Critics include anti-Stalinist communists such as Trotsky, who pointed out that Lenin attempted to persuade the Communist Party to remove Stalin from his post as its General Secretary.Trotsky also argued that he and Lenin had intended to lift the ban on the opposition parties such as the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries as soon as the economic and social conditions of Soviet Russia had improved. Lenin's Testament, the document containing this order, was suppressed after Lenin's death. Various historians have cited Lenin's proposal to appoint Trotsky as a Vice-chairman of the Soviet Union as evidence that he intended Trotsky to be his successor as head of government. In his biography of Trotsky, British historian Isaac Deutscher writes that, faced with the evidence, "only the blind and the deaf could be unaware of the contrast between Stalinism and Leninism." Similarly, historian Moshe Lewin writes, "The Soviet regime underwent a long period of 'Stalinism,' which in its basic features was diametrically opposed to the recommendations of [Lenin's] testament". French historian Pierre Broue disputes the historical assessments of the early Soviet Union by modern historians such as Dmitri Volkogonov, which Broue argues falsely equate Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism to present the notion of ideological continuity and reinforce the position of counter-communism.
Critics include anti-Stalinist communists such as Trotsky who pointed out that Lenin attempted to persuade the Communist Party to remove Stalin from his post as its General Secretary.Trotsky also argued that he and Lenin had intended to lift the ban on the opposition parties such as the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries as soon as the economic and social conditions of Soviet Russia had improved. Lenin's Testament, the document containing this order, was suppressed after Lenin's death. Various historians have cited Lenin's proposal to appoint Trotsky as a Vice-chairman of the Soviet Union as evidence that he intended Trotsky to be his successor as head of government. In his biography of Trotsky, British historian Isaac Deutscher writes that, faced with the evidence, "only the blind and the deaf could be unaware of the contrast between Stalinism and Leninism." Similarly, historian Moshe Lewin writes, "The Soviet regime underwent a long period of 'Stalinism,' which in its basic features was diametrically opposed to the recommendations of [Lenin's] testament". French historian Pierre Broue disputes the historical assessments of the early Soviet Union by modern historians such as Dmitri Volkogonov, which Broue argues falsely equate Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism to present the notion of ideological continuity and reinforce the position of counter-communism.