The prolific Trotskyite writer Alan Woods published his triptych “The
Celia Hart Controversy” on the site www.marxist.com 

(Part 1: http://www.marxist.com/Theory/celia_hart_controversy.html , 

Part 2: http://www.marxist.com/Theory/celia_hart_controversy_part_2.html
and 

Part 3: http://www.marxist.com/Theory/celia_hart_controversy_part_3.html
), 

an extremely lengthy response to my short piece Cuba, Stalin and Trotsky
, (see below appendix 1), where I argued with Celia Hart, a Cuban
comrade. 

The following is my reply to Alan Woods. 

The Saga of Woods By Israel Shamir 

Do not take my polemics with Alan Woods for a learned discussion of the
Russian Revolution; the argument is not about Leon Trotsky and Joseph
Stalin (let their souls rest in peace in the bosom of Marx in the
Communist paradise) but about extremely relevant issues of our day,
though presented in historical perspective. 

Woods draws a full picture of the sort of communism he subscribes to,
and wishes you to adopt it. It rests upon three whales, as did the world
in ancient cosmography. 

Whale Number 1: 'No' to Socialism in One Country. 

These words are mentioned by Celia Hart, and they are extremely dear to
Woods. He repeats them many times, for instance: “At the heart of the
ideology of Stalinism is the so-called theory of socialism in one
country. The anti-Marxist theory of "socialism in one country", first
expounded by Stalin in the autumn of 1924, went against everything the
Bolsheviks and the Communist International, had preached. Such a notion
could never have been countenanced by Marx or Lenin.” 

Let us disengage ourselves from the Talmudic discussion about what
exactly was said by Marx, Lenin or Stalin. This thesis of Woods means
that in no country should Communists attempt to take over power; because
if they will, it will be “socialism in one country”. Communists a-la
Woods would peacefully wait until the world bourgeoisie surrenders its
power on the planetary scale. If Woods were on the place of Joseph
Stalin he would quietly return Russia to the Tsar or to Kerensky, in
order to avoid this abomination of “socialism in one country”. 

Woods ascribes this view to Lenin: “Lenin knew very well that unless the
proletarian revolution triumphed in Western Europe, especially in
Germany, the October Revolution would ultimately be doomed… How was it
possible to construct a national socialism in a single country, let
alone an extremely backward country like Russia?” In Woods' view, this
means that after defeat of revolution of Germany in 1920, the Russian
communists were to crawl back underground. 

Such positions of Trots turns them into dear friends of the Western
imperialism, for in their view, the nations of the world should endure
their regimes until the Second Coming, i.e. the world revolution. Real
Communists – branded as ‘Stalinists’ in Trots’ vocabulary – were and are
for revolution, a takeover of power and socialism everywhere – now! Mao
and Lenin, Castro and Ho Chi Minh did not shy away from power, they did
not say: “Oh no, we won’t seize power, our countries are too backward,
we shall wait for the world revolution”; for they felt responsibility
and love for their countries -- for China and Russia, for Cuba and
Vietnam. 

Whale Number 2: 'No' to Patriotism. 

Woods stresses that Nationalism and Marxism are incompatible: "Lenin’s
hatred of Russian nationalism was so great that for some time after the
October revolution the word 'Russia' disappeared from all Soviet
official documents."

Patriotism, love of one’s country, is a great force; this force should
be fully utilised in our struggle against the enemy. Communism - a la
Woods - positions itself for globalisation; love for one’s country, this
proud “Patria o Muerte” is anathema for a Trot. A Woods Communist should
dislike or ignore his country and his people, should wish to have its
very name erased; and should never attempt to bring his compatriots
together to fight a foreign invasion or imperialist takeover. Woods
disagrees with Zyuganov’s “characterization of Russia today as a colony,
oppressed by foreign capitalists” as “this analysis leaves the door wide
open to a policy of collaborating with the “progressive national
(Russian) bourgeoisie” against the bad foreign capitalists.” 

Comrade Woods, Western capitalists are indeed bad for the health of
Russians and other non-First-world nations. And real Communists –
Stalinists to you – were for collaboration with national non-comprador
bourgeoisie against Western imperialism. So did Mao when he collaborated
with Kuomintang against Japanese, Stalin while fighting the Germans,
Castro when he united Cubans against Yanks, and Palestinian communists
when they united with Fatah in their struggle against Zionist Jews. Real
communists seek to create a broad coalition with nationalist forces in
order to regain power in Russia, too. 

Now in Iraq, the US occupation forces effectively opened the Iraqi
economy for a Western takeover by granting equal access rights to the
foreign companies. This act brings Iraqi nationalist forces into greater
conflict with the imperialists. Objectively, Woods is on the side of
Western TNC ('trans-national corporations'), as he precludes nationalist 
defence of people. Communists a-la Woods won’t cooperate with Iraqi nationalists
against American imperialism, for nationalism is their main enemy. 

This discussion of nationalism is not a new one. Marx and Lenin stated
that communists should support nationalism of the oppressed nations and
fight nationalism of the oppressors. However, the New World Order
introduced a new keynote in the old discourse, for even the nations of
the First World – of North America and Western Europe – are being
undermined by the new policies of their masters. 

For instance, Sweden, an extremely developed West European nation, now
loses its industry: the famous SAAB car plants were bought by the TNC,
closed down and the production moved into more profitable areas. Tens of
thousands of skilled workers lost their jobs, while thousands of local
owners were proletarianised. The same process takes place in the US,
where industries migrate south, while their profits migrate to the
Eastern Seaboard. Workers and small owners may now create a new
nationalist coalition against their new trans-national masters. 

In the US, there are nationalist forces - from Patrick Buchanan to Gore
Vidal to Justin Raimondo - who object to world-wide plans of
trans-national imperialism. Real communists – Stalinists for Woods –
would cooperate, interact, influence these forces in the struggle
against common enemy. Communists a-la Woods would preserve their
virginal and doctrinal purity; for them, the fight against nationalism
is more important than fight against imperialism. 

In Europe, local nationalist forces stand up against the American
onslaught in culture and economics; here again, real Communists will
interact with the anti-globalisation movement, while Woods would fight
local-nationalism and objectively support the power of the TNC. 

3. Whale Number 3: Alliance with Jewish nationalism. 

Despite his anti-nationalism, there is a sort of nationalism acceptable
to Woods, namely, trans-national Jewish quasi-nationalism. A Woods
communist would fight every nationalism save the Jewish one. For him,
Stalin was bad, for he tolerated and utilised Russian nationalism and
fought against Jewish nationalism. 

He states: “The Bolshevik Party had always fought against
anti-Semitism”. True; but this is only half of truth. The second half
missed by Woods is that the Bolshevik Party under Lenin and Stalin had
always fought against Jewish nationalism. 

As every Jewish nationalist, Woods repeats the mantra of Stalin’s
anti-Semitism. He writes: “One of the most repulsive features of
Stalinism was its anti-Semitism.” Does Woods mean that Stalin adhered to
a racial theory of Semitic and Nordic races? Unlikely; this son of
Georgia was not particularly Nordic. Does he mean that Jews were
persecuted as racial group under Stalin? Obviously not, for Stalin’s
daughter was married to a Jew; some of his best comrades and party
leaders had Jewish wives (Molotov to Voroshilov) - or Jewish sons and
daughters-in-law (Malenkov, Khrushchev). So much for racism. Were Jews
discriminated against under Stalin? In 1936, at the pinnacle of Stalin’s
power, his government included nine Jews, among them Foreign Minister
Litvinov, Home (secret services) Minister Yahoda, the foreign trade
minister etc. Did Stalin ever expressed hatred or even acute dislike of
Jews? No; he actually declared that every anti-Semite would be shot. 

However, Stalin was an enemy of Jewish nationalism. When some prominent
Soviet Jews planned to create a Jewish state in Crimea after the
expulsion of Crimean Tatars, Stalin put paid to their plans. When some
Jews tried to ally with Zionism, he did not tolerate it. He attempted to
check Jewish over-representation in the power structures, as Jews were
overrepresented in the Party, the Government and Secret Services of the
Soviet state and constituted over 50% of Cheka-GPU-NKVD top echelon. 

This is what Woods calls “Stalin’s anti-Semitism”. [He is aware of
problem of “over- and under-representation” as long as it concerns
Russians, for he writes: 

“The drive to russify the non-Russian peoples is shown by the
composition of the leading bodies of the "Communist" Parties of the
Republics. In 1952, only about half of all leading officials in the
Central Asian and Baltic Republics were of local nationality. Elsewhere,
the proportion was even lower. For example, in the Moldavian Party only
24.7 per cent were Moldavians, while only 38 per cent of recruits to the
Tajik Party in 1948 were said to be Tajik.” 

Woods opens a dangerous (for him) route of discourse. How many leading
officials in the Trotskyite parties in the US and Europe were, and are,
of “local nationality”? Using Woods’ logic, a high proportion of Jews
indicates their drive to judaise (Rissians 'russify', so Jews must judaise). 
[Or can this argument be used only against Russians?] 

Stalin wanted to have Jews serving the Soviet state; but he did not want
the Soviet state to serve a Jewish agenda. As a result, Jews retained
some of their privileges, but their exalted position went down a notch
or two, and a good thing: the party and the government were opened to
people of ‘local nationality’. 

Conclusion. 

The saga of Woods is a timely reminder of present-day Western
Trotskyism’s sorry state. The Western Trots keep themselves at arm’s
length from other comrades; sabotage local revolution in the name of
“world revolution”; they are anti-patriotic, anti-nationalist, unable to
attract masses, often connected to Jewish nationalist circles. Their
slogans are attuned exclusively to minorities; they think of gays and
immigrants, Jews and single parents; but the majority is of no interest
for them. This explicit and obsessive attraction to minorities is a
non-communist, even anticommunist trend. Communism is for majority
against minority; for dispossessing minority in the name of majority. 

In a way, Communism is Christianity mutilated by Occam’s Razor. St Paul
dispossessed the Jews and gave their spiritual treasure to the majority,
to the whole mankind. Marx dispossessed the capitalists and gave their
material treasure to the majority. 

Preoccupation with minorities is, therefore a sign of anticommunists.
Trots, indeed, provide imperialists with support from the left. Woods
speaks disparagingly of five-hundred-thousand-strong Russian Communist
Party; I doubt whether his organisation has even five hundred members. 

In short, the advice of Woods is as good for the communists as the
advice of the New York Times: it leads into isolation, sectarianism and
political suicide. Celia Hart will do the right thing if she rejects his
suit: friends of Cuba are real communists who are ready to act in real
conditions, to interact with real partners, warts and all, and fight
real enemies. Woods and other Western Trots will always find a good and
moral reason to be against Cuba in critical moment: if not for its human
rights record, then for the unashamed masculinity of its leader or for
its production of cigars. 

-------------------------------- 

Appendix 1 

Cuba, Stalin and Trotsky 

(Israel Shamir replies to Celia Hart whose essay "Socialism in one
country" and the Cuban Revolution appeared in TRICONTINENTAL MAGAZINE
http://www.walterlippmann.com/celia-hart.html as A contribution from
Cuba, by Celia Hart on May 10, 2004) 



Dear Celia, 

I applaud your beautiful essay and share your faith in vitality of Cuban
revolution. However your anti-Stalinist fervour seems to be out of
place, a remnant of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation. 'Stalinist' is a
Trotskyite slang for a Communist, the word they use to curry favour in
the eyes of anti-Communists. Even if you like Leon Trotsky you do not
have to be against Joseph Stalin. Years and decades passed by, and we
should be able to accept the adversaries of yesteryear, like Marx and
Proudhon, or Stalin and Trotsky. 

Much of what you say is built on misunderstanding. You wrote about
internationalism, but all your examples are taken from the inter-Latin
scene. There is mutual help of Cubans, Dominicans, Argentines, even
Angolans or Spaniards - but all of them belong to one Iberian
civilisation. It is a sort of internationalism, but I doubt the nations
mentioned are really all that different from each other in their
traditions. All of them are Catholic, Iberian (Castilian, Gallego, other
Spanish or Portuguese) by language and united by blood and history. 

Joseph Stalin ruled a country which is a civilisation by itself; a vast
continent with many nations and languages; whose interrelations with
Western Europe were, at best, troublesome. He was an internationalist,
too, and Russians under Stalin supported the Spanish Republic and the
Red Army of Mao. But he was a Russian internationalist, and his first
duty was to the people of the USSR. Leon Trotsky did not understand the
continuity of Russian history. He was involved in terrible persecution
of the Church, in robbery and destruction of churches. He was involved
in mass executions of peasants and workers, of officers and of
intelligentsia. He lost the war with Poland and failed to make peace
with Germany. He alienated Russian intellectuals and working people. In
his drive for permanent revolution he did not pay enough attention to
Russia; it was his undoing. 

Joseph Stalin made the Soviet Union a strong modern state, ensured full
employment, rights of workers, free education and health care. He
created the industrial base and advanced science. He fought and won the
hardest of wars Russia ever experienced. Under his rule, Socialist
Russia survived endless assaults of the American imperialism. He kept
down pro-Western and pro-Capitalist forces in the country. 

Now the people of Russia look back at Stalin's days - no, not with
nostalgia, but with understanding that it was heroic period of their
fathers' life. 

All Communist forces in Russia and in Europe are being described as
'Stalinist' if they do not accept Pax Americana. The Trotskyites in
Russia are pro-Western and pro-American force, even more anti-Russian
than Leon Trotsky was. The same is true about many (though not all) Trot
groups in Europe. 

By all means, be interested in Trotsky's legacy, but do not be
dismissive about real Soviet Communism, the one that helped Cuba and the
one you call now 'Stalinism'. 

Israel Shamir 


2. This letter of mine was forwarded by a Trot, Roland Garret on a
left-oriented Spanish list with following intro by Garret: 

From: Rolandgarret@aol.com 

The is a letter from a Stalinist, who still believes in Stalin. Who does
not understand or refuses to acknowledge the horror of Stalin and
Stalinism. When he talks of the Spanish Republic, he forgets that the
lack of Soviet aid in Spain allowed imperialism to feel secure from
revolution. To start WWII, or to finish WWI, which was stopped by the
1917 Revolution. The Bolsheviks never supported capitalist wars. Stalin
did. 

3. My response to Garret: 

Roland Garret, Stalin for me is an important historical figure, not a
substitute of God; for God does not need any substitutes. A person who
respects, say, Churchill's or Jose Marti's contribution to mankind does
not have to 'believe' in them. 'Stalinists' do not exist - it is just a
Trot-made label to be attached on a Communist. Equally, 'Horrors of
Stalin and Stalinism' is but a classic cliché of anti-Communists. In
connection to Cuba, people you describe as 'Stalinists' are great
supporters of Cuba, while people who speak of 'Stalin's horrors' usually
are enemies of Cuba. 

