Trotsky L. Lenin's Testament

The nature of the relationship between Stalin and Lenin was difficult and ambiguous - the Bolshevik leader valued Joseph Vissarionovich for his business qualities and at the same time condemned him for his egocentrism.

Perhaps no one from Lenin’s closest political circle can compete with Stalin in terms of influence on Vladimir Ilyich - it was the conflict with Koba that ultimately contributed to the deterioration of the leader’s health and hastened his death.

Party comrades

Stalin and Lenin met in December 1905 in Finland at the first conference of the RSDLP. Both were by that time experienced revolutionaries. After the February Revolution took place, Stalin led the Central Committee of the RSDLP for some time (Lenin had not yet returned from exile), and actively advocated the overthrow of the Provisional Government.

After the victory in the October Revolution, Stalin became a member of the Council of People's Commissars headed by Lenin. Gradually, he becomes one of several key political characters who were part of the inner circle of the new leader of the country. He is a participant in the internal party struggle with Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky, with whom Lenin also had a difficult relationship.

Until the 20s, Lenin and Stalin did not openly conflict - both Vladimir Ilyich and Joseph Vissarionovich were quite secretive people.

Why did Vladimir Ilyich and Joseph Vissarionovich quarrel?

It is no secret that Lenin always valued Stalin as a worker and considered him a man of his word. Beginning in 1920, Vladimir Ilyich’s health deteriorated. Fearing for his condition, Lenin asked Stalin “if something happened” to get and hand over the poison - the leader was convinced that Stalin could be relied upon in this regard.

As Vladimir Ilyich’s sister M.I. Ulyanov writes, Lenin already had some signs of dissatisfaction with Stalin’s behavior by that time; in conversations with close relatives, the leader called Koba stupid. However, when Lenin’s illness became more complicated, it was Stalin who visited him more often than other party comrades.

In December 1922, an incident occurred that radically and forever changed Lenin's attitude towards Stalin as a person.

The ill Lenin was protected from political information so that any experiences would not worsen his well-being. The curator of the leader’s treatment process, J.V. Stalin, learned that Lenin’s wife N.K. Krupskaya was still having conversations with her husband on political topics. In a fit of anger, Stalin rudely reprimanded Krupskaya over the phone, without mincing words.

Krupskaya had a hard time with that conversation. M.I. Ulyanova recalls that Nadezhda Konstantinovna howled and rolled on the floor. This story was late, but still reached Lenin. Having become furious, Ilyich asked Stalin in writing to apologize, otherwise he threatened to break off relations with him. Stalin then apologized, perplexed that the problem had been given too much importance.

Considering how difficult it was for his colleagues to get along with Stalin, one can only be surprised that his relationship with Lenin remained good for so long. There had been tension between them from time to time since the episode in 1911, but it had never reached such a level as to damage their relationship. Lenin must have felt that special tact was needed in dealing with Stalin and, apparently, believed that the game was worth the candle. He appreciated Stalin's strengths as a political leader, respected his opinions on certain issues, and never doubted his greatest dedication to his cause. It is also possible that Lenin was (perhaps only subconsciously) influenced by the feelings that Stalin personally had for him. Lenin could hardly remain indifferent to the way this rude Caucasian (ten years younger than him) constantly looked at him with the admiration of a student and faithful follower and even had an unusual tenderness for him. Stalin, for his part, probably behaved with sufficient restraint in Lenin's presence, and therefore Lenin did not have to experience (at least until a certain time) such unpleasant moments as some other prominent Bolsheviks.

But around 1921, the first signs of discord began to appear in their relationship. Along with other factors, the victory won by Lenin at the Tenth Party Congress played a role here. As a result, the internal party conflict was successfully resolved - the reason for the coldness between him and Trotsky. And this, in turn, cleared the way for Lenin to resume his close relationship with the man whom Stalin considered his sworn enemy. The rapprochement between Lenin and Trotsky awakened evil feelings in Stalin (it could not have been otherwise). Along with this, various episodes during the civil war, in which the negative qualities of Stalin's character were revealed and which showed what consequences all this could lead to (for example, intrigues and squabbles), gave rise to Lenin's bad feelings about Stalin as a person. “This cook will cook only spicy dishes,” Lenin allegedly remarked when Zinoviev, who was still plotting against Trotsky, during the 11th Party Congress, began in the close circle of Lenin’s associates to insist on Stalin’s candidacy for elections to the Secretariat. The then People's Commissar of Finance Sokolnikov wanted to replace the monopoly of foreign trade with a regime of trade concessions and sought permission for Soviet trusts and cooperatives to purchase food abroad. This greatly alarmed Lenin, who foresaw the dangerous consequences of weakening the foreign trade monopoly. Therefore, he stubbornly defended his point of view, but encountered persistent resistance in the upper echelons, including some opposition from Stalin. Thus, in Lenin’s letter dated May 15, 1922, addressed to Stalin and his deputy. People's Commissar of Foreign Trade Frumkin with a proposal to “formally prohibit” all talk about weakening the monopoly, Stalin wrote: “I do not object to the “formal prohibition” of steps towards weakening the monopoly of foreign trade at this stage. I still think that the weakening is becoming inevitable”4. This statement, of course, downplayed both the seriousness of the problem itself and the significance of the friction it caused. And yet the disagreements regarding the monopoly of foreign trade cannot be compared with the conflict that flared up in connection with the national question. This time Lenin had to confront Stalin openly.

Lenin's thinking on the national question contained two important elements from the very beginning. One concerned the revolutionary party, and the other the revolution. Driven by the desire to preserve a unified and strictly centralized Russian revolutionary movement, he believed that the idea of ​​the Austrian Social Democrats of “national-cultural autonomy” threatened the party with a split. It was this aspect of Lenin’s thoughts that Stalin very successfully developed in his work “Marxism and the National Question.” But precisely those same centrifugal forces of national separatism, which seemed dangerous to Lenin from party positions, inspired hope from the point of view of the success of the revolution, for they could help destroy the tsarist empire. Therefore, he defended with all his energy the slogan “the right of nations to self-determination”; It was all the easier for Lenin to do this, since he felt a deep disgust for Great Russian chauvinism, for the tsarist policy of “one and indivisible Russia.”

When the empire actually collapsed and disintegrated under the influence of war and revolution, Lenin found himself faced with a political dilemma. As an enemy of Great Russian nationalism, he was inclined to respect the right to national self-determination, but, as a revolutionary statesman, he wanted to preserve as much as possible of the former empire under Bolshevik rule. He could not ignore such facts as, for example, the economic value of Baku oil or the strategic and political importance of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, inhabited mainly by non-Slavic peoples, or the enormous importance from all points of view of Ukraine with a Slavic, but not Russian population. Lenin tried to resolve the dilemma by, on the one hand, yielding to powerful pressure for the secession of Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, and on the other, trying to preserve the rest of the former huge empire for the revolution. Russified representatives of national minorities (like Stalin and Ordzhonikidze), who had no remorse in imposing Soviet-Russian power on small peoples, were an obedient and effective instrument in implementing the second line. As we have already seen, Stalin always felt uncomfortable with the slogan of national self-determination, although he sometimes repeated it himself, and tended to take an evasive position on this issue. For example, at the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1918, he pointed out the need to “interpret the principle of self-determination as the right to self-determination not of the bourgeoisie, but of the working masses of a given nation. The principle of self-determination must be a means for the struggle for socialism and must be subordinated to the principles of socialism ".

At first, on the national question, Lenin had to deal with the opposition of a group of left communists led by Bukharin, Pyatakov and others, and perhaps for this reason he did not immediately notice the even more serious differences that existed between him and Stalin. As we have already seen, the communist left had a special opinion regarding the principle of national self-determination8.

Objecting, Lenin said that the nation was still an inalienable fact of social life and that the party must take this into account. Then he dryly noted that there are no Bushmen in Russia, and as for the Hottentots, he has not heard of them laying claim to an autonomous republic, but there are Bashkirs, Kirghiz and other non-Russian peoples who cannot be denied recognition. According to him, in the world, and not only the colonial one, nations are a political reality. Having satisfied the Finns' right to self-determination, Soviet Russia deprived the Finnish bourgeoisie of the opportunity to convince the working masses that the Great Russians wanted to absorb them. Later, participating in further discussion, Lenin returned to the topic of Finland. He recalled that after territorial concessions made under an agreement with the short-lived Red Finnish government, one had to hear objections from Russian communists: “They say there are good fisheries there, but you gave them away.” Regarding such objections, Lenin said: “Scratch another communist and you will find a Great Russian chauvinist.” There were also communists, and even in the People's Commissariat of Education itself, who said that in a unified school it was possible to teach only in Russian. “In my opinion,” Lenin said, “this kind of communist is a Great Russian chauvinist. He resides in many of us, and we must fight him.”

Perhaps only now Stalin’s party comrades began to realize that the Commissioner for Nationalities himself belonged to the communists, infected with “Russian red patriotism,” since he had a tendency to speak out in the spirit of a united and indivisible Russia. Therefore, it can be considered paradoxical, but not at all unexpected, that Stalin and Lenin were ultimately destined to disagree on the very issue that at one time cemented their relationship. It could not have been otherwise because, as alien as Russian nationalism was to Lenin’s nature, it was so deeply rooted in Stalin’s character. It has already been said before that Stalin became Russified while still a young revolutionary, considering the Bolsheviks to be the “true Russian faction” of the Marxist movement. Ironically, the man who, in Lenin's opinion, was valuable to the party as a representative of small nations, and who for a long time agreed with this definition of his main role in the party, represented an emerging Russian nationalist even before their meeting and for many years until the moment when, to his horror, Lenin discovered that he had fully formed Russian nationalist views. Stalin identified himself with Russia, this was the basis of his arrogant attitude towards the culture of small peoples, especially those of the Caucasus, which we discovered in the work “Marxism and the National Question” - this determined the zeal with which he took the side of Lenin and opposed the “national cultural autonomy" in the party. True, in this work, proving the “international type” of the social democratic organization in Russia, he wrote that “workers, first of all, are members of one class family, members of a single army of socialism,” and added that this has “tremendous educational significance” for them ".

It would never have occurred to Lenin and his like-minded Russian revolutionaries to call Bolshevism (Lenin never used the word “Leninism”) the highest achievement of “Russian culture.” As the theory and practice of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, Leninism in their understanding was simply the Russian version of Marxism, which in turn was, in essence, supranational and provided for the final merging of all nations into a community of a higher level. The fact that Leninism bore a certain Russian imprint (due to the place of its origin) did not arouse vanity in them. But Stalin, in contrast, was proud of the Russian roots of Leninism, just as some patriotic French radical might be proud of Jacobinism, seeing in it a manifestation of the deep essence of France. Stalin considered Leninism to be the embodiment of Russia's glorious historical destiny. At the same time, this circumstance, in his opinion, did not in the least cast doubt on the worldwide significance of Leninism. In his work “On the Foundations of Leninism,” Stalin insisted on the international character of Leninism, which he defined as Marxism of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. From the mentioned 1926 memorandum it is absolutely clear that Stalin’s internationalism was oriented toward Moscow and Russia. The following year, he again emphasized this point, defining an “internationalist” as a person who is “unconditionally, without hesitation, without conditions, ready to defend the USSR because the USSR is the base of the world revolutionary movement, and it is impossible to defend, to move forward this revolutionary movement without defending THE USSR". The expressions “we are Russian Marxists” and “we are Russian Bolsheviks” often appear in his writings of the 20s. In an interview with Emil Ludwig in 1931, Stalin even Russified his revolutionary roots, noting that he became involved with Marxism at the age of fifteen, when he “contacted the underground groups of Russian Marxists who then lived in Transcaucasia.”

In 1923, at the XII Party Congress, Stalin, along with Great Russian chauvinism, severely condemned local chauvinism, which, according to him, arises as a reaction to Great Russian chauvinism. Certain circles abroad supposedly intended to “arrange in a peaceful order what Denikin failed to arrange, that is, to create a so-called “united and indivisible” Russia. The main danger was that “in connection with the NEP, great-power chauvinism is growing by leaps and bounds, trying to erase everything non-Russian, gather all the threads of control around the Russian principle and suppress the non-Russian.” Apparently, Stalin forgot historical examples of the manifestation of nationalism by ruling nations and was unable to see great-power chauvinism, although he himself, albeit cursorily, pointed to it as a serious problem. There was a deep gulf between Stalin’s arrogant Russophilia and Lenin’s views, which was revealed to Lenin with all the ruthlessness in 1922.

Deep political conflicts often spill over into issues that at first glance seem to be of secondary importance. The question that played precisely such a role in this case concerned the legal framework of the Soviet constitutional structure. It arose back in January 1920, when Stalin, who was then on the Southern Front, sent Lenin a letter with comments regarding the draft theses on national and colonial issues prepared for the Second Congress of the Comintern. In the seventh point of his theses, Lenin pointed to the “federation” as a transitional form to the complete unity of the working people of different nations. The Federation, according to Lenin, has already demonstrated in practice its feasibility both in the relations of the RSFSR with other Soviet republics (for example, with Ukraine), and in providing autonomy within the RSFSR to nationalities that previously did not have it (for example, the Bashkirs). Here the difference was emphasized between the “union republics” (Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan), with which the RSFSR had treaty relations, and the “autonomous republics”, to which the constitution guaranteed some political powers, but which were not formally considered independent. In a letter to Lenin, Stalin doubted that Soviet Germany, Poland, Hungary or Finland would immediately wish to enter into federal relations with Soviet Russia, and proposed choosing a “confederation” or “union of independent states” as a form of rapprochement in the future. According to him, different types of federal relations within the Soviet state are unlikely to help solve the problem, since “in reality there is no difference, or it is so small that it is equal to zero.” Stalin, of course, belonged to the centralists.

Stalin's "autonomization" plan, handed over by the Central Committee to the border republics for review, was received without much enthusiasm. The party leaders of Ukraine and Belarus did not openly oppose it, but greeted it with more than restraint. The Central Committee of Azerbaijan fully supported the project, of course, thanks to Kirov’s influential position. The Ordzhonikidze Caucasian Bureau and the Central Committee of Armenia did the same. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, however, clearly spoke out against it. In a resolution dated September 15, despite the objections of Ordzhonikidze and Kirov, who were present at the meeting and voted against this resolution, the Georgian Central Committee declared the autonomization proposed by Stalin to be premature. The unification of economic efforts and a common policy were recognized as necessary, but “with the preservation of all the attributes of independence.”

Lenin's reaction was quick and negative. After speaking with Stalin on September 27, he summarized his position in a letter to Kamenev, sent the same day and intended for members of the Politburo. The question, Lenin wrote, is extremely important, and “Stalin has a slight desire to rush.” Stalin, he continued, had already agreed to one concession: the resolution would not talk about the “entry” of the remaining republics into the RSFSR (that is, about their autonomy), but to express equality with the Russian Federation, it would talk about their “formal unification with the RSFSR into a union Soviet republics of Europe and Asia." However, other changes needed to be made. Instead of turning the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR into the highest government body of all Soviet republics, there should have been a federal All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Likewise, certain administrative functions were to be performed by federal people's commissariats located in Moscow, rather than being retained by the existing commissariats of the RSFSR. It is very important, Lenin explained, not to give food to the “independents”, not to destroy their independence, but, on the contrary, to create “a new floor, a federation of equal republics”24. However, despite the outburst of irritation, Stalin revised the resolution of the Central Committee commission in accordance with Lenin’s recommendations. It outlined a description of the federal system of the USSR, later remodeled in accordance with the new Soviet Constitution of 1924. In amended form, the resolution was presented to the Central Committee, which met on October 5 for a two-day plenum. Acute toothache did not allow Lenin to be at the meeting on October 6, but on that day he sent Kamenev a short note in which, clearly referring to the events described above, he declared: “I declare a battle for life and death against Great Russian chauvinism.”

At a plenum held in Baku on November 3, 1921, the Caucasian Bureau, in the presence of the Secretary of the Central Committee, Molotov, decided to begin implementing the plan for creating a federation. The decision was reported to the Politburo, for which it was a complete surprise, and it asked Ordzhonikidze for additional information on this issue. Local party circles were also taken by surprise, since the Caucasian Bureau made the decision without prior discussion with the three Transcaucasian Central Committees of the party and in the absence of Mdivani, one of the members of the bureau. Subsequently, the Caucasian Bureau achieved the consent of these party bodies, but in Georgia it was necessary to overcome the strong opposition of a significant group of communist leaders led by Mdivani, who declared the plan to create a federation “premature.”

As one would expect, turning over Ordzhonikidze’s head to Stalin did not lead to anything worthwhile, since the creator of the course that Ordzhonikidze pursued was Stalin himself. When, by the end of November, the Caucasian Bureau, in response to the Politburo’s demand for additional information, sent relevant documents to Moscow, Stalin, having studied the received material, drew up a draft Politburo resolution, which he sent to Lenin for approval. The text of Stalin's letter was never published (according to Soviet historians, it is not even in the Central Party Archive), but, judging by Lenin's response on November 28, 1921, Stalin agreed with the plan to create a federation, circumventing, however, the warning about the need to move forward gradually and make every effort to convince the local population and local party members of the advantages of the federation. On November 23, Lenin received a telegram from Mikhail Frunze, a Bolshevik leader and member of the Central Committee who was touring the Caucasus, which spoke of the opposition among Georgian communists to federal plans and their dissatisfaction with the way these plans were being imposed. In a note to Stalin sent two days later, Lenin approved his draft resolution, but suggested wording it “a little differently.” In particular, Lenin's editorial spoke of the need to recognize the federation of the Transcaucasian republics as fundamentally absolutely correct, “but in the sense of immediate practical implementation, premature,” that is, requiring several weeks of discussion, propaganda and implementation from below through the Soviets. The central committees of the three Transcaucasian republics were asked to raise the question of federation for discussion by the party, workers and peasant masses, organize agitation for the federation through the Congress of Soviets of each republic, and in the event of strong opposition, promptly inform the Politburo. On the same day, Stalin accepted Lenin’s amendments, but suggested that instead of the words “several weeks” they should write: “a known period of time.” He explained that a few weeks will not be enough to resolve the issue of federation in the Georgian Soviets, which are “just beginning to be built.” On December 13, Svanidze sent a personal letter to his high-ranking relative with the following content:

“Dear Joseph! Recently there has not been a single meeting of the Central Committee that did not begin and end with stormy scenes between Sergo and Budu... (Ordzhonikidze) beats us with the heavy baton of the authority of the Center, for which, by the way, we have no less respect and trust than the comrades from the Caucasian Bureau... I ask you convincingly for one thing, to somehow reconcile Sergo and Bud, if this is objectively possible. Teach them to treat each other with respect. P.S. I will be eternally grateful to you if you tear me out of this atmosphere and give me the opportunity to work in some foreign mission." The plenum of the Central Committee, held on October 5-6, 1922, approved Lenin’s plan for the formation of the USSR, on the condition that both the Russian Republic and Transcaucasia would join it as federations. Although the Georgian opposition thus received only partial satisfaction, its leaders were pleased that in the fight against those whom some speakers at the October plenum branded "great powers" they had such a powerful ally as Lenin. In this regard, one of the Georgians said: “We are according to Lenin, they are for war communism.” At this moment, the Georgian Central Committee resigned in its entirety. The dissenting majority sent Lenin a telegram in which they apologized for the harsh language of their first message, but abdicated all responsibility for the conflict. Meanwhile, Ordzhonikidze, relying on the powerful support of Stalin, began to purge the Georgian party, removing oppositionists from government positions.

But by this time, the highest party circles in Moscow realized that an abnormal situation had developed in Georgia. Kamenev and Bukharin proposed that the Politburo instruct the Central Committee to create a commission of investigation. Unable to object, Stalin made a clever move, declaring that the most suitable candidate for the post of head of the commission was Dzerzhinsky, who was at that time recuperating on the Black Sea coast in Sukhumi. Enukidze, whom Lenin predicted for this role, prudently refused. As a result, the Secretariat appointed Dzerzhinsky as chairman, and V. S. Mickevichus-Kapsukas and L. N. Sosnovsky as members of the commission. Lenin, who remembered Dzerzhinsky’s negative attitude in the past towards the slogan of national self-determination, was not pleased with the composition of the commission, and during the voting held among Politburo members by telephone, he abstained. Stalin, Kamenev, Kalinin and Zinoviev supported the proposal, and Trotsky declared: “I have no objection.” Mdivani, who had just returned from a trip abroad, spoke out against such a composition of the commission, especially against Sosnovsky. Stalin complied and replaced Sosnovsky with one of his supporters, the Ukrainian Manuilsky. In his memoirs published after Stalin’s death, Anastas Mikoyan explained that the white horse was given to Ordzhonikidze by the mountaineers when he returned to the Caucasus. Having accepted the gift (as Caucasian custom required), Ordzhonikidze transferred the horse to the stable of the Revolutionary Military Council and rode it only during parades in Tiflis. Kobakhidze unfairly accused him of almost corruption. Lenin believed that this crossed all boundaries. He could not come to terms with the idea that members of his government behaved this way towards a small people. He considered Ordzhonikidze’s act unacceptable, and the figure of Stalin, for whose rude manners Lenin more than once found justifications, began to take on ominous shapes. Finally, in his heart, Lenin sided with the Georgian opposition. Reporting on December 12 on the results of the work of the commission, which at the beginning of the month held four-day hearings in Tiflis, Dzerzhinsky tried to whitewash Stalin and Ordzhonikidze. But this did not reassure Lenin. He instructed Dzerzhinsky to return to Georgia and collect more detailed information about the incident between Ordzhonikidze and Kobakhidze. Soon after this, on December 16, Lenin was again struck by paralysis. Having recovered sufficiently to work a little every day, Lenin dictated a note on December 30-31, “On the question of nationalities or “autonomization”.” This last work of Lenin on the national question contained a severe indictment of Stalin.

Starting with an admission of his own guilt in that he did not intervene energetically enough on the issue of autonomization, Lenin recalled his conversation with Dzerzhinsky and the fact of assault on Ordzhonikidze. If things have gone this far, Lenin said, then one can imagine “what a swamp we have fallen into.” Apparently, this whole idea of ​​autonomy turned out to be fundamentally wrong and untimely. As supporters of autonomy said, he continued, a single apparatus was required. But where did these assurances come from, if not from that very “Russian apparatus”, which was borrowed from tsarism and only smeared a little with Soviet myrrh? There was a huge danger that an insignificant percentage of Soviet or Sovietized workers “would drown in this sea of ​​chauvinistic Great Russian trash, like a fly in milk.” Under such conditions, Lenin wrote, the declared freedom to secede from the union is not capable of protecting Russian foreigners from the invasion of that Great Russian chauvinist, in essence, a scoundrel and a rapist, which is a typical Russian bureaucrat.

No measures were taken, it continued, to protect the minority from such types. “I think,” said Lenin, “that Stalin’s haste and administrative enthusiasm, as well as his anger against the notorious “social-nationalism”, played a fatal role here.” “Bitterness,” he continued, “in general plays the worst role in politics.” Dzerzhinsky, according to Lenin, during his trip to the Caucasus was also distinguished by his truly Russian mood. Here Lenin noted in parentheses that Russified foreigners always oversalt in terms of truly Russian sentiment. Ordzhonikidze’s “Russian assault” cannot be justified by any insult, as Dzerzhinsky tried to do. Being a person endowed with power in the Caucasus, he had no right to lose his temper. Ordzhonikidze should have been roughly punished, and Stalin and Dzerzhinsky should have been politically responsible for the Great Russian nationalist campaign. Looking at the problem from a broader perspective, Lenin argued that it is necessary to distinguish the nationalism of a large oppressive nation from the nationalism of an oppressed nation, a small nation. When dealing with national minorities, it is better to over-salt in the direction of compliance and gentleness. The harm from the separation of the national apparatus from the Russian apparatus would be immeasurably less than the harm that would result from a rude and unfair attitude towards its own foreigners, not only for Soviet Russia, but for the entire International, for hundreds of millions of Asian peoples who are about to performance. That Georgian who does not show extreme caution and consideration, scornfully hurls accusations of “social-nationalism”, who himself is a real “social-nationalist” and a rude Great Russian scumbag, that Georgian, in essence, violates the interests of proletarian class solidarity40. At a meeting held on February 1, at which Stalin did not hide his reluctance to satisfy Lenin’s request, the Politburo decided to allow Lenin to familiarize himself with the materials. Having received them, Lenin appointed a commission consisting of three secretaries (Fotieva, Glyasser and Gorbunov) to study the Georgian incident. The report of this commission, which reached Lenin on March 3, prompted him to take further steps. On March 5, he dictated a letter to Trotsky with a request to deal with the Georgian case at the planned pre-Congress plenum of the Central Committee. “This matter,” Lenin wrote, “is now under “persecution” by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot rely on their impartiality. Quite the opposite. If you agreed to take over his defense, then I could be calm." The next day he sent the following note to the leaders of the Georgian opposition, Mdivani and Makharadze (copied with Trotsky and Kamenev): "I am following your case with all my heart. Outraged by the rudeness of Ordzhonikidze and the indulgences of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky. I am preparing notes and a speech for you." However, in the end, Trotsky himself agreed to a "rotten compromise", who informed Kamenev that he was against the removal of Stalin, the expulsion of Ordzhonikidze and the removal of Dzerzhinsky from the post of People's Commissar of Railways. Trotsky only demanded a change in policy in national question, to end the persecution of Georgian opponents of Stalin and administrative oppression in the party, to pursue a firmer course towards industrialization and “honest cooperation” in the governing bodies.44 Trotsky, for his part, agreed to leave to the Politburo the right to decide whether the congress should be familiarized with Lenin’s notes at all And the Politburo decided, instead of publishing the materials as congress documents, to read them at closed meetings of individual delegations (these materials were not published until 1956).All this prepared the way for the rather boring XII Party Congress, which met in April. Considering that Trotsky was silent , Stalin easily withstood the debate on the national question. Emphasizing, in accordance with the agreement, the special danger of Great Russian chauvinism, he simultaneously struck hard at his Georgian opponents. Decrying “Georgian chauvinism,” he used his conflict with “comrade deviationists” to illustrate the validity of the assertion that the “defensive nationalism” of some republics tended to turn into “offensive” nationalism. Stalin accused the Georgian opposition of opposing the federation plan because of a desire to capitalize on Georgia's "privileged position" in Transcaucasia for nationalist purposes. And in retelling the story with his own proposal to Lenin regarding more time to advance the plan through the Georgian Soviets, Stalin made it appear as if he, and not Lenin, was calling for caution in this matter. In one of his speeches at the congress, he, referring to the Mdivani group, mockingly noted that “some comrades working in a certain piece of Soviet territory called Georgia, apparently, not everything is in order there, on the top floor.” . In vain did the leader of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks, Nikolai Skrypnik, cruelly criticize the “party swamp” present at the congress, that is, those who, voting for the resolution on the national question, remained in their hearts a great power. Bukharin, who spoke in defense of the Georgians, did not manage to do much. “I understand,” he noted, “when our dear friend, Comrade Koba Stalin, does not so sharply oppose Russian chauvinism and that he, as a Georgian, opposes Georgian chauvinism.” Bukharin then asked permission, as a non-Georgian, to focus his fire on Russian chauvinism. According to him, the essence of Leninism on the national question was the fight against this main chauvinism, which generated other, local forms of chauvinism that arose as a response. In order to “compensate” for its past as a great power, Bukharin continued, the Great Russian had to put himself in an unequal position in terms of concessions to national trends. In the national question, considerations of economic expediency and administrative efficiency should fade into the background. After all, cutting down telegraph poles for barricades and transferring large estates of landowners to peasants was also unwise from an economic point of view. So why did Lenin sound the alarm about the Georgian question with such frantic energy and not say a word about the mistakes of the local draft dodgers? Being a brilliant strategist, Bukharin noted, he understood that he needed to beat the main enemy. Therefore, there was no point in talking now about local chauvinism, which was the theme of the second phase of the struggle.

This was a bold attempt by Bukharin to change the direction of the debate, but not at all like the “bomb” that Lenin allegedly intended to explode to strike Stalin. Bukharin himself hinted at this, telling the congress: “If Comrade Lenin were here, he would give such a bath to the Russian chauvinists that they would remember for ten years.”

At the XII Congress of our party, he reproached me for pursuing too strict an organizational policy towards Georgian semi-nationalists, semi-communists like Mdivani, who was recently a trade representative in France, that I was “persecuting” them. However, subsequent facts showed that the so-called “deviators”, people like Mdivani, actually deserved a stricter attitude towards themselves than I did, as one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of our party... Lenin did not and could not know these facts , since he was ill, lay in bed and was not able to follow events. But what could this minor incident have to do with Stalin's principled position?" The attack of illness that followed on December 16 marked the beginning of a period of sharply limited activity that lasted until the beginning of March, that is, until the moment when Lenin was paralyzed as a result of a new blow. Accept directly he could no longer participate in political affairs, however, overcoming the resistance of his attending physician, who wanted to establish a regime of absolute rest for him, Lenin obtained permission to dictate daily for his so-called diary.After Stalin, Bukharin and Kamenev consulted with doctors on December 24, it was decided that Lenin could dictate daily for 5 to 10 minutes (later this period of time was increased), but that these notes should not be in the nature of postal correspondence, that he should not receive visitors and that people around Lenin should not inform him about current political events Upon learning of the letter, Stalin, who must have been alarmed by signs of Lenin's hostility towards him, flew into a rage. Taking advantage of the fact that the Central Committee placed personal responsibility on him (apparently due to his position as General Secretary) for compliance with the medical regime established for Lenin, Stalin called Krupskaya, rudely cursed her and threatened her with the Control Commission (the body that approved party discipline) for that she violated a doctor's order. The next day, December 23, Krupskaya sent the following letter to Kamenev:

“Lev Borisovich, regarding the short letter I wrote under the dictation of Vlad. Ilyich with the permission of the doctors, Stalin yesterday allowed himself the most rude behavior towards me. I have been in the party for more than one day. In all 30 years I have not heard from a single comrade one rude word, the interests of the party and Ilyich are no less dear to me than to Stalin. Now I need maximum self-control. What you can and cannot talk about with Ilyich, I know better than any doctor, because I know what worries him, what no, and in any case better than Stalin. I appeal to you and to Grigory (Zinoviev), as V.I.’s closest comrades, and ask you to protect me from gross interference in my personal life, unworthy abuse and threats. In the unanimous decision of the Control Commission, "which Stalin allows himself to threaten, I have no doubt, but I have neither the strength nor the time that I could waste on this stupid squabble. I am also alive, and my nerves are extremely tense."

