Turnoviseous
30th August 2002, 23:28
This was originally posted on Phora by comrade Potyondi. I think it is worth to be also posted here.
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A year before his death Lenin, with his unerring political insight, saw in Stalin's policies the beginnings of what Lenin himself called "bureaucratism not only in the Soviet institutions but also in the party." It was against this danger that he dictated a confidential letter giving his estimate of the leaders in the Central Committee and, ten days later, added a postscript in which he proposed to remove Stalin from his post as General Secretary of the party.
"It is said that in the "Testament" in question Lenin suggested to the party Congress that it should deliberate on the question of replacing Stalin and appointing another comrade in his place as General Secretary of the party. This is perfectly true." - Joseph Stalin, November 17, 1927
"Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated an enormous power in his hands; and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution." - V.I. Lenin, December 25, 1922
"Stalin is too rude, and this fault, entirely supportable in relations among us Communists, becomes insupportable in the office of General Secretary. Therefore, I propose to the comrades to find a way to remove Stalin from that position and appoint to it another man who in all respects differs from Stalin only in superiority—namely, more patient, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may seem an insignificant trifle, but I think that from the point of view of preventing a split and from the point of view of the relation between Stalin and Trotsky which I discussed above, it is not a trifle, or it is such a trifle as may acquire a decisive significance." - V.I. Lenin, January 4, 1922
"Lenin undoubtedly valued highly certain of Stalin's traits: his firmness of character, tenacity, stubbornness, even ruthlessness and craftiness -- qualities necessary in a war and consequently in its general staff. But Lenin was far from thinking that these gifts, even on an extraordinary scale, were sufficient for the leadership of the party and the state. Lenin saw in Stalin a revolutionist, but not a statesman in the grand style. Theory had too high an importance for Lenin in a political struggle. Nobody considered Stalin a theoretician, and he himself up to 1924 never made any pretense to this vocation. On the contrary, his weak theoretical grounding was too well known in a small circle. Stalin is not acquainted with the West; he does not know any foreign language. He was never brought into the discussion of problems of the international workers' movement. And finally Stalin was not—this is less important, but not without significance -- either a writer or an orator in the strict sense of the word. His articles, in spite of all the author's caution, are loaded not only with theoretical blunders and naivetes, but also with crude sins against the Russian language. In the eyes of Lenin, Stalin's value was wholly in the sphere of party administration and machine maneuvering. But even here Lenin made substantial reservations, and these increased during the last period.
[...]
Stalin meanwhile was more and more broadly and indiscriminately using the possibilities of the revolutionary dictatorship for the recruiting of people personally obligated and devoted to him. In his position as General Secretary he became the dispenser of favor and fortune. Here the foundation was laid for an inevitable conflict. Lenin gradually lost his moral trust in Stalin. If you understand that basic fact, then all the particular episodes of the last period take their places accordingly, and give a real and not a false picture of the attitude of Lenin to Stalin." - Leon Trotsky, December 31, 1932
"At the beginning of the year 1923, Vladimir Ilyich, in a personal letter to Comrade Stalin, broke off all comradely relations with him." - Stenographic Minutes of the Plenum, No. 4, page 32
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Esteemed Comrade Trotsky,
I earnestly ask you to undertake the defense of the Georgian affair at the Central Committee of the party. That affair is now under "prosecution" at the hands of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky and I cannot rely on their impartiality. Indeed, quite the contrary! If you would agree to undertake its defense, I could be at rest. If for some reason you do not agree, send me back all the papers. I will consider that a sign of your disagreement.
With the very best comradely greetings,
Lenin
March 5, 1923
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"Let us speak frankly. The People's Commissariat of Rabkrin does not enjoy at the present moment a shadow of authority. Everybody knows that a worse organized institution than our Commissariat of Rabkrin does not exist, and that in the present circumstances you cannot expect a thing of that Commissariat." - V.I. Lenin, March 2, 1923
This extraordinarily biting allusion in print by the head of the government to one of the most important state institutions was a direct and unmitigated blow against Stalin as the organizer and head of this Inspection.
