Another view of Stalin (6 page)

Bourgeois authors have much focused on Lenin's  so-called `will', which supposedly called for the elimination of Stalin in favor of Trotsky.  Henri Bernard,  Professor Emeritus at the Belgian Royal Military School, writes: `Trotsky  should normally have succeeded Lenin  .... (Lenin)  thought of him as successor. He thought Stalin was too brutal'.

Henri Bernard,  Le communisme et l'aveuglement occidental (Soumagne, Belgium: Йditions Andrй Grisard, 1982), p. 48.

The U.S. Trotskyist  Max Eastman  published this `will' in 1925, along with laudatory remarks about Trotsky.  At the time, Trotsky  had to publish a correction in the Bolshevik newspaper, where he wrote:

`Eastman  says that the Central Committee `concealed' from the Party ... the so-called `will,' ... there can be no other name for this than slander against the Central Committee of our Party .... Vladimir Ilyich did not leave any `will,' and the very character of the Party itself, precluded the possibility of such a `will.' What is usually referred to as a `will' in the йmigrй and foreign bourgeois and Menshevik press (in a manner garbled beyond recognition) is one of Vladimir Ilyich's letters containing advice on organisational matters. The Thirteenth Congress of the Party paid the closest attention to that letter .... All talk about concealing or violating a `will' is a malicious invention.'

Quoted in Stalin, The Trotskyist  Opposition Before and Now. Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954), pp. 179--180. Stalin's emphasis.

A few years later, the same Trotsky,  in his autobiography, would clamor indignantly about `Lenin's  ``Will'', which Stalin concealed from the party'.

Trotsky,  My Life, p. 469.

Let us examine the three pages of notes dictated by Lenin  between December 23, 1922 and January 5, 1923.

Lenin  called for `increasing the number of C.C. members (to 50 to 100), I think it must be done in order to raise the prestige of the Central Committee, to do a thorough job of improving our administrative machinery and to prevent conflicts between small sections of the C.C. from acquiring excessive importance for the future of the Party. It seems to me that our Party has every right to demand from the working class 50 to 100 C.C. members'. These would be `measures against a split'. `I think that from this standpoint the prime factors in the question of stability are such members of the C.C. as Stalin and Trotsky.  I think relations between them make the greater part of the danger of a split'.

Lenin,  Letter to the Congress. Works, vol. 36, pp. 593--594.

So much for the `theoretical' part.

This text is remarkably incomprehensible, clearly dictated by a sick and diminished man. How could 50 to 100 workers added to the Central Committee `raise its prestige'? Or reduce the danger of split? Saying nothing about Stalin's and Trotsky's  political concepts and visions of the Party, Lenin  claimed that the personal relationships between these two leaders threatened unity.

Then Lenin  `judged' the five main leaders of the Party. We cite them here:

`Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands; and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky,  on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People's Commissariat for Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by exceptional abilities. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has diplayed excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.

`These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present C.C. can inadvertently lead to a split ....

`I shall just recall that the October episode with Zinoviev  and Kamenev  was, of course, no accident, but neither can the blame for it be laid upon them personally, any more than non-Bolshevism can upon Trotsky .... 

`Bukharin  is not only a most valuable and major theorist of the Party; he is also rightly considered the favourite of the whole Party, but his theoretical views can be classified as fully Marxist  only with great reserve, for there is something scholastic about him (he has never made a study of dialectics, and, I think, never fully understood it).'

Ibid. , pp. 594--595.

Note that the first leader to be named by Lenin  was Stalin, who, in Trotsky's  words, `always seemed a man destined to play second and third fiddle'.

Trotsky,  My Life, p. 506.

Trotsky  continued:

`Unquestionably, his object in making the will was to facilitate the work of direction for me'.

Ibid. , pp. 479--480.

Of course, there is nothing of the kind in Lenin's  rough notes. Grey  states quite correctly:

`Stalin emerged in the best light. He had done nothing to besmirch his party record. The only query was whether he could show good judgment in wielding the vast powers in his hands.'

Grey,  op. cit. , p. 176.

With respect to Trotsky,  Lenin  noted four major problems: he was seriously wrong on several occasions, as was shown in his struggle against the Central Committee in the `militarization of the unions' affair; he had an exaggerated opinion of himself; his approach to problems was bureaucratic; and his non-Bolshevism was not accidental.

About Zinoviev  and Kamenev,  the only thing that Lenin  noted was that their treason during the October insurrection was not accidental.

Bukharin  was a great theoretician, whose ideas were not completely Marxist  but, rather, scholastic and non-dialectic!

Lenin  dictated his notes in order to avoid a split in the Party leadership. But the statements that he made about the five main leaders seem better suited to undermining their prestige and setting them against each other.

When he dictated these lines, `Lenin  was not feeling well', wrote his secretary Fotieva,  and `the doctors opposed discussions between Lenin  and his secretary and stenographer'.

Fotieva,  Souvenirs sur Lйnine (Moscow: Йditions Moscou, n.d.), pp. 152--153.

Then, ten days later, Lenin  dictated an `addition', which appears to refer to a rebuke that Stalin had made twelve days earlier to Krupskaya. 

`Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings among 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 Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky  it is not a detail, or it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.'

Lenin,  Letter to the Congress, p. 596.

