The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification - Chapter 5
trying to cover him with mud?"
Such is the real work of Stalin and his agents in their effort to invent a new biography for him after the
events. The party mass cannot possibly check upon the greater part of Stalin's "revelations."Instead they
become firmly imbued with a loss of confidence in the leadership of the party, past, present and future.
We shall have to win this anew-this confidence of the party-against Stalin and Stalinism.
43. As is known, Gusev has devoted special energy to the literary revision of our war history. He has
even written a brochure entitled Our Military Disagreements. In this brochure, it seems, the poisonous
gossip first appeared about shooting communists (not deserters, not traitors, even though with party
cards, but communists).
Gusev's misfortune, like that of many others, is that he has written twice about one and the same fact and
question: once in Lenin's tim once in Stalin's.
Here is what Gusev wrote the first time:
"The arrival of comrade Trotsky [near Kazan] produced a decisive change in the situation. The arrival of
Trotsky's train at the wayside station, Sviazhsk, brought a firm will to victory, initiative and momentum
for all sides of the work of the army. From the very first day, in that station crowded with the wagon
trains of the innumerable regiments, where were the headquarters of the political department and the
commissary, as well as among the army troops deployed over a distance of fifteen versts, everybody felt
that a great turn mg point had arrived.
"This made itself felt first of all in the sphere of discipline. The stern methods of comrade Trotsky in that
epoch of guerrilla warfare, in discipline and provincial egotisms, were especially and above all expedient
and necessary. You could do nothing with persuasion. And, moreover, there was no time for it. In the
course of those twenty-five days that comrade Trotsky spent in Sviazhsk an enormous work was
accomplished. The disorganized and degenerated regiments of the Fifth Army were converted into
fighting troops and prepared for the capture of Kazan."(Proletarskaya Revolutsia, No. 2 [25], 1924.)
Every member of the party who lived through the experience of the Civil War and has not lost his
memory will say, at least to himself, if he is afraid to say it out loud, that you could quote by the score, if
not by the hundred, such printed testimonials as this testimonial written by Gusev.
44. I limit myself here to testimonials of the most authoritative character. In his recollections of Lenin,
Gorky says:
"Striking his fist on the table, he [Lenin] exclaimed: 'Show me another man who would be able in a year
to organize almost a model army; yes, and win the esteem of the military specialists. We have such a
man. We have everything, and you'll see miracles!' "(Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Lenin, Leningrad, 1924,
p.28.)
In the same conversation, Lenin said, according to Gorky:
"Yes, yes, I know. They lie a lot about my relations with him. They lie a great deal, it seems, especially
about Trotsky and me."(Ibid., p.28.)
Yes, they lied a lot about the relations of Lenin and Trotsky. But can you compare the amateurish lying
of those days with the properly organized, All-Russian and international lying of today? In those days the
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