Lenin vs Stalin: the key differences explained

Lenin vs Stalin is a question about two leaders of the Soviet state who shared a party and a one-party system but made opposite choices about the economy. Lenin led the Bolsheviks to power in 1917 and brought in the New Economic Policy in 1921. Stalin, who followed him as leader, ended that policy in 1928. This post sets out what the two men did, where they differ, and where the evidence leaves a question open.

Learn 100 Influential People has short hands-on lessons on the 100 people who most shaped history, including Lenin and Stalin, with the sources for every lesson.

Who were Lenin and Stalin?

Vladimir Lenin (1870 to 1924) led the Bolsheviks. World History Encyclopedia says that after the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 he was made chairman of the Workers' and Peasants' Government, which made him in effect the new head of state, and that he oversaw the creation of the USSR in 1922.

Joseph Stalin (1878 to 1953) was Lenin's successor as leader, according to the same encyclopedia's article on the New Economic Policy. Lenin died in January 1924, and the ruling party then debated whether to keep the policy Lenin had started. The rest of this post follows that policy, because it is where the two men's choices can be set side by side from sources.

Lenin vs Stalin at a glance

These points come from the two encyclopedia articles named above. They are a summary, not a full biography of either man.

• Shared: one party. Under Lenin only the Communist Party was permitted, and the encyclopedia says that to ensure unity under the NEP all other factions were removed, even dissenting ones inside the party. Stalin inherited that system.
• Lenin: a limited market. In 1921 he brought in a measure of free-market capitalism in farming, trade and light industry, while the state kept heavy industry, banking and foreign trade.
• Stalin: the plan. In 1928 he ended the NEP. Farms were collectivised, industries were fully nationalised and the first five-year plan began in October 1928.
• Lenin's stated reason: the economy had collapsed after the First World War and the civil war, and rebellions showed the old approach would not be tolerated.
• Stalin's stated reasons, in the source: to discredit his rival Bukharin, who supported the NEP, and because grain supplies had fallen.

The home page of Learn 100 Influential People, where the Twentieth Century lessons start.

How Lenin took and held power

The Bolsheviks seized power by force in November 1917, using their Red Guards militia. The encyclopedia calls it a largely bloodless coup, with minor resistance at the Winter Palace. Lenin's new government issued a flood of decrees, including an 8-hour maximum working day and a decree that workers would control production.

The Bolsheviks then faced an election they did not win. In the Constituent Assembly they took 175 of 715 seats, against 370 for the Right Social Revolutionaries. On the day the assembly first met, 5 January 1918, Lenin told the delegates they would stay subservient to the Sovnarkom and the soviets. When they voted that down, he ordered the Red Guards to close it. Rival socialist groups were then harassed until only the Communist Party was permitted. The encyclopedia describes a grip on power that depended "increasingly on a policy of terror" and a huge bureaucracy of control.

This matters for the comparison. The one-party state was not Stalin's invention, according to this source. It was built under Lenin, and Stalin led it afterwards.

Lenin's New Economic Policy

By 1921 the economy was in a very bad state. The encyclopedia says industrial output that year was just 12% of the 1913 figure and the harvest was less than half the pre-war average. After the Kronstadt rebellion of sailors, strikes and peasant uprisings in the spring of 1921, Lenin concluded that taking food from farmers by force would not be tolerated. He presented the NEP at the 10th Party Congress in March 1921.

What changed under the NEP:

• A progressive tax replaced the forced taking of grain, paid in kind at first and in cash from 1923. Farmers could trade any surplus they grew.
• Only 8.5% of industrial businesses stayed nationalised, though they employed 84% of the workforce. By 1923, 76% of retail business was private.
• The state kept heavy industry, banking and foreign trade, and set up a planning agency, Gosplan.

