Vlad, Ios, and Leon
calbert at tiac.net
calbert at tiac.net
Fri May 11 14:09:48 CDT 2001
The enclosed will shed more light on the troika:
The Testament of Lenin
By the stability of the Central Committee, of which I spoke before,
I mean
measures to prevent a split, so far as such measures can be
taken. For, of
course, the White Guard in Russkaya Mysl (I think it was S. E.
Oldenburg) was
right when, in the first place, in his play against Soviet Russia he
banked on the
hope of a split in our party, and when, in the second place, he
banked for that
split on serious disagreements in our party.
Our party rests upon two classes, and for that reason its
instability is possible,
and if there cannot exist an agreement between those classes its
fall is
inevitable. In such an event it would be useless to take any
measures or in
general to discuss the stability of our Central Committee. In such
an event no
measures would prove capable of preventing a split. But I trust
that is too
remote a future, and too improbable an event, to talk about.
I have in mind stability as a guarantee against a split in the near
future, and I
intend to examine here a series of considerations of a purely
personal
character.
I think that the fundamental factor in the matter of stability -- from
this point of
view -- is such members of the Central Committee as Stalin and
Trotsky. The
relation between them constitutes, in my opinion, a big half of the
danger of that
split, which might be avoided, and the avoidance of which might
be promoted,
in my opinion, by raising the number of members of the Central
Committee to
fifty or one hundred.
Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has
concentrated an
enormous power in his hands; and I am not sure that he always
knows how to
use that power with sufficient caution. On the other hand,
Comrade Trotsky, as
was proved by his struggle against the Central Committee in
connection with the
question of the People's Commissariat of Ways and
Communications, is
distinguished not only by his exceptional abilities -- personally he
is, to be sure,
the most able man in the present Central Committee -- but also by
his too
far-reaching self-confidence and a disposition to be too much
attracted by the
purely administrative side of affairs.
These two qualities of the two most able leaders of the present
Central
Committee might, quite innocently, lead to a split; if our party
does not take
measures to prevent it, a split might arise unexpectedly.
I will not further characterize the other members of the Central
Committee as to
their personal qualities. I will only remind you that the October
episode of
Zinoviev and Kamenev was not, of course, accidental, but that it
ought as little
to be used against them personally as the non-Bolshevism of
Trotsky.
Of the younger members of the Central Committee, I want to say
a few words
about Bukharin and Pyatakov. They are, in my opinion, the most
able forces
(among the youngest) and in regard to them it is necessary to
bear in mind the
following: Bukharin is not only the most valuable and biggest
theoretician of the
party, but also may legitimately be considered the favorite of the
whole party;
but his theoretical views can only with the very greatest doubt be
regarded as
fully Marxist, for there is something scholastic in him (he never
has learned, and
I think never has fully understood, the dialectic).
And then Pyatakov -- a man undoubtedly distinguished in will and
ability, but
too much given over to administration and the administrative side
of things to be
relied on in a serious political question.
Of course, both these remarks are made by me merely with a
view to the present
time, or supposing that these two able and loyal workers may not
find an
occasion to supplement their knowledge and correct their one-
sidedness.
December 25, 1922
Postscript: Stalin is too rude, and this fault, entirely supportable in
relations
among us Communists, becomes insupportable in the office of
General
Secretary. Therefore, I propose to the comrades to find a way to
remove Stalin
from that position and appoint to it another man who in all
respects differs from
Stalin only in superiority -- namely, more patient, more loyal,
more polite and
more attentive to comrades, less capricious, etc. This
circumstance may seem an
insignificant trifle, but I think that from the point of view of
preventing a split
and from the point of view of the relation between Stalin and
Trotsky which I
discussed above, it is not a trifle, or it is such a trifle as may
acquire a decisive
significance. "
http://www.ex.ac.uk/Projects/meia/Trotsky/Archive/1926-lenin.htm
Too bad Vlad couldn't prevail over Ios.....
love,
cfa
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