Stalin the Bureaucrat: Gaining Power Through the Mundane

 

A Misleading Propaganda Piece
Lenin and Stalin Shown as Friendly Colleagues

After the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War, the Office of General Secretary was created by Lenin in 1922 with the intention that it would serve a purely administrative and disciplinary position. Its primary focus would be to determine party membership composition and assign positions within the party. The General Secretary also oversaw recording party events and keeping the party leaders and members informed in party activities as well as such apparently mundane tasks as housekeeping, security, and assigning office space.

When assembling his cabinet, Lenin appointed Joseph Stalin as the General Secretary. A masterful bureaucratic empire builder, in his first several years, Stalin would transform his new office into that of party leader and later leader of the Soviet Union.

Prior to Lenin's death, however, Stalin's tenure as General Secretary was already being criticized. In Lenin's final months, he authored a pamphlet—known as his "Testament"—that called for Stalin's removal on the justification that Stalin was becoming authoritarian and abusing his power. After Lenin died, this pamphlet resulted in a political crisis for Stalin, and a vote was held to remove him. Stalin with the help of Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev survived the scandal and remained in his post. 

He cynically capitalized on Lenin's 1924 death by creating a cult over the dead former leader with himself symbolically in the role of its high priest. He also waged a relentless ideological war against his main rival, Trotsky.  By the decade's end, Stalin was the unquestioned leader of the USSR and the General Secretary became the nation's highest office.

Trotsky had been banished from Russia in 1929. He was forced to move country of residence frequently until finally finding refuge in Mexico. It was here that after several failed assassination attempts, one of Stalin’s agents murdered Trotsky in his study.

Source: Wikipedia; Encyclopedia 1914-1918; Encyclopedia Britannica Article, "Lenin's Testament"