Marxman
5th October 2002, 10:15
Lenin's struggle against Stalin
As early as 1920, Trotsky criticised the workings of Rabkrin, which from a tool in the struggle against bureaucracy was becoming itself a hotbed of bureaucracy. Initially, Lenin defended Rabkrin against Trotsky's criticisms. Later he came around to Trotsky's view: "This idea was suggested by Comrade Trotsky, it seems, quite a long time ago. I was against it at the timeÉ But after closer consideration of the matter, I find that in substance there is a sound idea in itÉ" At first Lenin's illness prevented him from appreciating what was going on behind his back in the state and Party. In 1922, the situation became clear to him. "Bureaucracy is throttling us," he complained. He saw that the problem arose from the country's economic and cultural backwardness.
So how was this state of affairs going to be combated? Lenin stressed the importance of the workers' organisation in keeping the bureaucratic menace in check: "Our Party Programme - a document which the author of the ABC of Communism [Nikolai Bukharin] knows very well - shows that ours is a workers' state with a bureaucratic twist to itÉ We now have a state under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers' organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our stateÉ" (LCW, Vol. 32, pp. 24-5.)
Lenin argued, dialectically, that the trade unions in a workers' state must be independent, in order that the working class can defend itself against the state, and in turn defend the workers' state itself. Lenin was emphatic on this point because he saw the danger of the state raising itself above the class and separating itself from it. The workers, by themselves through their organisations, could exercise a check on the state apparatus and on the bureaucracy. However, with the atomisation of the working class by the end of the civil war, it was unable to effectively combat the growth of the bureaucratism of the state. The growing bureaucratic menace preoccupied Lenin's attention throughout that year. At the 11th Party Congress in March-April 1922 - the last Congress in which he was able to participate - his main preoccupation was bureaucratism. At the Congress Lenin dealt firstly with the economic relations of the workers' state as a form of "state capitalism". That is the economic relations on which the NEP was based. Market relations were allowed, while the key sectors of the economy remained in state hands. Lenin said that traditionally state capitalism applied to a minority nationalised sector in a capitalist state. But he now used it differently to describe the NEP:
"That is why very many people are misled by the term state capitalism. To avoid this we must remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the form we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books, for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist society. Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism but has not yet got on to new rails. The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say 'state' we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state." He then explains that this capitalism which exists alongside the workers' state is essential "to satisfy the needs of the peasantryÉ [and] without it existence is impossible".
Lenin then goes on to deal with the crux of the problem: "Well, we have lived through a year, the state is in our hands; but has it operated the New Economic Policy in the way we wanted in the past year? No. But we refuse to admit that it did not operate in the way we wanted. How did it operate? The machine refused to obey the hand that guided it. It was like a car that was going not in the direction the driver desired, but in the direction someone else desired; as if it were being driven by some mysterious, lawless hand, God knows whose, perhaps of a profiteer, or of a private capitalist, or of both. Be that as it may, the car is not going quite in the direction the man at the wheel imagines, and often it goes in an altogether different direction." (LCW, Vol. 33, p. 179.)
"Then what is lacking?" asked Lenin. "ÉIf we take Moscow with its 4,700 Communists in responsible positions, and if we take the huge bureaucratic machine, that gigantic heap, we must ask: who is directing whom? I doubt very much whether it can be truthfully said that the Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth, they are not directing, they are being directed." (Ibid., p. 288.)
Far from being the "semi-state" envisaged by Lenin in his book State and Revolution, the state apparatus was bureaucratically deformed and deeply infected by the alien class outlook of the old regime. At the same Congress Lenin explained, in a very clear and unambiguous language, the possibility of the degeneration of the revolution as a result of the pressures of alien classes. Lenin compared the relationship of the Soviet workers to the bureaucracy and the pro-capitalist elements to that of a conquering and conquered nation. History has shown repeatedly that for one nation to defeat another by force of arms is not, of itself, a sufficient guarantee of victory. Given the low level of culture of the weak Soviet working class, surrounded by a sea of small property owners, the pressures were enormous. They reflected themselves not only in the state, but inevitably in the Party itself, which became the centre of struggle of conflicting class interests.
