Critical Discussion of the Rise of Stalin and His Betrayal of Lenin’s Legacy

Introduction

Following Lenin’s death in 1924, a competition within the Communist Party characterized the mood of the time, with different members striving to seize leadership of the Soviet Union. This was especially evident in the United/Left Opposition that consisted of leading figures like Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev and the Right Opposition, which included Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. Despite such members being in the picture, Stalin was able to rise to power following Lenin’s death in 1924, consolidating it by 1929. This essay will discuss the rise of Stalin to power and assess the extent in which he betrayed Lenin’s legacy in the process.

Body

Stalin’s rise to power is of itself a political betrayal of Lenin's Legacy due to the elimination of Trotsky, his preferred successor. In 1912, When Lenin, the leader of the Communist Party, was exiled in Switzerland, he appointed Stalin to work for the Central Committee (the executive leadership of the party). When the Communist Party had taken control of Russia in 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution, with the Soviet Union emerging in 1922 with Lenin as its leader, Stalin's position in the party continuously augmented until he rose to the post of Secretary General of the Central Committee. He exploited his power by appointing allies in government jobs and thereby building a support circle for himself by ensuring that every member in the Communist party “would owe their position to him”.

For this reason, when Lenin’s health forced him into semi-retirement in 1922, he made a testament suggesting the removal of Stalin from his position as secretary general, criticizing his “inconsiderate conduct and exorbitant power” (Real 2016:8), proposing Trotsky as leader. Nevertheless, Stalin hid Lenin’s testament from the Twelfth Party Conference of 1923, which was in fact not published until his death. Following Lenin’s death, Stalin used tactics to win the power struggle by removing people from their positions and “exile(ing) abroad to Europe and the Americas, including presumed Lenin successor Leon Trotsky”. Indeed, Stalin made an unofficial triumvirate with Kamenev and Zinoviev against Trosky in 1922 and when Trosky made a speech against Stalin’s beaurocracy in 1923 encouraging democracy within the soviet system, the triumvirate accused him of hypocrisy and anti-Leninism, leading to his loss of popularity within the party (Barrow 1997:2). Hence, Stalin betrayed Lenin’s legacy politically by hiding his testament and eliminating Trotsky from the political scene in order to rise to power.

However, it could be argued that Stalin’s rise to power was not a betrayal to Lenin’s legacy in any extent as this was due to uncontrollable factors. In 1924, Trotsky published his “Lessons of October” essay which attacked both Kamenev and Zinoviev by highlighting a letter by Kamenev stating that they are against the initiation of the Bolshevik October revolution: “Comrade Zinoviev and I,” “assume the initiative of an armed insurrection at the present moment”, “ruinous to the proletariat and to the revolution.” (Trotsky 1924:42-43). In return, Kamenev delivered the “Leninism or Trotskyism” speech in 1925 on the 18th of November Moscow Committee, pointing to Trotsky’s flaws during the revolution by distinguishing him from Leninism by blaming him for being against the revolution as he is a “European” and hence “found himself superior to the “uncultured,” “barbaric,” “sectarian,” “Asiatic,” Bolsheviki” and was in favour of “European social democracy” instead of revolution (Kamenev 1925). When in 1926 Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky formed the “United Opposition” against Stalin after having been “pulling each other apart” as explained, it was ironic that the party would take them seriously.

Hence, when at the fourteenth party congress, Zinoviev stated in a speech a desire to create a “collective leadership” of the party following Lenin’s death, Kamenev similarly expressed “we are against establishing a Vozhd... standing over the political organ (party)” or a secretariat of the party and Trotsky in 1926 warned the party that a secretariat or “further development of a bureaucratic regime leads fatally to individual rule”, reminding them of Lenin’s testament about Stalin’s vast power; the opposition was accused of “anti Leninist ideological heresy” as Bukharin expressed Leninism being in favour of the “establishment of the proletarian dictatorship” and eliminating all other political parties to be the “sole party”, let alone more democratic leaderships (Daniels 1991:281-282). As a result, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky were all expelled from the party in 1926 (Francis 2015). Meanwhile, in 1924, Stalin published “The Foundations of Leninism” which he lectured across universities, pretending to be “Lenin’s devoted apostle” (Barrow, 1997:2). Hence the “United Opposition” was eliminated due to their own frictions and the party was left with a Stalin-Bukharin leadership that was soon to become Stalin’s solely (Daniels 1991:281-284).

