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The rise of Stalin, 1917–29

David McGill examines how Stalin was able to go from being a relatively minor member of the leading group within the Bolshevik Party to becoming Lenin’s successor

Source A Stalin was one of the pallbearers who carried Lenin’s coffin in January 1924 (he is at the back on the left)

The rise of Stalin to de facto leader of the USSR was by no means inevitable. In fact, a decade before it would have seemed unlikely. How did a relatively minor member of the leading clique within the Bolshevik Party become the successor to Lenin? Stalin’s rise to power revealed him to be a skilful political operative who outmanoeuvred rivals to become head of the Soviet Union.

Josef Stalin was born in Gori, now part of Georgia, in 1878. In 1901 he joined the Social Democratic Party (a Communist organisation) and when it split he followed Lenin into the Bolsheviks. Unlike many Bolshevik leaders Stalin was genuinely proletarian in origin, although his career was really that of a professional revolutionary.

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Previous

Was Germany to blame for the First World War?

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The Cuban missile crisis

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