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"Thus it would be no exaggeration to say that the last half year of Lenin's political life, between his convalescence and his second illness, was filled with a sharpening struggle against Stalin. Let us recall once more the principal dates. In September 1922 Lenin opened fire against the national policy of Stalin. In the first part of December he attacked Stalin on the question of the monopoly of foreign trade. On December 25 he wrote the first part of his testament. On December 30 he wrote his letter on the national question (the "bombshell" ). On January 4, 1923, he added a postscript to his testament on the necessity of removing Stalin from his position as General Secretary. On January 23 he drew up against Stalin a heavy battery: the project of a Control Commission. In an article on March 2 he dealt Stalin a double blow, both as organizer of the Inspection and as General Secretary. On March 5 he wrote me on the subject of his memorandum on the national question: "If you would agree to undertake its defense, I could be at rest." On that same day he for the first time openly joined forces with the irreconcilable Georgian enemies of Stalin, informing them in a special note that he was backing their cause "with all my heart" and was preparing for them documents against Stalin, Ordzhonikidze and Dzerzhinsky. "With all my heart"—this expression was not a frequent one with Lenin." - Leon Trotsky, December 31, 1932.
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"Stalin will make a rotten compromise, in order then to deceive." - V.I. Lenin, 1922, on the subject of the national question
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"Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to hold high and guard the purity of the great title of member of the Party. We vow to you. Comrade Lenin, that we will fulfil your behest with credit! Departing from us. Comrade Lenin adjured us to guard the unity of our Party as the apple of our eye. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit! Departing from us. Comrade Lenin adjured us to guard and strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. We vow to you. Comrade Lenin, that we will spare no effort to fulfil this behest, too, with credit! Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to strengthen with all our might the alliance of the workers and the peasants. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit! Departing from us. Comrade Lenin adjured us to consolidate and extend the Union of Republics. We vow to you. Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit! Departing from us. Comrade Lenin adjured us to remain faithful to the principles of the Communist International. We vow to you. Comrade Lenin, that we will not spare our lives to strengthen and extend the union of the working people of the whole world - the Communist International!" - Joseph Stalin, Lenin's funeral speech, January 19, 1924
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"[From 1923] Stalin demonstrated a consummate ability at intrigue and the manipulation of the Party controls.
[...]
Stalin intimates that he played the part of the peacemaker; that he was opposed to expulsions; opposed to 'the letting of blood' - thus permitting all the unpopularity of his campaigns to fall on Zinoviev. He likewise manoeuvres so as to make Zinoviev and Kamenev appear responsible for all the failures of the agrarian policy which led to the enrichment of a minority of peasants and a critical shortage in the state grain collections. He lets Zinoviev take the responsibility for the defeats of the International.
[...]
...Stalin completes the job of packing all the Party secretariats (excepting those of the Leningrad region, controlled by Zinoviev) with his creatures. In 1926 his work is done; he is master of the Party, of a Party in whose ranks utter silence reigns, a Party in which mjaorities, docile because they profit by being docile, do nothing but vote the resolutions prescribed by the Central Committee and submitted by the secretaries. At the Fourteenth Congress, Zinoviev is suddenly put in the minority, isolated, and rendered responsible for all internal and foreign difficulties... The controversy turns on questions of prime importance. Stalin announces the new policy of 'socialism in one country,' which would be totally meaningless if it did not signify a renunciation of international solidarity (see Stalin's promise to Lenin above) . No compromise is possible. Stalin enters into a combination with the rightists of the Central Committee [Rykov, Tomsky, Bukharin] to continue an agrarian policy of enriching the kulaks. Stalin completes his task of strangling the Party: Zinoviev goes over to the opposition; in an embarassing volte face he joins his adversary of the day before, Trotsky, accepting his programme for democratisation of the party - and consequently of the government - for industrialisation and pressure on the 'kulak, the nepmen, and the bureaucrat'. - V. Serge: From Lenin to Stalin (1937)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
A year before his death Lenin, with his unerring political insight, saw in Stalin's policies the beginnings of what Lenin himself called "bureaucratism not only in the Soviet institutions but also in the party." It was against this danger that he dictated a confidential letter giving his estimate of the leaders in the Central Committee and, ten days later, added a postscript in which he proposed to remove Stalin from his post as General Secretary of the party.