"Sometimes one nation conquers another, the nation that conquers is the conqueror and the nation that is vanquished is the conquered nation. This is simple and intelligible to all. But what happens to the culture of these nations? Here things are not so simple," stated Lenin. "If the conquering nation is more cultured than the vanquished nation, the former imposes its culture upon the latter; but if the opposite is the case, the vanquished nation imposes its culture upon the conqueror. Has not something like this happened in the capital of the RSFSR (1)? Have the 4,700 Communists (nearly a whole army division, and all of them the very best) come under the influence of an alien culture?" Lenin then asks pointedly: "Will the responsible Communists of the RSFSR and of the Russian Communist Party realise that they cannot administer; that they only imagine they are directing, but are actually being directed?"
Already by this time, the most far-sighted sections of the émigré bourgeoisie, the Smena Vekh (Change of Signposts) group of Ustryalov, were openly placing their hopes upon the bureaucratic-bourgeois tendencies manifesting themselves in Soviet society, as a step in the direction of capitalist restoration. The same group was later to applaud and encourage the Stalinists in their struggle against Trotskyism. The Smena Vekh group, which Lenin gave credit for its class insight, correctly understood the struggle of Stalin against Trotsky, not in terms of "personalities" but as a class question, as a step back from the revolutionary traditions of October.
"The machine no longer obeyed the driver" - the state was no longer under the control of the Communists, of the workers, but was increasingly raising itself above society. Referring to the views of Smena Vekh, Lenin said: "We must say frankly that the things Ustryalov speaks about are possible, history knows all sorts of transformations. Relying on firmness of convictions, loyalty, and other splendid moral qualities is anything but a serious attitude in politics. A few people may be endowed with splendid moral qualities, but historical issues are decided by vast masses, which, if the few do not suit them, may at times treat them none too politely." (LCW, Vol. 33, p. 287.) In other words, the state power was slipping out of the hands of the Communists, not because of their personal failings or psychological peculiarities, but because of the enormous pressures of backwardness, of bureaucracy, of alien class forces which weighed down upon the tiny handful of advanced, socialist workers and crushed them.
Lenin's correspondence and writings of this period, when illness was increasingly preventing him from intervening in the struggle, clearly indicate his alarm at the encroachment of the Soviet bureaucracy, the insolent parvenus in every corner of the state apparatus. Lenin was aware of the dangers of the degeneration of the workers' state encircled by capitalism. After the 11th Party Congress in 1922, Lenin's health deteriorated and in May of that year he suffered his first stroke. He recovered and was back on his feet by July and officially returned to work in October. On his return he was deeply shocked by the growing bureaucratic tumour that was gnawing away at the state and Party. "Our bureaucratism is something monstrous," Lenin commented to Trotsky. "I was appalled when I came back to workÉ" It was at this time that he offered to form a bloc with Trotsky against bureaucracy in general and against the Organisational Bureau in particular. Lenin also concentrated his attention on the entire problem of the leadership of the Party. The clashes with Stalin over the Georgian affair and other matters increasingly revealed Stalin's role. Lenin began work on his Testament.
On the 30th December 1922 he dictated a note:
"It is said that a united state apparatus was needed. Where did that assurance come from? Did it not come from the same Russian apparatus, which, as I pointed out in one of the preceding sections of my diary, we took over from Tsarism and slightly anointed with Soviet oil?" asked Lenin.
"There is no doubt that that measure should have been delayed until we could say that we vouched for our apparatus as our own. But now, we must, in all conscience, admit the contrary: the apparatus we call ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois and Tsarist hotchpotch and there has been no possibility of getting rid of it in the past five years without the help of other countries and because we have been 'busy' most of the time with military engagements and the fight against famine." (LCW, Vol. 36, pp. 605-6, my emphasis.)
Lenin only became fully aware of the bureaucratic reaction within the Party towards the end of 1922, when he discovered the truth about Stalin's handling of relations with the Georgian Bolshevik leaders. The central role of Stalin in all this bureaucratic web became clear. Without the knowledge of Lenin or the Politburo (the highest body in the Party), Stalin, together with his henchmen Dzerzhinsky and Ordzhonikidze, had carried out a coup d'état in the Georgian party. The finest cadres of Georgian Bolshevism were purged, and the Party leaders denied access to Lenin, who was fed a string of lies by Stalin. When he finally found out what was happening, Lenin was absolutely furious. From his sick-bed late in 1922, he dictated a series of notes to his stenographer on "the notorious question of autonomisation, which, it appears, is officially called the question of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics". Lenin's notes are a crushing indictment of the bureaucratic and chauvinist arrogance of Stalin and the clique surrounding him. But Lenin does not treat this incident as an accidental phenomenon - as a "regrettable mistake" - but the expression of the rotten reactionary nationalism of the Soviet bureaucracy. Lenin thundered: "There is no doubt that the infinitesimal percentage of Soviet and Sovietised workers will drown in that tide of chauvinistic Great-Russian riffraff like a fly in milk." (LCW, Vol. 36, p. 606.)
