The Forgery of the 'Lenin Testament' - Sakharov
V.A. Sakharov
Below we publish an analysis of documents which are said to have been written or dictated by V.I. Lenin before he died and which were critical of J.V. Stalin. The following article was first published in the newspaper 'Molniya', organ of the Trudovaya Rossiya mass movement, translated by Michael Lucas and published in the collection of articles 'The Lie of the 'Lenin Testament' (Toronto, 1997). The article is prefaced by extracts from 'Letter to the Congress', which has been stated to have been dictated by Lenin. V.A. Sakharov raises the question of the authorship of this and related documents.
From 'Letter to the Congress':
I.
'Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the Peoples' Commissariat for Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.'
December 25, 1922
Taken down by M.V.
(V. I. Lenin: Collected Works, Vol. 36, Moscow, 1971, pp. 594-95).
II.
'Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings among us communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from that standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a detail, or it is a detail which can assume decisive importance'.
Taken down by L.F.
January 4, 1923.
(op. cit. p. 596).
The political and scientific actuality of a principled struggle against any pseudo creation regarding V.I. Lenin, faces the contemporary communist movements. This struggle is not only defensive. The aim is not to place in front of the eyes of the workers, a picture of V.I. Lenin in his greatness, but it is to safeguard and promote the victory of the communist revolution.
These Letters of the So-Called Testament Do Not Belong to Lenin.
Among the myths that are tied in with the life and work of V.I. Lenin, the most underhanded, refined, and at the same time the most damaging in its political and ideological consequences is the myth about the so-called ‘Political Testament’ of V.I. Lenin, under which there is a complex of documents, known also as ‘Last articles and letters’. The scientific problem in this is to ascertain that each of these documents was, indeed, authored by V.I. Lenin. Therefore to examine all of these documents is a matter of verification.
These letters are typed on a typewriter. V.I. Lenin did not sign any of these documents or letters, and cannot be verified as such. The signature under the typewritten text is ‘AM.V.’ or ‘L.F.’ These cannot take the place of an autographed, or a signed copy by Lenin. It is a fact that Lenin’s authorship of these documents, publicly from the very beginning, unfortunately was never questioned. It was taken as an accepted fact that they were authored by V.I. Lenin. This was even accepted by J.V. Stalin himself. This situation, of course, was of considerable help to the revisionists that were still amongst the leadership of CPSU after the death of Lenin. History shows that these ‘documents’ became part of an ‘intrigue’.
But, a scientific analysis demands that these documents be examined historically. Historical analyses should not be designed to show or prove that this or that document does not belong to V.I. Lenin. Rather the burden of proof should be in the other direction – analysis should prove that these letters do indeed rightly belong to the body of works, falling under the authorship of V.I. Lenin.
This author has studied the documents and all possible available archives of all materials, and this brought him to the following conclusion. Speaking concretely, the following logic in the analyses of the so-called ‘Testament’ applies: You can divide the documents into two parts:
(1) Lenin’s authorship which in full and without any problems is shown by different methods, and
(2) Lenin’s authorship which cannot be proven by any scientific means.
In this regard we must state emphatically that none of the text by Lenin in its un-challengeable, and original form, has any anti-Stalin thoughts or expression. However, it is exactly the opposite, in that part of the contentious ‘Testament’ of V.I. Lenin (i.e. that which we hold does not belong to Lenin’s hand), which is full of anti-Stalinism, and is politically motivated to that end.
The Testament
In reality, Lenin’s part of the ‘Testament’ is based on the following articles:
His ‘Pages from his daily diary-appointments’;
‘How we must reorganize Rabkrin’,
‘Better fewer, but better’,
‘About our Revolution’.
These were publicized and published at the beginning of January-beginning of March 1923. In addition his dictation: ‘Letter to the Congress’, was performed in December 26-29, 1922, and deals with the reorganization of the CC and workers’ and peasants’ a rate inspect and the tasks of Gosplan.
Finally an article: ‘About Cooperation’, is dated January 4-6 1923.
Not all of these documents are signed by Lenin. But the text, the work on them (or on individual phases of them) are fixed in different documents by Lenin’s secretariat, during their work on them. The dates are also fixed in the documents of the Politburo. All this confirms their authenticity. In other words, this means, that when V.I. Lenin was working on these documents, or after they were finished and Lenin was still capable of overseeing their completion, there is an easy-to-follow foot mark. In conclusion, these documents concur in several places, and are confirmed by the documents that V.I. Lenin received after their completion by the secretariat. Lenin received them to give a final going over, or he used them for reference, when discussion was still going on inside the Central Committee of the party. These internal documents do not run contrary to each other, or show antagonistic attitudes of persons to other persons in the leadership. There are developed ideas in these documents, but no principal departures from the aims of other documents. Finally, they are not in opposition to other recommendations made by V.I. Lenin. It can be said that there is consistency within and between these documents.
Attack Against Stalin
The second group of documents – where ‘non-Lenin parts’ can be traced in ‘Lenin’s Testament’, present absolutely another problem. These problems can be summarized as follows:
(1) We see a characteristic note, which reads as ‘dictation by V.I. Lenin’. This occurs on December 24-25, 1922 and on January 4, 1923. It is in these, in which we find the basis for an attack against J.V. Stalin. Stalin was of course, in actual fact the lieutenant of V.I. Lenin and a leader of the party.
(2) There appears a so-called ‘article’ ‘About the question of nationalities or ‘autonomy’.’
(3) Supposedly supporting that, is the political letter, ‘dictated’ on March 5-6, 1923 (to Trotsky, Mdivani, Makharadze) with a statement of solidarity with them.
(4) Supposedly the letter-article to J.V. Stalin of a ‘threat to break off personal relations’ between Lenin and Stalin.
This all shows to us, that Lenin himself was not the author, and there are no witnesses from outside that Lenin wrote this letter! But, nevertheless the reader can ask as to where did we get this information about this document? Our analysis is confirmed by:
(1) The so-called ‘Daily Diary of Secretaries’ of V.I. Lenin and,
(2) The persons that delivered these documents to the whole Central Committee of the CPSU.
Let us examine these two points in detail.
‘The Diary’ of the Secretariat is the most noteworthy, and, till now, has never been a questioned document. But it has been never examined in scientific and historical detail. In reality it was useless to do so, since it is now known and accepted, that this ‘Diary’ after December 18, 1922 is not considered as a document of the daily working of Lenin’s Secretariat. That is because it is the work of new authors, with the aim of arranging for changes to be implemented, if it were possible on a given theoretical and political themes, by authors who at that time were well hidden. Speaking realistically, this is a fabricated document, false.
Look at it yourselves. The beginning of Lenin’s illness on December 18-22, 1922, saw Lenin depart from the centre stage of his work. Unfortunately, during that time his Secretariat practically ceased to function, and daily diaries are not recorded. Plans are shelved. But when these ‘Diaries’ are again started, we receive completely new ‘versions’ of what Lenin was supposed to have dictated. There are whole pages that are empty in the ‘Diaries’, notations are placed in it only irregularly. Between pages where there are some notations, there are empty pages throughout this period. This in effect gave the initiators of the ‘Testament’ opportunity to fill in the pages that were empty.
