Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953) was not the major player of the October Revolution of 1917, however, he later grew through the ranks of the Bolshevik party and became one of the most powerful dictators that the world had ever encountered. His path to the dictator of the Soviet Union began when he was appointed to the position of the general secretary of the Communist Party in 1922. A lot of Bolsheviks criticize Stalin in the 1920s, but this did not prevent him from getting the power.
Lenin was the first Bolshevik’s leader who foreshadowed Stalin’s dictatorship inclination by writing in his “Testament”: “Comrade Stalin … has concentrated an enormous power in his hand; and I am not sure that he always know how to use that power with sufficient caution.” (CP I, 64) Further in the testament Lenin suggested to remove Stalin from the post: “I propose to the comrades to find the way to remove Stalin from that position and appoint to it another man…”(CP I, 64) After the death of Lenin in 1924, Stalin started to destroy his opponents. Stalin was very skillful in maneuvering around situation to make his opponents look bad. Also, he was constantly changing his theory depends on whom he needed to destroy.
The first Stalin’s target was Trotsky who wrote “theory of permanent revolution” where he elaborated on his concerns that the Soviet regime, being unsupported by international revolution, was in threat of losing its social qualities. Stalin criticized Trotsky’s publication and accused him in being Menshevik’s theorist. Moreover, Stalin’s words: “… Trotsky’s “permanent revolution” is the negation of Lenin’s theory of the proletarian revolution…” was the first step to destroy once one the most power political figure in the party. (CP I, 67).
In 1925, former allies of Stalin in political war with Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev (alliance was known as “troika”), split by creating