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'Stalin's Rise to Power'

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The History Faculty - Podcasts by James Harris Dr James Harris, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History, University of Leeds

Podcasts by James Harris

Podcasts on Russian History

DVD

GBP 14.99

Synopsis

This podcast explores the variety of approaches to the question of Stalin’s power. It considers the relative importance of a/ Stalin’s control of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party; b/ he opinion of both of the Party elite and rank and file, and c/ Soviet political culture in the 1920s. Dr. Harris briefly discusses the findings of his own research in the archives of the Central Committee Secretariat.

HANDOUT (right-click save as)

Contents:

1. The Central Committee Secretariat and Stalin’s Rise to Power

2. The Role of Ideas vs Machine Politics

3. Stalin’s control of the political machine

4. The Policy Debate

5. Political culture

Key Concepts

Bolshevik: Literally “one of the majority”. The Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party split in 1903 in a dispute over tactics. The majority (the Bolsheviks) were the more radical than the minority (the Mensheviks).

Marxism-Leninism: Lenin’s contributions to Marxist thought. For example, Lenin proposed that a revolutionary underground party could seize power in Russia and use their control of the apparatus of state to build socialism. Marx believed that communism would emerge in the process of the development of capitalism.

New Economic Policy (NEP): A radical change in regime policy initiated at the 10th Party Congress in March 1921. The preceding policy known as “War Communism” had failed, and it was deemed necessary to reintroduce some elements of capitalism.

Secretariat: A department of the Central Committee with responsibility for appointing the Party members to the most important (or “nomenklatura”) posts, such as the heads of the Commissariats (ministries) and regional Party Committees.

Circular Flow of Power: A description of the relationship between Stalin and senior Party officials presented by Robert Daniels in the 1950s and 1960s. Daniel thought that senior Party officials owed their places to Stalin personally, and voted for him at major Party meetings, in exchange for which Stalin ensured that they kept their jobs.

Party Rank and File: Party members not in “nomenklatura” posts. They made up the overwhelming majority of the membership of the Communist Party.

Timeline

7 November 1917 The Bolsheviks, a group of approximately 20,000 marxist revolutionaries, seize power in St. Petersburg, Russia.

3 April 1922 Joseph Stalin appointed General Secretary of the Central Committee, with responsibility for administering the process of filling all major Party posts.

8 October 1923 Trotsky writes a letter to the Central Committee and Central Control Commission complaining about the impact of Stalin’s Secretariat on inner-Party democracy.

21 January 1924 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the universally acknowledged leader of the Bolsheviks, dies after he is incapacitated by a series of strokes.

23-31 May 1924 Politbureau majority attacks Trotsky at XIII Congress of the Communist Party.

Autumn 1924 Stalin develops his theory of Socialism in One Country.

6 January 1925 Trotsky resigns as War Commissar and is largely isolated from power.

September 1925 Stalin clashes with former Politbureau allies Lev Kamenev and Grigorii Zinoviev at a Central Committee plenum after disagreements over policy deepen in the course of 1925.

Spring 1926 Rapprochement between Trotsky and former enemies Kamenev and Zinoviev. They form what is referred to as the “United Opposition”.

December 1927 United Opposition expelled from the Party.

Spring 1928 Stalin’s relationship with Politbureau ally Nikolai Bukharin breaks down in the midst of a crisis in grain collections.

17 December 1929 Bukharin expelled from the Politbureau