Soviet leaders in 1924 were professional revolutionaries and dedicated Westerners. As such, they were very aware of the French Revolution and its development; he served as a model for them. The great fear of many communists was that the Russian revolution would end in "Bonapartism", that is, in a military dictatorship under a charismatic general. In 1922-1924, the role of Napoleon was most clearly filled by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was a dynamic personality and his base of support was his creation, the Red Army. Trotsky was also well known abroad and had an excellent reputation as an orator and historian of the revolution. Trotsky also had some negative attributes. He was not an old Bolshevik and he was Jewish. Stalin and Zinoviev hated him. Above all, he lacked a strong foothold in the Soviet bureaucracy or party structure. His own eminence created enemies and (even more threateningly) forced them to work together to conspire against him. In 1924, institutional power, not prestige, was the key to political succession. With Lenin's death, Stalin had built a strong political and institutional base within the Soviet state. As general secretary of the party, Stalin held the key to the entire power structure. It could promote and demote party members, reward and punish. The secretariat came to dominate the state bureaucracy or Ogburo. After 1922, only Stalin served simultaneously in the Central Committee, Politburo, Ogburo and secretariat of the communist party. These four institutions allowed Stalin to coordinate his power and increase it over time. Rykov was appointed Lenin's successor as head of state (chairman of the Council of People's Commissars), but without the support of the general secretary, the position of prime minister meant little. Russia... middle of paper... is the only factor. Loyalty and self-interest have many sources. Stalin also understood the mentality of the communist base. Most members of the Communist Party were not intellectuals. They were different from the old Bolsheviks who were sympathetic to the West. The party was increasingly made up of ambitious young Russians who wanted to focus on domestic issues rather than foreign adventures. The younger members clearly preferred Stalin as a leader to the flamboyant Trotsky or the cautious right-wingers of Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. The totalitarian aspect of Stalinism and the enormous problems of collectivization and super-industrialization were still unknown and unknowable. Men like Bukharin were gradually stripped of power; murderous purges were far in the future. Stalin cautiously moved away from the NEP and towards Preobrazhensky's idea of ​​socialist accumulation.