To what extent was Stalin's victory in the power struggle of 1924-1929 a result of the popularity of his policies?

To answer this question, you will need to assess both how significant Stalin's policies were in contributing to his victory in the power struggle following Lenin's death in 1924. However, you will also need to take into account other factors which led to his victory - most notably, his opponents' weaknesses and his exploitation of these. I would personally answer this question by arguing that, although his policies were popular, he manipulated them in order to play off his opponents and it was instead his exploitation of his opponents' weaknesses that led to his victory in 1929. My first paragraph would argue that the exploitation of opponents was more important than popularity of policy through his stance on the New Economic Policy. He deliberately switched his opinion on this policy to match the popular opinion of the time, supporting its continuation until 1927 to turn people against Trotsky and the Left of the party, who were in favour of abolishing it; then later dropping the NEP in favour of industrialisation and collectivisation, allowing him to defeat Bukharin. I would then continue to argue for the weakness of the Left of the party and demonstrate how Stalin was able to outmanoeuvre Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, before doing the same with Bukharin on the right - further displaying how it was strategy and exploitation which led to Stalin's victory rather than popularity of policy. Furthermore, I would dedicate a paragraph to Stalin's actions surrounding Lenin's death - in particular his oration at Lenin's funeral and promotion of the cult of Lenin as well as his tactical move not to publish Lenin's testament - all of which is further evidence to his manipulation of the situation to gain popularity.Finally, I would dedicate the last paragraph to the popularity of his 'Socialism in One Country' policy as opposed to Trotsky's 'Permanent Revolution' and give some credit to his popular policies. However, I would need to argue that this is less significant as a factor contributing to his success in the power struggle as it is only one policy, which was further exploited to his favour .