In the months following Lenin's death, Stalin's disputes with Zinoviev and Kamenev intensified. While the triumvirate remained intact throughout 1924 and the early months of 1925, Zinoviev and Kamenev did not regard Stalin highly as a revolutionary theorist, and often disparaged him in private even as they had aided him publicly against Trotsky and the
Left Opposition. For his part, Stalin was cautious about where the political situation was heading and often felt that Zinoviev's volatile rhetoric against Trotsky was going too far, especially when Zinoviev demanded Trotsky's expulsion from the Communist Party in January 1925. Stalin opposed Zinoviev's demand and skillfully played the role of a moderate. At this time, Stalin was allying himself more and more with
Nikolai Bukharin and the
Right Opposition, whom Stalin had promoted to the Politburo at the Thirteenth Party Congress. Stalin proposed the theory of
Socialism in One Country in October 1924, which Bukharin soon elaborated upon to give it a theoretical justification. Zinoviev and Kamenev suddenly found themselves in a minority at the Fourteenth Party Conference in April 1925, over their belief that socialism could only be achieved internationally, which resulted in the triumvirate splitting up. This saw a strengthening of Stalin's alliance with Bukharin. According to Rogovin, Zinoviev would later lambast Stalin with the words, "Does comrade Stalin know what gratitude is?", as a reminder that Kamenev and himself had saved him from political downfall with the censure of Lenin's testament during the
Thirteenth Congress. Stalin responded with the words: "But of course I know, I know very well - it's an illness that afflicts dogs". By 1925, Trotsky's foreign policy was disgraced. All
revolutionary movements in Germany and
elsewhere had failed. Moreover, these attempted revolutions led to an anti-communist atmosphere which fueled the rise of
fascism in Western Europe. However, Trotsky's opposition and criticism of the ruling troika received support from several, Central Committee members of foreign communist parties. This included
Christian Rakovsky,
Chairman of the
Ukraine Sovnarkom,
Boris Souvarine of the
French Communist Party and the Central Committee of the
Polish Communist Party which was led by prominent theoreticians such as
Maksymilian Horwitz,
Maria Koszutska and
Adolf Warski. According to political scientist Baruch Knei-Paz, Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution" was grossly misrepresented by Stalin as
defeatist and adventurist during the succession struggle when in fact Trotsky encouraged revolutions in Europe but was not at any time proposing "reckless confrontations" with the capitalist world. With Trotsky mostly sidelined with a persistent illness during 1925, Zinoviev and Kamenev then formed the New Opposition against Stalin. At the
Fourteenth Party Congress in December 1925, Stalin openly attacked Kamenev and Zinoviev, revealing that they had asked for his aid in expelling Trotsky from the Communist Party. Stalin's revelation made Zinoviev, in particular, very unpopular with many inside the Communist Party. Trotsky remained silent throughout this Congress. In early 1926, Zinoviev and Kamenev drew closer to Trotsky and the Left Opposition, forming an alliance that became known as the
United Opposition. The United Opposition demanded, among other things, greater freedom of expression within the Communist Party and less bureaucracy. In October 1926, Stalin's supporters voted Trotsky out of the Politburo. During the years of 1926 and 1927, Soviet policy toward the revolution in China became the ideological line of demarcation between Stalin and the United Opposition. The
1911 Revolution began on 10 October 1911, resulting in the abdication of the Chinese Emperor,
Puyi, on 12 February 1912.
Sun Yat-sen established the
Republic of China. In reality, however, the Republic controlled very little of the country. Much of China was divided between various regional warlords. The Republican government established a new "nationalist people's army and a national people's party" — the
Kuomintang. In 1920, the Kuomintang opened relations with Soviet Russia. With Soviet help, the Republic of China built up the nationalist people's army. With the development of the nationalist army, a
Northern Expedition was planned to smash the power of the warlords of the northern part of the country. This Northern Expedition became a point of contention over foreign policy by Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin tried to persuade the small
Chinese Communist Party to merge with the Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalists to bring about a bourgeois revolution before attempting to bring about a Soviet-style working-class revolution. Stalin believed that the KMT bourgeoisie, together with all patriotic national liberation forces in the country, would defeat the western imperialists in China. Trotsky wanted the Communist Party to complete an orthodox proletarian revolution and have clear class independence from the KMT. Stalin funded the KMT during the expedition. Stalin countered Trotskyist criticism by making a secret speech in which he said that Chiang's right-wing Kuomintang were the only ones capable of defeating the imperialists, that
Chiang Kai-shek had funding from the rich merchants, and that his forces were to be utilized until squeezed for all usefulness like a lemon before being discarded. However, Chiang quickly reversed the tables in the
Shanghai massacre of April 1927 by massacring the Communist Party in Shanghai midway through the Northern Expedition. While the catastrophic events in China completely vindicated Trotsky's criticism of Stalin's approach towards the revolution in China, this paled in significance compared to the demoralization that the Soviet masses felt at such a big setback for socialist revolution in China, with this demoralization aiding Stalin and his allies in the Communist Party and the Soviet state. Attacks against the United Opposition increased in volatility and ferocity. Many supporters of Kamenev and Zinoviev's group, as well as most from the Workers Opposition grouping, had left the United Opposition by mid-1927, changing sides under the growing political pressure and espousing their support for Stalin. Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev grew increasingly isolated and were ejected from the
Central Committee in October 1927. Days later, one of the signatories of
The Declaration of 46,
Varvara Yakovleva, decided to leave the Opposition, after four years, as a result of the ever greater pressure being applied on members of the Opposition by the Stalin led government and by the
OGPU. On 7 November 1927, on the tenth anniversary of the
October Revolution, the United Opposition held a demonstration in Red Square, Moscow, which included
Vladimir Lenin's widow,
Nadezhda Krupskaya. On 12 November 1927, Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Communist Party itself, followed by Kamenev at the Fifteenth Party Congress in December 1927. At the Congress, Stalin announced during his speech that Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, had abandoned the Opposition. Kamenev acted as the United Opposition's spokesman at the Congress due to Trotsky's and Zinoviev's expulsion, but the United Opposition were unable to gain the support of more than a small minority of the Communist Party. They were then expelled after the Congress declared United Opposition views to be incompatible with Communist Party membership. (
Gazanfar Musabekov) in 1928 While Trotsky remained firm in his opposition to Stalin after his expulsion from the Communist Party and his subsequent exile, Zinoviev and Kamenev capitulated almost immediately and called on their supporters to follow suit. They wrote open letters acknowledging their mistakes and were readmitted to the Communist Party in June 1928, after a six-month cooling-off period. They never regained their Central Committee seats, but they were given mid-level positions within the Soviet bureaucracy. Kamenev and Zinoviev were courted by Bukharin at the beginning of his short and ill-fated struggle with Stalin in the summer of 1928. This activity was soon reported to Stalin and was later used against Bukharin as proof of his factionalism. Trotsky, firmer than ever in his opposition to Stalin, was exiled to
Alma-Ata in January 1928 and was exiled from the Soviet Union itself in February 1929, sent into exile in Turkey. From his exile, Trotsky continued to oppose Stalin, right up until Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico on Stalin's orders in August 1940. ==Stalin turns on the Right==