How did Stalin gain power and initially dispose of his opposition?

... Ramez Younis Grade 10 History How did Stalin gain power and initially dispose of his opposition? The Rise of The Beast When Lenin died in 1924 there would be no leadership election. The communist party did not work that way; the leader would be the person to show most power. The two figures that struggled to power the most to succeed Lenin were Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. After the 1917 revolution, Stalin was already a member of the Central Soviet Committee since 1912. Stalin was an old Bolshevik. He came from a poor background but wasn't an intellectual, full of fine phrases and good vocabulary that made him popular with some communists. Trotsky was very much different, he came from a middle class family and was intelligent and an excellent political thinker. He wanted to change the face of Russia, but the problem was that he only became a Bolshevik in 1917. On

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