The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification -- Chapter 11
and when the workers found out that PRAVDA had been seized by three former editors of
PRAVDAarriving from Siberia, they demanded their expulsion from the party" [The third member was
the former deputy, Muranov.] (Shliapnikov, The Year 1917, Bk. 2, 1925).
We must add the following to the above: (a) Shliapnikov's account was altered and modulated in the
extreme under the pressure of Stalin and Kamenev in 1925 (the "troika" was still in power at the time!) ;
(b) no refutations of Shliapnikov's account appeared in the official press. Indeed, how could it have been
refuted? The issues of Pravda for that period were then readily available.
11. Stalin's attitude to the problem of revolutionary power was expressed by him in a speech made at a
party Conference (the session of March 29, 1917). Said Stalin:
"On the other hand, the government has in fact taken the role of fortifier of the conquests of the
revolutionary people. The Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies mobilizes the forces, and exercises
control, while the Provisional Government -- balking and muddling, takes the of fortifier of those
conquests of the people, which they have already seized as a fact. Such a situation has disadvantageous,
but also advantageous sides. It is not to our advantage at present to force events, hastening the process of
repelling the bourgeois layers, who will in the future inevitably withdraw from Stalin is afraid of
"repelling the bourgeoisie" -- the principal argument of the Mensheviks from 1904 on.
"In so far as the Provisional Government fortifies the steps of the revolution, to that extent we must
support it; but, in so far as it is counter-revolutionary, support to the Provisional Government is not
permissible."
That is exactly what Dan said. After all, what other words can be used to defend a bourgeois government
in the eyes of the revolutionary masses?
Further, we read in the minutes:
"Comrade Stalin reads the resolution on the Provisional Government adopted by the Bureau of the
Central Commit tee, but states that be is not in complete agreement with it, and is rather in accord with
the resolution of the Krasnoyarsk Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies."
We quote the most important points of the Krasnoyarsk resolution:
"To make entirely clear that the only source of the power and the authority of the Provisional
Government is the will of the people who have accomplished this revolution, and to whom the
Provisional Government is obliged wholly to submit. . .
"To support the Provisional Government in its activities only in so far as it follows a course of satisfying
the demands of the working class and the revolutionary peasantry in the revolution that is taking place."
The reference here is to the Government of Prince Lvov Miliukov-Guchkov.
Such was the position of Stalin on the question of power.
12. We must particularly underscore the date of the above, namely, March 9, 1917. Thus, more than a
month after the beginning of the revolution, Stalin still spoke of Miliukov as an ally: The Soviet
conquers, the Provisional Government fortifies. It is hard to believe that these words could have been
pronounced by a reporter to the Bolshevik Conference at the end of March 1917! Even Martov would not
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