straightaway LETTER TO V. I. LENIN. July 10, 1918.
straightaway LETTER TO V. I. LENIN. August 31, 1918.
straightaway TELEGRAM TO SVERDLOV, CHAIRMAN OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. August 31, 1918.
straightaway TELEGRAM TO V. I. LENIN. June 16, 1919.
straightaway LETTER TO V. I. LENIN FROM THE SOUTHERN FRONT. October 15, 1919.
straightaway SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF THE FOURTH CONFERENCE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY (B.) OF THE UKRAINE. March 17, 1920.
straightaway SPEECH DELIVERED AT A MEETING CALLED BY THE MOSCOW COMMITTEE R.C.P. (B.) ON THE OCCASION OF V. I. LENIN'S FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY. April 23, 1920.
straightaway THE ENTENTE'S NEW CAMPAIGN AGAINST RUSSIA. May 25-26, 1920.
Nashe Vremya, 97, evening edition,1 prints a dispatch from its own correspondent giving the text of a German wireless message from Constantinople which alleges that "the Bolsheviks, having received strong reinforcements from Turkestan and Astrakhan, passed to the offensive and, notwithstanding heroic Moslem resistance, captured the city of Baku."
I publicly declare that this provocative message is devoid of all truth.
Baku recognized the power of the Soviets from the first days of the revolution and recognizes it now. There was no Bolshevik attack on Baku nor could there have been. There was merely an adventurist attack of a handful of Tatar and Russian landlords and generals who suffered a complete fiasco because of the detestation they are held in by the Moslem and Russian workers and peasants. There was no fight between Bolsheviks and Moslems nor could there have been. The Baku Soviet power was and remains the power of the workers and peasants of all the nationalities of Baku and the Baku area and, above all, the power of the Moslem people.
People's Commissar J. Stalin
1Nashe Vremya (Our Time) was an evening newspaper of Socialist-Revolutionary trend published in Moscow from December 1917 to July 1918.
2. LETTER TO V. I. LENIN.
(July 7, 1918. Published in part in Pravda, 301, December 21, 1929)
To Comrade Lenin.
I am hurrying to the front and writing only on business.
1) The railway south of Tsaritsyn has not yet been restored. I am firing or telling off all who deserve it and I hope we shall have it restored soon. You may rest assured that we shall spare nobody, neither ourselves nor others, and we shall deliver the grain in spite of everything.
If our military "experts" (bunglers!) had not been asleep or loafing about, the line would not have been cut, and if the line is restored it will not be thanks to, but in spite of, the military.
2) Large quantities of grain have accumulated on rail south of Tsaritsyn. As soon as the line is cleared we shall be sending you grain by through trains.
3) I have received your communication.1 Everything will be done to forestall possible surprises. You may rest assured that our hand will not flinch...
4) I have sent a letter by messenger to Baku.2
5) Things in Turkestan are bad; Britain is operating through Afghanistan. Give somebody (or me) special authority (military) to take urgent measures in South Russia before it's too late.
Because of the bad communications between the border regions and the centre someone with broad powers is needed here on the spot so that urgent measures can be taken promptly. If you appoint someone (whoever it is) for this purpose, let us know by direct wire and send his credentials also by direct wire.
Otherwise we risk having another Murmansk.3
I send you a telegraphic tape on Turkestan.
That is all for the present.
Yours, Stalin
Tsaritsyn, July 7, 1918
1I have received your communication - On the night of July 6, 1918, V. I. Lenin informed J. V. Stalin about the revolt of the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries in Moscow. V. I. Lenin's note, which was received in Tsaritsyn over the direct wire by J. V. Stalin personally, stated: "These wretched hysterical adventurers who have become a tool of the counter-revolutionaries must be ruthlessly suppressed everywhere... Therefore show no mercy to the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and keep us regularly informed..." (Pravda, 21, January 21, 1936).
2I have sent a letter by messenger to Baku - Stepan Georgevich Shaumyan was the Chairman of the Baku Council of People's Commissars.
When Soviet power was established in the country Shaumyan, already a distinguished Bolshevik, was appointed Extraordinary Commissar of the Caucasus. He established Soviet power in Baku and, in March 1918, became Chairman of the Baku Council of People's Commissars and its People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs.
