More than anyone he had brought the USSR into being. It was he who schemed to bring to heel the Muslim Communists of the populous East. He was the one who defended the anathema of Lenin’s New Economic Policy. Objectively, no one was more central to the Communist enterprise on a day-to-day basis, a conclusion Stalin likely reached himself. But during these years, his power was gravely threatened by a sheet of paper calling for his removal.