"It is said that in the "Testament" in question Lenin suggested to the party Congress that it should deliberate on the question of replacing Stalin and appointing another comrade in his place as General Secretary of the party. This is perfectly true." - Joseph Stalin, November 17, 1927
"Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated an enormous power in his hands; and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution." - V.I. Lenin, December 25, 1922
"Stalin is too rude, and this fault, entirely supportable in relations among us Communists, becomes insupportable in the office of General Secretary. Therefore, I propose to the comrades to find a way to remove Stalin from that position and appoint to it another man who in all respects differs from Stalin only in superiority—namely, more patient, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may seem an insignificant trifle, but I think that from the point of view of preventing a split and from the point of view of the relation between Stalin and Trotsky which I discussed above, it is not a trifle, or it is such a trifle as may acquire a decisive significance." - V.I. Lenin, January 4, 1922
"Lenin undoubtedly valued highly certain of Stalin's traits: his firmness of character, tenacity, stubbornness, even ruthlessness and craftiness -- qualities necessary in a war and consequently in its general staff. But Lenin was far from thinking that these gifts, even on an extraordinary scale, were sufficient for the leadership of the party and the state. Lenin saw in Stalin a revolutionist, but not a statesman in the grand style. Theory had too high an importance for Lenin in a political struggle. Nobody considered Stalin a theoretician, and he himself up to 1924 never made any pretense to this vocation. On the contrary, his weak theoretical grounding was too well known in a small circle. Stalin is not acquainted with the West; he does not know any foreign language. He was never brought into the discussion of problems of the international workers' movement. And finally Stalin was not—this is less important, but not without significance -- either a writer or an orator in the strict sense of the word. His articles, in spite of all the author's caution, are loaded not only with theoretical blunders and naivetes, but also with crude sins against the Russian language. In the eyes of Lenin, Stalin's value was wholly in the sphere of party administration and machine maneuvering. But even here Lenin made substantial reservations, and these increased during the last period.
[...]
Stalin meanwhile was more and more broadly and indiscriminately using the possibilities of the revolutionary dictatorship for the recruiting of people personally obligated and devoted to him. In his position as General Secretary he became the dispenser of favor and fortune. Here the foundation was laid for an inevitable conflict. Lenin gradually lost his moral trust in Stalin. If you understand that basic fact, then all the particular episodes of the last period take their places accordingly, and give a real and not a false picture of the attitude of Lenin to Stalin." - Leon Trotsky, December 31, 1932
"At the beginning of the year 1923, Vladimir Ilyich, in a personal letter to Comrade Stalin, broke off all comradely relations with him." - Stenographic Minutes of the Plenum, No. 4, page 32
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Esteemed Comrade Trotsky,
I earnestly ask you to undertake the defense of the Georgian affair at the Central Committee of the party. That affair is now under "prosecution" at the hands of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky and I cannot rely on their impartiality. Indeed, quite the contrary! If you would agree to undertake its defense, I could be at rest. If for some reason you do not agree, send me back all the papers. I will consider that a sign of your disagreement.
