It is fair to say that the struggle for power in the USSR between 1924 and 1929 was partially to do with the economic policy because the way in which different members of the Communist Party treated the economic policy depended how much support they got from fellow members of the Communist party. However, there were other factors involved such as a lack of democratic elections, the nature of leadership and fear of a divided party.
You could argue that the struggle for power was due to the differing economic policies, this is because different key players in the power struggle wanted different things. For example, the Bukharinite model wanted gradualism – to allow market forces to drive the economy forward and so letting the peasants gain wealth individually. He believed this would lead to a prosperous consumer market and heavy industry that is centrally controlled, planned economy run by a proletariat dictatorship. This would please the peasantry and results in political and economic growth as well as increased trade. Trotsky and his leftist model agreed that the party must recognise the role of the market forces during the gradual change to socialism. However, in 1926 he became increasingly critical of the gradualist approach and didn’t approve of peasants who had no obligation to sell if the market wasn’t right and therefore wanted a slightly more capitalist approach to the economic policy so that the government had greater control over produce. This created a power struggle because different people wanted different things and approached economic policy in certain ways and whilst Bukharin was trying to ensure the happiness of the public, Trotsky was trying to ensure the wealth and growth of the USSR as a trade nation. Although these two models were important in why there was a power struggle in those years it is not the most important reason.
Secondly, you could say it... [continues]
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