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Stalin School of Falsification -- Chapter 9
That was the substance of the conversation. I repeat that we must at this time at all costs refresh our
knowledge of the Great French Revolution-it is absolutely indispensable. We might begin even with
Kropotkin, who was not a Marxist but who understood better than Jaures the national and class subsoil of
the Revolution.
During the Great French Revolution, many were guillotined. We, too, had many people brought before
the firing squad. But in the Great French Revolution there were two great chapters, of which one went
like this [points upward] and the other like that [points downward]. We must under stand this. When the
chapter headed like this-upwards- the French Jacobins, the Bolsheviks of that time, guillotined the
Royalists and the Girondists. We, too, have had a similar great chapter when we, the Oppositionists,
together with you, shot the White Guards and exiled the Girondists. And then there began another
chapter in France, when the French Ustrialovs and semi-Ustrialovs-the Thermidorians and the
Bonapartists from among the Right wing Jacobins-began exiling and shooting the Left Jacobins-the
Bolsheviks of that time. I should like comrade Soltz to think his analogy through to the end and, first of
all, to give himself an answer to the following question: In accordance with which chapter is Soltz
preparing to have us shot? [Commotion in the hall.] This is no jesting matter; revolution is a serious
business. None of us is scared by firing squads. We are all old revolutionists. But the thing is to know
whoon to shoot, and in accordance with which chapter. When we did the shooting we were firm in our
knowledge as to the chapter. But, comrade Soltz, do you clearly understand in accordance with which
chapter you are now preparing to shoot? I fear, comrade Soltz, that you are about to shoot us in
accordance with the Ustrialov, i.e., Thermidorian chapter.[54]
When the term "Thermidorian" is used among us, it is taken for a term of abuse. It is thought that the
Thermidorians were arrant counter-revolutionists, conscious sup porters of the monarchic rule, and so on.
Nothing of the kind! The Thermidorians were Jacobins, with this difference, that they had moved to the
Right. The Jacobin organization-the then Bolsheviks-under the pressure of class contradictions, shortly
arrived at the conviction that it was necessary to destroy the Robespierre group. Do you think that on the
very next day after the 9th of Thermidor they said to themselves: We have now transferred power into
the hands of the bourgeoisie? Nothing of the kind! Refer to all the newspapers of that time. They said:
We have destroyed a handful of people who disrupted peace in the party, but now, after their destruction,
the revolution will triumph completely. If comrade Soltz has any doubts about it.
SOLTZ: You are practically repeating my own words.
TROTSKY: So much the better. If we are agreed on this, comrade Soltz, then it will help us considerably
to decide the question as to what chapter you are preparing to open by the physical annihilation of the
Opposition. One thing must be firmly understood: Unless we undertake to rectify the class line of the
party, as it should be done, the line indicated by Ustrialov will have to be pursued inevitably in side the
party, i.e., the line of a ruthless struggle against the Opposition.
I shall read you what was said by Brival, who was a Right Jacobin, one of the Thermidorians, when he
reported about the session of the Convention during which Robespierre and the other Jacobins were
handed over to the Revolutionary Tribunal: "Intriguers and counter-revolutionists covering themselves
with the toga of patriotism sought the destruction of liberty; the Convention decreed to place them under
arrest. These representatives were: Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just, Lebas and Robespierre the
Younger. The chairman asked what my opinion was. I replied: Those who had always voted in
accordance with the spirit of the principles of the Mountain both in the Legislative Assembly as well as
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