Manipulating this power, he began building up supportive body that would turn to be in his advantage later. .
Running parallel with his attempts to build up a supportive body were his attempts to win the power struggle at the higher level. Out of all the people attempting to assume Lenin's place at the top, there were six very important people (excluding Stalin) who were split distinctively into two explicit groups: the Leftists and the Rightists. The Troika, consisting of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, were considered to be Leftists while Bukharin, Tomsky and Rykov were the Rightists. Stalin's dilemma was that if he overtly represented one of them, in due time there would be a power struggle within that group (for example, if Stalin supported only the Leftists, later on, after the Rightists were diminished, there would be a power struggle within the Leftist sect). Thus Stalin ingeniously supported the Rightists, to get rid of the Leftists, and then supported the Leftists to get rid of the Rightists. The Leftists were against the continuation of the New Economic Policy, which was more capitalist in nature. People were allowed to possess private industries and sell their excess. There was a growing farmer bourgeoisie, called the Kulak class. Leftist supporters were against the capitalist aspect of all this because they were more conservative in nature. They wanted fast Communism, not through the New Economic Policy, which would take at least 20 years until a socialist state could be established. The Rightists disagreed with this saying that the New Economic Policy was necessary for establishing a socialist state through the protocol that Karl Marx called for. There had to be the intermediate capitalist stage. Stalin sided with the Rightists against this view of the Leftists. He gained immense popularity because Lenin had just died and his popularity still lingered within public hearts and Lenin started the New Economic Policy.