to capitalism. It was characterized by the abandonment of grain requisitioning, lowering of taxes and the resumption of local private trade. The government still controlled the “commanding heights” – large industry, finance, railways and foreign trade but many other areas were allowed back into private hands. A good comparison of a similar tactical retreat in Stalin’s time, can be seen in Stalin’s reopening of the churches in World War Two. For many years Stalin savagely persecuted the Russian Orthodox Church and actively encouraged militant atheism as state policy. However seeing the dire need of the people for true moral/spiritual invigoration after the Nazi invasion, he reopened the churches and even allowed the election of a new Patriarch. Stalin too, could be flexible if it was expedient to do so. Let us now examine the political and economic practices of Stalin compared to those of his “master”.“Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.” – Lenin 1923 Although he was never to know it, Lenin had only picked at the tip of the iceberg with these words. After his death in 1924, Stalin began to ruthlessly consolidate his power using the post of Party General Secretary. This is because this post gave him the power to appoint and dismiss all Part functionaries. In the next few years he set about eliminating his rivals on various ideological grounds. Trotsky was removed from the Politburo in 1926 and expelled from the USSR in 1929. Likewise Kamenev and Zinoviev were also expelled. In this instance we see the application of political tactics that were to characterize Stalin’s rule – the removal of opposition on trumped up charges of subversion, spying, sabotage and ideological heresy. The accused were demonized...
