How did Stalin become leader of the USSR (Russia)?
Once the bolsheviks had seized power Stalin was promoted to General Secretary of the Party. Lenin (the leader of the Bolsheviks) was very concerned that the brutal party bully who had been very useful to the party when they were an underground, illegal organisation, would prove to be a thuggish influence if given government office. Stalin used the job of General Secretary to promote people loyal to him, to remove from the party people who were disloyal and to collect information on every party member. After Lenin’s death he waited, allowing other Politburo members to state their preferred policies – he then ganged up on groups of them, using his alliances and his party contacts to destroy the opposition. His did this twice in the 1920s, destroying Trotsky and his supporters and Zinoviev and Kamanev and their supporters. This left him as the undisputed ruler by about 1928. Once he was the undisputed leader – the Vozhd (meaning Boss) he continued to use the position of General Secretary
