Death In The Kremlin: Killer of the Masses

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Power & Glory. In May Lenin had a stroke and at the end of the year a second stroke. His place was taken by a troika or triumvirate. Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin. Trotsky was already aware of, and alarmed at, Stalin's stealthy grasp of power. Lenin defended Stalin and warned against a split in the party. He began dictating a testament in which he reviewed his possible successors: "The two most able leaders of the present Central Committee are Stalin and Trotsky . . . Stalin has concentrated enormous power in his hands; and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution . . . [Trotsky displays] too far-reaching a self-confidence and a disposition to be too much attracted by the purely administrative side of affairs." But after a word with Cheka Boss Dzerzhinsky about the affairs of Rabkrin and Orgburo, Lenin added a postscript: "Stalin . . . becomes unbearable in the office of General Secretary ... I propose to the comrades to find a way to remove Stalin . . . and appoint another man . . . more patient, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to comrades, less capricious, etc." Two months later Lenin had a third stroke which left him paralyzed, without the power of speech.

In the ruthless quarrel over the succession, Stalin showed his cold genius as a political boss: patience to wait, sureness in striking. Instead of attacking Trotsky he began flattering him, suggested he take Lenin's place as principal speaker at the next Party Congress, which Trotsky nobly refused because it might look as if he were stepping into Lenin's shoes before he was dead. Stalin played a humble role, making reverential references to the sick Lenin and to the need for unity, but succeeded in arousing Zinoviev and Kamenev against Trotsky.

This marked the first public display of a wondrously effective device—the canonization of Lenin—to which Stalin held and preserved all the patents. It enabled Stalin to accuse his enemies not of disagreeing with Stalin, but of disobedience to the gospel of Marxist-Leninism, a monolithic dogma which he could quote, interpret or pervert to meet any need.

When Lenin died in January 1924, Trotsky was on his way to a Black Sea resort, and failed to return to Moscow for the funeral. He still expected the comrades to call him into the leadership, and proudly made no move himself. It was one of the greatest political misjudgments in history.

Master of All. A year later Stalin, now master of all appointments, had Trotsky deposed as Commissar for War. Taking fright, Zinoviev and Kamenev sought to re-establish friendship with Trotsky, but the new boss was listening. In 1926 Stalin got from a party conference a sweeping condemnation of Trotskyites and Zinovievites alike. Trotsky and his erstwhile friends were through. A year later, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev were formally expelled from the party. Soon after that, Trotsky was forcibly removed from Moscow and sent to Alma Ata in Central Asia. He was expelled from Russia in January 1929.