Foreign policy of the Soviet state in the 20s.
In 1921, relations with southern neighbors were normalized: Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and a friendship treaty was signed with Mongolia.
The major industrial powers refrained from establishing diplomatic relations with the Soviets, demanding payment of pre-revolutionary debts and compensation for losses from the nationalization of property of foreign states and citizens. The Soviet leadership decided to recognize part of the debts of pre-revolutionary Russia. At the same time, demands were made for compensation for damage caused by the intervention, as well as political recognition Soviet state and providing loans. The governments of European countries then decided to convene an international economic conference and invite Soviet Russia to it.
The conference took place in the Italian city of Genoa in 1922. The chairman of the Soviet delegation was Lenin; he remained in Moscow, and the delegation was headed by the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin. The parties failed to reach agreements at the conference. However, during her work in the town of Rapallo, a Soviet-German treaty was signed. Germany became the first major country to recognize Soviet Russia.
1924 became the year of diplomatic recognition of the USSR. In total, in the mid-20s, the USSR maintained official relations with more than 20 countries of the world.
Two contradictory factors determined Soviet foreign policy in the 1920s. On the one hand, the country's national interests required peaceful coexistence with foreign countries, without which the restoration and development of the country's national economy would have been impossible; on the other hand, the Soviet leadership, directing the activities of the Communist International, headed for world revolution, which complicated contacts with the world community and aroused its distrust (1927 - severance of diplomatic relations with England; 1929 Soviet-Chinese conflict).
Generally foreign policy The USSR was able to provide peaceful conditions for the restoration of the country's economy.
During the illness of V.I. Lenin and after his death in January 1924, a fierce struggle for power unfolded at the top of the Bolshevik party. V.I. Lenin, in his “Letter to the Congress,” known in party circles as a “testament,” gave characteristics to six figures from his circle. Special attention he devoted “two outstanding leaders” - I.V. Stalin and L.D. Trotsky, noting the positive and negative traits each of them.
As a result of the balance of power in the highest echelons of party power, all members of the Politburo united against Trotsky. The leading role in this alliance was played by the troika G. E. Zinoviev-L. B. Kamenev - I.V. Stalin. At their insistence, the latter was retained in office Secretary General parties. However, the winning trio did not last long. Already in 1924, a split occurred between the allies. Before the XIV Party Congress in 1925, Kamenev, Zinoviev and their supporters, primarily Leningrad party members, united into the “new opposition” and gave battle to the Secretary General, declaring that he “cannot fulfill the role of a unifier of the Bolshevik headquarters.” At the congress, the “new opposition” suffered a crushing defeat, its leaders lost their high posts.
In the spring of 1926, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev created the United Left Opposition, better known as the Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc. The left opposition advocated accelerating the pace of industrial development, increasing wages. In fact, a program was put forward to curtail the NEP.
However, the unification did not help the former opponents. Expulsions from the party, arrests, and expulsions of opposition group members began.
In turn, the opposition switched to illegal activities: meetings were convened clandestinely, printing houses were organized, leaflets were printed and distributed. On November 7, 1927, the Trotskyists and Zinovievites held their counter-demonstration, after which the leaders of the left opposition were expelled from the party, and the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in December, decided to expel all oppositionists from the party.
The creator and first head of the Soviet state and government, Vladimir Lenin, died at 18:50 on January 21, 1924. For the Soviet Union, then only 13 months old, this death became the first political shock, and the body of the deceased became the first Soviet shrine.
What was our country like at that time? And how did the death of the leader of the Bolshevik Party affect her future fate?
Russia after Lenin's death
By the time of Vladimir Ulyanov’s death, on the site of the former Russian Empire a new state was located - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In the fighting of the Civil War, the Bolshevik Party inherited almost the entire territory of Tsarist Russia, with the exception of Poland and Finland, as well as small pieces on the outskirts - in Bessarabia and Sakhalin, which were still occupied by the Romanians and Japanese.
In January 1924, the population of our country, after all the losses of the World War and Civil War, was about 145 million people, of which only 25 million lived in cities, and the rest were rural residents. That is Soviet Russia still remained a peasant country, and industry, destroyed in 1917–1921, was only being restored and barely caught up with the pre-war level of 1913.
