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Lenin died on 21 January 1924. Stalin was given the honour of organizing his funeral. Upon Lenin's death, Stalin was officially hailed as his successor as the leader of the ruling Communist Party and of the Soviet Union itself. Against Lenin's wishes, he was given a lavish funeral and his body was embalmed and put on display.
Lenin had not wanted Stalin to succeed him, stating that "Comrade Stalin is too rude" and suggesting that the party find someone "more patient, more loyal, more polite". [5] [6] Stalin did not completely succeed in suppressing Lenin's Testament suggesting that others remove Stalin from his position as leader of the Communist party.
The proposal was adopted by a majority vote, over Krupskaya's objections. As a result, the testament did not have the effect that Lenin had hoped for, and Stalin retained his position as General Secretary, with the notable help of Aleksandr Petrovich Smirnov, then People's Commissar of Agriculture. [73]
Robert Service notes that "institutionally and ideologically Lenin laid the foundations for a Stalin ... but the passage from Leninism to the worse terrors of Stalinism was not smooth and inevitable." [47] Historian and Stalin biographer Edvard Radzinsky believes that Stalin was a genuine follower of Lenin, exactly as he claimed himself. [48]
Here, Stalin cites Lenin that the final victory is possible only on the international scale and only with the help of the workers of other countries. [ 24 ] Marxist historian Isaac Deutscher traces Stalin's socialism in one country policy to the publication of The Foundations of Leninism which emphasized the policy of isolationism and economic ...
The historiography of Stalin is diverse, with many different aspects of continuity and discontinuity between the regimes Stalin and Lenin proposed. Some historians, such as Richard Pipes, consider Stalinism the natural consequence of Leninism: Stalin "faithfully implemented Lenin's domestic and foreign policy programs."
It was probably Lenin who had proposed Stalin for the position of People's Commissar of Nationalities, and while Stalin had initially turned down the post, he ultimately relented. [18] He and Yakov Sverdlov were also tasked with ensuring that Petrograd was defended from Kerensky's Cossack forces which had rallied in the Pulkovo Heights .
By attacking Stalin, McCauley argues, he was undermining the credibility of Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgy Malenkov, Lazar Kaganovich and other political opponents who had been within "Stalin's inner circle" during the 1930s more than he had been. If they did not "come over to Khrushchev", they "risk[ed] being banished with Stalin" and associated ...