now, but how it should continue. Economic policy became the cornerstone of this debate, as the Soviet economy was damaged from a near decade of war. It is here when Lenin began rolling back towards the state-assisted bourgeoisie that the Tsarist regime had attempted to implement, an implementation Engels noted for its dependency on keeping the state alive (On Social Relations in Russia 668).
Lenin would not be able to form a system of economics and governance that would not necessitate a bureaucracy, without overindulging in legal procedures, something Lenin deemed an excess of the bourgeoisie (Ulam 452). The newly minted USSR had entered a standstill, not wanting to move forward towards what it would inevitably become, and not wanting to return to capitalism. Here, the roots of Stalinism formed, from the failures of addressing the real concern of a lack of connection to the masses which thrust the Bolsheviks into power.
Stalinism is often treated as an anomaly, as though it had appeared from nowhere and happened upon a system which was never designed to permit it. However, Stalinism itself finds many of its roots early on, as much of the policy decision making of the Soviets throughout the early periods of their existence would later be used and expanded upon by Stalin. To understand the roots of Stalinism, one must look at the key aspects of Stalin’s rise to power. First, Stalin’s rise was not preordained or even predictable.
In 1922, Stalin was appointed to the General Secretary position, a position that was deemed necessary for Stalin to hold due to his “organizational abilities and abrupt manner” which would “bring order into the working bodies of the Central Committee” (Medvedev 69). This was not a promotion to a successor spot, nor the nod to Stalin’s future power, as Lenin still retained the role of leader without the position. However, with this position Stalin slowly began to expand on his power.
Lenin noted that Stalin was gaining too much power as General Secretary, but lamented more over the general feeling of Soviet bureaucracy that Stalin had simply became a major player in (Lenin Letter to Congress 728). The bureaucratical rise of power in Lenin’s government was never fully prevented, as Lenin would die shortly after denouncing many of its facets. Letters to Congress written about Stalin were subsequently decided to be excluded from meetings, both for the fact it mentioned other members, and due to Kamaney and Zinoniev’s willingness to view Stalin as a way to counterbalance Trotsky (Medvedev 85).
Stalin’s rise would be much like this until the bitter end, an unexpected event that few foresaw as inevitable, and would influence much of Stalin’s decisions as he feared a sudden competitor of equal weight. If Stalin’s rise being hidden and unexpected is a key aspect of his ascent and development of Stalinism, then surely his consistent positions of policies during the great New Economic Policy debate and succession struggle throughout the 1920’s would be another central aspect.
Stalin had a habit of turning of policies he had once supported, whether for pure power grabs or genuine ideological switches can be debated, but none can deny the speed and efficiency in which he would do this. Initially, Stalin’s support remained with Kamanev and Zinoniev, who supported the General Secretary to combat “the left opposition” led by Trotsky (Hoston Chronology of the Russian Revolution Handout). As Trotsky lost favour, Stalin would turn on his two other colleagues of the ruling triumvirate and support Bukharin, the key ideologue of the NEP.
Stalin’s support of Bukharin allowed the two to oust Trotsky and the left, ultimately leaving the two in a period of quazi-joint rule. In this period, Stalin supported the ideals of the NEP, and specifically wished for the wish that many Bukharinites held, rapid industrialization of the USSR (Cohen 311). It was in how to develop the Soviet Union as a rapid industrial power where the splits in Stalin and Bukharin’s relationship became apparent.
Quickly, Stalin began demanding for “new direct forms of the smychka,” the temporary alliance between the proletariat and peasantry, and began urging that there must be a “general line” in the party to unify around (Cohen 310). While Bukharin would vigorously deny any betrayal of ideals of party, he ultimately would lose favour in the politburo, Stalin ultimately becoming the sole leader. It is in these moments of victory where Stalin implemented the full economic aspects of his policy, the forced collectivization of peasantry, an essential end to the smychka, a “new civil war” against the petty bourgeoisie (Cohen 313).
Stalin’s key aspects of dominance, almost hidden rise, and economic inclination towards heavy industry and elimination of the alliance between peasantry and proletariat, were themselves vital in developing the policy style that would come to be known as Stalinism. Stalinism could best be described as a state enforced revolution, one that was enforced by a party that had more control over daily life than even the autocratic Tsars (Skocpol 226). This is important to note, as Stalinism’s inclination towards totalitarianism, control over all aspects of life, would be a key point in its central theory.