Then Lenin asked Volodicheva not to send the letter for now, apparently wanting Krupskaya to familiarize herself with it first. After reading the letter, she went to Kamenev in great anxiety. “Vladimir has just dictated to a stenographer a letter to Stalin about breaking off all relations with him,” she said, adding: “He would never have broken off personal relations if he had not considered it necessary to defeat Stalin politically.”

Krupskaya did not know that the decision to politically destroy Stalin had matured at least two months earlier. In the last week of December 1922, Lenin dictated what would become known as his “testament.” He began on December 23 with a section in which he advised expanding the number of members of the Central Committee to 50 - 100 people. This recording was transferred to Stalin to inform the Central Committee. Keeping the remaining sections of the document secret (even from Krupskaya), Lenin continued dictating over the next two days. In this secret part, he explained that the numerical increase of the Central Committee was necessary in order to prevent a split in the party, much of the danger of which lay in the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky. And then it followed:

“Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power carefully enough. On the other hand, Comrade Trotsky, as his struggle against the Central Committee in connection with the question of The NKPS is distinguished not only by its outstanding abilities. Personally, he is perhaps the most capable person in the present Central Committee, but also by his excessive self-confidence and excessive enthusiasm for the purely administrative side of the matter.

These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the modern Central Committee can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our party does not take measures to prevent this, then a split may come unexpectedly.

I will not further characterize other members of the Central Committee by their personal qualities. Let me just remind you that the October episode of Zinoviev and Kamenev, of course, was not an accident, but that it can just as little be blamed on them personally as non-Bolshevism can be blamed on Trotsky.

Among the young members of the Central Committee, I would like to say a few words about Bukharin and Pyatakov. These, in my opinion, are the most outstanding forces (of the young forces), and regarding them one should keep in mind the following: Bukharin is not only the most valuable and greatest theoretician of the party, he is also rightfully considered the favorite of the entire party, but his theoretical views are very much in doubt can be classified as completely Marxist, because there is something scholastic in him (he never studied and, I think, never fully understood dialectics).

25.XII. Then Pyatakov is a man, undoubtedly, of outstanding will and outstanding abilities, but too keen on administration and the administrative side of things to be relied upon on a serious political issue.

Of course, both of these remarks are made by me only for the present time, on the assumption that these two outstanding and dedicated workers will not find an opportunity to supplement their knowledge and change their one-sidedness."

Lenin made an addition to this section on January 4, 1923, recommending the removal of Stalin from the post of General Secretary. And if, when he began dictating, he may not have been completely sure of the need to deprive Stalin of power, now all doubts have dissipated. Therefore, the continuation of this section of records had the following content:

“Stalin is too rude, and this shortcoming, quite tolerable in the environment and in communications between us communists, becomes intolerable in the position of General Secretary. Therefore, I suggest that the comrades consider a way to move Stalin from this place and appoint another person to this place, who in all other respects relations differs from Comrade Stalin in only one advantage, namely, more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to comrades, less capriciousness, etc. This circumstance may seem like an insignificant trifle, but I think that from the point of view of protection against split, and from the point of view of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky, this is not a trifle, or this is such a trifle that can become decisive.” But one should not assume that this was the only reason. At the end of his notes on the national question, dictated on December 30 and 31, Lenin spoke of the need to avoid any rudeness in the treatment of Great Russians with small nations. And at this time he was thinking about the scandalous case of assault committed by Ordzhonikidze in relation to Kobakhidze. As Fotieva wrote in her memoirs, Lenin also received information from Georgian sources about the intentions of Stalin and Ordzhonikidze to burn out nationalist sentiments with a hot iron. For Lenin, all this was an example of rudeness not only in relations between individuals, but also in political relations between some leaders and entire social groups - non-Russian nationalities. Moreover, in his notes he made it clear that Stalin bears greater responsibility than Ordzhonikidze for the collective rudeness shown in Georgia.

Four days later, when all this was still fresh in his memory, Lenin dictated an addition. Is it any wonder that he began with the words: “Stalin is too rude...”

The document in which this addition appeared became, to a certain extent, Lenin’s “testament” (as it was later called). Lenin apparently did not rule out the possibility that the recordings would be his posthumous order to the party leadership. And yet, such a definition can be somewhat misleading, since Lenin dictated the letter to the very congress at which he still hoped to be personally present or, at worst, which he believed to direct from Gorki with the help of written directives. Aware that he could die or completely lose his ability to work at any moment, Lenin, however, hoped to live and remain sufficiently active for some time. And, showing extreme caution in handling the document, trying to keep its contents strictly secret (which is completely natural when it comes to a will), Lenin nevertheless consoled himself with the hope that no one else, but himself, would open the sealed envelope and make it public its content, using materials for political purposes. All Lenin's hopes were connected with March 30, when the XII Party Congress was scheduled to open. At some point, the doctors made it clear that after a week of absolute rest, he might be able to speak at the convention. And before he began dictating to Volodicheva on December 23, Lenin said: “I want to dictate a letter to you for the congress. Write it down!”

In the second article, entitled “Better less, but better,” Lenin moved from barbed phrases to direct accusations. A significant part of the work was a crushing criticism of Stalin, which was developed on the basis of Lenin's ideas about the reorganization of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate. Things with the state apparatus, it was said at the beginning of the article, are so sad, not to say disgusting, that it was necessary to look for ways to combat its shortcomings. It was necessary, according to Lenin, to make the Rabkrin an instrument for improving the apparatus and an exemplary institution, which it is not yet. “Let’s speak frankly,” wrote Lenin. “The People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Commissariat does not now enjoy a shadow of authority. Everyone knows that there are no worse established institutions than the institutions of our Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, and that under modern conditions there is nothing to ask from this People’s Commissariat.” And so that no one would doubt that it was Stalin who was under fire from criticism (since he was no longer officially in charge of this institution), Lenin, in the course of his exposition, asked the question “to any of the current leaders of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate or anyone connected to him, can he say In all honesty, what is the practical need for such a People’s Commissariat as the Rabkrin?” (my italics - R. T.). And before moving to conclusions, Lenin once again hit Stalin as the main trustee of the party apparatus. He, in particular, noted: “In parentheses, let it be said, we have bureaucracy not only in Soviet institutions, but also in party ones.” Apparently, during this period of time an attempt was made to prevent its publication. As Trotsky reported in his “Letter to Istpart,” Bukharin (then editor of the newspaper Pravda) did not dare to authorize the publication of the article. At a special meeting of the Politburo (convened at the request of Trotsky after Krupskaya asked for help in this matter by telephone), Stalin, Molotov, Kuibyshev, Rykov, Kalinin and Bukharin opposed the publication of the article, and Kuibyshev even suggested printing it in a single copy to appease Lenin "Truth". However, Trotsky, supported by Kamenev, eventually prevailed, proving that any work of Lenin simply cannot be hidden from the party.

Why Lenin needed such a statement, and even in writing, is not difficult to guess. As we have already seen, he was preparing a letter against Stalin touching on many aspects, with the intention of removing him from the post of General Secretary. The main accusation was Stalin's excessive rudeness. And in order, despite possible attempts by some circles to justify Stalin, to make the accusation irrefutable, Lenin (a lawyer by training) wanted to document this fact. The commission's report on the results of the proceedings in Georgia must have provided Lenin with sufficient material for this purpose, which he, however, decided to supplement with a report (no doubt in a closed meeting) about Stalin's rude behavior towards Krupskaya. In this case, the documentation would have the appearance of Stalin’s handwritten admission of his guilt.

Surely Lenin’s plan would have been successful if his health had allowed him to present the essence of the matter before the court of the party congress. But by the time the congress opened in mid-April, Lenin had completely lost the ability to be active. And the papers with recommendations regarding Stalin’s removal from his position were opened only some time after Lenin’s death in January 1924.

Although Lenin's paralysis and death were a political salvation for Stalin, there is no evidence that Stalin did anything to hasten such an outcome. This needs to be especially emphasized in connection with the suspicion later expressed by Trotsky. As he wrote, at a meeting of the Politburo at the end of February 1923, Stalin, in the presence of Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky himself, said that he (Stalin) was suddenly called by Lenin and asked for poison. To Trotsky’s remark that Dr. Getye (Lenin’s and Trotsky’s family physician) had not given up hope for Lenin’s recovery, Stalin replied: “I told him all this... But he does not want to listen to any arguments. The old man is suffering and wants to have poison at hand "He uses it only if he is convinced that the situation is hopeless." According to Trotsky, no vote was taken, but those present at the meeting dispersed with a clear understanding that they had no right to even discuss the request to Lenin. Trotsky added that he might be mistaken about some of the details of the episode, but not that it took place. But regardless of the answer to this question, one thing is clear: outright falsification of historical events contradicted Trotsky’s character. In addition, there is nothing incredible in the fact that Lenin, fearing a long period of paralysis that could precede death, asked for poison, and it was from Stalin, who was authorized by the party to monitor the patient’s compliance with the regimen prescribed by doctors. It is useless to guess whether Lenin, as Trotsky claims, really saw in Stalin the only person who could agree to comply with the request for poison. If he turned to Stalin with such a request, it could have happened either before December 13, or on the very day when they met for the last time. Trotsky’s hypothesis that Stalin, perhaps, at his own peril and risk, undertook to fulfill Lenin’s request, is also not confirmed by anything. To do so after discussing the problem with the rest of the Politburo members, who unanimously spoke out against it, would be too politically risky (if they found out about it). Moreover, Stalin at that time had less reason to fear Lenin’s attacks than at the beginning of March. Apart from the possible influence of other restraining factors, Stalin was not one of the people willing to take such a risk.

As we have already seen, in the last years of Lenin's life only his protests achieved the growth of popular admiration for him. Therefore, it is not surprising that the emergence of the cult of Lenin coincided with the period of his illness and death. A similar tendency clearly emerged in the manner in which Lenin and his teaching were discussed at the Twelfth Congress. Kamenev set the tone when opening the congress. He, in particular, said: “We know only one antidote against any crisis, against any wrong decision: this is the teaching of Vladimir Ilyich.”

But all the restraining principles disappeared immediately after Lenin’s death, and his cult flourished, turning into one of the institutions of Soviet communism. The impetus was a series of government decrees issued at that time. The day of Lenin's death, January 21, was declared an annual day of mourning. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. Monuments to Lenin were to be erected in Moscow and other large cities. The newly created V.I. Lenin Institute was entrusted with preparing a mass edition of his works in various languages. And supposedly in order to provide everyone who could not arrive in Moscow on the day of the funeral with the opportunity to say goodbye to Lenin, it was decided to install the coffin with his body in a crypt built near the Kremlin wall on Red Square and make it accessible to the public. A remarkable statement in connection with the latest decision was made by Zinoviev in an article published in the Pravda newspaper on January 30, 1924. “It’s so good,” he said, “that they decided to bury Ilyich in a crypt! How good that we thought of doing this in time! Bury in Ilyich’s body on the ground - that would be too unbearable.” Over time, he continued, the Lenin Museum will grow nearby, and gradually the entire Red Square will turn into “Lenin Town”, and in the coming decades and centuries, hundreds of millions of people will begin to pilgrimage here not only from all over Russia, but also from all over the world.

And the embalmed body was exhibited in a small wooden crypt, which turned into the main shrine of the Lenin cult. Crowds of the faithful or simply curious have since flowed daily in an endless stream past the glass coffin, and on Red Square long lines of patiently waiting people have become a familiar sight at all times of the year. When the wooden structure was replaced by a granite mausoleum in 1929, the cult of Lenin became firmly entrenched in all spheres of Soviet public life. The V.I. Lenin Institute prepared collected works for publication and conducted research on his works, which were quoted, like the Holy Scriptures, to substantiate ideas on countless problems. The life and work of Lenin became the topic of a great many books that Soviet people became acquainted with in their first school years. There were his portraits, statues, busts everywhere. According to foreigners who traveled a lot around Russia in the second half of the 20s, even in peasant huts one could find a cheap reproduction of Lenin’s portrait, often hanging next to icons.

Supporters of this explanation usually refer to Stalin’s amazing “oath” speech, delivered on January 26, 1924 at the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets. And although, in addition to Stalin, many other prominent Bolsheviks spoke, it was in his words that the ritual exaltation of the deceased leader sounded most clearly. As we have already noted.

Highlighting Stalin's role in the creation of the cult of Lenin is quite justified. In addition to the contribution he made with his “oath” speech, he, apparently, belongs to the main credit for the decision to exhibit Lenin’s embalmed body for public worship and thereby give communism the Holy Sepulcher. This step plunged many Bolsheviks into confusion. And it must have been this step that prompted the widowed Krupskaya to raise her voice of protest against the implantation of the cult of Lenin. In a note published in Pravda on January 30, 1924, ostensibly to thank all those who expressed their condolences, Krupskaya begged not to allow mourning for Lenin to take the form of “external veneration of his personality.” She asked not to erect monuments to him, palaces named after him, not to organize magnificent celebrations in his memory. In conclusion, Krupskaya wrote: “If you want to honor the name of Vladimir Ilyich, set up nurseries, kindergartens, houses, schools, libraries, outpatient clinics, hospitals, homes for the disabled, etc. and most importantly, let’s implement his behests in everything.”

Despite evidence of Stalin's special responsibility for the decision regarding the embalming of Lenin's body, the tendency to portray him as almost the creator of the cult of Lenin is erroneous. More generally speaking, none of the above views on the origins of the cult seem to fully correspond to the truth, although each contains some portion of it. The Bolshevik leaders, of course, wished to use the Lenin symbol as a propaganda tool to increase popular support for their regime, and this consideration may have helped overcome their inherent Marxist aversion to the mummification of Lenin's body. There is also some truth in the theory that the emergence of the cult of Lenin is a relapse of Russian religiosity, which took place with the assistance (maybe partial) of Stalin. But all these explanations are inexhaustive, for at least two reasons. One is connected with Stalin, the other with the Bolshevik movement.

Of course, Stalin had a great influence on the entire process of creating the cult of Lenin, but pointing to his Eastern nature and religious upbringing in the spirit of Russian Orthodoxy does not fully explain why he did this. It is quite obvious that Stalin did not adhere to religious views in the generally accepted sense. Although he at times used traditional ecclesiastical expressions, such as calling party membership the “holy of holies,” Stalin, like other Old Bolsheviks, was steadfast in his Marxist atheism. He recognized and worshiped the only god - the “god of history”, to whom he appealed on behalf of revolutionary Russia, speaking in 1920 at the Baku Council. But it is precisely this appeal that indicates that Stalin’s Marxism had a peculiar religious touch. He imagined history as a drama of the clash between good and evil, in which classes, states and individuals play an extremely important role. Moreover, Stalin's Marxism was a set of dogmas on fundamental issues. From these positions, the introduction of certain rites and rituals into the emerging communist culture of Russia through the cult of Lenin could seem completely natural to him, as, indeed, to many other Bolsheviks of that time.

Stalin's doctrinaire Marxism almost from the very beginning was Marxism according to Lenin, or “Marxism-Leninism”, to use an expression that in Russia in the 1930s itself became a dogma. This motivation for placing Lenin and his teaching on a pedestal was complemented by a practical political interest in emphasizing even more clearly the rights of old Leninists like Stalin, as opposed to Lenin's former opponents, to whom Trotsky belonged. But another, and main, reason is connected with the significance of Lenin in Stalin’s life. When Stalin in his youth began to identify himself with Lenin, taking him as a model of a hero in the revolutionary movement and intending to become his comrade in arms, he formed for himself his own cult of personality, which became the main axis around which his entire inner world revolved. It was a double cult, in which Lenin and Stalin, as the two glorified leaders, were inextricably linked with the historical fate of Russian communism. Consequently, by taking the lead in creating a popular cult of the deceased Lenin, Stalin expressed deeply hidden thoughts and (perhaps subconsciously) prepared the way for the future cult of the second leader.

This explanation is based on the assumption that Stalin had no hostile feelings towards Lenin at all, despite the moments of tension between them discussed above. In essence, the only officially recorded evidence of hostility can be the casually mentioned “national liberalism of Comrade Lenin,” which, moreover, was the result of an overly heated reaction to Lenin’s reproach for haste in solving constitutional problems. Of course, Stalin did not really approve of “national liberalism” and no longer considered the ailing Lenin of 1922 and early 1923 to be the former giant. It is also possible that he attributed the deterioration in health to what seemed to him to be Lenin’s political omissions. Perhaps the conflict also arose because Stalin began to act too early in the role of second leader or official successor, that is, in a role long envisaged by his own life scenario. During the conflict, however, he did not take an aggressively hostile position towards Lenin; rather, we can talk about Lenin’s militant attitude against Stalin.

After all, a quarrel with the only person who meant so much in his conscious life - with a person for whom, judging by the little evidence at our disposal, he had something like love, would have been accompanied by extremely difficult experiences for Stalin. Such a turn of events would be fraught with nothing but troubles, for even Lenin, who was very sick, but ready to fight, was a formidable opponent. And it is unlikely that Stalin had any illusions on this score when he received from Lenin the last coldly hostile note, demanding an apology for his rude behavior on the phone in relation to Krupskaya. And when Lenin was paralyzed a few days later, Stalin must have experienced a feeling of great relief.

But the relationships on which the structure of human self-identification rests usually resist destruction. In the case under consideration, this resistance should have been especially strong, since the object of personal cult had not one (Lenin), but a double surname (Lenin-Stalin). And Stalin's self-esteem was thus closely linked to his worship of Lenin. For this reason, Lenin's serious illness and death may have brought Stalin both political and psychological relief. Lenin, with whom there was no longer any need to compete and whom there was no longer any need to fear, became Lenin, whom one could, as before, worship and to whose commandments one could swear eternal allegiance, as Stalin did in his “oath” speech. For such a Lenin, one could once again have those undivided feelings of awe and delight that Stalin, usually not inclined to openly admit secrets, spoke about on January 28, speaking to the Kremlin cadets.

But Stalin was by no means the only Bolshevik who had similar feelings towards Lenin and expressed them during that period of popular grief when the cult of Lenin arose. Therefore, it seems to us that explanations of this phenomenon that do not take into account the phenomenon of Bolshevism suffer from a major flaw. The facts discussed in the second chapter of the book indicate that the Bolshevik movement contained hidden tendencies towards the creation of the cult of Lenin. They became noticeable during manifestations of excessive exaltation of his personality, which took place in the party on various occasions in the last years of the leader’s life. It is necessary to understand (as Lenin apparently discovered to his horror) that these were only harbingers of future events, representing the cult of personality in embryo.

