Shakira, BLOCK 5
Stalin’s Opposition
Big Oppositions
Leon Trotsky
-One of the people who opposed Stalin
-Major political opposition
-Critical towards Stalinism as they oppose His theory of socialism in one country in favour of
Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution
-Criticize the bureaucracy that developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin
-Known as the left opposition: was formed in 1923 as part of the power struggle within the
Communist Party against Stalin
-Leon Trotsky became the leader for the left opposition and strongly against NEP
-Supported by Group of Democratic Centralism to form the United Opposition
-In the late 1924, Stalin proposed his new socialism in one country that against Trotsky’s ideas.
Stalin drew closer to the Right Opposition and his triumvirate with Zinoviev and Kamenev slowly
broke up over the next year due to Stalin rise to power – Zinoviev and Kamenev were both
executed in 1936
-The Right Opposition were allied to Stalin’s Centre ever since
Catholic Church, Religious opposition
- Religion did not agree with Soviet Union, sees it as a system violating human rights
-They did not agree with the purge act of killing the innocence as it was immoral
-Religion is pure and doesn’t condemn violence
-Sending them to the gulags for labor which it doesn’t support
-Control the behavior of the people, view on Stalin
-Stalin attempted to eliminate them, same as Hitler as it was the key factor of rising power
-Tried to promote religion to eliminate Catholic, invented Marxist-Leninist and encouraged
atheism
-Religious people who went against Stalin, they were being killed and sent to the gulags
-Did not manage to eliminate them entirely, The Pope
The Worker’s Opposition
-Section of Russian Communist Party that was formed in 1920
-Champion worker’s rights and trade union control over industry. its defeat established a
precedent for suppressing dissent within the party, thus enabling Joseph Stalin eventually to
establish his dictatorial control
-Began to develop in 1919, resisting the domination of central party organs over local party units
and trade unions.
-Resisted the party’s minimization of the role of workers in controlling industrial enterprises, the
increasing use of so-called bourgeois specialist in industry, and the party’s effort to replace
group control of enterprises with one-man management.
-Campaign for trade Union lead by Alexander Sergei and Alexandra
-Communist Party could handle and Stalin knew their weaknesses which ease his way of
achieving totalitarianism
-One man power, betitle of the workers
-Affection, march 1919, response to dividing them into different groups which can be more
problematic in Russia
Small Oppositions
Ryutin, Leader of Peasants
-Known as Stalin’s opposition
-Created a small group to oppose Stalin’s policies
- Forced Collectivization, he disliked as he wanted peace
-Ryutin affair, Union of Marxist-Leninist which distributed appeal to workers and members
-Supported the appeal in secret
-He thought we wouldn’t get caught, but he did eventually as one of his members betrayed him
as he reported to OGPU
-There were spies of Stalin
-Members were arrested, being killed during Great Purge
-Affair created in 1932 and ended a year later
Bukharin
-Allies with Stalin with the intention of putting other opponents down such as Trotsky, Kamenev,
Zinoviev.
-In 1926, He appointed Zinoviev as the Chairman executive committee, leader of the Politburo.
He held the most powerful position in the Politburo
-However, when Bukharin started to expand his ideologies, Stalin started to disagree to most of
his ideas. For instance, Stalin blamed Bukharin on NEP for their failures, disagree with the
criticisms made by Bukharin on the Five-Year Plan as the super industrialization
-Clash of Stalin foreign policies with his policy
-1928, Collectivization which Bukharin opposed
-July 1928, Bukharin met Kamenev and realized Stalin is being manipulative and when Stalin
knew he immediately got rid of Bukharin in 1929
The Kirov Affair
-Kirov had doubts about the pace of industrialization and Stalin’s methods of discipline within
the party
-In December 1934, Kirov was assassinated under suspicious circumstances
-Stalin claimed that this was a plot to overthrow him and the rule of the Communist Party
-Supposedly, organized by a Leningrad Opposition Centre which did not exist also linked to
Trotsky. In the next few weeks over 100 party members were shot and thousands of Trotskyists
and Zinoviev’s were arrested
