ABSTRACT
Soon after Lenin’s death Stalin gave a series of lectures on the late leader’s ideas which were published as Foundations of Leninism, in practice setting himself up as an authoritative source of Party ideology. From this he would go on to consolidate his position as the Party’s ideologist-in-chief. Inexorably, as the government-itself managed by the Party-wrestled both to administer the vast country and to carry out the fundamental changes that would justify and fructify the seizure of power in 1917, Stalin’s word emerged as paramount.
