Introduction: During the Civil War Lenin introduced a policy of "War Communism" that helped him to win the civil war. Once Lenin and the Bolsheviks had won the civil war, they proceeded to put in place new economic policies (NEP). Lenin died in 1924, creating a struggle for power that Josef Stalin eventually won in 1928.

Communism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
  - Banned all non-communists
  - Turned Rrussia into a one party state.
  - Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 -> Russia withdrew from WWI
    at a great cost   - 1921 Lenin banned all groups within the party who
    critized the Government -> 750,000 expelled or 'purged' from the party.
  - 1923 a new constitution made Russia into the Union of Soviet Socialist
    Republics (USSR or Soviet Union).

The War Communism Policy
The system of War Communism that Lenin put in place during the civil war helped the Bolsheviks to win the war but it ruined Russia. Peasants decided against growing food if it was only going to be stolen to fuel the war effort. The result was famine in 1921, killing an estimated 7.5 million and leaving millions more staving. Lenin then abandoned this policy and introduced a New Economic Policy (NEP).
NEP = Government was not allowed to seize food, peasants allowed to sell any surplus food to private traders, government control of factories was relaxed and private businessmen were allowed to own & run all but the largest industries for profits.
By the time of Lenin's death in 1924 the NEP had begun to work: production was on the rise and the economy was beginning to recover. Not all-bad news about communism. Russian workers also had more rights than in many countries.
Labour law 1922 = 8 hour working day, 2 weeks paid holiday per year, social welfare benefits such as an old age pension.
But the unemployed was rising - 1.24 million workers out of an industrial workforce of 8.5 million were unemployed by 1924 = 1 worker in every 7.

Josef Stalin The future dictator of the Soviet Union was not Russian by birth but from Georgia, the province in the Caucausus Mountains. He was born Josef Djugashuili, in the small town of Gori on 21 January 1879. He was the son of a shoemaker and the grandson of serds. From his harsh childhood and early career, the leading traits of Stalin can be traced, distrust, endurance, and above all an intense class hatred that never for Stalin was a Marxist theory. Stalin quickly assumed a number of disliked but influential roles in the Revolution. He was the editor of the Bolshevik Journal (Pravda) and the leader of the Petrograd Soviet.

The Succession to Lenin
Lenin suffered a stroke in May 1922, and when he eventually died on the 21^st January 1924, with him went the undisputed source of leadership in the USSR. The members of the Politburo - the ruling body of the communist party that decided its policies - now had to choose which of them should take Lenin's place. Any notion that the death of Lenin would result in a collective leadership of the Soviet Union never really stood a chance.
The Politburo in 1924 consisted of seven men and they were not a united body, and one man - Stalin - was determined to take control for himself.
How did Stalin emerge as the new undisputed leader of the Sovet Union?

1. He used his position as General Secretary of the Communist Party to build up a power base of loyalty among Party members. It was a job considered too boring by most, and Stalin was the butt of many jokes within the CPSU, being labelled 'Comrade Card-Index'. However, Stalin used his position to amass significant personal information on leading Communists, and as General Secretary he was the vital link within a complex system of councils and committees. Most importantly, the position gave Stalin the power to elect Party officals, and so he was able to build up a powerful base of supporters who owed their loyalty to him.

2. Stalin was ambitious and ruthless and operated by a policy of divide and rule. He was always willing to outmanoeuvre his opponents (such as Trotsky) by siding with people who were useful at the time. Regularly as he rose to power he switched sides, changing his mind on important issues so that he would always be on the side of the majority.

The leadership of the 1920s was certainly a clash of contrary personalities. It was also, however, a genuine dispute about the future path of the Soviet Communism. The candidates clashed over the democratic decision making within the party, over the pace at witch the economic backwardness of the Soviet Union should be tackled. Above all, the dispute centred around two alternate views of the future of the Bolsheviks. The Politburo knew that the USSR would have to industralise rapidly and that the rural areas would have to provide food for the growing workforce. What they couldn't agree on was how to go about this. They split into two factions: