Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 09:50:03 +0200 (MET DST)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: M-G: Question to Gary H. on Lenin speech 01(14).11.1917


Question to Gary H. on Lenin speech 01(14).11.1917
[Posted: 20.09.97]

Gary Holloway,

I'm checking out just a little - shall continue that later - on
the history of the early party struggle in Russia / the Soviet 
Union involving Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and others. I know quite
well that in the history-writing of the Soviet revisionists, who
published Lenin's Collected Works in the 1960s, there are falsi-
fications including those of omission, and I've seen instances of
such things in the accounts published under Stalin's rule too,
a rule which I in the main support but know contained several
erroneous and even sinister things; the workers in my judgement
to a certain extent were put between the two fires of those wrong
things, on the one hand, and bourgeois Trotskyism, on the other.
(Why "bourgeois"? More on that later.)

At any rate, I'm interested in finding out the truth on various
points, if possible, and am not going to trust every anti-Trotsky
statement, for instance, without seeing some support for it.

Now on 17.09, you posted some quotes after I had asked Siddharth
to show me (us) the relevant parts from Lenin's "testament", 
which he did and you too; your posting also included some other
ones and one of them I'd like to ask you about your source for.

It's from Lenin's speech(es) at the meeting of the Central Com-
mittee of the R.S.D.L.(B.) on November 1 (14), 1917, you say:

>From Lenin's speech at the November 1 (14), 1917 meeting of 
>the Central Committee (stenographer's notes): "As for concilia-
>tion [with the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionists] I 
>cannot even speak about that seriously. Trotsky long ago said 
>that unification is impossible. Trotsky understood this and 
>from that time on there has been no better Bolshevik."

Now in Vol. 26 of Collected Works (Moscow, 1964), there are some
minutes of the speeches held by Lenin at that meeting, on pp.
275-276, published, it's said, according to a handwritten copy
of the minutes, and first published, it's also maintained, in
1922 in Proletarskaya Revolutsia No. 10.

Those minutes as reproduced there consist only of 3 paragraphs,
numbered 1-3. Your quote is *not* included.

So where did you get it from? 

I consider it quite possible that in the 1964 volume, such a part
of Lenin's speeches was suppressed, if in fact it was there. Did
you get it from a more complete reproduction of that 1922
Proletarskaya Revolutsia issue, and if so, where did you find
that reproduction? 

As I said, I'm trying the best I can to ascertain the truth.

Actually, I'm sceptical about Trotsky's being such a "good Bol-
shevik" even then, even temporarily, even despite such a judge-
ment by Lenin, if it was there, but that's another matter. Of
course such a statement by him would be of historical importance
and likewise the story of how and when it was suppressed, if so
it was.
 
Rolf M. 



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