Totalitarian policies would lead however, to massive industrial successes, Stalin’s goal. Within the first Five Year Plan, Stalin’s policy of collectivization met with near total annihilation of the independent peasant, allowing the state to gain access to all the resources it needed to invest in heavy industry. Through these policies, heavy industry numbers flourished, with coal, oil, iron, and steel production doubling over the course of four years (Hoston Lecture Outline Week 9 “Stalinism and Forced Collectivization”).
This came at the cost of the agricultural industry, which suffered immense shortages, however this was the intent of Stalinist policy. After all, it was through collectivization that Stalin justified the removal, essentially a pre-purge, of the entire “kulak” (rich peasant) class, who Stalin claimed held the revolution back (Skocpol 230). While this was not an entirely new belief, Engels would write in response to Tchakov’s pamphlet on Russian wealthy peasants as being bloodsuckers, it was an entirely new way of dealing with it (Engels, “On Social Relations in Russia” 672).
No longer would revolution be coordinated through the people, the Soviets, or even collective leadership, it would be coordinated through the will of the Dictator, of Stalin. What then was the root cause of the sudden change of government style over the course of the Soviet’s first 30 years, and how was Stalinism implemented both by the will of Stalin, and through the party’s own failures to prevent its rise? Having already established Stalin’s rise as not being preordained, it may seem that Stalinism was not an inevitability, but rather an unfortunate series of events.
However, Stalinism very much was following a revolutionary pattern that states, such as France, had followed. In Stalin’s case, his rise was aided by the very system that his fellow Bolsheviks helped create. Trotsky had the power to stop Stalin several times, with Lenin himself urging him to speak at the 12th Party Congress against Stalin’s National Question and the Georgian Affair, but chose not too due to what he felt was status quo (Medvedev 113-114).
Continually sides in the politburo, the so called “oppositions” would pull Stalin into their sphere, believing, as Trotsky did, that Stalin was easily controlled by those smarter than him (Ulam 554). Stalin’s rise was permitted by the system not because it preordained his position to an unnatural amount of control, but because of the set of standards and precedents that party members followed, but could immensely benefit from by simply bending. The insistence on debate, consistent party dialogue, and public disagreement allowed for great developments yes, but so too did it permit factionalism.
Through the factionalism of these debates, Stalin creeped his way up through the system, realizing consistent flipping at opportune moments could net him the most in the end. This factionalism would lead to Lenin denouncing it, particularly due to the perceived Stalin-Trotsky divide, and a renewed emphasis on collective party unity (Ulam 555). Stalin used this call to march forward, using unity and the necessity to ensure that those he deemed “opposition,” against the party, eliminated.
What Stalin could not compete with in theory, he made up for in political moves. Stalin’s rise within the system created a new emphasis on unity. Unity would not be on an ideology, or a theory, or a revolution, but rather a leader, and a strong centralized state. But the Soviet system was never designed originally to be this, nor were Stalin’s methods during the 30’s, the outright execution of 5/10 members of the politburo and replacement by 1939 with all supporters of Stalin, ever what Lenin intended for in forming unity (Hoston, Great Purges Handout).
Stalin’s purges signaled the final departure from the Lenin-based party, with the Soviet government becoming fully consolidated under his rule. This is not to say that Lenin did not purge enemies and the Soviets had acted with respect to all ideologies up to this point, but rather that Stalin’s reign represented the moment in which the party turned on its own members, with no difference paid to those who supported Stalin or not (Medvedev 395).
The Great Purge pushed forward Stalin’s final consolidation of power, ensuring none would ever come to oppose him. In spilling the blood of millions of his own citizens, Stalin had cemented Stalinism as the state thesis. Socialism in one country came to mean the USSR was the socialist leader, even foreign Communists were at Stalin’s mercy (Medvedev 430). One can say by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the timeline of the Russian revolution had reached its end. The result, a unified, centralized, dictatorial, bureaucratic state.
Socialism within Russia, the development of the revolutionary concept, had progressed in a way Lenin could not have imagined. But the reasoning of this rise is not an individual case, but rather a set of circumstances which necessitate, not condone, this transfer of events. In noting the differences between France and Russia, Skocpol also notes the heavy similarities. She writes, “the French and Russian Revolutions shared certain important similarities of political process
