After Lenin's death in 1924, a triumverate of Stalin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev governed against Trotsky (on the left wing of the party) and Bukharin (on the right wing of the party). Soon after, Stalin switched sides and joined with Bukharin. Together, they fought a new opposition of Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev. By 1928 (the first year of the Five-Year Plans) Stalin's supremacy was complete. From this year, he could be said to have exercised control over the party and the country (although the formailities were not complete until the Great Purges of 1936 - 1938).
The final stage of Stalin's rise to power was the ordered assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940, where he lived since 1936 (he was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929.)
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