Vlad and leon

[calbert at tiac.net]

Chapter Six - The Rise of Stalinism

 

Monty Johnstone does not waste his reader's time by introducing 
into his "balanced
estimate" of Trotsky's career any details of the key role which he 
admits Trotsky played in
the Civil War, to which he devotes one paragraph. Perhaps it would 
have prejudiced the
reader's sense of objectivity to discover, for instance, that Lenin 
provided Trotsky during
the Civil War with blank sheets of paper to which Lenin's signature 
was appended,
authorising any action which the "revolutionary phrasemonger" saw 
fit to take!

Glossing over the little episode of the Civil War, Johnstone refers us 
to his old friend
Isaac Deutscher, in whose Prophet Armed the story is "stirringly 
told" of "both Trotsky's
mistakes (sometimes serious) and of his achievements (which much 
out-weighed them)"
And that is clearly the reason why Monty Johnstone is not over-
anxious to dwell on the
Civil War."

and here's the good part:

" Having spent the first half of his work trying to paint a picture of 
Trotsky as a
petty-bourgeois individualist, devoid of organisational abilities,"

So, which is it? Organizational wizard or pillock?


" he goes on, without the
least hint of embarrassment, to quote the words of Gorky:

    "Show me another man", he (Lenin) said, thumping the table 
"capable of
    organising in a year an almost exemplary army and moreover of 
winning the
    esteem of the military specialists." (Cogito, page 17)

Fearing lest the "balance" of this estimate should be upset by all this 
Monty Johnstone
hastens to add another quotation from Gorky where, Lenin is 
supposed to have said of
Trotsky:

    "He isn't one of us. With us, but not of us. He is ambitious. There 
is something
    of Lassalle in him, something which isn't good."

Monty Johnstone's scrupulous use of quotations has already been 
commented on. This is
another good example. The second quotation does not occur 
anywhere in the original
edition of Gorky's Reminiscences of Lenin, written in 1924. At that 
early date it would not
have been possible to insert so blatant a falsehood. But Gorky was 
obliged to rewrite his
memoirs in 1930. On Stalin's orders, parts of Gorky's memory 
faded, while other
"memories" made their first appearance: among them, the particular 
piece of falsification
quoted by Monty Johnstone. And since Comrade Johnstone is 
interested in Gorky's report
of Lenin's attitude to Trotsky, let us throw in another piece from the 
genuine, original
memoirs where Lenin attacks the slanderers who attempted to drive 
a wedge between him
and Trotsky: "Yes, yes, I know they lie a lot about my relations with 
him."

I tell ya, I'll never let comrade Johnstone into MY dascha again.....


love,
cfa