Shaumyan's reign didn't last long. On September 20, 1918, he and twenty-five comrades were executed by the White Guards.
There are reports that during his short reign Shaumyan managed to commit genocide in Azerbaijan. He believed that the Muslim Musavat Party posed a huge threat to the Bolshevik regime. According to some sources, eleven thousand people including women and children were brutally murdered in Baku alone. Various estimates put the total number of victims as high as fifty thousand.
Azerbaijani sources blame both the Armenians and the Bolsheviks. The Baku Soviet, under the pretext of combating counter-revolutionary elements, implemented from March 1918 onward a plan to exterminate the Azerbaijanis of Baku Province. On March 31, 1918, tens of thousands of peaceful civilians in Shamakhi, Guba, other cities as well as in Baku province were killed on ethnic and religious grounds; settlements were destroyed, cultural monuments, mosques and cemeteries were razed to the ground.
3. LETTER TO V. I. LENIN.
(July 10, 1918. Published for the first time)
Comrade Lenin,
Just a few words.
1) If Trotsky is going to hand out credentials right and left without thinking—to Trifonov (Don region),1 to Avtonomov (Kuban region),2 to Koppe (Stavropol),3 to members of the French Mission (who deserve to be arrested), etc.—it may be safely said that within a month everything here in the North Caucasus will go to pieces and we shall lose this region altogether.
Trotsky is behaving as Antonov did at one time. Knock it into his head that he must make no appointments without the knowledge of the local people, otherwise the result will be to discredit the Soviet power.4
2) If you don't let us have airplanes and pilots, armoured cars and 6-inch guns, the Tsaritsyn Front cannot hold out and the railway will be lost for a long time.
3) There is plenty of grain in the South but to get it we need a greased chain of command that can handle troop trains, army commanders and so on. The military must assist the food agents since the supply of food is naturally bound up with the military's well-being.
For the good of the work I need military powers. I have already written about this, but have gotten no reply. Very well, in that case I shall myself, without any formalities, dismiss army commanders and commissars who are ruining the work. The interests of the work dictate this and of course not having a paper from Trotsky is not going to deter me.5
Yours, J. Stalin
Tsaritsyn, July 10, 1918
1Valentin Andreevich Trifonov was born of Don Cossack parents in 1888. He was orphaned at age seven, subsequently raised by relatives, sent to vocational school and upon graduation began working as a mechanic in the railways.
He joined the Bolsheviks in 1904. He got arrested four times prior to the February Revolution and was exiled successively to Tobolsk, Turinsk, Berezov and the Turukhansk Region. He escaped from the first three locations but served the full sentence in the fourth (1910-1913).
He helped to organize Petrograd's Red Guard and took an active part in the October Revolution.
In December 1917 he was appointed to the board of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (Cheka).
From February 1918 to March 1920 he joined the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic.
Between 1921-1926 Trifonov held several posts in quick succession: Head of the Main Fuel Directorate of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, Chairman of the Board of the All-Russian Oil Syndicate, member of the Council of the Industrial Bank of the R.S.F.S.R. and Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R.
In 1926 he became Trade Representative of the U.S.S.R. in Finland.
In 1928 he was elected to the Presidium of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences and between 1932-37 he chaired the Main Concession Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the U.S.S.R.
In 1936 Trifonov wrote the book, "Contours of the Coming War." The book examined the possibility of a surprise attack on the U.S.S.R. by Nazi Germany. He sent the manuscript to Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Ordzhonikidze, but not one of them responded.
On June 21, 1937, Trifonov was arrested, accused of Trotskyism and executed on March 15, 1938.
The accompanying photograph of Trifonov (above, right) comes from this webpage.
Possibly unbeknownst to Trifonov, Trotsky had already sounded the alarm in 1933 about the coming Second World War,
The first anniversary of the Nazi dictatorship is approaching.
All the tendencies of the regime have had time to solidify. The "socialist" revolution envisaged by the petty-bourgeois masses as a needed supplement to the national revolution is officially liquidated and condemned. The brotherhood of classes found its apex on a day especially appointed by the government that witnessed the haves forswear the hors d'oeuvre and the dessert in favor of the have-nots. The fight against unemployment is reduced to the splitting of semi-starvation doles in two. The rest is the task of uniformed statistics. "Planned" autarky [national economic self-sufficiency and independence] is simply a novel stage of economic disintegration.
