Lenin and Trotsky against Stalinism

Lenin and Trotsky against Stalinism

1922-1923 : when Lenin and Trotsky were united against Stalin and the Russian bureaucracy, dictatorial, nationalist, corrupt and reactionary, beginning to usurp power in place of the exhausted proletariat, struck by a bloody civil war, beaten throughout Europe, internationally isolated and demoralized

In 1922-1923, everything opposed the common policy of Lenin and Trotsky, the two historical leaders of October 1917 and of the revolutionary war which defeated imperialism in Russia, to the policy of Stalin and the bureaucracy :

1.- L and T want to stop the NEP, this momentary and limited retreat towards capitalism in a catastrophic economic situation due to the civil war and the backwardness of the country and aimed at preserving the workers’ and peasants’ alliance, to preserve the monopoly of foreign trade to avoid the connection of the kulak and the nepman with foreign imperialism, to develop the control of the workers over the bourgeois economy authorized in a limited way, to control the connection of the state bureaucracy with the new bourgeois.

2.- L and T want us to first fight the bureaucracy within the party, the soviets and the state and to dissociate them. To this end, we must revive the soviets, develop the organization of trade unions and non-party organizations, independent of the Bolshevik party and the state, and develop workers’ control and their rights.

3.- L and T want to preserve the policy of liberation of the oppressed peoples of the former Russian empire.

4.- L and T are betting on the world revolution and not only on the internal economic and social development of Russia

5.- in this international perspective, it is important to develop genuine national communist leaderships in the world and not appendages of the Russian party.

6.- L and T have a short-term political project to push back and bring down the bureaucracy within the party. They have noticed that it develops by always starting from the same institutions : party secretariat, organizing bureau, secretariat of the central committee, workers’ and peasants’ inspection, ministry of nationalities. All these institutions have in common that they are linked to Stalin... The project proposed by Lenin to Trotsky consists of detonating a public bomb at the party congress : unmasking Stalin in the eyes of the entire party, restructuring all the leaderships that Stalin has monopolized, giving back the power of decision to an enlarged Central Committee (true political leadership with sufficient authority for this fight) and no longer to the secretariats and organizing bureaus.

The October Revolution, let us not forget, was that of Lenin and Trotsky, as the French communist newspaper "L’Humanité" of the time called it and as the whole world called it. This is the Stalinist version that will seek to oppose Lenin and Trotsky, while Lenin had chosen Trotsky as the only one capable of leading the revolution upon his death...

Excerpt from “Lenin’s Last Stand” by Moshe Lewin :

“After three trying years of war, struggle, toil, and worry, Lenin fell ill. He was already seriously ill toward the end of 1921 and was forced to leave work for several weeks. During the first half of the following year, his capacity for work was reduced and steadily deteriorated. Then suddenly, on May 25, 1922, a catastrophic attack occurred : paralysis of his right hand and leg, and disruption—or even loss—of his ability to speak. Convalescence was slow and painful. “You understand,” Lenin later told Trotsky, “I could no longer speak or write ; I had to learn again.” His robust constitution pulled him through once more, but he did not return to work until October 2, and his health was not fully restored. The symptoms of fatigue and malaise he was showing, his frequent absences from work sessions, his latest crisis did not go unnoticed by the members of the Sovnarkom (government) and the Politburo. (…)

The return to public life was not long-lasting. On December 13, a new bout of illness forced Lenin to retire, this time permanently. It is therefore clear that his participation in affairs during 1922 was very limited. This is an important fact for understanding this entire period, which played a crucial role in the destiny of Soviet Russia. The government machine created under Lenin, much more at the whim of circumstances than by premeditated will, continued to function without his participation. His comrades in the Politburo were getting used to governing alone and were acquiring a taste for the independence acquired thanks to the absence of the old man. (…) While Lenin was losing his capacity for work and the conduct of affairs was slipping more and more out of his hands, Stalin was asserting himself, gaining ease and assurance, quite often in opposition to Lenin. (…)

A number of men then left the Secretariat and the Central Committee. Among them were the three secretaries Krestinsky, Preobrazhensky, and Serebriakov, all future Left Opposition members and future victims of Stalin’s purges. And, significantly, Kaganovich, Uglanov, Jaroslavsky, and Molotov reached the highest echelons. They were all future Stalinists. (…) The problem of foreign trade became acute towards the end of 1921, when Miliutin, the Soviet delegate to the Riga talks, promised the abolition of this monopoly. (…) Stalin supported these theses. But Lenin saw them as a fundamental error, an unacceptable attack on the country’s interests. In his view, it was not only unwise but undoubtedly harmful to allow foreign exporters to come into direct contact with the private businessmen of the interior, the nepmany, because then "foreigners will buy up and take home everything of value." (…) Lenin was accumulating evidence to try to convince the Central Committee of the correctness of his views. Only the rigid maintenance of the monopoly principle would make it possible to counter the country’s economic weakness. (…) The slightest breach in defense would eventually destroy the weak domestic industry and help to weld an alliance between the forces of international capitalism and businessmen on the one hand and the entire Russian peasantry on the other against the power of the Soviets. By March, Lenin’s arguments seemed to be winning out and the monopoly was confirmed by a series of decrees, but it was only a truce. Lenin noted with concern that government and Central Committee circles were continually putting this issue back on the agenda and challenging the solution reached by constantly formulating new draft legislative amendments. (…) Annoyed, Lenin finally demanded, in a letter to Stalin, that the monopoly principle be reaffirmed and that all contrary drafts be banned. It was perhaps on this occasion that Lenin discovered that the gensek (general secretary) did not agree with him at all and was standing up to him with growing assurance. Stalin added the following opinion to Lenin’s letter : "At this stage, I do not oppose the formal ban on measures aimed at weakening foreign trade. However, I believe that weakening is becoming inevitable. » Lenin’s proposals were adopted by the Politburo on May 22, but during his prolonged absence due to his first paralysis, the opponents of monopoly finally achieved success. A few days after Lenin’s return to work, at the Central Committee meeting on October 6, Sokolnikov’s proposals for significant exceptions to the state monopoly were approved by the plenum. Lenin, who was suffering,was absent from the session. He felt this decision as a real blow to him. (…) Significant fact : on October 11, he invited Trotsky to talk with him, and in particular about this problem. Two days later, he sent an urgent letter to the Politburo categorically demanding a revision of the decision. The Bureau had to give some ground : it decided to have the members of the Central Committee vote on Lenin’s request. Once again, Stalin attached a note to Lenin’s letter : "Comrade Lenin’s letter has not made me change my mind about the correctness of the decision of the plenum. (…) concerning foreign trade." (…)

Knowing that Trotsky was like him a defender of monopoly, Lenin proposed to him on December 12th to make common cause with him. (…) Lenin insisted to Trotsky, in increasingly cordial terms, that he take charge of defending their common thesis. (…) From December 12th to 15th, the two men exchanged abundant correspondence. (…) In case of failure, a tactic was decided : the charge would be returned to the communist faction of the next Congress of Soviets and, later, to the Party Congress. On December 15th, Lenin drew his conclusions : “Comrade Trotsky, I believe that we have agreed on everything ; I ask you to announce our solidarity at the plenum. » (…) On the same day, in a letter to Stalin and the other members of the Central Committee, he announced that he had made the necessary arrangements to withdraw, but – and this must have caused a sensation among the Tsekists – he also declared : “I have finalized an agreement with Trotsky on the defense of my opinions concerning the monopoly of foreign trade.” (…) The “old guard,” in whose eyes Trotsky was nothing more than an arrogant and unbearable intruder, closed ranks after Lenin’s letter. The outlines of the future triumvirate : Stalin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, based solely on hatred of Trotsky and the desire to block his path to power, were beginning to appear during these days. Lenin had indeed gone even further in another postscript to his letter, declaring himself “assured that Trotsky would in no way defend his opinions worse than he would have done himself.” » Such remarks could only increase the tension, develop mistrust and jealousy within the Politburo. On December 18, the Central Committee, meeting in plenary session, annulled its previous deliberation which had caused Lenin so much trouble. Stalin had given in on all counts. (…) Lenin, already bedridden, warmly congratulated Trotsky : “It seems that the fortress has been taken without a shot being fired, by a simple maneuver ; I propose not to stop there and to continue the offensive.” (…)

On August 10, 1922, the Politburo requested the Orgbjuro (i.e., Stalin) to form a commission to prepare, for the next session of the Central Committee, a draft regulation of the Russian Federation’s relations with the other Republics. Lenin was ill and was increasingly out of control. The leaders were clearly in a hurry, and perhaps they already had a clear idea of ​​the conclusions they would reach, because the commission was set up the day after the Politburo’s decision. Its composition is not without interest. It included Stalin, Kuybytchev, Ordzhonikidze, Rakovsky, Sokolnikov, and probably also Molotov (…) It was Stalin himself who masterfully drafted the resolution of this commission, concerning the mutual relations between the RSFSR and the independent Republics, a so-called “autonomization” project which provided for the pure and simple inclusion of these “independent Republics” in the Russian Federation as “autonomous Republics”. The project stipulated that the government of the Russian republic, its central executive committee and its government would henceforth constitute the government of the whole. Stalin’s text was sent for opinion to the Central Committees of the Parties of the Republics (…) The Georgians’ response was clear : they were against it. The session of their Central Committee on September 15 refused (…) unanimously, minus one vote. It provoked an immediate response from Ordzhonikidze and his Zakkvajkom, who immediately adopted a resolution in favor of Stalin’s project, and better still, using his superiority in the Party hierarchy, ordered the Georgian Central Committee to comply with Stalin’s orders and not to make public its differences with Moscow. (…) Stalin is said to have telegraphed Mdivani on August 29, 1922, to inform him that henceforth the decisions of the higher government authorities of the RSFSR were binding on all the Republics. (…) Meanwhile, Lenin, still convalescing, asked Stalin for information on the progress of the commission’s work. He received it on September 25 (…). Lenin’s reaction was not long in coming. The letter he sent the next day to Kamenev, his second in command at the sovnarcom (government), and not directly to Stalin, drew the latter’s attention to the importance of the matter and asked him to give it careful consideration. (…) The following month, in a letter, he found Stalin "a little too hasty". (…) We must arrive, he said, at a "Federation of Republics enjoying equal rights". To better guarantee this equality, he deleted from Stalin’s draft the paragraph relating to the accession of the Republics to the RSFSR,and instead advocates "a formal unification jointly with the RSFSR in a Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia. The Russian government will not be that of the Union. (…) Meanwhile, Stalin is indeed behaving like a man in a hurry. (…) He communicates, without waiting for Lenin’s opinion, the results of his commission to all the members of the Central Committee, as material for their next meeting, which was to take place on October 6. Lenin’s letter containing a draft union of Soviet Republics was in his eyes only an unnecessary interference of the "old man" in an area where he, Commissar for Nationalities, had acquired a solid reputation (…) During the meetings of the Politburo, Stalin and Kamenev exchanged two brief notes about Lenin’s memorandum. Kamenev’s note : "Ilyich is going to war to defend independence." Stalin’s response : "I think we must show firmness against Lenin. » (…) Communicating Lenin’s text on September 27 to the members of the Politburo, Stalin attached a letter in which he made no secret of his opinion and bluntly accused Lenin of “national liberalism” which would inevitably encourage separatism. Realizing that he would be in the minority in the Central Committee, Stalin gave in on all counts and himself transformed his project of autonomization into a project of Union, in the sense of Lenin’s amendments. (…) The introduction to the new project calmly claimed that it was only a “slightly modified, more precise formulation” than that of the Orgburo, the latter having been “correct in principle and fully acceptable”. (…) Lenin declared to Kamenev :(…) The introduction to the new draft calmly claimed that it was only a “slightly modified, more precise formulation” than that of the Orgburo, the latter having been “correct in principle and fully acceptable”. (…) Lenin declared to Kamenev :(…) The introduction to the new draft calmly claimed that it was only a “slightly modified, more precise formulation” than that of the Orgburo, the latter having been “correct in principle and fully acceptable”. (…) Lenin declared to Kamenev :"Comrade Kamenev ! I declare war, not a small war but a war for life and death, on Great Russian chauvinism. As soon as I am rid of my cursed tooth, I will devour all my healthy teeth."

So as soon as my health improves, as the doctors believe, I will go into the final battle against Stalin. He will make sure that this never happens...

Moshe Lewin continues : "Thanks to the authority of Lenin, whose ideas seemed to be accepted by everyone, the Central Committee adopted the project in its entirety, entrusting a new commission with the task of a more detailed elaboration for the next session. (…) Ordzhonikidze began to employ drastic measures. With the support of the Moscow Secretariat, from which he constantly benefited, he removed from Georgia the supporters of the Central Committee of this Republic, ordering them by disciplinary means to leave their country and place themselves at the disposal of the Central Committee in Moscow. (…) Having run out of patience, despairing of finding justice in Moscow, exasperated by the deportations ordered by Ordzhonikidze, the Georgian Tsekists made an unprecedented gesture : on October 22, they submitted their collective resignation. Ordzhonikidze was probably only waiting for this opportunity. His Zakkrajkom immediately appointed a new Central Committee composed of incompetent and docile young men, who accepted the Federation without batting an eyelid. The Moscow Secretariat had hastened to accept the resignations of the old Tsekists and the new appointments. (…) During these confrontations, Ordzhonikidze’s nerves ceased to obey him : he struck another Party member, a supporter of Mdivani. This happened during a private session at Ordzhonikidze’s house. Rykov, Lenin’s deputy and member of the Politburo, was present. (…)"

Regarding Ordzhonikidze, Lenin, who had not yet discovered Stalin’s entire plan, wrote : "Ordzhonikidze did not show the necessary flexibility and prudence in conducting the Party’s national policy in Georgia, he admitted administrative methods, he took certain measures too quickly, he did not always take into account the opinions and rights of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. He also did not show proper self-control in his relations with the Mdivani group."

Lenin then began to worry. It was the letter from the Georgian Okudzhava, a resigned Tsekist, accusing Ordzhonikidze of having made threats against the communists of Georgia, which suddenly alarmed him.

Lewin continues : "One can measure how profound the difference between Lenin and Stalin was by comparing their respective attitudes on the national question. Stalin proposes a solution as simple as it is expeditious, which would crystallize and reinforce the reality of power : was not the government of the RSFSR practically that of all the Republics ? Well, it would officially become that of the Union. How to proceed ? Paragraph 6 of Stalin’s draft reads : "The present decision, if confirmed by the Central Committee of the RCP, will not be published but communicated to the Central Committees of the Republics for circulation in the Soviet organs, the central executive committees, or the congresses of Soviets of the said Republics, before the convocation of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, where it will be declared to express the wish of these Republics." " Since in any case it was the Central Committee in Moscow that decided and imposed its decision on the national central committees by "circular directive", that is to say by an order the non-execution of which was punishable by disciplinary measures, since the will of the Central Committee had to finally be solemnly declared to respond to the wish of the Republics, the meaning of Stalin’s project is clear : it was a question of having the fact ratified so that it would become the law. Lenin, on the contrary, refuses to take into consideration only administrative efficiency, and seeks to resolve the problem by applying the principles that had been his for years. He says in his letter that he does not want to destroy the independence of the Soviet Republics, but to create a new level in the constitutional order : "a Federation of Independent Republics" . Efficiency counts, of course, for Lenin, and the solution adopted must also strengthen the State, but, precisely, the whole question of nationalities must be resolved and not suppressed. Internationalism must not be renounced in favor of centralism ; it is also necessary to continue to combat the powerful tradition of oppression that characterized the tsarist state.

When he resumed running affairs in October 1922, Lenin had not regained his capacity for work or his former control. His speech on the 20th was confused and visibly improvised. (…) A few days after this speech, when painful suspicions began to arise in Lenin about the Georgian affair, the doctors demanded that he considerably reduce the pace of his work. (…) Finally, he agreed to go to Gorky to rest, but his active participation in political life continued through letters and telephone calls. He impatiently awaited news from Rykov and Dzerzhinsky, but he devoted most of his time to organizing the work of his deputies, who now numbered three : Rykov, Kamenev and Tsjurupa ; he remained in constant contact with them to establish, through collective elaboration, the modalities of the Sovnarkom’s activities. The reorganization of the Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars or government) with a new distribution of tasks is visibly linked in his mind to the problem of succession. Thus, at the beginning of December, Lenin invited Trotsky to a new interview during which he first suggested the formation of a "bloc against the bureaucracy," that is, in practice, to participate in a special committee that would be established to lead this struggle ; he offered him to become one of his deputies in the government.

On December 30, he was to write : "If things have come to this, one can imagine the quagmire we have gotten ourselves into."The interview with Dzerzhinsky had a harmful influence on the progression of Lenin’s illness, and undoubtedly hastened the crisis. The night must have been restless ; on the morning of December 13, 1922, two serious attacks forced Lenin to leave office for good. (…) From then on, Lenin would not leave his small room in the Kremlin : it was impossible to transport him to Gorky as had been planned. This circumstance would be of great importance for the activities of the seriously ill man during the eighty days during which he was still to retain his intellectual capacities. For the future, visitors were forbidden : he would only see his wife Krupskaya, his sister Maria Ilinchina, and three or four of his secretaries, not to mention, of course, the medical staff. His entourage was forbidden to transmit any correspondence to him or to inform him of current state affairs, so as "not to give him food for thought and worry." Thus began Lenin’s exhausting struggle to be kept informed of what interested him, to formulate his opinions and make them known to the right people. This was not the whim of a sick man who, refusing to face death, continued a semblance of activity. Lenin, on the contrary, knew that death could suddenly overtake him, at a time when the country and the Party remained in an extremely difficult situation, without a clear program of action, without even some markers of the path to follow having been laid down ; he felt that he had to say at least the essentials on the most pressing subjects, that this was the duty of the head of state, of the leader of an unprecedented revolution. (…) The ambiguity of the situation was further increased by the fact that the man who was responsible for ensuring that the sick man’s regime was scrupulously respected was none other than Stalin (decision of the Central Committee obtained by Stalin on December 18, 1922). (…) A significant incident between Krupskaya and Stalin sheds light on how he intended to fulfill his mission. On December 22, learning from his informants that Krupskaya had the day before taken a letter, in fact a short note, dictated by Lenin, he called her on the telephone and covered her, Krupskaya herself said, “with unworthy insults and threats.” He intended to sue her before the Party’s Central Control Commission for her “violation” of the prescriptions of the sick man’s regime. This rudeness was unprecedented in the relations between the Party leaders and Lenin’s family. There was obviously no reason to doubt Krupskaya’s devotion to the sick man and her competence to look after him. Stalin’s intervention was not even legally justified : Krupskaya had had the permission of the attending physician—Stalin could easily verify this. Stalin had acted in a genuine fit of anger:Lenin’s letter was the one addressed to Trotsky to congratulate him on having won "without striking a blow" at the session of the Central Committee, in the debate on the monopoly of foreign trade. Stalin was well aware of the increasingly close relations that had been developing in recent times between Lenin and Trotsky. (…) Furthermore, as early as November 25, Lenin, as we have recently learned, had informed the Politburo that he approved Trotsky’s proposals on the use of tactics concerning the International ; above all, in the second part of this message, he put forward a very flattering opinion of Trotsky’s theses on the NEP : he insisted that they should be published in a pamphlet and widely distributed. This was undoubtedly a great compliment, for it was one of the most complicated problems of Soviet policy, and one that caused Lenin a great deal of worry. It is therefore not surprising that Stalin, more concerned than anyone by the problem of succession, jumped with indignation on learning of this new mark of recognition from Lenin towards Trotsky, especially since the rapprochement between the two men – he could already suspect it – was to be accompanied by a real campaign against him, Stalin. (…) Lenin’s principal secretary, Fotiéva, noted in the diary on January 30 :"Stalin asked if I wasn’t telling Vladimir Ilyich too much. How does he know about current affairs ? For example, his article on the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection shows that he knows about certain circumstances."
This was yet another subject in which Stalin was personally targeted, perhaps in a veiled way, but obvious to the person concerned.

It is against such surveillance and such limitations on his activities, which are, moreover, very legally covered, that Lenin will have to fight. And, first, on December 23. He was shaken by a severe attack of illness during the night of the 22nd to the 23rd. He was nevertheless able to fall asleep, but in the morning he noticed that part of his body, his right hand and right leg, was paralyzed again. The news was immediately communicated to the Politburo. (…) Despite the commotion caused by this attack, Lenin’s thoughts were essentially focused on the destinies of the State and the Party. He then demanded permission to dictate for five minutes each day. (…) Once permission was granted, Lenin called one of his two secretaries and dictated around thirty lines to her in four minutes. (…) The next day, he demanded the right to continue what he called his "diary." The doctors tried to stop him, but Lenin gave them an ultimatum : if he was not allowed to dictate for a few minutes a day, he would refuse treatment. A council composed of doctors and members of the Politburo, Stalin, Bukharin, and Kamenev, saw no way to override this. Permission was granted, but the Politburo’s decision specified that the notes could not be in the nature of correspondence and could not call for any kind of response. This is how the "Testament" was composed, a series of very brief notes at first, dictated with enormous effort for a few minutes a day. Yet Lenin’s robust constitution seemed to work miracles. His health began to improve, and hopes of recovery appeared. He was able to dictate for up to three-quarters of an hour a day and could even read and continue the struggle through the intermediary of his faithful entourage : his wife, his sister, and the secretaries, all devoted to Lenin and very attached to him.

The "testament" in the strict sense of the term consists of notes dictated between December 23 and 31, with a supplement of January 4, notes entitled in the works "Letter to the Congress." But the true exposition of Lenin’s views, the testament in the true sense of the term, is the entirety of the writings of this period. One can undoubtedly find there a coherent view of the international situation and perspectives, important elements for a program and a line of action, as well as an attempt at clarification with regard to internal developments. In addition to the notes, there are five articles written in January and February 1923, although the majority of the Bureau sometimes made efforts to avoid or postpone their publication. (…)

The notes that Lenin began to dictate on December 23 had the aim, he declares in the very first line, of proposing to the next Party Congress the accomplishment of "a series of changes in our political system." (...) First of all, it is necessary to strengthen the unity of the Central Committee, so that it is capable of accomplishing the urgent task of reorganizing, or rather reconstructing, the state apparatus, and also to prevent the Party from succumbing to the danger that threatens it : the split that may occur (...)
First remedy : a significant increase in the number of members of the Central Committee would allow this assembly to strengthen "several thousand times over" the stability of the Party. Lenin also proposes "to grant, under certain conditions, a legislative character to the decisions of Gosplan, going here in the direction of Comrade Trotsky’s positions, up to a certain point and under certain conditions."