Chronological Miracles
This is confirmed by the following time or chronological analysis, which will try to show that L.A. Fotieva (one of the secretaries–Editors) should make a notation for December 28, 1922, January 4-9-19-24,1923. M.V. Volodicheva promised to fill in these dates for December 26 and March 17th.
But this is not all, something or other ‘comes along’ either in the diary calendar, or in the Secretariat, brought by either Fotieva and Volodicheva. A funny sequence of dates ensues. After January 30 there was a notation, marked January 26, then a notation on January 30th again. It seems that the notation on the 24th is not worse than the notation on the 31st. The final notation, for the third time, was also on January 30 in 1922.
The February notations were just as bad as January ones: on February 10 in the ‘diary’ the secretaries wrote a notation on the morning of the 7th, after that, on the morning of the 9th, then a notation for the evening of the 7th, then after that a notation for the morning of the 9th then in the evening of the 7th. But on the morning of the 9th, they decided to go astray and appeared again in February for the second time. The end to this jumping in diary notations happens on February 9th.
This then shows very succinctly that all these dates were manipulated, and that before us, is not the document that these enemies try to present to us as original. Scientific analyses show us that after December 18 in the writings in the daily diary, that the wife of J.V. Stalin, N.S. Allieueva, was not writing in the daily diary, as part of the Secretariat of V.I. Lenin, even though she kept on working in the Secretariat in other duties.
In the ‘diary’, there then appear insertions, on the pages for December 23, 24 and January 17, 30. This shows that there were additions after the diary was filled in. All these ‘uneven style’ inserts in the ‘diary’, are explained away upon the basis that, the work on it was not finished. Something appears to have prevented this ‘diary’ from being further fabricated to its logical conception.
Aside from the ‘diary’ of the Secretaries, there exist daily writings of the Doctors that were looking after V.I. Lenin. Between the Secretaries "diaries", and the written documents by the Doctors, we find very many disagreements as to details, dates and other notations.
As an example, the secretaries in the ‘diary’ keep quiet about the work of V.I. Lenin, while the Doctors wrote: On December 25, 29, 31, January 1-4, 10, 13, 16-27, then on February 18-20, 25-27, then on March 2, 3. This amounts to 20 days of differences between notations of the Doctors and complete emptiness of notations by the Secretaries.
There is an example in the opposite direction also, when V.I. Lenin did not work with the secretaries, while yet – the secretaries tell us that they had taken dictations from V.I. Lenin! January 24-26, February 3, 9, 10, 12, 14. This is another 8 days that are at odds with other notations by the Doctors. Just imagine, a ‘diary’ that is a daily record of events where 28 days out of 72 days do not coincide or completely the opposite!
It is very interesting what was happening during these ‘questionable dates’, when the work was supposedly done by the Secretaries. It is in this time that the information about Lenin’s testament and his criticism against J.V. Stalin, appears on the question of national-state building – which has all the makings of a ‘bomb’ that is laid for Stalin.
It follows, that it is this information, which is ‘inserted’ into the Diary, which becomes the supposed basis of the thesis of Lenin’s authorship of this ‘article’ and ‘On the question of nationalities or ‘autonomy’’ and the letters of March 5-6, 1923.
Trotsky’s Work
The situation cannot be saved by the various memoirs of either Trotsky, the secretaries to V.I. Lenin, Fotieva, Volodicheva, Glyasser. All these try to give authority and credence that these documents are indeed, written by V.I. Lenin. These all try to show the ‘historical and actual bases’ of these documents.
But comparing these secondary documents themselves, they clearly show so many serious discrepancies in the documents and writings of the Doctors, discrepancies amongst themselves, that their information cannot be accepted as truthful; and cannot then help to establish the authorship of V.I. Lenin of these documents and text. Simple logic does not help us to be convinced – it only remains for us to believe their words. But this is only agreeable to those who want to be fooled.
The history of the publication of these documents and their utilization in the political struggles have nothing to do with the treatment as the last testament, given by V.I. Lenin to the party through the head of the CC of the party, Politbureau and his closest comrades in the struggle.
In the first place, such a secret appeal was not in the spirit of V.I. Lenin, it did not follow his political method of work.
Secondly, these writings-documents were not dictated under normal circumstances, because, V.I. Lenin had ample opportunity to openly appeal to the party with any suggestions he deemed expedient and necessary. There was no ‘jailhouse regime’, that was supposedly set up by J.V. Stalin while V.I. Lenin was alive. The presence in the CC CPSU and Politbureau of different political groupings, and the struggle between them, guaranteed defeat of any attempt to hide Lenin’s documents.
Thirdly, it would have been illogical to postpone any decision on any questions, upon which the life of the party depended, or the future of the revolution – to some future time of decision, at a party Congress. It was uncertain when after the forthcoming death of V.I. Lenin such a postponed meeting would be held, since it was also not certain when the critically-ill Lenin would pass away.
All these examples show that the documents were not genuine. But let us consider who the authors of the ‘Testament’ were? Who could gain from it? The authors of this legend of the ‘Lenin Testament’ are – Trotsky, Fotieva, Zinoviev, Bukharin. They ‘inserted’ these texts into the political arena long before the actual death of V.I. Lenin. They waited until such time as Lenin was no longer able to write, dictate or read the materials, they wrote these documents as a political method of struggle against J.V. Stalin. Trotsky, with the help of one of the Secretaries Fotieva, made up the so-called ‘article’, ‘On the question of nationalities or autonomy’. While they did this, they openly stated that they did not receive any directives, but it was based on the request of V.I. Lenin and they did not know when this was done.
But this manoeuvre by these elements did not succeed, because the state of USSR was proclaimed at the XII Congress of the party. At that Congress they tried, basing themselves on the ‘text of Lenin’, to dismember the USSR which had been just adopted by the Congress.
Try as they might, these elements were not able to dissolve the newly-formed USSR. The fight against them was led by J.V. Stalin. It is exactly during this time of debate about the USSR that the ‘article’ supposedly written by V.I. Lenin was being distributed by Trotsky and was being given to the Secretariat of V.I. Lenin to be registered in the ‘Diary’!
After the Congress, the intense struggle by Trotsky against J.V. Stalin entered a new phase. At the end of May 1923, Krupskaya (the wife of V.I. Lenin – Ed.) gives Zinoviev the text of a ‘dictated material’ of December 24-25, 1922 – which is a part of the ‘characteristics of persons in the CC’. She gives it not to the Secretariat of the CC, as it should have been done, not into the hands of the Politbureau, but only to one of its members, who himself aspires to lead the country.
Also, Zinoviev was very bitter and jealous of the growth of authority and prestige of J.V. Stalin. Zinoviev now informs the members and candidate members of the Politbureau and the Presidium of the Central Control Commission. Upon the apparently expressed desire of V.I. Lenin regarding this dictated material, that this letter was for the Congress, Krupskaya did not even mention it or give it in time for the Congress. She said that ‘this document should be given only to the Central Committee’.