The internal enemies of the Soviet government - various movements of the Whites, outlying nationalists and separatists, peasant rebels - had already been defeated in open armed struggle, but still had a lot of sympathizers both within the country and in the form of numerous foreign emigration, which had not yet come to terms with their defeat and was actively preparing for a possible revenge. This danger was complemented by the lack of unity within the ruling party itself, where Lenin’s heirs had already begun to divide leadership positions and influence.
Although Vladimir Lenin was rightfully considered the undisputed leader of the Communist Party and the entire country, formally he was only the head of the Soviet government - the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. The nominal head of the Soviet state, according to the constitution in force at that time, was another person - Mikhail Kalinin, the head of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, the highest government body that combined the functions of legislative and executive power (the Bolshevik Party fundamentally did not recognize the “bourgeois” theory of “separation of powers”).
Even in the Bolshevik party, which by 1924 remained the only legal and ruling party, there was no formal single leader. The party was headed by a collective body - the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. At the time of Lenin's death, this supreme body The party included, in addition to Vladimir Ulyanov himself, six more people: Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Mikhail Tomsky and Alexei Rykov. At least three of them - Trotsky, Stalin and Zinoviev - had the desire and opportunity to claim leadership in the party after Lenin and headed influential groups of their supporters among the party and state officials.
At the time of Lenin’s death, Stalin had already been elected for a year and a half general secretary Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, but this position was still not perceived as the main one and was considered “technical”. From January 1924, it would take almost four more years of internal party struggle before Joseph Dzhugashvili became the sole leader of the ruling party in the USSR. It was Lenin’s death that would push forward this struggle for power, which, starting with quite comradely discussions and disputes, would result in bloody terror 13 years later.
The difficult internal situation of the country at the time of Lenin’s death was complicated by considerable foreign policy difficulties. Our country was still in international isolation. At the same time, the last year of the life of the first Soviet leader passed for the leaders of the USSR in anticipation not of international diplomatic recognition, but of an imminent socialist revolution in Germany.
The Bolshevik government, realizing the economic and technical backwardness of Russia, then sincerely counted on the victory of the German communists, which would open access to the technologies and industrial capacities of Germany. Indeed, throughout 1923, Germany was rocked by economic and political crises. In Hamburg, Saxony and Thuringia, the German communists were closer than ever to seizing power; the Soviet intelligence services even sent their military specialists to them. But the general communist uprising and socialist revolution never happened in Germany; the USSR was left alone with the capitalist encirclement in Europe and Asia.
The capitalist elites of that world still perceived the Bolshevik government and the entire USSR as dangerous and unpredictable extremists. Therefore, by January 1924, only seven states recognized the new Soviet country. There were only three of these in Europe - Germany, Finland and Poland; in Asia there are four - Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Mongolia (however, the latter was also not recognized by anyone in the world except the USSR, and Germany, defeated in the First World War, was then considered the same rogue country as Soviet Russia).
But with all the differences in political regimes and ideologies, it is completely impossible to completely ignore such a situation in politics and economics. big country, like Russia, it was difficult. The breakthrough occurred just shortly after Lenin's death - during 1924, the USSR was recognized by the most powerful countries of that time, that is, Great Britain, France and Japan, as well as a dozen less influential but noticeable countries on the world map, including China. By 1925, of the major states, only the United States still did not have diplomatic relations with Soviet Union. The rest of the largest countries, gritting their teeth, were forced to recognize the government of Lenin's heirs.
Mausoleum and mummification of Lenin
Lenin died in Gorki, very close to Moscow, in an estate that before the revolution belonged to the Moscow mayor. Here the first leader of the Communist Party spent the last year of his life due to illness. In addition to domestic doctors, the best medical specialists from Germany were invited to him. But the efforts of doctors did not help - Lenin died at the age of 53. A serious injury in 1918 had an effect, when bullets disrupted the blood circulation in the brain.
According to Trotsky’s memoirs, a few months before Lenin’s death, Stalin had the idea of preserving the body of the first leader Soviet country. Trotsky retells Stalin’s words this way: “Lenin is a Russian man, and he must be buried in a Russian way. In Russian, according to the canons of Russian Orthodox Church, saints were made relics...”
Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin. Photo: Vladimir Savostyanov / TASS Photo Chronicle
Initially, most party leaders did not support the idea of preserving the body of the dying leader. But immediately after Lenin’s death, no one persistently objected to this idea. As Stalin explained in January 1924: “After a while you will see the pilgrimage of representatives of millions of working people to the grave of Comrade Lenin... Modern science has the opportunity, with the help of embalming, to preserve the body of the deceased for a long time, at least long enough to allow our consciousness to get used to the idea that Lenin is not among us after all.”
The head of the Soviet state security, Felix Dzerzhinsky, became the chairman of the Lenin funeral commission. On January 23, 1924, the coffin with Lenin’s body was brought by train to Moscow. Four days later, the coffin with the body was exhibited in a hastily built wooden mausoleum on Red Square. The author of the Lenin mausoleum was the architect Alexei Shchusev, who before the revolution served in the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and specialized in the construction of Orthodox churches.
The coffin with the leader’s body was carried into the mausoleum on their shoulders by four people: Stalin, Molotov, Kalinin and Dzerzhinsky. The winter of 1924 turned out to be cold; severe frost, which ensured the safety of the deceased’s body for several weeks.
Embalming experience and long-term storage human bodies It didn't exist then. Therefore, the first project of a permanent, rather than temporary, mausoleum, proposed by the old Bolshevik and People's Commissar (Minister) of Foreign Trade Leonid Krasin, was associated precisely with freezing the body. In fact, it was proposed to install in the mausoleum glass refrigerator, which would ensure deep freezing and preservation of the corpse. In the spring of 1924, they even began to look for the most advanced refrigeration equipment at that time in Germany for these purposes.
However, the experienced chemist Boris Zbarsky was able to prove to Felix Dzerzhinsky that deep freezing with low temperatures Suitable for storing food, but not suitable for preserving the body of the deceased, as it ruptures cells and over time significantly changes the appearance of the frozen body. A darkened ice corpse would rather frighten than contribute to exalting the memory of the first Soviet leader. It was necessary to look for other ways and means of preserving Lenin’s body, which was displayed in the mausoleum.
It was Zbarsky who pointed the Bolshevik leaders to the then most experienced Russian anatomist, Vladimir Vorobyov. 48-year-old Vladimir Petrovich Vorobyov taught at the Department of Anatomy of Kharkov University, in particular, he had been working on the conservation and storage of anatomical preparations (individual human organs) and animal mummies.
True, Vorobiev himself initially refused the proposal to preserve the body of the Soviet leader. The fact is that he had some “sins” before the Bolshevik Party - in 1919, during the capture of Kharkov by White troops, he worked on the commission for the exhumation of corpses of the Kharkov Cheka and only recently returned to the USSR from emigration. Therefore, the anatomist Vorobyov reacted this way to Zbarsky’s first proposal to take up the preservation of Lenin’s body: “Under no circumstances will I undertake such an obviously risky and hopeless undertaking, and becoming a laughing stock among scientists is unacceptable to me. On the other hand, you forget my past, which the Bolsheviks will remember if there is failure...”
Vladimir Petrovich Vorobyov. Photo: wikipedia.org
However, soon scientific interest won out - the problem that arose was too difficult and unusual, and Vladimir Vorobyov, as a true science fanatic, could not avoid trying to solve it. On March 26, 1924, Vorobyov began work to preserve Lenin’s body.
The embalming process took four months. First of all, the body was soaked in formalin - a chemical solution that not only killed all microorganisms, fungi and possible mold, but also actually converted the proteins of the once living body into polymers that could be stored indefinitely.
Then, using hydrogen peroxide, Vorobyov and his assistants bleached the frostbite spots that appeared on Lenin’s body and face after two months of storage in the icy winter crypt of the first mausoleum. At the final stage, the body of the late leader was soaked in aqueous solutions of glycerin and potassium acetate so that the tissues did not lose moisture and were protected from drying out and changing their shape during life.
Exactly four months later, on July 26, 1924, the embalming process was successfully completed. By that time, the architect Shchusev had built a second, more capital and substantial mausoleum on the site of the first wooden mausoleum. Also built of wood, it stood on Red Square for more than five years, until the construction of the granite and marble mausoleum began.
