Stalin's Effects on Society and Politics - Essay Example

Further, by forging a communist bloc from Asia to Europe, Stalin helped to form the basic framework of international politics in the second half of the twentieth century (Kopstein & Lichbach: 212-213). The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was a convinced communist as well as a staunch supporter of Lenin’s ideas about party organization. He was able to gain unprecedented political power, rising to the highest position in the Leninist party based on his better institutional supports, organizational skills, ideological concepts, his implacable loyalty to the party as well as faith in its eventual triumph.

Stalin did his best to enforce Leninist principles of “democratic centralism”, of strict party discipline and control over a hostile society (Kopstein & Lichbach: 214). Several issues confronted Marxists in the Soviet Union, following their revolutionary victory, such as, how to build “socialism” in a predominantly peasant country without the support of proletarian revolutions in more advanced capitalist countries. The policies that were formulated and implemented by Stalin, ultimately destroyed millions of people and left a heavy burden of economic conditions as a legacy for post-Soviet Russia.

Yet, Stalinism was the most consistent ideological position that could successfully be adopted after Lenin’s death, as compared to the three opposing positions adopted by Stalin’s opponents belonging to the Left, the Right and the Orthodox Center. The Left was headed by the famous revolutionary Leon Trotsky who incited Soviet workers to redouble their efforts to rapidly build a strong industrial infrastructure, and argued that the Bolsheviks should stive to foment revolutions throughout western Europe.

However, Trotsky’s power and influence declined rapidly by 1924, with party members and ordinary workers tiring of revolutionary appeals after three years of world war, a year of revolution and three years of