he did not make a large impression at first, he later won a close position within Lenin’s Bolshevik regime . Trotsky, however, was not so quick to side with Lenin. Although he worked closely with him at first, he left Lenin and his Bolsheviks to briefly side with the Menshevik party, only to soon after form his own doctrine, one which differed from both the Bolshevik and Menshevik parties. However, as opposed to attempting to form his own faction, he tried to re-unite the two differing ones, but to no avail. It was not until the summer 1917 in which Trotsky was reunited with Lenin and joined the Bolshevik party, claiming he chose to do so not based on his ideology changing, but that the Bolshevik party had changed its position, one that coincided with Trotsky’s beliefs . When the Imperial regime had been toppled, Stalin was appointed general secretary by Lenin, and Trotsky, who was initially given the role of foreign commissar , was soon after given the role of war commissar. These positions allowed both Stalin and Trotsky to form strong ties within the nation, for as general secretary Stalin was in charge of new recruits within the party, and as war commissar, Trotsky formed the Red Army, an elite fighting force bent upon protecting Bolshevik interests. Stalin was comfortable abusing his power to recruit members who shared his specific interests, but Trotsky would not abuse his command over the Red Army against his adversaries, for Trotsky’s loyalty to the party was paramount. When Lenin died in 1924, a new game of favourites had to be played by the party members. For no loner was it a game of being favoured by the leader, but a game in which one had to rise to be the successor, and be favoured by all the party and want all the party to want to be favoured by him. Stalin and Trotsky both had strong enough positions, but still had to gain the support of the party. How they would deal with the confrontations o...