At noon on July 26, 1924, the mausoleum with Lenin’s embalmed body was visited by a selection committee headed by Dzerzhinsky, Molotov and Voroshilov. They had to evaluate the results of Vladimir Vorobyov’s work. The results were impressive - a touched Dzerzhinsky even hugged former employee White Guards and the recent emigrant Vorobyov.
The conclusion of the government commission on the preservation of Lenin’s body read: “The measures taken for embalming are based on solid scientific foundations, giving the right to count on the long-term, over a number of decades, preservation of Vladimir Ilyich’s body in a condition that allows it to be viewed in a closed glass coffin, subject to necessary conditions in terms of humidity and temperature... General form has improved significantly compared to what was observed before embalming, and approaches significantly the appearance of the recently deceased.”
So, thanks to the scientific work of his namesake Vladimir Vorobyov, Lenin’s body ended up in the glass coffin of the Mausoleum, in which it has been resting for over 90 years. The Communist Party and the government of the USSR generously thanked the anatomist Vorobyov - he became not only an academician and the only holder of the title “Emerited Professor” in our country, but also a very rich man even by the standards of capitalist countries. By special order of the authorities, Vorobyov was awarded a prize of 40 thousand gold chervonets (about 10 million dollars in prices at the beginning of the 21st century).
The struggle for power after Lenin
While the learned anatomist Vorobiev was working to preserve Lenin’s body, a struggle for power unfolded in the country and the Bolshevik party. At the beginning of 1924, the ruling party actually had three main leaders - Trotsky, Zinoviev and Stalin. At the same time, it was the first two who were considered the most influential and authoritative, and not the still modest “General Secretary of the Central Committee” Stalin.
45-year-old Leon Trotsky was the recognized creator of the Red Army, which won a difficult civil war. At the time of Lenin's death, he held the positions of People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and Chairman of the RVS (Revolutionary Military Council), that is, he was the head of all armed forces of the USSR. A significant part of the army and the Bolshevik party then focused on this charismatic leader.
41-year-old Grigory Zinoviev was Lenin’s personal secretary and closest assistant for many years. At the time of the death of the first leader of the USSR, Zinoviev headed the city of Petrograd (then the largest metropolis in our country) and the largest branch of the party among the Bolsheviks, the Petrograd branch of the party. In addition, Zinoviev served as chairman of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, an international association of all communist parties on the planet. At that time, the Comintern in the USSR was formally considered a higher authority even for the Bolshevik Party. On this basis, it was Grigory Zinoviev who was perceived by many in the country and abroad as the very first among all the leaders of the USSR after Lenin.
For the entire year after the death of Ulyanov-Lenin, the situation in the Bolshevik Party would be determined by the rivalry between Trotsky and Zinoviev. It is curious that these two Soviet leaders were fellow tribesmen and countrymen - both were born in Jewish families in Elisavetgrad district of the Kherson province of the Russian Empire. However, even during Lenin’s lifetime they were almost open rivals and opponents, and only Lenin’s generally recognized authority forced them to work together.
Compared to Trotsky and Zinoviev, 45-year-old Stalin initially seemed much more modest, holding the post of Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and being considered only the head of the party’s technical apparatus. But it was this modest “apparatchik” who ultimately turned out to be the winner in the internal party struggle.
From left to right: Joseph Stalin, Alexei Rykov, Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin, 1928 / TASS Photo Chronicle
Initially, all other leaders and authorities of the Bolshevik party immediately after Lenin's death united against Trotsky. This is not surprising - after all, all other members of the Politburo and the Central Committee were activists of the Bolshevik faction with pre-revolutionary experience. Whereas Trotsky, before the revolution, was an ideological opponent and rival of the Bolshevik trend in the social democratic movement, joining Lenin only in the summer of 1917.
Exactly one year after Lenin’s death, at the end of January 1925, the united supporters of Zinoviev and Stalin at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party actually “overthrew” Trotsky from the heights of power, depriving him of the posts of People’s Commissar (Minister) for Military Affairs and head of the Revolutionary Military Council. From now on, Trotsky remains without access to the mechanisms of real power, and his supporters in the party-state apparatus are gradually losing their positions and influence.
