Did the Soviet government under Stalin represent a continuity with the policies of Lenin, or did it represent a disjuncture with Lenin's...

In one very important way, at least, Stalin's policies
were very different from those of Lenin.  This difference can be seen in the move from
Lenin's "New Economic Policy" to Stalin's first Five Year Plan.  In this area, at least,
Stalin was much more radical than Lenin was.

In the New
Economic Policy, Lenin had been trying to open the Soviet economy a bit and move it
towards what he called "state capitalism."  There was to be more tolerance of
small-scale private businesses, for example.  The major industries and banks would
remain in the hands of the state, but there would be more economic freedom at the lower
levels.

Stalin, by contrast, believed that the Soviet
economy needed to be forcibly and quickly modernized.  Because of this, he believed in
the need for complete central planning of the economy.  This led to his Five Year Plan
in which the Soviet Union's economy was carefully controlled so as to make it
industrialize and modernize more rapidly.

In this way,
Stalin's policies represented a disjuncture with those of Lenin.