Paula Gorham

From 1924, up to 1941, Stalin consolidated his personal power and transformed
the U.S.S.R. Discuss.
Joseph Stalin was one of the most powerful rulers of the twentieth century. He was able to seize
control of an incredibly vast and disorderly country and maintain that control for thirty years. It is
baffling how millions of Russians allowed this cruel leader to control nearly every part of their lives.
Stalin established himself as dictator of Russia by using his political skill to defeat Trotsky in the
power struggle of the 1920s, then by using ruthlessness to crush his rivals in the 1930s. Joseph
Stalin’s changes both socially, politically and economically were able to raise the nation from the
dark ages and into the world as a primary leader and although Stalin was a cruel leader responsible
for the deaths of millions of his own people, he was able to transform Russia into one of the most
powerful in the world.

There were two main rivals to succeed Lenin as leader of the communists - Leon Trotsky and Josef
Stalin. As General Secretary of the party, Stalin was able to appoint people loyal to him to key
positions of power in the government, also known as the Politburo. This allowed him to gain support
during the debates of the mid-1920s. Trotsky, on the other hand, was something of an outsider, who
was never fully trusted by many Party members. This mistrust was fuelled by Trotsky’s rude and
arrogant behaviour. Stalin used these character flaws to isolate Trotsky within the Politburo. He also
took care to always be seen to be taking Lenin’s side in the policy debates that raged in the mid-
1920s. As such, he supported NEP over rapid industrialisation, and endorsed the ban on factions
inside the Party. He also attacked Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, offering instead his own
idea of ‘socialism in one country’. Stalin won out in all three debates. By the time Trotsky
recognised the threat Stalin posed and took steps to attack him, it was too late. Stalin had stacked the
Politburo with his own supporters, and had Trotsky expelled from the Party. Stalin had Trotsky
expelled from Russia in 1929 and murdered in 1940. Stalin was now undisputed leader but despite
his position, Stalin’s power was anything but absolute. He had rivals in the politburo, and could be
removed from his power base as general secretary if the Party so wished. He now set out to turn this
power into dictatorial power. Starting in 1929, Stalin used propaganda to help him consolidation his
power.

From the outset, propaganda was an essential tool in the consolidation of Stalin’s power. The
campaign to create a ‘cult of Stalin’ began in 1929, when an enormous celebration was planned for
his 50th birthday. Using the Party's control over the media, Stalin was presented as the 'Supreme
Genius of Humanity' – the true successor to Lenin. His face now began to appear everywhere – in
photographs and paintings, on the sides of houses and buildings. Cities and towns were named in his
honour. Children were taught to give thanks to him for their happy lives. In 1935, Stalin
commissioned an official history of the Communist Party of the USSR, known as the Short Course.
In this book's version of events, it was Stalin who played the dominant role in organising the
November Revolution and who devised the strategies which won Civil War. Forty two million
copies of the Short Course were printed, and it became required reading for all new Party members.
As the sole version of Soviet history now available, it helped win for Stalin a group of new
supporters and cemented his popularity with the younger generation.
Paula Gorham

However, propaganda alone was not enough to transform Russia into a totalitarian state. As Alan
Bullock has observed, Stalin understood “that propaganda is most effective when it is backed by
terror.” (Bullock: 305)

No sooner had Stalin eliminated his rivals from the Politburo in 1928, than he began using the secret
police to enforce his will. He realised the importance of providing the people with scapegoats –
enemies they could blame for the nation’s (and therefore their own) problems. Beginning with the
trial of fifty engineers for sabotage at the Shakhty mines in 1928, Stalin unleashed a wage of
repression – aimed at diverting attention from his own failures, and preparing people for the
bloodletting that was to come. In 1930, he purged the so-called ‘Industrial Party’; the following year,
he turned on the ‘Union Bureau’. All the while, he honed his killers in the campaign against the
kulaks, during the collectivisation process.

The great purges were sparked by the murder of Sergei Kirov in 1934. Whether Stalin ordered the
murder or not, he certainly used it as a pretext to unleash a series of spectacular show trials, aimed at
discrediting and eliminating his enemies within the Central Committee.

