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Trotsky Vs Stalin Essay

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1. What were some of the key differences between Trotsky and Stalin
Leon Trotsky was Lenin’s “right hand man”; he helped build the Red Army and played a key role in the Bolshevik Revolution. Stalin, on the other hand, had just risen to the general secretary of the Communist party. Another difference was that Trotsky was a scholar who came from the middle class while Stalin was a “thug” and grew up very poor. In addition to physical differences, the two were also different fundamentally. Trotsky, like Lenin, believed in “permanent revolution”. This meant that he believed Socialists could only build the ideal society in the Soviet Union until after the whole world had experienced Socialist revolutions. Stalin, in contrast, believed it was …show more content…

This program, that replaced the NEP, set economic goals for a five year period. The plan brought all industrial and agricultural production under governmental control. In addition, this plan provided housing, healthcare, and other services.

3. How were the Five Year Plans ineffective? What did they nevertheless accomplish?
The Five Year Plans were very inefficient. This is shown by the costs that the plan came with. The terrible working conditions, low wages, and limited food resulted in millions of deaths. The inefficiency of this plan is also evidenced by the collective farms, which were unable to provide a sufficient amount of food. Despite many the negatives, this plan did transform the Soviet Union into an industrial power.

4. What was collectivization? What was the unintended negative outcome thereof?
Collectivization was Stalin’s plan to have the government own the farmland and have all of the peasants come to work on it. This meant that the peasants had to leave their own farms (which sometimes had historic roots) and come work on the government's farm. At theses farms, the peasants couldn’t benefit from their hard work as well (at their old farms if they worked hard they could get more money for their families). This resulted in peasants fighting back against the plans. Thousands of these protesting peasants were killed or arrested and sent to labor camps in

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To the population, war is when you are told what to fight for, and a revolution is when you decide for yourself. On April 19, 1775 was the day that America had decided for itself that we needed to be independent, the start of the American Revolution. The American revolution was over in about eight years. After the war Americans had decided to turn its focus inward and decide on what government they wanted and what America as a country would become. That is how the articles of confederation came to be on March 1, 1781 and of course like everything it had it’s pros, cons and results.

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Trotsky and Stalin had different agendas. Following Lenin’s ill health and death there was a political vacuum left, with several leaders striving for power. Though Trotsky was the presumed next in line and was a popular Bolshevik leader, Stalin, Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev formed an alliance or troika to ensure that Trotsky didn’t obtain power. Many leaders wanted to go return to normal now that the crisis of the Civil War was over and Trotsky represented more revolutionary ideas. Eventually the troika broke up and the United Opposition formed against Stalin’s Communist party.

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The Five-Year Plans were a series of goals which each took five years to complete, that were aimed at quickly improving the economy and industrialisation of the USSR so that it could compete with Western Capitalist countries. According to Stalin in a speech on 7 January 1933, the first Five Year Plan was a great success in terms of its outputs, and furthermore because the working class was able to complete the first Plan ahead of schedule in only four years16(Source B).The Plan was successful in creating an iron and steel industry, a tractor industry, a machine-tool industry, a chemical industry, an agricultural machinery industry and an aircraft industry16(Source B). In addition, the USSR now ranked among the first for electricity, oil products and coal outputs in the world16(Source B).In another speech delivered by Stalin in April 1928, Stalin discusses the modernisation of agriculture and puts forward his idea of Collectivization to increase agricultural outputs for the USSR17(Source C). Stalin knew that agricultural production and development was very slow, and was thus negatively affecting the country’s economy17(Source C). Stalin blamed this slow development on the fact that the USSR still had an “insecure” and “primitive” system of economy because of

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Both leaders were driven by communism, but their political outlook and the way they affected the war proved to be at odds. Nikita Khrushchev strongly opposed Stalin's forceful leadership and aimed to reform his country during the Cold War. In these respects, he was similar to Mao. As an ardent member of the Communist Party during Stalin's rule, Khrushchev rose to power after a jostle with other prominent party members as to who would replace him after his death in 1953 (gwu.edu). Khrushchev began the process of anti-Stalinization in the Soviet Union that would undoubtedly reveal the previous leader's faults.

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Stalin desired to be the leader of the Communist party, and was willing to manipulate his opponents and play them off against each other, which he did successfully. He first joined forces with Grigory Zinovyev and Leon Kamenev (other replacement candidates) to lead the country. He used them to get rid of the most likely replacement for Lenin’s position, Leon Trotsky. Lenin had always wanted Trotsky to replace him if anything had happened; however Stalin’s heart was hardened and he ended up kicking him out of the political loop. Even in Lenin’s political testament, he worried about Stalin’s mental stability and stated that he should not be chosen to rule (Service 124).

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Yet, Stalin did not have the patience to do this. He decided to order the government to create a reestablish Soviet revolution of control. Peasants’ customs, culture and a revival of market-style are local economics that returned as Soviet institutions collapsed in war. The citizens contain the greatest potential for unrest situation, they hoped that Stalin would allow the government reforms and that life might get a little easier. But, he did not.

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Stalin commences his new “revolution from above,”otherwise known as the Soviet Union’s first Five-Year Plan, in order to create rapid industrialization, especially in heavy industry. This Five-Year Plan as well as Stalin’s full collectivization would give the communist party more control over the people as well as the Soviet’s economy. In 1932, at the end for the first Five-Year Plan it is estimated that the steel and iron industries output increased by 50% and that electricity, petroleum, machinery, chemicals, equipment and fertilizer industries increase was over 50%. New factories were built and new cities emerged, however, the farming was a bust and by 1932 over 1 million people in Kazakhstan alone had died of famine caused by Stalin’s forced collectivization. The 1932 famine had in part transpired due to the peoples fight against collectivization and the governments attempts with brutality to force it leading to deaths of the workers and not enough people to work the farms.

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