The Soviets - Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin

Since the end of 1922, however, Lenin had not only been terminally ill but had also becomes somewhat absent-minded and had lost considerable control of the events around him. He created a system of ‘according to Lenin’ which was beyond the grasp of anyone than himself…Trotsky was totally correct when he later indicated that his conflict with Stalin began before the death of Lenin. But the conflict does not in itself explain anything: Trotsky had even greater conflicts with Lenin. Trotsky then began to formulate, totally in the spirit of Marxism, an entire theory in an attempt to explain the nature of Stalinism and the essence of his disagreement with it. He held Lenin, the system, and himself, totally blameless. Only in 1934 did he write in his diary: ‘Lenin created the apparatus. The apparatus created Stalin.’

• Historian Yuri Felshtinsky

1. Explain whether the above passage supports takes the position that Stalin’s rule was a betrayal of the system established by Lenin?

1. Why would Trotsky hold “Lenin…totally blameless??

1. What specific events on or about 1934 might account for Trotsky’s shifting attitudes about the nature of “Stalinism”?