In the first of these trials, in 1936, Stalin eliminated the so-called ‘Oppositionists’ – those Old
Bolsheviks who had opposed him in the 1920s (men like Kamenev and Zinoviev). The second set of
trials, in 1937, was aimed at Stalin’s own allies – those who had sought a policy of relaxation and
reconciliation at the 1934 Party Congress (such as Pyatikov and Radek), contrary to Stalin’s wishes.
The intention was to demonstrate that Stalin would brook no opposition, even among his own allies.

The final set of trials, in 1938, eliminated all the remaining members of Lenin’s original Party (men
like Bukharin and Rykov). It was accompanied by a full-scale assault on every institution in the
Soviet Union: the Party, the army, the bureaucracy, the cultural organisations, the industrial
enterprises, even the secret police. In all, 18 million people died during the purges of the 1930s.

Of course, the purges were not enough to establish Stalin's extraordinary accumulation of power.
Stalin also used both collectivisation and industrialisation to consolidate power in Russia during the
1930s. Both policies allowed him to gain control over the economy, and to discredit or eliminate his
rivals within the Communist Party. The most effective means of increasing Stalin’s power was
collectivisation. This involved the elimination of private ownership of agricultural land, and its
replacement with a system of state-owned and collectively-owned farms. The peasants who worked
on these farms were under the control of the Party, which in turn was under the control of Stalin.
Inadvertently, collectivisation also gave Stalin the opportunity to eliminate large numbers of ‘class
enemies’ – the kulaks and to encourage Party members to murder. Seven million people starved to
death during the collectivisation process. Countless more were sent to labour camps, where they met
a similar fate.

Industrialisation was also crucial in helping Stalin consolidate his power. He understood that he
could not hope to rule without popular support. In Stalin’s case, industrialisation shifted millions of
people from the countryside to the cities, where jobs were plentiful and living standards higher than
on state-run farms. Many of these people – formerly illiterate peasants – benefited from Stalin's rule.
Stalin also used the perception of economic success to consolidate his support within the Party and
among the people. Economic achievements were impressive, given that they were accomplished
Paula Gorham

over a period of only ten years. Not surprisingly, they elicited considerable respect and admiration
from people in the USSR and in the West. Hence it can be seen that collectivisation and
industrialisation were crucial to Stalin’s consolidation of power.

In his case, this was achieved via the industrialisation process, which shifted millions of people from
the countryside to the cities, where jobs were plentiful and wages were comparatively good. Many of
these people – formerly illiterate peasants benefited from Stalin's rule. On November 7, 1927, the
tenth anniversary of the October Revolution Stalin introduced his new plan for Russia’s economy.
The Five Year Plan, was Stalin’s solution to boosting Russia’s economy. Stalin promised to make
the social lives of Russians better with lower taxes, pensions, equal status for women, and allowing
cultural differences . Stalin was demanding extreme changes in the country’s productions. He wanted
increases of 111% in coal production, 200% in iron and 335% in electric power. Stalin said that his
plan was necessary because without it, Russia would never be able to stand up against a possible
invasion, however he eventually began to use his five-year plan to wipe out thoses he feared and
consolidate his power, kulaks, higher income farmers, were very quickly eliminated from Russia on
Stalin’s orders . Millions of kulaks were arrested and expelled to regions in the arctic where they
died. Stalin’s efforts did pay off and the economy was largely improved but it came at a great price.
Stalin knew how far behind Russia was in the world economy and made it his personal goal to create
a powerful country that could support itself.

Stalin used his political skills to out-manoeuvre his rivals and acquire the powers of a dictator. He
used propaganda, censorship and a cult of personality to gain the support of the people. His use of
collectivisation and industrialisation also contributed to his consolidation of power but it was his use
of fear and terror that trully consolidated his power as ruler. He While he did oversee the industrial
development of the country, allowing it to resist the Nazi onslaught in 1941, he also subjected his
people to a regime of lies, fear and dictatorship, which resulted in over 20 million deaths.