The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification -- Chapter 11
No refutations of this police report on Stalin made public by his partisans have appeared anywhere, so far
as we know. It appears from the report that Stalin began his activities as a Menshevik.
2. In 1905, Stalin was a member of the Bolsheviks and took an active part in the struggle. What were his
views and actions in 1905? What were his views as to the character of the revolution and its
perspectives? To our knowledge, there are no documents in circulation on this score. No articles,
speeches or resolutions by Stalin have been reprinted. Why? Evidently because a republication of Stalin's
articles or letters for that period could only damage his political biography. There is no other explanation
for the stubborn oblivion that enshrouds the past of the "leader."
3. In 1907, Stalin took part in the "expropriation" of the Tiflis bank. The Mensheviks, in the wake of
bourgeois philistines, have expressed no little indignation at the "conspiratorial" methods of Bolshevism,
and its "anarcho-Blanquism." We can have only one attitude toward this indignation, namely, contmpt.
His participation in a bold, even if a partial, blow dealt to the enemy can only do honor to the
revolutionary resoluteness of Stalin. One can only be astonished, however, as to why this fact has been
deleted in a cowardly manner from alt the official biographies of Stalin? Was it done, perhaps, in the
name of bureaucratic respectability? We venture to think not. The reasons are most probably political.
For, while participation in an expropriation cannot in itself in any way compromise a revolutionist in the
eyes of revolutionists, a false political evaluation of the then existing situation does compromise Stalin as
a politician. Partial blows to the institutions of the enemy, including "treasuries," are compatible only
with a mass offensive, i.e., the upsurge of the revolution. With the masses in retreat, partial, isolated and
partisan blows inevitably degenerate into adventures and lead to the demoralization of the party. In 1907,
the revolution was receding, and the expropriations degenerated into adventures. In any case, Stalin gave
proof even in that period that he was incapable of distinguishing the ebb-tide from the flood-tide. He was
to reveal this incapacity to orient himself politically on a broad scale more than once in the future
(Esthonia, Bulgaria, Canton, the "Third Period").
4. From the time of the first revolution, Stalin led the life of a professional revolutionist. Jail, exiles,
escapes. But for the entire period of reaction (1907-1911) we do not find a single document containing
Stalin's formulation of his own estimate of the situation and its perspectives. It is impossible for them not
to have been preserved, even if only in the archives of the police department. Why have they not
appeared in print? The reason is as clear as noonday: They are of such nature as renders it impossible to
strengthen the silly characterization of theoretical and political infallibility that the apparatus is creating
for Stalin, i.e., for itself.
5. Only a single letter pertaining to that period has appeared through an oversight in the press-and it
wholly confirms our hypothesis.
On January 24, 1911, Stalin wrote from exile to his friends, and this letter, that had been intercepted by
the police department, was reprinted on December 28, 1925, by the self-same editorial board of Zarya
Vostoka, none too rational in its zeal. Here is what Stalin wrote:
"We have of course heard from abroad of the 'tempest in a teapot' there; the blocs between
Lenin-Plekhanov, on the one hand, and between Trotsky-Martov-Bogdanov, on the other. The attitude of
the workers towards the first bloc is, so far as I know, favorable. But the workers are generally beginning
to look with disdain on what's going on abroad:
Let them climb the walls to their heart's content. So far as we ourselves are concerned, whoever holds
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