After the Georgian affair, Lenin threw the whole weight of his authority behind the struggle to remove Stalin from the post of general secretary of the Party which he had occupied for a short time after the death of Sverdlov. However, Lenin's main fear now, more than ever, was that an open split in the leadership, under prevailing conditions, might lead to the break up of the Party along class lines. He therefore attempted to keep the struggle confined to the leadership, and his notes and other material were not made public. Lenin wrote secretly to the Georgian Bolsheviks (sending copies to Trotsky and Kamenev) taking up their cause against Stalin "with all my heart". As he was unable to pursue the affair in person, he wrote to Trotsky requesting him to undertake the defence of the Georgians in the Central Committee. In the last months of his political life, weakened by illness, Lenin turned repeatedly to Trotsky for support in his struggle against the bureaucracy and its creature, Stalin. On the question of the monopoly of foreign trade, on the question of Georgia, and, finally, in the struggle to oust Stalin from the leadership, Lenin formed a bloc with Trotsky, the only man in the leadership he could trust.
Lenin's struggle against Stalin was directly linked to his determined struggle against the bureaucracy within the Bolshevik Party itself. In Better Fewer, But Better, written shortly before his Testament, Lenin commented: "Let it be said in parentheses that we have bureaucrats in our Party offices as well as in Soviet offices." In the same work, he launched a sharp attack against Rabkrin, which was clearly meant for Stalin: "Let us say frankly that the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection does not at present enjoy the slightest authority. Everybody knows that no other institutions are worse organised than those of our Workers' and Peasants' Inspection and that under present conditions nothing can be expected from this Peoples' Commissariat." (LCW, Vol. 33, p. 490.)
Lenin's began writing his Testament on the 25th December 1922, in which he critically assessed the qualities of the Bolshevik leadership. It contained his final recommendations. "Comrade Stalin, having become general secretary, has concentrated enormous power in his hands; and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution." He then deals with Trotsky's qualities: "On the other hand comrade Trotsky, as was proved by his struggle against the Central Committee in connection with the question of the Peoples' Commissariat of Communications, is distinguished not only by his exceptional abilities - personally he is, to be sure, the most able man in the present Central Committee - but also by his too far reaching self-confidence and a disposition to be too much attracted by the purely administrative side of affairs." In relation to the others: "I will only remind you that the October episode of Zinoviev and Kamenev was not, of course, accidental, but that it ought as little to be used against them personally as the non-Bolshevik past of Trotsky."
However, new and alarming manifestations of Stalin's abuse of power caused Lenin to dictate a postscript ten days later, dated the 4th January 1923, entirely devoted to Stalin. This time it was direct and brutal. "Stalin is too rude, and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings amongst us communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capriciousÉ" (LCW, Vol. 36, pp. 594-6.)
Two months later, Lenin broke off political and personal relations with Stalin, after he had verbally abused his wife, Krupskaya. Two days before his final stroke, he wrote to Stalin, with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev: "I have no intention of forgetting so easily what has been done against me, and it goes without saying that what has been done against my wife I consider having done against me as well." (Quoted in Liebman, op. cit., p. 423.) On the 6th March, Krupskaya told Kamenev that Lenin had resolved "to crush Stalin politically". (Ibid., p. 424.) Lenin told Krupskaya that the Testament was to be kept secret until after his death, and then it should be made public to the ranks of the Party. However, Lenin was seriously paralysed by a third stroke on the 9th March 1923. Power effectively fell into the hands of a triumvirate of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin. Nine months later, on the 21st January 1924, Lenin died. It was very convenient for Stalin. The triumvirate were determined to keep Trotsky from the leadership and therefore decided to keep Lenin's Testament under lock and key. Needless to say, the documentary evidence of Lenin's last fight against Stalin and the bureaucracy was suppressed for decades, and denounced as forgeries by the leaders of the Communist Parties internationally. Lenin's last writings were hidden from the Communist Party rank and file. Lenin's Testament, which demanded Stalin's removal as general secretary, despite the protests of his widow, was not read out at the Congress and remained hidden until 1956 when Khrushchev and Co. produced it, along with a few other items, as part of their campaign to throw the blame for all that had happened in the past 30 years onto Stalin's shoulders. With Lenin's death, the struggle against the growing bureaucratic reaction was now fell to Trotsky and the Left Opposition.