The legend about this letter reappears frequently and had serious repercussions. This letter was born during the internal struggles in the party. Two months later Zinoviev and Bukharin informed J.V. Stalin, General Secretary of the CPSU, elected by the last Congress, about the existence of that ‘letter’ (i.e. the ‘dictated letter’ January 4, 1923). This was during the manoeuvres of Zinoviev and Bukharin aimed at putting J.V. Stalin’s work, under the leadership of a party which was under their own control, along with Trotsky.
They tried to utilize the authority of V.I. Lenin. These so-called ‘dictated letters’ became the vehicle to strip Stalin of his authority, since they themselves did not have enough personal authority to replace J.V. Stalin. The internal enemies had gathered the strength to challenge Stalin, by basing themselves solely on the supposed ‘dictated letters’ of V.I. Lenin.
Mechanism of Forgery
The history of these documents, and of their publication, does not give any concrete examples as to the authorship of these documents by V.I. Lenin. Also arguing against this authorship, is the style of composition, and other peculiarities. The content and ‘characteristics’ as if by premeditation, ‘darkened’ with time. Darkened, to such an extent, that arguments about what its contents, are disputed even today.
The first response, by Tomsky, as an example, was this:
‘From a wide public nobody here will understand what it means’.
In the text, we cannot find any facts to show that it was composed and dictated by V.I. Lenin. But there is some light in the murky waters in this text. In all the untruthfulness and non-understandable thoughts that the author of this text tries to convey, you cannot doubt what the author meant to say:
Get rid of J.V. Stalin as the General Secretary of the Central Committee.
The same can be said about the letters of March 5-6.There is no signature by V.I. Lenin, nor is there any registration of this letter in the files of the Secretariat. This can be explained. We must understand as to why these ‘letters’ at the XII Congress of the party, were not utilized by Trotsky, Mdivani and others, in the struggle against J.V. Stalin on the question of national state construction.
The struggle was fierce and the enemies tried to utilize the authority of V.I. Lenin and the documents fully. But these documents in full, were ‘given to the world’ much later. Trotsky starts to utilize these documents only in the fall of 1923. These letters were made public only after the failed attempt to get rid of Stalin as the General Secretary. Trotsky tried to promote the idea that there was a bloc of understanding and cooperation between him and V.I. Lenin against J.V. Stalin. The abuse, both political and psychological was going full speed. But Stalin withstood this attack.
Enemies of USSR Against Lenin and Stalin
The question of the supposed letter by Lenin to Stalin that he is ready to break off personal relations with him needs further study. We must point out here that all of the history of the dictated letters and its supposed delivery to J.V. Stalin is very murky and contradictory. Let the reader make his or her own analyses. For this we refer to the following text: M.I. Ulyanova and M.V. Volodicheva (in V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 45, page 486; Izvestia CC CPSU, 1989 No. 12, pages 198-199).
Volodicheva stated that she herself wrote the dictated letter. But, somehow this document is in two different copies, two different variations; one is written and signed by J.V. Stalin (or did someone else sign?), the other (as if by Volodicheva), which from the start to finish, carries changes that render it unrecognizable. And how come that this second version is also signed? Why are there two answers from Stalin? Why would J.V. Stalin write two versions of a letter to V.I. Lenin on the question of Lenin’s supposed criticism against Stalin? And why did not even one of these replies by J.V. Stalin ever reach the hands of V.I. Lenin? The time period between the answer of Stalin (March 7) and the physical inability of V.I. Lenin to function normally (March 10), would have allowed plenty of time to deliver an answer from one office to another.
The article about the nationality question is unbelievable, on several counts. Not only was the political situation at that time, completely unexpected by V.I. Lenin; it is not possible to attribute the Russophobia to V.I. Lenin; but also its formulation, makes it impossible to recognize Lenin.
As an example: ‘I already wrote in my writings about the national question.’ And again: the author suggests wait for that time, when the government apparatus will become ours. Lenin did not put forward such problems in the December of 1922.
If we are to follow this ‘reasoning’, not only should the USSR not have been in existence, but the Caucasian Soviet Republic also should not have been formed. But V.I. Lenin fought to get this Republic formed, against Mdivani and his supporters. Aside from this, therefore it follows that even the Russian Soviet Federative Republic, should have not been formed, since the apparatus was not yet ‘ours’!
The author combines the realization of the right of republics-nations to separate from USSR, as guaranteed by the Constitution, together with the question of the quality of the State government apparatus!
But, the ‘government apparatus’ did not, or is not, the legal entity to give that right. It is the Peoples Deputies who are in the Supreme Soviet of USSR – the government apparatus is just the servant and expediter of the decisions. Lenin knew full well, as to who, and where, and how this question will be decided. It would be decided only in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which he formed and made stronger.
The argument offered in the ‘letters’, is not drawn from the arsenal of V.I. Lenin. These sorts of arguments we only find in the internal squabbles of the national-separatists. In conclusion, to bring up the question of ‘autonomy’, after the question of USSR was decided, was not the proposal of V.I. Lenin, nor of his principles. It would have meant returning to a question, which had been long ago thrown out.
At the end of 1922, no one even talked about this question of formation of USSR on the basis of autonomy. That is why everyone talked against the question of autonomy, which would mean in effect the liquidation of the Russian Social Federative Soviet Republic. Where is there the question of Lenin in this matter? The author of this ‘Lenin’s article’, should be looked for, amongst the enemies of the unity of Soviet republics and the federation.
Lenin did not belong amongst these elements – these enemies of the unity of Soviet Republics. In that camp there were three distinct blocs influenced by Mdivani, Svanidze, Rakovski. The identity of the author of this article must be looked into, but there are facts that suggest, its author was none other then Trotsky. V.I. Lenin could not have been that author. Unfortunately, there is no solid proof yet as to its author, but the facts all point towards Trotsky.
Lenin For Stalin, Trotsky Against
Analyzing the political thoughts of this false ‘testament’ shows that it does not represent realistically the political struggle, then brewing in the Central Committee of the party, in which V.I. Lenin played the leading theoretical role. The political reality is that J.V. Stalin did not appoint himself as the General Secretary. But it was V.I. Lenin, looking for someone who would replace him, who at the XI Congress of the party threw all his efforts into ensuring that J.V. Stalin should become the General Secretary.
V.I. Lenin did not then send documents, letters or propositions, to say that Stalin was not capable of becoming the General Secretary. Lenin never used such language in any of his speeches, advice or comments. Lenin’s ‘Testament’ does not reflect this at all. Be the judge yourself.
Lenin saw in our revolution a good perspective, while Trotsky just kept repeating the need for a permanent revolution (January and November of 1922). Lenin promotes the eventual fusion of the party and the government, while Trotsky is against it, proposing its curtailment. Lenin was for the reorganization of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, while Trotsky is for its liquidation. Lenin is for the blossoming of Gosplan as a commission of experts, Trotsky is for it to become an operative planning etc. etc.