With Lenin's death, all the obstacles that he had erected during his lifetime to the free expression of Bolshevik feelings towards him disappeared, and the tendencies mentioned above immediately became noticeable. We have heard evidence of a sobbing mass of people when Kalinin announced Lenin's death on January 22 to hundreds of delegates gathered for a meeting of the Congress of Soviets. The Bolsheviks mourned; Moreover, everyone had a feeling characteristic of suddenly orphaned people. This feeling found figurative expression in the title of one of the articles in Pravda for January 24, briefly titled: “Orphaned.” In the same issue, an article by Trotsky was published, hastily transmitted from the Caucasus by telegraph. “The party is orphaned,” it said. “The working class is orphaned. It is this feeling that is generated primarily by the news of the death of the teacher, the leader.” An editorial written by Bukharin entitled “Comrade” featured a similar image. “Comrade Lenin,” wrote Bukharin, “has left us forever. Let us transfer all the love for him to his own child, to his heir—to our party.” Even more remarkable symbolism was contained in the address of the Central Committee to all party members and workers. A man has died, it was said at the beginning of the address, under whose militant leadership the party hoisted the red banner of October throughout the country. The founder of the Comintern, the leader of world communism, the love and pride of the international proletariat, the banner of the oppressed East, the head of the workers' dictatorship in Russia, has died. Continuing in the same spirit, the address suddenly took on a semi-mystical tone: “But his physical death is not the death of his cause. Lenin lives in the soul of every member of our party. Each member of our party is a piece of Lenin. Our entire communist family is the collective embodiment of Lenin.” . In his funeral article, Trotsky said the same thing, but in simpler words. “In each of us,” he wrote, “a piece of Lenin lives - that which constitutes the best part of each of us.”

In the light of such facts, the number of which can be multiplied, it is impossible to agree with the point of view that the cult of Lenin was alien to the very nature of Russian communism and that it can only be explained by the influence of remnants of the past, the bearer of which was an Eastern Bolshevik who received a church education named Stalin. At the time of its formation, this cult was a collective manifestation of party feelings towards its leader. Some of the most enlightened (from the point of view of Western culture) Bolsheviks expressed their emotions especially vividly and passionately. It is possible that Bukharin's editorial lacked the ritual rhythm of Stalin's "oath" speech (the text of which appeared in Pravda only on January 30), but its emotional impact was much stronger, and it, apparently, contributed more to the emergence of the cult Lenin.

“It was as if the central station of the proletarian mind, will, feelings, which flowed in invisible currents through millions of wires to all ends of our planet, had collapsed,” wrote Bukharin. “Comrade Lenin was, first of all, a leader, such a leader as history gives to humanity once every hundred years, according to "To whose names eras are then counted. He was the greatest organizer of the masses. Like a giant, he walked ahead of the human stream, directing its movement." Bukharin tried to explain Lenin's greatness as a leader of the masses by his extraordinary sensitivity to their needs. But he also emphasized the authoritarian qualities of his leadership. “He was a dictator in the best sense of the word,” said Bukharin. “Absorbing into himself, like a sponge, all the currents of life, processing in his amazing mental laboratory the experience of hundreds and thousands of people, he at the same time led with a courageous hand like power having like authority, like a mighty leader." And in conclusion, Bukharin described the attitude of his associates towards Lenin as follows: “It is hardly possible to find in history such a leader who was so loved by his closest comrades. They all had some special feeling for Lenin. They loved him.”

Referring to Lenin's criticism of the exaltation of the individual, Soviet publications of the post-Stalin period condemned the cult of Stalin, which flourished in the 30s and 40s, as a phenomenon not characteristic of communist ideology. The cult of personality allegedly generally contradicted the very nature of communism as a movement and as a system. Then, on May 21, the will was presented to the Central Committee, which met for the pre-Congress plenum. One of the employees of Stalin’s secretariat, who was present as a technical secretary and subsequently emigrated, describes the reaction of the audience as follows when Kamenev read out the document: “Painful awkwardness paralyzed the meeting. Stalin, sitting on the presidium, felt humiliated and pathetic. Despite his self-control and feigned calm , it was clear from Stalin’s face that his fate was being decided.” According to Bazhanov, voting on the proposal of Zinoviev and Kamenev to close the debate was carried out by a simple show of hands. Stalin was saved.

It remained to decide what to do with the sensational document, and first of all whether and in what form the party congress should be familiarized with it. Krupskaya, who was present at the plenum, spoke out against Kamenev’s proposal not to report it to the congress, and by thirty votes to ten it was decided to familiarize the congress participants with the document in a confidential manner by announcing it among the delegations of the main party organizations and not discuss it at open meetings. When Stalin proposed his resignation at the post-Syezd plenum of the newly elected Central Committee, its rejection was thus a foregone conclusion.

On the grounds that Lenin’s “Letter” was addressed to the congress and was not intended for the press, they decided not to publish it. But news of such a sensational nature, known to almost one thousand two hundred delegates from all over the country, was bound to spread through party circles by word of mouth. She also became known abroad thanks to Max Eastman, a young American supporter of Trotsky. Eastman outlined the essence of the “testament” and described the events associated with the last months of Lenin’s life and the subsequent period in the book “After Lenin’s Death,” published in 1925. Trotsky, whom Eastman referred to as a source, yielding to considerable pressure from the Politburo, published an article in the party magazine Bolshevik criticizing Eastman’s book and called all talk about Lenin’s “testament” a malicious falsification. However, very soon opposition leaders, including Trotsky himself, began to sharply criticize Stalin, mentioning, among other things, Lenin’s “testament” and demanding the publication of this document. Clandestine opposition printing houses began to produce copies of the “testament,” which, according to Zinoviev, were confiscated by the secret service as evidence of illegal printing activities. “Why,” asked Zinoviev, did Lenin’s “testament” become an illegal document?”

1 Trotsky L. Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence. N.Y., 1967, p. 357. Trotsky attributes this episode to the Tenth Congress (My Life. N.Y., 1930). He spoke about the same thing in the Central Committee on October 23, 1927 (The Real Situation in Russia. N.Y., 1928, p. 7). If this really happened during the Tenth Congress, then this incident may explain why at the post-congress meeting of the Central Committee Molotov was elected senior secretary rather than Stalin.

3 Ibid., p. 548.

5 Stalin I.V. Soch., vol. 4, p. 31 - 32.

7 See above, p. 160.

9 Lenin V.I. Complete. collection cit., vol. 38, p. 158, 183 - 184.

11 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 365.

13 Ibid. vol. 10, p. 51.

15 Stalin I.V. Soch., vol. 13, p. 113.

17 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 238 - 239, 245.

19 Lenin V.I. Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 25, p. 624. p. 13 - 24; Levin Moshe. Lenin's Last Struggle, ch. 4; Pipes Richard. The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917 - 1923, ch. 6.

24 This letter from Stalin was not published in full. For references to him, especially to the accusation of Lenin in “national liberalism”, see: Lenin V.I., Complete. collection cit., vol. 45, p. 558. Partially the text of the letter is given by Trotsky in: The Stalin School of Falsification. N.Y., 1962, p. 66 - 67.

26 Harmandaryan S.V. Lenin and the formation of the Transcaucasian Federation, 1921 - 1923. Yerevan, 1969, p. 361. The central governing body under tsarism was the office of the governor. The Transcaucasian region was divided into five provinces.

28 Harmandaryan S.V. Lenin and the formation of the Transcaucasian Federation, 1921 - 1923, p. 203 - 205, 214 - 215.

30 Harmandaryan S.V. Lenin and the formation of the Transcaucasian Federation, 1921 - 1923, p. 217.

32 Ibid., p. 344.

34 Ibid., p. 351, 352 - 354.

36 Ibid., p. 370.

38 Fotieva L. A. From memories of V. I. Lenin, p. 54. The last phrase above was used by Stalin in his speech in Tiflis on July 6, 1921. This speech was not published in the Moscow press.

40 Fotieva L.A. From memories of V.I. Lenin, p. 63.

42 Quoted. by: Trotsky L. My Life, p. 484. Fotieva added that the word “bomb” was used by Lenin. A little later that day, realizing that his condition was deteriorating, Lenin changed his mind and authorized Trotsky to familiarize himself with Kamenev’s materials (ibid., p. 482).

44 Trotsky L. Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence, p. 366. Trotsky, like Stalin, refused, and Zinoviev made a political report.

47 Twelfth Congress of the RCP(b), p. 613 - 615, 573. To illustrate the atmosphere of Great Russian chauvinism that prevailed at the congress, Bukharin cited an excerpt from a conversation with one of the delegates from the outlying regions. "Well, what's new with you?" - asked Bukharin. “Well, nothing new,” he replied, “we’re strangling the nationals” (ibid., p. 86).

49 Lenin V.I. Complete. collection cit., vol. 45, p. 470 - 471. Information taken from the diary of duty secretaries, published in volume 45 (pp. 457 - 486). For the first time, the diary materials were published in the journal "Questions of the History of the CPSU" (1963, in "-- 2). Entries in the diary cover the period from November 21, 1922 to March 6, 1923. According to Fotieva (From the memoirs of V.I. Lenin, p. 63), Lenin told her on January 24, 1923, that what Dzerzhinsky told him about the incident with Ordzhonikidze on December 12 deeply upset him, which happened on the eve of his second stroke.

51 Lenin V.I. Complete. collection cit., vol. 54, p. 327 - 328. Above the text of the letter, Krupskaya wrote that the letter was dictated with the permission of Professor Ferster, and after the text she added that Lenin asked to convey the answer by telephone (ibid., p. 672).

53 Lenin V.I. Complete. collection cit., vol. 54, p. 329 - 330.

55 Lenin V.I. Complete. collection cit., vol. 45, p. 486; ibid., t. 54, p. 675.

57 It has been suggested both in Russia and in the West that since Lenin did not write to Stalin about the incident until March 6, Krupskaya apparently told him about what had happened only in early March. See, for example: Lenin V.I. Complete. collection cit., vol. 54, p. 675 (publisher's note); Daniels Robert V. The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia. Cambrige (Mass.), 1960, p. 181. From such argumentation, however, it follows that Lenin wrote the letter in a fit of anger, although this is not necessarily the case. The interpretation of Lenin's motives that I propose below fits well with the assumption that he learned about the incident almost immediately. And the absolute fact that at the time of the incident it was incomparably more difficult for Krupskaya to hide her deep grief at what had happened than at the beginning of March gives this assumption additional convincing force. Therefore, I am inclined to agree with Louis Fischer, who argues that, apparently, on January 4, Lenin already knew about the incident (The Life of Lenin. N.Y., 1964, p. 647).

The concept of the struggle for Ulyanov's legacy must be understood in a broad sense. At one time, Stalin went through a rather tough selection among other candidates in order to become the successor of Lenin himself. He wanted to become the leader of a large state at all costs. However, the matter does not end only with competition for student status. Relationships go far beyond personal boundaries. Ambitions, motives and claims undoubtedly played a very important role in events that are directly related to Lenin’s personality. A fierce battle unfolded almost next to the dying Bolshevik.

At one time, Stalin went through a rather tough selection to become the successor of Lenin himself // Photo: donetsk.kp.ru

Power struggle

In simple terms, the confrontation was between two diametrically opposed political movements. These trends were clearly identified at the very beginning of the struggle. The first was distinguished by maximum thoughtfulness of actions, determination and consistency. It was led by Stalin. He chose as his main goal the diversified development of the state and the strengthening of its position in the world community. He wanted to make the country so strong that it could emerge victorious in any brutal battle. It didn’t matter to him what it was: an external aggressor or an internal counter-revolution. Such a line can be called a strategy for creating a country.

The second line was pursued by Leon Trotsky. He did not see internal development as the main task. It seemed to him rather unpromising in building a capitalist society. Trotsky believed that such actions would lead to nothing less than revolutionary movements. If you look deeper into this strategy, you can understand that Lev and his associates did not consider the existence of the Soviet authorities at all.

The second line was bent by Leon Trotsky // Photo: news.tj

Lenin's attitude towards Stalin

During the discussion of problems concerning the labor movement, Stalin never participated. Moreover, he was not a good speaker or writer. His thoughts could be called cautious, but they were a little naive. In addition, he made rather serious mistakes in his words. Lenin believed that Stalin would be useful exclusively to the administrative apparatus.

Lenin, despite the fact that he himself was a rigorist of revolutionary morality, still treated idealistic moralization with some disgust. Regarding the rules that were necessary to build a new society and a successful revolution, Lenin did not show an ounce of pedantry or stiffness.

Stalin was not a good speaker // Photo: detectivebooks.ru

Lenin communicated quite closely with Stalin in the last years of his life. As a result, he identified a number of characteristics of this person, which he indicated in his will. There, Vladimir Ilyich noted that Joseph Vissarionovich is a person who is capable of abusing his power. He is also a person who is unworthy of loyalty to others.

Lenin, unlike Stalin, was not only a practitioner, but also an excellent theorist. He was a vigilant guardian of the moral foundations of the revolutionary dictatorship. If he came across a person who even hinted at using power for personal purposes, then angry lights lit up in his eyes. Even taking into account this factor, which Stalin saw very well, he continued to use the principles of dictatorship to recruit the people he needed. When Stalin took the post of General Secretary, he became a real treasure trove of blessings. But such events lasted for a very short time, because in all of this there was a source of inevitable conflict. Lenin very quickly lost confidence in Stalin.

Lenin about Stalin. From memories.

Ulyanova M.I. .gif" alt=" Ulyanova Maria Ilyinichna (1878-1937), member of the RSDLP since 1898, younger sister of V.I. Lenin. Member of the editorial board and executive secretary of the newspaper"Правда" (1917-1929)." width="17" height="17"] под диктовку и Ульянова М.И. сама по себе !}

1926

"Vladimir Ilyich valued Stalin extremely..."

Text compiled by N.I. Bukharin for M.I. Ulyanova

In view of the systematic attacks on Comrade. on the part of the opposition minority of the Central Committee and the incessant statements about an almost complete break with Stalin from the outside, I consider myself obliged to say a few words about Lenin’s attitude towards Stalin, because throughout the last period of V.I.’s life. I was with him.

Vlad[imir] Ilyich valued Stalin extremely much, and so much so that both during the first blow and during the second blow, V.I. addressed Stalin with the most intimate instructions, emphasizing at the same time that he was addressing Stalin specifically. In general, in the most difficult moments of V.I.’s illness. did not call any of the members of the Central Committee and did not want to see anyone, he only called Stalin. Thus, speculation that V.I. treated Stalin worse than others is the direct opposite of the truth. .

M.I. Ulyanova: “V[ladimir] I[lyich] really appreciated Stalin”

Statement to the Presidium of the United Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the RCP(b)

The opposition minority of the Central Committee has recently been conducting systematic attacks on Comrade Stalin, not even stopping at the assertion of Lenin’s alleged break with Stalin in the last months of V.I.’s life. In order to restore the truth, I consider it my duty to inform my comrades in brief words about Lenin’s attitude towards Stalin during the period of V.I.’s illness. (I will not touch here on the time preceding his illness, regarding which I have a number of evidence of the manifestation of V.I.’s most touching attitude towards Stalin, which members of the Central Committee know no less than me.

IN AND. I really appreciated Stalin. It is significant that in the spring of 1922, when with V.I. the first strike occurred, and also during the second strike in December 1922, V.I. he called Stalin to himself and turned to him with the most intimate orders, orders of the kind that can only be addressed to a person whom you especially trust, whom you know as a true revolutionary, as a close comrade.

And at the same time, Ilyich emphasized that he wanted to talk specifically with Stalin, and not with anyone else. In general, during the entire period of his illness, while he had the opportunity to communicate with his comrades, he most often summoned Comrade Stalin, and in the most difficult moments of his illness he did not summon any of the members of the Central Committee except Stalin.

There was one incident between Lenin and Stalin, which Comrade Zinoviev mentioned in his speech and which took place shortly before Ilyich lost his speech (March 1923), but it was purely personal in nature and had nothing to do with politics. Comrade Zinoviev knows this well, and it was completely in vain to refer to him. This incident occurred due to the fact that Stalin, who, at the request of the doctors, was instructed by the Plenum of the Central Committee to ensure that Ilyich was not given political news during this difficult period of his illness, so as not to agitate him and not worsen his situation, reprimanded his family for conveying such kind of news. Ilyich, who accidentally found out about this - and this kind of protection regime always worried him - in turn scolded Stalin. T. Stalin apologized, and this ended the incident. Needless to say, if Ilyich had not been in a very serious condition at the time, as I indicated, he would have reacted differently to this incident.

There are documents regarding this incident, and I can present them at the first request of the Central Committee.

I thus assert that all the talk of the opposition about the attitude of V.I. to Stalin are completely untrue. These relations were and remain the closest and most comradely.

RCKHIDNI. F. 17. On. 2 D. 246. Issue. 4. L. 104. 24.

M.I. Ulyanova: "... I did not tell the whole truth about how V (ladimir] I[lyich] treated Stalin."

The recording was discovered after the death of M.I. Ulyanova among her personal papers.

It is not possible to accurately date the entry.

In my statement at the plenum of the Central Committee, I wrote that V.I. appreciated Stalin. This is of course true. Stalin is a great worker and a good organizer.

But there is no doubt that in this statement I did not tell the whole truth about how V.I. related to Stalin. The purpose of the statement, which was written at the request of Bukharin and Stalin, was, with reference to Ilyich’s attitude towards him, to shield him somewhat from the attacks of the opposition. The latter speculated on V.I.’s last letter. to Stalin, where the question of severing relations with him was raised. The immediate reason for this was a personal moment - the indignation of V.I. the fact that Stalin allowed himself to treat N.K. rudely.

This personal motive was used only and primarily, as it seemed to me then, by Zinoviev, Kamenev and others for political purposes, for factional purposes. But later, weighing this fact with a number of statements by V.I., his political testament, as well as Stalin’s entire behavior since the time that elapsed after Lenin’s death, his “political” line, I increasingly began to clarify for myself Ilyich’s real attitude towards Stalin in the last time of his life. I consider it my duty to talk about this at least briefly...

Relations V.I. I had the opportunity to observe his closest work comrades, the members of the Polit] B (juro), more closely in the summer of 1922 during V.I.’s first illness, when I lived with him, almost never leaving.

Even before this, I heard about some dissatisfaction with V.I. Stalin. I was told that, having learned about Martov’s illness, V.I. asked Stalin to send him money. “So that I start spending money on the enemy of the workers’ cause! Look for another secretary for this,” Stalin told him.

IN AND. was very upset by this, very angry with Sta[lin]. Were there other reasons for V.I.’s dissatisfaction with him? Obviously they were. Shklovsky talked about V.I.’s letter to him. to Berlin, where Shklovsky was at that time. From this letter it was clear that V.I. was being undermined, so to speak. How and who remains a mystery.

In winter 20-21, 21-22 [years] V.I. felt bad. Headaches and loss of performance worried him greatly. I don’t know exactly when, but somehow during this period V.I. told Stalin that he would probably end up with paralysis, and made Stalin promise that in this case he would help him get it and give him potassium cyanide. Stalin promised. Why V.I. Did you make this request to Stalin? Because he knew him to be a firm, steely man, alien to any sentimentality. He had no one else to turn to with this kind of request.

V.I. made the same request. to Stalin in May 1922 after the first blow. IN AND. He then decided that it was all over for him and demanded that Stalin be summoned to him for the shortest possible time. This request was so persistent that they did not dare refuse him. St(alin) really stayed with V.I. for about 5 minutes, no more, and when he left I[lya]ch, he told me and Bukharin that V.I. asked him to deliver him poison, because , the time has come to fulfill the promise made earlier. Stalin promised. They kissed V.I. and Stalin left. But then, having discussed it together, we decided that we needed to encourage V.I., and

Stalin returned again to V.I. He told him that after talking with the doctors, he was convinced that all was not lost and the time had not come to fulfill his request. IN AND. noticeably cheered up and agreed, although he said to Stalin: “Are you being disingenuous?” “When have you seen me being disingenuous,” Stalin answered him. They separated and did not see each other until V.I. did not begin to recover, and he was not allowed to meet with his comrades...

Returning to work in the fall of 1922, V.I. I often saw Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin in my office in the evenings. I sometimes tried to separate them in the evenings, reminding them of doctors’ prohibitions on staying too long. They joked and explained their dates as just conversation and not business talk.