(…) The reform of government structures is the most widely developed theme in Lenin’s projects, because political power is almost the only lever in the hands of the Bolsheviks to impose a socialist direction on the development of Russian society. (…) To combat all harmful tendencies, to try to remedy all the illnesses of the state apparatus and the Party, Lenin saw only one starting point : to organize the communist elite, and above all, the leadership of the Party, in an exemplary manner. (…)
For the moment, even the large commissariats were functioning poorly ; Lenin did not spare them his harshest criticisms. There was worse : he was worried about the functioning of his own Sovnarkom (the Council of People’s Commissars or government leadership) (…)

On the other hand, having returned to work after a period of illness, Lenin noticed that during his absence, both machines, the government and the Party, had started to run on empty, with the senior officials, including the commissars, all tending to shirk their responsibilities (…) The (enlarged) Central Committee and the new Central Control Commission would together constitute the new Central Committee, a large assembly of 150 to 200 people, which would in reality become a Party conference and would meet six times a year. In addition, the presidium of the Central Control Commission would participate in the work of the Politburo, both as a collaborator and as a controller, it would ensure the regular functioning of the Central Committee and the Bureau, checking all documents, etc., without consideration of persons, even if it were the gensek (general secretary). (…)

Lenin returns to the institution he had once promoted, but which had deeply disappointed him : the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, which we will refer to by its Russian acronym, the three letters : RKI. It was responsible for monitoring the work of government agencies and administrations. Under the direction of Stalin, the Control Commissioner, from March 1919 to April 25, 1922, it had become a bloated and highly bureaucratized body, comprising some twelve thousand civil servants, few of whom were workers : the tchinovnik very quickly succeeded in colonizing the institutions designed precisely to combat bureaucracy.

Trotsky had begun to attack the RKI at the beginning of 1922. Lenin then still defended this commissariat and, therefore, indirectly, the person of its leader, but in his last texts he portrayed it as a hotbed of ineptitude, a "hopeless affair" : "There is no commissariat more badly organized than the RKI, and it does not enjoy even the shadow of authority."
These arrows fired at Stalin through the commissariat for which he was responsible were undoubtedly the reason why the article "Better less, but better," the writing of which was completed on February 10, did not appear in Pravda until March 4. According to Deutscher, the majority of the Bureau opposed the publication ; Kuybichev even proposed printing, for Lenin’s use alone, a special copy of Pravda with the article in question. But Trotsky insisted that the article be published normally and finally won with the support of Kamenev or Zinoviev. (…)

During the months of January and February 1923, through five articles developing the ideas expressed in the notes, Lenin’s plans became a vast program of political strategy prepared for the next Party congress, which was to be held in a few weeks. Lenin was driven to accelerate its development, both by the fear of not being able to attend the congress and by the urgency of the reforms advocated.

In the practical field, three questions particularly caught his attention.

First, he wanted to know the results of the census of civil servants in the major cities, which had just been carried out at his instigation. His great fear of bureaucracy made him often ask for it. Finally, his secretary had to admit to him that these documents could not be provided to him without Stalin’s authorization ; Lenin did not know this. According to Fotieva’s account in her Memoirs, this affair caused Lenin to be in a very bad mood three days later, on January 10, and a month later, on February 12, it caused him a real crisis. One of his doctors, Förster, who was already going to allow him newspapers and visits, suddenly put an end to his hopes and forbade "political information." When Lenin asked what he meant by this, the doctor replied : "Look, for example, you are interested in the question of the census of Soviet civil servants." This answer came as such a shock to Lenin that his lips trembled : that the doctors were aware of such details and made such distinctions confirmed his suspicions. Fotieva notes in the "Diary," in a cautious style : "It is likely that, in addition, an impression would have been created in Lenin that it was not the doctors who gave orders to the Central Committee, but the CC to the doctors." In fact, for Fotieva, this was no longer a mere probability, but a real certainty.

The second area of ​​concern for Lenin was his plan to merge the Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection with the Central Control Commission, the centerpiece of the plan to reorganize the Central Committee and the entire top level of the Party’s organizational chart. (...)

But the main sources of activity and emotion were still the Georgian imbroglio and the constitution of the USSR. Having established his principled opinion and made his judgment on the individuals in his memorandum at the end of December, Lenin had to act, and act quickly, in order to gather before the opening of the congress the necessary documents to specify the errors committed and the exact role of those responsible, given the radical measures that were to be imposed on the latter. (…)
Lenin insisted too much for Stalin to be able to refuse him the file (of the Georgian affair) without being covered by the Politburo (…) Foteva, without specifying her sources further, reports an exchange of messages between Kamenev and Stalin during the session of the Bureau :

Kamenev : "Since Vladimir Ilyich insists, I think it would be even worse if he were refused."

Stalin : "I don’t know ; let him do as he pleases."

(…) The Bureau ignored this and decided to send the file to Lenin, without really understanding what he intended to do with it. Lenin simply wanted to verify the facts himself. To this end, he set up a private commission of inquiry, composed of Gorbunov, his chargé d’affaires at the SNK, and his secretaries Fotiéva and Glasser. The first questions that this commission was to clarify—others would arise as the study of the file progressed—were the following :

“1) Why was the former Georgian Central Committee accused of deviationism ?

2) What are they accused of as a breach of discipline ?

3) Why is the Zakkrajkom (in the hands of Ordzhonikidze and Dzerzhinsky) accused of repression against the Georgian Central Committee ?

4) The physical means of oppression ?

5) The line of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Russia in the absence of Vladimir Ilyich and in his presence.

6) Who did the commission deal with ? Did it investigate only the accusations against the Georgian Central Committee, or did it also investigate those against the Zakkrajkom ? (…)

On February 14, Lenin gave new indications to the commission, which denote his state of mind and his resolution to leave nothing in the dark :

“Three elements :

1) It is not allowed to hit someone ;

2) Concessions are essential ;

3) You cannot compare a small state with a large one

4) Did Stalin know about the incident (Ordzhonikidze hitting an activist) ? Why didn’t he react ?

(…) He gives the following order :

"Directive from Vladimir Ilyich : to hint before Solz that Vladimir Ilyich is on the side of the weaker. To make someone among the offended understand that he takes their side."
(…) He called Volodicheva around noon on March 5 and dictated two letters. The first, highly secret, and written in an affectionate tone very rare in Lenin, was intended for Trotsky and its contents were to be communicated to him immediately. Here it is :

"I urge you to take charge of the defense of the Georgian case in the Central Committee of the Party. This case is currently under the "persecution" of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot trust their impartiality ; the opposite is true. If you agree to undertake the defense, I can then be reassured ; if you do not agree, for whatever reason, then return the file to me ; I will see it as a sign of your disagreement.

With my best comradely greetings,

Lenin.

(…)
Schematically, we could summarize the most explicit part of Lenin’s legacy in these three commandments :

1) Put a brake on nationalism, especially Russian nationalism, fight this great-power chauvinism that all arms of the government machine tend to serve ; ensure the internationalist education of the peoples of Russia.

2) Fight the uncultured, wasteful and oppressive bureaucracy, fight it at all levels, including the top of the Party ; fight for efficient state administration.

3) Depose Stalin.
In 1922-1923, Lenin, despite his serious illness and most likely his poisoning by doctors linked to Stalin, led the fight against Stalin and the bureaucracy. This resulted in a clash over the issue of the foreign trade monopoly that began at the end of 1921. Through Stalin, who for the first time openly waged his own battles against Lenin, the bureaucracy wanted to push the NEP, this "temporary retreat" towards state capitalism, further, to the point of linking up with imperialism by abolishing this monopoly.

Lenin, on the contrary, fought to stop the retreat represented by the NEP. On October 11, 1922, Lenin relied on Trotsky to lead the fight against Stalin on this issue. Stalin replied on October 13, 1922 : "Comrade Lenin’s letter has not changed my mind about the correctness of the decision of the Central Committee Plenum of October 6 regarding foreign trade."

On November 25, 1922, Lenin made it official that he approved Trotsky’s theses on the NEP and proposed that they be published as a pamphlet by the party.

On December 12, Lenin and Trotsky jointly went on the offensive on this issue. On December 15, Lenin wrote to Trotsky : Comrade Trotsky, I believe we have agreed on everything ; I ask you to announce our solidarity at the plenum." And in a letter to the Central Committee, he wrote : "I have finalized an agreement with Trotsky on the defense of my views concerning the monopoly of foreign trade." On December 18, 1922, Lenin and Trotsky won the battle in the Central Committee.

Stalin retreats. Lenin congratulates Trotsky, claiming that this is only the beginning of the joint offensive, but like Trotsky, Lenin is skeptical that the rest will be so easy. Indeed, this is the only point on which Stalin will retreat. He already has more power than Lenin and Trotsky combined and, of course, more than Trotsky alone when Lenin dies.

Lenin said to Trotsky : "It seems that the fortress has been taken without a shot being fired, by a simple maneuver ; I propose not to stop there and to continue the offensive."

The next battle took place over the question of nationalities and their union with Russia. Stalin advocated the merger of the federation by force. Lenin openly accused him of Great Russian nationalism. This issue had taken a violent turn in Georgia, where Georgian communists opposed Stalin, the Commissar for Nationalities. Lenin finally took a virulent stand against Stalin. At the September 15, 1922, session of the Central Committee, he declared : "The unification proposed on the basis of Comrade Stalin’s theses must be considered premature." Lenin described Stalin’s envoy to Georgia as follows : "He admitted administrative methods in this matter. He did not take into account the opinions and rights of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia."

Lenin opposed Stalin’s so-called "autonomization" project, which, on the contrary, represented a forced integration of the other republics and a dictatorship against the peoples. He wrote numerous notes and letters and thus noted that he had much less weight than in the past, including with close associates like Kamenev and Zinoviev. In a letter to Kamenev, he wrote on September 26, 1922 : "Comrade Kamenev ! You have no doubt already received from Stalin the resolution of his commission concerning the incorporation of the independent Republics into the RSFSR. (...) Stalin agreed to make a concession, that of replacing the term "accession" to the RSFSR in paragraph 1 with "formal union with the RSFSR within the framework of the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia. I hope that the meaning of this concession is clear : we recognize ourselves as equal in law with the Ukrainian SSR and enter with it on an equal footing into the new union."

Stalin is not characterized by Lenin in a more obliging manner in this affair : "I think that a fatal role was played here by Stalin’s haste and his taste for administration, as well as by his irritation with the notorious ’social-nationalism’. Irritation generally plays a most disastrous role in politics. (...) Here arises an important question of principle : How is internationalism to be conceived ? (...) An exemplary punishment must be inflicted on Comrade Ordzhonikidze (I say this with all the more regret because I personally number myself among his friends and have been active with him abroad, in emigration), and also the investigation must be completed or a new investigation carried out into all the documents of the Dzerzhinsky Commission, in order to rectify the enormous number of irregularities and biased judgments undoubtedly found therein. It goes without saying that it is Stalin and Dzerzhinsky who must be held politically responsible for this fundamentally nationalist campaign Great Russian."

Lenin was finally forced to write to the Georgian oppositionists on March 6, 1923 :

"To comrades Mdivani, Makharadze and others, (copy to comrades Trotsky and Kamenev).

Dear comrades, I am with you in this matter with all my heart. I am outraged by Ordzhonikidze’s arrogance and the connivance of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky. I am preparing notes and a speech in your favor.

Lenin.

The day before, he had dictated the following note to me :

"Dear Comrade Trotsky,
I urge you to take on the defense of the Georgian case in the Central Committee of the Party. It is now being "pursued" by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, so I cannot count on their impartiality. In truth, it is quite the opposite ! If you agree to take on this defense, I will be at ease. If for some reason you do not agree, please return the file to me. I will consider this as a mark of your disagreement. With my best comradely greetings."

Lenin.

Lenin then sent two of his personal secretaries, Glasser and Fotieva, to take Trotsky a note in which he asked him, among other things, to follow up the Georgian question at the Twelfth Party Congress, which was about to convene. Glasser added : "When Vladimir Ilyich read our correspondence with you, his brow lit up. Well ! Now that’s another matter ! And he instructed me to hand over to you all the manuscripts that were to be used in the making of his ’bomb’ for the Twelfth Congress." Kamenev had informed me that Lenin had just written a letter breaking off all comradely relations with Stalin, so I suggested that, since Kamenev was to leave that very day for Georgia to attend a Party conference, it might be well to show him the letter on the national question so that he would be able to do whatever was necessary. Fotieva replied : "I don’t know." Vladimir Ilyich did not instruct me to communicate the letter to Comrade Kamenev, but I can ask him to do so." A few minutes later, she came back and said : "Absolutely not. Lenin said that Kamenev would show the letter to Stalin, who would then try to conclude a rotten compromise in order to deceive us later. - So, things have gone so far that Lenin no longer considers it possible to conclude a compromise with Stalin even on a correct line ? Yes, Ilyich does not trust Stalin ; he wants to speak out openly against him in front of the whole Party. He is preparing a bomb."

Lenin in a letter to LB Kamenev on "the fight against great power chauvinism" :

"Comrade Kamenev, I declare war to the death on great-power chauvinism. As soon as I am freed from my cursed tooth, I will devour it with all my healthy teeth.

It is absolutely essential to insist that the federal CEC be chaired in turn by

a Russian

a Ukrainian

a Georgian, etc.

Absolutely ! "

Lenin in "The Question of Nationalities or Autonomy", opposing Stalin’s resolution on autonomy :

"It is claimed that it was absolutely necessary to unify the apparatus. Where did these assertions come from ? Is it not from this same apparatus of Russia, which, as I have already said in a previous issue of my newspaper, we borrowed from Tsarism while limiting ourselves to lightly coating it with a Soviet varnish ? Without a doubt, this measure should have been postponed until the day when we could have said that we were guaranteeing our apparatus, because we had it well in hand. And now we must in all conscience say the opposite ; we call our own an apparatus which, in fact, is still fundamentally foreign to us and represents a hodgepodge of bourgeois and Tsarist survivals, which it was absolutely impossible for us to transform in five years for lack of help from other countries and at a time when military concerns and the fight against famine predominated.

In these conditions, it is quite natural that the "freedom to leave the union," which serves as our justification, appears as a bureaucratic formula incapable of defending the non-natives of Russia against the invasion of the authentic Russian, the Great Russian, the chauvinist, that scoundrel and oppressor who is, at bottom, the typical Russian bureaucrat. There is no doubt that the Soviet and Sovietized workers, who are in tiny proportion, would drown in this ocean of chauvinistic Great Russian rabble, like a fly in milk.

To support this measure, it is said that we have created people’s commissariats dealing specifically with national psychology and national education. But then a question arises : is it possible to detach these people’s commissariats entirely ? Second question : Have we taken measures carefully enough to really protect foreigners against the typical Russian policeman ? I think we have not taken these measures, although we could and should have done so.

I think that a fatal role was played here by Stalin’s haste and his taste for administration, as well as by his irritation with the notorious "social-nationalism." Irritation generally plays a most disastrous role in politics.

We have the exchange of notes between Stalin and Kamenev, whom Stalin was courting at that time :

Kamenev : "Ilyich (Lenin) goes to war to defend independence."

Stalin : "I think we must show firmness against Lenin."

On September 27, 1922, Stalin responded point by point to Lenin’s proposals, sharply contradicting them :

"Paragraph 2 : The amendment made by Lenin (...) is in my opinion unacceptable. (...)

"Paragraph 4 : Comrade Lenin, in my opinion, was "in too much of a hurry." (Reply to Lenin, who accused Stalin of being in too much of a hurry).

"Paragraph 5 : The amendment requested by Lenin is, in my opinion, superfluous."

These are not differences over paragraphs or even simple tactical differences, but rather a fundamental opposition between diametrically opposed conceptions of the very meaning of the revolution.

While Stalin’s approach was fundamentally statist and bureaucratic - strengthening the apparatus, centralizing the state, administrative unification - Lenin was primarily concerned with the international scope of Soviet policy : "The harm that the absence of national apparatuses unified with the Russian apparatus can cause to our state is infinitely, immeasurably less than that which will result from it for us, for the entire International, for the hundreds of millions of people of the peoples of Asia, who will appear after us on the historical forefront in the near future." Nothing would be as dangerous for the world revolution as "to engage ourselves, even in matters of detail, in imperialist relations with oppressed nationalities, thereby arousing suspicion as to the sincerity of our principles, as to our principled justification of the struggle against imperialism."

Stalin’s state nationalism, in which the international proletariat is at most a diplomatic bargaining chip, is opposed by the revolutionary internationalist conception of Lenin and Trotsky.

Lenin declared : "The Russian revolution is only a detachment of the world socialist army, and the success and triumph of the revolution we have accomplished depend on the action of this army. This is a fact that none of us forgets (...). The Russian proletariat is aware of its revolutionary isolation, and it sees clearly that its victory has as its indispensable condition and fundamental premise the united intervention of the workers of the whole world." ("Report to the Conference of Factory Committees of the Moscow Province", July 23, 1918).

Lenin’s struggle opposes not only Stalin’s methods and political objectives but also the entire bureaucracy he directs at the state and party levels. Lenin writes in his article "Better Less, But Better," published (despite bureaucratic attempts to throw it in the trash) in Pravda on March 4, 1923 : "Things are so bad with our state apparatus, not to say detestable, that we must first seriously consider how to combat its defects. The most harmful thing would be to believe that we have the elements to build a truly new apparatus, one that truly deserves the name of socialist, Soviet, etc. No, we practically do not have this apparatus."

And Lenin adds : "For five years we have been striving to perfect our state apparatus, but it has been nothing but vain agitation which, during these five years, has simply shown us that it is ineffective, or even useless, or even harmful. This vain agitation gave us the appearance of work ; in reality, it clogged our institutions and our brains."

On March 4, 1923, in this same article, Lenin leads the fight against Stalin, as head of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, the bureaucracy being the one that always demands more and more of it : "Let’s be frank. The People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection does not enjoy at present a shadow of prestige. Everyone knows that there are no institutions more badly organized than those under our Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, and that, in the present circumstances, nothing can be demanded of this commissariat. (...) What is the point of founding a People’s Commissariat where the work would be done as best it could, which, once again, would not inspire the slightest confidence ?"

Trotsky reports in "My Life" : "Lenin had asked me to go and see him in his room in the Kremlin. He had noticed, upon his return to work, a monstrous growth of bureaucratism in our Soviet apparatus ; it was urgent to curb it. He suggested the creation of a special commission of the Central Committee and asked me to participate actively in it. I replied : ’Vladimir Ilyich, I am convinced that, in the struggle against the bureaucratism of the Soviet apparatus, we must not lose sight of the general phenomenon which dominates the situation : a special selection of functionaries and specialists, of Party members and non-Party men, in the Center and in the provinces, even in the local Party offices, is made on the basis of loyalty to certain dominant Party figures and certain groups within the Central Committee itself. Every time you attack a minor secretary, you come across an important Party leader... I could not, therefore, in the present circumstances, work with the commission you are talking about.’"

Lenin appeared concerned for a moment and - I quote his words literally - said to me : "In other words, I propose to you a campaign against the bureaucratism of the Soviet apparatus and you propose to extend it by adding to it the bureaucratism of the Party Organization Bureau ?"

I started to laugh, so unexpected was the remark : "Let’s assume that it is so."

"Well then," Lenin continued, "I propose a block to you."

It’s always nice to do a block with a good man, I said.

We agreed that Lenin would take charge of the proposal to create this Central Committee commission that would take up the battle against bureaucratism "in general," and in the Organizational Bureau in particular. We parted company there. Two weeks passed. Lenin’s health worsened. It was then that his secretaries brought me his notes and his letter on the national question. Then, for months, he was paralyzed by arteriosclerosis, and nothing could be done regarding our bloc against Party bureaucratism. It is obvious that Lenin’s plan was directed primarily against Stalin, although his name was not mentioned ; this corresponded to the course of thought and concerns that Lenin explicitly formulated in his Testament. If, at that time, Stalin held in his hands the Central Control Commission, the Organizational Bureau, and the Party Secretariat, Zinoviev had the majority in the Politburo and the Central Committee, which helped to ensure his first place in the triumvirate. The struggle between him and Stalin, hidden but nevertheless very fierce, had as its object the conquest of the majority at the Party congress. Zinoviev completely controlled the Petrograd organization, and his partner Kamenev that of Moscow. The two most important centers of the Party therefore needed only the support of a few others to obtain the majority at the congress. This majority was necessary for the election of a Central Committee and the ratification of resolutions favorable to Zinoviev. But the latter failed to obtain a majority ; most of the Party organizations outside Petrograd and Moscow remained under the firm influence of the General Secretary.

Trotsky reports :

"On March 5, Lenin dictated a note to me :

“Dear Comrade Trotsky, I urge you most earnestly to take charge of defending the Georgian cause in the Central Committee of the Party. This matter is currently the object of “prosecution” by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot trust their impartiality. Indeed, quite the opposite. If you would agree to take up the defense of this cause, I could rest easy. If, for one reason or another, you do not agree, send the entire file back to me. I will conclude that it does not suit you. With my best regards, Comrade Lenin.”

But why had the question become so acute ? I asked. It turned out that Stalin had once again betrayed Lenin’s confidence : to secure support in Georgia, he had organized, without the knowledge of Lenin and the entire Central Committee, with the help of Ordzhonikidze and not without the support of Dzerzhinsky, a coup d’état against the best elements of the party, falsely alleging the authority of the Central Committee. Taking advantage of the fact that the ill Lenin could not have interviews with his comrades, Stalin tried to surround him with false information.

Lenin had instructed his secretariat to compile a comprehensive dossier on the Georgian question and was determined to speak out openly. It is difficult to say whether he was more moved by Stalin’s disloyalty or his brutally bureaucratic policy on the national question. Probably a combination of both. Lenin was preparing for the struggle, but he feared that he himself would not be able to speak at the congress, and this tormented him.

— What if we came to an agreement with Zinoviev and Kamenev ? his secretaries suggested.

But Lenin makes a gesture of annoyance. He clearly foresees that, in the event that he has to abandon the work, Zinoviev and Kamenev will form a "troika" with Stalin against me and that, consequently, they will betray him.

— But don’t you know what Trotsky thinks about the Georgian question ? asks Lenin.

— Trotsky at the plenum [Plenary Assembly of the Central Committee. —Ed.] spoke entirely in your spirit, replies Glasser, who had been secretary at the plenum.

— You’re not mistaken ?

— No, Trotsky accused Ordzhonikidze, Voroshilov and Kalinin of not understanding the national question.

— Check this again ! Lenin demands.

The next day, Glasser gave me a note at the central committee meeting held in my apartment, in which she summarized my speech from the previous day and ended with this question :

— Did I understand you correctly ?

— Why do you need this ? I asked.

— For Vladimir Ilyich, Glasser replies.

— The summary is correct.

Meanwhile, Stalin was watching our exchange of notes with concern. But at that time, I still didn’t know what it was about...

Glasser then communicated to me this :

"When Vladimir Ilyich read the papers we had exchanged, his brow lit up : "Well, now that’s another matter !" "And he instructed me to give you all the manuscripts that were to be used in the manufacture of his bomb for the 12th Congress."

