The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification -- Chapter 9
present time discard first class military workers who are being removed from military activity because,
although they are ready and able to fight for the Socialist fatherland, they consider the present policy of
the Central Committee false and ruinous? Have you many such military workers as Smilga,
Mrachkovsky, Lashevich and Bakayev? I have heard that it is your intention to remove Muralov from
Military Inspection because he was a signatory to the Declaration of 83.[52] You are as one with Purcell
and other "fighters against war" of the same stripe, but you want to remove Muralov from Military
Inspection. [Commotion in the hall. Shouts: "Who gave you that report?"] No one "reported" it to me,
but there is widespread talk of it.
ORDJONIKINZE: You anticipate too much.
TROTSKY: That was well put, indeed! I am stating 48 hours ahead of time what you will do a little later,
[Muralov, one of the most outstanding leaders of the Red Army, was shortly thereafter not only removed from Military
Inspection but expelled from the party and exiled to Siberia where he is at present. -- L. T. ]
[Muralov was executed as a "Fascist agent" on February 1, 1937, following the conviction of the 17
defendants in the trial of Radek, Platakov, et al, in January 1937. -- MS. ] just as last July we presented
you beforehand with the entire itinerary of your struggle against us. A new stage of development is now
in order.
What about the students in the Military Academy and in the Academy of the Air Corps? You are
expelling the best students for being in the Opposition. I have succeeded in obtaining brief biographies of
the four students whom you expelled the other day on the eve of their graduation from the Military
Academies. The first biography is that of Okhotnikov; the second -- Kuzmichev; the third -- Broidto; the
fourth -- Kapel. Here is the first: Okhotitjkov, born in 1897; father and mother, peasants (from
Bessarabia); they possessed no land of their own, hut worked on that of the landlord. He received only an
elementary education. Until 1915, worked for his father and hired out as a truckman. From 1915, served
as a soldier in the Czarist army. During the February Revolution was in the city of Ekaterinoslav; elected
delegate from the reserve artillery to the Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies, but was transferred in May to the
4th Army at the front because of Bolshevik tendencies, and was there a delegate from the 14th Artillery
Brigade to the divisional and corps committee. During the October Revolution, having been wounded in
battle, he was convalescing in a hospital. Upon leaving the hospital in December 1917, he organized,
acting under the leadership of the Bolshevik party, a partisan detachment and fought against the
Romanian occupation troops. In 1918, he joined the underground organization in Bessarabia. Served as
chairman of the under ground Revolutionary Committee of Teletsk district, and as commander of the
partisan detachment. For his activities he was tried twice by the Romanian court martial and was
sentenced to death, but escaped. In 1919, he came with the partisans to the Ukraine, where he joined the
45th Red Division. Served in various commanding posts. Throughout the war remained at the front, and
at the conclusion of the war repeatedly took part in the struggle against the White bandits. In 1924, he
entered the Military Academy and was assigned to a preparatory course in view of his not having had a
general schooling. He graduated from the first course to the second cttm lasule. He was first brought up
on charges in the party for Oppositionist views in February 1927. Expelled from the Academy for
participating in the "farewell to Smilga."
Thus far I have in my possession four biographies which do not differ from each other in any
fundamental respect. They are all soldiers of the revolution, soldiers of the party, wounded in battle,
honored with certificates by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, recipients of
the medals of the Red Banner, tempered revolutionists who will remain faithful to October, who will
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