Editing Leon Trotsky (section)

=== Lenin's illness (1922–1923) ===
[[File:TrotskiEnMoscúConTropas1922 (cropped).jpeg|thumb|left|upright=.8|Trotsky with Red Army soldiers in Moscow, 1922]]
In late 1921, Lenin's health deteriorated. He suffered three strokes between 25 May 1922 and 9 March 1923, causing paralysis, loss of speech, and eventual death on 21 January 1924. With Lenin increasingly sidelined, Stalin was elevated to the new position of Central Committee [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|General Secretary]] in April 1922.{{efn|Yakov Sverdlov was the Central Committee's senior secretary for personnel affairs from 1917 until his death in March 1919. He was replaced by [[Elena Stasova]], then [[Nikolai Krestinsky]] in November 1919. After Krestinsky's ouster in March 1921, [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] became senior secretary but lacked Krestinsky's authority as he was not a full Politburo member. Stalin took over as senior secretary, formalized at the XIth Party Congress in April 1922, with Molotov as second secretary.}} Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev{{efn|It is unclear why Kamenev, a mild-mannered man with few leadership ambitions and Trotsky's brother-in-law, sided with Zinoviev and Stalin against Trotsky in 1922. Trotsky later speculated it might have been due to Kamenev's love of comfort, which Trotsky found "repelled me." He expressed [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/xx/kremlin.htm his feelings to Kamenev] in late 1920 or early 1921: "Our relations with Kamenev, which were very good in the first period after the insurrection, began to become more distant from that day."}} formed a [[triumvirate]] (''[[List of leaders of the Soviet Union#List of troikas|troika]]'') with Stalin to prevent Trotsky, publicly number two and Lenin's [[heir presumptive]], from succeeding Lenin.

The rest of the expanded Politburo (Rykov, [[Mikhail Tomsky]], Bukharin) initially remained uncommitted but eventually joined the ''troika''. Stalin's patronage power{{efn|The Central Committee's Secretariat became increasingly important during and after the Civil War, as the Party shifted from elected to appointed officials. This was driven by the need for rapid manpower allocation and the party's transformation from a small revolutionary group to the ruling party, with increased membership including career seekers and former members of banned socialist parties, viewed with apprehension by Old Bolsheviks. To prevent party degeneration, membership requirements for officials were instituted, and the Secretariat gained ultimate power over local appointments, concentrating enormous power in the General Secretary's hands.}} as General Secretary played a role, but Trotsky and his supporters later concluded a more fundamental reason was the slow bureaucratisation of the Soviet regime after the Civil War. Much of the Bolshevik elite desired 'normality,' while Trotsky personified a turbulent revolutionary period they wished to leave behind.

Evidence suggests the ''troika'' initially nominated Trotsky for minor government departments (e.g., Gokhran, the State Depository for Valuables).{{sfn|Pipes|1996|loc=Document 103 (22 May 1922)}} In mid-July 1922, Kamenev wrote to the recovering Lenin that "(the Central Committee) is throwing or is ready to throw a good cannon overboard". Lenin, shocked, responded:{{sfn|Pipes|1996|loc=Document 106}}
{{Blockquote|Throwing Trotsky overboard—surely you are hinting at that, it is impossible to interpret it otherwise—is the height of stupidity. If you do not consider me already hopelessly foolish, how can you think of that????}}
Until his final stroke, Lenin tried to prevent a split in the leadership, reflected in ''[[Lenin's Testament]].'' On 11 September 1922, Lenin proposed Trotsky become his deputy at the [[Council of People's Commissars]] (Sovnarkom). The Politburo approved, but Trotsky "categorically refused". This proposal is interpreted by some scholars as Lenin designating Trotsky his successor as head of government.{{sfn|Pipes|1996|loc=Document 109}}<ref name="Hitler and Stalin : parallel lives">{{cite book |last1=Bullock |first1=Alan |title=Hitler and Stalin: parallel lives |date=1991 |location=London |publisher= HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-00-215494-9 |page=163 |url=https://archive.org/details/hitlerstalinpara0000bull/page/132/mode/2up}}</ref>{{sfn|Mandel|1995|p=149}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ceplair |first1=Larry |title=Revolutionary Pairs: Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Gandhi and Nehru, Mao and Zhou, Castro and Guevara |date=21 July 2020 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-7945-2 |page=93 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pc3cDwAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Rubenstein|2011|p=127}}
[[File:Rakovsky and trotsky circa 1924 trimmed.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|Trotsky with Christian Rakovsky, c. 1924]]

