Untitled - OUDL Home

The N.E.P. interlude, 1921-28, was the period of themaking of the Union, the consolidation of the newadministration under the party, and the extension of itscontrol over the trade unions and co-operatives. AfterLenin's death in 1924 it was also the period of openstruggle within the party, above all between Stalin andTrotsky, radically opposed to one another in temperament,abilities, and policy, and each with bitter scoresfrom the past. Stalin (Djugashvili; b. 1879), a Georgian,had well earned his pseudonym ' man of steel' in twentyyears of underground revolutionary struggle as aBolshevik with frequent arrests and deportations—butalways in Russia, never in exile abroad. He had playeda conspicuous part in the Civil War, often in conflictwith Trotsky, especially in the defence of Tsaritsyn,renamed in his honour Stalingrad. Trotsky (Bronstein;1879-1940), a Jew, was similar only in being a professionalrevolutionary. From 1902 to 1917 he was almostcontinuously out of Russia in exile, and he had beenguilty of various deviations from the Leninist line. Herose to fame during the Brest-Litovsk peace debateswith the Germans, and then with dramatic energy setabout creating the Red Army. Brilliant both as aspeaker and a writer, he represented above all the intellectualinternationalist for whom Russia was essentiallythe springboard for world revolution.Stalin, who had been entrenched at the centre asgeneral secretary of the party since 1922, won the dayfor 'socialism in one country' as against 'permanentrevolution.' Trotsky and certain other leaders wereexpelled from the party, and in 1929 he was deported.A year previously Stalin launched the second revolution,rapid large-scale industrialization and collectivization ofagriculture, i.e. total planning over the whole range ofeconomics and finance.From 1930 onwards, three years before Hitler, eightyears after Mussolini, Stalin was acclaimed as 'theleader' (the Russian word has the corresponding rootand the same literal meaning asfuhrer or duce). UnlikeLenin, he did not head the government, the Council ofPeople's Commissars (until May 1941); nor was he