Stalin’s rise to power could be accredited to an ideological betrayal of Lenin’s legacy to a large extent as it thrived on party divisions and introduced non Leninist policies such as “Socialism in One Country” and the New Economic Policy to manipulate divisions. In 1921, political unrest in “Tambov, Petrograd and Kronstadt” started taking place due to the dissatisfaction of the peasants and proletariat with the Bolshevik Party. Indeed, the party was heavily fragmented mainly into the “Workers opposition” that wanted full proletariat control of industry and the “Democratic Centralists” who wanted to establish democracy within the party (Barrow, 1997:2). Lenin put an end to all the divisions by proclaiming an “On Party Unity” under the 1921 Party Congress, which introduced a ban on internal fractions, expelling anyone that causes divisions.

However, through Stalin, it is evident that his rise to power thrived and manipulated the divide within the party (Lenin 1921). For example, he introduced his “socialism in one Country” policy in 1924 to distance himself from the party’s left (U.S. Library of Congress) who according to Trotsky saw it as a betrayal to both Marxism and Leninism in his book: “Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where is it Going?”. Indeed this was because Lenin as Marx, believed in a “world (socialist) revolution” that was permanent.

This policy however, suggests a non-global revolution focused on Russia alone and its internal strength rather than spreading socialism abroad (Qualls 2003:23). By introducing that, he had “won support from Bukharin and the party's right wing” (U.S. Library of Congress). He then worked on the New Economic policy with the right, which was initiated by Bukharin, introducing capitalist measures to improve the economy through agriculture. Bukharin saw that the soviet economy was damaged by Lenin’s “war communism” which emphasized state industrial production as the country no longer possessed economic means for industrialization. At the same time, agriculture was lacking due to the confiscation of food from peasants, lack of incentive and the collectivization of farms. The NEP would allow a “capitalist agricultural economy” where marketplaces existed for peasants to sell their goods so they would have an incentive to grow more, and as “accumulation in the peasant economy progressed,'' they would demand industrial goods such as “tractors, fertilizer and machinery”, in turn stimulating the industrial sector. Kulaks or rich peasants were no longer to be discriminated against and instead be seen as a tool for improvement.

Despite this, the NEP failed as industrial prices soared and agricultural prices dropped due to increased agricultural production. Peasants found it pointless to sell their food and hoarded it instead. Indeed in 1924, when authorities in the Ukrainian city of Rostov demanded delivery of 25% of flour, they were merely able to collect “⅓ of the grain”. This proved a disaster as it meant hunger prevailed across the towns. Even in the countryside problems existed as poor peasants often had their farms fail due to lack of machinery which forced them to work in exploitation as “wage laborers” on the Kulaks’ farms where up to 30% of them were surviving on “nothing but potatoes” in 1924 Ukraine.

In 1926, when grain collection failed to meet quota by “200 million bushels”, Stalin “declared war against Kulaks” (Columbia University) by undergoing mass collectivization and de-kulakization of the countryside in 1929 through the seizure of their farms and joining them to many small ones where machinery would be shared. Verily, in 1930, “sixty million people in over 100,000 villages” lived in collective farms and “genocidal attacks” were made against Kulaks (Naimark 2010:54-55). Despite this failure, Bukharin remained in favour of the NEP (Columbia University). Stalin accused him of “opposing industrialization and collectivization” both of which Lenin believed in. Though this was not true, Bukharin only remained on his opinion due to fears of possible peasant rebellions. Stalin thus declared him a “Right deviationist” (Bean 1997:86) and he was removed from both the Politburo and Commintern in 1929, severely hindering his position in the party and marking Stalin’s ultimate rise to power by being the “ only contender left to take ultimate power” (Francis 2015). Hence, Stalin betrayed Lenin’s legacy by introducing non-socialist policies to alienate opposition groups and manipulate divisions in order to rise to power.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Stalin’s rise to power can be traced to the betrayal of Lenin to a large extent. After all, he hid Lenin’s testament, eliminated his preferred successor Leonid Trotsky, introduced anti-Leninist/Marxist policies like “Socialism in One country” rather than the Leninist permanent world revolution and worked on the New Economic Policy allowing capitalistic freedoms in the agricultural sphere rather than the Leninist collectivization of agriculture and focus on industrialization. All of this was to play on the divisions within the party and alienate them to rise to power, where Lenin in contrast banned divisions within the party. However, it could still be argued that Stalin did not betray Lenin’s legacy as his rise to power was somewhat coincidental due to the party’s divisions demeaning themselves on their own, leaving him as the only alternative by 1929.