The more impotent the Nazi police regime is in the field of the national economy, the more it is forced to shift its energy to the field of foreign policy. This corresponds fully to the internal dynamics of German capitalism, aggressive through and through.
The sudden turn of the Nazi leaders toward peaceful declarations may deceive utter simpletons alone. What other method is there at Hitler's disposal but to blame the domestic distress on external enemies and to build via the dictatorship's press the explosive force of nationalism? This part of their program, outlined publicly before coming to power, is being implemented presently with iron logic before the eyes of the world.
The date of the new European catastrophe will be determined by the time required for the arming of Germany. It is not a question of months but neither is it a question of decades. It will be but a few years before Europe is again plunged into war unless Hitler is forestalled in time by the domestic forces of Germany.
Trifonov's harmony with Trotsky's intelligence made him suspect in the eyes of Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Ordzhonikidze, so he was arrested, accused of Trotskyism and executed.
2Alexey Ivanovich Avtonomov was born into a well-known Don Cossack family in 1890. After the October Revolution of 1917 he was one of the first Cossack officers to join the Bolsheviks.
Antonov-Ovseenko the Extraordinary Commissar for Combating Counter-revolution in Southern Russia gave Avtonomov the authority to create his own Red Guard in Kuban. Avtonomov did so and proclaimed himself commander-in-chief of the Southeastern Revolutionary Army in January 1918, and two months later took Yekaterinodar the Kuban capital without a fight.
He led the defense of Yekaterinodar from April 9 to 13, 1918, during the assault on the city by the Volunteer Army under the command of Infantry General Kornilov.
From April 14 to May 23 he was Commander-in-Chief of the North Caucasian Red Army.
Avtonomov demonstratively refused to comply with directives issued by Moscow if he believed these conflicted with his interests. Then he would disobey Trotsky's orders [just like Stalin] thereby pooh-poohing [like Stalin] Trotsky's authority as Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army. For this behaviour he was removed from his post and recalled to Moscow [Stalin was not]. There, on May 27, he was appointed inspector and organizer of military units in the Caucasian Front on the recommendation of G.K. Ordzhonikidze.
In July 1918 Avtonomov arrived in the Terek Region and began to create new Red Army units.
Avtonomov came unawares into conflict with Stalin over the question of supreme Bolshevik authority in the Terek Region. According to K. Y. Voroshilov, Stalin relied exclusively on that region (Stavropol) for human resources.‡
Stalin faced down his "double" in this July 10, 1918, complaint to Lenin. Avtonomov was demoted to the rank of commander of a small detachment responsible for one armored train. During the retreat of the Reds from the North Caucasus in January 1919 he fell ill with typhus and was left to die (February 2, 1919) in a village of Mount Ossetia.
‡ K. Y. Voroshilov, 1939. Stalin and the Red Army. Moscow: Foreign Language Publications. Tsaritsyn, page 8. Spanish-language PDF here.
3Alexander Fyedorovich Koppe arrived to Stavropol from Petrograd in March 1918. He had a mandate to create units of the Red Army signed by L. Trotsky.
He first ordered the compulsory registration of all weapons, then came their requisition. Outright looting of wealthy homes followed.
On June 17, 1918, Koppe announced the "immediate elimination of all home-grown counter-revolutionaries" at a rally of the Red Army.
On the night of June 20, automobiles with mounted machine guns and hoisting black flags raced around Stavropol snatching victims from their homes.
On June 27, 1918, a brewing officers' mutiny finally broke out, but it failed for lack of support.
The Bolsheviks staged mass reprisals. On the garden of the Cadet School young men were brutally tortured and slain until the approach of the Volunteer Army forced Koppe and his henchmen to flee.
On July 8, 1918, General Uvarov and Colonel Shkuro's units entered Stavropol. A few days later memorial services were held for the victims of the Red Terror.
The locals would rather not have fought either for the Reds or the Whites, but the Reds forced them to by taking every conscript's family hostage [cf. Collected Works of V. I. Lenin & Galiciana, Chapter 25, Item 5; Chapter 27, Item 6, news of August 3, 1920].