Lenin’s intentions were then perfectly clear to me : taking Stalin’s policy as an example, he wanted to denounce before the party, and without sparing anything, the danger of a bureaucratic degeneration of the dictatorship." (Trotsky in "My Life")

In 1923, Lenin then attacked Stalin as General Secretary of the party and proposed his dismissal in a note to the party called his Testament : Comrade Stalin, by becoming General Secretary, has concentrated immense power in his hands, but I am not sure that he always knows how to use it with sufficient prudence." Then he added : "Stalin is too brutal, and this defect, fully bearable in relations between us communists, becomes intolerable in the functions of General Secretary. This is why I propose to the comrades to consider how to remove Stalin from this post and to appoint in his place a man who, in all respects, is distinguished from him by his superiority. (...)"

Trotsky reports :

"Lenin was no longer just preparing Stalin’s removal from the post of General Secretary ; he wanted to disqualify him before the party. On the question of the foreign trade monopoly, on the national question, on the question of the internal party regime, on the workers’ and peasants’ inspection and on the control commission, Lenin, systematically and persistently, aimed to deal, at the 12th Congress, in the person of Stalin, the most terrible blow to bureaucratism, to the complicit solidarity of functionaries, to the abuse of power, to arbitrariness and brutality."

But his death puts an end to the fight and Trotsky, alone, does not have the same weight and is too isolated in the party to be able to continue the internal fight in the same way within the party. He will finally found with the bulk of the old revolutionary vanguard the Left Opposition which will be defeated by maneuvers and assassinations...

We have reported these few clashes between these three people. This does not mean that we consider the proletarian revolution to be the measure of a few personalities.

On the contrary, we believe that these personalities, as eminent as the first two were and as dark as the third, did not invent the conditions for revolution or counter-revolution. They only expressed them. And Stalin expressed the conditions for the isolation of the Russian Revolution and its retreat as well as Lenin and Trotsky, in their time, had expressed, as consciously and scientifically as possible, the conditions for the revolutionary rise of the proletariat in Russia and throughout the world in 1917-1919. The failure, in the conditions of revolutionary Russia’s backwardness and isolation, is not surprising. The bureaucratic dictatorship is surprising only in the sense that one expected, if the revolution did not succeed in overthrowing imperialism, to see the imperialist bourgeoisie return in force to Russia, something for which it did not have the strength. As a result, the bureaucracy remained in power for a curiously long time and was able to survive even though it did not represent a lasting society with a well-established sense of class. This is not because a society cannot live in glaring contradictions, but because a parasitic caste is not a class with a historical root in the process of economic and social development. The long-term existence of the Stalinist bureaucracy was a thorn in the side of the proletariat, while it is above all a testimony to the fact that the bourgeoisie was unable for many years to do without its Stalinist crutch.

For us, it is not just a matter of rehabilitating the Russian Revolution or a few personalities. In terms of perspectives, it is politically essential to know how to distinguish between the Stalinist conception and the Marxist revolutionary conception. The first focuses on statism, the dictatorship of the apparatus supposedly above the classes, national economic development, socialism in a single country, the single party, with an indisputable, incontestable leadership, and in the total absence of any confidence in the autonomous capacities of the masses. Marxism - and therefore the Bolshevism of Lenin and Trotsky - are at the antipodes of such conceptions : internationalism, fraternal debate between revolutionary militants, confidence in the historical capacities of the masses, political expression of the aspirations of these masses, democracy towards them in the struggle and after the seizure of power, democracy within the party, etc. are the opposite of Stalinism.

The Stalinist or Maoist currents - or even the so-called Trotskyist currents - which have supported or support the Stalinist conception of struggle, of the party and of the workers’ state or which, disappointed by the defeat of the Russian revolution, renounce its objectives, can only lead the revolutionary struggle of tomorrow to stinging defeats.

This is why this question is not just a correction of interest to historians, but a burning political issue of current interest...

Before even discussing the remarkable struggle waged by Lenin and Trotsky and its importance, it is worth recalling that it could only bear fruit in 1917-18 thanks to the revolutionary upsurge of the proletarian masses in Russia and Europe. Before recalling the very unremarkable character of Stalin, it must be recalled that his role in no way stems from this, but only from the defeat of the proletarian masses in Europe due to the betrayal of social democracy and the isolation of Russia from the Soviets, as well as from its backwardness and the violence of the civil war that all the bourgeoisies of the world waged against it. Stalin flourished on the quagmire of defeats, unlike Lenin and Trotsky, who could only win thanks to a surge of consciousness and activity of millions of proletarians. This is the first opposition, but not the only one. Lenin and Trotsky saw no way out except in world revolution, and Stalin in national construction. Lenin and Trotsky were for the dictatorship of the proletariat, that withering state where the masses directly exercise power ; Stalin saw socialism in the dictatorship of the apparatuses. Lenin and Trotsky considered the revolutionary party as a free organization of militants committed to their class and freely debating the outcome of the struggle. They often debated heatedly among themselves. Stalin saw his covert action in the control of the apparatuses... But, once again, Stalin’s particularities only became important during the proletariat’s retreat following the defeat. In terms of perspectives, Lenin and Trotsky never confused socialism with statism, nor the proletariat with nationalism. This is essential for understanding the Russian Revolution and even more essential for preparing for tomorrow’s revolution.

Stalin not only represented the aspirations of the state, soviet, and party bureaucrats ; he not only murdered the entire Bolshevik Central Committee (including Trotsky and probably poisoned Lenin), he also murdered the revolutionary leadership throughout the world, betrayed the revolutions in Germany, Spain, and China, and, above all, discredited the socialist revolution for a long time. But the communist revolutionary ideal, however, has nothing to do with the so-called ideas of the Stalinists : they have always been diametrically opposed to them.

Victor Serge writes in "From Lenin to Stalin" : "Lenin died – on January 21, 1924 – haunted by this anxiety expressed in his last writings : "Isn’t the rudder slipping from our hands ?" Ill, he had used all his last strength to seek weapons against the worst and most immediate evil : the bureaucratic fouling of the party. Already, the offices were replacing the party ; the worker, the activist no longer had much right to speak. One could sense the coming of the all-powerful civil servants. Shortly before his death, Lenin had proposed to Trotsky – hostile to the bureaucratic system – a joint action for the democratization of the party. In the general secretariat, the Georgian Stalin, obscure during the civil war, was becoming increasingly influential by taking advantage of his technical functions to populate the services with his creatures. It was he who clashed with the failing Lenin. (…) It was necessary to foresee and react, there was still time. Three solutions : 1) democratize the party, so that the real influence of the workers and revolutionaries could be felt and air out the offices of the State ; this was the obvious condition for the success of all economic measures ; 2) Adopt an industrialization plan and significantly retool industry in a few years. 3) To find the resources necessary for industrialization, force the wealthy peasants to deliver their wheat to the State. In general, limit the enrichment of the privileged, combat speculation, restrict the power of civil servants.

This was to be the opposition’s program within the party. Hence its slogan : "Against the mercantilist, the wealthy peasant, and the bureaucrat !"

By 1923, the opposition had found a leader in Trotsky. The bureaucratic system was beginning to take shape in Stalin.

From 1923 onwards, an agitation campaign of boundless violence was being waged against Trotsky, who was denounced in every way as the anti-Lenin, the evil genius of the party, the enemy of the Bolshevik tradition, and the enemy of the peasants. His old disagreements with Lenin, dating from 1904 to 1915, exploited on orders by all-round polemicists, made it possible to forge under the name of Trotskyism a whole ideology distorted to the max, which was made into the most criminal heresy. (…) At the beginning, the organizer of the Red Army, whom Pravda had called a few months earlier “the organizer of victory,” who had remained president of the Supreme War Council, enjoyed such popularity in the army and the country that, hoping for success, he could attempt a coup. But that would mean, the next day, replacing the bureaucracy with that of the military, and setting the socialist revolution on the path followed until now by bourgeois revolutions. Now, it is not a question of playing Bonaparte, even with the best intentions in the world, but of preventing, on the contrary, Bonapartism. It is not by a pronunciamiento that the opposition will attempt to impose its policy of internal renewal of the revolution, but according to the socialist methods of always, by the appeal to the workers. Trotsky leaves his command posts, allows himself to be dismissed without resistance, resumes his place in the ranks and his struggle continues. Everything depends, according to him, on the world revolution….

From Lenin to Stalin, everything changed.

The goals : from international socialist revolution to socialism in one country.

The political system : from the workers’ democracy of the Soviets, desired and affirmed from the beginning of the revolution, to the dictatorship of the general secretariat, of the civil servants, of the Security (GPU).

The party : from the freely disciplined, thinking, and living organization of Marxist revolutionaries to the hierarchy of offices, self-interested and subject to passive obedience.

The Third International : from the propaganda and combat training of the great years to the maneuvering servility of the Central Committees appointed to approve everything without retching or shame.

The defeats : from the heroism of the defeats in Germany and Hungary, where Gustave Landauer, Léviné, Liebnecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Ioguichés, Otto Corvin died, to the sad underbelly of the Canton Commune (a Stalinist maneuver).

The leaders : the greatest of the October fighters leave for exile or prison.

Ideology : Lenin said : "We will witness the progressive withering away of the State, and the Soviet State will not be a State like the others, moreover, but a vast commune of workers." Stalin will proclaim that "we are moving towards the abolition of the State by strengthening the State" (sic). The condition of the workers : egalitarianism, Soviet society will move towards the formation of a privileged minority, increasingly privileged, vis-à-vis the disinherited and disenfranchised masses.

Morality : from the great, austere, and sometimes implacable honesty of the Bolshevism of the past, we gradually arrive at nameless forbidding.

Everything has changed.

The lie of the so-called construction of socialism in one country did not come from Lenin or Trotsky.

Barta wrote :

"In the thinking of Lenin and Trotsky, the principal organizers of the new International, it was impossible to carry out this revolutionary action of the masses without having an international program that corresponded to the character of the imperialist epoch, that is, the epoch in which finance capital directed the world economy and politics. To this international program, on the other hand, necessarily corresponds an international organization of the different political parties of the proletariat, a sort of international General Staff of the masses in struggle on the whole world terrain.

In the imperialist epoch, infinitely more than in the epoch of industrial capitalism of the 19th century, no proletarian party can establish its program based solely or primarily on the conditions and tendencies of development in its own country. On the contrary, "the direction in which the proletariat is moving from the national point of view must be deduced and can only be deduced from the direction taken in the international sphere and not vice versa" (Trotsky). This, moreover, is the fundamental difference that separates communist internationalism from all other tendencies in the workers’ movement.

And yet, faced with the isolation of the Russian Revolution, following the successive defeats of the world proletariat between 1917 and 1923, faced with the fatigue of the Russian workers and the ephemeral stabilization of capitalism, the Stalinist leadership of the Third International substituted after the death of Lenin, towards the end of 1924, for its program, which until then had been entirely based on the international revolution, a "consoling" theory, that of "socialism in one country." But in fact this was a new political orientation, the roots of which must be sought in a social-patriotic conception of the role of the USSR in the world revolution. In 1924, when Stalin first launched this formula, which has since become the basis of his entire domestic and foreign policy, objective conditions did not yet allow the great mass of revolutionary militants in the world to appreciate all the inevitable consequences of such an orientation. And the opposition raised by Trotsky within the Third International against "socialism in one country" then appeared only as an unjustifiable attempt at split and discord, too "theoretical" to have any appreciable practical result. But Trotsky, who was capable of handling Marxism not as an empirical doctrine of political "manoeuvres" and "plots", but as a science, was perfectly right.

The theory of "socialism in one country" was the negation of all international action and organization of the proletariat. It could necessarily lead only to the liquidation of the international movement. Let us compare, after 25 years, what Trotsky wrote in 1928 on the real significance of the Stalinist theory of "socialism in one country" with the recent dissolution of the Third International, which occurred on May 16, 1943, in the midst of the imperialist war, on the eve of its decisive phase, at a time when millions of workers, peasants, exploited and oppressed people all over the planet still held a supreme hope : deliverance from imperialist barbarism through world revolution.

"Marxism has always taught the workers that even the struggle for wages and the limitation of the working day can only be successful if it is waged as an international struggle. And now, all of a sudden, it turns out that the ideal of socialist society can be realized by the forces of one nation alone. This is a mortal blow to the International. The unshakeable conviction that the fundamental class goal cannot be achieved, much less can the partial goals, by national means or within the framework of one nation, constitutes the marrow of revolutionary internationalism. If the final goal can be arrived at within national boundaries by the efforts of the proletariat of one nation, then the backbone of internationalism is broken. ...The Communist Party of any capitalist country, after having imbued itself with the idea that within its state there are all the "necessary and sufficient" premises for building on its own forces "the integral socialist society", will not differ in any way from revolutionary social democracy, which also did not begin with Noske but which definitely stumbled on this question on August 4, 1914."
LENIN

"One of the greatest and most dangerous errors made by communists (and indeed by revolutionaries in general who have successfully initiated a great revolution) is to imagine that the revolution can be accomplished by the hands of revolutionaries alone. Now, to ensure the success of any serious revolutionary action, it is necessary to understand and know how to practically apply the idea that revolutionaries can play a role only as the vanguard of the truly advanced and viable class. The vanguard fulfills its mission only when it knows how not to detach itself from the masses it leads, when it truly knows how to advance the entire masses. Without an alliance with non-communists in the most diverse fields of activity, there can be no question of any success in the construction of communist society."

Lenin in "Militant Materialism"

"Comrade Stalin, by becoming General Secretary, concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure that he always knows how to use it with sufficient prudence."

Lenin in his "Testament"

January 4, 1923

Lenin’s postscript :

"Stalin is too brutal, and this defect, fully bearable in relations between us communists, becomes intolerable in the office of General Secretary. That is why I propose to the comrades that they consider how to remove Stalin from this post and appoint in his place a man who, in every respect, is distinguished from Stalin by a superiority - that is, who is more patient, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may seem an insignificant trifle, but I think that in order to prevent a split, and from the point of view of the relations between Stalin and Trotsky which I have examined above, it is not a trifle, unless it is a trifle that can acquire decisive significance."
Lenin against Stalin’s Great Russian nationalist maneuvers, especially in Georgia :

Lenin in "Speech at the Eleventh Congress of the Bolshevik Party of March-April 1922 :

"You, communists, you, workers, you, the conscious part of the proletariat, who have taken it upon yourselves to govern the State, will you be able to ensure that the State, which you have assumed responsibility for, functions as you intend ? We have lived through a year, the State is in our hands ; well, in terms of the new economic policy, has it functioned as we intended ? No. We do not want to admit it : the State has not functioned as we intended. And how has it functioned ? The car does not obey : a man is indeed sitting at the wheel, who seems to be steering it, but the car does not go in the desired direction ; it goes where another force pushes it - an illegal force, an illicit force, a force coming from who knows where - where speculators push it, or perhaps private capitalists, or perhaps both, - but the car does not go quite right, and very often not at all just as the person behind the wheel imagines. (...) And we must ask this question clearly : what constitutes our strength and what do we lack ? We have as much political power as we need. There will probably be no one here who would say that on this or that practical question, in this or that institution, the communists, the Communist Party do not have enough power. There are people who constantly have this thought in mind, but they are people desperately turned to the past, who do not understand that we must look to the future. The essential economic strength is in our hands. All the major key enterprises, the railways, etc., are in our hands. Leasing, however widely practiced in certain places, plays, on the whole, only a minimal role. It is, on the whole, a completely insignificant part. The economic strength at the disposal of the proletarian state of Russia is quite sufficient to ensure the transition to communism. So what is lacking ? It’s clear : what is lacking is culture among the leading communists. In fact, if we consider Moscow—4,700 responsible communists—and if we consider the bureaucratic machine, this enormous mass, who is leading and who is being led ? I very much doubt that one can say that the communists are leading. To tell the truth, it is not they who are leading. It is they who are being led. Something similar to what we were told in our childhood, in history lessons, happened there. It happens, we were taught, that one people subjugates another, and then the people who subjugated are a conquering people, and the one who was subjugated is a vanquished people. This is simple and understandable to everyone. But what happens to the culture of these peoples ? It is not so simple. If the conquering people are more cultured than the vanquished people, they impose their culture on them. Otherwise, it happens that It is the vanquished who imposes his culture on the conqueror.Didn’t something similar happen in the capital of the RSFSR, and didn’t it happen here that 4,700 communists (almost an entire division, and the best of them) were subjected to a foreign culture ? It is true that one might, here, have the impression of a high cultural level among the vanquished. Wrong. Their culture is miserable, insignificant. But, all the same, it is superior to ours. However poor, however miserable it may be, it surpasses that of our responsible communists, because they do not know how to lead sufficiently. The communists who put themselves at the head of institutions—sometimes saboteurs cleverly push them there on purpose, to make a name for themselves—often find themselves duped. A very unpleasant admission. Or, at least, not very pleasant. But it must be made, it seems to me, because this is now the crux of the matter. This, in my opinion, is what the political lesson of the year boils down to, and it is under this sign that the struggle will take place in 1922.

Will the responsible communists of the RSFSR and the Communist Party of Russia understand that they do not know how to lead ? That they imagine they are leading others, when in reality it is they who are being led ? If they can understand this, they will certainly learn to lead, because it is possible. But for that, one must study, and here, we do not study. We issue orders and decrees left, right and centre, and the result is not at all what we want. (...)

To build a communist society by the hands of communists is a childish idea if ever there was one. The communists are a drop in the ocean, a drop in the people’s ocean. They will be able to lead the people on their path only if they trace it in a way that is correct, not only from the point of view of world-historical orientation.

In 1922-23, Lenin took every opportunity to express to activists and workers his deep esteem for Trotsky.

For example, in "Militant Materialism" he states :

"As for the general aims of the journal Pod Znaméniem Marxisma (Under the Banner of Marxism), Comrade Trotsky has already said the essentials in No. 12, and he said it perfectly. I would like to dwell on a few questions which define more closely the content and program of the work advocated by the editors of the journal in their introductory note to No. 12.
The note states that those who have grouped themselves around the journal Under the Banner of Marxism are not all communists, but all are consistent materialists. I think that this union of communists with non-communists is absolutely necessary and that it defines exactly the tasks of the journal. One of the greatest and most dangerous errors made by communists (as, indeed, by revolutionaries in general who have successfully completed the beginning of a great revolution) is to imagine that the revolution can be accomplished by the hands of revolutionaries alone. Now, to ensure the success of any serious revolutionary action, it is necessary to understand and know how to practically apply the idea that revolutionaries can only play a role as the vanguard of the truly advanced and viable class. The vanguard fulfills its mission only when it knows how not to detach itself from the masses it leads, when it truly knows how to advance the entire masses. Without the alliance with non-communists in the most diverse fields of activity, there can be no question of any success in the construction of communist society.

Or again at the eleventh congress of the Bolshevik party – Conclusions by Lenin from the political report of the central committee of the CP (b) on March 28, 1922 (this is his last intervention at a congress) :

“A thousand times more difficult is the situation when one is dealing with an adversary who is found in the daily life of our economy. The debates that have been going on up to now in the press about state capitalism can, at best, be written in a history textbook. I do not in any way deny the usefulness of textbooks, and I wrote recently that it would be better if our authors devoted a little less attention to newspapers and political chatter and wrote textbooks, which many could do excellently, including Comrade Larin. His qualities would be extremely useful in this field. In this way, we would fulfill the task that Comrade Trotsky so rightly emphasized when he declared that the main thing at present is the education of the younger generation, but that we have nothing to educate them in. Indeed, where do they learn social sciences ? In the old bourgeois junk. It is a disgrace !” And this, while we have hundreds of Marxist authors who can give us textbooks on all social questions, but who do not do so because they are busy with other things and do not orient themselves in this direction. (…) Comrade Trotsky spoke of the significance of Comrade Kollontai’s pamphlet. (…) I remember that, in his article on the anniversary of the Red Army, Comrade Trotsky said : "A year of study." This slogan is equally true for the Party and for the working class. During this period, we promoted a number of heroes who undeniably strengthened the turn in world history. This is no reason for not understanding the task facing us now : "A year of study." (…) I will end with a few words about Shlyapnikov. I wanted to speak about him at greater length. Trotsky, who responded with Zinoviev, on behalf of the CC, to the declaration of the 22 to the Communist International, exhausted the subject 99%.

With all due respect to the Stalinists, it was at LENIN’S suggestion.

that the Bolshevik Party adopted in April 1917 the theses of the permanent revolution in the Russian revolution

that the Bolshevik Party merged with Trotsky’s party in May 1917

that Trotsky was co-opted into the central committee of the Bolshevik party and the political bureau of that party

that Trotsky was chosen as president of the Petrograd Soviet, which had become a Bolshevik majority

that Trotsky was proposed as chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee that led the October Revolution

that Trotsky was proposed as President of the Council of People’s Commissars and then appointed Commissar for Foreign Affairs, responsible for the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, then founder and leader of the Red Army and responsible for drafting the Manifesto of the Congress of the Third International, all this in the year 1918. At the time, the French communist newspaper headlined : ’Long live the Russian revolution of Lenin and Trotsky’.

that Trotsky was proposed in 1922 as deputy chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars

that Trotsky was contacted in 1923 by Lenin to lead together the fight against Stalin and the bureaucracy in the Bolshevik party

that Trotsky was chosen as the future leader of the Russian state in his "Testament" which was kept secret by Stalin.
TROTSKY

Leon Trotsky writes in "My Life" :

"Lenin felt that, on the occasion of his illness, the still imperceptible threads of a conspiracy were already being woven, behind his back and behind mine. The epigones had not yet burned their ships and had not blown up the bridges. But already, in certain places, they were sawing through the beams and imperceptibly slipping in pyroxylin cartridges. At every favorable opportunity, they spoke out against my proposals, as if to practice independence, carefully preparing each such demonstration. Returning to work, observing with growing concern what had happened over the past ten months, Lenin delayed publicly pointing out the epigones so as not to aggravate relations. But he was preparing to rebuff the "troika" and he began to do so on matters of detail.

Among the ten or so tasks that I directed at the party level, that is, in a way incognito and unofficially, there was anti-religious propaganda, in which Lenin took a great interest. He repeatedly urged me not to lose sight of this area. During his convalescence, it was reported to him that Stalin was also maneuvering against me on this point, by reorganizing the apparatus of anti-religious propaganda and removing me from it. Lenin sent a letter from the village to the Politburo in which, without apparent necessity at first sight, he cited my book against Kautsky, adding great praise for the author, whom he did not name, nor did he specify the title of the book. I confess that I did not immediately guess that this was a roundabout way for Lenin to condemn the maneuvers directed against me by Stalin. However, Yaroslavsky, I believe, was appointed to the leadership of anti-religious propaganda as my deputy. Returning to his work and having learned this, Lenin, at a meeting of the Politburo, fell furiously on Molotov, that is, in reality, on Stalin.

— Ia-ro-slav-sky ? But don’t you know what Ia-ro-slav-sky is ? He’s a man who would make chickens laugh. How will he be able to get out of this task ? —etc.

Lenin’s liveliness might have seemed excessive to laymen. But it was not a question of Yaroslavsky, whom Lenin, in truth, resented ; it was a question of the party leadership. There was more than one incident of this kind.

In short, Stalin, ever since he had been in more permanent contact with Lenin, that is to say, especially since the October coup d’état, had not relented from a silent, impotent, but all the more furious opposition towards him. Boundless in his ambition, full of envy, he could not help feeling his intellectual and moral inferiority at every step. He apparently tried to get closer to me. It was only later that I became aware of the attempts he had made to create something like familiarity between us. But he repelled me because of the character traits that later became his strength in the wave of decadence : narrowness of interests, empiricism, crude psychology, a singular provincial cynicism that Marxism emancipated from many prejudices without, however, replacing them with a deeply meditated and morally assimilated general philosophy. According to certain observations he sometimes made, which seemed to me at the time to be entirely casual, but which could hardly have been so in reality, Stalin was trying to find in me a support against Lenin’s control, which was unbearable to him. At each such attempt, I instinctively took a step back and passed. I think that this is where we must look for the origins of Stalin’s cold hostility towards me, a hostility that was fearful in the early days and profoundly perfidious. Methodically, he gathered around him men of his own kind, the naive, inclined to live without seeking malice, or finally the offended. The first, second, and third were quite numerous.

There is no doubt that, for current affairs, Lenin, in many cases, found it more convenient to rely on Stalin, Zinoviev, or Kamenev than on me. Constantly concerned with conserving his time and that of others, Lenin tried to minimize the expenditure of energy when it came to overcoming internal difficulties. I had my own ideas, my own working methods, my own procedures for carrying out decisions already adopted. Lenin knew this well enough and appreciated it. Precisely for this reason, he understood only too well that I was worthless for running errands. When he needed messengers for his daily tasks, he turned to others. This could, at certain times, especially when I disagreed with Lenin, give his aides the idea of ​​their particular familiarity with Lenin. Thus Lenin appointed Rykov and Tsyurupa as his replacements as Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, and then added Kamenev to them. I considered this choice to be correct. Lenin needed docile deputies in practice ; in this role, I was worthless. And I could only be grateful to Lenin that he had not proposed that I replace him. In this I saw not at all a lack of confidence in me, but, on the contrary, a clear and in no way offensive assessment of my character and our mutual relations.

I later had the opportunity to convince myself of this only too clearly. In the interval between his first and second attacks, Lenin could work with only half his former energy. His arterial system was constantly undergoing shocks that were seemingly minor, but threatening. At one of the meetings of the Politburo, as he was getting up to send someone a note (Lenin did this to speed up the work), he staggered slightly. I only noticed this because Lenin’s face immediately became completely confused. This was yet another of the many warnings sent to him by his vital centers.

Lenin had no illusions about this. He thought about it, trying to see, from every angle, how the work would proceed without him and after him. At that time, the document that later became well known under the title of Testament was already forming in his head.

In the same period, a few weeks before the second crisis, Lenin had a long conversation with me about my later work. Because of the political importance of the conversation, I already shared it with several people (Rakovsky, I.-N. Smirnov, Sosnovsky, Preobrazhensky, and others). It is thanks to this that our conversation has remained clearly imprinted in my memory.

Here’s how things went :

The central committee of the education workers’ union sent a delegation to Lenin and me, requesting that I also take over the Commissariat of Public Education, just as I had headed the Commissariat of Communication for a year. Lenin asked my opinion. I replied that in matters of public education, the difficulty would arise, as in all other matters, from the apparatus.

"Yes, our bureaucracy is monstrous," Lenin cried. "I was horrified by it when I returned to work... But that is precisely why, in my opinion, it is not right for you to get involved in the affairs of other commissariats besides the War Commissariat."

Warmly, insistently, visibly moved, Lenin outlined his plan. The forces he could give to the leadership were limited. He had three substitutes.

— You know them. Kamenev is certainly an intelligent politician, but what is his value as an administrator ? Tsyurupa is ill. As for Rykov, let’s say he is an administrator, but he will have to be returned to the Supreme Council of the National Economy. It is essential that you become my deputy. The situation is such that we need a radical reorganization of personnel.

I again alleged that the "apparatus" was increasingly hampering my work, even at the War Commissariat.

"Well, you can shake the apparatus," Lenin continued briskly, alluding to an expression I had used recently.

I replied that I had in mind not only the bureaucracy of the State, but that of the party ; that the root of all these difficulties lay in the combination of the two apparatuses and in the mutual complicity of the influential groups that formed around a hierarchy of party secretaries.
Lenin listened with extreme attention and confirmed my ideas in that heartfelt tone he assumed when, sure of being understood to the end by his interlocutor and rejecting the necessarily conventional forms of a conversation, he came openly to the most important and most alarming matters.

After a moment’s reflection, Lenin put the question clearly :

— So you are proposing to open the struggle not only against state bureaucracy, but also against the organizing bureau of the Central Committee ?

I started laughing, it was so unexpected. The Central Committee’s Organization Bureau was the very center of Stalin’s apparatus.

— Let’s say it is so.

— Well, continued Lenin, visibly satisfied that we had given the question its true formula, I propose that we join forces with you : against bureaucracy in general, against the organizing bureau in particular.

— It is flattering, I replied, to make an honest bloc with an honest man.

We agreed to meet again sometime later. Lenin suggested that I consider organizational matters. He advocated the creation of a commission for the fight against bureaucracy within the Central Committee. We were both to be members of it. Basically, this commission was to serve as a lever for the destruction of the Stalinist faction, the backbone of the bureaucracy, and for the creation of conditions within the party that would give me the opportunity to become Lenin’s replacement ; in his mind : to be his successor as Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars.

It is only when one knows these things that one can clearly and completely understand the meaning of what is called the Testament. In this document, Lenin names only six people and characterizes them by weighing each word. The undeniable purpose of the testament is to facilitate my work of leadership. Lenin wants to achieve this, of course, by causing as little personal friction as possible. He speaks of all of them with the greatest circumspection. He gives a shade of mildness to judgments that are basically crushing. At the same time, he softens with reservations my too clear designation to the first position. It is only in Stalin’s assessment that another tone appears, which, in a text added some time later to the testament, becomes quite simply damning.
Of Zinoviev and Kamenev, Lenin says, as if without seeming to touch it, that their capitulation in 1917 was not "accidental" ; in other words, that they had it in their blood. It is clear that such men cannot lead a revolution. However, one cannot blame them for their past. Bukharin is not a Marxist, but a scholiast ; on the other hand, very sympathetic. Pyatakov is a capable administrator, but he is worthless in politics. It may be, however, that both of them, Bukharin and Pyatakov, will still succeed in forming themselves. The most capable is Trotsky ; his fault lies in his excessive self-confidence. Stalin is brutal, disloyal, capable of abusing the power given to him by the party apparatus. Stalin must be eliminated to avoid a split. Such is the essence of the testament. It completes and explains the proposal that Lenin had made to me in the last conversation.

Lenin, in short, only got to know Stalin well after October. He appreciated in him firmness, a practical spirit that was three-quarters cunning. At the same time, Lenin noted at every step Stalin’s ignorance, the extreme narrowness of his political views, an exceptional moral coarseness, an absolute lack of scruples. Stalin had been elected General Secretary of the party against Lenin’s will, who resigned himself to seeing him in this post as long as he himself was at the head of the party. But when, after his first crisis, Lenin returned to work, in weakened health, he posed the problem of the leadership as a whole. Hence his conversation with me. Hence the Testament. The last lines were written on January 4 ; then two months passed during which the situation became definitively settled. Lenin was no longer only preparing Stalin’s elimination from the post of General Secretary ; he wanted to disqualify him before the party. On the question of the foreign trade monopoly, on the national question, on the question of the internal regime within the party, on the workers’ and peasants’ inspection and on the control commission, Lenin systematically and persistently aimed to deal, at the Twelfth Congress, in the person of Stalin, the most terrible blow to bureaucratism, to the complicit solidarity of functionaries, to the abuse of power, to arbitrariness and brutality.
Could Lenin have achieved the regroupment he was planning in the party leadership ? At that time, without a doubt. There had been many precedents of this kind ; there was one quite recent and very characteristic. While Lenin, convalescing, was still living in the countryside and I was absent from Moscow, the Central Committee had unanimously adopted, in November 1922, a decision which dealt an irreparable blow to the foreign trade monopoly. Lenin and I, independently of each other, gave the alarm ; Then we reached an agreement through exchanges of letters and agreed on the steps to be taken. A few weeks later, the central committee returned with as much unanimity on its decision as it had had in taking it.

On December 21, Lenin wrote to me triumphantly :

"Comrade Trotsky, it seems that we have managed to take the position without firing a single shot, by a simple maneuver. I propose not to stop there and to continue the offensive..."

Our joint action against the Central Committee, if it had taken place at the beginning of 1923, would certainly have assured us victory. Much more. If I had acted on the eve of the Twelfth Congress in the spirit of the Lenin-Trotsky "bloc" against Stalinist bureaucratism, I have no doubt that I would have won the victory, even without Lenin’s direct assistance in the struggle. To what extent this victory would have been lasting is another question. To resolve it, it is essential to realize a certain number of objective processes that took place in the country, in the working class, and in the party itself. A very particular and very broad theme. Krupskaya once said, in 1927, that if Lenin were still alive, he would probably already be in one of Stalin’s prisons. I think she was right. For it is not a question of Stalin himself, but of the forces that Stalin expresses without understanding them. However, in 1922-1923, it was still entirely possible to seize the main strategic position by waging an open offensive against the rapidly forming faction of National Socialist functionaries, usurpers of the apparatus, seizers of the October legacy, epigones of Bolshevism. The main obstacle in this path, however, was Lenin’s health. It was expected that he would recover as after the first crisis and participate in the Twelfth Congress as he had participated in the Eleventh. He himself was counting on this. The doctors spoke in an encouraging, though less and less firm, tone. The idea of ​​the "Lenin and Trotsky bloc" against the apparatus people and the bureaucrats was, at that time, fully known only to Lenin and me ; the other members of the Politburo only vaguely guessed at it. Lenin’s letters on the national question, as well as his will, were unknown to anyone. My action could be understood, or more precisely, represented, as a personal struggle to take Lenin’s place in the party and in the state. I could not think of this without shuddering. I felt that it could cause a demoralization in our ranks for which we would have had to pay dearly, even in the event of victory. In all plans and calculations, there was one decisive element : my uncertainty regarding Lenin because of his state of health. Would he be able to pronounce himself ? Would he have the time ? Would the party understand that it was a struggle between Lenin and Trotsky for the future of the revolution, and not a struggle by Trotsky to take the place of the sick Lenin ? Because of the special position Lenin occupied in the party, the uncertainty about his condition became perplexity about the very condition of the entire party. The provisional situation dragged on, and this was entirely to the advantage of the epigones, insofar as Stalin, as General Secretary,naturally became the butler of the aircraft for the duration of the “interregnum”.

*
**

It was the first days of March 1923. Lenin was bedridden in his room in the Grand Palace of Judicial Institutions. The second crisis was approaching, announced by a series of ailments. I myself was confined to bed for several weeks by lumbago. I was lying in the so-called Knights’ Building, where our lodgings were located ; thus, we were separated from Lenin by the immense Kremlin courtyard. Neither Lenin nor I could even take a step to the telephone ; moreover, the doctors had strictly forbidden Vladimir Ilyich to take the call. Lenin’s two secretaries, Fotiéva and Glasser, made the connection. Here is what they transmitted to me : Vladimir Ilyich is extremely worried about Stalin’s preparations for the next party congress, and especially because of the factional machinations he is engaged in in Georgia.

— Vladimir Ilyich is preparing a real bomb against Stalin, for the congress.

This is what Fotieva literally said. The word "bomb" was Lenin’s, not hers.

— Vladimir Ilyich asks you to take charge of the Georgian affair ; he will then be more at ease.
On March 5, Lenin dictated a note to me :

“Dear Comrade Trotsky, I urge you most earnestly to take charge of defending the Georgian cause in the Central Committee of the Party. This matter is currently the object of “prosecution” by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot trust their impartiality. Indeed, quite the opposite. If you would agree to take up the defense of this cause, I could rest easy. If, for one reason or another, you do not agree, send the entire file back to me. I will conclude that it does not suit you. With my best regards, Comrade Lenin.”

But why had the question become so acute ? I asked. It turned out that Stalin had once again betrayed Lenin’s confidence : to secure support in Georgia, he had organized, without the knowledge of Lenin and the entire Central Committee, with the help of Ordzhonikidze and not without the support of Dzerzhinsky, a coup d’état against the best elements of the party, falsely alleging the authority of the Central Committee. Taking advantage of the fact that the ill Lenin could not have interviews with his comrades, Stalin tried to surround him with false information.

Lenin had instructed his secretariat to compile a comprehensive dossier on the Georgian question and was determined to speak out openly. It is difficult to say whether he was more moved by Stalin’s disloyalty or his brutally bureaucratic policy on the national question. Probably a combination of both. Lenin was preparing for the struggle, but he feared that he himself would not be able to speak at the congress, and this tormented him.

— What if we came to an agreement with Zinoviev and Kamenev ? his secretaries suggested.

But Lenin makes a gesture of annoyance. He clearly foresees that, in the event that he has to abandon the work, Zinoviev and Kamenev will form a "troika" with Stalin against me and that, consequently, they will betray him.

— But don’t you know what Trotsky thinks about the Georgian question ? asks Lenin.

— Trotsky at the plenum [Plenary Assembly of the Central Committee. —Ed.] spoke entirely in your spirit, replies Glasser, who had been secretary at the plenum.

— You’re not mistaken ?

— No, Trotsky accused Ordzhonikidze, Voroshilov and Kalinin of not understanding the national question.

— Check this again ! Lenin demands.

The next day, Glasser gave me a note at the central committee meeting held in my apartment, in which she summarized my speech from the previous day and ended with this question :

— Did I understand you correctly ?

— Why do you need this ? I asked.

— For Vladimir Ilyich, Glasser replies.

— The summary is correct.

Meanwhile, Stalin was watching our exchange of notes with concern. But at that time, I still didn’t know what it was about...

Glasser then communicated to me this :

"When Vladimir Ilyich read the papers we had exchanged, his brow lit up : "Well, now that’s another matter !" "And he instructed me to give you all the manuscripts that were to be used in the manufacture of his bomb for the 12th Congress."

Lenin’s intentions were then perfectly clear to me : taking Stalin’s policy as an example, he wanted to denounce before the party, and without sparing anything, the danger of a bureaucratic degeneration of the dictatorship.

— Kamenev, I said to Fotieva, is leaving tomorrow for Georgia, he is going to the party conference. I can give him Lenin’s manuscripts to encourage him to act there in the right spirit. Ask Ilyich if it is necessary. A quarter of an hour later, Fotieva returns, out of breath :

— No way !

— Why is that ?

Vladimir Ilyich said : "Kamenev will rush to show everything to Stalin, and Stalin will seek a fake compromise to deceive us."

— So, it has come to this point that Ilyich no longer considers it possible to reach a compromise with Stalin, even on a just line ?

— Yes, Ilyich doesn’t trust Stalin, he wants to speak out against him openly in front of the entire party. He’s preparing a bomb.

About an hour after this conversation, Fotieva returned, bringing me a note from Lenin addressed to the old revolutionary Mdivani and other opponents of Stalin’s policy in Georgia. Lenin wrote to them :

"I am wholeheartedly interested in your cause. I am outraged by Ordzhonikidze’s brutality and the connivance of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky. I am preparing notes and a speech for you."

A copy of these lines was addressed to me, but there was another one for Kamenev. This surprised me.

— So Vladimir Ilyich has changed his mind ? I asked.

— Yes, his condition is worsening hour by hour. We must not trust the doctors’ reassuring statements ; Ilyich already has difficulty expressing himself... The question of Georgia torments him extremely ; he fears he will be in dire straits before he can do anything. When he gave me the note, he said :

"To avoid arriving too late, we must act openly before the time."

— But does that mean I can now talk to Kamenev ?

– Obviously.

— Tell him to come see me.

Kamenev arrived an hour later. He was completely disoriented. The idea of ​​the Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenev "troika" had been ready for a long time. The tip of the triangle was directed against me. The problem for the conspirators was only to prepare a sufficient organizational base to achieve the coronation of the group that would have declared itself the legitimate heir to Lenin. A tiny note was enough to puncture this plan. Kamenev did not know what to do, and he admitted it to me quite frankly.

I gave him Lenin’s manuscripts to read. Kamenev had enough experience as a politician to understand immediately that in Lenin’s eyes it was not only about Georgia but about the entire role played by Stalin in the party. Kamenev gave me additional information. He had just returned from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya’s, who had summoned him. Deeply moved, she had said to him :

— Vladimir has just dictated a letter to Stalin in shorthand, declaring that he is breaking off all relations with him.

The immediate motive was of a semi-personal nature. Stalin did everything to isolate Lenin from sources of information and, in this regard, showed exceptional rudeness towards Nadezhda Konstantinovna.

— But you know Ilyich, Krupskaya added : he would never have gone so far as to break off personal relations if he had not considered that Stalin must be demolished politically.

Kamenev was very moved and pale. He felt the ground give way beneath him. He didn’t know which way to turn, which way to turn. Perhaps he was simply afraid that I would act maliciously against him. I explained my point of view on the situation.

— Sometimes, I told him, when faced with an imaginary danger, we become afraid and attract a real threat.

Tell yourself and others that I have not the slightest intention of engaging in a struggle at the congress to achieve organizational changes. I am in favor of maintaining the status quo. If Lenin can recover before the congress, which is unfortunately not likely, we will proceed together to a new examination of this question. I am not in favor of finishing with Stalin, nor of excluding Ordzhonikidze, nor of removing Dzerzhinsky from the Ways of Communication. But I agree with Lenin on the substance. I want national policy to be radically changed, for the repression exercised in Georgia against Stalin’s opponents to cease immediately, for an end to the administrative pressure of the party to be put to an end, for a more firm orientation towards industrialization and for honest collaboration in the ruling spheres to be established. Stalin’s resolution on the national question is absolutely worthless. The brutal and insolent pressure of a great power is situated there on the same level as the protest and resistance of small, weak and backward nationalities. I have given my resolution the form of amendments to Stalin’s, to facilitate the indispensable change of direction. But this change must be immediate and clear. Furthermore, it is essential that Stalin immediately write Krupskaya a letter of apology for his rudeness and that he actually change his conduct. He must not try to shirk. There must be no more intrigues. There must be honest collaboration. As for you, I told Kamenev, you must, at the Tiflis conference, aim at obtaining a complete change of attitude towards the Georgian supporters of Lenin’s national policy.

Kamenev breathed a sigh of relief. He accepted all my proposals. He was only afraid that Stalin would persist :

— He is rude and capricious, he said.

"No," I replied, "I don’t think he’s being stubborn, because he has no other way out now."

Late that night, Kamenev informed me that he had visited Stalin in the countryside and that he had accepted all the conditions. Krupskaya had already received a letter of apology from him. But she had not been able to show the letter to Lenin, whose condition had worsened.

It seemed to me, however, that Kamenev’s tone was already different from that which he had had when he left me a few hours earlier. It was only later that I saw the cause of this change : it was due to the worsening of Lenin’s illness. On the way or upon his arrival in Tiflis, Kamenev received a coded telegram from Stalin informing him that Lenin was once again paralyzed : unable to speak or write. At the Georgian conference, Kamenev defended Stalin’s policy against Lenin. Fortified by a felony, the "troika" existed from then on.

Lenin’s offensive was directed not only against Stalin himself, but against his entire staff, and above all against those who helped him, Dzerzhinsky and Ordzhonikidze. These two names constantly recur in Lenin’s correspondence on the subject of Georgia.

Dzerzhinsky was a man of highly explosive passion. His energy was kept under pressure by continual electric discharges. On every issue, however minor, he would become inflamed, his thin nostrils would quiver, his eyes would flash, his voice would rise and frequently break. Despite this extreme nervous tension, Dzerzhinsky never experienced periods of weakness or apathy. He seemed to be always in full mobilization. Lenin once compared him to a most ardent thoroughbred. Dzerzhinsky was enamored with a desperate love for every task he undertook, defending his colleagues against interference and criticism with a passion, an intransigence, a fanaticism in which, however, there was nothing of personal interest : Dzerzhinsky dissolved into the cause without a trace.

But he had no thoughts of his own. He himself did not consider himself a politician, at least not in Lenin’s time. On various occasions, he told me more than once :

— I may not be a bad revolutionary, but I am not a leader, a statesman, a politician.

It wasn’t just modesty. The judgment was basically correct. From a political point of view, Dzerzhinsky always needed someone’s immediate direction. For many years, he followed Rosa Luxemburg and waged the struggle she wanted not only with a certain Polish patriotism, but with Bolshevik sentiments. In 1917, he joined Bolshevism. Lenin told me enthusiastically about him :

— There is no trace left of the struggle of the past.

For two or three years, he was particularly drawn to me. In his later years, he supported Stalin. In economic work, he prevailed by his temperament : exhorting, pushing, leading. He had no considered conception of economic development. He shared all of Stalin’s errors and defended them with all the passion of which he was capable. He died, so to speak, standing ; he had barely had time to leave the platform from which he had violently attacked the opposition.
As for Stalin’s other ally, Ordzhonikidze, Lenin considered it essential to exclude him from the party for the bureaucratic arbitrariness of which he had been guilty in the Caucasus. I raised objections. Lenin replied to me through his secretary : "At least for two years." » How far he was from thinking that Ordzhonikidze would take the head of the control commission that Lenin intended to combat Stalinist bureaucratism and which was to embody the very conscience of the party !

Apart from the problems of general policy, the immediate aim of the campaign opened by Lenin was to create the most favorable conditions for my leadership work, either near him if he could recover, or in his place if illness overcame him. But this struggle, not having been carried through to the end, or even halfway, produced completely opposite results. Lenin, in short, had just enough time to declare war on Stalin and his allies, and even then the fact only reached the attention of those concerned, not the party. Stalin’s faction—which was still only the faction of the "troika"—closed up further after the first warning. The provisional situation persisted. Stalin kept the handle of the apparatus. The artificial selection of leaders was pushed furiously. The more the "troika" felt ideologically weak, the more it feared me (being afraid of me precisely because it wanted to overthrow me) and the more it was obliged to tighten all the bolts of the regime in the party and the state. Much later, in 1925, Bukharin, in a private conversation, when I criticized the oppression exercised in the party, replied :

— We don’t have democracy because we’re afraid of you.

"So try," I said to him, by way of advice, "not to be afraid anymore and let’s try to do some good work together."

But this advice was of no use.

