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Stalin Vs. Trotsky In 1922, when
Vladimir Lenin became incapacitated, there was a clear need of a
successor for the Soviet Union. As he was slowly dying, a power
struggle emerged between Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin. These two
had developed a deep hatred and rivalry for each other. Even though
Trotsky “had been widely viewed as the heir of Lenin, it was
relatively easy for Stalin to combine with the other Bolshevik
leaders in order to head off this threat” (Paley 10)1. In
Lenin’s “Final Testament”, Lenin could already see that Stalin was
quickly and surreptitiously gaining power. Stalin’s position of
General Secretary gave him the ability to appoint people to
important positions. Lenin was also reluctant to see Stalin as his
successor because he thought that Trotsky could do a much better
job. Lenin believed that Trotsky was the best man in the central
committee for the job. The date of January 21st, 1924 was no
ordinary date for Russia. It marked the death of the countries
leader Lenin, and now Stalin and Trotsky would truly compete for
leadership. Unfortunately, Stalin won by exiling Trotsky, and in 5
years was in complete totalitarian control of Russia. Trotsky
would have been a better leader than Stalin due to their contrasting
past histories, ideological beliefs and contrasting beliefs of
socialism. Stalin and
Trotsky each had their own experiences growing up which impacted and
influenced them to become revolutionaries. Joseph Stalin was born in
1879 in Georgia, which at that time was in southern Russia. He was
the son of a poor shoemaker, and the only child in his family to
survive past infancy. Not much else is known about his childhood,
except that he lived with a priest, and received a religious
education. In 1889, he was expelled from his seminary because he
failed to go to his examinations. In the future, Stalin would say
that he was really kicked out because he was a revolutionary. His
original name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, however in 1913
he used the pseudonym Stalin, after becoming a Bolshevik
revolutionary. Changing his name also allowed Stalin to have a
Russian sounding name like Lenin. Stalin was known as a hard worker,
but “unlike Lenin he was neither a great thinker nor a great writer”
(Killingray 3)2.
Even though Stalin wasn’t the brightest
of revolutionaries, he was still smart enough to win the power
struggle with Trotsky. On the other hand, a great deal is known
about Trotsky’s life and childhood. Leon Trotsky was also born in
1879, but in the Kherson Province, in Ukraine. His original name was
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. He didn’t have that great of a childhood
mostly because his parents were always busy with their jobs on the
farm. For the first part of his life, he and his family lived in the
country, where he learned to appreciate seclusion. Despite his
parents always being occupied, his “lack of affection only developed
in him a more affectionate attitude towards others” (Garza
19)3. When Lev was 9 years old, he moved to Odessa, with
his uncle Monya. When Trotsky was 10, for the first time his
revolutionary side was shown. While in school in Odessa, he stood up
for a fellow student who experienced an injustice. A teacher acted
cruel to this particular student only for the reason that this
student was slower than the rest of the class. In order to retaliate
against this unjustness, Lev “organized a protest, in which students
drove their teacher into a rage by making a howling noise with their
mouths closed” (Garza 21)4. Trotsky was known for
absorbing as much knowledge as he possibly could in school. When
Trotsky was 17, he fully believed “that revolution was the only
route to a better life for the working class of the world” (Garza,
25)5. For this reason, he joined the Bolshevik party
under the leadership of Lenin. After the revolution was successful,
Trotsky assembled and organized the Soviet Red Army. During the
civil war preceding the Revolution, Trotsky faced a new enemy known
as the White Army. While Trotsky was organizing the Red Army, Stalin
was “behind the scenes…[sitting] on the Revolutionary War Council
and whispered malicious rumors in Lenin’s ear about Trotsky’s
military tactics” (Garza 68)6. Despite Stalin’s efforts
to ruin Trotsky’s reputation, Leon had proven himself a military
genius when the British troops in Estonia and Latvia threatened to
attack Petrograd. Stalin suggested using a defeatist strategy by
abandoning Petrograd and sending all the troops to Moscow. However,
Trotsky was in direct opposition to this plan, and told Lenin to let
him try to save Petrograd. He persuaded Lenin to allow him to
attempt to save the ancient city. Trotsky came to Petrograd
determined to convert every civilian to an armed soldier. Trotsky
ultimately succeeded mainly due to his persuasive speeches and
confidence. British tanks were in the suburbs and their navy was
ready to attack and shell the city at any time, although due to
Trotsky’s excellent leadership, the city held out. Had Stalin been
in command of Petrograd, the city would have been lost to the
British. Despite Stalin’s and Trotsky’s contrasting youths, they
were both revolutionaries, but with different sets of beliefs. Stalin and
Trotsky each had a different outlook on how the Soviet state should
be run. Even after Trotsky was exiled, Stalin was not in complete
control of the communist party. Stalin still had a few so-called
“rivals”, who had helped him get rid of Trotsky. He may have had the
most power, although was not yet to the level of power that he
craved, because he had to share power with the rest of the communist
party. One by one, Stalin got rid of other important people in the
communist party, so that he alone could have total control and
power. In 1929, Stalin was at the head of Politburo, where he was
able to emerge as the real leader and dictator of Russia. In order
to eliminate any other possibilities of resistance, Stalin issued
the “Great Purges” in 1936 (Paley 13)7. In these Great
Purges, high ranked officials of the communist party were accused of
crimes against the Soviet State. Even though in most cases, the
people were perfectly innocent, they were executed only because
there was the slight possibility that they may have held opposition