The Whites held power in Stavropol for over a year; and after their retreat a new and worse round of the Red Terror befell the city.
Russian sources: The webpage entitled, "Officers' revolt in Stavropol on June 27, 1918: Civil War," and the webpage entitled, "Sailors vs. Cossacks: How the Civil War Began in the North Caucasus."
4he must make no appointments without the knowledge of the local people, otherwise the result will be to discredit the Soviet power - Translation: "he must make no appointments without my knowledge, otherwise I will not have the freestanding power I deserve."
5The interests of the work dictate this and of course not having a paper from Trotsky is not going to deter me - Stalin dissed the established military hierarchy. What did V. I. Lenin do? According to K. Y. Voroshilov, Lenin granted Stalin full military and civilian powers on the Southern Front from July 20 onward. How did Trotsky react? He swallowed Lenin's snub and conceded Stalin's partial seizure of his rank.
The result was that Stalin thenceforth took Trotsky to be easy pickings,
Stalin's outstanding trait is his manner of handling telegrams from Moscow forwarding instructions. When Trotsky, alarmed by the obliteration of the managing organizations which had been created with so much toil, sent a telegram stressing the need to restore the General Staff and the Commissariat to their previous fabric and to offer them the possibility of work, Stalin wrote down on the margin this stark and telltale note, "To be ignored."
And that's exactly what happened. All the artillery commanders and a portion of the General Staff remained captive on a barge in Tsaritsyn.
(K. Y. Voroshilov, 1939. Stalin and the Red Army. Moscow: Foreign Language Publications. Tsaritsyn, pp. 9-10)
4. LETTER TO V. I. LENIN.
(August 31, 1918.1 First published in 1938 in the magazine Bolshevik, 2)
Dear Comrade Lenin,
The fight is on [against Denikin] for the South and the Caspian. In order to keep all this area (and we can keep it!) we need several light destroyers and a couple of submarines (ask Artyom about the details).
I implore you, break down all obstacles and facilitate the immediate delivery of what we request.2 Baku, Turkestan and the North Caucasus will be ours (unquestionably!) if our demands are met immediately.
Things at the front are going well. I have no doubt that they will go even better (the Cossacks are becoming completely demoralized).
Warmest greetings, my dear and beloved Ilyich.3
Yours, J. Stalin
1 This "official" date of August 31 can not be right for it would imply that Lenin forwarded this letter to Petrograd the day after the attempt of August 30 on his life (see footnote 2). Conjecture: A date like July 31 would make more sense for it would imply that Stalin was expressing or reiterating his gratitude to Lenin for having been granted freestanding military and civilian powers over the Southern Front (Item 3, footnote 5).
2I implore you, break down all obstacles and facilitate the immediate delivery of what we request - On receiving J. V. Stalin's letter, V. I. Lenin deleted the address fields and forwarded the letter to Petrograd as his own personal directive.
3Warmest greetings, my dear and beloved Ilyich - Compare Stalin's effusive close with his rebuff of two flattering comrades in 1930,
You speak of your "devotion" to me. Perhaps it was just a chance phrase. Perhaps... But if the phrase was not accidental I would advise you to discard the "principle" of devotion to people. It's not the Bolshevik way. Be devoted to the working class, its Party, its state. That is a fine and useful thing. But do not confuse it with devotion to persons, this vain and useless babble of weak-minded intellectuals.
(Letter to Comrade Shatunovsky, August 1930)
And you want me to keep silent on the ground that you, it appears, cherish a "biographical tenderness" for me! How naive you are and how little you know the Bolsheviks.
(Excerpts from a letter to Comrade Demyan Bedny, December 12, 1930)
5. TELEGRAM TO SVERDLOV, CHAIRMAN OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
(August 31, 1918. Soldat Revolutsii of Tsaritsyn, 21, September 1, 1918)
Having learned of the villainous attempt of the hirelings of the bourgeoisie on the life of Comrade Lenin, the world's greatest revolutionary and the tried and tested leader and teacher of the proletariat, the Military Council of the North Caucasian Military Area is answering this vile attempt at assassination by instituting open and systematic mass terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents.
