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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."
Britannica and various authors noted that the policies of Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union, contributed to the establishment of a totalitarian system in the USSR, [3] [7] but while some authors, such as Leszek Kolakowski, believed Stalinist totalitarianism to be a continuation of Leninism [7] and directly called Lenin's ...
Like Rosa Luxemburg, Emma Goldman was primarily critical of Lenin's style of leadership, but her focus eventually transferred over to Stalin and his policies as he rose to power. [8] In her essay titled "There Is No Communism in Russia", Goldman details how Stalin "abused the power of his position" and formed a dictatorship. [ 8 ]
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]
Stalin used the purges to politically and physically destroy his other formal rivals (and former allies) accusing Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev of being behind Kirov's assassination and planning to overthrow Stalin. Ultimately, the people arrested were tortured and forced to confess to being spies and saboteurs, and quickly convicted and ...
However, eventually the two figures merged in the Soviet press; Stalin became the embodiment of Lenin. Initially, the press attributed any and all success within the Soviet Union to the wise leadership of both Lenin and Stalin, but eventually Stalin alone became the professed cause of Soviet well-being. [9]
Hannah Arendt in 1933. Hannah Arendt was one of the first scholars to publish a comparative study of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union.In her 1951 work The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt puts forward the idea of totalitarianism as a distinct type of political movement and form of government, which "differs essentially from other forms of political oppression ...
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.