The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification - Chapter 5
theoretical and political heritage in the development of the party. In the following issue of the new
magazine, Lenin wrote:
"Concerning the general task of the magazine Under the Banner of Marxism, comrade Trotsky in No.1-2
said all that was essential and said it excellently. I should like to dwell upon certain questions defining
more closely the content and program of work issued by the editors of the journal in their preliminary
announcement to No. 1-2."(Collected Works, Supplementary Vol. XX, Pt. 2, p.492.)
Could our solidarity upon these fundamental questions have been accidental? No, the only accident lies
in the fact that the solidarity happened to be so clearly recorded in the press. In the overwhelming
majority of cases, our solidarity was sealed only in deeds. Yet it was precisely on the question of attitude
to the youth that innumerable legends have been created in recent years.
ATTITUDE TOWARD THE PEASANTRY
35. After Bukharin, out of sheer rejection of or disregard for the peasantry, had arrived at his kulak
Slogan[23] "Enrich yourselves," he came to the conclusion that h( had thereby forever corrected all of his
old mistakes. More than that, he thought he could string on the same thread with the peasant question,
my disagreement about Brest-Litovsk and my other partial disagreements with Vladimir Ilyich. The
stupidities and abominations put in circulation by the Bukharin m school on this theme are absolutely
incalculable. It would take a volume to refute them a!! specifically. I will mention only the most
important points:
(a) I do not touch here upon the old pre-Revolutionary disagreements that really existed.[24] I will
say only that they have been monstrously distended, distorted and perverted by Stalin's agents and
the petty school of Bukharin.
(b) In 1917 there was no disagreement whatever upon this question between Lenin and me.
(c) The "adoption"of the Social Revolutionary land program was carried out by Vladimir Ilyich in
full agreement with me.
(d) I happened to be the first to read Lenin's penciled draft of the decree on the land question.
There was not even a hint of disagreement. We were of one mind.
(e) In the food policy the peasant question occupied, obviously, no small place. Vulgarians like
Martinov are saying that this policy was " Trotskyist"(c.f., Martinov's article in Kranaya Nov,
1923). No, it was a Bolshevik policy. I took part in its enactment hand in hand with Lenin. There
was not a shadow of disagreement.
(f) The policy based on the middle peasantry was adopted with my most active participation. The
members of the Political Bureau know that after the death of Sverdlov, the first thought of
Vladimir Ilyich was to name comrade Kamenev chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive
Committee. The proposal to select instead a "worker-peasant"figure came from me. I nominated
comrade Kalinin for the post. It was also on my suggestion that he was called "All-Russian
Starosta"[village elder]. All this is, of course, a trivial matter upon which it would not be worth
while to pause. But at present these trivialities, these symptoms, are murderous evidence against
the falsifiers of our past.
(g) Nine-tenths of all our military policy and organization reduced itself to the policy of the
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