Stalin's Rise to Power

Rise to Power

Stalin was appointed General Secretary in 1922, enabling him to put those who supported him in positions of power within the party. These people were put into their jobs by Stalin, so they were unlikely to turn against him, but if they did, they could just as easily be replaced with Stalin’s other supporters.

Stalin, as General Secretary, was ultimately responsible for ‘Lenin enrolment’, meaning that he had many new party members who had very little education who were loyal to him, and he manipulated these people to do as he wanted them to do; they did because they didn’t truly understand what they were being asked to do, but knew that they owed their communist membership, with all its perks, to Stalin and his policy.

He was seen as Lenin’s disciple; he had been the orator at the funeral (which Trotsky had not attended) and he appeared to agree with Lenin’s ideas about Russians dominating…