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After Lenin's death, Stalin put forward the theory that the Soviet Union could survive without other socialist countries (in the West, such countries would be called communist states rather than "socialist countries"). This theory was contested by the Left Opposition within the party. Stalin's position gained an apparent confirmation from failed attempts of proletarian revolutions in other countries, and this might have also contributed to changing the focus of Stalin's external policy from the Third International to tradeoffs with capitalist states.

In the first edition of the book Osnovy Leninizma (Foundations of Leninism, 1924) (the one with his formula: Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution), Stalin was still an adept of Lenin's idea that revolution in one country is insufficient. However, by the end of the same year, in the second edition of the book, his position started to turn into the opposite direction: "...proletariat can and must build the socialist society in one country".

Stalin later characterized Trotsky's position as asking the world to "wait" for Western workers and "simultaneous" global revolution. On the other hand, Stalin did provide aid to communists in other countries, most notably in the Spanish Civil WarTeruel, east of Madrid. For an article about the 1820-1823 civil war in Spain, see: Spanish Civil War, 1820-1823 The Spanish Civil War ( 1936 1939) was the result of complex political differences between the Republicans — supporters of the government of t. Also, he established several " communist states" in Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is, by convention, a region defined geographically as that part of Europe covering the eastern part of the continent. Generally this means that it lies between the Ural and Caucasus mountains and the western border of Russia, or alternative after World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough, although many communists (especially the TrotskyistsTrotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. The term is sometimes used more loosely to denote various political currents claiming a tradition of Marxist opposition to both Stalinism and capitalism. An adherent of Trotskyism is called), as well as many non-communists, argue that this action was motivated more by the desire to create Russian " satellite stateThe term satellite state by analogy to stellar objects orbiting a larger object, such as planets revolving around the sun, refers to a country that is formally sovereign but that is in fact dominated by a larger hegemonic power. In extreme cases, satellits" than to spread the workers' revolution. In any case, neither the supporters of Stalin nor those of Trotsky succeeded in starting a revolution in the West.