Given that this community has generally positive view of Stalin, I’m curious what he did that my comrades find irredeemable or out of line. Since it’s easy to criticize the Soviet Union from a western perspective, bonus points if you explain how this was detrimental to the development of socialism and/or communism.
What does ‘consolidate all power’ mean? He still must have plenty of allies left to run a whole country.
Also did Lenin ever name a preferred successor?
No Lenin didn’t. In fact he basically trash talked every single person that might’ve been a “natural” successor. The closest thing was Trotsky who he at least left some compliments for lol. It’s all in Lenin’s Testament I inked if you wanna learn more
By “consolidate all the power” I mean get rid of anyone who could possibly challenge him. Like Trotsky and Kamanev. He decisively took the position of the rightwing of the party in order to overthrow the leftwing and then also killed the leaders of the rightwing lol.
I’m not even gonna engage with the rest of that question though because… lol. Do you think the Tsar was able to rule for so long because “he had plenty of allies”? He was extremely unpopular even amongst the nobility. That’s just not how power works