What is the crux of the conflict between Stalin and Trotsky?
In: Culture
They both wanted power but only one of them could have it.
The policy differences (Trotsky wanted a more aggressive foreign policy) were largely incidental to the power struggle.
Both were in contention to be the successor to Lenin after his death, so on a personal conflict level that was a factor. Lenin died having expressed that literally anyone other than Stalin should succeed him, so you can kinda get the animosity.
On an ideological level, it was about the role of the Soviet Union internationally. The theory that Socialists and the Bolsheviks in particular to that point had been working off kind of assumed that Socialist revolutions would sweep the world, that ‘International Socialism’ was a thing just waiting to be sparked, which the Soviet Union being formed in theory was. However that didn’t happen, the rest of the world remained as capitalist and feudalist as ever with very little successful socialist/communist revolutionary activity happening worldwide (China is about the only exception and they took a long while). Why this was so varies depends on your theory.
Trotsky was a believer in International Socialism and that Socialism can only be achieved if the whole world is, thus he saw the role of the USSR as exporting the revolution to the rest of the world under his interpretation and theory of “Permanent Revolution”. Stalin though became disillusioned and was championing the idea of “Socialism in One Country” which was basically a concession that an international revolution wasn’t happening anytime soon, as such the USSR should focus on strengthening itself to protect from outside threats and cease exporting revolution so as to not antagonize the other powers of the world.
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