6. TELEGRAM TO V. I. LENIN.
(June 16, 1919. First published in Pravda, 301, December 21, 1929)
Following the capture of Krasnaya Gorka, Seraya Loshad has been taken.1 Their guns are in perfect order. A rapid check of all the forts and fortresses is under way.
Naval experts assert that the capture of Krasnaya Gorka from the sea runs counter to naval science. I can only deplore such so-called science. The swift capture of Gorka was due to the grossest interference in the operations by me and civilians generally, even to the point of countermanding orders on land and sea and imposing our own.
I consider it my duty to declare that I shall continue to act in this way in future, despite all my reverence for science.
Stalin
June 16, 1919
1 In connection with Yudenich's offensive of May 1919 and the threat of encirclement and capture of Petrograd by the Whites, J. V. Stalin was sent to the Petrograd Front as plenipotentiary of the Council of Defence. The Council mandated him on May 17, 1919, to go to Petrograd and elsewhere "for the adoption of all urgent measures required by the situation on the Western Front." Stalin arrived in Petrograd on May 19, 1919.
Succumbing to counter-revolutionary agitation of Whiteguards, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, the garrisons of Krasnaya Gorka and Seraya Loshad, two forts near Petrograd, mutinied against the Soviet Government on June 13, 1919. On Stalin's orders, Baltic Fleet vessels put out to sea. At the same time a Coastal Army Group with marine detachments was created in Oranienbaum. On June 14 Stalin arrived in Oranienbaum and conferred with Navy and Army officers. He proposed to capture Krasnaya Gorka with a simultaneous blow from the sea and over land. The operation was launched on June 15 under the personal direction of Stalin from the battle lines. The mutineers were overwhelmed at the approaches to Krasnaya Gorka and on June 16 at 0:30 AM the fort was taken. Seraya Loshad fell a few hours later.
The accompanying photograph of a 12-inch gun emplacement in the fort comes from this Russian webpage.
7. LETTER TO V. I. LENIN FROM THE SOUTHERN FRONT.
(October 15, 1919. First published in Pravda, 301, December 21, 1929)
Comrade Lenin,
About two months ago General Headquarters did not object in principle to the main blow being delivered from west to east through the Donets Basin. General Headquarters rejected it nevertheless on the plea of the "legacy" left by the retreat during the summer: a haphazard distribution of troops in the present South-Eastern Front whose reset would entail a considerable loss of time to Denikin's advantage. It was only for this reason that I did not object to the officially adopted direction of the blow.
But now the situation has changed radically: the Eighth Army (a major force) has moved into the area of the Southern Front directly facing the Donets Basin; Budyonny's Cavalry Corps (another major force) has likewise moved in, and also the Latvian Division, a new force to be replenished within a month and which will also represent a formidable force against Denikin.
You see that the old distribution of troops (the "legacy") no longer exists. What then induces General Headquarters to insist on the old plan? Apparently nothing but obstinacy, or if you prefer, factionalism of the most obtuse and dangerous kind to the Republic, nurtured in General Headquarters by that "strategic" bantam cock, Gusev.
[...]
Precisely for this reason it is essential at once, without loss of time, to drop the old plan, already supplanted in practice, and replace it with a plan under which the main blow will be directed from the Voronezh area through Kharkov and the Donets Basin toward Rostov.1
[...]
In short, the old plan must under no circumstances be galvanized into life. That would be dangerous to the Republic; it would most certainly improve Denikin's position.
It must be replaced by a new plan. Conditions and circumstances warrant it, they imperatively dictate it. In that event the distribution of the regiments will also of course be different.
Without this, my work on the Southern Front will become meaningless, criminal and futile, which will give me the right or rather compel me to go anywhere, even to the devil himself, so as not to remain on the Southern Front.
Yours, Stalin
Serpukhov, October 15, 1919
1 On September 26, 1919, the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party sent J. V. Stalin to the Southern Front to organize the defeat of Denikin. He arrived at General Headquarters on October 3. The plan he proposed for routing Denikin was accepted and endorsed by the Party's Central Committee.
The accompanying photograph of Red General Semyon Budyonny (above, left) comes from this Russian webpage.
The accompanying photograph of White General Anton Denikin (above, right) comes from this Russian webpage.
8. SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF THE FOURTH CONFERENCE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY (B.) OF THE UKRAINE.1
(March 17, 1920. Reproduced from the records of the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Labour Army Staff)
Comrades,
The one basic task confronting you, the Communists of the Ukrainian rear and front, has until now been to halt the advance of the Poles, rout Petliura and drive out Denikin. This task is being carried out successfully, as is now admitted by enemies as well as by friends.
Now that Ukraine has been delivered from the most ferocious enemy of the revolution, Denikin's army, you have another no-less-important and complex task ahead: to rehabilitate the Ukraine's shattered economy. Indubitably you who have coped with Denikin will also cope with the economic disruption and spend all your strength—all that energy which sets Communists apart from other parties—to stem the economic disruption and help your comrades in the North.
There are signs that this very task is underway up North. Labour Army communiqués cite the repair of more and more steam locomotives and railway cars and greater and greater fuel production. The industries of the Urals likewise burgeon and forge ahead. I have no doubt that you too will do as well as our comrades to the North.
The Communists will most assuredly fulfill this task because our Party is solid, united, devoted, and above all because our motto is: "Finish the work begun even if you have to die for it."
It is only through discipline and solidarity that the Party mobilizes thousands of workers to all districts and regions. Discipline and solidarity gave us the victory over imperialism and make us hope now for the victory over our other enemy, the economic disruption.
[...]
1 The Fourth All-Ukrainian Conference of the Ukrainian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held in Kharkov, March 17-23, 1920, and was attended by two hundred and seventy-eight delegates. Its agenda contained the following items: 1) Political and organizational report of the Central Committee; 2) Relations between the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic; 3) Attitude towards other political parties; 4) Economic policy; 5) The land question
and work in the countryside; 6) The food question; 7) Election of the Central Committee and of delegates to the Ninth Congress of the Russian Communist Party.
J. V. Stalin took part in the conference as the Central Committee representative of the Russian Communist Party. The main issue at the conference was economic policy. The anti-Party "Democratic Centralism" group (Sapronov, etc.) which in the discussion on this question opposed the principle of one-man management in industry, received a rebuff. On the question of work in the countryside, the conference endorsed unions of small and landless peasants (Committees of Poor Peasants). The conference elected J. V. Stalin as a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Russian Communist Party.
In other words, Stalin was Ukrainian and Russian simultaneously. 😁
The accompanying photograph of Ukrainian General Symon Petliura (above, right) comes from this Ukrainian webpage.
9. SPEECH DELIVERED AT A MEETING CALLED BY THE MOSCOW COMMITTEE R.C.P. (B.) ON THE OCCASION OF V. I. LENIN'S FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY.
(April 23, 1920. First published in the symposium, The Fiftieth Birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov-Lenin; Moscow, 1920)
After the speeches and reminiscences we have heard here, very little remains for me to say. I should only like to mention a trait of Comrade Lenin's not yet cited, namely, his modesty and his courage in acknowledging mistakes.
I recall two occasions when Lenin, that giant, admitted he had been wrong.
The first episode relates to the decision taken in December 1905 at the All-Russian Bolshevik Conference in Tammerfors, Finland, on the question of boycotting the Witte Duma.1
The question of boycotting the Witte Duma had to be decided. A group of seven people—closely associated with Comrade Lenin and on whom we provincial delegates used to bestow all kinds of epithets2—had assured us that Ilyich was opposed to boycotting the Duma and in favour of taking part in the elections. As it turned out later this was actually so,3 but the debate opened and we the pro-boycotters from the provinces, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Siberia and the Caucasus went on the attack.4
What was our surprise when Lenin got up after we had spoken and declared that although he had favoured taking part in the elections he now saw that he had been wrong and presently sided with the provincial delegates.
We were astounded. It had the effect of an electric shock. We cheered him to the echo.
Here is a similar episode. In September 1917 the Democratic Conference had been convened under Kerensky and the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries were contriving the Pre-parliament, a new institution that would pave the way for a transition from the Soviets to a Constituent Assembly.
At that time we of the Central Committee in Petrograd decided to attend the Democratic Conference and to keep building the Soviets for the purpose of convening a Congress of Soviets, start an uprising and make the Congress the organ of state power.
