Josh Ireland

Sitting on the committees.

Sitting on committees by sort of stockpiling bureaucratic power so that you have the right to appoint editors in newspapers or the minor functionaries in some city far outside Moscow.

That's where real power lies.

Interesting.

And also by being able to negotiate different personalities, different people's ambitions.

Because what Stalin also is incredibly good at is understanding where people's weaknesses lie.

He's one of the people that can read a human being instantly and know what they want and what they need, but also how you can take advantage of them.

So although, you know, if you were to ask someone in London or Paris or...

Washington, who is the most significant figure in Bolshevik Russia after Lenin, if you'd asked that question in say 1922, they would have said Trotsky.

Because they haven't seen what Stalin is doing.

No one can see what Stalin is doing, least of all Trotsky.

And if he does see, he doesn't rate it.

He doesn't understand it.

So events begin to move quickly.

So Lenin's health deteriorates further and further.

And in 1924, he finally dies.

Yeah.

And this is one of the key moments in the Trotsky-Stalin rivalry because he's sickly.

He often falls victim to these mysterious illnesses that seem to afflict him when the moments of greatest stress.

And so when Lenin dies, he's in the Caucasus recovering.