1923 was the first year of a fierce, but still silent, struggle to suppress and demolish the Bolshevik Party. Lenin was struggling with a terrible illness. The "troika" was fighting the party. The atmosphere was one of painful tension, which, towards the autumn, culminated in the "discussion" against the opposition. Chapter II of the revolution was opening : the struggle against Trotskyism. Basically, it was a struggle against the ideological succession of Lenin."

Leon Trotsky writes in "The Revolution Betrayed" :

"The civil service and the standing army," wrote Lenin, "are ’parasites’ on the body of society, parasites engendered by the internal contradictions that tear this society apart, but precisely parasites that block its pores..." (…) From 1918, that is to say, from the moment when the party had to consider the seizure of power as a practical problem, Lenin constantly occupied himself with the elimination of these "parasites". After the subversion of the exploiting classes, he explains and demonstrates in The State and the Revolution, the proletariat will smash the old bureaucratic machine and form its own apparatus of workers and employees, taking, to prevent them from becoming bureaucrats, "measures studied in detail by Marx and Engels : 1. eligibility for election and also revocability at any time ; 2. remuneration not higher than the worker’s wage ; 3. immediate transition to a state of affairs in which all will carry out the functions of control and supervision, in which all will be momentarily "bureaucrats," no one being able to bureaucratize himself for that reason." It would be wrong to think that for Lenin this is a work requiring decades ; no, it is a first step : "One can and must begin there by making the proletarian revolution."

"Stalinism is not an abstract ’dictatorship’ either ; it is a vast bureaucratic reaction against the proletarian dictatorship in a backward and isolated country. The October Revolution abolished privileges, declared war on social inequality, substituted government of the workers by the workers for bureaucracy, abolished secret diplomacy ; it strove to give social relations complete transparency. Stalinism restored the most offensive forms of privilege, gave inequality a provocative character, stifled the spontaneous activity of the masses by means of police absolutism, made administration the monopoly of the Kremlin oligarchy, and revived the fetishism of power in aspects of which the absolute monarchy would not have dared to dream.

Social reaction, whatever it may be, is obliged to conceal its true aims. The more abrupt the transition from revolution to reaction, the more reaction depends on the traditions of revolution—in other words, the more it fears the masses and the more it is obliged to resort to lies and imposture in its struggle against the advocates of revolution. Stalinist impostures are not the fruit of "Bolshevik" amorality ; like all important events in history, they are the products of a concrete social struggle of the most treacherous and cruel kind : that of a new aristocracy against the masses who brought it to power. It requires, in truth, complete intellectual and moral poverty to identify the reactionary and police morality of Stalinism with the revolutionary morality of the Bolsheviks. Lenin’s party ceased to exist long ago ; internal difficulties and world imperialism broke it. The Stalinist bureaucracy succeeded it and is an apparatus for transmitting imperialism. In world politics, the bureaucracy substituted class collaboration for class struggle, social patriotism for internationalism. In order to adapt the ruling party to the tasks of reaction, the bureaucracy "renewed" its personnel by exterminating revolutionaries and recruiting careerists.

Every reaction resuscitates, nourishes, and strengthens the elements of the historical past that the revolution has struck without succeeding in annihilating them. Stalinist methods complete, bring to the highest tension, and also to the absurd, all the processes of lies, cruelty, and degradation that constitute the mechanism of power in every society divided into classes, without excluding democracy. Stalinism is a conglomerate of the monstrosities of the State as history has made it ; it is also its fatal caricature and repugnant grimace. When the representatives of the old society sententiously oppose to the gangrene of Stalinism a sterilized democratic abstraction, we have every right to recommend to them, as to all of the old society, to admire themselves in the distorting mirror of the Soviet Thermidor. It is true that, in the frankness of its crimes, the GPU far surpasses all other regimes. This is due to the grandiose scale of the events that have shaken Russia in the demoralization of the imperialist era." (Leon Trotsky in August 1930)

As Leon Trotsky wrote on October 31, 1935 :
"To speak of the future of the revolution can only be done in an implacable struggle against the regime of bureaucratic absolutism, which has become the worst brake on the revolutionary movement."

“Soviet Bonapartism is due, ultimately, to the delay of the world revolution. The same cause engendered fascism in the capitalist countries. We arrive at a conclusion which at first sight seems unexpected, but in reality is irreproachable : that the stifling of Soviet democracy by the all-powerful bureaucracy and the defeats inflicted on democracy in other countries are due to the slowness with which the world proletariat is fulfilling the task assigned to it by history. Despite the profound difference in their social bases, Stalinism and fascism are symmetrical phenomena. In many ways they are overwhelmingly similar. A victorious revolutionary movement in Europe would immediately shake fascism and also Soviet Bonapartism. The Stalinist bureaucracy, for its part, is right to turn its back on the international revolution ; in doing so, it is obeying the instinct of self-preservation. (…) In the early days of the Soviet regime, the party served as a counterweight to the bureaucracy. It administered the state, the party controlled it. Zealously ensuring that inequality did not exceed the limits of necessity, the party was always in open or covert struggle with the bureaucracy. The historical role of the Stalinist faction was to put an end to this duality by subordinating the party to its own offices and by merging the offices of the party and those of the state. Thus the present totalitarian regime was created. Stalin’s victory was assured by the definitive service he rendered to the bureaucracy. (…) The Thermidorians put into proscribing revolutionaries all the hatred inspired in them by men who remind them of the past and make them fear the future. The most steadfast and loyal Bolsheviks, the flower of the party, are in prisons, in the remote corners of Siberia and Central Asia, in the numerous concentration camps. (...) How many Bolsheviks were expelled, arrested, deported, exterminated from 1923 onwards, the year the era of Bonapartism began, we will only know the day the archives of Stalin’s political police are opened. How many remain illegal, we will only know the day the collapse of the bureaucratic regime begins. What importance can twenty or thirty thousand opponents have in a party of two million members ? On this point, simply comparing figures is not meaningful. It only takes a dozen revolutionaries in a regiment to make it go over, in a superheated atmosphere, to the side of the people. It is not without reason that the general staffs are terrified of small clandestine groups and even of isolated militants. This fear, which makes the Stalinist bureaucracy tremble, explains the cruelty of its proscriptions and the baseness of its slander. (Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, 1936.)

Leon Trotsky writes :

"Stalin represents an absolutely exceptional phenomenon. He is neither a thinker nor a writer nor an orator. He seized power before the masses had learned to distinguish his face from the others when they filed past the leaders of the Revolution in the traditional processions in Red Square. He took possession of power, not through personal qualities, but by using an impersonal machine. And it was not he who created the machine, but the machine that created him ; with its power and authority, it was the product of the long and heroic struggle of the Bolshevik Party, which was itself the product of ideas, it was the bearer of the idea before it became an end in itself. Stalin directed it from the day he cut the umbilical cord that attached it to the idea and became a thing, by itself. Lenin had created it in constant association with the masses, if not by word, at least by writing, if not directly, then with the help of his disciples. Stalin merely seized it. For this, special and exceptional qualities were necessary. But these were not those of the thinker, nor of the writer, nor of the orator. While the Party apparatus had developed on ideas, Stalin’s first qualification was a contemptuous attitude towards ideas."

"The emancipation of the workers can only be the work of the workers themselves. There is therefore no greater crime than to deceive the masses, to pass off defeats as victories, friends as enemies, to buy off leaders, to fabricate legends, to mount imposture trials, - in a word, to do what the Stalinists do. These means can only serve one end : to prolong the domination of a clique already condemned by history. They cannot serve the emancipation of the masses. That is why the Fourth International supports a life-and-death struggle against Stalinism."

Leon Trotsky in "Their Morality and Ours"

"It is true that capitalist reactionaries use, not without artifice, Stalin’s regime as a scarecrow against the ideas of socialism. Marx never said that socialism could be perfect, applied in a single country, and, what is more, in a backward country."

Leon Trotsky in "Marxism and Our Time"
STALIN

In 1922, during Lenin’s illness and Trotsky’s leave, Stalin, under the influence of Sokolnikov, passed a resolution undermining the monopoly on foreign trade. This proposal was to be quashed thanks to the vigorous protests of Lenin and Trotsky (see "Letter to Istpart").

During the same period, on the national question, Stalin held a position that Lenin described as bureaucratic and chauvinistic. Stalin, for his part, accused Lenin of having national-liberal tendencies ("Letter to Istpart"). What was Stalin’s position on the question of the German revolution of 1923 ? Here too, as in March 1917, he had to orient himself independently on a large scale : Lenin was ill and a struggle against Trotsky was unleashed. Here is what he wrote in August 1923 to Bukharin and Zinoviev about the situation in Germany :

"Should we, the Communists, seek, in the present phase, to seize power without the Social Democrats ? Are we mature enough for that ? In my opinion, everything is there. When we seized power in Russia, we had reserves such as a. bread, b. land for the peasants, c. the support of the immense majority of the working class, d. the sympathy of the peasants. The German Communists have nothing of the sort at the moment. True, they have the Soviet nation in their vicinity, which we did not have, but what can we offer them at the present time ? If today in Germany power, so to speak, were to fall and the Communists were to seize it, they would fail with losses and a crash. That, in the "best" of cases. In the worst, they would be cut to pieces and thrown out. The point is not that Brandler wants to "educate the masses," the main thing is that the bourgeoisie, more the right-wing social democrats would certainly turn the course of the demonstration into a general battle - at the moment the odds are in their favor - and crush them. Certainly the fascists are not asleep, but it is in our interest that they attack first : this will unite the entire working class around the communists - Germany is not Bulgaria. Besides, according to all my information, the fascists are weak in Germany. In my opinion, we must hold back the Germans and not stimulate them."

Thus, in August 1923, when the German revolution was knocking at every door, Stalin said that Brandler should be restrained and not stimulated. For having missed the revolutionary situation in Germany, Stalin took the heaviest share of responsibility. He supported the temporizers, the skeptics, the wait-and-seeers. In this question of world-historical importance, it was not by chance that he took an opportunist position : in reality, he was only continuing the policy he had pursued in Russia in March 1917.

After the revolutionary situation was marred by passivity and indecision, Stalin defended the Brandler CC against Trotsky for a long time, thus defending himself. Thus he wrote in December 1924 - a year after the German shipwreck :

"This originality must not be forgotten for a single instant. It is especially important to remember it when analyzing the events of the autumn of 1923 in Germany. And it is Trotsky who should remember it first, he who establishes a wholesale analogy (!!) between the October Revolution and the revolution in Germany and unreservedly scourges the German Communist Party" (...)

(…) We recall Lenin’s Testament. It is not a polemical article or speech, in which one can always imagine that there were inevitable exaggerations, arising from the ardor of the struggle. No, in the Testament, Lenin, calmly weighing every word, gives his final opinion to the party concerning his comrades on the basis of all the experience of his work together with them. What does he say about Stalin ? a- brutal, b- disloyal, c- inclined to abuse power.

Conclusion : "eliminate him from the post of secretary general."

A few weeks later, Lenin dictated a note to Stalin in which he indicated his intention to "break off all personal and comradely relations" with him. This was one of the last expressions of Lenin’s will. All these facts are set out in the minutes of the 1927 Central Committee plenum.

(reported by Leon Trotsky)

The image presented by the Stalinists and the Maoists, but also by the bourgeoisie and its historians, is of a Stalin who is a worthy successor to Lenin. One cannot imagine a more blatant lie. And it is not simply a question of historical truth. It changes the entire conception of the revolutionary party, of socialism, and of the proletarian revolution.

On one side, two internationalist revolutionaries, Lenin and Trotsky, who never bargained over their socialist commitment to the proletariat, like fish in water in the revolutionary struggle of the exploited, on the other, the head of the national and nationalist bureaucracy of Russia, Stalin, a fabrication of all the apparatuses, of the party as of the State, like a fish in water in the rout of the revolution and the rise of reaction : two incompatible worlds.

In 1922, Lenin declared at the Party Congress : "When we look at the bureaucratic machine, we must ask ourselves the question ’who leads and who is led ?’ I very much doubt that the Communists lead. The truth is that they are led."

If Lenin advocated the NEP tactic, a temporary retreat, Stalin and the bureaucracy adapted perfectly to the NEP : the bureaucrat allied himself with the kulak and the nepman.

André Breton writes :
"Long live Lenin ! I salute Leon Trotsky here, he who was able, without the help of many of the illusions that remain with us and without perhaps believing in eternity like us, to maintain for our enthusiasm this invulnerable slogan :

“And if the alarm bells ring in the West, and they will, we may be up to our necks in our calculations, in our balance sheets, in the NEP, but we will respond to the call without hesitation and without delay : we are revolutionaries from head to toe, we have been, we will remain so until the end.”

Today, even more than in the past, it is important to re-establish the truth about the true role of Lenin and his Bolshevik companions, to highlight that his entire life was devoted to the struggle for the emancipation of the working class and not to the establishment on it of one of the most barbaric forms of exploitation and oppression, as Stalinism was.

Even before becoming known for the establishment of a police terror unparalleled in history, Stalinism began its career as a defender of the thesis of "building socialism in one country." From 1925, Stalin became the spokesperson for this conception, which completely contradicted the entire vision previously defended in the workers’ movement. Indeed, from its origins, the latter presented itself as an international movement insofar as, as Engels wrote in 1847 : "The communist revolution (...) will not be a purely national revolution ; it will occur simultaneously in all civilized countries (...) It will also have a considerable impact on all the other countries of the globe and will completely transform and accelerate the course of their development. It is a universal revolution ; it will, consequently, have a universal terrain" ("Principles of Communism"). It is no coincidence, either, that the slogan that concludes the "Communist Manifesto" of 1848 is "Workers of all countries, unite." Similarly, the first important organization of the proletariat was the "International Workingmen’s Association" (1864-1872) or the First International. Subsequently, internationals (Socialist International, 1889-1914 ; Communist International, 1919-1928) also punctuated the development and struggles of the working class on a global scale. Finally, it is also significant that the anthem of the workers’ movement is, in all countries, the "International."

In fact, one of the decisive criteria for a political party to belong to the proletarian camp is internationalism. Thus, in 1914, when the world war broke out, the participation in the "Sacred Union" and the "National Defense" of the dominant sectors of most of the socialist parties of Europe (the "social-chauvinists" as Lenin called them) signaled their betrayal of the working class and their transition to the bourgeoisie.

This is why the thesis of "socialism in one country" constitutes a real betrayal of the basic principles of the proletarian struggle and the communist revolution, a betrayal against which those who continue to defend the proletarian program, such as Trotsky in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, engage in a merciless fight.

In particular, this thesis, presented by Stalin as one of the "principles of Leninism", constitutes the exact opposite of Lenin’s position :

"The Russian Revolution is only a detachment of the world socialist army, and the success and triumph of the revolution we have accomplished depend on the action of this army. This is a fact that none of us forgets (...). The Russian proletariat is aware of its revolutionary isolation, and it sees clearly that its victory has as its indispensable condition and fundamental premise the united intervention of the workers of the whole world." ("Report to the Conference of Factory Committees of the Moscow Province", July 23, 1918).

Lenin, exemplary defender of proletarian internationalism

Lenin’s uncompromising internationalism, a mark of his total commitment to the proletariat’s struggle for emancipation, was a constant throughout his life. It was particularly evident in 1907 at the Stuttgart Congress of the Socialist International, when, along with Rosa Luxemburg, the most prominent figure in the German and Polish proletariat throughout the early 20th century, Lenin led the fight to have delegates adopt an amendment toughening the resolution against imperialist war. Similarly, Lenin actively participated in the struggle of the International’s left wing to make the 1912 Basel Extraordinary Congress a resounding demonstration against the threat of war. But it was during the First World War that Lenin’s internationalism reached its full potential. His denunciation of the "social-chauvinists," but also of the "centrists" who can only oppose the imperialist butchery with pacifist moans, is one of the most illuminating pages in the history of the workers’ movement. In particular, at Zimmerwald in September 1915, Lenin was the leader of the left wing of the conference bringing together delegates from the various socialist currents in Europe who opposed the war. His position differed from that of the "Manifesto" adopted by the conference by clearly stating that "the struggle for peace without revolutionary action is an empty and mendacious phrase" and by calling for the "transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war"... "a slogan... precisely... indicated by the resolutions of Stuttgart and Basel."

Lenin’s internationalism did not end with the victory of the revolution in October 1917. On the contrary, he saw it solely as the first step and stepping stone of the world revolution. This is why he played a decisive role, along with Trotsky, in the founding of the Communist International in March 1919. In particular, it was Lenin who wrote one of the fundamental texts of the founding congress : the "Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."

In Lenin’s time, the CI had nothing to do with what it later became under Stalin’s control : an instrument of Russian capitalist state diplomacy and the spearhead of counter-revolution on a world scale. At its first congress, the CI asserted itself and practically acted as "the instrument for the international republic of workers’ councils, the International of open mass action, of revolutionary achievement, the International of action" ("Manifesto of the CI", written by Trotsky). - ICC text
By P. Broué

"Trotsky"

Chapter XX – The “bloc” with Lenin [1]

Having suffered a first stroke on 26 May 1922, Lenin was left paralyzed on his left side and had to struggle for a long time before being able to resume some activity from July onwards and to return to work in October. He then had – and he no doubt sensed it – only a few months to complete a task whose importance he suddenly discovered when he resumed his duties after a few months’ break.

Many clues – reflections in passing in speeches or letters – show that on the eve of this attack, he was still concerned about the risk of a split in the party which could arise from the slightest disagreement within the ruling circle.

This is what he wrote on March 23, 1922 to Molotov, then "responsible secretary of the central committee" :

"At present, the proletarian policy of the Party is determined not by its numbers, but by the immense and undivided authority of that very thin layer which may be called the Old Guard of the Party. A slight internal struggle within this layer is enough for its authority to be, if not ruined, at least weakened to the point that the decision will no longer depend on it [2]." At the same time, however, he posed the problem of government and leadership in entirely new terms. Already in October 1921, he had explained that the three main obstacles were "communist complacency," illiteracy, and the practice of bribery [3]. At the 11th Congress of the RCP(b), he addressed, for the first time, it seems, the question of power in terms of culture, with developments on the need to learn, which recalled Trotsky’s reflections on this point.

He explained in particular :

"The economic strength of the proletarian state of Russia is quite sufficient to ensure the transition to communism. What is it that we lack ? It is clear that what is lacking is culture among the communist leaders [4].

For him, the communists had become prisoners of what he called "the bureaucratic machine" :

"In fact, if we consider Moscow – 4,700 responsible communists – and if we consider the bureaucratic machine, this enormous mass, who is leading and who is being led ? I very much doubt that one can say that the communists are leading. In fact, it is not they who are leading. It is they who are being led [5]."

Recalling the phenomenon, often observed in history, of conquered peoples imposing their culture on their victor, he draws an analogy with the victorious communists in Russia submitting, according to him, to the "miserable, insignificant" culture of the vanquished :

"Will responsible communists [...] be able to understand that they do not know how to lead ? That they imagine they are leading others when in reality it is they who are being led ? If they manage to understand this, they will certainly learn to lead, because it is possible. But for that, one must study, and in our country, we do not study [6].

It was on the basis of this reflection that, after a refresher from July, he threw himself back into battle in the autumn.

The story that began then was for a long time known only through Trotsky’s testimony, the excerpts from documents published in The Disfigured Revolution, and his account in My Life – a version indignantly rejected in Moscow and dismissed as a "slanderous forgery" by those he contemptuously called "epigones." But this version was in fact resoundingly confirmed, starting in 1956, not only by Khrushchev’s "secret speech," but by the subsequent publication of documents whose very existence had been denied for so long. Shortly afterward, on the basis of this abundant documentation, Moshe Lewin published his work on Lenin’s Last Battle. Here we will try to use, in a more concise form, all of these documents concerning a few decisive months in Soviet history.

Trotsky’s account in My Life begins with an interview with Lenin, which he does not date precisely, but places "a few weeks before the second crisis" - which took place on December 16, 1922. The interview was prompted by a proposal from the education workers’ union to temporarily entrust Trotsky with the Commissariat of Education. Lenin was not enthusiastic.

Trotsky says :

"Heartily, insistently, visibly moved, Lenin expounded his plan.
[...] It is essential that you become my deputy. The situation is such that we need a radical regrouping of personnel." "I again alleged that the ’apparatus’ was increasingly hampering my work, even at the War Commissariat.
Well, you can shake up the apparatus," Lenin continued briskly, alluding to an expression I had used recently. "I replied that I had in mind not only the bureaucracy of the State, but that of the party ; that the root of all the difficulties lay in the complicity of the two apparatuses and in the mutual complicity of the influential groups that were forming around a hierarchy of party secretaries [7]."

In his 1927 testimony before the party’s Central Control Commission, Trotsky testified :

"Lenin called me to the Kremlin and spoke to me about the appalling development of bureaucratism in our Soviet apparatus and the need to find a lever to seriously address this issue. [...] I replied : ’Vladimir Ilyich, my conviction is that we must not forget that at present, in the struggle against the bureaucratism of the Soviet apparatus, in the provinces as well as in the center, a selection of functionaries and specialists, party members, non-party members and half-party members, is being created around certain leading groups and personalities of the party, in the province, in the district, in the region, in the center, that is, in the Central Committee, etc. By putting pressure on the functionary, we will clash with the leader of the party [...], and, in the present situation, I would not want to take on this task [8].’"

All this is in accordance with a letter of January 25, 1923, contained in Trotsky’s archives : in it he declared to the Central Committee that he had questioned before Lenin "the policy of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, of the Organization Bureau and of the Political Bureau in Soviet matters [9]", and the numerous interventions of these organizations, including behind the backs of the officials in office. He continues the story in My Life :

"After a moment’s reflection, Lenin put the question clearly :
So you propose to open the struggle not only against state bureaucracy, but also against the Organization Bureau of the Central Committee ?" "I started laughing, it was so unexpected. The Organization Bureau of the Central Committee was the very center of Stalin’s apparatus.

Let’s say that’s how it is.

Well, continued Lenin, visibly satisfied that we had given the question its proper formula, I propose that we join forces with you, against bureaucracy in general, and against the organizing bureau in particular.

It is flattering, I replied, to form an honest bloc with an honest man." [10] The 1927 deposition is quoted here almost word for word. The two men agreed to meet again. Lenin proposed to create within the Central Committee a "commission for the fight against bureaucratism" in which he wanted Trotsky to participate, according to the version in My Life, "a commission on the question of a more accurate selection, training and prognosis of civil servants and more correct international relations [11]", according to the note of January 25. The account is completed in My Life by a comment which is obviously not in the documents of 1923 and 1927 :

"Basically, this commission was to serve as a lever for the destruction of the Stalinist faction, the backbone of the bureaucracy, and for the creation in the party of conditions that would have given me the possibility of becoming Lenin’s replacement, in his thinking, of being his successor as Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars [12]." This agreement, which remained secret, underlies the entire history of this period and in particular the battles fought on Lenin’s initiative during which the "bloc" between the two men was strengthened and finally sealed.
The first battle took place over the question of the monopoly on foreign trade. It was brutally initiated by a promise made during the conversations in Riga by the People’s Commissar for Foreign Trade Miliutin to renounce it soon [13].