As early as 1920, Trotsky criticised the workings of Rabkrin, which from a tool in the struggle against bureaucracy was becoming itself a hotbed of bureaucracy. Initially, Lenin defended Rabkrin against Trotsky's criticisms. Later he came around to Trotsky's view: "This idea was suggested by Comrade Trotsky, it seems, quite a long time ago. I was against it at the timeÉ But after closer consideration of the matter, I find that in substance there is a sound idea in itÉ" At first Lenin's illness prevented him from appreciating what was going on behind his back in the state and Party. In 1922, the situation became clear to him. "Bureaucracy is throttling us," he complained. He saw that the problem arose from the country's economic and cultural backwardness.
So how was this state of affairs going to be combated? Lenin stressed the importance of the workers' organisation in keeping the bureaucratic menace in check: "Our Party Programme - a document which the author of the ABC of Communism [Nikolai Bukharin] knows very well - shows that ours is a workers' state with a bureaucratic twist to itÉ We now have a state under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers' organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our stateÉ" (LCW, Vol. 32, pp. 24-5.)
Lenin argued, dialectically, that the trade unions in a workers' state must be independent, in order that the working class can defend itself against the state, and in turn defend the workers' state itself. Lenin was emphatic on this point because he saw the danger of the state raising itself above the class and separating itself from it. The workers, by themselves through their organisations, could exercise a check on the state apparatus and on the bureaucracy. However, with the atomisation of the working class by the end of the civil war, it was unable to effectively combat the growth of the bureaucratism of the state. The growing bureaucratic menace preoccupied Lenin's attention throughout that year. At the 11th Party Congress in March-April 1922 - the last Congress in which he was able to participate - his main preoccupation was bureaucratism. At the Congress Lenin dealt firstly with the economic relations of the workers' state as a form of "state capitalism". That is the economic relations on which the NEP was based. Market relations were allowed, while the key sectors of the economy remained in state hands. Lenin said that traditionally state capitalism applied to a minority nationalised sector in a capitalist state. But he now used it differently to describe the NEP:
"That is why very many people are misled by the term state capitalism. To avoid this we must remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the form we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books, for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist society. Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism but has not yet got on to new rails. The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say 'state' we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state." He then explains that this capitalism which exists alongside the workers' state is essential "to satisfy the needs of the peasantryÉ [and] without it existence is impossible".
Lenin then goes on to deal with the crux of the problem: "Well, we have lived through a year, the state is in our hands; but has it operated the New Economic Policy in the way we wanted in the past year? No. But we refuse to admit that it did not operate in the way we wanted. How did it operate? The machine refused to obey the hand that guided it. It was like a car that was going not in the direction the driver desired, but in the direction someone else desired; as if it were being driven by some mysterious, lawless hand, God knows whose, perhaps of a profiteer, or of a private capitalist, or of both. Be that as it may, the car is not going quite in the direction the man at the wheel imagines, and often it goes in an altogether different direction." (LCW, Vol. 33, p. 179.)
"Then what is lacking?" asked Lenin. "ÉIf we take Moscow with its 4,700 Communists in responsible positions, and if we take the huge bureaucratic machine, that gigantic heap, we must ask: who is directing whom? I doubt very much whether it can be truthfully said that the Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth, they are not directing, they are being directed." (Ibid., p. 288.)
Far from being the "semi-state" envisaged by Lenin in his book State and Revolution, the state apparatus was bureaucratically deformed and deeply infected by the alien class outlook of the old regime. At the same Congress Lenin explained, in a very clear and unambiguous language, the possibility of the degeneration of the revolution as a result of the pressures of alien classes. Lenin compared the relationship of the Soviet workers to the bureaucracy and the pro-capitalist elements to that of a conquering and conquered nation. History has shown repeatedly that for one nation to defeat another by force of arms is not, of itself, a sufficient guarantee of victory. Given the low level of culture of the weak Soviet working class, surrounded by a sea of small property owners, the pressures were enormous. They reflected themselves not only in the state, but inevitably in the Party itself, which became the centre of struggle of conflicting class interests.
"Sometimes one nation conquers another, the nation that conquers is the conqueror and the nation that is vanquished is the conquered nation. This is simple and intelligible to all. But what happens to the culture of these nations? Here things are not so simple," stated Lenin. "If the conquering nation is more cultured than the vanquished nation, the former imposes its culture upon the latter; but if the opposite is the case, the vanquished nation imposes its culture upon the conqueror. Has not something like this happened in the capital of the RSFSR (1)? Have the 4,700 Communists (nearly a whole army division, and all of them the very best) come under the influence of an alien culture?" Lenin then asks pointedly: "Will the responsible Communists of the RSFSR and of the Russian Communist Party realise that they cannot administer; that they only imagine they are directing, but are actually being directed?"