As for historical question whether Russian help to the Spanish republic
was sufficient: Russia lacked means of delivery and could not do much
more. Do not forget that the Red Army took severe beating from Poland in
1920 and from Finland in 1940. It is also possible that real and
justified fear of a western crusade against Soviet Russia also placed
some limits to Russian aid. Russians did not feel their country is just
'a match to lit the bonfire of world revolution' and did not want (and
could not) export revolution beyond the borders of their civilisation.
The Russian Communists were not some Red equivalent of neo-cons keen to
expand their ideological domination: they were ready to help, but did
not wish to impose their will. Trots, on the other hand, were extremely
aggressive, like the neo-cons, and were willing to disregard all
consequences of their rash actions. 

With comradely regards 

Israel Shamir 

Jaffa 


In Defence of Marxism- http://www.marxist.com
and Hands Off Venezuela campaign-
http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org 

Cuba, Venezuela, Latin America: Is the revolutionary spark spreading? 

Interview with Celia Hart 

Celia Hart, daughter of the longstanding Cuban Minister of Culture
Armando Hart, studied physics from 1983 to 1987 at the Technical
University in Dresden and works as a research physicist. Celia is a
member of the Communist Party of Cuba. 

As a Cuban communist, how do you view the revolutionary process in
Venezuela? 

The Bolivarian revolution finds a lot of support not only among
longstanding and experienced communists in Cuba, but also in the ranks
of the youth, where the vivid revolutionary process in Venezuela sparks
off much more enthusiasm than some of the boring and monotonous
[official] socialist" rhetoric and lecturing. Che Guevara once spoke
about creating many Vietnams" in Latin America. Now we face this new
task and we have the possibility of deepening the Bolivarian revolution
and consolidating it as a socialist revolution. From Venezuela can and
must come the impulse for the socialist revolution across all of Latin
America. The idea of the Permanent Revolution, for which also ChÈ
Guevara was fighting, is relevant today. 

But some fear that a socialist revolution in Venezuela could provoke
reaction and even a military invasion. Do you think that Hugo Chavez has
been 'clever' over the last weeks in seeking some form of consensus in
the negotiations he has had with the bossesí associations? 

Reaction knows what it wants and does not need to be provoked. I hope
that Hugo Chavez is not going to fall into the reformist trap and make
concessions to his sworn enemies. The Venezuelan oligarchy needs to play
for time. When the moment is right the oligarchy will attempt to
eliminate Chavez, in the same way as the Chilean ruling class eliminated
the socialist president Salvador Allende and with him many other
leftwing activists in 1973. The majority of Venezuelans, to be sure,
would fight against an invasion as did the Cubans against the invasion
of the Bay of Pigs 1961. In such a case, as internationalists, we have
to assist the Venezuelan revolution as international brigades did in the
Spanish civil war in 1936. 

Hasn't the Cuban Revolution survived for 45 years without having to
"export" their revolution? 

Revolutionary Cuba has maintained itself because of the decisive break
that Fidel Castro made with capitalism and imperialism. From my
experience in the GDR [the former East Germany] and in Cuba I have
reached the conclusion that "socialism in one country" is impossible.
The spreading of the revolution across the Latin American continent is
essential for the survival of revolutionary Cuba. Cheap Venezuelan oil
alleviates the energy crisis in Cuba; and Cuban doctors and teachers
provide assistance to the poor population in Venezuela to develop
dignity and self-esteem. The present-day special relations between Cuba
and revolutionary Venezuela gives us a glimpse of the enormous
possibilities and progress that a network of democratically planned
economies throughout Latin America - freed from imperialist paternalism
and interference - would allow. In the long run, an isolated
revolutionary Cuba cannot survive. 

Do you think that Cuba will end up like the GDR and suffer a capitalist
counter-revolution? 

I think there exists a real danger of this, and every sincere
revolutionary that I know, fears the same. Although the planned economy
in Cuba has a state monopoly of foreign trade, although the means of
production are state owned, and the bulk of the joint ventures are
controlled by the state, time is running out. Dollarisation has already
had its negative effects. The management of joint ventures and the
officials in foreign trade are at risk of being bought and they are also
susceptible to bourgeois ideas. If the exiled Cuban capitalists return
and try to usurp the country with the aid of pro-capitalist and
pro-imperialist forces, there will be the menace of a counter-revolution
and a capitalism of the worst sort. All the achievements of the last 45
years are in danger. For this reason, we have to defend the
revolutionary heritage of Lenin, Trotsky and ChÈ Guevara and advance the
global revolution. 

Interview: Hans-Gerd ÷finger 

The Celia Hart Controversy Stalinism or Leninism? 

By Alan Woods Part One

Marxist.com recently published an article by Celia Hart in Havana
entitled "Socialism in one country" and the Cuban Revolution- A
contribution from Cuba. This article has a very great significance,
because the author, who is the daughter of two well-known leaders of the
Cuban Revolution, calls for a discussion about Trotsky’s role and ideas.
It immediately caused a controversy on an international scale. This was
precisely the purpose of the author, and therefore one can say that she
has already succeeded in her intention. 

A serious debate within the Communist Parties on the ideas of Leon
Trotsky, the man who, together with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, led the
October Revolution in Russia, has long been overdue, and not only in
Cuba. One does not have to agree with every dot and comma of Celia’s
article to agree to this. But a serious debate demands a degree of
honesty. No matter what one thinks about Celia’s article, it was
honestly written. The same, alas, cannot be said of some of the articles
written in answer to her. 

The popular Spanish left-wing website Rebelion published a piece by a
certain Israel Shamir, Sobre “El Socialismo en un solo país y la
Revolución Cubana - Aportación desde Cuba” de Celia Hart, which is a
venomous attack on Celia Hart and a completely uncritical defence of
Stalin and Stalinism. Shamir assures us that Stalinism is synonymous
with Communism. That is frankly a scandalous assertion and a slander
against Communism. 

Stalin killed more Communists than Hitler, Mussolini and Franco
together. He destroyed Lenin’s Bolshevik Party and murdered all its
leaders. Trotsky was the last one to survive. He continued to fight for
the real ideas and traditions of Lenin and the October Revolution. That
is why Stalin had him assassinated, along with most of his family and
many of his collaborators and comrades. 

It is easy, of course, to write lies and slanders. This “feat” can be
achieved in a few lines. But it is not so easy to provide a political
answer to such slanders. To nail a lie it is necessary to produce
documentary evidence. This takes time and space. The slanderer, on the
other hand, is unscrupulous. He has no need to produce any evidence for
his lies. He just asserts them as if they were unquestionably true. This
was the same method that sent millions of people to Stalin’s prisons and
camps. The word of an informer was sufficient. 

Informers will never make good revolutionaries, and Marxism (as well as
any competent lawyer) demands proof of any accusation. But proof will
not be found anywhere in the articles that purport to “answer” comrade
Celia. You will search in vain through all this mass of print for
quotations, dates, facts or statistics. You will learn absolutely
nothing about the Russian Revolution or the history of Bolshevism, about
the lives and ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. If it comes to that, you will
not learn anything about Stalin either. 