Gravely ill, half paralyzed, Lenin  was more and more dependent on his wife. A few overly harsh words from Stalin to Krupskaya  led Lenin  to ask for the resignation of the General Secretary. But who was to replace him? A man who had all of Stalin's capacities and `one more trait': to be more tolerant, polite and attentive! It is clear from the text the Lenin  was certainly not referring to Trotsky!  Then to whom? To no one.

Stalin's `rudeness' was `entirely supportable in relations among us Communists', but was not `in the office of the General Secretary'. But the General Secretary's main rфle at the time dealt with questions of the Party's internal organization!

In February 1923, `Lenin's  state worsened, he suffered from violent headaches. The doctor categorically refused to allow newspaper reading, visits and political information. Vladimir Ilyich asked for the record of the Tenth Congress of the Soviets. It was not given to him, which made him very sad'.

Fotieva,  op. cit. , pp. 173--174.

Apparently, Krupskaya  tried to obtain the documents that Lenin  asked for. Dimitrievsky  reported another altercation between Krupskaya  and Stalin.

`When Krupskaya  ... telephoned him ... once more for some information, Stalin ... upbraided her in the most outrageous language. Krupskaya,  all in tears, immediately ran to complain to Lenin.  Lenin's  nerves, already strained to the breaking point by the intrigues, could not hold out any longer.'

Trotsky,  Stalin, p. 374.

On March 5, Lenin  dictated a new note:

`Respected Comrade Stalin. You had the rudeness to summon my wife to the telephone and reprimand her .... I do not intend to forget so easily what was done against me, and I need not stress that I consider what is done against my wife is done against me also. I ask therefore that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retract what you said and to apologize or whether you prefer to sever relations between us. Lenin.' 

Grey,  op. cit. , p. 179.

It is distressing to read this private letter from a man who had reached his physical limits. Krupskaya  herself asked the secretary not to forward the note to Stalin.

Ibid. .

These are in fact the last lines that Lenin  was able to dictate: the next day, his illness worsened significantly and he was no longer able to work.

Fotieva,  op. cit. , p. 175.

That Trotsky  was capable of manipulating the words of a sick man, almost completely paralyzed, shows the utter moral depravity of this individual. Sure enough, like a good forgerer, Trotsky  presented this text as the final proof that Lenin  had designated him as successor! He wrote:

`That note, the last surviving Lenin  document, is at the same time the final summation of his relations with Stalin.'

Trostky, Stalin, p. 375.

Years later, in 1927, the united opposition of Trotsky,  Zinoviev  and Kamenev  tried once again to use this `will' against the Party leadership. In a public declaration, Stalin said:

`The oppositionists shouted here ... that the Central Committee of the Party ``concealed'' Lenin's  ``will.'' We have discussed this question several times at the plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission .... (A voice: ``Scores of times.'') It has been proved and proved again that nobody has concealed anything, that Lenin's  ``will'' was addressed to the Thirteenth Party Congress, that this ``will'' was read out at the congress ( voices: ``That's right!''), that the congress unanimously decided not to publish it because, among other things, Lenin  himself did not want it to be published and did not ask that it should be published.'

Stalin, The Trotskyist  Opposition Before and Now, p. 178.

`It is said in that ``will'' Comrade Lenin  suggested to the congress that in view of Stalin's ``rudeness'' it should consider the question of putting another comrade in Stalin's place as General Secretary. That is quite true. Yes, comrades, I am rude to those who grossly and perfidiously wreck and split the Party. I have never concealed this and do not conceal it now .... At the very first meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee after the Thirteenth Congress I asked the plenum of the Central Committee to release me from my duties as General Secretary. The congress discussed this question. It was discussed by each delegation separately, and all the delegations unanimously, including Trotsky,  Kamenev  and Zinoviev,  obliged Stalin to remain at his post ....

`A year later I again put in a request to the plenum to release me, but I was obliged to remain at my post.'

Ibid. , pp. 180--181.

But Trotsky's  intrigues around this `will' were not the worst that he had to offer. At the end of his life, Trotsky  went to the trouble to accuse Stalin of having killed Lenin! 

And to make this unspeakable accusation, Trotsky  used his `thoughts and suspicions' as sole argument!

In his book, Stalin, Trotsky  wrote:

`What was Stalin's actual role at the time of Lenin's  illness? Did not the disciple do something to expedite his master's death?'

Trotsky,  Stalin, p. 372.

`(O)nly Lenin's  death could clear the way for Stalin.'

Ibid. , p. 376.

`I am firmly convinced that Stalin could not have waited passively when his fate hung by a thread.'

Ibid. , p. 381.

Of course, Trotsky  gave no proof whatsoever in support of his charge, but he did write that the idea came to him when `toward the end of February, 1923, at a meeting of the Politburo ..., Stalin informed us ... that Lenin  had suddenly called him in and had asked him for poison. Lenin  ... considered his situation hopeless, foresaw the approach of a new stroke, did not trust his physicians ..., he suffered unendurably.'

Ibid. , p. 376.

At the time, listening to Stalin, Trotsky  almost unmasked Lenin's  future assassin! He wrote:

`I recall how extraordinary, enigmatic and out of tune with the circumstances Stalin's face seemd to me .... a sickly smile was transfixed on his face, as on a mask.'

Ibid.

Let's follow Inspector Clousot-Trotsky  in his investigation. Listen to this: