A Political Biography of Stalin

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PART I

Editor’s Note

The Daily Worker last week published Stalin’s interview with Emil Ludwig, in which the infallible, the best disciple of Lenin spouts freely the wisdom of latter-day Bolshevism. Among other things, he hurls another of his notorious stink-bombs against comrade Trotsky. It suffices to characterize the Best Disciple by reprinting the following lines from Materials for a Political Biography of Stalin, written some time ago by our comrade. – Ed.

Eight years of struggle since Lenin; eight years of struggle against Trotsky; eight years of the regime of the epigones, first the “three”, then the “seven”, and finally the “one” – this entire significant period of the decline of the revolution, of its ebbing on an international scale, of the lowering of its theoretical level; brought us to a, in the highest degree, critical point. In the bureaucratic triumph of Stalin a great historical period is culminated and, at the same time the inevitability of its defeat in the near future is indicated. The culmination of bureaucracy foretells its crisis. It may be very much swifter than its growth and rise. The regime of national socialism and its hero come under the blows not only of inner contradictions, but also of the international revolutionary movement. The world crisis will give the latter a series of new impulsions. The vanguard of the proletariat will not be able and willing to suffocate in the clutches of a Molotovist leadership. The personal responsibility of Stalin is fully involved. Doubts and anxiety have entered the souls of even the most trained ones. And Stalin cannot give more than he has. He is threatened with a descent which may prove to be swifter in proportion to the artificial character of his ascent.

In any case Stalin is the central figure in the present unstable period. The characteristics of Stalin have a great political interest in connection with the course of the sixteenth congress. The present issue of the Bulletin is devoted to a considerable extent to a characterization of the chief of the apparatus, as a political worker and as a theoretician.

In the following lines we want to contribute some material to the political biography of Stalin. Our material is extremely incomplete. We choose the most essential from what we hare in our archives. But in our archives, as yet, many essential, maybe the most important material and documents are temporarily missing. From the archives of the police department which intercepted and copied in the course of decades the letters of revolutionaries, documents, etc., Stalin in the course of the last years has meticulously collected material with the help of which he was able on the one hand to maintain a hold on insufficiently reliable friends, throw a shadow on opponents, and, primarily, protect himself and his adherents against the publication of these or other excerpts or episodes which would damage the false monolithism artificially created by their biographies. These documents we do not have. The extreme inadequacy of our information must be kept in view, in appraising the following material.

* * * *

1. On December 23, 1925, the following police information was published in the party organ, Zaria Vostoka, by Stalin’s closest friends: “From the information received by me again from the agency, Djugavshvili was known in the organization by the nicknames, Soso and Koba; worked from 1902 in the social democratic party organization first as a menshevik and then as a bolshevik, as a propagandist and leader of the first district (railroad).” In reference to this police information about Stalin published by his adherents no refutation has appeared anywhere, as far as we know. From this information it transpires that Stalin began his work as a menshevik.

2. In 1905 Stalin belonged to the bolsheviks and was taking an active part in the struggle. What were his views on the character and perspectives of the revolution? As far as we know there are no documents in circulation on this account. No articles, speeches, or resolutions by Stalin have been reprinted. Why? Obviously because the republication of Stalin’s articles or letters for that period could only damage his political biography. There is no other explanation of the stubborn forgetfulness of the “chief’s” past.

3. In 1907 Stalin took part in the expropriation of the bank of Tiflis. The mensheviks following the bourgeois philistines expressed indignation against the “conspiratorial” methods of bolshevism and its “anarcho-Blanquism”. We can have only one attitude toward this indignation: contempt. The fact of taking part in a resolute, tho only partial blow at the enemy can add only honor to the revolutionary resoluteness of Stalin. It is astonishing, however, that this fact has been removed in cowardly manner from all the official biographies of Stalin? Is it in the name of bureaucratic respectability? After all we think not. It is more likely for political reasons. For, if participation in expropriation in itself cannot compromise a revolutionist in the eyes of revolutionists, the false political appraisal of that situation compromises Stalin as a politician. Separate blows at the institutions of the enemy, including “treasuries”, are compatible only with the revolutionery offensive of the masses; i.e., with the ascent of the revolution. When the masses are retreating, partial, separate, partisan blows unavoidably degenerate into adventures and lead to demoralization of the party. In 1907 the revolution was receding and the expropriations degenerated into adventures. Stalin, at any rate, showed in that period that he was unable to distinguish between high and low tides. He will disclose in the future more than once (Esthonia, Bulgaria, Canton, the third period) incapability of political orientation on a broad scale.

