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Stalin School of Falsification -- Chapter 11 Petrograd to the peoples of the whole world, summoning them to compel their own governments to terminate the slaughter. This manifesto, if it reaches the broad masses, will undoubtedly recall hundreds and thousands of workers to the forgotten slogan: 'Workers of the World, Unite!' , How did Lenin evaluate the manifesto of the defensists? In his April 4 speech, from which we have already quoted, he said: "The manifesto of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies there isn't a word in it imbued with class-consciousness. There is nothing to it but phrase-mongering." (The March 1917 Party Conference. Session of April 4. "Report by comrade Lenin.") These words are directed entirely against Stalin. That is why the protocols of the March Conference are kept hidden from the party. 15. Since he was carrying through the policy of the Left Mensheviks in relation to the Provisional Government and the war, Stalin had no reason whatever for rejecting unification with the Mensheviks. Here is how he expressed himself on this question at the self-same March 1917 Conference. We quote the protocols verbatim: "Order of the da~-Tseretelli's proposal for unification. "STALIN:We ought to go. It is necessary to define our proposals as to the terms of unification. Unification is possible along the lines of Zimmerwald-Kienthal." At this, even Molotov expressed his doubts; to be sure, not very articulately. Stalin replied in refutation: "There is no use running ahead and anticipating disagreements. There is no party life without disagreements. We will live down trivial disagreements within the party." (The March 1917 Party Conference. Session of April 1.) These few words speak louder than volumes. They serve to establish the thoughts upon which Stalin fed during the war years and they attest with juridical precision that Stalin's Zimmerwaldism was of the same brand as Tseretelli's Zimmerwaldism. Here, once again, there is not even a hint of that ideological irreconcilability, which was put on by Stalin as a false mask several years later, in the interests of the apparatus struggle. On the contrary, Menshevism and Bolshevism appear to Stalin at the end of March 1917 as shades of thought that could abide in a single party. Disagreements with TsereteHi Stalin calls "trivial," which can be "lived down" in the framework of a single organization. We can gather from this how becoming it is for Stalin to condemn in retrospect Trotsky's conciliationist attitude to the Left Mensheviks . . . in 1918. 16. With such a position, Stalin, in the nature of things, could not counterpose anything serious to the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks in the Executive Committee of the Soviet, which, on his arrival, he entered as a representative of the party. There has not remained in the minutes or in the press a single proposal, declaration or protest in which Stalin in any distinguishable manner counterposed the Bolshevik point of view to the flunkeyism of the "revolutionary democracy" toward the bourgeoisie. One of the chroniclers of that period, the non-party semi-defensist Sukhanov, the author of the above -- mentioned manifesto to the toilers of the whole world, says in his Note* on the Rei'olt_tion: "Among the Bolsheviks, besides Kamenev, there appeared in the Executive Committee of the Soviets in http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937-st2/sf11.htm (7 of 12) [06/06/2002 15:07:13]
Stalin School of Falsification -- Chapter 11 those days Stalin. During the time of his modest activity in the Execu tive Committee [he] gave me the impression -- and not only more of a drab spot which would sometimes emit a dim and inconsequential light. There is really nothing more to be said about him." (Notes on the Revointion, Bk. 2, pp. 26sf.) 17. Lenin, who had finally managed to break through from abroad, raged and thundered against the "Kautskyist" Pravda (the term is Lenin's). Stalin withdrew to the side lines. At the time when Kamenev manned the defenses, Stalin remained silent. Gradually he slid into the new official groove made by Lenin. But we do not find emanating from him a single independent idea or generalization on which it is worth while dwelling. Whenever the occasion arose, Stalin stepped in between Kamenev and Lenin. Let us take the most acute moment of the inner-party struggle on the eve of the October insurrection. Kamenev and Zinoviev came out in the non-party press against the insur rection. Lenin in a letter to the Central Committee branded their action as "infinitely vile," and raised the question of expelling them from the party. Lenin was particularly indig nant at the fact that in all their open declarations, Zinoviev and Kamenev, without ceasing to agitate against the insur rection, covered their violation of the decision of the party with hypocritical and diplomatic formulse. Meanwhile, on that very same day, October 20, there appeared to the astonishment of the Central Committee the following declara tion in the central organ of the party: "Statement by the Editorial Board. We on our part express the hope that the matter will be considered as closed with the statement made by comrade Zinoviev (and also comrade Kamenev's statement in the Soviet). The sharp tone of comrade Lenin's article does not alter tile fact that we are fundamentally in agreement." (Protocols of the C.C. of S.D.L.P.R., Aug. 1917 -- Feb. 1918. State Publishers, 1929, p. 137.) Thus, where Lenin spoke of an "infinitely vile" behavior, covered up by diplomatic subterfuges, the edi torial board, basing itself on these subterfuges, spoke of "agreement." The editorial board consisted at the time of Stalin and Sokolnikov. "Comrade Sokolnikov announced that he had had no part in the declaration of the editorial board with regard to the letters of Zinoviev, and that he regarded this declara tion as erroneous." (Idem., p. 128.) Thus, it was made clear that Stalin on his own responsibility supported-against Lenin, against the Central Committee, and against the other member of the editorial board -- Kamenev and Zinoviev at the most critical moment, four days prior to the insurrection; and did so through an official declaration which could not but confuse the entire party. There was universal indigna tion. The protocol reads: "Comrade Stalin presents a state ment that he is withdrawing from the editorial board." (Idem., p. 129.) Rather than aggravate an already rather difficult situation, the Central Committee did not accept Stalin's resignation. But, after all, how explain the astounding declaration of Stalin in Pravda.~ Like a number of other steps taken by Stalin during the period from April to October, the declara tion cannot be understood unless we take into consideration the fact that Stalin was under the influence of his Menshevik policy during March and the first days in April. What had occurred only yesterday was still so fresh in the minds of everyone. Stalin up to April 4 had marched so closely in step with Kamenev. The turn in party policy after April 4 was so sharp that Stalin found himself all this time in a condition of acute political infirmity: he squirmed, kept mum, allowed others to commit themselves, but once in a while he would burst out against Lenin, in the spirit of the above-quoted editorial declaration. 18. For a number of years, Stalin and all his Kuusinens have been broadcasting throughout the world the version alleging that Trotsky had wilfully and against the decision of the C.C. decided not to sign the peace treaty at Brest Litovsk. Stalin even undertook to prove this in the press. We have now the official http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937-st2/sf11.htm (8 of 12) [06/06/2002 15:07:13]
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