With the very best comradely greetings,
Lenin
March 5, 1923
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Let us speak frankly. The People's Commissariat of Rabkrin does not enjoy at the present moment a shadow of authority. Everybody knows that a worse organized institution than our Commissariat of Rabkrin does not exist, and that in the present circumstances you cannot expect a thing of that Commissariat." - V.I. Lenin, March 2, 1923
This extraordinarily biting allusion in print by the head of the government to one of the most important state institutions was a direct and unmitigated blow against Stalin as the organizer and head of this Inspection.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Thus it would be no exaggeration to say that the last half year of Lenin's political life, between his convalescence and his second illness, was filled with a sharpening struggle against Stalin. Let us recall once more the principal dates. In September 1922 Lenin opened fire against the national policy of Stalin. In the first part of December he attacked Stalin on the question of the monopoly of foreign trade. On December 25 he wrote the first part of his testament. On December 30 he wrote his letter on the national question (the "bombshell" ). On January 4, 1923, he added a postscript to his testament on the necessity of removing Stalin from his position as General Secretary. On January 23 he drew up against Stalin a heavy battery: the project of a Control Commission. In an article on March 2 he dealt Stalin a double blow, both as organizer of the Inspection and as General Secretary. On March 5 he wrote me on the subject of his memorandum on the national question: "If you would agree to undertake its defense, I could be at rest." On that same day he for the first time openly joined forces with the irreconcilable Georgian enemies of Stalin, informing them in a special note that he was backing their cause "with all my heart" and was preparing for them documents against Stalin, Ordzhonikidze and Dzerzhinsky. "With all my heart"—this expression was not a frequent one with Lenin." - Leon Trotsky, December 31, 1932.
-----------------------------------------------------
"Stalin will make a rotten compromise, in order then to deceive." - V.I. Lenin, 1922, on the subject of the national question
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to hold high and guard the purity of the great title of member of the Party. We vow to you. Comrade Lenin, that we will fulfil your behest with credit! Departing from us. Comrade Lenin adjured us to guard the unity of our Party as the apple of our eye. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit! Departing from us. Comrade Lenin adjured us to guard and strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. We vow to you. Comrade Lenin, that we will spare no effort to fulfil this behest, too, with credit! Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to strengthen with all our might the alliance of the workers and the peasants. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit! Departing from us. Comrade Lenin adjured us to consolidate and extend the Union of Republics. We vow to you. Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit! Departing from us. Comrade Lenin adjured us to remain faithful to the principles of the Communist International. We vow to you. Comrade Lenin, that we will not spare our lives to strengthen and extend the union of the working people of the whole world - the Communist International!" - Joseph Stalin, Lenin's funeral speech, January 19, 1924
---------------------------------------------------
"[From 1923] Stalin demonstrated a consummate ability at intrigue and the manipulation of the Party controls.
[...]
Stalin intimates that he played the part of the peacemaker; that he was opposed to expulsions; opposed to 'the letting of blood' - thus permitting all the unpopularity of his campaigns to fall on Zinoviev. He likewise manoeuvres so as to make Zinoviev and Kamenev appear responsible for all the failures of the agrarian policy which led to the enrichment of a minority of peasants and a critical shortage in the state grain collections. He lets Zinoviev take the responsibility for the defeats of the International.
[...]
...Stalin completes the job of packing all the Party secretariats (excepting those of the Leningrad region, controlled by Zinoviev) with his creatures. In 1926 his work is done; he is master of the Party, of a Party in whose ranks utter silence reigns, a Party in which mjaorities, docile because they profit by being docile, do nothing but vote the resolutions prescribed by the Central Committee and submitted by the secretaries. At the Fourteenth Congress, Zinoviev is suddenly put in the minority, isolated, and rendered responsible for all internal and foreign difficulties... The controversy turns on questions of prime importance. Stalin announces the new policy of 'socialism in one country,' which would be totally meaningless if it did not signify a renunciation of international solidarity (see Stalin's promise to Lenin above) . No compromise is possible. Stalin enters into a combination with the rightists of the Central Committee [Rykov, Tomsky, Bukharin] to continue an agrarian policy of enriching the kulaks. Stalin completes his task of strangling the Party: Zinoviev goes over to the opposition; in an embarassing volte face he joins his adversary of the day before, Trotsky, accepting his programme for democratisation of the party - and consequently of the government - for industrialisation and pressure on the 'kulak, the nepmen, and the bureaucrat'. - V. Serge: From Lenin to Stalin (1937)