The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification - Chapter 13
Leon Trotsky's
THE STALIN SCHOOL OF
FALSIFICATION
Transcribed for the Trotsky Internet Archive , now a sub-archive of the Marxist writers' Internet Archive by David Walters
in 1997
APPENDIX
Stalin and the Red Army by N. Markin
UNDER THE HEADING, "Stalin and the Red Army," Pravda has printed a jubilee article by Voroshilov
whose avowed aim is to "refresh the memories of the comrades" about the past. This article has been
republished in pamphlet form, in an edition of 100,000. It is worth while to dwell in some detail upon
this piece of creative writing. It sets a record in the quantity of fictions and discrepancies, even against
the background of the articles written by all the Yaroslavkys. It may be said without exaggeration that
this article does not contain a line of truth—not even a singleline. We shall try as briefly as possible to
re-establish the truth by citing actual facts and genuine documents, some of which have never been
published. (We have utilized a section of comrade Trotsky's archives.)
TSARITSIN
In his autobiography, comrade Trotsky has dealt in considerable detail with the history and the roots of
the "Tsaritsin Opposition." [61] This opposition had one of its roots in a peasant's hatred - and not that of
a proletarian -- of "spetzes" specialists], which hatred in no way hindered every Tsaritsinite from having
close at hand his "own spetz,, only of an inferior grade." The telegrams of Stalin which are cited by
Voroshilov illuminate to the utmost this "spetzo phobia" of the Tsaritsinites and their "ideologist" Stalin.
After the Eighth Party Congress (March 1919), the question of the "spetzes" was settled in pririciple. Ten
years later we learn "officially," with Voroshilov's assistance, that Stalin was among those elements who
were able to grasp the ques tion of the military specialists only after a considerable time and with
considerable difficulty. These elements held the supreme manifestation of revolutionism to be "the stupid
taunting of military specialists" (Trotsky). Voroshilov, who remains today on the Tsaritsin level, instead
of seeking to hide more securely Stalin's mental lapses of 1919, obliges us with exemplars of this "stupid
taunting":
Had not our military 'specialists' (shoemakers) been sleeping and loafing, the line would not have been
broken; and should the line be restored it will not be due to the mili tary gentry but despite them."
And more of the same, in the self-same spirit of wholesale taunting and cheap boasting. Therein is all
their wisdom. These telegrams -- today -- in the light of the experience of the civil war, compromise their
author to such an extent that we shall confine ourselves merely to confronting them with the remarks
made by comrade Trotsky in another connection, but which directly apply in this instance:
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