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Stalin School of Falsfification - Chapter 6 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 Letter to the Bureau of Party History (Part 3) Concerning Economic Questions 48. Martinov maintains, as is well known, that civil war and War Communism are "Trotskyism." This doctrine has now acquired a vast popularity. The creation of industrial armies, the militarization of labor and other measures flowing inevitably, just as did food distribution, from the conditions of that epoch, are portrayed by philistines and vulgarians as manifestations of "Trotskyism." On what side did Lenin stand in these questions? In the organization section of the Seventh Congress of the Soviets, we were debating the question of bureaucratism in the directing centers. In my speech I pointed out that bossism might choke our industries; that centralism is not an absolute principle; that the necessary coordination between local initiative and the leadership of the center had yet to be found in practice. Lenin in his speech emphasized his full agreement with me on centralism and added: "Let me say in conclusion that I agreed entirely with comrade Trotsky when he said that there have been some very wrong attempts made here to present our disputes as a disagreement between workers and peasants and to mix up with this question, the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat." (Speech on Dec. 8, 1918, Collected Works, Vol. XVI, p.433.) "Our disputes" — this means those very prolonged disputes in which Lenin and Trotsky were on one side; Rykov, Tomsky, Larin and others, on the other side. In these disputes, as in so many others, Stalin remained behind the scenes maneuvering and waiting. 49. At the caucus of the Bolshevik fraction of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, January 12, 1920, Lenin had the following to say on the subject of "our disputes" with Rykov, Tomsky and others: "Who started this disgusting departmental squabble? Not comrade Trotsky. There is none of it in his theses. It was comrades Lomov, Rykov and Larin. Every one of them holds the highest office. They are all members of the Presidium of the All-Russian Council of National Economy. Among them is the chairman of the Council who has so many titles that if I wanted to list them all I should lose five minutes of my ten minute speech. . . . Rykov and others have got up here and started a disgusting literary squabble. Comrade Trotsky posed the question of new problems and they have started a departmental polemic with the Seventh Congress of the Soviets. Of course, we know that comrades Lomov, Rykov http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937-st2/sf06.htm (1 of 24) [06/06/2002 15:06:34]
Stalin School of Falsfification - Chapter 6 and Larin did not say this directly in their extremely stupid article. As some orator here has said: 'You must not indulge in polemics with the Seventh Congress of the Soviets.' If the Seventh Congress of the Soviets made a mistake, correct that mistake in the meeting, say that it is a mistake, and stop babbling about centralization and decentralization. Comrade Rykov says that it is necessary to talk about centralization and decentralization because comrade Trotsky did not notice it. This man assumes that the people sitting here are so backward that they have forgotten the first lines of comrade Trotsky's theses which say: 'Economic administration assumes a general plan,' etc. Do you know how to read Russian, most condescending Rykov, Lomov and Larin? Let's go back to the time when you were sixteen years old and start babbling about centralization and decentralization. Is that the governmental work of the members of the collegium, of the Presidium of the All-Russian Council of National Economy? This is nonsense and pathetic rubbish — it is a shame and disgrace to waste time on it." And further: "War gave us the ability to carry discipline to a maximum and to centralize tens and hundreds of thousands of people, comrades, who died to save the Soviet Republic. Without that we should have all gone to hell." I might add that this speech, which is at the disposition of the Lenin Institute, has not been published simply because it is inconvenient for the present "historians." The concealment from the party of a part of our ideological inheritance from Lenin is a necessary element in the departure from the Leninist course. The speech of Lenin quoted above will be brought forward when the time comes to decapitate Rykov. 50. About my work on the railway transport service, Lenin said at the Eighth Congress of the Soviets: ..... You have seen already, by the way, from the theses of comrade Emshanov and comrade Trotsky that in this sphere [the re-establishment of our transport] we have to do with a real plan, looking ahead many years. Order No. l042,[26] reckons on five years. In five years we can restore our transport, reduce the number of broken-down locomotives and, if you please, as the most difficult I emphasize in the ninth thesis the indication that we might even shorten that period, as has been done. "When big plans are made based on a many years' calculation, there are often skeptics who say: 'How can we calculate years ahead? God help us to do what we have to do right now.' Comrades, it is necessary to learn how to combine both. You can't work without having a plan that assumes a long period and serious success. That this is necessary is proved by the indubitable improvement of the transport work. I want to call your attention to that place in the ninth thesis where it says that the term for re-establishment would be four and a half years but that it is already shortened because we are working above normal. The term is already cut down to three and a half years. That is the way we should work in the other branches of our industry." (Speech on Dec. 2, 1920, Collected Works, Vol. XVII, pp. 423f.) I remark here that a year after I had issued Order No. 1042, in the order of comrade Dzerzhinsky, "Concerning the Fundamental Principles of Further Work of the People's Commissariat of Means of Communication," for May 27, 1921, we read: "Owing to the fact that the lowering of the norms set by Orders No.1042 and 1157, the first brilliant experiment in planned industrial work, is temporary, and due to the existing fuel crisis . . . measures must be taken to support and restore the equipment and the shops. . . ." 51. In 1924, Zinoviev put in circulation a charge against Trotsky that by issuing the railway "Order No. http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1937-st2/sf06.htm (2 of 24) [06/06/2002 15:06:34]
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