But Zinoviev’s open struggle with the Trotskyists alienates many party activists from him - in their eyes, Grigory Zinoviev, who is too openly striving to become a leader, looks like a narcissistic intriguer, too busy with issues of personal power. Against his background, Stalin, who keeps a low profile, appears to many to be more moderate and balanced. For example, in January 1925, discussing the issue of Trotsky’s resignation, Zinoviev calls for his exclusion from the party altogether, while Stalin publicly acts as a conciliator, offering a compromise: leaving Trotsky in the party and even as a member of the Central Committee, limiting himself only to removing him from military posts.
It was this moderate position that attracted the sympathy of many middle-level Bolshevik leaders to Stalin. And already in December 1925, at the next, XIV Congress of the Communist Party, the majority of delegates would support Stalin, when his open rivalry with Zinoviev began.
Zinoviev's authority will also be negatively affected by his post as head of the Comintern - since it is the Communist International and its leader, in the eyes of the party masses, who will have to bear responsibility for the failure of the socialist revolution in Germany, which the Bolsheviks had been waiting for with such hopes throughout the first half of the 20s. Stalin, on the contrary, focused on the “routine” internal affairs, increasingly appeared before party members not only as a balanced leader not prone to splits, but also as a real workaholic, busy real work, and not with loud slogans.
As a result, already two years after Lenin’s death, two of his three closest associates - Trotsky and Zinoviev - would lose their former influence, and Stalin would come close to the sole leadership of the country and the party.
Further in the section A new mobilization project, alternative to the Islamist one, should be built on the idea of economic justiceA fierce struggle for power begins.
The years that determined the outcome of this struggle at its first decisive stage were the years of Lenin's illness. In 1922, Lenin suffered his first stroke, from which he was able to recover only partially and could only occasionally personally intervene in the work of the central bodies of the party and government. A second stroke in 1923 left him half paralyzed. The third stroke in 1924 was fatal for Lenin. At that time, the leadership of the Bolshevik Party had a sufficient number of people capable of competing with Stalin for power.
At the time of Lenin's death, I.V. Stalin was the leader communist party. His relationship with Lenin's work colleagues last period his life, defined by two remarks: “this cook cooks only spicy dishes”, “he will make a rotten compromise and deceive.”
Soon after Lenin's death, his widow N.K. Krupskaya sent a package with his manuscripts, which were of political interest, to the Politburo. Among them was a letter from Lenin with comments regarding a number of executives party, but with one single concrete practical conclusion: Lenin insisted on the removal of Stalin from the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the party, since he, as Lenin was convinced of this, is a person who is not loyal to those around him and is capable of abusing the immense power that his position gives him General Secretary. Stalin seemed to Lenin dangerous for the development of the party.
The text of the letter-testament was read by Kamenev. After a painful silence, Zinoviev came out in defense of Stalin. Kamenev held him. Trotsky remained contemptuously silent.
After heated political debates, Rykov was elected head of the Council of People's Commissars.
Thus, Stalin did not receive the main position in the state. But he tried to make his position the main one.
The gradual extermination of political rivals begins. Kamenev and Zinoviev, who expressed support for Stalin, would soon be shot. As for Trotsky, Stalin did not forgive him for his silence.
Industrialization
“Industrialization” means the process of transferring all sectors of the national economy to a machine basis, the transition from traditional society to industrial. With industrialization, the Bolsheviks pinned their hopes not only on the development of the national economy, but also on the successful construction of socialism in one particular country.
At the end of the 20s, two main points of view on further development THE USSR. The first of them is associated with the names of Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky, who advocated the further development of cooperation, the reduction of taxes on agriculture, and the creation of a regulated market. The goal of this policy was to increase the living standards of the population. A different point of view was expressed by Stalin, Kuibyshev and Molotov. They rejected the possibility of uniform development of all spheres of the economy and proposed accelerating the development of heavy industry, carrying out collectivization in the countryside and regulating the economy with the help of the bureaucratic apparatus. In this dispute, the majority of party members sided with Stalin, which ultimately led to the strengthening of the party economic bureaucracy and the final departure from elements of a market economy.
The development of the first five-year plan for the development of the country's economy dates back to 1928–1932. National economy was transferred to centralized planning. Enterprise managers were ultimately responsible for the failure of the plan.