It seems that the majority of leaders, and among them Stalin, were then in favor, if not of its abolition, at least of its relaxation : all considered that a resumption and rapid development of international trade were necessary for the success of the NEP. Trotsky, for his part, was firmly opposed to a measure which, according to him, disarmed the workers’ state in the face of its class enemies. Lenin was also hostile to abolition and had clearly expressed this in March 1922. But he discovered with astonishment in May that Stalin considered a weakening of the monopoly as inevitable.
However, on October 6, at the Central Committee, in Lenin’s absence, the People’s Commissar of Finance, Sokolnikov, had the principle of significant exceptions to the monopoly adopted. Lenin reacted strongly to this decision and considered it, in the words of Mr. Lewin, as "a real blow that had been dealt to him [14]." He therefore began to campaign among the other leaders, inviting Trotsky to discuss this question with him on October 11, 1922 [15]. Probably encouraged by this interview, he addressed Stalin the day after to protest against "this blow to the monopoly of foreign trade [16]", and, moreover, without any real discussion. He insisted on postponing the solution of the problem by referring it to the next session of the Central Committee [17].
But the resistance proved more serious than Lenin had supposed. In a note written in his own hand on Lenin’s letter itself, Stalin remarked :
"Comrade Lenin’s letter has not changed my opinion as to the correctness of the decision of the Central Committee Plenum of October 6 concerning foreign trade [18]. » After some superficial considerations on the question, he added :
"Nevertheless, in view of the insistence of Comrade Lenin’s proposal to postpone the implementation of the plenum of the Central Committee, I vote in favor, so that this question may be discussed by the next plenum with the participation of Lenin [19]." The majority of the Central Committee followed him. On December 12, 1922, informed by a letter from Lenin that he was going to "wage war in favor of the monopoly of foreign trade [20]", Trotsky replied that he was convinced of the absolute necessity not only of maintaining, but also of strengthening the monopoly of foreign trade. He also drew his attention to the danger of undermining the monopoly under the pretext of carrying out equally necessary general reforms. Faithful to his analysis, he added in conclusion that the central question remained "the regulation of export trade in relation to overall economic operations" :
"Someone must know and decide what can and cannot be imported and what must be exported. [...] This should, obviously, be the work of the State Planning Commission [21]." Lenin’s response would considerably strengthen the bonds between the two men. He assured him of his agreement, then, his illness preventing him from participating in the Central Committee, asked him to defend their common position "on the necessity of maintaining and strengthening the monopoly of foreign trade [22]." After several exchanges, he concluded, in a letter dated December 15 :
"I consider that we have reached a complete agreement. Please announce our solidarity at the plenum. I hope that our resolution will pass, because several of those who voted against it in October are partly or totally going over to our side. "If, contrary to our expectations, our resolution does not pass, let us appeal to the faction of the Congress of Soviets and announce that we will bring the question before the Party Congress [23]." » Finally, in a letter addressed to Stalin to the members of the Central Committee, Lenin announced his intentions in a very provocative manner :
"I have now completed the liquidation of my affairs and I can leave in peace. I have also reached an agreement with Trotsky on the defense of my point of view on the monopoly of foreign trade. [...] I am convinced that Trotsky will defend my point of view as well, as I will myself [24]. " On December 18, 1922, the Central Committee annulled its decisions of October and satisfied Lenin. The latter, on the 21st, dictated a short note for Trotsky to Krupskaya, overjoyed at his victory :
"As it seems, we have succeeded in taking the position without a shot being fired, by a simple maneuver. I propose not to stop there and to continue the offensive [25]. " Thus the Lenin-Trotsky bloc had won its first battle even before its existence was known. Some people were beginning to sense its existence, and their sleep was probably disturbed. Didn’t its birth determine, or at least strengthen, the Zinoviev-Kamenev-Stalin troika ?
A few days later, Lenin finally agreed, with some reservations, with Trotsky’s point of view on Gosplan, writing in a note dictated on December 17, 1922 :
"This idea was put forward a long time ago, I believe, by Comrade Trotsky. I spoke out against it because I felt that it would create a fundamental discord in the system of our legislative institutions. But after careful examination, I see that, basically, this is a correct idea, namely : the State Planning Commission stands somewhat apart from our legislative institutions, although, being a group of competent people in science and technology, it actually has the maximum of elements at its disposal for judging matters correctly. [...] We must, I think, accede to Comrade Trotsky’s wish, without entrusting the chairmanship of the State Planning Commission to a person chosen from among our political leaders [26]. "
The second conflict between Lenin and Stalin was to be much more serious. The Georgian affair no longer only personally implicated Stalin – here as People’s Commissar for Nationalities – but also his system of government through the activities of his loyalists, and first and foremost, Ordzhonikidze.
We have seen how, in 1921, Stalin-Ordzhonikidze’s policy of fait accompli had led, initially, to the occupation of Georgia by the Red Army and, later, to its transformation at an accelerated pace into a Soviet Republic. Lenin had not formally opposed this, but the notes he had written on the subject, urging, for example, Ordzhonikidze to find a government agreement with the Mensheviks, betrayed his deep concern.
However, things developed, in 1922 and particularly during his period of leave, along lines that were hardly in accordance with his wishes. Very quickly, in fact, Ordzhonikidze’s satrapy behavior, sure of Stalin’s support and guaranteed against any surprise from Moscow, aroused the discontent, then the indignation and fury of the Georgian communists, who were legitimately sensitive to the national feelings of the population. The project of a Caucasian Federation grouping Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, inspired by Lenin, was rejected almost unanimously by the Georgian communists, and the Congress of Georgian Soviets adopted resolutions hostile to the Federation – even whose supporters, moreover, rose up against Ordzhonikidze’s autocratic practices.
On August 10, 1922, while Lenin was still kept very much away from public affairs due to his health, the Politburo decided to set up a commission to submit a draft regulating relations between the Russian Republic (the RSFSR) and the other independent republics, including Georgia. The commission, chaired by Stalin, quickly drew up a draft that simply amounted to the integration of the "independent" republics, which had become "autonomous," into the Russian Federation. The Georgian communists immediately expressed firm opposition, demanding that the draft be revised in such a way as to guarantee them "all the attributes of independence [27]."
The showdown was now underway between the Georgian Communist Party, all tendencies united, and the Caucasian bureau of the RCP(b) led by Ordzhonikidze, who bluntly called on his opponents to keep quiet and submit. Stalin rushed things forward in August by informing the Georgians that the decisions of the RSFSR applied, from now on and in any case, to their republic [28]. At the meeting of the commission on 24 and 25 September, the Ukrainians seemed close to aligning themselves with the Georgians.
Lenin had always been concerned with the national question and remembered the outcry that his position in favour of self-determination had provoked in the ranks of the party. There is therefore nothing extraordinary in his requesting the complete file on the commission’s activities, its proposals and the reception they had received. He received it on 25 September. Moshe Lewin rightly points out that it is quite clear that at that time, although sometimes reserved about Stalin’s behavior, he retained his complete personal confidence in him and did not for a moment doubt the veracity of his statements [29]. But he expressed reservations about the project, which he found a little "hasty," and spoke out both against the formula of "autonomous" republics within the Russian Federation, and for their integration, all of them, including the RSFSR, within a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [30].
Confident in himself, strengthened by the power he had acquired during the months of Lenin’s illness, Stalin seems to have grown impatient. He did not appreciate the remarks of the "Old Man" - whom he considered to be outside the scope of the project - and wanted to oppose him with a firm attitude. Communicating to the Politburo Lenin’s letter proposing modifications and amendments to the commission’s draft, he commented on it by accusing Lenin of both "national liberalism" and "hasty centralism", an attitude which, according to him, was only likely to encourage "nationalist" and "separatist" resistance from the Georgian communists in Georgia [31]. However, faithful to the tactics he had adopted for years, he did not confront Lenin before the Central Committee, gave in without a fight and allowed the assembly to rearrange the draft in accordance with Lenin’s wishes. It is very likely that the latter had been content, until then, to think, as he had suggested to Kamenev on September 26, that in this matter Stalin only had "some tendency to rush things." Stalin’s remarks on his project, his evasion of the discussion, alerted Lenin. On the very day of the debate in the Central Committee, he wrote a note to the Politburo heavy with meaning :
"I declare war to the death on Great Russian chauvinism. As soon as I am freed from my cursed tooth, I will devour it with all my healthy teeth. "It is absolutely necessary to insist that the Federal Central Executive Committee (of the Soviets) be chaired in turn by a Russian, a Ukrainian, a Georgian, etc. "Absolutely [32]." But the agreement reached at the Central Committee - in which Mdivani, spokesman for the opposing Georgian communists, had participated - was only a facade agreement. For the Georgians, the independent Republic of Georgia, along with the other Georgian republics, should be called upon to enter the Union of Republics on an equal footing with the RSFSR. Stalin and Ordzhonikidze, refusing to lose face, continued to demand Georgia’s entry into the Transcaucasian Federation and the admission of the federation alone into the USSR.
The test of strength had begun. With the unconditional support of the secretariat, Ordzhonikidze used it to dismantle the positions of his adversaries through transfers and appointments. The latter desperately sought possible support in Moscow, finally obtaining from Bukharin a request for him to submit a complaint to Lenin listing their grievances. Still convinced that Stalin, even if he was fundamentally wrong, was not manipulating the information he provided him, Lenin responded sharply to the Georgians, reproaching them for the "indecent tone" of their letter :
"I was convinced that all disagreements had been settled by the resolutions adopted by the plenary meeting of the Central Committee with my indirect participation and the direct participation of Mdivani. This is why I categorically condemn the insults directed at Ordzhonikidze and I insist that your conflict be brought in a proper and loyal tone before the secretariat of the Central Committee of the RCP which will decide [33]." Desperate at being thus sent back to Stalin to complain about him and his men, the Georgian opponents decided on a spectacular gesture : a mass resignation from the Central Committee of the Georgian CP, on October 22 [34]. Without wasting any time, Ordzhonikidze immediately had a new CC appointed by the Caucasian bureau. The incidents multiplied, and Ordzhonikidze allowed himself, during a scuffle, to hit Kibanidze, a supporter of Mdivani [35]. Letters, resolutions, complaints – even from supporters of the federation like Makharadze – were piling up in Moscow, denouncing the methods of the secretariat and its proconsul in Georgia. It seems that it was only then that Lenin began to have doubts. Abstaining from the vote in the Politburo to send to Georgia a commission of inquiry headed by Dzerzhinsky, head of the Cheka, he charged Rykov, who was leaving for Georgia, with a fact-finding mission [36].
The return, three days apart, of Rykov and the Dzerzhinsky commission, removed any illusions he still had. He learned that this commission had approved the secretariat’s decision to recall all of Ordzhonikidze’s opponents to Moscow, thus distancing them from Georgia. He also learned from Dzerzhinsky about Ordzhonikidze’s brutality against Kibanidze, which Rykov had tried to conceal from him. There is no doubt that Lenin was absolutely shocked by these discoveries. According to Moshe Lewin, his interview with Dzerzhinsky had "a harmful influence on the progression of Lenin’s illness and probably hastened the crisis" that was to strike him a few days later, on the morning of December 13 [37].
On December 30, despite the terrible difficulties he was now experiencing, he dictated the bulk of his notes on the nationalities question [38], beginning with the famous sentence : "I am, I believe, greatly guilty before the workers of Russia [39]. [...] We have," he writes further, "slid into a quagmire" :
"We call our own an apparatus which, in fact, is fundamentally alien to us and represents a hodgepodge of bourgeois and tsarist survivals [40]." What he discovered in the Georgian affair, under what he calls "a bureaucratic formula," was "the invasion of the authentic Russian, the Great Russian, the chauvinist, that scoundrel and oppressor who is at bottom the typical Russian bureaucrat [41]." And to clearly situate the responsibilities, he specifies :
"I think that a fatal role was played here by Stalin’s haste and his taste for administration, as well as by his irritation with the famous social-nationalism [42]." He also condemns what he calls Dzerzhinsky’s "100% Russian state of mind" and the "irreparable fault" he committed in taking lightly Ordzhonikidze’s brutalities [43]. His verdict against Stalin was fierce :
"The Georgian who looks with disdain at this side of the matter, who dismissively hurls accusations of ’social-nationalism’ (while he himself is not only a true, genuine ’social-nationalist’, but also a brutal Great Russian swindler), this Georgian is in reality undermining proletarian class solidarity [44]." In January and February 1923, despite all the restrictions imposed on his activity by the Politburo under the pretext of protecting his health – and which revolted him – Lenin worked hard on the Georgian question and succeeded in learning what was being hidden from him, namely the Politburo’s approval of the conclusions of the Dzerzhinsky Commission for the transfer of Mdivani’s comrades, and a moral discharge for Stalin and Ordzhonikidze. He then instructed a small group of his close collaborators to conduct the investigation for him : it was his "clandestine commission" that informed him, for example, that the text of Kibanidze’s complaint against Ordzhonikidze had "disappeared" from the file. On March 3, it submitted to him a detailed report, the text of which had remained secret, even at the time of de-Stalinization.
Lenin now had no more doubts and his position, completely reversed from that of the summer of 1922, was now very firm. He wrote to Trotsky on March 5 :
"I urge you to take charge of the defense of the Georgian case in the Central Committee of the Party. This case is currently under the "persecution" of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot trust their impartiality ! The opposite is true. If you agree to undertake the defense, then I can be reassured ; if you do not agree, for whatever reason, then return the file to me, I will see it as a sign of your disagreement. "With my best comradely greetings. [45]" In the account he gives in My Life, Trotsky assures that he decided to take on this defense. The Moscow Institute of Marxism-Leninism claims that he refused for health reasons, but provides no evidence to support this allegation. Adam B. Ulam also assures that he refused – because he returned the file without forgetting to take a copy – and that he then tried to conceal it. But his arguments are weak and his development allusive and confused [46]. In the appendices to the "Diary of Lenin’s Secretaries", Moshe Lewin cites a letter from L.A. Fotieva which constitutes proof of Trotsky’s acceptance [47]. Lewin further states :
"Thanks to the Diary and the other sources to which we refer here, we can see that Trotsky is a reliable source. Comparing them with the revelations of the IML, we see that his information are provided with the utmost honesty and accuracy. In all that he relates about the events in question here, he is at most – and rarely – mistaken by more than one day in his chronology [48]. » Placed in envelopes which Lenin’s secretaries specified, at his request, could only be opened by Krupskaya, Lenin’s reflections on the party leaders and on the national question were to remain unknown to Soviet citizens and even to party cadres. Two articles, however, published in Pravda several weeks apart, indicated to the attentive reader the distance that had grown in recent months between Lenin and Stalin. These
are two articles devoted to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, a people’s commissariat of which Stalin had not been a permanent official for a year, but where he continued, through the men he had placed there, to exercise a preponderant influence. Perfectly aware of the meaning of the attack made by Lenin, the Politburo considered for a moment not publishing these two texts, the very last dictated by Lenin.
The first article deals with the necessary "reorganization of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection [49]." The criticism is devastating. We will simply note that, while proposing a massive reduction in the Inspectorate’s staff to 300 or 400 employees, he asserts the necessity - no doubt in contrast to the reality of the time - that all the Inspectorate’s collaborators be "particularly checked with regard to their good faith and their knowledge of the state apparatus [50]."
With "Better less, but better," published in Pravda on March 4, 1923 [51], Lenin takes a further step in the sustained fire that he now openly directs against Stalin. Returning to his earlier reflections on the problems of culture in relation to the state apparatus, he first noted, in a very direct attack :
"It would be enough for us to begin with a genuine bourgeois culture : it would be enough for us, to begin with, to dispense with the particularly inveterate types of pre-bourgeois, that is, bureaucratic or feudal, cultures [52]. Turning once more to the question of the state apparatus, he noted that things there were "bad," even "detestable." There were, in his view, no elements "to build a truly new apparatus, one that fully deserves the name of socialist, Soviet, etc. apparatus [53]." This was precisely what, in his eyes, first implied a transformation of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate into a new "People’s Commissariat." He gave a very important definition of what he called "the best" of the Soviet social system :
"The advanced workers first of all, and secondly, the truly educated elements for whom one can vouch that they will not take anything at face value and that they will not say a word that is contrary to their conscience, are not afraid to become aware of difficulties, whatever they may be, and will not shrink from any struggle to achieve the goal that they have seriously set for themselves [54]." Having thus negatively defined the elements of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, he finally dotted the i’s and crosses the t’s, dealing a severe blow to Stalin’s prestige :
"Let us speak frankly. The People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection does not at present enjoy a shadow of prestige. Everyone knows that there are no institutions more badly organized than those which come under our Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, and that, under present conditions, nothing can be demanded of this commissariat. [...] I ask any current leader of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection or persons connected with it to tell me in all conscience what practical need there is for a commissariat like the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection [55].
The "de-Stalinization" under Khrushchev’s aegis - as has already been emphasized - ultimately "revealed" only what was already known. In any case, it constituted, without, of course, having intended it, a confirmation of the veracity of the documents and texts cited or mentioned by Trotsky. Writing in 1967, Moshe Lewin could confidently assure that the Moscow publications of recent years had made it possible to confirm the accuracy of Trotsky’s testimony.
First among these documents is obviously Lenin’s letter to the Central Committee, which is called, somewhat improperly, his "testament" : notes dictated on December 23 and 24, 1922, and completed on January 4, 1923.
In this famous text, Lenin returns to the problem that had been at the center of his concerns since the winter of 1920-1921, namely the risk of a split in the party and, in the immediate future, the problem of the cohesion of the Central Committee. He writes :
"I consider that in this respect, the essential point in the problem of cohesion is the existence of members of the Central Committee like Stalin and Trotsky. The relations between them constitute, in my opinion, the main danger of this split, which could be avoided [56]. » He then moves on to a brief characterization of the two men :
"Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated unlimited power in his hands, and I am not sure that he can always use it with sufficient circumspection. On the other hand, Comrade Trotsky, as his struggle against the Central Committee in the question of the People’s Commissariat for Communication has already shown, is not only distinguished by his eminent abilities. He is perhaps the most capable man in the present Central Committee. But he is guilty of excess self-confidence and an exaggerated infatuation with the purely administrative side [57]." A few lines further on, referring to "the October episode of Zinoviev and Kamenev," which he does not consider "accidental," he assures that they cannot be blamed for it any more than "Trotsky’s non-Bolshevism." A few sentences on Bukharin and Pyatakov conclude this brief presentation [58].
This text – whose very existence has been contested for so long and with so much violence – deserves a careful examination, which has only rarely been granted to it, perhaps because all the attention was devoted to the problem of its existence.
The first observation that is necessary is that Lenin considers Stalin and Trotsky as the two eminent leaders – an assertion which, according to Moshe Lewin, “had the potential, by the place given to Stalin, to astonish the country, to hurt Trotsky and to unpleasantly surprise Zinoviev and Kamenev [59]”. Did it correspond, as the same author suggests, to Lenin’s discovery of the extent of the powers held by Stalin, who had become General Secretary ? It is possible, but not proven.
Moshe Lewin also underlines the care with which Lenin draws the portrait of the two men in such a way as to reveal no preference. The superior individual qualities – the gifts and the talent – ​​that he recognizes in Trotsky are compensated by the reminder of his behavior during the trade union discussion and that of his past as an anti-Bolshevik conciliator. As far as Stalin is concerned, the emphasis is not on the man and his qualities, but on the extent of his power and the risk – the risk only – that he might use it imprudently. The historian is right when he writes :
"Let us suppose that the notes had been drafted here and that they were then read from the podium of a party congress, they would seem to be dominated by a concern for balance, by the desire to maintain the status quo in order to avoid a split [60]." This last message from Lenin to his party would therefore have been, on December 25, 1922, a call for prudence, an invitation to preserve a balance, a warning against anything in either of the two "eminent leaders" that could harm the cohesion of the leadership.
However, on January 4, 1923, he dictated to Fotieva an addition that changed everything and in particular destroyed the balance over which he had until then jealously guarded :
"Stalin is too brutal, and this defect, perfectly tolerable in our milieu and in the relations between us communists, is no longer so in the functions of General Secretary. I therefore propose to the comrades to study a means of removing Stalin from this post and of appointing in his place another person who would have in all things only one advantage over Comrade Stalin, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to the comrades, of less capricious temper, etc. These traits may seem to be only a tiny detail. But, in my opinion, to preserve us from splitting and taking into account what I wrote above on the relations between Stalin and Trotsky, it is not a detail, or it is one which may take on decisive importance [61]. " What happened between December 24, 1922 and January 4, 1923 ? The temptation – which some historians have not resisted – is to look for the personal incident, the straw that broke the camel’s back of disagreements. Stalin, however, finds it difficult to accept the accumulation of critical remarks coming from the room of a sick person whose guardianship he hopes to have shaken off. The correspondence between Lenin and Trotsky, their meetings, the letter from the former to the latter of December 18, celebrating their victory in the battle for the foreign trade monopoly, appear to him as so many intolerable threats, enrage him and undoubtedly make him lose his composure. On December 21, in fact, learning that the letter had been dictated to Krupskaya, he calls her on the telephone, insults her and threatens her for having contravened medical prescriptions, even though she had the doctors’ agreement to take down a text that Lenin wanted dictated.
Lenin’s companion protested the same day in a letter to Kamenev, vice-president of the government, and asked to be "protected from gross interference [...], from unworthy insults and threats [62]". Did Krupskaya, who did not immediately inform Lenin of the incident, to avoid him getting upset, speak to him about it between December 25, 1922 and January 4, 1923 ? This would be an event-related explanation of this addition which completely changes the original form of the "testament".
Until additional convincing evidence is produced, particularly on the chronology, we, for our part, fully subscribe to the explanation proposed on this point by Moshe Lewin :
"We know enough about Lenin to find an explanation for Ilyich’s statements against Stalin that better suits his character, his conscience as a responsible leader, for whom politics took precedence over all other considerations [63]. The historian of Lenin’s Last Battle considers it impossible that the incident between Stalin and Krupskaya could have pushed Lenin to "a political act likely to upset the balance of power in the Central Committee."
"He had much more serious reasons for doing so. To be convinced of this, it is enough to study the notes on the national question [...] dictated on December 30 and 31 [64]. It was only on March 5, 1923, that, referring to Stalin’s "rudeness" and "telephone abuse" to Krupskaya, Lenin wrote to Stalin that what was directed against his wife was also directed against him. He gave him the choice between an apology and a break in their personal relations. On the same day, he wrote to Mdivani the letter we know and instructed Fotieva to inform Kamenev of his alliance with Trotsky in the Georgian affair [65]. His secretary, Gliasser, announced to Trotsky : "Vladimir Ilyich is preparing a bomb against Stalin [66]. "
On March 7, it was the second attack, infinitely more severe than the first. Lenin, according to the official communiqués, no longer had the power of speech. He would survive for more than ten months, probably aware of his decline and condemned to the torture of total impotence.
Everything ultimately indicates that Lenin, at the beginning of 1923, had indeed decided to engage in the fight against Stalin and the bureaucracy, starting with the party apparatus, and that it was for this purpose that he had concluded an alliance with Trotsky which had begun to be implemented. Trotsky is perfectly convincing from this point of view when he writes in My Life :
"[After January 4], Lenin was no longer merely preparing Stalin’s elimination from the post of General Secretary ; he wanted to disqualify him before the party. On the question of the monopoly of foreign trade, on the question of the internal regime of the party, of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection and on the Control Commission, Lenin, systematically and persistently, aimed to deal at the Twelfth Congress, through the person of Stalin, the most terrible blow to bureaucratism, to the complicit solidarity of functionaries, to the abuses of power, to arbitrariness and to brutality [67]." He then poses the question :
"Could Lenin have succeeded in the regroupment he was planning in the leadership of the party [68] ?" And he answers clearly :
"At that time, without a doubt. [...] Our joint action, if it had taken place at the beginning of 1923, would certainly have assured us victory. [...] To what extent this victory would have been lasting is another question. [...] In 1922-1923, it was still quite possible to seize the main strategic position by waging an open offensive against the rapidly forming faction of National Socialist functionaries, usurpers of the apparatus, seizers of the October legacy, epigones of Bolshevism [69]. » Trying to answer the same question, Moshe Lewin, for his part, notes that Lenin, at the beginning of 1923, after his addition of January 4, no longer seemed to worry about the danger of factionalism which had seemed to dominate his concerns since 1921. He also thinks that Lenin only sensed part of the reality, "the extent of the danger represented by the abuse of power" that could be committed at the top of the hierarchy, and "its degeneration into an irresponsible personal dictatorship." He continues :
"To avoid being beaten, Lenin would have had to perform prodigies of skill, he would have had to show himself to be audacious, a skillful maneuverer, a political innovator. [...] He would have had to, in his own words, "show prodigious obstinacy." One can think that he was capable of it. It is legitimate to think that Lenin, acting in concert with Trotsky and others, could have led Soviet Russia down a less tragic, more rational path, one that would have less compromised the idea of ​​socialism. [...] Between them, they symbolized the mobilizing call of the October Revolution [70]. » Taking stock of the Georgian affair, he writes that it is perfectly legitimate to suppose that the subsequent structure of the Soviet Union would have been ultimately quite different from what it was to become [71] …
Lenin’s absence and Trotsky’s reservations had limited consequences, at the time, in the Politburo of the CPSU, but which could only have contributed significantly to the increase in tensions and the aggravation of antagonisms.
The first conflict at the top erupted over Lenin’s article on the reorganization of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, which Bukharin did not publish in Pravda on January 23, 1923, as Lenin had requested, sending it to the editorial office of the party’s central organ. Krupskaya then telephoned Trotsky to ask for his intervention, emphasizing Lenin’s impatience with the publication of his plan. It was Trotsky who obtained the immediate convening of the Politburo on this issue.
All those present at the beginning of the meeting, Stalin, Molotov, Kuibyshev, Rykov, Kalinin, and Bukharin—with the sole exception of Trotsky—declared themselves against Lenin’s plan and the publication of the article, which was particularly vigorously rejected by the members of the secretariat. In response to Trotsky, who emphasized Lenin’s impatience to have the newspaper with the printed article in hand, Kuibyshev even proposed printing a single issue of Pravda containing the article and intended for Lenin alone. Kamenev, who arrived an hour late, supported Trotsky : for them, it was impossible to hide Lenin’s article from the party—something which ultimately convinced the opponents of the publication, not without ulterior motives. Lenin’s article was therefore finally published in Pravda on January 25.
A second, very lively debate then began around plans for the reorganization of the Central Committee, one of which was tabled by Lenin, the other by the General Secretariat. Trotsky also resolutely fought against Lenin’s proposal to increase the number of members of the Central Committee, which he believed would make him more easily manipulated. A campaign of innuendos would accuse him of covertly combating Lenin’s ideas. Informed of this, he protested in a letter to the Central Committee on February 23, threatening to bring the debate before the entire party in order to put an end to the rumors and make everyone face up to their responsibilities. Grievances multiplied and resentment grew.
However, uncertainty continued to hover over Lenin’s health : would "the Old Man" recover sufficiently to resume some activity, and in how long ? This situation would continue for months : as long as Lenin’s recovery and return to office remained a plausible eventuality, the Lenin-Trotsky bloc would remain a possibility, a threat that their target did not underestimate. The political struggle at the top of the first "workers’ state" depended, under these conditions, on doctors and the fight against arteriosclerosis in a still young man whose constitution was then considered, perhaps wrongly, exceptionally robust.
Trotsky was more aware of this than anyone else. The responsibilities weighing on his shoulders, starting with Lenin’s relapse, became overwhelming on the eve of the 12th Congress. Could one behave in the party as if Lenin were dead ? Should one postpone to a later date any major decision concerning the future of the party and only engage in combat if he dies or recovers ?
This was certainly the type of problem for which Trotsky was least prepared.

