Stalin as Leader of USSR by 1929

Stalin as Leader of USSR by 1929

When the leader of Russia, Lenin died, there was a battle to succeed

him. The people after his job were Trotsky, Stalin, Kamenev and

Buckharin. The real contest was between Trotsky and Stalin.

Lenin died on the 21st of January1924, he had been ill for some time.

He had been through a lot with the Bolsheviks and when they took over

he had become leader of the USSR. When the civil war began in 1918, I

doubt he was thinking that when it ended in 1921, he would be leader.

But the contest to succeed him got bigger and bigger as time went on,

and the battle between Trotsky and Stalin was hotting up.

Trotsky's full name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein, so as you can tell

from the name, he was Jewish. This was a disadvantage because of

Russian attitudes towards Jews. He was also over confident and

arrogant. He made no effort to build up support for himself - infact

he annoyed many leading Bolsheviks with his attitude. But that's just

his weaknesses, he had strengths too.

He was a close friend of Lenin - he was second to Lenin in the list of

important communists. He was a great intellectual and speaker. Trotsky

had planned the revolution of November 1917 and had carried it out

like clockwork. He had been a very successful general during the civil

war. So it seemed that he had a very good chance of succeeding Lenin.

Stalin's full name was Josef Vissarianovich Djugash, he was a Georgian

and was born near Tblisi in 1879.

Stalin was a real outsider in the leadership race; he was virtually

unknown and he was not intellectual and not a great speaker like

Trotsky.

He had not done much in the revolution 1917 or in the civil war.

But his strengths were that he was very hard-working, ruthless and

cunning. And in 1922 he became party secretary, at the time, this was

seen as a boring and unimportant job, but Stalin used his power to