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The personalities of the contenders EssayHow significant were the personalities of the contenders to succeed Lenin in accounting for Stalins defeat of his opponents in the years 1924-29? Lenins death on the 21st January 1924 caused huge sadness across the country. After Lenins death, everyone was eagerly waiting to know who would be the next attracter of Russia. In the years after Lenins death, there was no clear successor to his leadership. However, when Lenin was leader, Trotsky was always there for him, and he played a huge role in the civilised War, therefore everyone thought he would become Lenins successor. However, as wholesome as Trotsky there were different significant contenders, much(prenominal) as Stalin, Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev which created a huge force out struggle. I believe that the personalities of the contenders were significant in this struggle. However, other factors such as ideological battles, removal of opponents by Stalin and the consolidate d powerbases also had an effect. The personalities of all were all highly different by a great margin. The most likely to win, Trotsky was intellectually gifted which greatly benefitted him.He was also a great military leader and had good organisational skills. Trotsky has a few strong disadvantages to his personality though. His late arrival to the Bolshevik party could be interpret Trotsky as an unloyal casing while his confidence out-of-pocket to his intelligence made him quite a few different enemies in the Bolshevik party. Trotskys arrogance led to his defeat as he vastly underestimated Stalin and the threat he posed, while also decreasing his inner party support. At the time Trotsky would be clear favourite to win that his poor characteristics let him down. The next contender and winner of the battle for power was Joseph Stalin. An underdog and one of the least likely looking people to win, Stalin played his cards well and to his advantage. Being a Bolshevik from the begin ning supported the fact that Stalin was a loyal Bolshevik which was a strength of his personality. Stalin being a cunning character was another strength of his and was a contributing factor to the defeat of his enemies as he was substantially able to manipulate and outplay them.His ruthlessness and his ability to easily fix support due to his position and authority to promote them also benefitted greatly to the defeat of his enemies. He had a major weakness and thorn in his side though and that was Lenins opinion of him. The ability to easily manipulate Stalin was also a major disadvantage for him. While Stalin didnt look it, he had just as bigof a chance as Trotsky due to his nature. Another contender in the race for leadership was the Golden boy cognize as Bukharin. Bukharin was possessed one of the best personalities of the party and his traits and strengths such as his incorruptibility and honest and well natured manner were good aspects about him. His Golden boy appellation was also helpful as it represented how liked he was by Lenin before his death. His intellectuality also benefitted him greatly and he was often referred to as the brains of the Bolsheviks. Bukharins main weakness though was that he had no ambition and he was too young. These factors led to a small support for Bukharin while his right-wing views also baseball swing out some votes for him.Another contender, Zinoviev possessed good strengths such as being a good speaker and being good friends with Lenin. These would essentially form Zinoviev a right to the leadership of the party. He was involved little in the civil war though and his dislikeable and vain nature did little to help him gain the support he needed which was why he teamed up with the last contender Kamenev. Kamenev was also a friend of Lenin but compared to Zinoviev was from a working sept background which would have benefitted him greatly due to the say and respect he would have. Kamenev had little influence though a nd was too uninspirational greatly denting his chances Therefore, what we can infer from the personalities and strengths of from each one other contenders was that Stalin cleverly manipulated and took advantage of each contenders weaknesses which led to him becoming leader. Stalin would also use the past to his advantage e.g. Zinovievs poor revolutionary record or Trotskys past allegiances. Stalin would also use the personalities of other contenders to his advantage e.g. Trotskys arrogance or the fact that Bukharin has no ambition. There were also many other factors that led to Stalins victory though.Another way in which Stalin won was the removal of opponents by Stalin. Stalin slowly but surely took out each of his opponents conservatively and concisely. Stalin removed Trotsky by creating the Triumvirate with Kamenev and Zinoviev. Stalin carefully destroyed Trotskys reputation with Zinoviev and Kamenev with things such as drumheading his loyalty to Lenin, destroying his influenc e by questioning his Bonapartism ideology and question his activities leading up to the revolution. Stalin also made Trotsky miss the funeral of Lenin, shocking the party and destroying Trotskys influence by a huge chunk. When Stalin had taken care of Trotsky,he then took care of Zinoviev and Kamenev by splitting the Triumvirate and creating the Duumvirate with Bukharin. With Zinoviev and Kamenev in decline due to the influence they had in the defeat of Trotsky, Stalin easily defeated them. When that had happened Stalin quickly turned against Bukharin and with his outgrowth influence Stalin removed him from the race for leadership.At the end of everything, Stalin had removed all opponents and this was a big factor in determining Stalins victory due to the fact that it had removed all of the people in the way of Stalin becoming leader of the Bolsheviks. Another way Stalin took power was by increasing his influence by never actually taking a side. While everyone was on either a left- wing or right-wing stance, Stalin remained neutral as to not ravish his influence with members of either side. This way Stalin would face less opposition due to him not going against a large opposition of the party. His stance on things such as the NEP also came to his advantage and he both agreed and disagreed with it at different times. Stalin also took a neutral view on how fast Russia should industrialise, he personally however took a left wing view towards this.