References

[1] The documentary bases of this chapter, which until then were found exclusively in the archives or Trotsky’s writings, were expanded by publications from the Khrushchev era, in particular Lenin’s documents, which had been hidden until then. Two important works : Lidia Aleksandrovna Fotieva, Iz vospominianii o Lenine (Moscow, 1964), and Moshé Lewin, Le dernier combat de Lénine (Paris, 1964), have supplemented but not substantially modified them. See also Anna Di Biagio "Stalin e Trockij : dopo la revoluzione (1921-1923), Problemi del Socialismo" series 4.21.1980, (No. 17) pp. 113-148.

[2] Lenin, Works, vol. 33, p. 60.

[3] Ibid., pp. 72-73.

[4] Ibid., p. 293.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., p. 294.

[7] MV, III, p. 200.

[8] Letter to Istpart, DLR, p. 165.

[9] Trotsky Archives, Harvard, letter of January 25, 1923, T 775.

[10] MV, III, pp. 200-201.

[11] Ibidem, p. 201, as well as AH, T 775.

[12] MV, III, p. 201.

[13] Lewin, Last Fight, p. 46.

[14] Ibid., p. 48.

[15] DLR, p. 155.

[16] Lenin, Works, vol. 33, p. 382.

[17] Ibid., pp. 383-384.

[18] Fotieva, op. cit., pp. 28-29.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Lenin, Works, vol. 45, p. 622.

[21] TP, II, pp. 778-780.

[22] Lenin, Works, vol. 45, p. 622.

[23] Ibid., p. 626.

[24] Ibid., pp. 623-624.

[25] Ibid., p. 627.

[26] Lenin, Works, vol. 36, pp. 611-612.

[27] Lewin, op. cit., p. 59.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid., p. 61.

[30] Quoted ibidem, pp. 146-148.

[31] Lewin, op. cit., pp. 149-150.

[32] Lenin, Works, vol. 33, p. 379.

[33] Lenin, Works, vol. 45, p. 601.

[34] Fotieva, op. cit., p. 52.

[35] Ibid., p. 75.

[36] Lewin, op. cit., p. 68.

[37] Ibid., p. 78.

[38] Lenin, Works, vol. 36, pp. 618-624.

[39] Ibid., p. 618.

[40] Ibid., p. 619.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid., p. 620.

[44] Ibid., pp. 621-622.

[45] Lenin, Works, vol. 45, p. 628.

[46] Adam B. Ulam, The Bolsheviks, pp. 571-573.

[47] Notebooks of the Russian and Soviet World, 26 (27), p. 328.

[48] ​​Ibidem, m. 1, p. 297.

[49] Lenin, Works, vol. 36, pp. 611-615.

[50] Lenin, Works, vol. 33, pp. 495-500.

[51] Ibid., pp. 500-517.

[52] Ibid., p. 501.

[53] Ibid., pp. 501-502.

[54] Ibid., pp. 503.

[55] Ibid., pp. 504-505.

[56] Lenin, Works, vol. 36, p. 606.

[57] Ibid., p. 607.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Lewin, op. cit., p. 88.

[60] Ibid., p. 90.

[61] Lenin, Works, vol. 36, p. 608.

[62] Lewin, op. cit., pp. 150-151.

[63] Ibid., p. 92.

[64] Ibid. p. 93.

[65] Lenin, Works, vol. 45, pp. 628-629.

[66] DL .R., p. 166.

[67] M .V., III, pp. 202-203.

[68] Ibid., p. 203.

[69] Ibid., pp. 203-204.

[70] Lewin, op. cit., pp. 140-141.

[71] DLR, p. 164.
Lenin

THE QUESTION OF NATIONALITIES OR “AUTOMY” [1]

I am very guilty, I believe, before the workers of Russia, of not having intervened with enough energy and harshness in the famous question of autonomy, officially called, if I am not mistaken, the question of the union of Soviet socialist republics.

In the summer, when this question arose, I was ill, and in the autumn I relied too much on my recovery and also on the hope that the plenary sessions of October and December [2] would allow me to intervene in this question. However, I was unable to attend either the October session (devoted to this problem) or the December one ; and so the question was discussed almost completely without my assistance.

I was only able to speak with Comrade Dzerzhinsky, who, upon his return from the Caucasus, informed me of the status of this question in Georgia. I was also able to exchange a few words with Comrade Zinoviev and express my fears on this subject. From the communication I received from Comrade Dzerzhinsky, who was at the head of the commission sent by the Central Committee to "investigate" the Georgian incident, I was able to draw only the most serious fears. If things have reached the point where Ordzhonikidze has allowed himself to resort to violence, as Comrade Dzerzhinsky told me, you can well imagine the quagmire into which we have fallen. Obviously, this whole enterprise of "autonomy" has been fundamentally mistaken and untimely.

It is claimed that it was absolutely necessary to unify the apparatus. Where did these assertions come from ? Is it not from this same apparatus of Russia, which, as I have already said in a previous issue of my newspaper, we borrowed from Tsarism, merely smearing it with a Soviet varnish ?

Undoubtedly, this measure should have been postponed until the day when we could have said that we were the guarantors of our apparatus, because we had it well in hand. And now we must in all conscience say the opposite ; we call our own an apparatus which, in fact, is still fundamentally foreign to us and represents a hodgepodge of bourgeois and tsarist survivals, which it was absolutely impossible for us to transform in five years for lack of help from other countries and at a time when military concerns and the fight against famine predominated.

In these conditions, it is quite natural that the "freedom to leave the union," which serves as our justification, appears as a bureaucratic formula incapable of defending the non-natives of Russia against the invasion of the authentic Russian, the Great Russian, the chauvinist, that scoundrel and oppressor who is, at bottom, the typical Russian bureaucrat. There is no doubt that the Soviet and Sovietized workers, who are in tiny proportion, would drown in this ocean of chauvinistic Great Russian rabble, like a fly in milk.

To support this measure, it is said that we have created people’s commissariats dealing specifically with national psychology and national education. But then a question arises : is it possible to detach these people’s commissariats entirely ? Second question : Have we taken measures carefully enough to really protect foreigners against the typical Russian policeman ? I think we have not taken these measures, although we could and should have done so.

I think that a fatal role was played here by Stalin’s haste and his taste for administration, as well as by his irritation with the notorious "social-nationalism." Irritation generally plays a most disastrous role in politics.

I also fear that Comrade Dzerzhinsky, who went to the Caucasus to investigate the "crimes" of these "social-nationals," has also distinguished himself here essentially by his 100% Russian attitude (we know that Russified foreigners constantly exaggerate in this matter), and that the impartiality of his entire commission is characterized enough by Ordzhonikidze’s "attacks." I think that these Russian assaults cannot be justified by any provocation, or even by any outrage, and that Comrade Dzerzhinsky has committed an irreparable error by regarding these assaults too lightly.

Ordzhonikidze represented power for all other citizens of the Caucasus. He had no right to lose his temper, a right that he and Dzerzhinsky invoked. Ordzhonikidze should, on the contrary, have shown a composure that no ordinary citizen is required to display, especially if he is accused of a "political" crime. For, at heart, the Social Nationalists were citizens accused of a political crime, and the whole atmosphere of this accusation could not characterize him otherwise.

Here an important question of principle arises : How should we conceive of internationalism ?[3]

Lenin

30.XII.22.

Continuation of the notes.

December 31, 1922.

The question of nationalities or “autonomy”

(following)

I have already written in my works on the national question that it is quite futile to pose the question of nationalism in general in the abstract. We must distinguish between the nationalism of the oppressing nation and that of the oppressed nation, between the nationalism of a large nation and that of a small nation.

With regard to the second nationalism, we, the nationals of a great nation, are almost always guilty, throughout history, of an infinite number of acts of violence, and even more, we commit an infinite number of injustices and exactions without realizing it. One need only recall my memories from the Volga of the way in which foreigners are treated among us : the Pole, the Tatar, the Ukrainian, the Georgian and the other foreigners of the Caucasus are only called by pejorative nicknames, such as "Polyatchichka", "Kniaz", "Khokhol", "Kapkazski tchélovek".

Therefore, internationalism on the part of the oppressing nation, or of the so-called "great" nation (even if it is great only in its violence, great simply as, for example, the policeman) must consist not only in respect for the formal equality of nations, but also in a compensatory inequality on the part of the oppressing nation, of the great nation, for the inequality that manifests itself practically in life. Whoever has not understood this has also not understood what the truly proletarian attitude to the national question is : he basically adheres to the petty-bourgeois point of view and, consequently, can only slide at every moment towards the positions of the bourgeoisie.

What is important for the proletarian ? It is important, but also essential and indispensable, that he be assured in the proletarian class struggle of the maximum confidence on the part of the non-natives. What is necessary for this ? For this, not only formal equality is necessary ; it is also necessary to compensate in one way or another, by one’s behavior or concessions to the non-native, the distrust, suspicion, and grievances that, throughout history, have been engendered in him by the government of the "imperialist" nation.

I think that for the Bolsheviks, for the Communists, it is hardly necessary to explain this further. And I believe that here we have, as far as the Georgian nation is concerned, a typical example of the fact that a truly proletarian attitude demands that we redouble our prudence, thoughtfulness, and accommodation. The Georgian who looks with disdain on this side of the matter, who dismissively hurls accusations of "social-nationalism" (while he himself is not only a true, genuine "social-national," but also a brutal Great Russian swindler), this Georgian is in reality harming proletarian class solidarity, for there is nothing that retards its development and consolidation like national injustice ; there is nothing that is more sensitive to "offended" nationals than the feeling of equality and the violation of this equality, even if by negligence or jest, by their proletarian comrades. That is why, in the case under consideration, it is better to force the note in the direction of the spirit of accommodation and gentleness towards national minorities than to do the opposite. That is why, in the case under consideration, the fundamental interest of proletarian solidarity, and therefore of the proletarian class struggle, demands that we never observe a purely formal attitude towards the national question, but that we always take into account the obligatory difference in the behavior of the proletarian of an oppressed (or small) nation towards the oppressing (or large) nation.

Lenin

Consigned by MV

Continuation of the notes.

December 31, 1922.

So what practical measures should be taken in the situation thus created ?

First, the union of the socialist republics must be maintained and consolidated ; there can be no doubt about this. This measure is necessary for us, as it is for the world communist proletariat to fight the world bourgeoisie and defend itself against its intrigues.

Secondly, the union of the socialist republics must be maintained in the diplomatic apparatus. This is, moreover, an exception in our state apparatus. We have not admitted a single person of any influence from the old tsarist apparatus. Both the middle and the upper management are communists in its personnel. Thus, it has already earned (one can boldly say so) the name of a tried and tested communist apparatus, infinitely better purged of elements of the old tsarist, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois apparatus than that with which we are obliged to be content in the other people’s commissariats.

Thirdly, exemplary punishment must be inflicted on Comrade Ordzhonikidze (I say this with all the more regret because I personally count myself among his friends and have been active with him abroad, in exile), and also the investigation must be completed or a new investigation must be carried out into all the documents of the Dzerzhinsky Commission, in order to correct the enormous number of irregularities and biased judgments that are undoubtedly found there. It goes without saying that it is Stalin and Dzerzhinsky who must be held politically responsible for this fundamentally Great Russian nationalist campaign.

Fourthly, the most rigorous rules regarding the use of the national language in the allogeneic republics forming part of our Union must be introduced, and these rules must be checked with the greatest care. There is no doubt that, under the pretext of unity of railway services, under the pretext of fiscal unity, etc., an infinite number of abuses of an authentically Russian nature will arise among us with our present apparatus. To combat these abuses requires a very special spirit of initiative, not to mention the extreme loyalty of those who will lead this fight. A meticulous code will be necessary, and only the nationals living in the given republic are capable of elaborating it with any success. And one must never swear in advance that as a result of all this work there will be a step backward at the next Congress of Soviets by maintaining the union of the Soviet Socialist Republics only on the military and diplomatic level, and by reestablishing in all other respects the complete autonomy of the different people’s commissariats.

It must not be forgotten that the fragmentation of the people’s commissariats and the lack of coordination of their functioning in relation to Moscow and other centers can be sufficiently compensated by the authority of the Party, if this is exercised with sufficient circumspection and in all impartiality ; the harm that the absence of national apparatuses unified with the Russian apparatus can cause to our State is infinitely, immeasurably less than that which results for us, for the entire International, for the hundreds of millions of people of the peoples of Asia, who will appear after us on the historical forefront in the near future. It would be unforgivable opportunism if, on the eve of this intervention of the East and at the beginning of its awakening, we were to ruin our authority in its eyes by the slightest brutality or injustice towards our own foreigners. One thing is the necessity of making a united front against the imperialists of the West, defenders of the capitalist world. There can be no doubt about this, and it is superfluous to add that I absolutely approve of these measures. It is another thing to engage ourselves, even in matters of detail, in imperialist relations with oppressed nationalities, thereby arousing suspicion about the sincerity of our principles, about our principled justification of the struggle against imperialism. Now, tomorrow, in world history, will be precisely the day of the definitive awakening of the peoples oppressed by imperialism and the beginning of a long and bitter battle for their liberation.

Lenin

31.XII.22.

Notes

Notes added by the editor are marked [NE]

[1] Autonomy, the project to organize all the republics forming the RSFSR on the basis of autonomy. The project of "autonomy" was submitted by Stalin. Lenin severely criticized it and proposed a fundamentally different solution to this question : the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, comprising republics equal in law. In December 1922, the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR decided to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. [NE]

[2] These are the plenary sessions of the CC of the CP(b)R, which took place in October and December 1922 and which deliberated on the problem of the formation of the USSR [NE]

[3] Further on in the shorthand notes, the sentence "I think our comrades have not sufficiently understood this important question of principle" is crossed out. [NE]
Lenin in "Less is better but better" :

"Things are so bad with our state apparatus, not to say detestable, that we must first think seriously about how to combat its defects ; these, let us not forget, go back to the past, which, it is true, has been overturned, but has not yet been abolished ; it is not a question of a cultural stage long since over. The question here is precisely that of culture, because in this order of things, one must consider as realized only that which has entered into cultural life, into morals, into customs. Now, with us, what is good in our social organization is seized in haste, one could not less ponder, understand, feel, verify, test, confirmed by experience, consolidated, etc. It certainly could not be otherwise in a revolutionary era and with such a dizzying development which has brought us, in five years, from tsarism to the regime of the Soviets.

It is time to become reasonable. We must imbue ourselves with a healthy distrust of an inconsiderate impulse, of any kind of boasting, etc. ; we must think about verifying the measures that we proclaim every hour, that we take every minute and whose weakness, inconsistent and unintelligible character we then demonstrate every second. The most harmful thing here would be haste. The most harmful thing would be to believe that the little we know is enough, or that we possess a more or less considerable number of elements to build a truly new apparatus, and one that truly deserves the name of socialist, Soviet, etc.

No, we practically do not have this device, and we even possess ridiculously few elements that would allow us to create it. And we must not forget that to put it in place, we must not spare any time, and that it will take many, many, many years.

What elements do we possess to create this apparatus ? Only two. First, the workers, excited by the struggle for socialism. They are not sufficiently educated. They would like to give us a better apparatus. But they do not know how to go about it. They cannot do it. They are not sufficiently trained, they do not have the required level of culture. And to do this, one must have culture. Here, one cannot get by with a stroke of audacity or an assault, with energy or courage, or, in general, with any of the best human qualities, whatever they may be. Second, we possess elements of knowledge, education, and teaching, but ridiculously few compared to all other countries.

And we must not forget that we are still too inclined to want to replace this knowledge (or to imagine that we can replace it) with zeal, haste, etc. (...)

For five years we have been striving to perfect our state apparatus. But this has been nothing but vain agitation which, in these five years, has simply shown us that it is ineffective, or even useless, or even harmful. This vain agitation gave us the appearance of work ; in reality, it clogged our institutions and our minds.

This finally needs to change.

We must adopt this rule : less is better, but better. We must adopt this rule : it is better in two years or even three years than to rush things without any hope of forming good human material.

I know that it will be difficult to observe this rule and to apply it in our situation. I know that the opposite rule will force its way through a thousand twists and turns. I know that it will require formidable resistance, that it will require prodigious perseverance ; that this work, at least in the first years, will be devilishly thankless. And yet I am convinced that it is only in this way that we will achieve our goal and, once this goal is achieved, will be able to found a republic truly worthy of the name of Socialist Republic, Soviet Republic, etc., etc., etc.

It is likely that many readers found the figures I cited as examples in my first article [1] too inadequate. I am sure that many calculations can be produced to show the inadequacy of these figures. But I think that above all possible and imaginable calculations, we must place one thing : truly exemplary quality.

I believe that the time has come when we must deal properly and with all due seriousness with our state apparatus, and when haste would perhaps be the greatest harm. Therefore, I would like to warn against increasing these figures. On the contrary, I think that here we must be particularly sparing with figures. Let us be clear. The People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection does not enjoy a shadow of prestige at the moment. Everyone knows that there are no institutions less organized than those under our Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, and that under present conditions nothing can be demanded of this Commissariat. We must remember this if we really want to succeed in establishing, within a few years, an institution which, firstly, will be exemplary, secondly, will inspire absolute confidence in everyone, and thirdly, will show everyone that we have truly justified the activities of this high institution, the Central Control Commission. All general norms for the personnel of its administrations must, in my opinion, be banished from the outset and without appeal. We must choose the cadres of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection with particular care, subjecting them to the most rigorous examination, and nothing else. Indeed, what is the point of founding a People’s Commissariat where the work is done as best it can, which, again, would not inspire the slightest confidence, and whose opinion would have only the slightest authority ? I think that our main task is to avoid this in the reorganization we are now planning.

