The discussion about the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country began in the mid-1920s. Until 1924 this question was not raised by anyone in the party. The opinion of the victory of the socialist revolution in several advanced countries as a necessary condition for the victory of socialism in the USSR was shared by all theorists and ideologists of the RCP (b).

It is known that Lenin always linked development of Russia with international events: "The complete victory of the socialist revolution," he said in November 1918, "is unthinkable in one country, and requires the most active cooperation of at least several advanced countries, to which we cannot rank Russia ". This view with some variations until the early 1920s. it was considered generally accepted among the Bolsheviks, despite the defeat of the Communists in Germany.

 In May 1924, Stalin, in the pamphlet On the Foundations of Leninism, wrote that overthrowing the power of the bourgeoisie and establishing the power of the proletariat in one country still does not mean ensuring the complete victory of socialism. For the final victory of socialism, he continued, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant like Russia, are not enough; this requires the efforts of the "proletarians of several advanced countries". Thus, the entire theoretical tradition of the Bolsheviks was aimed at considering their revolution as part of the international revolutionary process.

One of the first to express the opposite opinion was N.I. Bukharin, the Party's favorite. In February 1924, speaking on the question of building socialism, he noted that he was talking about "one single country". In proclaiming this thesis, Bukharin understood by him a more ostentatious attitude towards the peasantry, an alliance with the countryside and a measured pace in the question of industrialization. Bukharin criticized international social democracy, who believed that in Russia there was a "colossal numerical superiority of the peasantry", and the proletariat "was floating like a fly in peasant milk, and this fly proletariat put in front of an elephant peasant cannot do any the communist revolution. "

At the end of 1924, Stalin changed his opinion on this issue. He no longer denied the possibility of building socialism in the USSR in the absence of victorious socialist revolutions in the West. The logic of the struggle against Trotskyism demanded criticism from the "capitulators" and "defeatists". In April 1925, at the XIV Conference of the RCP (B.), A new theoretical and political installation was formalized. Stalin, quoting a number of Leninist statements of various years, stressed that it was Lenin, and not anyone else, who discovered the truth about the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country.

Stalin and Bukharin, becoming the main theorists of the proclaimed slogan, divided the issue into two parts. The essence of the first of these was that the final victory of socialism in the USSR as a "complete guarantee against the restoration of the capitalist order" cannot be achieved without victory of the socialist revolution in other countries. The second part of the question was supported by Lenin's quotations taken out of context and contained the conclusion that the complete victory of socialism can be achieved without corresponding revolutions in the West.

The true meaning of the theory of the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country, Trotsky saw in the desire of the Soviet party-state bureaucracy to defend its dominant position in the country and the international communist movement. To this end, it was advantageous for her to call in advance socialism everything that happens and will happen inside the country, regardless of what happens outside its borders.

In 1926-1927 the question of the possibility of the victory of socialism in one single country became the key direction of theoretical differences within the party.

Stalin blamed Trotsky for allegedly underestimating the potential possibilities of the peasantry and opposing the Leninist concept of a union of working and working peasants as the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Trotsky's theory of the "permanent revolution", which he formulated at the beginning of the 20th century, was criticized.

Then Trotsky wrote that the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia, while relying only on its own resources, is impossible, since "the working class will inevitably be crushed by counter-revolution at the moment when the peasantry turns its back on it." For such a question, the Stalin-Bukharin bloc accused the opposition of not believing in the victory of socialist construction and pessimism. Trotsky's statements that the theory of "permanent revolution" has no relation to the inner-party discussion and that he considers this question to be written off to the archive long ago, did not stop Stalin. He again and again attacked the opposition, accusing it of “unbelief” in the internal forces of the revolution