The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification - Chapter 4
Eminent Party Leaders":
"All the work of practical organization of the insurrection was conducted under the immediate leadership
of the chair-man of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky. It is possible to declare with certainty that the swift
passing of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the bold execution of the work of the Military
Revolutionary Committee, the party owes principally and above all to comrade Trotsky."
These words, written by no means for the purpose of laudatory exaggeration -- on the contrary, Stalin's
goal was then wholly different: with his article he wanted to "warn" against exaggerating Trotsky's role
(this is really why the article was written) -- these words sound like an absolutely incredible panegyric
today, coming from the lips of Stalin. But at that time it was impossible to express oneself otherwise. It
was said long ago that a truthful man has this advantage, that even with a bad memory he never
contradicts himself, while a disloyal, unscrupulous and dishonest man has always to remember what he
said in the past, in order not to shame himself.
15. Stalin, with the help of the Yaroslavskys, is trying to construct a new history of the organization of
the October insurrection, basing himself on the fact that the party created a "practical center for the
organizational leadership of the insurrection," of which, if you please, Trotsky was not a member.
Neither was Lenin a member of that committee. That fact alone demonstrates that the committee had
only a subordinate organizational significance. It played no independent role whatever. The legend about
this committee has been created today for the simple reason that Stalin was a member of it. Here is the
membership: Sverdlov, Stalin, Dzerzhinsky, Bubnov, Uritsky.
However unpleasant it is to dig into rubbish, it seems necessary for me, as a fairly close participant in
and witness of the events of that time, to testify as follows:
The role of Lenin, of course, needs no illumination. Sverdlov I often met and I often turned to him for
counsel and for people to help me. Comrade Kamenev, who, as is well known, held then a special
position,[10] the incorrectness of which he himself has long ago acknowledged, took, nevertheless, a
most active part in the events of the insurrection. The decisive night, from the 25th to the 26th, Kamenev
and I spent together in the quarters of the Military Revolutionary Committee, answering questions and
giving orders by telephone. But stretch my memory as I will, I cannot answer the question in just what
consisted, during those decisive days, the role of Stalin. It never once happened that I turned to him for
advice or cooperation. He never showed the slightest initiative. He never advanced a single independent
proposal. This fact no "Marxian historian" of the new style can alter.
16. (I add this note on November 2, 1927.) Stalin and Yaroslavsky, as I said above, have wasted much
effort these last months in proving that the military revolutionary center created by the Central
Committee, consisting of Sverdlov, Stalin, Bubnov, Uritsky and Dzerzhinsky, was, allegedly, the director
of the whole course of the insurrection. Stalin has emphasized, in every way he could, the fact that
Trotsky was not a member of that center. But alas! through sheer carelessness on the part of Stalin's
historians, in Pravda of Nov. 2, 1927 -- that is, after the present letter was written -- there appeared an
accurate excerpt from the minutes of the Central Committee for the 16th (29th) of October 1917:
"The Central Committee created a military revolutionary center with the following members: Sverdlov,
Stalin, Bubnov, Uritsky and Dzerzhinsky. This center is to be a constituent part of the Revolutionary
Soviet Committee."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937-st2/sf04.htm (8 of 16) [06/06/2002 15:06:13]