The Struggle for Power in the Ussr

The struggle for power in the USSR in 1924 – 1929 was to do with economic policy. 24 marks. It is fair to say that the struggle for power in the USSR between 1924 and 1929 was partially to do with the economic policy because the way in which different members of the Communist Party treated the economic policy depended how much support they got from fellow members of the Communist party. However, there were other factors involved such as a lack of democratic elections, the nature of leadership and fear of a divided party.

You could argue that the struggle for power was due to the differing economic policies, this is because different key players in the power struggle wanted different things. For example, the Bukharinite model wanted gradualism – to allow market forces to drive the economy forward and so letting the peasants gain wealth individually. He believed this would lead to a prosperous consumer market and heavy industry that is centrally controlled, planned economy run by a proletariat dictatorship.

This would please the peasantry and results in political and economic growth as well as increased trade. Trotsky and his leftist model agreed that the party must recognise the role of the market forces during the gradual change to socialism. However, in 1926 he became increasingly critical of the gradualist approach and didn’t approve of peasants who had no obligation to sell if the market wasn’t right and therefore wanted a slightly more capitalist approach to the economic policy so that the government had greater control over produce.

This created a power struggle because different people wanted different things and approached economic policy in certain ways and whilst Bukharin was trying to ensure the happiness of the public, Trotsky was trying to ensure the wealth and growth of the USSR as a trade nation. Although these two models were important in why there was a power struggle in those years it is not the most important reason. Secondly, you could say it was the lack of democratic election that resulted in the power struggle.

The Communist Party believed that elections were not part of the socialist ideal and so a power struggle was created due to their being no definite leader in 1924. In January 1924, Lenin died and because so many different people wanted to be the new party leader there was no clear way to decide who should be the next leader of the Communist Party. All the different prospective leaders had their own different strengths and support bases and so in early 1924 it wouldn’t have been possible to elect a new leader due to a lack of majority support.

For example, Zinoniev and Kamenev had been members of the Communist Party for a long time, Trotsky had helped lead the October Revolution with Lenin, Bukharin and Stalin both had support from other party members. Due to this wide variety of strengths it would have been inevitable to have a power struggle in these years without some form of election. Another perspective on why there was a power struggle could be down to the nature of leadership in these years. The different personalities obviously brought forward different strengths for the party and so this could be why there was a power struggle.

For example, some party members wanted a collective leadership so there wasn’t a singular central power source and believed this is the more socialist thing to do. Also, some feared giving Trotsky the power because he was considered quite arrogant and possibly too passionate to be the next leader because he could of become a dictator, which was greatly feared due to the overthrowing of the Tsar during the 1918 October Revolution. Furthermore, this could have resulted in a divided party which would mean the party would be split and potentially weak against threat of revolution if the people did not like the new leader.

Overall, this meant that because of the extremely specific requirements of what it would take to become a leader, in 1924 no-one was really in the position to step up to the position with the full support of the Party and people. For these reasons, it could be argued that the specific nature of leading the Communist Party was the reason that there was a power struggle until 1929. To conclude, the most important reason why there was a power struggle is because of the lack of democracy in electing a new leader.

This is because if there had been an election there would be an undisputed leader of the party which has their support and also the support of the people. This would have meant there would have been no power struggle and so therefore the economic policy wouldn’t have mattered so much because it would be what the leader and there party decided and the nature of leadership wouldn’t have mattered because the party would have thought that the leader possessed the required things needed to be the leader.