4. Stalin, from the time of the first revolution leads the life of a professional revolutionist. Prisons, exiles, escapes. But during the entire period of the reaction (1907–11) we do not find a single document – article, letter, resolution – in which Stalin formulated his own appraisal of the situation and its perspectives. It is impossible that such documents do not exist. It is impossible that they are not preserved, if only in the archives of the police department. Why don’t they appear in the press? It is perfectly obvious why: they are unable to strengthen the absurd characterization of the theoretical and political infallibility that the apparatus, which means Stalin himself – creates for itself.

5. Only one letter of that period, due to oversight, got into the press and it entirely confirms our hypothesis.

On the 24 of January 1911, Stalin wrote to his friends from exile. This letter was intercepted by the police department, was reprinted on December 23, 1925, still by the same more servile than wise editorship of the Zaria Vostoka (Dawn of the East). This is what Stalin wrote:

“You have certainly heard about the ‘tempest in a teapot’ abroad; blocs – Lenin and Plechanov on one side, and Trotsky-Martov-Bogdanov on the other. The relation of the workers to the first bloc, as far as I know, is favorable. But in general the workers are beginning to look with contempt on the work abroad; ‘let them climb on the wall to their hearts’ content; in our estimation those should work to whom the interests of the movement are dear, and the rest will happen.’ This, in my estimation, is for the best.”

This is not the place to consider how correctly Stalin defines the composition of the blocs. The question is not in this. Lenin led a fierce struggle against legalizers, liquidators, and opportunists, for the perspectives of the second revolution. This struggle determined fundamentally all the groupings abroad. But how does the Bolshevik Stalin appraise these battles? As the most helpless empiricist and unprincipled practicalist: “a tempest in a teapot; let them, so to say, climb on the wall; work, and all will be well.” Stalin welcomes the frame of mind of theoretical indifference and the imaginary superiority of the near-sighted practicalists over the revolutionary theoreticians. “In my estimation, this is for the best”, he writes, addressing those moods that were characteristic of the period of reaction and downfall. We have in this manner in the person of the Bolshevik Stalin not even a political conciliationalism, for conciliationism was an ideological current which strove to create a principled platform, – we have a blind empiricism which entirely disdains the principle problems of the revolution.

It isn’t difficult to imagine what a castigation the editorship of the Zaria Vostoka got for publishing this letter, and what measures were taken on a general governmental scale to prevent such letters from appearing in the future.

6. In his report at the seventh plenum of the E.C.C.I. (1926) Stalin characterized the party’s past in the following manner: “... the history of our party if taken from the moment of its birth in the form of a Bolshevik group in 1903, and traced through its subsequent stages up to our time; can be said without exaggeration, to be a history of the struggle of contradictions inside the party – there is not and cannot be a ‘middle’ line in questions of a principle character —”. These imposing words are aimed against ideological “conciliationism” in relation to those against whom Stalin led a struggle. But these absolute formulas of ideological irreconcilability are entirely contradictory to the political physiognomy and political past of Stalin himself. He was, as an empiricist, an organic conciliator, but particularly as an empiricist he did not give his conciliationism a principled expression.

7. In 1912 Stalin contributed to the legal paper of the Bolsheviks, Zvesda (The Star). The Petersburg editorial board in direct struggle with Lenin, issued this paper at first as a conciliationist organ. Here is what Stalin wrote in the programmatic editorial: “... we will be satisfied if the paper, not falling into the political infatuations of the different fractions, will successfully defend the spiritual treasures of the democracy, on which at present obvious enemies and false friends are boldly encroaching” (Revolution and C.P.S.U.(B), in Materials and Documents, Vol. 5, page 101–162).

The phrase about political Infatuations of different (!) fractions is aimed wholly at Lenin, at his “tempests in teapots”, at his eternal readiness to “climb on the wall”, out of some “political infatuations.”

Stalin’s article, in this manner, entirely coincides with the vulgar-conciliationist tendency of the above quoted letter of 1911, and wholly contradicts his later announcement of the impermissibility of a middle line in questions of a principle character.

