalin's plans for rapid industrialization using Kulak wealth, and advocated a return to Lenin's New Economic Policy; a position that resulted in his execution. Stalin's alliance with the party's right wing ended when Stalin decided to proceed with the First Five Year Plan, abandoning the New Economic Policy. Stalin defeated his opponents within the party by 1928, ending internal power struggles. From 1929 onwards Stalin's leadership over the party and state was established and he remained undisputed leader of the USSR until his death.
Background
Before his 1913-1917 exile in Siberia, Stalin was one of the Bolshevik operatives in the Caucasus, organizing cells, spreading propaganda, and raising money through criminal activities. Stalin also formed the Outfit, a rebel group that were involved with armed robberies, racketeering, assassinations, arms procurement and child couriering. According to Montefiore, Stalin socialised with hitmen "Kamo and Tsintsadze" but issued formal commands to the rest of the Outfit members through his bodyguard. Stalin eventually earned a place in Lenin's inner circle and the highest echelons of the Bolshevik hierarchy. His pseudonym, Stalin, means "man of the steel hand". The October Revolution took place in the Russian capital of Petrograd on 7 November 1917 (O.S. 25 October 1917), which saw the transfer of all political power to the Soviets.
In the Russian Civil War that followed, Stalin forged connections with various Red Army generals and eventually acquired military powers of his own. He brutally suppressed counter-revolutionaries and bandits. After winning the Civil War, the Bolsheviks moved to expand the Revolution into Europe, starting with Poland, which was fighting the Red Army in Ukraine. As joint commander of an army in Ukraine and later in Poland itself, Stalin's actions in the war were later criticized by many, including Leon Trotsky.
Invasion of Georgia and General Secretary In late 1920, with the crises in society following the Russian Civil War, Trotsky argued for the trade unions to be incorporated more and more into the workers' state, and for the workers' state to completely control the industrial sectors. Lenin's position was one where the trade unions were subordinate to the workers' state, but separate, with Lenin accusing Trotsky of "bureaucratically nagging the trade unions". Fearing a backlash from the trade unions, Lenin asked Stalin to build a support base in the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (Rabkrin) against bureaucratism. Lenin's faction eventually prevailed at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921. Frustrated by the squabbling factions within the Communist Party during what he saw as a time of crisis, Lenin convinced the Tenth Congress to pass a ban on any opposition to official Central Committee policy (the Ban on Factions, a law which Stalin would later exploit to expel his enemies).Robert Service. Stalin: A Biography. 2004.
Stalin played a decisive role in engineering the Red Army invasion of Georgia in February and March 1921, at a time when Georgia was the biggest Menshevik stronghold. Following the invasion, Stalin adopted particularly hardline, centralist policies towards Soviet Georgia, which included severe repression of opposition to the Bolsheviks, and to opposition within the local Communist Party (e.g., the Georgian Affair of 1922), not to mention any manifestations of anti-Sovietism (the August Uprising of 1924).Knight, Ami W. (1991), Beria and the Cult of Stalin: Rewriting Transcaucasian Party History. Soviet Studies, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 749–763. It was in the Georgian affairs that Stalin first began to play his own hand.Shanin, Teodor (July 1989), Ethnicity in the Soviet Union: Analytical Perceptions and Political Strategies. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 409–424. Lenin, however, disliked Stalin's policy towards Georgia, as he believed that all Soviet states should be on equal standing with Russia, rather than be absorbed and subordinated to Russia.
Grigory Zinoviev successfully had Stalin appointed to the post of General Secretary in March 1922, with Stalin officially starting in the post on 3 April 1922. Stalin still held his posts in the Orgburo, the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate and the Commissariat for Nationalities Affairs, though he agreed to delegate his workload to subordinates. With this power, he would steadily place his supporters in positions of authority.
Lenin's retirement and death
On 25 May 1922, Lenin suffered a stroke while recovering from surgery to remove a bullet lodged in his neck since a failed assassination attempt in August 1918. Severely debilitated, he went into semi-retirement and moved to his dacha in Gorki. After this, prominent Bolsheviks were concerned about who would take over if Lenin actually died. Lenin and Trotsky had more of a personal and theoretical relationship, while Lenin and Stalin had more of a political and apparatical relationship. Yet, Stalin visited Lenin often, acting as his intermediary with the outside world. During this time, the two quarrelled over economic policy and how to consolidate the Soviet republics. One day, Stalin verbally swore at Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, for breaching Politburo orders by helping Lenin communicate with Trotsky and others about politics; this greatly offended Lenin. As their relationship deteriorated, Lenin dictated increasingly disparaging notes on Stalin in what would become his testament.
The veracity of Lenin dictating the writing of this letter has been disputed. Historian Stephen Kotkin assesses that Krupskaya, working in tandem with Trotsky, may have written it in an effort to discredit Stalin and remove him from his role in the government. However, most historians consider the document to be an accurate reflection of Lenin's views. Various historians have also cited Lenin's proposal to appoint Trotsky as a Vice-chairman of the Soviet Union as evidence that he intended Trotsky to be his successor as head of government.
According to historian Geoffrey Roberts, none of the Soviet figures questioned the authenticity of the document at the time. He noted that Stalin himself quoted the full passage of the testament and commented that "Indeed I am rude, Comrades, to those who rudely and perfidiously destroy and split the party. I have not hidden this, and still do not". The memorandum contains information criticizing Stalin's rude manners, excessive power, ambition, and politics, and suggested that Stalin should be removed from the position of General Secretary. One of Lenin's secretaries showed Stalin the notes, whose contents shocked him. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered his most debilitating stroke, which ended his political career.