In this situation, is it likely for V.I. Lenin to have written a personal attack against Stalin, his closest political ally, and proposing that the highest post should go to his rabid opponent Trotsky? We cannot adopt this view at all. A realist understanding of Lenin’s ‘Testament’ is different. It gives into the hands of Lenin’s allies, ammunition for further struggles against Trotsky in serious questions of socialist revolution.
Let us come to a conclusion.
We have a basis to state that Lenin was not the author of these articles, letters or other documents. This fact needs historical corrections in order that Lenin’s teachings would be cleansed of these falsifications. We must understand Lenin’s Testament, in the context of the political life at that time, in the political struggles that were waged by V.I. Lenin in 1921-1922 against Trotsky. This struggle was waged by Lenin with Stalin as his loyal ally, who promoted and follow Lenin’s line of struggle, who after the death of Lenin undertook upon his shoulders the heavy burden of continuing the struggle with Trotsky. The fabricated part of the ‘Testament’ could only be understood in a much wider context in the context of the struggle inside the CC of the party against Trotsky and his group. But in this struggle, which was anti-Leninist, nurtured and promoted by Zinoviev, was combined a struggle against Stalin. Objectively, the whole plan of both of these groupings was to distance Stalin out of the leadership with the help of the authority of V.I. Lenin and to change the political course of the Russian Communist Party (B).
We must be very aware, that the basis of the struggle for the leadership, was a historical fight for the principal question of the socialist revolution. Space does not permit discussion of this further here. We can just state, that in the ‘archives of Trotsky’, following the ‘letter’ by Lenin about the characteristics of Stalin, the copy includes an amendment in Trotsky’s own writing which states: ‘I edited my copy. L. Trotsky’.
Forgery Continues
The myths being promoted on the basis of the last articles and letters of V.I. Lenin did not cease even later on – years after the death of V.I. Lenin. Their own additions and interpretations into this quagmire were given by Khrushchev and Gorbachev. Parts of Lenin’s letters were used to fill a need of the present contemporary enemies. They were mainly used in an anti-Stalin character. As an example, in the letter of December 23, there is a phrase ‘I would like to share this with You...’ In the publication by these contemporaries, it is written as ‘with you’ thus giving a whole new meaning to what Lenin stated. Lenin stated it to the Congress of the Party, giving it the ‘You’ title, that it deserved. This was as opposed to ‘you’ which is addressed to everyone – as opposed to an entity elected by the people. This letter is even registered in the Lenin’s secretariat as a letter to J.V. Stalin for the Congress. But, this even more confirms its essence, when addressing it with ‘You’. But Nikita Khrushchev decided that for him, it would be more beneficial to open up criticism of Stalin. In the phrase: ‘it has tremendous influence for all ‘courts’ of the party’ – the word courts was changed into the word ‘code of law’. This not only falsifies the words of V.I. Lenin, but leaves the phrase without any meaning. How many courts can there be in the party and what kind of courts are they?
In the political lexicon of V.I. Lenin in the late years, things are clear. In the word ‘courts’, he had in mind different oppositionists, always trying to criticize the party, and to change its course. Amongst those ‘court-judges’, there was in the first place Trotsky and his company. It is with these ‘judges’, that Lenin fought a bitter struggle as did J.V. Stalin, to whom this letter was written, the main friend and helper to V.I. Lenin. It is these ‘judges’, who were called in this respect ‘critics’ and ‘our Suhanovites’, states Lenin in which he dictated on December 26 and also in the article ‘About our Revolution’ (V.I. Lenin, Volume 45, page 347, 383, 385.) The phrase: ‘50-100 members of CC our party must demand it from the working class’, was changed to: ‘...our party has the right.’ Lenin stated that the CC demands from 50-100 new members to the enlarged Central Committee, while the falsifiers said – ‘the party asks.’ Such a fabrication was necessary, in order that the letter to J.V. Stalin was looked upon as a letter to the Congress of the party, instead of the exchange of ideas between Lenin and Stalin.
In the article by V.I. Lenin ‘How we should reorganize Rabkrin?’, which was falsified by the enemies, the article states: ‘that no authority, not of the General Secretary, or no other member of CC cannot mix into the work of the Central Control Commission, or has the right to give the Control Commission any questions as to their work...’ (Lenin, ‘Collected works’ (in Russian), Volume 4, (sic) p. 387). The naming of General Secretary is meant to be believed and used against J.V. Stalin. According to the archives (as written in Pravda, January 25, 1923) words such as General Secretary are nowhere to be found. The phrase that was used was. ‘no authority could be used...’ This is an open falsification, to try and show that this is a ‘document’ about the criticism by Lenin of Stalin, thus falsifying the whole understanding of the testament.
Ideological Provocation
It is now known, what significance was given to the article ‘About Cooperation’, during the period of perestroika. Through this article written by Lenin, the revisionists tried to eliminate everything else written by V.I. Lenin. Under this slogan, they stated it is necessary to re-evaluate all aspects of socialism. Even though there is absolutely no word of that kind in V.I. Lenin, they nevertheless tried to utilize it, in the ideology of ‘perestroika’. This is a question of outright falsification. In the writings of Lenin there is not one word or article ‘About Cooperation’, but there is a first and second ‘edition’ of this article. Lenin, while working on this article was not satisfied yet with his writing, something in his mind thought that it could be stated much clearer. This is confirmed by his marginal notes to his text, which was well known to these enemies, cognizant that Lenin was working on important issues. Lenin wrote in his marginal notes:
‘Not one variation pleases me, because some of them contain forms that need further elaboration from an ideological point of view, and both need in some measure some correction’.
This marginal note was dated January 7, 1923. Of course this notation does not formulate the whole text. We should try to figure out as to what was Lenin unhappy about in his work on this important document.
From Bukharin To Khrushchev, On To Gorbachev
The article ‘About Cooperation’, is the supreme thinking and got into the hands of Bukharin. From Khrushchev this ‘document’ went to Gorbachev, and here in front of our eyes, is this ideological bomb, masked as if V.I. Lenin was the final author. it was expanded and used as a deformation from inside by Khrushchev when starting to dismember the socialist state. This was made possible because, this lying subterfuge had an important political effect behind the scenes. In Bukharin’s time this was used for the kulaks, to save them as a class. In Khrushchev’s time – this was used as the vehicle to criticize Stalin’s thesis, that in the time of capitalist encirclement, the successes of socialism will be more and more noticeable, while the remnants of dispersed exploiting classes ‘will more and more try by all means at their command to overthrow the socialist state, they will more and more sabotage the Soviet State, as the last means of saving their privileged class position’.
Criticism of this text helped Khrushchev to open up a campaign against Stalin. During Gorbachev’s tenure it was used to make people disbelieve the ideological road of building socialism in the USSR, about the non-socialist path and accommodating capitalism in the USSR, about the need to break this socialist hold on the country, that we somehow got lost and it is no use trying to improve socialism, there is nothing to be gained from it, there is nothing more necessary than our history...