8. One of the official biographies of Stalin proclaims: “In 1913 he was again exiled to Turuchansk, where he remained until 1917.” The Stalin jubilee number of Pravda expresses itself in the same way: “The years of 1913–14–15–16 Stalin spent in exile in Turuchansk” (Pravda, December 21, 1929). And not a word more. These were the years of the world war, the collapse of the Second International, of Zimmerwald, Kienthal, of the deepest ideological struggle in socialism. What part did Stalin take in this struggle? Four years of exile should have been years of intensive mental work. The exiles in such circumstances keep diaries, write tracts, work out theses, platforms, exchange polemical letters, etc. It is impossible that Stalin in four years of exile did not write anything on the fundamental problems of the war, the International, and revolution. But it would bet futile for us to look for some traces of Stalin’s mental work during these astounding four years. In what manner could this occur? It is perfectly obvious that if only one single line could be found where Stalin formulated the idea of defeatism or announced the necessity of a new International, this line would have been published long ago photographed and translated into all languages, and enriched with learned commentaries by all the academies and institutions. No such line was found. Does this mean that Stalin did not write at all? No, it does not mean this. This would be entirely incredible. But this means that among all the material written during these four years there was nothing, absolutely nothing, which can be used to-day for the strengthening of his reputation. In this manner the years of war, when the ideas and slogans of the Russian revolution and Third International were forged, proved an empty space in the ideological biography of Stalin. It is very probable that at that time he spoke and wrote: “Let them climb on the wall there and arrange storms in a glass of water.”

9. Stalin arrives in Petrograd with Kamenev about the middle of March 1917. Pravda, directed by Molotov and Shliapnikov, had a vague, primitive, but nevertheless “left” character directed against the provisional government. Stalin and Kamenev put aside the old editorship as too left and took up a thoroughly opportunist position in the spirit of the left mensheviks: (a) support of the provisional government as far as: (b) military defense of the revolution (i.e., the bourgeois republic); (c) a union with the mensheviks of the Tseretelli type. The position of Pravda in those days presents indeed a scandalous page in the history of the party and in the biography of Stalin. His March articles which were the revolutionary result of his meditations in exile explain perfectly why not a line from Stalin’s works from the war epoch have appeared up till how.

PART II

10. We give here a story by Shliapnikov (The Seventeenth Year, 1925, V. 2) about the change wrought by Stalin and Kamenev joined together at that time by the unity of their positions.

“The day of the appearance of the first issue of the ‘changed’ Pravda – the Fifteenth of March – was a day of rejoicing for the defenders. The whole Tauride Palace, from the men of affairs in the committees of the Duma to the very heart of the revolutionary democracy – the Executive Committee – was filled with the news: the victory of the moderate common-sense Bolsheviks over the extremists. In the very Executive Committee we were met with poisonous smiles. This was the first and only time that Pravda won the approval even of the stout defenders of liberal sense. When this issue of Pravda was received at the factories it caused complete perplexity among the members of our party and our sympathizers and malicious pleasure among our opponents.

“To the Petersbu’rg committee, to the bureau of the C.C. and to the editorial board of Pravda came inquiries: what is the matter, why did our paper renounce the Bolshevik line of Lenin and go over to the line of the defenders? And the Petersburg committee like the whole organization was caught unawares by this turn and therefore was deeply indignant and blamed the bureau of the C.C. The indignation in the sections was colossal, and when the proletarians found out that Pravda had been seized by the three former editors of Pravda who had arrived from Siberia, they demanded their expulsion from the party.” (The third was the former deputy Muranov.)

To this must be added the following: (a) Shliapnlkov’s exposition was worked over and extremely softened under the pressure of Stalin and Kamenev in 1925 (at that time the “three” still dominated!); (b) no denials of Shliapnikov’s story have appeared in the official press. And how can it be denied? Those issues of Pravda still exist.

11. The relation of Stalin to the problem of revolutionary power is expressed in a speech at a party conference (session of March 29, 1917):

“The provisional government, in fact, took the role of strengthening the conquest of the revolutionary people. The Soviet power and the social democracy mobilize forces, control, but the provisional government – persisting blundering takes the role of strengthening those conquests of the people, which in fact are already accomplished by them. Such a situation has negative, but also positive sides: it is not to our advantage now to force events, to quicken the process of the split-off of the bourgeois strata which later must unavoidably go away from us.”

Stalin is afraid “to push away the bourgeoisie” – the fundamental argument of the Mensheviks beginning with the year 1904.

”In so far as the provisional government supports the steps of the revolution, so far is it to be supported; and in so far as it is counter-revolutionary, support to the provisional government is unacceptable.”

