Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:39:04 +0200 (MET DST)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: Re: M-G: Excerpt from Lenin's Testament


Siddharth C. wrote the below (asked by me to post that
thing if he had it - mainly snipped here)

Thanks a lot! 

Also for the tip on where to get it:
http://www.idbsu.edu/surveyrc/Staff/jaynes/marxism/lenin/testamnt.htm

Rolf M.

>> 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.
..........



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