The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification -- Chapter 9
factional report against the Opposition, a working woman took the floor and said substantially the
following: "I agree with everything that was said here. It is necessary to make short shrift of the
Opposition, but the whole trouble is that when a man who happens to be dressed a little cleaner, comes to
the Regional Committee, he is immediately directed where he needs go; but when a working woman
comes, some what more drab and dirty, she has to wait a long time in the hall-way." That was said by a
working woman, a member of the Regional Committee. Such voices are to be heard more and more
often. They signify not only that the number of bureaucrats has increased, but also the fact that the ruling
circles are becoming more and more fused with the upper layers of the Soviet-Nep society; and that two
floors are being created, two forms of life, two kinds of habits, or, to use the more fully expressive
words, element: are being created of dual power in daily life which upon further development may
become transformed into political dual power. Now, political dual power would already constitute a
direct threat to the dictatorship of the proletariat. An enormous layer of the urban party-Soviet personnel
leads the lives of functionaries until 8 P.M.; after three o'clock, they live like men-about-town, taking the
attitude of liberals toward the Central Committee, while on Wednesdays, after six o'clock, they condemn
the Opposition for being men of little faith. This type of party member bears a considerable resemblance
to the Czarist functionary who used to profess privately the theory of Darwin, and who, when the need
arose, presented credentials of holy communion.
Comrade Ordjonikidze has proposed to us that we aid him in the struggle against bureaucratism. Why
then does he remove Oppositionists from their posts? I maintain that the overwhelming majority of
Oppositionists are removed not for performing their work badly or for failing to work in keeping with the
directives of the C.E.C., but as punishment for their convictions. They are removed as Oppositionists.
They are removed as punishment for so-called "Trotskyism."
I should like to avail myself of at least a single opportunity to express myself briefly on the subject of
Trotskyism, i.e., the lie that has been passing under the guise of my political biography, especially from
the lips and pen of Yaroslavsky, who is present here in the capacity of a judge, and others like himself. I
have stated more than once, as is well known to all old party members, that on many most import ant
questions I at one time fought against Lenin and the Bolshevik party, but I was not a Menshevik. If by
Menshevism is understood a political class line-and that is the only way to understand it-then I was never
a Menshevik. I broke organizationally and politically with what was to become Menshevism in the
middle of 1904, i.e., from the moment when it began to take shape as a political tendency. I broke on the
question of the attitude towards the liberal bourgeoisie,[55] with the publication of Vera Zasulich's article,
and the article by Axelrod in which he presented his plan of supporting the Zemstvo [Provinclai and
county council elected by a limited franchise and hay ing only economic and cultural functions] liberals,
etc. On the question of the role of the classes in the revolution I was never in agreement with
Menshevism. And this was the fundamental question. All the Yaroslavskys are duping the party and the
International not only with respect to the last ten years, but also with respect to the more distant past
when I stood outside both of the main factions of the then social democracy.
In May 1905, the Bolshevik Congress adopted a resolution on the question of the armed insurrection and
the Provisional Government. At the Congress comrade Krassin introduced a major amendment, which
was, in reality, a separate resolution, which was referred to by Lenin at the Congress in the most
laudatory manner.[56] This resolution presented by Krassin was written entirely by me in Petrograd-I
have proof of this, namely, a note written by Krassin to me during one of the sessions. The most
important resolution of the first Congress of the Bolshevik Party on the question of the armed
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937-st2/sf09.htm (13 of 21) [06/06/2002 15:07:02]