to Stalin. High-ranking officials were not the only ones who were
victimized in this “campaign of terror”. A man by the name of
Raskolnikov wrote a letter to Stalin concerning the great purges:
“No one, as he goes to bed, knows whether he will escape arrest in
the night…. You begun with bloody vengeance on former Trotskyites…
[then] went on to destroy the old Bolsheviks” (Killingray
28)8. By using the great purges to his advantage, Stalin
was betraying Lenin’s original methodology by killing the Lenin’s
old revolutionary friends. With no one left to oppose him, Stalin
was pretty much an absolute ruler of the Soviet Union. When Stalin
gained complete power, he wanted to make sure that he would never
meet any resistance or opposition. He felt that the only way that
this goal could be accomplished was by completely dominating and
controlling all aspects of people’s lives. Stalin even went as far
as to use literature and art as “a puppet of the totalitarian state”
(Trotsky 20)9. Despite being exiled from Russia, Trotsky
was able to write criticism on Stalin. He was very angry with the
way that Stalin ruled Russia, and he took no mercy in his writings
about Stalin. Trotsky argued that Stalin had betrayed the original
purpose of Lenin’s revolution, by using the Soviet Union as his
“personal dictatorship”. Trotsky also accused Stalin of running a
bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. (Paley 11-12)10. During
Stalin’s reign, many efforts were made to industrialize in order to
compete with the other modern nations in the world. These efforts
came to be called the “the five years plans”. Sure these plans may
sound to be beneficial, although in reality, millions of people died
as a direct result of these 5-year plans. Since all efforts were
made at industrializing, there were constant shortages of food for
the peasants. Also, Stalin forced all the peasants to join
collective farms. These collective farms were basically giant farms
in which the peasants worked together to produce food for the Soviet
State. One problem that Stalin encountered was a group of wealthy
peasants who were called the Kulaks. They did not want to join the
collective farms, so Stalin saw this as opposition to his power. He
immediately ordered them to either be executed, or be sent to work
camps in Siberia. Another problem that was evident was that the
peasants as a whole were opposed to this whole idea of
“collectivization”. Stalin ordered the Red Army to kill many of the
peasants who were not in compliance with Collective farms. While it
is not certain what Trotsky would have done were he the ruler of
Russia, “it is possible that Trotsky would have followed a similar
policy had he risen to power. But the policy was pursued ruthlessly
by Stalin, despite the fact that he was of peasant background
himself” (Paley 14)11. So if Trotsky was the leader of
the Soviet Union, he would have most likely tried to modernize
Russia, although not at the same level that Stalin did. While Stalin
wanted to achieve his goal regardless of the costs, Trotsky would
have shown an idealistic approach to the same goal of modernizing.
It is almost certain that Trotsky would have followed Lenin’s
original principals and methods to create the best Soviet State
possible, with a minimal cost of lives. But as a result of Stalin’s
rule, millions and millions of innocent people died. Stalin and
Trotsky not only had different principles and beliefs on how the
Soviet State should be run, but they also had differing views on how
socialism should work. While Stalin wanted “Socialism in one
country”, Trotsky along with Lenin wanted worldwide Socialism.
Stalin knew that his idea would fail if it was not brought out at
exactly the right time. He waited until his campaign against Trotsky
had brought down the popularity of Trotsky. Then Stalin proposed his
theory in 1925. Stalin’s own original supporters Zinoviev and
Kamenev opposing this plan, although it was too late, because Stalin
had become too powerful (Garza 79)12. The only reason as
to why Stalin proposed this theory so late was because it was in
direct conflict with Trotsky’s theory of worldwide revolution. In
order to actually succeed his theory of “Socialism in one country”,
Stalin had to make the ideal and perfect socialistic/communist
state. He could only accomplish this by making the Soviet Union a
dictatorship, with him making all of its important decisions, and
thereby making Russia a totalitarian state. Trotsky believed that it
was important if not vital that capitalist countries in the west
would have a communist revolution. If this occurred, Russia would
easily have allies and friends. Although if there is no communist
revolution in capitalist countries, then Russia would have a hostile
relationship with the capitalist nations. The only reason as to why
Stalin beat Trotsky over this matter was because “he had the support
from other members of the Politburo who feared Trotsky” (Killingray
5)13. The real turning point came when Lenin abandoned
Trotsky on this idea. This happened because Lenin saw the waves of
failed world revolutions, and that keeping communism in Russia
should take priority above all else. Ironically enough though,
Stalin wasn’t the first to come up with “Socialism in one country”.
The question
of whether Russia would have been better off without Stalin is more
fact than opinion based. Sure he may have industrialized Russia, but
at what cost? Stalin had millions of people killed directly and
indirectly just to accomplish his goal of “socialism in one
country”. If Trotsky was the leader, he would have followed in
Lenin’s footsteps, instead of completely betraying the October
Revolution like Stalin did. In conclusion, if Trotsky were the
leader of Russia, he would have done a better job than Stalin due to
their contrasting past histories, ideological beliefs and
contrasting beliefs of socialism. Works Cited: Trotsky, Leon. Art
and Revolution. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970. Killingray, David.
Stalin. London: George G. Harrap and Co. LTD, 1977. Paley,
Alan. Stalin The Iron-Fisted Dictator of Russia. New York:
Story House Corp., 1971. Garza,
Hedda. World Leaders Past and Present Trotsky. New York:
Chelsea House, 1986. Wolfe,
Bertram. Three Who Made A Revolution. New York: Stein And
Day, 1984. | ||||||||||||||
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