Why did Stalin rather than Trotsky Emerge as the Leader of the USSR in 1929 Stalin emerged as the leader of the Bolshevik party in 1929 due to a variety of lucky events and carefully considered political decisions that caused him to eliminate all his opponents, including his most significant rival, Trotsky.
Amongst party members Stalin was known as “Comrade Card-Index,” one who assembled and dealt with party paperwork, however they were not aware of “what power [he] was accumulating wherein,” which subsequently brought about their downfall.Stalin becoming leader of the USSR in 1929 was greatly aided by him taking on many seemingly boring and undermined positions within the party. However they enabled him to accumulate power and influence throughout the whole Bolshevik party, which proved key to his success and to Trotsky’s downfall. Previous historians saw Stalin’s pre 1924 career as a “dull grey blank” (Nicolai Sukhanov-1922) however recent research has shown it as significant to his uprising. As there were few members in the early Bolshevik days Lenin knew them all well and because he liked Stalin’s excellent organisation he included him as one of the six members of the Central Committee, where he helped make policy and wrote the Pravda. His heritage as being Georgian paid off after the October Revolution when he was made Commissar for Nationalities, this saw the beginning of Stalin becoming the cold hearted and ruthless man which he is infamous for.
Stalin was given jobs that other Bolsheviks viewed as tedious and unimportant, none of them “saw in the Stalin of 1923 the menacing and towering figure he was to become,” (I. Deutscher, the Prophet Unarmed). Positions such as the General Secretary and the Liaison Officer between the Politburo and Ogburo he used to his advantage. In both of these positions Stalin gathered personal information about Bolsheviks and built up individual files, which would include information such as character and loyalty. As…
