File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/marxism-general.9709, message 118


Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 00:04:33 -0400
From: "Siddharth G. Chatterjee" <siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: M-G: Excerpt from Lenin's Testament


> Excerpt from Lenin's Testament
> by V.I. Lenin, 1922
> 
> By the stability of the Central Committee, of which I spoke above, I
> mean measures against a split, as far as such measures can at all be
> taken. For, of course, the whiteguard in _Russkaya_Mysl_ (it seems to
> have been S. S. Oldenburg) was right when, first, in the whiteguards'
> game against Soviet Russia he banked on a split in our Party, and
> when, secondly, he banked on grave differences in our Party to cause
> that split.
> 
> Our Party relies on two classes and therefore its instability would be
> possible and its downfall inevitable if there were no agreement
> between those two classes. In that event, this or that measure, and
> generally all talk about the stability of our C.C., would be futile.
> No measures of any kind could prevent a split in such a case. But I
> hope that this 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
> immediate future, and I intend to deal here with a few ideas
> concerning personal qualities.
> 
> I think that from this standpoint, the prime factors in the question
> of stability are such members of the C.C. as Stalin and Trotsky. I
> think relations between them make up the greater part of the danger of
> a split, which could be avoided, and this purpose, in my opinion,
> would be served, among other things, by increasing the number of C.C.
> members to 50 or 100.
> 
> 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 struggles against the C.C.
> on the question of the People.s 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.
> 
> These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present C.C.
> can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our Party does not take
> steps to avert this, the split may come unexpectedly.
> 
> I shall not give any further appraisals of the personal qualities of
> other members of the C.C. I shall just recall that the October episode
> with Zinoviev and Kamenov was, of course, no accident, but neither can
> the blame for it be laid upon them personally, any more than
> non-Bolshevism can upon Trotsky.
> 
> Speaking of the young C.C. members, I wish to say a few words about
> Bukharin and Pyatakov. They are, in my opinion, the most outstanding
> figures (among the younger ones), and the following must be borne in
> mind about them: Bukharin is not only a most valuable and major
> theorist of the Party; he is also rightly considered the favorite of
> the whole Party, but his theoretical views can be classified as fully
> Marxist only with the great reserve, for there is something scholastic
> about him (he has never made a study of dialectics, and, I think,
> never fully appreciated it).
> 
> December 25. As for Pyatakov, he is unquestionably a man of
> outstanding will and outstanding ability, but shows far too much zeal
> for administrating and the administrative side of the work to be
> relied upon in a serious political matter.
> 
> Both of these remarks, of course, are made only for the present, on
> the assumption that both these outstanding and devoted Party workers
> fail to find an occassion to enhance their knowledge and amend their
> one-sidedness.
> 
> Lenin.
> 
> December 25, 1922 Taken down by M. V. [Maria Volodicheva, a secretary]
> 
> Addition to the letter of December 24, 1922
> 
> Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our
> midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a
> Secretary-General. That is why I suggest the comrades think about a
> way of removing Staling 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 the 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.
> 
> Lenin.
> 
> January 4, 1923
> Taken down by L. F.
> [Lydia Fotieva]
> 
> (from Lenin's Collected Works. Moscow: Progress, 1966. v.36,
> pp.594-596.)
http://www.idbsu.edu/surveyrc/Staff/jaynes/marxism/lenin/testamnt.htm


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