Ilyich who was at that time hiding outside Petrograd did not agree with our decision and wrote that the scum (meaning the Democratic Conference) should be dispersed and arrested right away.
It seemed to us the matter was not quite so simple for we knew that one half or at least a third of the delegates to the Democratic Conference came from the front and arresting and dissolving the Conference might worsen matters and sour our relationship with troops at the front. We the practical workers could discern the bumps and pitfalls ahead far more clearly. Withal Ilyich was a great man; he was not afraid of bumps and pitfalls, he did not fear danger, and he said: "Rise and march straight to the goal!" On the other hand we the practical workers could not see that any good would come out of such a course of action, rather the right thing to do was to maneuver around the obstacles and grab the bull by the horns later. So despite Ilyich's insistence we paid him no heed and kept strengthening the Soviets to the point of us Bolsheviks dominating the Congress of Soviets of October 25, which guaranteed the successful uprising.
By October 25 Ilyich was already in Petrograd. Smiling and glancing at us slyly, he said: "Yes, it seems you were right." Again we were astonished, Comrade Lenin was not afraid of acknowledging his mistakes.5
His modesty and courage was particularly what captivated us.
(Applause).
1the decision taken in December 1905 at the All-Russian Bolshevik Conference in Tammerfors, Finland - The Tammerfors Conference was the first conference of the Bolsheviks, held December 12-17, 1905. It was there that V. I. Lenin and J. V. Stalin met for the first time in person. The agenda of the conference was as follows: 1) Reports from the local organizations; 2) Report on the current situation; 3) Organizational report of the Central Committee; 4) Merging of the two sections of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party; 5) Re-organization of the Party; 6) The agrarian question; 7) The State Duma.
J. V. Stalin reported on the activities of the Transcaucasian Bolshevik organization and spoke in support of Lenin's tactics of actively boycotting the Duma. The resolution on the attitude towards the Duma called upon the Party and the working class to boycott the elections but to make wide use of election meetings to conduct agitation in favour of an armed uprising.
2A group of seven people...on whom we provincial delegates used to bestow all kinds of epithets - None too polite (see Collected Works of V. I. Lenin & Galiciana, Chapter 30, Item 15).
3As it turned out later this was actually so - The First State Duma, also known as the Witte Duma, closed on Old Style July 8, 1906. Subsequently Lenin reverted to his original stance and advocated taking part in the elections for the Second State Duma.
4we the pro-boycotters from the provinces, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Siberia and the Caucasus went on the attack - Quite an attack it must have been to get Lenin to change his mind! In a 1904 correspondence between D. Suliashvili and V. I. Lenin, Lenin dubbed Stalin a "fiery Colchian" (J. V. Stalin; Collected Works, I, Notes, 9, page 395).
5Again we were astonished, Comrade Lenin was not afraid of acknowledging his mistakes - An early indication that Comrade Stalin would never acknowledge his own.
10. THE ENTENTE'S NEW CAMPAIGN AGAINST RUSSIA.
(Pravda, 111-112. May 25-26, 1920)
It is beyond all doubt that the campaign of the Polish gentry against workers' and peasants' Russia is actually a campaign of the Entente.
The point is not only that the League of Nations—headed by the Entente, Poland a member—has evidently approved Poland's campaign against Russia. The chief points are that without the Entente's support Poland could not have planned her attack and that France in the first place but also Britain and America are doing all they can to aid the offensive with weapons, equipment, money and instructors. Disagreements within the Entente over the Polish question do not affect the matter for they concern only how to support Poland, not the support itself. Nor is the matter eased by Curzon's diplomatic correspondence with Comrade Chicherin or by ostentatious anti-intervention articles in the British press because all this hullabaloo aims only to throw dust in the eyes of naive politicians and to veil the foul work of the actual armed intervention with talk about peace with Russia.
I THE GENERAL SITUATION
The Entente's present campaign is the third in succession.
The first campaign was launched in the spring of 1919. It foresaw a joint attack by Kolchak, Denikin, Poland, Yudenich and composite Anglo-Russian detachments in Turkestan and Archangel, the main weight of the attack being in Kolchak's area.
