A collection of four A* standard essays for Cambridge A-Level History (9489) Paper 4: Stalin’s Russia. I achieved an A* for History in the Cambridge A-Level October/November 2022 Examinations and was awarded the Outstanding Cambridge Learners High Achievement Award for History.
The responses t...
To what extent does Stalin’s use of his position as General Secretary of the
Communist Party explain his rise to power by 1928?
Following Lenin’s death, a power struggle ensued, with the most unlikely candidate,
Josef Stalin, rising as Lenin’s successor and the leader of the USSR. There were
multiple factors which contributed to Stalin’s rise to power, which included Lenin’s
legacy, Trotsky’s failings, and ideological divisions within the party. Ultimately,
Stalin’s shrewd and astute use of his position as General Secretary of the
Communist Party enabled him to rise to power.
Firstly, the position of General Secretary gave Stalin vast powers over the party. It
gave him a seat in the Politburo, granted access to over 26,000 personal files, and
made managing memberships a key responsibility. Stalin was able to take
advantage of this by ensuring the appointment of those fiercely loyal to him in
positions of power. For instance, he ensured the appointment of six Stalinists to the
1926 Politburo and made sure men like Molotov dominated the Central Committee.
Also, in his capacity as General Secretary, he was tasked with the supervision of the
Lenin Enrolment (1924). Here, Stalin was able to exploit his position by establishing
transactional relationships with new recruits through the enrolment programme. As
such, new members usually "owed" Stalin and were loyal to the leadership that gave
them membership: Stalin. This growing loyalty was repeatedly demonstrated and
explains Stalin’s success in getting the support of Party Congresses. For instance,
the Fifteenth Party Congress in October 1927 saw the expulsion of the remaining
leaders of the Left Opposition, notably Kamenev, affirming the previous expulsions
of Trotsky and Zinoviev. Less than one percent of the membership voted in favour of
the Left Opposition, which is a clear indication of Stalin’s stranglehold over the
membership. This proves that Stalin was able to use his position as General
Secretary to ensure loyalty from the members of the party.
Also, under the Lenin enrolment, the party vastly increased in size due to almost
250,000 new recruits being brought in. As supervisor, Stalin was able to indoctrinate
many of them as the majority proved to be poorly educated and politically naive. He
made sure new recruits had access to his book, "Foundations of Leninism," which
appealed to the average Russian. For members of the Lenin enrolment who didn’t
know the leading campaigners, Stalin’s book would lead them to the understanding
that Lenin was the "boss" and Stalin was his trusted right-hand man. It also fostered
the assumption that because Stalin was the author of the book about the foundation
of Leninism, in the minds of the new recruits, Stalin was Lenin’s natural successor.
Lenin was known throughout the USSR, so anyone who was closely associated with
Lenin would be held in reverence thereby making it seem like Stalin was Lenin’s
natural successor. Thus, Stalin’s clever usage of his position proved to be very
important to Stalin’s rise to power.
By Sonia A. Sanjay (printsbysonia)
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