Anyway, the reader knows himself perfectly well, what and how it was, and what came out of it.
Below we publish an analysis of documents which are said to have been written or dictated by V.I. Lenin before he died and which were critical of J.V. Stalin. The following article was first published in the newspaper 'Molniya', organ of the Trudovaya Rossiya mass movement, translated by Michael Lucas and published in the collection of articles 'The Lie of the 'Lenin Testament' (Toronto, 1997). The article is prefaced by extracts from 'Letter to the Congress', which has been stated to have been dictated by Lenin. V.A. Sakharov raises the question of the authorship of this and related documents.
From 'Letter to the Congress':
I.
'Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the Peoples' Commissariat for Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.'
December 25, 1922
Taken down by M.V.
(V. I. Lenin: Collected Works, Vol. 36, Moscow, 1971, pp. 594-95).
II.
'Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings among us communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from that standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a detail, or it is a detail which can assume decisive importance'.
Taken down by L.F.
January 4, 1923.
(op. cit. p. 596).
The political and scientific actuality of a principled struggle against any pseudo creation regarding V.I. Lenin, faces the contemporary communist movements. This struggle is not only defensive. The aim is not to place in front of the eyes of the workers, a picture of V.I. Lenin in his greatness, but it is to safeguard and promote the victory of the communist revolution.
These Letters of the So-Called Testament Do Not Belong to Lenin.
Among the myths that are tied in with the life and work of V.I. Lenin, the most underhanded, refined, and at the same time the most damaging in its political and ideological consequences is the myth about the so-called ‘Political Testament’ of V.I. Lenin, under which there is a complex of documents, known also as ‘Last articles and letters’. The scientific problem in this is to ascertain that each of these documents was, indeed, authored by V.I. Lenin. Therefore to examine all of these documents is a matter of verification.
These letters are typed on a typewriter. V.I. Lenin did not sign any of these documents or letters, and cannot be verified as such. The signature under the typewritten text is ‘AM.V.’ or ‘L.F.’ These cannot take the place of an autographed, or a signed copy by Lenin. It is a fact that Lenin’s authorship of these documents, publicly from the very beginning, unfortunately was never questioned. It was taken as an accepted fact that they were authored by V.I. Lenin. This was even accepted by J.V. Stalin himself. This situation, of course, was of considerable help to the revisionists that were still amongst the leadership of CPSU after the death of Lenin. History shows that these ‘documents’ became part of an ‘intrigue’.
But, a scientific analysis demands that these documents be examined historically. Historical analyses should not be designed to show or prove that this or that document does not belong to V.I. Lenin. Rather the burden of proof should be in the other direction – analysis should prove that these letters do indeed rightly belong to the body of works, falling under the authorship of V.I. Lenin.
This author has studied the documents and all possible available archives of all materials, and this brought him to the following conclusion. Speaking concretely, the following logic in the analyses of the so-called ‘Testament’ applies: You can divide the documents into two parts:
(1) Lenin’s authorship which in full and without any problems is shown by different methods, and
(2) Lenin’s authorship which cannot be proven by any scientific means.
In this regard we must state emphatically that none of the text by Lenin in its un-challengeable, and original form, has any anti-Stalin thoughts or expression. However, it is exactly the opposite, in that part of the contentious ‘Testament’ of V.I. Lenin (i.e. that which we hold does not belong to Lenin’s hand), which is full of anti-Stalinism, and is politically motivated to that end.
The Testament
In reality, Lenin’s part of the ‘Testament’ is based on the following articles:
His ‘Pages from his daily diary-appointments’;
‘How we must reorganize Rabkrin’,
‘Better fewer, but better’,
‘About our Revolution’.
These were publicized and published at the beginning of January-beginning of March 1923. In addition his dictation: ‘Letter to the Congress’, was performed in December 26-29, 1922, and deals with the reorganization of the CC and workers’ and peasants’ a rate inspect and the tasks of Gosplan.
Finally an article: ‘About Cooperation’, is dated January 4-6 1923.
Not all of these documents are signed by Lenin. But the text, the work on them (or on individual phases of them) are fixed in different documents by Lenin’s secretariat, during their work on them. The dates are also fixed in the documents of the Politburo. All this confirms their authenticity. In other words, this means, that when V.I. Lenin was working on these documents, or after they were finished and Lenin was still capable of overseeing their completion, there is an easy-to-follow foot mark. In conclusion, these documents concur in several places, and are confirmed by the documents that V.I. Lenin received after their completion by the secretariat. Lenin received them to give a final going over, or he used them for reference, when discussion was still going on inside the Central Committee of the party. These internal documents do not run contrary to each other, or show antagonistic attitudes of persons to other persons in the leadership. There are developed ideas in these documents, but no principal departures from the aims of other documents. Finally, they are not in opposition to other recommendations made by V.I. Lenin. It can be said that there is consistency within and between these documents.
Attack Against Stalin
The second group of documents – where ‘non-Lenin parts’ can be traced in ‘Lenin’s Testament’, present absolutely another problem. These problems can be summarized as follows:
(1) We see a characteristic note, which reads as ‘dictation by V.I. Lenin’. This occurs on December 24-25, 1922 and on January 4, 1923. It is in these, in which we find the basis for an attack against J.V. Stalin. Stalin was of course, in actual fact the lieutenant of V.I. Lenin and a leader of the party.
(2) There appears a so-called ‘article’ ‘About the question of nationalities or ‘autonomy’.’
(3) Supposedly supporting that, is the political letter, ‘dictated’ on March 5-6, 1923 (to Trotsky, Mdivani, Makharadze) with a statement of solidarity with them.
(4) Supposedly the letter-article to J.V. Stalin of a ‘threat to break off personal relations’ between Lenin and Stalin.
This all shows to us, that Lenin himself was not the author, and there are no witnesses from outside that Lenin wrote this letter! But, nevertheless the reader can ask as to where did we get this information about this document? Our analysis is confirmed by:
(1) The so-called ‘Daily Diary of Secretaries’ of V.I. Lenin and,
(2) The persons that delivered these documents to the whole Central Committee of the CPSU.
Let us examine these two points in detail.
‘The Diary’ of the Secretariat is the most noteworthy, and, till now, has never been a questioned document. But it has been never examined in scientific and historical detail. In reality it was useless to do so, since it is now known and accepted, that this ‘Diary’ after December 18, 1922 is not considered as a document of the daily working of Lenin’s Secretariat. That is because it is the work of new authors, with the aim of arranging for changes to be implemented, if it were possible on a given theoretical and political themes, by authors who at that time were well hidden. Speaking realistically, this is a fabricated document, false.
Look at it yourselves. The beginning of Lenin’s illness on December 18-22, 1922, saw Lenin depart from the centre stage of his work. Unfortunately, during that time his Secretariat practically ceased to function, and daily diaries are not recorded. Plans are shelved. But when these ‘Diaries’ are again started, we receive completely new ‘versions’ of what Lenin was supposed to have dictated. There are whole pages that are empty in the ‘Diaries’, notations are placed in it only irregularly. Between pages where there are some notations, there are empty pages throughout this period. This in effect gave the initiators of the ‘Testament’ opportunity to fill in the pages that were empty.