Already by this time, the most far-sighted sections of the émigré bourgeoisie, the Smena Vekh (Change of Signposts) group of Ustryalov, were openly placing their hopes upon the bureaucratic-bourgeois tendencies manifesting themselves in Soviet society, as a step in the direction of capitalist restoration. The same group was later to applaud and encourage the Stalinists in their struggle against Trotskyism. The Smena Vekh group, which Lenin gave credit for its class insight, correctly understood the struggle of Stalin against Trotsky, not in terms of "personalities" but as a class question, as a step back from the revolutionary traditions of October.
"The machine no longer obeyed the driver" - the state was no longer under the control of the Communists, of the workers, but was increasingly raising itself above society. Referring to the views of Smena Vekh, Lenin said: "We must say frankly that the things Ustryalov speaks about are possible, history knows all sorts of transformations. Relying on firmness of convictions, loyalty, and other splendid moral qualities is anything but a serious attitude in politics. A few people may be endowed with splendid moral qualities, but historical issues are decided by vast masses, which, if the few do not suit them, may at times treat them none too politely." (LCW, Vol. 33, p. 287.) In other words, the state power was slipping out of the hands of the Communists, not because of their personal failings or psychological peculiarities, but because of the enormous pressures of backwardness, of bureaucracy, of alien class forces which weighed down upon the tiny handful of advanced, socialist workers and crushed them.
Lenin's correspondence and writings of this period, when illness was increasingly preventing him from intervening in the struggle, clearly indicate his alarm at the encroachment of the Soviet bureaucracy, the insolent parvenus in every corner of the state apparatus. Lenin was aware of the dangers of the degeneration of the workers' state encircled by capitalism. After the 11th Party Congress in 1922, Lenin's health deteriorated and in May of that year he suffered his first stroke. He recovered and was back on his feet by July and officially returned to work in October. On his return he was deeply shocked by the growing bureaucratic tumour that was gnawing away at the state and Party. "Our bureaucratism is something monstrous," Lenin commented to Trotsky. "I was appalled when I came back to workÉ" It was at this time that he offered to form a bloc with Trotsky against bureaucracy in general and against the Organisational Bureau in particular. Lenin also concentrated his attention on the entire problem of the leadership of the Party. The clashes with Stalin over the Georgian affair and other matters increasingly revealed Stalin's role. Lenin began work on his Testament.
On the 30th December 1922 he dictated a note:
"It is said that a united state apparatus was needed. Where did that assurance come from? Did it not come from the same Russian apparatus, which, as I pointed out in one of the preceding sections of my diary, we took over from Tsarism and slightly anointed with Soviet oil?" asked Lenin.
"There is no doubt that that measure should have been delayed until we could say that we vouched for our apparatus as our own. But now, we must, in all conscience, admit the contrary: the apparatus we call ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois and Tsarist hotchpotch and there has been no possibility of getting rid of it in the past five years without the help of other countries and because we have been 'busy' most of the time with military engagements and the fight against famine." (LCW, Vol. 36, pp. 605-6, my emphasis.)
Lenin only became fully aware of the bureaucratic reaction within the Party towards the end of 1922, when he discovered the truth about Stalin's handling of relations with the Georgian Bolshevik leaders. The central role of Stalin in all this bureaucratic web became clear. Without the knowledge of Lenin or the Politburo (the highest body in the Party), Stalin, together with his henchmen Dzerzhinsky and Ordzhonikidze, had carried out a coup d'état in the Georgian party. The finest cadres of Georgian Bolshevism were purged, and the Party leaders denied access to Lenin, who was fed a string of lies by Stalin. When he finally found out what was happening, Lenin was absolutely furious. From his sick-bed late in 1922, he dictated a series of notes to his stenographer on "the notorious question of autonomisation, which, it appears, is officially called the question of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics". Lenin's notes are a crushing indictment of the bureaucratic and chauvinist arrogance of Stalin and the clique surrounding him. But Lenin does not treat this incident as an accidental phenomenon - as a "regrettable mistake" - but the expression of the rotten reactionary nationalism of the Soviet bureaucracy. Lenin thundered: "There is no doubt that the infinitesimal percentage of Soviet and Sovietised workers will drown in that tide of chauvinistic Great-Russian riffraff like a fly in milk." (LCW, Vol. 36, p. 606.)
