Explain why there was no successor to Lenin in 1924? (12 marks)
Lenin's concerns over who was to replace him were largely due to ego, he thought that noone was capable of seeing Russia's problems, or the "correct" Marxist solution as clearly as he could. Lenin's ego was the main reason why no one candidate emerged whilst he was alive. He was concerned about all the the prospective candidates, seeing such flaws in their characters that he thought none of them were suitable for the position. He outlined all of his concerns in his testament. In many ways he was right, Bolshevism was, in reality, Lenin's project, anyone who disagreed with him was either thrown out of the party, branded a
Menshevik, or worse.

! Lenin's stroke in 1922, the senior Bolsheviks could not agree on an individual who had
After

the intellectual and moral authority to replace Lenin, so they compromised, and picked three leaders - Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev to rule until he either got better or died. This was made official once Lenin died.

! arguments with fMarxists went back to his early days in exile, when he disagreed with
His

the founders of the Russia Social Democratic Labour Party Georgi Plekhanov and Pavel
Aksel'rod, this disagreement led him to form his own faction of people who followed his ideas
- the Bolsheviks.

! and policy were divided among party members at all levels.The issue was the
Ideology

survival of the Revolution and thus,by extension,the party itself.Trotsky and his followers wanted to export the revolution, backing Communist revolutionaries in other countries (using the Red Army if necessary) to overthrow hostile capitalist and democratic governments elsewhere.Only then, argued Trotsky,would the Revolution in Russia be truly safe and irreversible. On the other hand,Stalin argued that Russia had to modernise and industrialise,
thus