There is a Spanish proverb that comes to mind when reading this kind of
thing: “Ignorance is audacious” (la ignorancia es atrevida). Shamir and
others like him are completely ignorant of the real history of
Bolshevism and the Russian Revolution. They peddle myths and fairy tales
that were invented long ago and which have long since been exploded by
serious historical research. But this does fact does not bother the
slanderers in the slightest. They write in the spirit of Goebbels, who
said that if you wish to deceive the people, you must think of a big lie
and repeat it and repeat it, and in the end people will start to believe
it. 

One of the myths that has been repeated endlessly is the story of Stalin
as a “great war leader”. Stalin was supposed to have saved the USSR in
the war against Hitler. The exact opposite is the case. By his criminal
policies in the years before the War, Stalin exposed the USSR to
terrible danger and nearly led to its destruction. His flirtation with
Hitler left the USSR completely unprepared for War and when Hitler
finally invaded in the summer of 1941, millions of Soviet troops were
surrounded and taken prisoner or killed. The planes of the Red air force
were destroyed on the ground. 

At this time the “great war leader” panicked and disappeared into his
dacha outside Moscow, where he told those around him that “everything
Lenin has built has been destroyed.” The reason for his panic was that
he knew (and so did Hitler) that his monstrous Purges before the War had
destroyed the finest cadres of the Red Army, which found itself beheaded
in the moment of danger. The USSR won the war against Hitler not thanks
to Stalin but in spite of him, thanks to the advantages of a
nationalized planned economy and the heroism of the workers of the
Soviet Union. 

Fortunately, real Communists are not little children or feeble-minded
people who believe in fairy stories. They want to know the truth,
because, as Trotsky once said, truth and not lies is the locomotive of
history. 

Shamir invents history 

There is such a mountain of lies here that it is frankly difficult to
know where to begin. For example, comrade Shamir informs us that Stalin
“was also an internationalist [...[ but he was a Russian
internationalist, and his first duty was towards the people of the
URSS.” He then informs us that 

“Leon Trotsky did not understand the continuity of Russian history. He
was involved in a terrible persecution of the Church, in robbery and
destruction of churches. He was involved in mass executions of peasants
and workers, officers and intellectuals. He lost the war in Poland and
could not sign peace with Germany. He alienated the intellectuals and
the workers of Russia. In his eagerness to carry out permanent
revolution, he did not pay sufficient attention to Russia; this was his
undoing.” 

It would be difficult to imagine such a quantity of nonsense
concentrated in such a few sentences. It is hard to know what is the
main element here: maliciousness or ignorance. One thing, however, is
certain. Comrade Shamir is a man with a most lively and fertile
imagination. He also strives for originality. Other, less audacious,
spirits would have been content simply to repeat the lies and slanders
that were invented for decades by Stalin’s propaganda machine. Heaven
knows there are enough of them! 

But no! Israel Shamir has to be original and so he invents his own,
entirely new and original slanders that nobody – absolutely nobody –
ever thought of before. This at least has the merit of originality – and
the most incredibly barefaced cheek. He accuses Trotsky of – robbing
churches! Now where does Comrade Shamir get this from? One scratches
one’s head in bewilderment. One searches the pages of the well-known
Stalinist works against Trotsky: the infamous Short Course of the
History of the CPSU (b), the verbatim texts of the Moscow Show trial,
and countless other gems. But there is no mention of Trotsky “robbing
and destroying churches”. 

Intrigued by Shamir’s imaginative version of history, one looks around
for some reference, some source for it. But one looks in vain. Not one
reference, not one quotation, not one attempt to prove a single one of
these assertions. This is the method of Israel Shamir – to throw a large
quantity of foul-smelling mud in the hope that some, at least, will
stick. As Marx once ironically commented: “Every line a piss-pot, and
not an empty one.” Such a method is entirely unworthy of a real
Communist – but entirely consistent with the Stalin School of
Falsification that Comrade Shamir has so enthusiastically embraced. 

Even worse is the scandalous lie that Trotsky “was involved in mass
executions of peasants and workers, officers and intellectuals”. When?
Where? Shamir is silent. He writes in the finest Goebbels tradition: it
is only necessary to think of a big lie and repeat it. The complete
absence of any specific information speaks for itself. This is a
barefaced lie and Shamir knows it. The man who was certainly involved in
mass executions of peasants and workers, officers and intellectuals was
Joseph Stalin, and this is well known and documented down to the last
detail. About this, however, our friend is silent. As we know, “no flies
will enter a closed mouth.” 

Actually, Shamir’s method is far inferior to that of the old Stalinists.
They at least made some semblance of an attempt to prove their
assertions by the use of distorted arguments and quotations taken out of
context. Even in the monstrous Moscow Show Trials Vyshinsky attempted to
prove his vile accusations. In Shamir’s diatribe we find nothing of the
sort. From the first line to the last, it is simply an insult to the
intelligence of the reader. 

Without giving any detail, Shamir makes a reference to the old Stalinist
myth about Trotsky and Brest Litovsk, which I and Ted Grant have
answered in detail in Lenin and Trotsky, What they really stood for. But
what is even more incredible is his reference to the Polish War of 1920.
The allegation that Trotsky lost the Polish war stands the historical
truth completely on its head. Trotsky was not personally involved in the
Polish campaign, which, incidentally, he opposed. 

The army that marched against White Poland and that reached the gates of
Warsaw was led by the brilliant Red Army commander Tukhachevsky. It is
possible that he might have succeeded in taking it, except for the fact
that his advance was sabotaged by the second Soviet army that
deliberately delayed joining up with him. That army was led by Stalin
and his cronies. They caused the defeat of the Red Army in Poland that
Shamir refers to. And what happened to the military genius and
revolutionary Tukhachevsky? He was murdered by Stalin along with all the
other great leaders of the Red Army, preparing the way for Hitler to
invade the USSR. 

Lenin’s internationalism 

The worse thing about this kind of polemic is that nobody can learn
anything from it. This was never the method of Lenin and the Bolshevik
Party. It would never have occurred to Lenin (just as it would never
have occurred to Marx and Engels) to distort and falsify the ideas of
his opponents. He was interested in bringing out the differences
clearly, and answer them honestly, because for Lenin the purpose of a
polemic was above all to educate the cadres. 

Lenin knew and loved the national traditions, history, literature and
culture of Russia. An internationalist to the core, he was nevertheless
firmly grounded in Russian life and culture. Yet Lenin never made the
slightest concessions to Great-Russian chauvinism, against which he
waged a pitiless struggle all his life. By contrast, comrade Shamir’s
diatribe is impregnated with the spirit of Great Russian chauvinism from
the first line to the last. This is something absolutely alien to
genuine Leninism. 

It is not Trotsky who has failed to understand proletarian
internationalism, but comrade Shamir, who confuses Stalinist chauvinism
with Leninist internationalism. The two positions are not just
different, but mutually incompatible. Lenin’s hatred of Russian
nationalism was so great that for some time after the October revolution
the word “Russia” disappeared from all Soviet official documents. The
Land of October was referred to simply as The Workers’ State. 

Lenin fought bitterly against Russian chauvinism all his life. On the
eve of the First World War Lenin wrote: 

"Even now, probably for a fairly long time, proletarian democracy must
reckon with the nationalism of the Great-Russian peasants (not with the
object of making concessions to it, but in order to combat it)." (LCW,
The Right of Nations to Self-determination, February-May 1914, vol. 20,
our emphasis.) 

