"Stalin owed everything to Lenin." Stalin's oppressive rule was legitimized by the "imprimatur of Lenin's creation and succession." Marx's theory became Lenin's doctrine and Stalin's creative justification. Lenin's Bolshevik ("Majority" in Russian) party was formed in 1903 with the objective of a stagiest societal evolution of Europe and Russia in the gradual progression from feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, and to eventual communism. In the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin succeeded in establishing the Soviet Government, and after the 1920 Bolshevik victory in the Civil War, he gained his party political isolation, "effectively limiting the Soviet Government to only one political party," the Bolsheviks. Lenin believed that until he obtained European support and the ensuing transition to a communist society was complete, laws were necessary "to suppress the resistance of classes hostile to the proletariat." This temporary law became a "dictatorship of the proletariat, and instructed his followers go use both corruption and the threat of general extermination" to ensure the authority of the temporary dictatorship. As a self-willed Lenin disciple, Stalin became a member of the Politburo, the inner council of Bolshevism . Around the time of Lenin's death, Stalin was able to use his leadership in the Central Committee and the Orgburo to fill Party positions with his followers and push his opponents from favor. He then solidified his power in the Party by proposing a policy later known as Stalinism, a theory that sanctioned an unlimited and no longer temporary Soviet dictatorship with the radical intent of employing Socialism in a single country. Stalin appealed to that "Great Russian chauvinism" and to the Bolsheviks and many citizens who retained a fervent Communist idealism . The Socialist cause was the authority that justified both Lenin and Stalin's ruthless regimes.