How did Josef Stalin gain power?

Answer 1

Firstly he was elected as General Secretary of the Communist Party to aid Lenin, however when Lenin became incapacitated, Stalin employed ruthless political tactics and used his power as General Secretary to dismiss supporters of Trotsky and other leaders. He then replaced the vacant positions with his own supporters. Another of his ruthless tactics was when he told Trotsky the wrong date of Lenin's funeral making him hated. He also began to play the two halves of the politburo against each other first he allied with the leftist part Zinoviev and Kamenev whom wanted world revolution to force Trotsky into exile and then joined the rightists Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky and advocated Socialism in One Country which stated that Russia should first become strong in order to dismiss the leftists Zinoviev and Kamenev. After this he argued that the NEP ( New Ecomomic Policy ) was anti-communism and had Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky dismissed. Stalin schemed his way to power using ruthless tactics: 1. Firstly he dismissed all his political foes supporter's and replaced them with his own 2. Then he sided with the Leftists to have Trotsky exiled 3. Then he sided with the Rightists to have the Leftists dismissed 4. and finally he argued that the NEP was anti-communism nd had the leftists dismissed Stalin merely eradicated his enemies and culminated his own supporters in order to become supreme ruler of Communist Russia.
As Communist Party general secretary from 1922 he concentrated control of the party apparatus in his own hands during and after Lenin's final illness, favouring his sympathisers. After Lenin's death he successfully urged a policy of early industrialisation and collectivisation of agriculture in opposition to his rival Trotsky, who sought to expand the revolution abroad before concentrating on socialisation of the Soviet economy (though much of Stalin's programme ironically echoed that of Trotsky's 1920s ally Preobrazhensky). With Trotsky defeated within the party, Stalin turned to repression to crush his opponents, first exiling Trotsky and then launching a series of party and government purges culminating in the execution on trumped-up charges of key leaders and thousands more party members as well as hundreds of thousands of officials, specialists and other citizens.
Stalin tried to live up to the ideal of a man who united political power and intellectual acumen. Between the end of the Second World War and his death in 1953 he intervened in scientific debates in fields ranging from philosophy to physics.2 In late 1946, when Stalin was sixty-seven years old and exhausted from the war, he schooled the USSR's most prominent philosopher on Hegel's role in the history of Marxism. In 1948, while the Berlin crisis threatened an irreparable rift between the United States and the USSR, Stalin wrote memos, held meetings, and offered editorial comments in order to support attacks against Mendelian genetics. In 1949, with the first Soviet atomic bomb test only months away, Stalin called off an effort to purge Soviet physics of "bourgeois" quantum mechanics and relativity. In the first half of 1950 he negotiated a pact with the People's Republic of China and discussed plans with Kim Il Sung about invading South Korea, while also writing a combative article on linguistics, carefully orchestrating a coup in Soviet physiology, and meeting with economists three times to discuss a textbook on political economy. In some cases he denounced whole fields of scholarship, leading to the firing and occasional arrest of their proponents. His efforts to unmask errors in science were paralleled by an equally intense drive to show how each discipline could contribute to building communism and serve as a symbolic weapon of Soviet superiority in the battle with the West along an "ideological front."

Answer 2

Joseph Stalin rose through the ranks of the Bolshevik Party by writing Marxist editorials and articles for the Bolshevik newspapers. He also helped finance Bolshevik activities by making "expropriations" of funds (bank robberies).

He was in exile in Siberia when the Tsar abdicated so he got back to Petrograd as quickly as he could. Lenin came to value his dedication to the cause and willingness to do whatever was needed to further it. He was not very involved in the actual coup that was the October Bolshevik Revolution, but afterwards he was given positions of importance in the Bolshevik Party.

Lenin made him Peoples' Commissar for Nationalities, which allowed him access to all of the various republics that later became the Soviet Union. Lenin also made him the first General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. This gave Stalin his first real power because he was able to appoint people who were loyal and beholding to him to positions of importance in the government and Communist Party.

When Lenin was disabled by strokes in 1922 -1924, Stalin teamed up with Grigori Zinoviev and Lev Kaminaev to both run the country and to eliminate Leon Trotsky, whom Lenin had chosen to succeed him. Once Trotsky was eliminated as a rival for power, Stalin allied himself with Nikolai Bukharin and eliminated both Zinoviev and Kamenev from the party. Once it was just Stalin and Bukharin, it was no problem to eliminate Bukharin since Bukharin had few supporters in important positions. Stalin pretty much had control of the Politburo of the Central Committee and soon had Bukharin expelled from the party. Stalin made very effective use of the secret police to bring false charges and intimidate others that held important positions, like Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin.

Stalin was still answerable to the Central Committee and could have been voted out by it, but he bided his time until he had all five spots on the Politburo filled with his cronies. Once that was done and had full control of the secret police, he became the dictator he is remembered as today.

Answer 3

Stalin used his position of General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) (the Party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952) to gain power. Party Secretary had one function: decide who was a Party member, and what they did within the Party. From 1922-1930 Stalin appointed numerous allies who carried out his will at Party conferences. Once he had placed a majority of supporters in powerful positions (Politburo seats, Secretariat, Orgburo, Central Committee, etc.) Stalin was able to expel any suspected threat. By 1930, Stalin had complete control of the Party and had overshadowed Premier Alexei Rykov, Lenin's successor as leader Russia (RSFSR) and of the USSR.

Answer 4

The same way a lot of leaders in the world do, by being a good liar with a touch of charisma.

In addition Stalin shrewdly manipulated differences between his rivals in the communist party. He held important party posts before the revolution which bought the communists to power, made himself useful to Lenin and then after the death of the latter, divided, marginalised and eventually liquidated his rivals of whom Trotsky was the most significant. His rise to power was unhampered by any sign of conscience.

Answer 5

Joseph Stalin came to power following the death of Lenin. He took the country into his own hands and led it through World War II.