Stalin the Master Puppeteer

Mark Belianski

Doran

Block3/4

April 3rd, 2015

Stalin: The Master Puppeteer

        Josef Stalin came to power by the means of trickery and deception he had to rise through the ranks. During Lenin’s reign he put Stalin as General Secretary of the Communist Party (Kuromiya). Stalin used his post to provide his allies government jobs, which grew Stalin’s supporters for his political ideas. After Lenin’s death in 1924 Stalin was determined to become leader of the USSR. Stalin seized his position as leader in 1924 and eliminated all his competition such as Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters. The elimination of Trotsky allowed Stalin to easily take the position as the leader of the USSR. The Great Purge that was launched by Josef Stalin in the 1920’s consumed the USSR’s population and the Red Army into fear; ultimately allowing Stalin to seize the title as the undeniable ruler of the USSR.

        Throughout Stalin’s political profession he was able to make loyal allies with members in office, which would later support him for being leader of the USSR. Stalin’s position as General Secretary allowed him to make close connections with other member within the government that are loyal supporters of his cause. The role actually allowed Stalin vast powers over the party; it gave him a seat in the Politburo, overseeing policy, but also oversight over party members as he had access to over 26,000 personal files (Edward). Stalin’s position also allowed him great patronage: those who rose within the party structure usually had Stalin to thank, and this growing loyalty to Stalin was demonstrated in the party congresses (BBC). Lenin’s legacy had set the stage for Stalin, placing Stalin in the administrative center of a bureaucracy-bound party and by handing him thousands of new party members over whom he had power and patronage (Source). Stalin’s political position eventually allowed him to gain loyal followers that would reinforce Stalin’s ideas for self-glorification.

        Another factor for Stalin’s rise to power was his exceptional ability in eliminating his competition. Stalin’s opponents made some major mistakes, ultimately leading them to their own downfall and allowing Stalin to rise through the ranks. There was an early failure by his rivals to rid themselves of Stalin by underestimating him; they ignored the dying Lenin’s clear contempt for his General by not publishing Lenin’s testament (BBC). Stalin also attended Lenin’s funeral and gave a speech; on the other hand Trotsky was tricked into not coming giving him a bad image (Tucker). Trotsky was Stalin’s greatest rival and a favored candidate to become leader of the USSR. In order for Stalin to insure his position he removed him from his post as war Commissariat in 1925, and exiled him from the USSR permanently on January 1928(BBC). E.H. Carr described Zinoviev as “weak” while Kamenev “lacked vision”(Carr). Stalin was able to remove Zinoviev and Kamenev by destroying their image and their supporters. By 1928 Stalin was left to be the undisputed ruler of the USSR. Stalin’s use of trickery and the elimination of possible challengers allowed Stalin to become the favored leader of the people in the USSR.

        During Stalin’s reign in 1924 he thought it was necessary for the USSR to rapidly industrialize by the means of the five-year plans. Stalin wanted to industrialize the USSR by moving away from being an agriculture state and becoming an industrial state. Historians had believed that if Stalin didn’t industrialize the Soviet Union by 1941 they wouldn’t have had the modern weaponry to fight the Nazis in World War II and would have suffered significantly greater losses (Edward). The Five Year plans were a series of nationalized plans for the economic development of the Soviet Union (Edward). Stalin’s main goal was make the Soviet Union have a self-sufficient economy that was able to increase the amount of industrial goods being outputted (BBC). The Five Year Plans also brought all industry and industrial development under state control. Stalin was able to transform the Soviet Union from an agriculture state to an industrial state by introducing a system of collectivization.

        Stalin used collectivization to further the advances of the agriculture output at the expense of the Kulaks. In the early 1930’s Stalin had the Kulak farms nationalized by taking the land and food grown by the peasants, and made public (Hingley). The introduction of collectivization essentially destroyed the Kulak class causing the death of millions of people. The farms that were once the Kulaks were now collective farms where the livestock and land belonged to the government (Hingley). As a result many farmers slaughtered their livestock so that the government couldn’t use the animals to their benefit (BBC). Kulaks that didn’t agree with the terms of working on a collective farm were sent to gulags, imprisoned, or executed. Stalin forced the deportation of roughly one million Kulak households (Edward). The NKVD or Stalin’s secrete police would round up the Kulaks and send them to gulags. Gulags were used at full force during Stalin’s reign; during the 1920’s the total inmate population was around 100,000 and by 1936 the Gulag held a total of 5,000,000 prisoners (Edward). It was estimated that harsh climate, inadequate food, working conditions and executions killed of 10 percent of the Gulag’s total prisoner population each year (Robert). On the other hand Kulaks that stayed on collective farms were forced to work in groups called Kolkhoz. The government made the peasants sell their crops for low prices. Eventually Stalin raised the quotas to impossible standards and the NKVD either killed or imprisoned the framers that couldn’t meet the quota. Stalin’s use of collectivization allowed him to silence any opposition that would challenge him and insure his position as the leader of the Soviet Union but leading Stalin to attack a new enemy?