Just so Dan spoke. In other words, is it possible to defend the bourgeois government before the revolutionary masses? The record further proclaims: “comrade Stalin publishes the resolution about the provisional government adopted by the bureau of the C.C., but says that he does not fully agree with it, and rather concurs with the resolution of the Krasnoyarsk Soviet.”

We cite the most important points of the Krasnoyarsk resolution:

“To make clear in full that the only source of power and authority of the provisional government is the will of the people who accomplished this overturn and whom the provisional government is obliged to obey completely —

“To support the provisional government in its activity in so far as it marches along the road of satisfying the demands of the working class and the revolutionary peasantry in the developing revolution.”

Such is the position of Stalin on the question of power.

12. The date, March 29, must be specially underlined. In this manner, more than a month after the beginning of the revolution, Stalin still talks of Miliukov as an ally: the Soviet conquers, the provisional government strengthens. It is difficult to believe that these words could be uttered by a reporter to the Bolshevik conference at the end of March 1917! Even Martov would not have put the question this way. This is the theory of Dan in its most vulgar expression: the democratic revolution as an abstraction within the confines of which participate the more “moderate” and the more “determined” forces; who divide the work among themselves: one conquers, who divide the work among themselves: one conquers, the other strengthens. And nevertheless, Stalin’s speech is not accidental. We have in it the schema of the whole Stalinist policy in China in the years 1924–28.

With what passionate indignation, notwithstanding all his reserve, Lenin, who succeeded in coming to the last session of that same conference lashed Stalin’s position:

“Even our Bolsheviks,” he said, “manifest trust in the government. This can be explained only by the fumes of the revolution. This spells the wreck of socialism. You comrades trust the government. If so, our ways part. I will rather remain in the minority. One Liebknecht is dearer than a hundred and ten defenders of the Steklov and Cheidze type. If you sympathize with Liebknecht and stretch even one finger to the defenders this will be a betrayal of international socialism.” (March party conference, 1917, Session of April 4. Report of comrade Lenin, page 44)

It must not be forgotten that Lenin’s speech and the reports in their entirety have been concealed from the party up till now.

13. How did Stalin pose the question of war? Exactly like Kamenev. It is necessary to awaken the European workers and meanwhile to fulfill one’s duty in relation to the “revolution”. But how are the European workers to be awakened? Stalin gives the answer in an article on March 17:

“... we have shown already one of the most serious methods of doing it. It consists in compelling our own government to express itself not only against any plans of conquest – but to formulate openly the will of the Russian people to begin immediately negotiations for a general peace on conditions of renunciation by both sides of any conquests, and the right of nations to self determination”.

In this manner the pacifism of Miliukov-Guchkov was to serve as a means of awakening the European proletariat.

On April 4, on the second day of his arrival, Lenin declared with indignation at the party conference:

“Pravda demands from the government that it should renounce annexation. To demand from capitalist governments that they renounce annexations – is nonsense, a crying mockery.” (The March conference of the party in 1917. Session of April 4. Report of comrade Lenin. Page 44)

These words were aimed entirely at Stalin.

14. March 14, the Menshevik-Social Revolutionist Soviet issued a manifesto about the war to the toilers of all countries. The manifesto was a hypocritical pseudo-pacifist document in the political spirit of the Mensheviks and S.R.’s who were persuading the workers of other countries to rise against their own bourgeoisie and themselves were going along in the same harness with the imperialists of Russia and the whole entente.

How did Stalin appraise this manifesto?

“First of all, undoubtedly the bare slogan ‘down with war’ is unsuitable as a practical road – One can’t help welcoming yesterday’s appeal of the Soviet of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies in Petrograd to the nations of the whole world to compel their own governments to stop the slaughter. This appeal, if it reaches the broad masses, will undoubtedly return hundreds and thousands of workers to the forgotten slogan ‘Proletarians of all countries, unite!’”

How did Lenin appraise the appeal of the defenders? In the already cited speech of April 4th he said: “The appeal of the Soviet of workers deputies – there is not a word permeated with class consciousness. There is nothing in it but lifeless phrases.” (The party conference of 1917. Session of April 4th. Report of comrade Lenin, Page 43) These words of Lenin are aimed entirely at Stalin. Therefore the reports of the March, conference are concealed from the party.

15. Conducting, in relation to the provisional government and the war, the policy of the Left Mensheviks, Stalin had no ground on which to refuse to unite with the Mensheviks. Here is how he expressed himself on this question at the same March conference of 1917. We cite the report literally.

“On the order of the day – Tseretelli’s proposal for unity.”

