Stalin: History in an Hour. Rupert Colley

and his supporters, labelled as the ‘Left Opposition’, opposed the party on many accounts and were attacked on all sides. Their views, ‘Trotskyism’, became a profanation of immense proportions. Stalin had on his side Kamenev, Zinoviev and Pravda editor Nikolai Bukharin, Lenin’s ‘favourite of the whole Party’.

      Nikolai Bukharin

      Stalin used his power to dismiss his perceived dissenters within the Party and replace them with loyal followers. In January 1925, Stalin was strong enough to force Trotsky’s resignation from his post of People’s Commissar for War.

      Kamenev and Zinoviev felt that perhaps Lenin had been right after all – that Stalin had too much power. At the Fourteenth Party Congress in December 1925, Kamenev suggested that Stalin be removed from his position as General Secretary and that his accumulation of power was ‘harmful to the Party’. He received a hostile reception.