And he continues: "This state of affairs confronts the proletariat of
Russia with a twofold or, rather, a two-sided task; to combat all
nationalism and, above all, Great-Russian nationalism; to recognise not
only equal rights for all nations in general, but also equality of
rights as regards statehood, i.e., the right of nations to
self-determination. And at the same time, it is their task to promote a
successful struggle against nationalism of all nations, whatever its
form, and preserve the unity of the proletarian struggle and of the
proletarian organisations, amalgamating these organisations into a
closely-knit international association despite bourgeois striving for
national exclusiveness. 

"Complete equality of rights for all nations, the right of nations to
self-determination, the unity of the workers of all nations—such is the
national programme that Marxism, the experience of the whole world and
the experience of Russia, teach the workers." (Ibid., my emphasis, AW) 

To try to attribute to the great Lenin the rotten poison of Russian
nationalism, when Lenin fought against this all his life, is nothing
less than a scandal and an insult to the memory of Vladimir Ilyich. For
Lenin, the Russian Revolution itself was not a self-contained act or an
end in itself, but only the first link in a chain of revolutions that
would lead to world socialism. In fact, he said many times that he would
be prepared to sacrifice the Russian Revolution, if that meant the
victory of the socialist revolution in Germany. 

Lenin knew very well that unless the proletarian revolution triumphed in
Western Europe, especially in Germany, the October Revolution would
ultimately be doomed. He expressed this idea a hundred times in articles
and speeches after 1917. He never subscribed to the anti-Marxist idea of
“socialism in one country”. History has now shown that he was right. 

Lenin and the national question 

Lenin always showed great sensitivity in his dealings with the
nationalities of the Soviet state. The Bolsheviks met all their
obligations to the oppressed nations of the former tsarist empire. When
a move was initiated to set up a Union of Soviet Republics, Lenin was
very cautious about it. While obviously in favour of a voluntary
federation, which was formed immediately after the October Revolution,
Lenin was anxious to avoid giving any impression to the non-Russian
nationalities that the Bolsheviks merely wished to re-constitute the old
tsarist empire under a new name. 

Lenin therefore urged caution and patience. However, Stalin, who was
made Commissar for the Nationalities because he was a Georgian, had
other ideas. It is a well-established fact that members of small nations
who rise to leading positions in the government of an oppressive
majority nation tend to become the worst great-power chauvinists. Thus,
Napoleon Bonaparte, although a Corsican, became the most fanatical
proponent of French centralism. 

In 1921, despite Lenin's objections, Stalin organised an invasion of
Georgia, which was (theoretically) an independent state. Presented with
a fait accompli, Lenin was obliged to accept the position. But he
strongly advised caution and sensitivity when dealing with the
Georgians, in order to avoid any hint of Russian bullying. At the time
Georgia, a predominantly peasant and petty bourgeois country, was ruled
by the Mensheviks. 

Lenin was in favour of a conciliatory policy, with a view to winning the
confidence of the Georgians. He attached enormous importance to the
maintenance of fraternal relations between the nationalities, and
insisted on the voluntary character of any union or federation. Stalin,
on the contrary, wished to push through at all costs the union of the
Russian Socialist Federation (RSFSR) with the Transcaucasian Federation,
the Ukrainian SSR and the Bielorussian SSR. 

When Stalin's draft proposal was submitted to the Central Committee,
Lenin subjected it to a serious criticism and proposed an alternative
solution which was different in principle from Stalin's draft. Lenin,
typically, stressed the element of equality and the voluntary nature of
the federation: "We recognise ourselves to be the equals of the
Ukrainian SSR and others," he wrote, "and together with them and on
equal terms with them enter a new union, a new federation…" (Lenin,
Questions of National Policy and Proletarian Internationalism, p. 223.) 

Behind the backs of the Party leadership, Stalin, aided by his henchman
Ordzhonikidze (a Russified Georgian, like himself) and Dzerzhinski (a
Pole) staged what amounted to a coup in Georgia. They purged the
Georgian Mensheviks, against Lenin's specific advice, and when the
Georgian Bolshevik leaders protested, they were ruthlessly pushed aside.
Stalin and Ordzhonikidze trampled on all criticism. In other words, they
carried out a policy that was precisely the opposite of what Lenin
advocated for Georgia. They bullied the Georgian Bolsheviks and even
went so far as to use physical violence, as when Ordzhonikidze struck
one of the Georgian Bolsheviks—an unheard-of action. When Lenin, who was
incapacitated by illness, finally found out he was horrified, and
dictated a series of letters to his secretaries, denouncing Stalin's
conduct in the harshest possible terms and demanding the severest
punishment for Ordzhonikidze. 

In a text dictated on December 24-5 1922, Lenin branded Stalin "a real
and true national-socialist", and a vulgar "Great-Russian bully". (See
Buranov, Lenin's Will, p. 46.) He wrote: "I also fear that Comrade
Dzerzhinski, who went to the Caucasus to investigate the 'crime' of
those 'nationalist-socialists', distinguished himself there by his truly
Russian frame of mind (it is common knowledge that people of other
nationalities who have become Russified overdo this Russian frame of
mind) and that the impartiality of his whole commission was typified
well enough by Ordzhonikidze's 'manhandling'." (LCW, The Question of
Nationalities or 'autonomization', 13 December 1922, vol. 36, p. 606.) 

Lenin placed the blame for this incident firmly at Stalin's door: "I
think," he wrote, "that Stalin's haste and infatuation with pure
administration, together with his spite against the notorious
'nationalist-socialism' played a fatal role here. In politics, spite
generally plays the basest of roles." (Ibid.) 

Lenin against bureaucracy 

Lenin linked Stalin's behaviour in Georgia directly to the problem of
the bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet state apparatus under
conditions of frightful backwardness. He particularly condemned Stalin's
haste in pushing through a Union of Soviet Republics, irrespective of
the opinions of the peoples concerned, under the pretext of the need for
a "united state apparatus". Lenin firmly rejected this argument, and
explained it as the expression of the rotten Great-Russian chauvinism
emanating from the Bureaucracy which, to a large degree, the Revolution
had inherited from tsarism: 

"It is said that a united state apparatus was needed. Where did that
assurance come from? Did it not come from the same Russian apparatus,
which, as I pointed out in one of the preceding sections of my diary, we
took over from Tsarism and slightly anointed with Soviet oil? 

"There is no doubt that that measure should have been delayed until we
could say, that we vouched for our apparatus as our own. But now, we
must, in all conscience, admit the contrary; the state apparatus we call
ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois and Tsarist
hotchpotch and there has been no possibility of getting rid of it in the
past five years without the help of other countries and because we have
been "busy" most of the time with military engagements and the fight
against famine. 

"It is quite natural that in such circumstances the 'freedom to secede
from the union' by which we justify ourselves will be a mere scrap of
paper, unable to defend the non-Russians from the onslaught of that
really Russian man, the Great-Russian chauvinist, in substance a rascal
and a tyrant, such as the typical Russian bureaucrat is. There is no
doubt that the infinitesimal percentage of Soviet and sovietised workers
will drown in that tide of chauvinistic Great-Russian riff-raff like a
fly in milk." (Ibid., p. 605, my emphasis, AW.) 