“Stalin: ‘We have to go. It is absolutely necessary to define our proposal on the line of unity. Unity is possible on the line of Zimmerwald-Kienthal.’”

Even Molotov, it is true, expressed doubts, though not very articulately. Stalin retorts:

“To run ahead and to anticipate disagreements is not necessary. Without disagreements there is no party life. Inside the party we’ll get rid of insignificant disagreements.” (March party conference. Session of April 1st. Page 32)

These few words say more than whole volumes. They show those thoughts on which Stalin was feeding in the years of the war and bear witness with judicial exactness that the Zimmerwaldism of Stalin was of the same stamp as the Zimmerwaldism of Tseretelli. Here again there is not a hint of the ideological irreconcilability, the .false mask of which Stalin, in the interests of the apparatus struggle, put on a few days later. On the contrary, Menshevism and Bolshevism represent themselves to Stalin at the end of March 1917 as shades of thought that can live in harmony in one party. Disagreements with Tseretelli, Stalin calls “insignificant disagreements” which can be got rid of inside one party. We see here how it becomes Stalin to expose the conciliationist relations of Trotsky with the Left Mensheviks – in 1913.

16. In such a position Stalin naturally couldn’t seriously oppose anything to the S.R.’s and Mensheviks in the Executive Committee where he entered as a representative of the party after his arrival. There is not to be found in the records or in the press one proposition, one statement, one protest in which Stalin in some measure clearly counterposed the Bolshevik point of view to the lackeyism of the “revolutionary democracy” before the bourgeoisie. One of the recorders of events of that period, a non-partisan half-defender, Sukhanov, the author of the above mentioned manifesto to the toilers of the whole world, says in Notes of the Revolution:

“For the Bolsheviks at this time, beside Kamenev, there appeared in the Executive Committee Stalin – during his modest activity in the Executive Committee (he) produced – not only on me – the impression of a gray spot, that sometimes glimmered dully and traceless. More about him there is nothing to say.” (Notes of the Revolution, Book, pages 265–266)

PART III

17. Forcing his way through from abroad at last, Lenin rends and fulminates against the “Kautskianist” Pravda (Lenin’s own expression), Stalin steps aside. At the time when Kamenev defends himself, Stalin remains silent. Gradually, he enters on the new official line laid down by Lenin. But we cannot find one independent thought, one generalization over which it is worth stopping. When circumstances permit, Stalin stands between Kamenev and Lenin. Thus, four days before the October overturn, when Lenin demanded the expulsion of Zinoviev and Kamenev, Stalin declared in Pravda that he didn’t see any principle difference. (See in the same issue the article, An Awl in a Sack)

18. Stalin did not occupy an independent position during the period of the Brest negotiations He wavered, waited and remained silent. At the last moment he voted for Lenin’s proposals. Stalin’s confused and helpless position at that period is sufficiently, clearly, though not fully characterized by even the officially dressed up report of the C.C. (See An Awl in a Sack)

19. In the period of the civil war, Stalin was against the principles laid down as a basis for the creation of the Red Army, and behind the scenes, inspired the so-called “military” opposition against Lenin and Trotsky. Facts bearing on this are partly set forth in Trotsky’s Autobiography (Vol. 2, page 167, Military Opposition). See also Markin’s article in No. 12–13, Bulletin of the Russian Opposition, page 36.

20. In 1922, during Lenin’s illness and Trotsky’s leave of absence, Stalin, under the influence of Sokolnikov, carries a resolution undermining the monopoly of foreign trade. Thanks to the vigorous protests of Lenin and Trotsky this resolution was withdrawn (see A Letter to the Bureau of Party History by Trotsky).

21. In the same period, on the national question, Stalin occupies a position which Lenin accuses of bureaucratic and chauvinistic tendencies. Stalin, on his part, accuses Lenin of national liberalism (see A Letter to the Bureau of Party History by Trotsky).

