The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

groupings, with their attitude toward "Trotskyism" as a measuring rod. In the struggle against
"Trotskyism," Stalin turned "theoretician" and Molotov, leader. Zinoviev and Kamenev marched hand in
hand with Stalin, broke with Stalin and returned to Stalin — and each time "Trotskyism" served as the
touchstone. The Right wing (Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky) broke with Stalin, accusing him of
"Trotskyism." Stalin, in his wisdom, turned the self-same accusation against the Rights. Piatakov, Radek
and other second-draft capitulators were compelled to drink from the self-same fountain.
What does it all mean? First of all, it means that all these individuals and groups possess nothing they can
call their own. All of them are repelled by something; they all temporarily gravitate toward something
only in order to be repelled again. They call this "something" — "Trotskyism" and they use this
pseudonym to settle their accounts with the doctrine of Marx and Lenin.
Revolution is a harsh school. It is unsparing of spines, whether physical or moral. An entire generation
has spent itself, becoming drained physically and spiritually. Only a few have survived. The
overwhelming majority of the Stalinist tops consists of men drained to the core. The appurtenances of the
apparatus invest them with an imposing appearance, serving them as a parade uniform serves a senile
general. Historical events will continue to expose and to confirm the hollowness of the Stalinist "Guard"
at each new trial. The capitulations on the question of Trotskyism have served thousands and tens of
thousands as training in the art of capitulation as such.
The succession of political generations presents a major and a very complex problem which is posed in
its own peculiar manner before each class and each party. But all must face it.
Lenin often castigated the so-called "Old Bolsheviks," even remarking on occasion that revolutionists on
reaching the age of 50 should be consigned to the Hereafter. This grim jest contains a serious political
thought. Each revolutionary generation becomes, after attaining certain limits, an obstacle to the further
development of those ideas which it had served. Generally speaking, men are quickly drained by politics
and all the more so by revolution. Exceptions are rare. But there are exceptions. Otherwise there would
be no such thing as ideological continuity.
Today the theoretical education of the younger generation is our supreme task. This is the meaning of the
struggle we are waging against the epigones who despite their seeming strength have already been
drained ideologically.
T.
Stalin School of Falsification - Chapter 7
Constantinople,
February 7, 1930.
NOTES:
33. When the entire Left Opposition was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union by the
Fifteenth Party Con gress at the end of 1927, the Zinovievist section of the Opposition (Zinoviev,
Xamenev, Yevdokimov, Bakayev, etc.), faced with the demand by Stalin's congress that they not only
renounce their right to disseminate their political views, but even their right to entertain such views,
ended by presenting a statement of complete capitulation. Shortly thereafter, they were re-admitted into
the party. Their submission availed them little, for at the end of 1932 they were once more expelled for
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