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In 1922, Lenin was in semi-retirement due to stroke. At the end of the year, he wrote a testament that was to be read out at the 1923 party congress, however, following his stroke that year, his wife held it in secret, hoping for Lenin's recovery, however, when he did not recover, his widow wished that the testament be read out in the 1924 congress.
The testament was a criticism of a number of party members, the most prominent of these being Stalin, the general-secretary of the party, and Trotsky, Stalin's major opponent in the vie for control of the country.
In Lenin's testament, Lenin asked for the removal of Stalin from his position and the instatement of someone else. However, this wasn't to happen, as Stalin's triumvirate (Stalin, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev) managed to successfully compromise the reading Lenin's testament, thus, it did not had the effect that Lenin wanted, and Stalin retained his position as general-secretary, and in the ensuring years, take control of the Soviet Union.
What if, however, Lenin's last testament led to Stalin's downfall from his political position, who would replace him, and who would lead the Soviet Union in the ensuring years?
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