In late 1922, Trotsky allied with Lenin against Stalin and the emerging Soviet bureaucracy.<ref>Chapter XXXIX of [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch39.htm ''My Life''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420212213/http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-lif/ch39.htm |date=20 April 2006}}, Marxist Internet Archive</ref> Stalin had recently engineered the creation of the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]] (USSR), further centralising state control. The alliance was effective on foreign trade{{efn|Lenin's [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/15.htm letter] to Stalin, dictated on 15 December 1922: "I am sure Trotsky will uphold my views as well as I." Faced with united opposition from Lenin and Trotsky, the Central Committee reversed its previous decision and adopted the Lenin-Trotsky proposal.}} but was hindered by Lenin's progressing illness.

In January 1923, Lenin amended his Testament to suggest Stalin's removal as General Secretary, while also mildly criticising Trotsky and other Bolsheviks. The Stalin-Lenin relationship had completely broken down, demonstrated when Stalin crudely insulted Lenin's wife, [[Nadezhda Krupskaya]]. In March 1923, days before his third stroke, Lenin asked Trotsky to denounce Stalin and his "Great-Russian nationalistic campaign" at the [[12th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|XIIth Party Congress]].

At the XIIth Party Congress in April 1923, after Lenin's final stroke, Trotsky did not raise the issue.<ref>Chapter 11 of Trotsky's unfinished book, entitled [http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005/08/trotskys-stalin-chap-11-from-obscurity.html ''Stalin''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070629051005/http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005/08/trotskys-stalin-chap-11-from-obscurity.html |date=29 June 2007}}</ref> Instead, he spoke about intra-party democracy, avoiding direct confrontation with the ''troika.''{{efn|Trotsky explained in Chapter 12 of his unfinished book [http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_maximumred_archive.html ''Stalin''] that he refused to deliver the report because "it seemed to me equivalent to announcing my candidacy for the role of Lenin's successor at a time when Lenin was fighting a grave illness."}} Stalin had prepared by replacing many local delegates with his loyalists, mostly at the expense of Zinoviev and Kamenev's backers.<ref>Chapter 12 of Trotsky's unfinished book, entitled [http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_maximumred_archive.html ''Stalin''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070712104730/http://maximumred.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_maximumred_archive.html |date=12 July 2007}}</ref> Delegates, mostly unaware of Politburo divisions, gave Trotsky a [[standing ovation]]. This upset the ''troika'', already infuriated by [[Karl Radek]]'s article, "Leon Trotsky – Organiser of Victory,"{{efn|Radek wrote:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937/dewey/session13_c.htm|title=Archived copy|access-date=24 October 2005|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051122201847/http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937/dewey/session13_c.htm|archive-date=22 November 2005}}</ref>"The need of the hour was for a man who would incarnate the call to struggle, a man who, subordinating himself completely to the requirements of the struggle, would become the ringing summons to arms, the will which exacts from all unconditional submission to a great, sacrificial necessity. Only a man with Trotsky's capacity for work, only a man so unsparing of himself as Trotsky, only a man who knew how to speak to the soldiers as Trotsky did—only such a man could have become the standard bearer of the armed toilers. He was all things rolled into one."}} published in ''Pravda'' on 14 March 1923. Stalin delivered key reports on organisational structure and nationalities; Zinoviev delivered the Central Committee political report, traditionally Lenin's prerogative. Resolutions calling for greater party democracy were adopted but remained vague and unimplemented.

The [[Stalin's rise to power|power struggle]] also impacted prospects for world revolution. The German Communist Party leadership requested Trotsky be sent to Germany to direct the [[German October|1923 insurrection]]. The Politburo, controlled by Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, rejected this, sending a commission of lower-ranking Russian Communist party members instead.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Zakharovich |title=Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years |date=2021 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-1-893638-97-6 |page=272 |language=en}}</ref>