Rise of Joseph Stalin

The Rise of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin's rise started after the October revolution when the tsar was taken out

of power and the Bolsheviks took over. He was appointed the general secretary of the communist party; this role seemed minor but played an important role in his rise to power. His position allowed him to appoint his supporters to high ranking positions, thereby setting up a foundation for his rise to power.

Vladimir Lenin the leader of the USSR and the '''revolution grew scared of the growing power of Stalin but had a stroke that forced him into an early retirement making any direct actions against Stalin impossible although he did write a letter suggesting his dismissal from the party. Stalin managed to down play the letter without much harm to his reputation.'''

His foreign policy was to grow communism in countries that were already under communist control rather than force revoloutions, this put him into conflict with Leonard Trotsky who was the leader of the emerging left wing opposition. He believed in greater freedom of expression and a repeal on Lenin's Faction Ban. Stalin got Trotsky and his supporters Kamenev and Zinoviev to sign a letter of submission to him then were removed from the party, Kamenev and Zinoviev were later allowed to rejoin the party after writing letters of apology but Trotsky was never allowed to rejoin and lived in exile outside of the USSR. He was assasinated in Mexico City in 1940 by Stalinist Ramon Mercader.

Stalin then turned on his Right wing allies after the assassination of Sergei Kirov supposedly killed by Stalin orders but no one is certain. He used the death of Sergei to charge and execute party members that threatened his power including Kamenev and Zinoviev; this left him as one of the only old party Bolsheviks left alive. Stalin was now the only person in the USSR who could make a claim at power.

Stalin made his way into the seat of power through manipulating events into his own favor and through backstabbing his allies. He was a ruthless political genius in the terms of how he gained control and turned the USSR into one of the world’s most powerful super powers.

TIMELINE

January 1912: ·Bolsheviks officially separate from Social Democrats, Stalin appointed to the Party's Central Committee by Lenin.

January 1913: ·Stalin co-writes, with Lenin, "Marxism and the National Question"

August-September 1914: ·Outbreak of World War I.

March 1917: ·Beginning of Russian Revolution. The Tsar's government falls, replaced with a Provisional Government. Bolsheviks, including Stalin, hasten to St. Petersburg

April 1917: ·Lenin returns from Switzerland, where he fucked a whore named lori webb rebukes Stalin for taking a conciliar line with the Provisional Government.

November 1917: ·Bolsheviks overthrow Provisional Government, seize power. Stalin plays only a minor role.

1918-1920: ·Civil war in Russia. Trotsky organizes Red Army; Stalin commands forces in Tsaritsyn, Petrograd (St. Petersburg), and elsewhere.

1921: ·Birth of Stalin's second child, Vasily

1922: ·Official founding of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

April 1922: ·Stalin elected General Secretary of the Communist Party

May 25, 1922: ·Lenin suffers his first stroke

January 4, 1923: ·Lenin, in a postscript to his Testament, warns the Party to remove Stalin from his position of power.

March 7, 1923: ·Lenin suffers final stroke, loses his powers of speech

January 21, 1924: ·Death of Lenin. Stalin survives the reading of the Testament by the Central Committee in May.

1924-25: ·Stalin publicly attacks Trotsky for being unfaithful to "Leninism."

December 1924: ·Stalin publicly articulates his theory of "Socialism in One Country."

December 1925: ·Allied with Bukharin and the "Rightists," Stalin begins attacks on Zinoviev.

February 28, 1926: ·Birth of Stalin's third child, Svetlana

October-November 1926: ·At the Fifteenth Party Congress, Stalin attacks the "United Opposition" of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotsky.

1927: ·Beginning of the first Five-Year Plan

November 1927: ·Kamenev and Zinoviev expelled from the Party; Trotsky expelled and sent to Central Asia.

December 1934: Sergey Kirov assassinated