Chronological Miracles
This is confirmed by the following time or chronological analysis, which will try to show that L.A. Fotieva (one of the secretaries–Editors) should make a notation for December 28, 1922, January 4-9-19-24,1923. M.V. Volodicheva promised to fill in these dates for December 26 and March 17th.
But this is not all, something or other ‘comes along’ either in the diary calendar, or in the Secretariat, brought by either Fotieva and Volodicheva. A funny sequence of dates ensues. After January 30 there was a notation, marked January 26, then a notation on January 30th again. It seems that the notation on the 24th is not worse than the notation on the 31st. The final notation, for the third time, was also on January 30 in 1922.
The February notations were just as bad as January ones: on February 10 in the ‘diary’ the secretaries wrote a notation on the morning of the 7th, after that, on the morning of the 9th, then a notation for the evening of the 7th, then after that a notation for the morning of the 9th then in the evening of the 7th. But on the morning of the 9th, they decided to go astray and appeared again in February for the second time. The end to this jumping in diary notations happens on February 9th.
This then shows very succinctly that all these dates were manipulated, and that before us, is not the document that these enemies try to present to us as original. Scientific analyses show us that after December 18 in the writings in the daily diary, that the wife of J.V. Stalin, N.S. Allieueva, was not writing in the daily diary, as part of the Secretariat of V.I. Lenin, even though she kept on working in the Secretariat in other duties.
In the ‘diary’, there then appear insertions, on the pages for December 23, 24 and January 17, 30. This shows that there were additions after the diary was filled in. All these ‘uneven style’ inserts in the ‘diary’, are explained away upon the basis that, the work on it was not finished. Something appears to have prevented this ‘diary’ from being further fabricated to its logical conception.
Aside from the ‘diary’ of the Secretaries, there exist daily writings of the Doctors that were looking after V.I. Lenin. Between the Secretaries "diaries", and the written documents by the Doctors, we find very many disagreements as to details, dates and other notations.
As an example, the secretaries in the ‘diary’ keep quiet about the work of V.I. Lenin, while the Doctors wrote: On December 25, 29, 31, January 1-4, 10, 13, 16-27, then on February 18-20, 25-27, then on March 2, 3. This amounts to 20 days of differences between notations of the Doctors and complete emptiness of notations by the Secretaries.
There is an example in the opposite direction also, when V.I. Lenin did not work with the secretaries, while yet – the secretaries tell us that they had taken dictations from V.I. Lenin! January 24-26, February 3, 9, 10, 12, 14. This is another 8 days that are at odds with other notations by the Doctors. Just imagine, a ‘diary’ that is a daily record of events where 28 days out of 72 days do not coincide or completely the opposite!
It is very interesting what was happening during these ‘questionable dates’, when the work was supposedly done by the Secretaries. It is in this time that the information about Lenin’s testament and his criticism against J.V. Stalin, appears on the question of national-state building – which has all the makings of a ‘bomb’ that is laid for Stalin.
It follows, that it is this information, which is ‘inserted’ into the Diary, which becomes the supposed basis of the thesis of Lenin’s authorship of this ‘article’ and ‘On the question of nationalities or ‘autonomy’’ and the letters of March 5-6, 1923.
Trotsky’s Work
The situation cannot be saved by the various memoirs of either Trotsky, the secretaries to V.I. Lenin, Fotieva, Volodicheva, Glyasser. All these try to give authority and credence that these documents are indeed, written by V.I. Lenin. These all try to show the ‘historical and actual bases’ of these documents.
But comparing these secondary documents themselves, they clearly show so many serious discrepancies in the documents and writings of the Doctors, discrepancies amongst themselves, that their information cannot be accepted as truthful; and cannot then help to establish the authorship of V.I. Lenin of these documents and text. Simple logic does not help us to be convinced – it only remains for us to believe their words. But this is only agreeable to those who want to be fooled.
The history of the publication of these documents and their utilization in the political struggles have nothing to do with the treatment as the last testament, given by V.I. Lenin to the party through the head of the CC of the party, Politbureau and his closest comrades in the struggle.
In the first place, such a secret appeal was not in the spirit of V.I. Lenin, it did not follow his political method of work.
Secondly, these writings-documents were not dictated under normal circumstances, because, V.I. Lenin had ample opportunity to openly appeal to the party with any suggestions he deemed expedient and necessary. There was no ‘jailhouse regime’, that was supposedly set up by J.V. Stalin while V.I. Lenin was alive. The presence in the CC CPSU and Politbureau of different political groupings, and the struggle between them, guaranteed defeat of any attempt to hide Lenin’s documents.
Thirdly, it would have been illogical to postpone any decision on any questions, upon which the life of the party depended, or the future of the revolution – to some future time of decision, at a party Congress. It was uncertain when after the forthcoming death of V.I. Lenin such a postponed meeting would be held, since it was also not certain when the critically-ill Lenin would pass away.
All these examples show that the documents were not genuine. But let us consider who the authors of the ‘Testament’ were? Who could gain from it? The authors of this legend of the ‘Lenin Testament’ are – Trotsky, Fotieva, Zinoviev, Bukharin. They ‘inserted’ these texts into the political arena long before the actual death of V.I. Lenin. They waited until such time as Lenin was no longer able to write, dictate or read the materials, they wrote these documents as a political method of struggle against J.V. Stalin. Trotsky, with the help of one of the Secretaries Fotieva, made up the so-called ‘article’, ‘On the question of nationalities or autonomy’. While they did this, they openly stated that they did not receive any directives, but it was based on the request of V.I. Lenin and they did not know when this was done.
But this manoeuvre by these elements did not succeed, because the state of USSR was proclaimed at the XII Congress of the party. At that Congress they tried, basing themselves on the ‘text of Lenin’, to dismember the USSR which had been just adopted by the Congress.
Try as they might, these elements were not able to dissolve the newly-formed USSR. The fight against them was led by J.V. Stalin. It is exactly during this time of debate about the USSR that the ‘article’ supposedly written by V.I. Lenin was being distributed by Trotsky and was being given to the Secretariat of V.I. Lenin to be registered in the ‘Diary’!
After the Congress, the intense struggle by Trotsky against J.V. Stalin entered a new phase. At the end of May 1923, Krupskaya (the wife of V.I. Lenin – Ed.) gives Zinoviev the text of a ‘dictated material’ of December 24-25, 1922 – which is a part of the ‘characteristics of persons in the CC’. She gives it not to the Secretariat of the CC, as it should have been done, not into the hands of the Politbureau, but only to one of its members, who himself aspires to lead the country.
Also, Zinoviev was very bitter and jealous of the growth of authority and prestige of J.V. Stalin. Zinoviev now informs the members and candidate members of the Politbureau and the Presidium of the Central Control Commission. Upon the apparently expressed desire of V.I. Lenin regarding this dictated material, that this letter was for the Congress, Krupskaya did not even mention it or give it in time for the Congress. She said that ‘this document should be given only to the Central Committee’.
