Analysis of Richard Pipes'" Why did Stalin succeed Lenin"

“It is my view that once the Soviet regime was in place and Lenin pursued his visionary program without regard to the almost universal opposition it aroused…the apparatus which he had created naturally rallied around Stalin, the most competent and popular Communist politician” (Pipes, 63) It seems that Richard Pipes begins his analysis on why Stalin came to power by pointing out that it was probably Lenin who paved the way for Stalin. Consequently, throughout Pipe’s analysis, he portrays the fact that Stalin succeeded Lenin firstly, because of the failure of the Bolsheviks in 1919-20 to export the revolution to the industrial west, secondly, because the immense responsibilities of administering every aspect of Soviet life, thirdly because of the rise of an opposition to being ruled by intellectuals among workers, which made up most of the Communist Party, and lastly because of personal reasons. Pipes supports his first argument by reiterating his s...