The workers whom we appoint as members of the Central Control Commission must be irreproachable communists, and I think that a long effort must be devoted to teaching them the methods and objectives of their work. Then there must be a certain number of secretaries as auxiliaries who must be carefully subjected to a triple check before being admitted. Finally, those applicants whom we have decided, as an exception, to be immediately recruited to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection must meet the following conditions :

firstly, they will be recommended by several communists ;

secondly, they will undergo a test to prove that they know our state apparatus ;

thirdly, they will undergo a test attesting that they know the elements of the theory relating to our state apparatus, the principles of administrative science, writing, etc. ;

Fourthly, they will have to work in good understanding with the members of the Central Control Commission and with their own secretariat, so that we can answer for the proper functioning of the entire apparatus.

I know that these are extraordinary conditions, and I am very much afraid that the majority of the "practical" workers in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection will declare them unrealizable, or will greet them with a disdainful smile. But I ask any of the present leaders of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection or of the persons attached to this Commissariat : can he tell me frankly what is the practical use of this People’s Commissariat, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection ? I think that this question will enable him to find a sense of proportion. Either it is not worthwhile to carry out the reorganization—we have seen so many of them—of this hopeless enterprise, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection ; or we must really set ourselves the task of creating, through a slow, difficult, unusual effort, not without resorting to numerous checks, something truly exemplary, capable of inspiring respect in everyone, not only because titles and ranks oblige.

If you don’t have patience, if you don’t devote several years to this work, it’s better not to undertake it.

I think that among the institutions we have already created, in the way of higher institutes of labor, etc., we must choose a minimum, check whether they are organized with all the required seriousness, and continue the work, but only in such a way that it is truly at the height of modern science, that it allows us to benefit from all its achievements. Therefore, it will not be a utopia to hope to have, in a few years, an institution that will be able to fulfill its task, that is to say, to perfect our state apparatus methodically, without fail, enjoying the confidence of the working class, the Communist Party of Russia and the entire population of our Republic.

Preparatory action could begin now. If the Commissariat of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection accepted the plan for this reform, it could begin preparations immediately and continue to act systematically to bring them to fruition, without rushing and without refusing to repeat what has been done once.

Half measures would be extremely harmful here. Any other considerations that might be made about the size of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection would in reality be based on old bureaucratic principles, on old prejudices, on what has already been condemned and which provokes public ridicule, etc.

All in all, the question arises as follows :

Either we must show, already now, that we have acquired serious knowledge in the matter of state building (it is not forbidden to learn something in five years) ; or we are not yet ready for it, and then it is not worth taking on.

I think that with the human resources at our disposal, it would not be immodest to assume that we already know enough to be able to rebuild from scratch, methodically, at least one People’s Commissariat. It is true that this single Commissariat must give the measure of our entire state apparatus.

Immediately open a competition for the writing of two or more textbooks dealing with the organization of labor in general, and especially with administration. One could take as a basis Iermansky’s book, although, incidentally, this author clearly sympathizes with Menshevism and is incapable of writing a textbook suitable for the Soviet government. Then one could take as a basis Kerzhentsev’s recently published work ; finally, one could also make use of a few other textbooks dealing with various aspects of the question.

Send a few knowledgeable and conscientious people to Germany or England to gather documentation and study the problem. I said England in case travel to America or Canada is impossible.

Appoint a commission to draw up the preliminary programme of examinations to be administered to persons applying for a position in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate ; the same applies to applicants for positions as members of the Central Control Commission.

These and similar activities will, of course, not bother the People’s Commissar, the members of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection College, or the Presidium of the Central Control Commission.

At the same time, a preparatory commission will have to be appointed to find candidates for the positions of members of the Central Control Commission. I hope that for these positions we will now have a more than sufficient number of candidates, both among experienced employees of the administrations and among students of our Soviet schools. It would hardly be rational to exclude in advance this or that category. We will probably have to give preference to a varied staff for this institution, where we must seek a synthesis of many qualities, of diverse merits. So a great effort will have to be made to draw up the list of candidates. It would be highly undesirable for this new Commissariat to be formed according to a single standard, say, the type of official, or by eliminating the type of agitator, or men whose distinguishing feature is sociability or the ability to penetrate circles unfamiliar to this type of employee, etc.

It seems to me that I can best express my thoughts by comparing my plan to institutions of an academic nature. The members of the Central Control Commission will be required, under the direction of their presidium, to regularly examine all the files and documents of the Political Bureau. On the other hand, they will have to rationally distribute their time between the various tasks of checking the records in our institutions, from the smallest and least important to the large state administrations. Finally, they will also have to study the theory, that is, the theory of the organization of the work to which they intend to devote themselves ; they will also have to carry out practical exercises under the direction of either experienced comrades or professors from the higher institutes of labor organization.

But I think that they will not have to limit themselves to this purely academic activity. They will also have to prepare themselves for functions that I would not hesitate to call preparation for hunting, I would not say for rogues, but for something of that kind, and invention of tricks intended to conceal their campaigns, their marches and counter-marches, etc.

In the institutions of Western Europe, such proposals would have provoked unheard-of indignation, a feeling of moral revolt, etc. ; but I hope that we are not yet bureaucratized to that extent. The NEP has not yet acquired such a reputation in our country that we would be offended by the idea of ​​catching someone. Our Soviet Republic was built so recently, and there is such a jumble there that no one will think of being offended by the idea that, in this jumble, excavations could be carried out with the help of certain tricks and soundings sometimes aimed at quite distant sources, or carried out by rather roundabout routes. And even if someone did think of it, we can be sure that we would all laugh heartily.

Our new Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, we hope, will leave far behind it that quality which the French call prudishness [2], and which we might call ridiculous affectation or ridiculous ostentation, and which plays into the hands of our entire bureaucracy, both our Soviet institutions and the Party organizations, because, incidentally, bureaucracy exists among us in both.

If I wrote above that we must educate ourselves and educate ourselves further in higher schools of labor organization, etc., this does not mean in the least that I conceive of this "education" in a school-like manner, or that I confine myself to the idea of ​​a school-like education. I hope that a true revolutionary will not suspect me of having here renounced the idea of ​​"education" as a half-joking joke, a ruse, a good trick, or something of the sort. I know that in a serious and measured state of Western Europe, this idea would really have provoked horror ; no self-respecting official would have consented even to discuss it. But I hope that we are not yet bureaucratized to that extent, and that the discussion of this idea only provokes good humor among us.

Indeed, why not combine pleasure with business ? Why not take advantage of a pleasant or semi-pleasant joke to surprise someone with something ridiculous, something harmful, or something semi-ridiculous, semi-harmful, etc.?

It seems to me that our Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection will gain much from taking these considerations into account, and that the list of cases in which our Central Control Commission or its colleagues in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection have won some of their most brilliant victories will be enriched with numerous exploits of our future inspectors and controllers, in places which it is hardly convenient to mention in decent and serious manuals.

How can a Party institution be united with a Soviet administration ? Isn’t that something unacceptable ?

I am not asking this question on my own behalf, but on behalf of those I referred to above, saying that we have bureaucrats not only in our Soviet administrations, but also in the Party organizations.

Indeed, why not bring both together when the interest of the matter demands it ? Has no one ever noticed, for example, that in a People’s Commissariat like the Foreign Office, such a meeting is extremely useful and has been practiced since its foundation ? Does not the Politburo discuss, from the Party’s point of view, a number of questions, large and small, relating to our "counter-manoeuvres" in response to the "manoeuvres" of foreign powers, in order to forestall, let us say, some trick on their part, to be polite ? Is not the flexible alliance of the administrative element and the Party element an immense source of energy in our policy ? I believe that what has proven itself, has been consolidated in our foreign policy, and has become so accepted in our customs that it no longer causes the slightest doubt on the matter, would be no less opportune (and even much more so, in my opinion) in the whole of our state apparatus. Now, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection must take into consideration our entire state apparatus, and its activity must cover all state institutions without exception, local, central, commercial, purely administrative, educational, theatrical, archives, etc., in a word, all of them, without the slightest exception.

Why, then, for an institution of this magnitude, which also demands extraordinary flexibility in the forms of its activity, why not allow for a special fusion of the Party’s control body with that of the State ?

For my part, I would see no problem with it. Moreover, I believe that this merger is the only guarantee of fruitful activity. I think that all doubts in this regard emanate from the dusty corners of our state apparatus, and that they deserve only one thing : to be ridiculed.

Another doubt : is it appropriate to associate studies with the exercise of a function ? It seems to me that this is not only appropriate, but necessary. In general, despite all our revolutionary attitude towards the principles that govern the Western states, they have succeeded in inoculating us with a series of the most harmful and ridiculous prejudices. To a certain extent, this contagion also comes to us from our amiable bureaucrats who knowingly passed it on to us, in the hope of often being able to fish in the murky waters of these prejudices. And they fished in this murky water to the point that only the unrepentant blind among us failed to notice how widely this fishing was practiced.

In the entire sphere of social, economic, and political relations, we are "terribly" revolutionary. But when it comes to hierarchy, respect for the forms and customs of administrative procedure, our "revolutionaryism" constantly gives way to the most moldy spirit of routine. Here we can observe a phenomenon of the highest interest, namely that in social life the most prodigious leap forward is frequently allied with a monstrous indecision in the face of the slightest changes.

This is understandable, because the most daring steps forward had, for a very long time, been in the realm of theory, a realm cultivated mainly, indeed almost exclusively, on the theoretical plane. Disgusted by the abominable bureaucratic reality, the Russian soothed his heart at home by constructing eminently daring systems ; and this is why these eminently daring systems took on an extraordinarily narrow character among us. One saw boldness in general constructions coexist among us with a surprising timidity in the face of the most insignificant of administrative reforms. The idea of ​​a prodigious universal agrarian revolution was elaborated with an audacity unknown in other countries ; and alongside this, there was a lack of imagination to carry out a tenth-rate administrative reform ; there was a lack of imagination or patience to apply to this reform the general principles which, touching on problems of a general nature, gave such "brilliant" results.

This is why our present life combines in a striking way traits of astonishing audacity and an indecision of thought in the face of the most insignificant changes.

I believe that it has never been otherwise in all truly great revolutions, for they arise from the contradictions between the old, the tendency to rework the old, and the most abstract tendency towards what is new, new to the point of no longer containing a single grain of the past.

And the more radical this revolution, the longer these contradictions will persist.

The general feature of our present life is this : we have destroyed capitalist industry, we have set about thoroughly demolishing medieval institutions, manorial property, and on this basis we have created the small and very small peasantry which follows the proletariat, confident in the results of its revolutionary action. However, with this confidence alone, it is not easy for us to hold out until the victory of the socialist revolution in the more advanced countries ; for the small and very small peasantry, especially under the NEP, remains, by economic necessity, at an extremely low level of labor productivity. Moreover, the international situation is such that Russia is today thrown back ; that on the whole the productivity of national labor is now noticeably lower in our country than before the war. The capitalist powers of Western Europe, partly knowingly, partly spontaneously, have done everything in their power to throw us back, to take advantage of the civil war in Russia in order to ruin our country as much as possible. Precisely such an outcome of the imperialist war appeared to them, of course, as offering significant advantages ; if we do not overthrow the revolutionary regime in Russia, we shall at least hinder its development towards socialism, that is roughly how these powers reasoned, and from their point of view, they could not reason otherwise. In the end, they accomplished their task only halfway. They did not overthrow the new regime established by the revolution, but neither did they allow it to take an immediate step forward such as would have justified the predictions of the socialists, which would have enabled them to develop the productive forces at an extremely rapid pace ; to develop all the possibilities which together would have formed socialism ; to show everyone clearly, in all evidence, that socialism implies immense forces and that humanity has now passed to a new stage of development, which holds extraordinarily brilliant prospects.

The system of international relations is now such that in Europe, one state, Germany, is enslaved by the victors. Then, several states, among the oldest in the West, find themselves, following the victory, in conditions which allow them to take advantage of it to make certain concessions to their oppressed classes, concessions which, although mediocre, delay the revolutionary movement in these countries and create a semblance of "social peace."

Moreover, a good number of countries, those of the East, India, China, etc., precisely because of the last imperialist war, have found themselves definitively thrown out of the rut. Their evolution has definitively moved in the general direction of European capitalism. The fermentation that is working all over Europe has begun there. And it is now clear to the whole world that they have embarked on a path that cannot fail to end in a crisis of the whole of world capitalism.

We are now faced with the question : will we be able to hold out with our small and very small peasant production, with the dilapidated state of our country, until the day when the capitalist countries of Western Europe have completed their development towards socialism ? But they are not completing it as we previously thought. They are completing it not by a steady "maturation" of socialism in their countries, but at the price of the exploitation of some states by others, of the exploitation of the first state defeated in the imperialist war, exploitation together with that of the whole of the East. On the other hand, precisely as a result of this first imperialist war, the East has definitely entered the revolutionary movement, and has been definitely drawn into the whirlwind of the world revolutionary movement.

What tactics does this situation impose on our country ? Obviously the following : we must exercise the greatest caution in order to preserve our workers’ power, to keep our small, tiny peasantry under its authority and direction. We have the advantage that the whole world is already drawn into a movement that must bring about the universal socialist revolution. But we also have the disadvantage that the imperialists have succeeded in splitting the world into two camps ; and this split is complicated by the fact that Germany, a country where capitalism is truly developed, would find it very difficult to recover today. All the capitalist powers of the so-called West are tearing it apart and preventing it from recovering. On the other hand, the whole of the East, with its hundreds of millions of exploited workers, reduced to the last extremity, is placed in conditions where its physical and material forces can in no way bear comparison with the physical, material and military forces of any state, however much smaller, in Western Europe.

Can we avert the future clash with these imperialist countries ? Can we hope that the internal antagonisms and conflicts between the prosperous imperialist countries of the West and the prosperous imperialist countries of the East will leave us a truce for the second time, as they did the first time, when the crusade undertaken by the Western counter-revolution to come to the aid of the Russian counter-revolution failed as a result of the contradictions existing in the camps of the counter-revolutionaries of the West and the East, in that of the Eastern exploiters and the Western exploiters, in that of Japan and America ?

It seems to me that the answer to this question must be that the solution here depends on too many factors ; what allows, in short, to predict the outcome of the struggle is the fact that, in the end, capitalism itself instructs and educates for the struggle the immense majority of the world’s population.

The outcome of the struggle ultimately depends on the fact that Russia, India, China, etc., form the vast majority of the world’s population. And it is precisely this majority of the population that, in recent years, has been drawn with incredible rapidity into the struggle for its emancipation ; in this respect, there can be no shadow of doubt about the final outcome of the struggle on a world scale. In this sense, the final victory of socialism is absolutely and fully assured.

But what interests us is not this inevitable final victory of socialism. What interests us is the tactics which we, the Communist Party of Russia, we, the Soviet Power of Russia, must follow to prevent the counter-revolutionary states of Western Europe from crushing us. In order for us to survive until the next military conflict between the counter-revolutionary imperialist West and the revolutionary and nationalist East, between the most civilized states in the world and the backward countries like those of the East, which nevertheless form the majority, this majority must have time to become civilized. We too are not civilized enough to be able to pass directly to socialism, although we have the political premises for it. We must follow these tactics, or else adopt the following policy for our salvation.

We must strive to build a state in which the workers would continue to exercise leadership over the peasants, would retain the latter’s confidence, and through rigorous economics, would banish even the slightest excesses from all areas of social life.

We must achieve maximum economy in our state apparatus. We must banish from it all traces of excess that Tsarist Russia, its capitalist and bureaucratic apparatus, left in such great numbers.

Will this not be the reign of peasant mediocrity ?

No. If we maintain the working class’s leadership over the peasantry, we will be able, at the cost of the most rigorous economy in the management of our state, to use the smallest sum saved to develop our large-scale mechanized industry, electrification, hydraulic peat extraction, to complete the construction of the Volkhov hydroelectric station [3], etc.

There, and there alone, lies our hope. Only then, to use an image, can we change horses, abandon the nag of the peasant, the muzhik, renounce the savings essential in a ruined agricultural country, and mount the horse that the proletariat seeks and cannot fail to seek, namely, large-scale mechanized industry, electrification, the Volkhov hydroelectric power station, etc.

This is how I connect in my mind the overall plan of our work ; of our policy, our tactics, our strategy, with the tasks of the reorganized Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. This is what justifies in my eyes the exceptional concern, the sustained attention that we must give to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, by placing it at an exceptional height, by conferring on its leaders the rights of the Central Committee, etc., etc.

Here is the justification : it is only by purifying our apparatus as much as possible, by reducing to a minimum everything that is not absolutely necessary, that we will be able to maintain ourselves with certainty. And this, not at the level of a country of small peasant agriculture, not at the level of this generalized narrowness, but at a level which is rising more and more towards large-scale mechanized industry.

These are the great tasks I dream of for our Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. That is why I plan for it the merger of the supreme Party body with a "simple" People’s Commissariat."

March 2, 1923.

Notes

[1] See “How to reorganize the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection ?”, 23.1.1923. (NR)

[2] In French in the text. (NR)

[3] This was the first Soviet hydroelectric power station. Its construction began in 1918 but was not completed until 1926.

Lenin on the NEP : a temporary social retreat to avoid an even greater catastrophe

"So, in 1918, I was of the opinion that, in relation to the economic situation of the Soviet Republic at that time, state capitalism was a step forward. This seems very strange and perhaps even absurd ; for even at that time our Republic was a socialist republic ; we were then adopting every day, with the greatest haste—excessive haste, no doubt—new economic measures of all kinds that could only be called socialist measures. Nevertheless, I thought that, in view of the economic situation of the Soviet Republic at that time, state capitalism was a step forward. And to explain this thought, I simply enumerated the elements of the economic system of Russia. Here are what, in my opinion, these elements were : "1. the patriarchal form, that is, the most primitive form of agriculture ; 2. small-scale commodity production (here also includes the majority of peasants who sell wheat) ; 3. private capitalism ; 4. State capitalism and 5. Socialism. All these economic elements existed in Russia at that time. I had set myself the task of elucidating their relationship, and I wondered whether it would not be appropriate to consider one of the non-socialist elements, in this case state capitalism, as superior to socialism. I repeat : it seems very strange to everyone that in a Republic which proclaims itself socialist, a non-socialist element should be considered superior, as placed above socialism. But the thing becomes understandable, if you remember that we in no way considered the economic regime of Russia as a homogeneous and highly evolved system ; we were fully aware that in Russia patriarchal agriculture, that is to say, the most primitive form of agriculture, existed side by side with the socialist form. What role could state capitalism play in these conditions ?
I then asked myself : which of these elements predominates ? It is clear that in a petty-bourgeois environment, it is the petty-bourgeois element that dominates. I realized then that the latter predominated ; it was impossible to think otherwise. The question I posed to myself—in the course of a polemic that has nothing to do with the question we are now examining—was this : what is our attitude toward state capitalism ? And I gave myself this answer : state capitalism, without being a socialist form, would be for us and for Russia a more favorable form than that of today. What does this mean ? It is that, while having already accomplished the social revolution, we have not overestimated either the seeds or the principles of socialist economy. On the contrary, even at that time we were aware, to a certain extent, of this truth : yes, indeed, it would have been better to go through state capitalism first and then arrive at socialism.
I must emphasize this point in particular, because I believe that only on this basis can one, first, show what the current economic policy is ; secondly, one can draw very important practical conclusions from it also for the Communist International. I cannot say that we already had a retirement plan ready-made. No, we did not. These few lines, written on the occasion of a polemic, were not at all, at that time, a retirement plan. Not a word is found there on an essential point, namely, on freedom of trade, which is of fundamental importance for state capitalism. However, the general, still imprecise, idea of ​​retirement was already indicated there. I think that we must focus our attention on this not only from the point of view of a country which, in its economic system, was and still is very backward, but also from the standpoint of the Communist International and the advanced countries of Western Europe. So, at the present time, we are dealing with the program. I, for my part, believe that we would do much better, for the time being, to discuss all the programs only preliminary, so to speak at first reading, and to have them reproduced as they are, without adopting a final decision immediately, this year. Why ? First of all, in my opinion, because we have hardly studied them thoroughly, that is obvious. And also because we have hardly given any thought at all to the question of a possible retreat and the means of effecting it. Now, this is a problem to which—in view of the radical changes taking place throughout the world, such as the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism with the immense difficulties that this entails—we absolutely must give our attention. It is not enough to know what we have to do when we go directly to the offensive and win. In revolutionary times, this is not so difficult, nor so important ; At least, it is not the most decisive. During the revolution, there are always moments when the enemy loses his head, and if we attack him at one of these moments, we can easily defeat him. But that does not mean anything yet ; if our enemy is sufficiently self-possessed, he can gather his forces in time, etc. From then on, he can easily provoke an attack, and then throw us back for many years. That is why I think that the idea that we must allow ourselves the possibility of a retreat is of very great importance, and not only from the theoretical point of view. On the practical level as well, all parties that are preparing in the near future to go over to the declared offensive against capitalism, must also think now about arranging a retreat for themselves. I think that if we take advantage of this lesson,as well as all the others provided by the experience of our revolution, far from harming us, this will very likely be useful to us on many occasions.
Having emphasized that as early as 1918 we were considering state capitalism as a possible line of retreat, I come to the results of our new economic policy. I repeat : at that time it was still a very vague idea ; but in 1921, after we had passed through that very important stage of the Civil War, and passed through it victoriously, we encountered a great—I think the greatest—internal political crisis in Soviet Russia, a crisis which led to the discontent of a notable section of the peasants, and also of the workers. This was, in the history of Soviet Russia, the first and, I hope, the last time that large masses of peasants turned against us, instinctively and not consciously. What had brought about this peculiar and, of course, very unpleasant situation for us ? This is because, in our economic offensive, we had taken too much of an early step, without having secured a sufficient basis for ourselves : the masses sensed what we did not yet know how to formulate pertinently at the time, but which soon, a few weeks later, we in turn recognized, namely : that it was beyond our strength to pass immediately to purely socialist forms, to purely socialist distribution ; and that if we showed ourselves incapable of effecting the retreat in such a way as to limit ourselves to easier tasks, we were threatened with death. The crisis began, I believe, in February 1921. Already in the spring of that same year, we unanimously decided—I did not observe any significant disagreements among us on this subject—to pass to the new economic policy. Today, at the end of 1922, after a year and a half, we can already make some comparisons. What happened then ? How did we experience this period of more than eighteen months ? What is the result ? Has this retreat benefited us, has it really saved us, or is the result still uncertain ? This is the main question I ask myself. I believe it is of primary importance also for all the communist parties. For, if the answer were negative, we would all be condemned to perish. I believe that we can all answer, with a clear conscience, in the affirmative, especially in the sense that the past eighteen months prove, positively and absolutely, that we have triumphed over this ordeal.

Lenin in "Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution"

Report presented to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, November 13, 1922