The legend about this letter reappears frequently and had serious repercussions. This letter was born during the internal struggles in the party. Two months later Zinoviev and Bukharin informed J.V. Stalin, General Secretary of the CPSU, elected by the last Congress, about the existence of that ‘letter’ (i.e. the ‘dictated letter’ January 4, 1923). This was during the manoeuvres of Zinoviev and Bukharin aimed at putting J.V. Stalin’s work, under the leadership of a party which was under their own control, along with Trotsky.
They tried to utilize the authority of V.I. Lenin. These so-called ‘dictated letters’ became the vehicle to strip Stalin of his authority, since they themselves did not have enough personal authority to replace J.V. Stalin. The internal enemies had gathered the strength to challenge Stalin, by basing themselves solely on the supposed ‘dictated letters’ of V.I. Lenin.
Mechanism of Forgery
The history of these documents, and of their publication, does not give any concrete examples as to the authorship of these documents by V.I. Lenin. Also arguing against this authorship, is the style of composition, and other peculiarities. The content and ‘characteristics’ as if by premeditation, ‘darkened’ with time. Darkened, to such an extent, that arguments about what its contents, are disputed even today.
The first response, by Tomsky, as an example, was this:
‘From a wide public nobody here will understand what it means’.
In the text, we cannot find any facts to show that it was composed and dictated by V.I. Lenin. But there is some light in the murky waters in this text. In all the untruthfulness and non-understandable thoughts that the author of this text tries to convey, you cannot doubt what the author meant to say:
Get rid of J.V. Stalin as the General Secretary of the Central Committee.
The same can be said about the letters of March 5-6.There is no signature by V.I. Lenin, nor is there any registration of this letter in the files of the Secretariat. This can be explained. We must understand as to why these ‘letters’ at the XII Congress of the party, were not utilized by Trotsky, Mdivani and others, in the struggle against J.V. Stalin on the question of national state construction.
The struggle was fierce and the enemies tried to utilize the authority of V.I. Lenin and the documents fully. But these documents in full, were ‘given to the world’ much later. Trotsky starts to utilize these documents only in the fall of 1923. These letters were made public only after the failed attempt to get rid of Stalin as the General Secretary. Trotsky tried to promote the idea that there was a bloc of understanding and cooperation between him and V.I. Lenin against J.V. Stalin. The abuse, both political and psychological was going full speed. But Stalin withstood this attack.
Enemies of USSR Against Lenin and Stalin
The question of the supposed letter by Lenin to Stalin that he is ready to break off personal relations with him needs further study. We must point out here that all of the history of the dictated letters and its supposed delivery to J.V. Stalin is very murky and contradictory. Let the reader make his or her own analyses. For this we refer to the following text: M.I. Ulyanova and M.V. Volodicheva (in V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 45, page 486; Izvestia CC CPSU, 1989 No. 12, pages 198-199).
Volodicheva stated that she herself wrote the dictated letter. But, somehow this document is in two different copies, two different variations; one is written and signed by J.V. Stalin (or did someone else sign?), the other (as if by Volodicheva), which from the start to finish, carries changes that render it unrecognizable. And how come that this second version is also signed? Why are there two answers from Stalin? Why would J.V. Stalin write two versions of a letter to V.I. Lenin on the question of Lenin’s supposed criticism against Stalin? And why did not even one of these replies by J.V. Stalin ever reach the hands of V.I. Lenin? The time period between the answer of Stalin (March 7) and the physical inability of V.I. Lenin to function normally (March 10), would have allowed plenty of time to deliver an answer from one office to another.
The article about the nationality question is unbelievable, on several counts. Not only was the political situation at that time, completely unexpected by V.I. Lenin; it is not possible to attribute the Russophobia to V.I. Lenin; but also its formulation, makes it impossible to recognize Lenin.
As an example: ‘I already wrote in my writings about the national question.’ And again: the author suggests wait for that time, when the government apparatus will become ours. Lenin did not put forward such problems in the December of 1922.
If we are to follow this ‘reasoning’, not only should the USSR not have been in existence, but the Caucasian Soviet Republic also should not have been formed. But V.I. Lenin fought to get this Republic formed, against Mdivani and his supporters. Aside from this, therefore it follows that even the Russian Soviet Federative Republic, should have not been formed, since the apparatus was not yet ‘ours’!
The author combines the realization of the right of republics-nations to separate from USSR, as guaranteed by the Constitution, together with the question of the quality of the State government apparatus!
But, the ‘government apparatus’ did not, or is not, the legal entity to give that right. It is the Peoples Deputies who are in the Supreme Soviet of USSR – the government apparatus is just the servant and expediter of the decisions. Lenin knew full well, as to who, and where, and how this question will be decided. It would be decided only in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which he formed and made stronger.
The argument offered in the ‘letters’, is not drawn from the arsenal of V.I. Lenin. These sorts of arguments we only find in the internal squabbles of the national-separatists. In conclusion, to bring up the question of ‘autonomy’, after the question of USSR was decided, was not the proposal of V.I. Lenin, nor of his principles. It would have meant returning to a question, which had been long ago thrown out.
At the end of 1922, no one even talked about this question of formation of USSR on the basis of autonomy. That is why everyone talked against the question of autonomy, which would mean in effect the liquidation of the Russian Social Federative Soviet Republic. Where is there the question of Lenin in this matter? The author of this ‘Lenin’s article’, should be looked for, amongst the enemies of the unity of Soviet republics and the federation.
Lenin did not belong amongst these elements – these enemies of the unity of Soviet Republics. In that camp there were three distinct blocs influenced by Mdivani, Svanidze, Rakovski. The identity of the author of this article must be looked into, but there are facts that suggest, its author was none other then Trotsky. V.I. Lenin could not have been that author. Unfortunately, there is no solid proof yet as to its author, but the facts all point towards Trotsky.
Lenin For Stalin, Trotsky Against
Analyzing the political thoughts of this false ‘testament’ shows that it does not represent realistically the political struggle, then brewing in the Central Committee of the party, in which V.I. Lenin played the leading theoretical role. The political reality is that J.V. Stalin did not appoint himself as the General Secretary. But it was V.I. Lenin, looking for someone who would replace him, who at the XI Congress of the party threw all his efforts into ensuring that J.V. Stalin should become the General Secretary.
V.I. Lenin did not then send documents, letters or propositions, to say that Stalin was not capable of becoming the General Secretary. Lenin never used such language in any of his speeches, advice or comments. Lenin’s ‘Testament’ does not reflect this at all. Be the judge yourself.
Lenin saw in our revolution a good perspective, while Trotsky just kept repeating the need for a permanent revolution (January and November of 1922). Lenin promotes the eventual fusion of the party and the government, while Trotsky is against it, proposing its curtailment. Lenin was for the reorganization of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, while Trotsky is for its liquidation. Lenin is for the blossoming of Gosplan as a commission of experts, Trotsky is for it to become an operative planning etc. etc.
