To what extent did Joseph Stalin’s judgments from 1922 to 1929 account for his success in the power struggle after Lenin’s death in 1924? After Lenin’s death in 1924, there was a power struggle between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. This lecture aims to determine the extent to which Stalin’s judgments, up until 1929, accounted for his success in the power struggle, taking into account the dominant failures committed by Trotsky that helped Stalin consolidate power. The focus will be on the various themes of Stalin’s power base before the death of Lenin, Stalin’s initiative in suggesting continuity between him and Lenin, and Trotsky’s misjudgments that Stalin took to exploit. There will be documents evaluated as evidence for the above three categories, include the books The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia by Richard Overy and Autopsy For An Empire by Dmitri Volkogonov.