22. What was Stalin’s conduct on the question of the German revolution in 1923? Here again, as in March 1917, he had to orient himself independently in a question on a large scale: Lenin was ill, a struggle was being waged against Trotsky. Here is what Stalin wrote to Zinoviev and Bucharin in August 1923 about the situation in Germany:

“Should the Communists (at the present stage) strive to seize power without the social democracy – are they ripe for this already, – this in my opinion is the question. On seizing the power we had in Russia such reserves as: (a) peace, (b) land to the peasants, (c) the support of the great majority of the working class, (d) the sympathy of the peasantry. The German Communists have nothing like this now. True, they have the Soviet Union as a neighbor which we didn’t have, but what can we give them at the moment? If now in Germany the power, so to say, will fall and the Communists will seize it, they will fall through with a crash. This is the ‘best’ case. And in the worst – they’ll be smashed to bits and thrown back. The thing is not in this, that Brandler wants to teach the masses, but that the bourgeoisie plus the Right social democracy would surely turn this teaching-demonstration into a general slaughter (at present they have all the chances for it) and would destroy them. Certainly the Fascists are not napping, but it is more advantageous to us for the Fascists to attack first: this will rally the whole working class around the Communists. (Germany is not Bulgaria). Besides, the Fascists in Germany, according to the data we have, are weak. In my estimation the Germans must be restrained, not spurred on.”

In this manner, in August 1923, when the German revolution was knocking at all doors, Stalin reckoned that Brandler had to be restrained, not spurred on. For missing the revolutionary situation in Germany Stalin carries the weightiest share of the responsibility. He supported the procrastinators, the sceptics, the delayers in Germany. In a question of world-wide historical importance he not accidentally took an opportunist position: in reality he only continued that policy which in March 1917 he conducted in Russia.

23. After the revolutionary situation was ruined by passivity and indecision, Stalin for a long time defended the Brandlerist C.C. against Trotsky, in this way defending himself. Thus December 17, 1924 – a year after the wreck in Germany! – Stalin wrote:

“This peculiarity must not be forgotten for a moment. It particularly has to be remembered in analyzing the events in the fall of 1923. First of all it has to be remembered by comrade Trotsky who indiscriminately (!) traces an analogy (!!) between the October revolution and the revolution in Germany, and unceasingly flays the German Communist party.” (Questions of Leninism, 1928 edition, Page 171)

In this manner Trotsky was guilty in those days of flaying Brandlerism and not patronizing it. From this it is clearly seen how fit are Stalin and his Molotov for the struggle against the Rights in Germany.

24. The year 1924 – a year of great turn. In the spring of this year Stalin still repeats the old formulas about the impossibility of building socialism in one country, and a backward one at that. In the fall of the same year he breaks with Marx and Lenin in the fundamental question of the proletarian revolution and constructs his theory of socialism in a single country, properly speaking this theory was nowhere unfolded or even expounded in a positive form by Stalin. It is based on two deliberately falsified quotations from Lenin. To not one refutation of it has Stalin responded. The theory of socialism in one country has an administrative not a theoretical basis.

25. In the same year Stalin creates a theory of a dual composition, i.e., a two class party of workers and peasants for the East. This is a break with Marxism and the entire history of Bolshevism in the fundamental question of the class character of the party. Even the Comintern in 1928 was compelled to retreat from a theory that for a long time ruined the Communist parties of the East. But the great discovery continues to figure even today in Stalin’s Questions of Leninism.

26. In the same year, Stalin conducts the subordination of Chinese Communism to the bourgeois party, the Kuo Min Tang, designating the latter as the “worker’s and peasants” party according to the model invented by himself. The Chinese workers and peasants are politically enslaved to the bourgeoisie by the authority of the Comintern. Stalin organized in China that division of labor which Lenin prevented him from organizing in Russia in 1917: Chinese workers and peasants are “conquering”. Chiang Kai Shek is “consolidated”. Stalin’s policy was the direct and immediate cause of the wreck of the Chinese revolution.

27. Stalin’s position – his zig zags – on the questions of Soviet economy are too fresh in the memory of our readers and we therefore do not stop to comment on them here.

28. In conclusion we recall Lenin’s Testament. It is not a question of a polemical article or speech in which one can justifiably surmise unavoidable exaggerations flowing from the heated struggle. No, in the Testament Lenin, calmly weighing each word, gives his last advice to the party, appraising each of his co-workers on the basis of the entire experience of their work together. What does he say about Stalin? (a) “rude”, (b) “disloyal”, (c) inclined to “misuse of power”. Deduction: “to be removed from the post of general secretary”.

A few weeks later Lenin dictated a note to Stalin in which he declared his intention of “breaking off all personal and comradely relations” with him. This was one of the last expressions of Lenin’s will. All these facts are established in the records of the July plenum of the C.C. of 1927.

* * * *

Such are some of the landmarks of Stalin’s political biography They give a sufficiently complete picture in which energy, will and determination are combined with empiricism, near-sightedness, organic inclination to opportunist decisions in big questions, personal rudeness, disloyalty and a readiness to abuse power for the suppression of the party.