After the Georgian affair, Lenin threw the whole weight of his authority
behind the struggle to remove Stalin from the post of General Secretary
of the Party, which he occupied in 1922, after the death of Sverdlov.
However, Lenin's main fear now more than ever was that an open split in
the leadership, under prevailing conditions, might lead to the break-up
of the party along class lines. He therefore attempted to keep the
struggle confined to the leadership, and the notes and other material
were not made public. Lenin wrote secretly to the Georgian
Bolshevik-Leninists (sending copies to Trotsky and Kamenev) taking up
their cause against Stalin "with all my heart". As he was unable to
pursue the affair in person, he wrote to Trotsky requesting him to
undertake the defence of the Georgians in the Central Committee. 

'Socialism in one country' 

Nationalism and Marxism are incompatible. But nationalism is the
inseparable Siamese twin of Stalinism in all its varieties. At the heart
of the ideology of Stalinism is the so-called theory of socialism in one
country. The anti-Marxist theory of "socialism in one country", first
expounded by Stalin in the autumn of 1924, went against everything the
Bolsheviks and the Communist International, had preached. Such a notion
could never have been countenanced by Marx or Lenin. 

How was it possible to construct a national socialism in a single
country, let alone an extremely backward country like Russia? Such a
thought never entered the heads of any Bolshevik, including Stalin's up
until 1924. (It would have been impossible to advance such an idea while
Lenin was alive.” As late as 1924, Stalin continued to support Lenin's
internationalist position. In April of that year, in a speech to
students at the Sverdlov University, later published under the title
Foundations of Leninism, Stalin stated: 

"The overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of
a proletarian government in one country does not yet guarantee the
complete victory of socialism. The main task of socialism—the
organisation of socialist production—remains ahead. Can this task be
accomplished, can the final victory of socialism in one country be
attained, without the joint efforts of the proletariat of several
advanced countries? No, this is impossible. To overthrow the bourgeoisie
the efforts of one country are sufficient—the history of our revolution
bears this out. For the final victory of Socialism, for the organisation
of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of
such a peasant country as Russia, are insufficient. For this the efforts
of the proletarians of several advanced countries are necessary. 

"Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist
theory of the proletarian revolution." (Stalin, Lenin and Leninism, p.
40.) 

Here without doubt the general position of the Bolshevik Party is
correctly expressed. However, in the second edition, published a few
months later, these lines were withdrawn and the exact opposite put in
their place: 

"But the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment
of the power of the proletariat in one country does not yet mean that
the complete victory of socialism has been assured. After consolidating
its power and leading the peasantry in its wake the proletariat of the
victorious country can and must build a socialist society!" (Stalin,
Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 110, my emphasis.) 

That these were precisely the "characteristic features of the Leninist
theory of proletarian revolution" was nowhere in dispute up to the first
part of 1924. They had been repeated time and time again in hundreds of
speeches, articles and documents by Lenin since 1905. Yet before the end
of 1924, Stalin's book had been revised, and the exact opposite put in
its place: "The party always took as its starting point the idea that
the victory of socialism in that country, and that task can be
accomplished with the forces of a single country." 

These lines mark a complete break with Lenin's policy of proletarian
internationalism. Stalin could never have expressed himself in this way
while Lenin was still alive. Initially, the "theory" of socialism in one
country reflected the mood of the rising caste of bureaucrats who had
done well out of the October revolution and now wished to call a halt to
the period of revolutionary storm and stress. It was the theoretical
expression of a petty bourgeois reaction against October. Under the
banner of Socialism in one Country, the Stalinist Bureaucracy waged a
one-sided civil war against Bolshevism which ended in the physical
destruction of Lenin's Party and the creation of a monstrous
totalitarian regime. 

The Comintern was transformed from a vehicle of the world proletarian
revolution into a passive instrument of Stalin's foreign policy. When it
no longer suited him, Stalin contemptuously dissolved it in 1943,
without even calling a congress. 

Only one man explained in advance where the theory of Socialism in one
Country would inevitably lead. As early as 1928, Leon Trotsky warned
that if this theory was adopted by the Comintern, it would inevitably be
the start of a process that could only end in the national-reformist
degeneration of every Communist Party in the world, whether in or out of
power. Three generations later, the USSR and the Communist International
lie in ruins, and the Communist Parties have long since abandoned any
pretence to stand for a real Leninist policy everywhere. 

Under Stalin, the most monstrous acts were committed against national
minorities in the USSR. The Purges finished the job began by Stalin in
1922—the liquidation of what remained of the Bolshevik Party. About the
middle of 1937 an all-out assault was launched against the Communist
Parties in every national Republic. A number of leaders of national
Parties were included in the notorious show trial of Bukharin in March
1938. The leaders were usually accused of "bourgeois nationalism" and
executed. After this, the way was open for mass arrests and
deportations. The exact number of the victims of Stalin's Purges will
probably never be known, but they were certainly numbered in millions.
It was no comfort to the Ukrainians, Armenians and Georgians that the
Russian people suffered no less grievously. 

Stalin’s Great Russian chauvinism 

Shamir quotes approvingly Stalin’s toast to the Russian people in 1945.
This is quite incredible. Stalin’s toast after the defeat of Hitler
Germany was simply: “To the Russian people.” Not “to the people of the
Soviet Union, but specifically and exclusively the Russian people. But
millions of others - Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Tartars and Chechens –
had also given their lives in this titanic struggle to defend the USSR
against Nazi barbarism. But they were not considered worthy of mention. 

This speech, which was reprinted in Pravda on 25 May 1945, was a
scandalous departure from Leninism. It was an extreme example of
Stalin’s Russian nationalist tendencies. He asserts that the Russian
people were "the most outstanding nation of all the nations of the
Soviet Union" and the "guiding force" of the USSR. By implication, all
other nationalities were second-class peoples who were not outstanding
and therefore must accept the "guidance" of Moscow. Such a conception
violates the letter and spirit of Lenin’s policy on the national
question. 

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the history of the national
question in Russia will immediately see why such a “gesture” was a
monstrous betrayal of Leninist internationalism and a blatant concession
to Great Russian chauvinism. Yet for Israel Shamir it is absolutely
perfect! 

Just as Napoleon Bonaparte was a Corsican who became a French
imperialist and a lover of centralism, so Stalin, who was a Georgian,
became a ferocious defender of Great Russian chauvinism. This led
directly to a break with Lenin, who angrily demanded that Stalin be
removed as General Secretary of the Party. 

Great Russian chauvinism has nothing to do with Leninism. Lenin fought
against it all his life. Now Shamir wishes to fish the stinking rags of
chauvinism out of the dustbin of history, dust them down and present hem
as – Leninism! Could anything be more monstrous? On 6 October 1922,
Lenin wrote a memo to the Politburo, On Combating Dominant National
Chauvinism: 

"I declare war to the death on dominant nation chauvinism. I shall eat
it with all my healthy teeth as soon as I get rid of this accursed bad
tooth." He was thinking precisely of Stalin when he wrote these lines.
But even Lenin could never have suspected the appalling results to which
the chauvinist tendencies of Stalin and the bureaucracy would lead. The
most monstrous crime committed by Stalin was the mass deportation of
nationalities that was carried out during the Second World War. In the
course of the War, no fewer than seven whole peoples were deported to
Siberia and Central Asia under the most inhumane conditions. 