At that time the Entente was solid united and stood for open intervention. The weakness of the labour movement in the West, the number of Soviet Russia's enemies and their complete confidence in victory over Russia, enabled the bosses of the Entente to pursue a brazen policy of undisguised intervention.
At that time Russia was in a critical bind because she was cut off from the grain areas (Siberia, the Ukraine, the Northern Caucasus) and from the fuel sources (the Donets Basin, Grozny, Baku) and was forced to fight on six fronts. The Entente realized this and gloated over an anticipated victory. The Times was already rolling the drums.
Nevertheless Russia crossed this crisis safely. Her most powerful enemy, Kolchak, was routed. The point is that Russia's home front and army were firmer and more flexible than her adversaries'.
The Entente's second campaign was launched in the autumn of 1919. It too envisaged a joint attack by Denikin, Poland and Yudenich—Kolchak had been written off the accounts. Now the weight of the attack lay in the South, Denikin's area. Withal the Entente experienced internal quarrels for the first time. It began to moderate its insolent tone, intimated some opposition to overt intervention, held out the possibility of negotiations with Russia and withdrew its troops from the North. The growth of the revolutionary movement in the West and Kolchak's defeat evidently made the previous policy of plain intervention risky. The Entente no longer dared to speak of open intervention.
Despite the victory over Kolchak and the recovery of one grain region (Siberia), Russia was still in a critical condition because Denikin the chief enemy stood at the gates of Tula the main supplier of cartridges, rifles and machine guns for our army. Nevertheless Russia emerged once more victorious for the same old reason: the greater stability and flexibility of our rear and therefore our army.
The Entente's third campaign is being launched in quite a novel format. This campaign unlike the previous ones cannot be called joint, for not only have the Entente's old allies (Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich) dropped out but no new ones (if there are any) have yet joined in, dismissing ludicrous Petliura and "his" ludicrous "army." Poland is facing Russia alone so far without any serious fighting allies.
Friday November 23, 1917. El Correo de Galicia, con censura eclesiástica (Santiago de Compostela), page 2.
The Russians propose peace. [...] During the night of last Tuesday the Council of People's Commissars sent via radiotelegraph a message to Dukhonin the Chief of Staff ordering him to offer immediately and formally an armistice to all Allied and enemy nations at war.
This message was received at Headquarters yesterday at 5:05 AM ... Simultaneously the same formal armistice proposal was made to all the representatives of the Allies stationed in Petrograd.
Since Dukhonin had not replied by yesterday afternoon, the Council authorized Lenin, Stalin and Krylenko to ask via radiotelegraph the reason for his delay...
Wednesday December 5, 1917. El Norte de Galicia, diario político y de información (Lugo), page 2.
The Daily Chronicle reports from Petrograd that the outcome of the local elections to the Constituent Assembly reads as follows.1
The maximalists took first place in Petrograd with more than 400,000 votes. The Cadets came second with almost 250,000 and the Social-Democrats third with 150,000. The remaining sixteen parties that also ran have foundered.
The twelve seats for Petrograd will therefore be distributed as follows: six seats will go to the maximalists, four to the Cadets and two to the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The six maximalist seats will probably be occupied by Lenin, Kamenev, Kollontai, Stalin, Trotsky and Zinoviev.
The Socialist-Revolutionary deputies will be Chernov and Kamkov.
1the outcome of the local elections to the Constituent Assembly reads as follows - Of course the Bolsheviks or "maximalists" dissolved the Constituent Assembly at its very first sitting. These were the same Bolsheviks who in 1905 had screamed, "What we must fight for now is a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage!" and who had also coined the slogan, "Long Live the Popular Constituent Assembly!" (Chapter 1, Item 3).
Right after the October Revolution
(Dates are in Old Style)
October 28. Lenin and Stalin sign the order of the Council of People's Commissars banning the publication of bourgeois newspapers.
November 9. Lenin & Stalin sign the order dismissing General Dukhonin from the post of Supreme Commander.
November 28. Lenin & Stalin sign the Decree for the Arrest of Leaders of the Civil War Against the Revolution.
December 18. Lenin & Stalin sign the decree recognizing the independence of Finland.
December 23. Stalin is appointed temporary Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars during Lenin's absence on leave.
