After Lenin's death (21 January 1924), Trotsky ideologically battled the influence of Stalin, who formed ruling blocs within the Russian Communist Party (with Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, then with Nikolai Bukharin, and then by himself) and so determined soviet government policy from 1924 onwards. The ruling blocs continually denied Stalin's opponents the right to organise as an opposition faction within the Party—thus, the re-instatement of democratic centralism and free speech within the Communist Party were key arguments of Trotsky's Left Opposition, and the later Joint Opposition.[17][31]