This was the fate of the Crimean Tartars, the Volga Germans, the
Kalmyks, the Karachai, the Balkars, the Ingushi—and the Chechens. The
NKVD—Stalin's secret police—rounded up everyone—men, women, children,
old and sick, Communists and trade unionists—and ordered them onto
cattle-trucks at gunpoint with whatever possessions they could carry. A
large number died in transit or upon arrival, from cold, hunger or
exhaustion. Soldiers fighting at the front, even those who had been
decorated for bravery, were likewise arrested and deported. The legacy
of bitterness created by this cruel and arbitrary act of barbarity and
national oppression has lasted till today. It is expressed in the
break-up of the Soviet Union and the nightmare in Chechnya. 

The drive to russify the non-Russian peoples is shown by the composition
of the leading bodies of the "Communist" Parties of the Republics. In
1952, only about half of all leading officials in the Central Asian and
Baltic Republics were of local nationality. Elsewhere, the proportion
was even lower. For example, in the Moldovian Party only 24.7 per cent
were Moldovians, while only 38 per cent of recruits to the Tadjik Party
in 1948 were said to be Tadjiks. 

By such anti-Leninist methods, Stalin undermined the proletarian
solidarity that had united the different peoples of the Soviet Union.
This was what led to the criminal break-up of the Soviet Union, with
catastrophic results for all the peoples. 

Stalin’s anti-semitism 

One of the most repulsive features of Stalinism was its anti-Semitism.
The Bolshevik Party had always fought against anti-Semitism.
Consequently, the Jews looked upon the October Revolution as their
salvation. The Bolsheviks gave the Jews full liberty and equal rights.
Their language and culture were encouraged. They even set up an
autonomous republic, so that those Jews who wanted a separate homeland
should have it. But under Stalin all the old racist filth revived. The
Jews again became scapegoats. Already in the 1920s, Stalin was prepared
to use anti-Semitism against Trotsky. 

Since Jews formed a large part of the Old Bolsheviks, they suffered
disproportionately in the Purges. After the Second World War, there was
an anti-Semitic campaign, only partially disguised by fig-leafs such as
"Zionists" or "rootless cosmopolitans"—words which were merely
code-words for "Jews". The notorious "Doctors' Plot" in which a number
of Kremlin doctors were accused of trying to poison Stalin was the
signal for a blatantly anti-Semitic campaign, since the doctors
concerned were Jews. After the setting up of the state of Israel in 1948
(which was initially supported by Moscow), Jewish culture, hitherto
tolerated, was severely repressed. All publications in Yiddish were
closed down, as was the Yiddish theatre. 

In 1952, the year before Stalin died, virtually all the leaders of
Jewish culture were shot, and a large number of Jews arrested. Only the
death of Stalin prevented a new Purge from taking place. Even today,
elements of anti-Semitism are present in the so-called "Communist"
Parties in Russia. On demonstrations on the First of May (the workers
international day) one can see anti-Semitic slogans on placards and see
anti-Semitic literature on sale. Such abominations would have been
unthinkable in Lenin’s day. Now, it seems, they are quite acceptable.
This is yet another heritage of Stalinism, which assimilated many of the
worst and most reactionary and repulsive features of the old tsarist
nationalism. This, in itself, is sufficient to demonstrate the abyss
that separates Stalinism (and neo-Stalinism) from genuine Leninism. 

Now, finally, we see the results. The theory of Socialism in one Country
has ended in the destruction of the USSR and the transformation of the
Stalinist Bureaucracy into a new class of capitalist exploiters. The
solidarity that Lenin and Trotsky established between the peoples of the
USSR was undermined, creating favourable conditions for the rebirth of
all the old ethnic and national conflicts. If you wish to find the roots
of the wars and conflicts that have erupted between the former Soviet
republics, you will find them in Stalin’s treatment of the national
question. 

Lenin’s struggle against bureaucracy and Stalin 

The documentary evidence of Lenin's last fight against Stalin and the
bureaucracy was suppressed for decades by Moscow. Lenin's last writings
were hidden from the Communist Party rank-and-file in Russia and
internationally. Lenin's last letter to the Party Congress, despite the
protests of his widow, was not read out at the Party Congress and
remained under lock and key until 1956 when Khruschev and Co. published
it, along with a few other items including the letters on Georgia and
the national question. Thus, Lenin's struggle to defend the real
policies of Bolshevism and proletarian internationalism were consigned
to oblivion. 

The growing bureaucratic menace preoccupied Lenin's attention throughout
that year. At the 11th Party Congress in March-April 1922 - the last
Congress in which he was able to participate - his main preoccupation
was bureaucratism. Lenin, as always, dealt honestly with the problem:
"Well, we have lived through a year, the state is in our hands; but has
it operated the New Economic Policy in the way we wanted in the past
year? No. But we refuse to admit that it did not operate in the way we
wanted. How did it operate? The machine refused to obey the hand that
guided it. It was like a car that was going not in the direction the
driver desired, but in the direction someone else desired; as if it were
being driven by some mysterious, lawless hand, God knows whose, perhaps
of a profiteer, or of a private capitalist, or of both. Be that as it
may, the car is not going quite in the direction the man at the wheel
imagines, and often it goes in an altogether different direction." (LCW,
Vol. 33, p. 179.) 

"Then what is lacking?" asked Lenin. "If we take Moscow with its 4,700
Communists in responsible positions, and if we take the huge
bureaucratic machine, that gigantic heap, we must ask: who is directing
whom? I doubt very much whether it can be truthfully said that the
Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth, they are not
directing, they are being directed." (Ibid., p. 288.) 

At the same Congress Lenin explained, in a very clear and unambiguous
language, the possibility of the degeneration of the revolution as a
result of the pressures of alien classes. Lenin compared the
relationship of the Soviet workers to the bureaucracy and the
pro-capitalist elements to that of a conquering and conquered nation: 

"Sometimes one nation conquers another, the nation that conquers is the
conqueror and the nation that is vanquished is the conquered nation.
This is simple and intelligible to all. But what happens to the culture
of these nations? Here things are not so simple," stated Lenin. "If the
conquering nation is more cultured than the vanquished nation, the
former imposes its culture upon the latter; but if the opposite is the
case, the vanquished nation imposes its culture upon the conqueror. Has
not something like this happened in the capital of the RSFSR (1)? Have
the 4,700 Communists (nearly a whole army division, and all of them the
very best) come under the influence of an alien culture?" Lenin then
asks pointedly: "Will the responsible Communists of the RSFSR and of the
Russian Communist Party realise that they cannot administer; that they
only imagine they are directing, but are actually being directed?" 

"The machine no longer obeyed the driver" - the state was no longer
under the control of the Communists, of the workers, but was
increasingly raising itself above society. 

Lenin's correspondence and writings of this period, when illness was
increasingly preventing him from intervening in the struggle, clearly
indicate his alarm at the encroachment of the Soviet bureaucracy, the
insolent parvenus in every corner of the state apparatus. Lenin was
aware of the dangers of the degeneration of the workers' state encircled
by capitalism. 

After the 11th Party Congress in 1922, Lenin's health deteriorated and
in May of that year he suffered his first stroke. He recovered and was
back on his feet by July and officially returned to work in October. On
his return he was deeply shocked by the growing bureaucratic tumour that
was gnawing away at the state and Party. "Our bureaucratism is something
monstrous," Lenin commented to Trotsky. "I was appalled when I came back
to work" It was at this time that he offered to form a bloc with Trotsky
against bureaucracy in general and against the Organisational Bureau in
particular. Lenin also concentrated his attention on the entire problem
of the leadership of the Party. The clashes with Stalin over the
Georgian affair and other matters increasingly revealed Stalin's role.
That is when Lenin began work on his Testament. 

