The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification - Chapter 5
upon the subject of the middle peasant.
"Comrade Trotsky has already given his answer in his 'Open Letter to the Middle Peasants' in Investia for
February 7. Comrade Trotsky says in this letter that the rumors of disagreement between him and me are
a monstrous and a despicable lie, propagated by the landlords and capitalists and their conscious or
unconscious servitors. I, upon my part, fully confirm this statement of comrade Trotsky. There are no
disagreements between him and me, and in regard to the middle peasants, there are no disagreements not
only between Trotsky and me, but in general, in the Communist Party of which we are both members.
"Comrade Trotsky in his letter explained clearly and in detail why the party of the communists and the
present workers' and peasants' government elected by the Soviets and members of that party, do not
consider the middle peasants their enemies. I subscribe with both hands to what comrade Trotsky
said."(Collected Works, Vol. XVI, pp. 28f. Printed originally in Pravda, No.85, Feb.15, 1919.)
Here we run into the same fact again. The rumor was first set going by the White Guards. Now it is
caught up by the Stalin-Bukharin school, developed and deliberately propagated.
MILITARY WORK
37. On the subject of my military work which began in the spring of 1918, an attempt has been made,
under the guidance of Stalin, to rewrite history. In fact, the attempt has been made to rewrite the entire
history of the Civil War for the sole purpose of the struggle against "Trotskyism" or, to put it more
precisely, the struggle against Trotsky.
To rehearse here the story of the creation of the Red Army and the relation of Lenin to that work, would
be to write the history of the Civil War. For the time being, the Gusevs are writing it. Later, others will
write it. I must limit myself to two or three examples supported by documents.
When Kazan was captured by our troops, I received a telegram of congratulations from Vladimir Ilyich,
then rapidly convalescing:
"I greet with rapture the brilliant victory of the Red Army. Let it serve as a pledge that the union of
workers and revolutionary peasants will shatter the bourgeoisie completely; will break every resistance
of the exploiters, and guarantee the victory of world socialism. Long live the workers' revolution!
"Sept.10, 1918.
"Lenin."
The intensely elated (for Lenin) tone of the telegram-"I greet with rapture"-testifies to the enormous
significance he attributed, and rightly so, to the capture of Kazan. Here occurred the first and essentially
decisive trial of strength of the union of workers and revolutionary peasants and of the ability of the
party, amid the economic ruin and terrible desolation left by the imperialist war, to create a fighting,
revolutionary army. Here the methods of creating the Red Army underwent their trial by fire, and Lenin
knew the true value of this trial.
38. At the Eighth Party Congress, a group of military delegates criticized the war policy. The Stalins and
Voroshilovs have been taking lately as though I dared not even appear at the Eighth Congress and hear
their criticisms. How monstrously far that is from the actual fact! Here is the resolution of the Central
Committee on the subject of my departure for the front on the eve of the Eighth Congress:
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