In this situation, is it likely for V.I. Lenin to have written a personal attack against Stalin, his closest political ally, and proposing that the highest post should go to his rabid opponent Trotsky? We cannot adopt this view at all. A realist understanding of Lenin’s ‘Testament’ is different. It gives into the hands of Lenin’s allies, ammunition for further struggles against Trotsky in serious questions of socialist revolution.
Let us come to a conclusion.
We have a basis to state that Lenin was not the author of these articles, letters or other documents. This fact needs historical corrections in order that Lenin’s teachings would be cleansed of these falsifications. We must understand Lenin’s Testament, in the context of the political life at that time, in the political struggles that were waged by V.I. Lenin in 1921-1922 against Trotsky. This struggle was waged by Lenin with Stalin as his loyal ally, who promoted and follow Lenin’s line of struggle, who after the death of Lenin undertook upon his shoulders the heavy burden of continuing the struggle with Trotsky. The fabricated part of the ‘Testament’ could only be understood in a much wider context in the context of the struggle inside the CC of the party against Trotsky and his group. But in this struggle, which was anti-Leninist, nurtured and promoted by Zinoviev, was combined a struggle against Stalin. Objectively, the whole plan of both of these groupings was to distance Stalin out of the leadership with the help of the authority of V.I. Lenin and to change the political course of the Russian Communist Party (B).
We must be very aware, that the basis of the struggle for the leadership, was a historical fight for the principal question of the socialist revolution. Space does not permit discussion of this further here. We can just state, that in the ‘archives of Trotsky’, following the ‘letter’ by Lenin about the characteristics of Stalin, the copy includes an amendment in Trotsky’s own writing which states: ‘I edited my copy. L. Trotsky’.
Forgery Continues
The myths being promoted on the basis of the last articles and letters of V.I. Lenin did not cease even later on – years after the death of V.I. Lenin. Their own additions and interpretations into this quagmire were given by Khrushchev and Gorbachev. Parts of Lenin’s letters were used to fill a need of the present contemporary enemies. They were mainly used in an anti-Stalin character. As an example, in the letter of December 23, there is a phrase ‘I would like to share this with You...’ In the publication by these contemporaries, it is written as ‘with you’ thus giving a whole new meaning to what Lenin stated. Lenin stated it to the Congress of the Party, giving it the ‘You’ title, that it deserved. This was as opposed to ‘you’ which is addressed to everyone – as opposed to an entity elected by the people. This letter is even registered in the Lenin’s secretariat as a letter to J.V. Stalin for the Congress. But, this even more confirms its essence, when addressing it with ‘You’. But Nikita Khrushchev decided that for him, it would be more beneficial to open up criticism of Stalin. In the phrase: ‘it has tremendous influence for all ‘courts’ of the party’ – the word courts was changed into the word ‘code of law’. This not only falsifies the words of V.I. Lenin, but leaves the phrase without any meaning. How many courts can there be in the party and what kind of courts are they?
In the political lexicon of V.I. Lenin in the late years, things are clear. In the word ‘courts’, he had in mind different oppositionists, always trying to criticize the party, and to change its course. Amongst those ‘court-judges’, there was in the first place Trotsky and his company. It is with these ‘judges’, that Lenin fought a bitter struggle as did J.V. Stalin, to whom this letter was written, the main friend and helper to V.I. Lenin. It is these ‘judges’, who were called in this respect ‘critics’ and ‘our Suhanovites’, states Lenin in which he dictated on December 26 and also in the article ‘About our Revolution’ (V.I. Lenin, Volume 45, page 347, 383, 385.) The phrase: ‘50-100 members of CC our party must demand it from the working class’, was changed to: ‘...our party has the right.’ Lenin stated that the CC demands from 50-100 new members to the enlarged Central Committee, while the falsifiers said – ‘the party asks.’ Such a fabrication was necessary, in order that the letter to J.V. Stalin was looked upon as a letter to the Congress of the party, instead of the exchange of ideas between Lenin and Stalin.
In the article by V.I. Lenin ‘How we should reorganize Rabkrin?’, which was falsified by the enemies, the article states: ‘that no authority, not of the General Secretary, or no other member of CC cannot mix into the work of the Central Control Commission, or has the right to give the Control Commission any questions as to their work...’ (Lenin, ‘Collected works’ (in Russian), Volume 4, (sic) p. 387). The naming of General Secretary is meant to be believed and used against J.V. Stalin. According to the archives (as written in Pravda, January 25, 1923) words such as General Secretary are nowhere to be found. The phrase that was used was. ‘no authority could be used...’ This is an open falsification, to try and show that this is a ‘document’ about the criticism by Lenin of Stalin, thus falsifying the whole understanding of the testament.
Ideological Provocation
It is now known, what significance was given to the article ‘About Cooperation’, during the period of perestroika. Through this article written by Lenin, the revisionists tried to eliminate everything else written by V.I. Lenin. Under this slogan, they stated it is necessary to re-evaluate all aspects of socialism. Even though there is absolutely no word of that kind in V.I. Lenin, they nevertheless tried to utilize it, in the ideology of ‘perestroika’. This is a question of outright falsification. In the writings of Lenin there is not one word or article ‘About Cooperation’, but there is a first and second ‘edition’ of this article. Lenin, while working on this article was not satisfied yet with his writing, something in his mind thought that it could be stated much clearer. This is confirmed by his marginal notes to his text, which was well known to these enemies, cognizant that Lenin was working on important issues. Lenin wrote in his marginal notes:
‘Not one variation pleases me, because some of them contain forms that need further elaboration from an ideological point of view, and both need in some measure some correction’.
This marginal note was dated January 7, 1923. Of course this notation does not formulate the whole text. We should try to figure out as to what was Lenin unhappy about in his work on this important document.
From Bukharin To Khrushchev, On To Gorbachev
The article ‘About Cooperation’, is the supreme thinking and got into the hands of Bukharin. From Khrushchev this ‘document’ went to Gorbachev, and here in front of our eyes, is this ideological bomb, masked as if V.I. Lenin was the final author. it was expanded and used as a deformation from inside by Khrushchev when starting to dismember the socialist state. This was made possible because, this lying subterfuge had an important political effect behind the scenes. In Bukharin’s time this was used for the kulaks, to save them as a class. In Khrushchev’s time – this was used as the vehicle to criticize Stalin’s thesis, that in the time of capitalist encirclement, the successes of socialism will be more and more noticeable, while the remnants of dispersed exploiting classes ‘will more and more try by all means at their command to overthrow the socialist state, they will more and more sabotage the Soviet State, as the last means of saving their privileged class position’.
Criticism of this text helped Khrushchev to open up a campaign against Stalin. During Gorbachev’s tenure it was used to make people disbelieve the ideological road of building socialism in the USSR, about the non-socialist path and accommodating capitalism in the USSR, about the need to break this socialist hold on the country, that we somehow got lost and it is no use trying to improve socialism, there is nothing to be gained from it, there is nothing more necessary than our history...
Anyway, the reader knows himself perfectly well, what and how it was, and what came out of it.
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