During the years of the first five-year plan (1928 - 1933), the USSR transformed from an agrarian-industrial country into an industrial-agrarian one. 1,500 enterprises were built. The first five year plan was significantly overestimated, “based on the needs of the future.” It turned out to be underfulfilled by almost all indicators, but the industry made a huge leap. New industries were created - automobile, tractor, etc. Industrial development achieved even greater success during the Second Five-Year Plan (1933 - 1937). At this time, the construction of new plants and factories continued, and the urban population increased sharply. At the same time he was great specific gravity manual labor, light industry did not receive proper development, little attention was paid to the construction of housing and roads.
In terms of industrial output, the USSR came out on top in Europe and second in the world. The number of workers and engineering and technical intelligentsia increased sharply. This caused a surge of enthusiasm, which was masterfully supported by all the media.
Hero of Labor A. Stakhanov
People saw that life was developing rapidly and began to believe that the promised bright future would soon come. The USSR government mainly used non-material means of stimulating labor. Such as socialist competitions, orders, medals, mass propaganda with the help of bright, colorful and understandable posters for the majority of people.
GOELRO (short for State Commission for Electrification of Russia) is a body created on February 21, 1920 to develop a project for the electrification of Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. Electricity was completely unknown at that time in many areas, so it became a real miracle and further proof of the imminent onset of a “bright future.” Lenin also wrote “Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the entire country.”
Funds for industrial development were taken, among other things, through forced loans, expanding the sale of vodka, and exporting bread, oil, and timber abroad. The exploitation of the working class, other segments of the population, and Gulag prisoners has reached an unprecedented level. At the cost of enormous effort, sacrifice, waste natural resources and cultural heritage, the country entered the industrial path of development.
Collectivization
The failure of grain procurements in 1927 was due to the fact that the peasants did not want to hand over grain to the state. low prices. This resulted in difficulties with the supply of bread abroad; consequently, the state did not receive enough funds to pay for new technologies and new specialists from other countries necessary for industrialization.
As a result of this, in 1929, a decision was made to organize “large-scale socialist agriculture” - collective and state farms.
November 7, 1929 - Stalin’s article “The Year of the Great Turning Point” appeared in the newspaper “PRAVDA,” which spoke of “a radical change in the development of our agriculture from small and individual farming to large-scale and advanced collective farming.” In December 1930, Stalin announced a transition to the policy of “liquidation of the kulaks as a class.” Their lands, livestock, and means of production were confiscated and transferred to local governments. Some of the kulaks were subject to deportation to remote parts of the country, while the rest were resettled outside the collective and state farms. However, there was no precise definition of who was considered a kulak, so everyone who did not want to join collective farms fell under dispossession. Peasants resisted forced collectivization. A wave of uprisings swept across the country.
The main means of forcing peasants to unite into collective farms was the threat of “dekulakization.”
The famine of 1932–1933 played an important role in the final victory of the regime over the peasantry. It was caused by the policy of the state, which confiscated all the grain from the village.
Collectivization dealt a severe blow to agricultural production, grain production and the number of domestic animals decreased. The implementation of collectivization became the most important stage in the final establishment of the totalitarian regime. However, some of the rural population benefited from collectivization. This concerned the poorest: they received some of the “kulak” property, they were first of all accepted into the party, and they were trained as combine operators and tractor drivers. During the Second Five-Year Plan, the state increases funding Agriculture, as a result of which some stabilization occurs, an increase in production and an improvement in the situation of peasants is planned. But in a significant part of the collective farms, due to the lack of interest among the peasants in work, mismanagement and low discipline reigned.
By 1938, complete collectivization was announced.
At that time, he was one of the top officials of the party: the Red Army was under his command and his authority as an organizer of the revolution was strong.
Funeral of V. Lenin, 1924. Newsreel
The news of Lenin's death found Trotsky on his way to Sukhum for treatment. Having received a telegram from Stalin, Trotsky decided to follow his advice and not return to Moscow to attend the funeral.
The coffin with Lenin's body is carried by M. Kalinin, V. Molotov, M. Tomsky, L. Kamenev and I. Stalin (far left in the background), January 23, 1924.
We regret that it is technically impossible for you to arrive at the funeral. There is no reason to expect any complications. Under these conditions, we do not see any need for a break in treatment. Of course, we leave the final decision of the issue up to you. In any case, please telegraph your thoughts on the necessary new appointments
Telegram from Stalin to Trotsky on the death of Lenin
In May 1924, the “Letter to the Congress” (also known as “Lenin’s Testament”) was announced, in which Trotsky was called “the most capable member of the Central Committee.”
Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary General, concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power carefully enough. On the other hand, Comrade Trotsky, as his struggle against the Central Committee in connection with the issue of the NKPS has already proven, is distinguished not only by his outstanding abilities. Personally, he is perhaps the most capable person in the present Central Committee, but he is also overly self-confident and overly enthusiastic about the purely administrative side of things. These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the modern Central Committee can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our party does not take measures to prevent this, then a split may come unexpectedly
Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev joined forces to get rid of their most influential competitor. The Troika, at Bolshevik meetings and in the press, accused Trotsky of distorting Lenin’s teachings and replacing it with a hostile ideology - “Trotskyism.” During 1924, Trotsky gradually began to lose control of the army and lose political influence. Stalin, using the powers of the General Secretary, concentrated the most loyal people in the leadership of the party. At the beginning of 1925, Trotsky was deprived of leadership of the army.
This decision was carefully prepared by the previous struggle. Along with the traditions of the October Revolution, the epigones were most afraid of traditions civil war and my connection with the army. I gave up my military post without a fight, even with inner relief, in order to snatch from my opponents the weapon of insinuations about my military plans
Trotsky L.
"My life"
A split soon began in the “troika” Stalin-Kamenev-Zinoviev. In 1926, Trotsky formed an opposition and, together with Kamenev and Zinoviev, began to openly oppose Stalin’s line.
The “Opposition Platform” began to criticize the official party line from all fronts.
Zinoviev and Kamenev found themselves forced to repeat piecemeal criticism of the opposition and were soon enrolled in the “Trotskyist” camp... They accepted the fundamentals of our platform. Under such conditions it was impossible not to conclude a bloc with them, especially since thousands of Leningrad revolutionary workers stood behind them
During Lenin's illness and after his death, a fierce struggle for power unfolded at the top of the Bolshevik Party. V.I. Lenin, in his “Letter to the Congress,” known in party circles as a “testament,” gave characteristics to six figures from his circle. He paid special attention to “two outstanding leaders” - J.V. Stalin and L.D. Trotsky, let’s take a look at the positive and negative traits of each of them. “Stalin is too rude, and this shortcoming, quite tolerable in the environment and in communications between us communists, becomes intolerable in the position of General Secretary.” Lenin proposed to remove him from this post, replacing him with a more tolerant, loyal, polite person. He characterized Trotsky as “the most capable man in the present Central Committee, but also boasting excessively of self-confidence and excessive enthusiasm for the purely administrative side of the matter.”
As a result of the behavior of rivals and the balance of power in the highest echelons of party power, all members of the Politburo united against Trotsky. The leading role in this alliance was played by the troika: G. E. Zinoviev - L. B. Kamenev - I. V. Stalin. At their insistence, the latter was retained as the party's general secretary. In January 1925, L. D. Trotsky lost his post as People's Commissar for Military Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, and somewhat later was removed from the Politburo. However, the winning trio did not last long. Already in 1924, a split occurred between the allies. Before the XIV Party Congress in 1925, Kamenev, Zinoviev and their supporters, primarily Leningrad party members, united into the “new opposition” and gave battle to the Secretary General, declaring that he “cannot fulfill the role of a unifier of the Bolshevik headquarters.” At the congress, the “new opposition” suffered a crushing defeat, its leaders lost their high posts.
In the spring of 1926, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev created the United Left Opposition, better known as the Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc. The left opposition advocated accelerating the pace of industrial development and increasing wages. In fact, a program was put forward to curtail the NEP. One of its main slogans was “Against the NEPman, the kulak, the bureaucrat.” The opposition especially advocated for internal party democracy, hoping with its help to break through to power.
However, the unification did not help the former opponents. Stalin and his allies N.I. Bukharin, A.I. Rykov, M.P. Tomsky continued to push back their rivals. Expulsions from the party, arrests, and expulsions of opposition group members began.
In turn, the opposition switched to illegal activities: meetings were convened clandestinely, printing houses were organized, leaflets were printed and distributed. On November 7, 1927, the Trotskyists and Zinovievites held their counter-demonstration, after which the leaders of the left opposition were expelled from the party, and the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in December, decided to expel all oppositionists from the party.