After the Georgian affair, Lenin threw the whole weight of his authority behind the struggle to remove Stalin from the post of general secretary of the Party which he had occupied for a short time after the death of Sverdlov. However, Lenin's main fear now, more than ever, was that an open split in the leadership, under prevailing conditions, might lead to the break up of the Party along class lines. He therefore attempted to keep the struggle confined to the leadership, and his notes and other material were not made public. Lenin wrote secretly to the Georgian Bolsheviks (sending copies to Trotsky and Kamenev) taking up their cause against Stalin "with all my heart". As he was unable to pursue the affair in person, he wrote to Trotsky requesting him to undertake the defence of the Georgians in the Central Committee. In the last months of his political life, weakened by illness, Lenin turned repeatedly to Trotsky for support in his struggle against the bureaucracy and its creature, Stalin. On the question of the monopoly of foreign trade, on the question of Georgia, and, finally, in the struggle to oust Stalin from the leadership, Lenin formed a bloc with Trotsky, the only man in the leadership he could trust.
Lenin's struggle against Stalin was directly linked to his determined struggle against the bureaucracy within the Bolshevik Party itself. In Better Fewer, But Better, written shortly before his Testament, Lenin commented: "Let it be said in parentheses that we have bureaucrats in our Party offices as well as in Soviet offices." In the same work, he launched a sharp attack against Rabkrin, which was clearly meant for Stalin: "Let us say frankly that the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection does not at present enjoy the slightest authority. Everybody knows that no other institutions are worse organised than those of our Workers' and Peasants' Inspection and that under present conditions nothing can be expected from this Peoples' Commissariat." (LCW, Vol. 33, p. 490.)
Lenin's began writing his Testament on the 25th December 1922, in which he critically assessed the qualities of the Bolshevik leadership. It contained his final recommendations. "Comrade Stalin, having become general secretary, has concentrated enormous power in his hands; and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution." He then deals with Trotsky's qualities: "On the other hand comrade Trotsky, as was proved by his struggle against the Central Committee in connection with the question of the Peoples' Commissariat of Communications, is distinguished not only by his exceptional abilities - personally he is, to be sure, the most able man in the present Central Committee - but also by his too far reaching self-confidence and a disposition to be too much attracted by the purely administrative side of affairs." In relation to the others: "I will only remind you that the October episode of Zinoviev and Kamenev was not, of course, accidental, but that it ought as little to be used against them personally as the non-Bolshevik past of Trotsky."
However, new and alarming manifestations of Stalin's abuse of power caused Lenin to dictate a postscript ten days later, dated the 4th January 1923, entirely devoted to Stalin. This time it was direct and brutal. "Stalin is too rude, and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings amongst us communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capriciousÉ" (LCW, Vol. 36, pp. 594-6.)
Two months later, Lenin broke off political and personal relations with Stalin, after he had verbally abused his wife, Krupskaya. Two days before his final stroke, he wrote to Stalin, with a copy to Zinoviev and Kamenev: "I have no intention of forgetting so easily what has been done against me, and it goes without saying that what has been done against my wife I consider having done against me as well." (Quoted in Liebman, op. cit., p. 423.) On the 6th March, Krupskaya told Kamenev that Lenin had resolved "to crush Stalin politically". (Ibid., p. 424.) Lenin told Krupskaya that the Testament was to be kept secret until after his death, and then it should be made public to the ranks of the Party. However, Lenin was seriously paralysed by a third stroke on the 9th March 1923. Power effectively fell into the hands of a triumvirate of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin. Nine months later, on the 21st January 1924, Lenin died. It was very convenient for Stalin. The triumvirate were determined to keep Trotsky from the leadership and therefore decided to keep Lenin's Testament under lock and key. Needless to say, the documentary evidence of Lenin's last fight against Stalin and the bureaucracy was suppressed for decades, and denounced as forgeries by the leaders of the Communist Parties internationally. Lenin's last writings were hidden from the Communist Party rank and file. Lenin's Testament, which demanded Stalin's removal as general secretary, despite the protests of his widow, was not read out at the Congress and remained hidden until 1956 when Khrushchev and Co. produced it, along with a few other items, as part of their campaign to throw the blame for all that had happened in the past 30 years onto Stalin's shoulders. With Lenin's death, the struggle against the growing bureaucratic reaction was now fell to Trotsky and the Left Opposition.