The Soviet Struggle for Power

The Soviet Struggle for Power

Throughout the summer of 1923, Lenin lay close to death, and a lull

settled over the political struggle. But the battle lines were forming

in the Politburo and Central Committee. Trotsky seemed to hold the

most powerful position, thanks to his close friendship with Lenin

before the Soviet leader's strokes, but an opposition had already

begun to emerge. Although Stalin would later be Trotsky's primary

antagonist, for the moment the opposition included not only Stalin but

also two other politicians: Lev Kamenev and G.E. Zinoviev, a leading

Bolshevik who had been Lenin's closest aide during the Revolution.

Together the three formed what was referred to as the "troika," or

"triumvirate"; as Lenin inched closer to death, they launched a series

of attacks on Trotsky in party meetings, drawing on his writings and

speeches from his years as a Menshevik to attack him for disloyalty to

his own movement.

On January 21, 1924, Lenin died. He was only fifty-three. Trotsky was

away in the Caucasus that month, and Stalin telegraphed him and said

that the funeral would be held immediately, so there was no point in

undertaking the long trip back to Moscow. Thus Stalin forced Trotsky

to be absent for the funeral--he knew how to create and use symbols to

his advantage. Meanwhile, the cult of Lenin instantly sprang up among

the Bolsheviks, who ordered their leader's body embalmed and turned

into a shrine in Moscow's Red Square. Stalin took a prominent and very

public role in the mourning of the leader, but in fact Lenin's death

put him in a jubilant mood. However, the death did bring Stalin his

share of difficulties: Le...

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... this incident until March of 1923,

at which point he demanded an apology from Stalin and threatened to

break off relations with him. At the same time, he and Trotsky were

discussing the possibility of purging the Stalin- controlled

bureaucracy, and had ordered an investigation into Stalin's handling

of recent disturbances in Georgia. Stalin's power--and probably his

life--hung by a thread.

Had Lenin lived, he and Trotsky would have likely brought down Stalin,

who lacked the resources to stand up to the two of them as a unit. But

even as Stalin was composing a careful apology for the incident with

Krupskaya, Lenin suffered a final stroke on March 7, 1923. He would

live until January of the following year, but he would never recover

the power of speech. With Lenin gone, the struggle for power commenced

in earnest.