Lenin admitted the paradox, saying he was "building socialism with capitalist hands". The encyclopedia says he did not treat the NEP as a short retreat but as a policy to follow for a long time, though it adds that his position was ambivalent. Its verdict on results is mixed: the NEP gave Russia a recovery, with output back to pre-war levels by 1928, but growth was slow, industrial unemployment was 14% in 1927, and in 1928 only 1% of farmland used tractors instead of draught animals.

How Stalin ended the NEP

The encyclopedia says Stalin ended the NEP in 1928 for two reasons. First, it let him discredit Bukharin, his main rival for the party leadership, who supported the policy. Second, the policy was no longer achieving the results hoped for, and grain supplies in particular had fallen. Collectivising farms might fix that, and it gave two scapegoats: the richer peasant (the kulak) and the merchant (the NEPman).

The numbers it gives for what followed are large. From 1929 to 1931, 20 million individual farms were merged into 250,000 collectives, which released labour for industry. Industrial production rose by 12 to 18 per cent a year from 1928 to 1937. The article also says this brought modernisation but that heavy state interference often stifled incentives, planning was crude, and goods were often poor. It states plainly that "uncountable human suffering and deaths" were treated by Stalin as a price worth paying to keep his grip on power and make Russia a major industrial power.

A worked example: trace the NEP from 1921 to 1928

Try this on your own, using the two encyclopedia articles. It takes about 20 minutes and shows the difference better than any list.

1. 1921. Write down the problem Lenin faced (12% of 1913 industrial output, a harvest under half the pre-war average, Kronstadt) and the fix (a limited market).
2. 1921 to 1924. Note what the state kept and what it released. Mark who the encyclopedia says supported the policy (Bukharin) and who doubted it (the Communist left).
3. January 1924. Lenin dies. Write down what the party decided: the NEP continued for four more years.
4. 1928. Note the two reasons given for ending it. Then ask: which one is about the economy, and which one is about power?
5. Conclusion. Write two sentences: one on what the two men shared, one on how they differed, using only what your sources say.

If you are not sure how to weigh what one article says against another, Primary vs secondary sources in history: examples helps, and Cause and consequence in history: a student's guide shows how to ask why an event followed another.

Where the question stays open

Historians do not agree on how far Stalin continued Lenin's course, and this post does not settle it. The encyclopedia offers one view on the economy: that Lenin, "had he lived, may well have moved on to a project of collectivisation and nationalisation in the 1930s". It notes that Leon Trotsky, another key figure, had long argued for taking more from agriculture to speed up industrialisation. On that reading the NEP was a pause, not Lenin's last word.

The other reading is the one Lenin's own words allow: that he meant the NEP to last "generations", not as a temporary device. Neither reading is shown to be right by the sources used here. Two further limits: these are only two articles, and they cover the economy and the one-party state, not every part of either man's rule. Read more widely before you write an essay, and say which source you rely on for each point.

Frequently asked questions

What is the main difference between Lenin and Stalin?

On the economy, Lenin brought in the NEP in 1921 with a limited market, and Stalin ended it in 1928 with collectivisation and five-year plans. Both ran a one-party state.

Did Stalin follow Lenin's policies?

In part. He kept the one-party state Lenin built, but he ended the NEP. Whether Lenin would have done the same in time is a question the encyclopedia article leaves open.

Why did Stalin end the New Economic Policy?

The source gives two reasons: it let him discredit his rival Bukharin, who backed the NEP, and grain supplies had fallen.

Who ruled first, Lenin or Stalin?

Lenin. He led Soviet Russia from 1917 and died in January 1924, and Stalin succeeded him as leader.

Get started

Learn 100 Influential People has short hands-on lessons, about 9 minutes each, with questions that check what you learned. Its Twentieth Century course covers Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Mao, Deng, Gandhi, King and Mandela, and every lesson lists its sources. You sign in with your email and an emailed code.

Open Learn 100 Influential People and read about the project first if you want to see what is inside. Sources for this post: World History Encyclopedia on Lenin's New Economic Policy and the consequences of the Bolshevik Revolution.