Lenin versus Stalin 

Lenin only became fully aware of the bureaucratic reaction within the
Party towards the end of 1922, when he discovered the truth about
Stalin's handling of relations with the Georgian Bolshevik leaders. The
central role of Stalin in this bureaucratic web became clear. Without
the knowledge of Lenin or the Politburo (the highest body in the Party),
Stalin, together with his henchmen Dzerzhinsky and Ordzhonikidze, had
carried out a coup d'état in the Georgian party. The finest cadres of
Georgian Bolshevism were purged, and the Party leaders denied access to
Lenin, who was fed a string of lies by Stalin. 

When he finally found out what was happening, Lenin was absolutely
furious. From his sick-bed late in 1922, he dictated a series of notes
to his stenographer on "the notorious question of autonomisation, which,
it appears, is officially called the question of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics". Lenin's notes are a crushing indictment of the
bureaucratic and chauvinist arrogance of Stalin and the clique
surrounding him. But Lenin does not treat this incident as an accidental
phenomenon - as a "regrettable mistake." 

After the Georgian affair, Lenin threw the whole weight of his authority
behind the struggle to remove Stalin from the post of general secretary
of the Party, which he had occupied for a short time after the death of
Sverdlov. However, Lenin's main fear now, more than ever, was that an
open split in the leadership, under prevailing conditions, might lead to
the break up of the Party along class lines. He therefore attempted to
keep the struggle confined to the leadership, and his notes and other
material were not made public. 

Lenin wrote secretly to the Georgian Bolsheviks (sending copies to
Trotsky and Kamenev) taking up their cause against Stalin "with all my
heart". As he was unable to pursue the affair in person, he wrote to
Trotsky requesting him to undertake the defence of the Georgians in the
Central Committee. In the last months of his political life, weakened by
illness, Lenin turned repeatedly to Trotsky for support in his struggle
against the bureaucracy and its creature, Stalin. On the question of the
monopoly of foreign trade, on the question of Georgia, and, finally, in
the struggle to oust Stalin from the leadership, Lenin formed a bloc
with Trotsky, the only man in the leadership he could trust. 

Lenin’s suppressed testament 

Lenin's began writing his Testament on the 25th December 1922, in which
he critically assessed the qualities of the Bolshevik leadership. It
contained his final recommendations. "Comrade Stalin, having become
general secretary, has concentrated enormous power in his hands; and I
am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient
caution." He then deals with Trotsky's qualities: "On the other hand
comrade Trotsky, as was proved by his struggle against the Central
Committee in connection with the question of the Peoples' Commissariat
of Communications, is distinguished not only by his exceptional
abilities - personally he is, to be sure, the most able man in the
present Central Committee - but also by his too far reaching
self-confidence and a disposition to be too much attracted by the purely
administrative side of affairs." In relation to the others: "I will only
remind you that the October episode of Zinoviev and Kamenev was not, of
course, accidental, but that it ought as little to be used against them
personally as the non-Bolshevik past of Trotsky." 

However, new and alarming manifestations of Stalin's abuse of power
caused Lenin to dictate a postscript ten days later dated the 4th
January 1923, entirely devoted to Stalin. This time it was direct and
brutal. "Stalin is too rude, and this defect, although quite tolerable
in our midst and in dealings amongst us communists, becomes intolerable
in a Secretary General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think
about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man
in his stead who in all other respects differs from Stalin in having
only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal,
more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious" (LCW,
Vol. 36, pp. 594-6.) 

Two months later, Lenin broke off political and personal relations with
Stalin, after he had verbally abused his wife, Krupskaya. Two days
before his final stroke, he wrote to Stalin, with a copy to Zinoviev and
Kamenev: "I have no intention of forgetting so easily what has been done
against me, and it goes without saying that what has been done against
my wife I consider having been done against me as well." (Quoted in
Liebman, op. cit., p. 423.) 

On the 6th March, Krupskaya told Kamenev that Lenin had resolved "to
crush Stalin politically". (Ibid., p. 424.) Lenin told Krupskaya that
the Testament was to be kept secret until after his death, and then it
should be made public to the ranks of the Party. However, Lenin was
seriously paralysed by a third stroke on the 9th March 1923. Power
effectively fell into the hands of a triumvirate of Zinoviev, Kamenev
and Stalin. 

Nine months later, on the 21st January 1924, Lenin died. It was very
convenient for Stalin. The triumvirate were determined to keep Trotsky
from the leadership and therefore decided to keep Lenin's Testament
under lock and key. Needless to say, the documentary evidence of Lenin's
last fight against Stalin and the bureaucracy was suppressed for
decades, and denounced as forgeries by the leaders of the Communist
Parties internationally. 

Lenin's last writings were hidden from the Communist Party rank and
file. Lenin's Testament, which demanded Stalin's removal as general
secretary, despite the protests of his widow, was not read out at the
Congress and remained hidden until 1956 when Khrushchev and Co. produced
it, along with a few other items, as part of their campaign to throw the
blame for all that had happened in the past 30 years onto Stalin's
shoulders. With Lenin's death, the struggle against the growing
bureaucratic reaction now fell to Trotsky and the Left Opposition. 

The serious illness and subsequent death of Lenin put effective power in
the hands of the "troika" of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. In reality,
the central lever of power was already in Stalin's grip, given his
complete organisational domination of the Party apparatus. A campaign of
calumny and falsification was opened up against Trotsky. All the old
smears about Trotsky's non-Bolshevik past (which Lenin had written off
in his Testament), about the "permanent revolution", Brest-Litovsk, and
the rest, were dragged up by the ruling faction to discredit Trotsky and
oust him from the leadership. 

Stalinist methods 

In his last letter to the Party, Lenin accused Stalin of being rude and
disloyal. The same is true of Shamir. 

“Stalin turned the Soviet Union into a powerful modern state, guaranteed
full employment, workers’ rights, education and free health care. He
created the industrial base and an advanced science. He waged and won
the hardest war ever experienced by Russia. Under his regime, socialist
Russia survived endless attacks by US imperialism. He did not allow the
pro-western and pro-capitalist forces in the country to lift their
head.” And so on and so forth… 

“The Trotskyists in Russia constitute a pro-western and pro-capitalist
force,” writes Shamir. On what grounds? On no grounds at all, except
that Shamir says so. Not a single quotation, fact or proof. This is
absolutely typical of the method of Stalinism. Slanders are put forward
and repeated, in the hope that in the end people will believe them. 

Why does Comrade Shamir not produce a single quotation to back up his
truly monstrous allegations? He does not do so because he cannot do so,
because such quotations do not exist. He has invented them, just as he
has invented everything else in his article. It is motivated not by a
desire to establish the truth but purely by blind malevolence and spite.
And spite, as Lenin pointed out (precisely in relation to Stalin), plays
the most fatal role in politics. 

This method is a throwback to the past – methods that cast shame and
discredit on the name of Communism. Shamir claims to speak in the name
of Russian Communists, but he speaks only for himself and a small and
rapidly diminishing number of old diehard Stalinists who are out of
touch with reality. Such people are incapable of thinking. Fortunately,
serious members of the Communist Party want to know the truth about the
past. They are not little children that believe in fairy stories. They
know that for decades they were lied to by the Stalinist leadership and
are tired of lies. We address ourselves to these honest Communists, not
to the falsifiers, to the living, not the dead. 

September 1, 2004