V.I. caused great dissatisfaction with Stalin. national, Caucasian question. His correspondence on this matter with . Apparently, V.I. was terribly indignant at Stalin, Ordzhonikidze, and Dzerzhinsky. This question greatly tormented V.I. throughout his further illness.

It was here that the conflict that led to V.I.’s letter joined in. to Stalin from 5/III-23, which I will quote below. It was like this. The doctors insisted that V.I. didn't say anything about business. What had to be feared most was that V.I. did not tell anything to N.K., who was so used to sharing everything with him that sometimes, completely involuntarily, without meaning to, she could let it slip. The PB instructed Stalin to ensure that this prohibition of doctors was not violated. And then one day, having obviously learned about some conversation between N.K. with V.I., Stalin called her to the telephone and in a rather harsh manner, obviously hoping that before V.I. it won’t get through, he began to tell her not to talk to V.I. about business, otherwise, they say, he will drag her to the Central Control Commission. N.K. was extremely disturbed by this conversation: she was completely different from herself, she was crying, rolling on the floor, etc. She told V.I. about this reprimand. a few days later, adding that he and Stalin had already made peace. Stalin, indeed, called her before this and, obviously, tried to smooth out the unpleasant impression made on N.K. his reprimand and threat. But she told Kamenev and Zinoviev about this same cry from Stalin on the phone, obviously mentioning the Caucasian affairs as well.

One morning Stalin called me into V.I.’s office. He looked very upset and sad: “I didn’t sleep all night today,” he told me. “Who does Ilyich think I am, how does he treat me? Like some kind of traitor. I love him with all my soul. Tell him this someday.” I felt sorry for Stalin. It seemed to me that he was so sincerely upset.

Ilyich called me for some reason, and I told him, among other things, that his comrades bow to him. “Ah,” objected V.I. “And Stalin asked me to convey warm greetings to you, asked me to tell you that he loves you so much.” Ilyich grinned and remained silent. “Well,” I asked, “should I say hello to him from you too?” “Pass it on,” Ilyich answered rather coldly. “But, Volodya,” I continued, “he’s still smart, Stalin.” “He’s not smart at all,” Ilyich answered decisively and winced.

I did not continue the conversation, and a few days later V.I. I learned that both Kamenev] and Z[inoviev] knew that Stalin had treated N.K. rudely, and in the morning, very upset, he asked to call a stenographer, asking first whether N.K. had already left. to the People's Commissariat for Education, to which he received a positive response. Volodicheva came, and V.I. dictated the following letter to her to Stalin:

“Strictly confidential. Personally. Dear Comrade Stalin! You had the rudeness to call my wife to the telephone and scold her. Although she agreed to forget what she said, nevertheless this fact became known through her to Zinoviev and . I do not intend to forget so easily what was done against me, and needless to say, I consider what was done against my wife to have been done against me. Therefore, I ask you to weigh whether you agree to take back what was said and apologize or whether you prefer to break off relations between us. Sincerely, Lenin."

The letter is V.I. asked Volodicheva to send it to Stalin, without telling N.K. about him, and to give me a copy in a sealed envelope.

But, returning home, N.K. looking upset V.I. I realized that something was wrong. And she asked Volodicheva not to send letters. She, they say, will talk to Stalin herself and ask him to apologize. This is reported by N.K. now, but it seems to me that she did not see this letter, and it was sent to Stalin the way V.I. wanted. Stalin’s answer was somewhat delayed, then they decided (probably the doctors with N.K.) not to convey it to V.I., since he felt worse, and so V.I. and did not recognize his answer, in which Stalin apologized.

But as V.I. I was not annoyed by Stalin, one thing I can say with complete conviction. His words that Stalin was “not smart at all” were said by V.I. absolutely without any irritation. This was his opinion about him - definite and established, which he conveyed to me. This opinion does not contradict what V.I. appreciated Stalin as a practitioner, but considered it necessary that there should be some kind of restraining principle to some of his habits and characteristics, due to which V.I. believed that Stalin should be removed from the post of Secretary General. He spoke about this so definitely in his political testament, in the characterization of a number of comrades that he gave before his death and which never reached the party. But more on that another time...

RCKHIDNI. F. 14. OIL 1. D 398. L. 1-8.

Lenin V.I. Complete. collection op. T. 45. P. 361, 362

M. I. ULYANOVA

ABOUT V. I. LENIN’S ATTITUDE TO J. V. STALIN

In my statement at the plenum of the Central Committee 1, I wrote that V.I. appreciated Stalin. This is of course true. Stalin is a great worker and a good organizer. But there is no doubt that in this statement I did not tell the whole truth about how V.I. treated Stalin. The purpose of the statement, which was written at the request of Bukharin and Stalin, was to refer to Ilyich’s attitude towards him and to shield him somewhat from the attacks of the opposition. The latter speculated on V.I.’s last letter to Stalin 2, which raised the question of breaking off relations with him. The immediate reason for this was a personal moment - V.I.’s indignation that Stalin allowed himself to treat N.K. rudely. 3 This personal motive, as it seemed to me then, was used by Zinoviev, Kamenev and others for political purposes, in factional purposes. But later, weighing this fact with a number of statements by V.I., his political testament 8, as well as Stalin’s entire behavior since the time that elapsed after Lenin’s death, his “political” line, I increasingly began to clarify for myself Ilyich’s real attitude towards Stalin lately in his life. I consider it my duty to talk about this at least briefly.

V.I. had a lot of endurance. And he was very good at hiding and not revealing his relationship with people when he considered it more appropriate for some reason. I remember how he hid in his room, closing the door behind him, when an employee of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee appeared in our apartment, whom he could not stomach. He was definitely afraid to meet him, afraid that he would not be able to restrain himself and that his real attitude towards this man would manifest itself in a harsh form.

He was even more restrained in relation to the comrades with whom he worked. Business was in the foreground for him, he knew how to subordinate the personal to the interests of business, and this personal never stuck out or prevailed in him.

The case of Trotsky is typical in this regard. At one meeting of the PB, Trotsky called Ilyich a “hooligan.” V.I. turned pale as chalk, but restrained himself. “It seems that some people here are on edge,” he said something like this in response to Trotsky’s rudeness, according to the comrades who told me about this incident. Moreover, he did not feel any sympathy for Trotsky - this man had too many traits that made collective work with him extremely difficult. But he was a great worker, a capable person, and V.I., for whom, I repeat, the matter was in the foreground, tried to preserve him for this matter, to make possible further joint work with him. What it cost him is another question. It was extremely difficult to maintain a balance between Trotsky and other members of the PB, especially between Trotsky and Stalin. Both of them are extremely ambitious and intolerant people. For them, the personal moment outweighs the interests of the business. And what kind of relationship they had even in the first years of Soviet power can be seen from the surviving telegrams of Trotsky and Stalin from the front to V.I.

V.I.’s authority restrained them, did not allow this hostility to reach the proportions that it reached after V.I.’s death. I think that for a number of personal reasons, V.I.’s attitude towards Zinoviev was not good. But here again he restrained himself for the sake of the business.

I had the opportunity to observe V.I.’s relationship with his closest work comrades, the members of the PB, more closely in the summer of 1922 during V.I.’s first illness, when I lived with him, almost never leaving.

Even before this, I heard about some dissatisfaction with V.I. Stalin. I was told that, having learned about Martov’s illness 4, V.I. asked Stalin to send him money. “So that I would spend money on the enemy of the workers’ cause! Look for another secretary for this,” Stalin told him. V.I. was very upset by this, very angry with Sta[lin]. Were there other reasons for V.I.’s dissatisfaction with him? Obviously they were. Shklovsky 5 talked about V.I.’s letter to him in Berlin, where Shklovsky was at that time. From this letter it was clear that V.I. was being undermined, so to speak. Who and how remains a mystery.

In the winter of 20-21, 21-22 [gg.] V.I. felt bad. Headaches and loss of performance worried him greatly. I don’t know exactly when, but somehow during this period V.I. told Stalin that he would probably end up with paralysis, and made Stalin promise that in this case he would help him get it and give him potassium cyanide. Stalin promised. Why did V.I. make this request to Stalin]? Because he knew him to be a firm, steely man, alien to any sentimentality. He had no one else to turn to with this kind of request.

V. I. made the same request to Stalin in May 1922 6 after the first blow. V.I. then decided that it was all over for him, and demanded that Stalin be summoned to him for the shortest possible time. This request was so persistent that they did not dare refuse him. Stalin really stayed with V.I. for about 5 minutes, no more. And when he left I[lya]ch, he told me and Bukharin that V.I. asked him to deliver him poison, because, supposedly, the time had come to fulfill the promise he had made earlier. Stalin promised. They kissed V.I., and Stalin left. But then, having discussed it together, we decided that it was necessary to encourage V.I., and Stalin returned again to V.I. He told him that, after talking with the doctors, he was convinced that not all was lost and there was no time to fulfill his request. it has arrived. V.I. noticeably cheered up and agreed, although he said to Stalin: “Are you disingenuous?” “When have you ever seen me lie,” Stalin answered him. They separated and did not see each other until V.I. began to recover and he was allowed meetings with his comrades.

At this time, Stalin visited him more often than others 7. He came first to V.I. Ilyich greeted him in a friendly manner, joked, laughed, demanded that I treat Stalin, bring wine, etc. On this and subsequent visits they talked about Trotsky, they talked in front of me, and it was clear that there Ilyich was with Stalin against Trotsky. Once the question of inviting Trotsky to Ilyich was discussed. This was in the nature of diplomacy. The offer made to Trotsky to be Lenin’s deputy on the Council of People’s Commissars was of the same nature. During this period, Kamenev and Bukharin came to see V.I., but Zinoviev never visited 8 and, as far as I know, V.I. never expressed a desire to see him.

Returning to work in the fall of 1922 9, V.I. often saw Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin in his office in the evenings. I sometimes tried to separate them in the evenings, reminding them of doctors’ prohibitions on staying too long. They joked and explained their dates as just conversation and not business talk.

The national, Caucasian question caused V.I. great dissatisfaction with Stalin. His correspondence on this matter with Trotsky is known. Apparently, V.I. was terribly indignant at Stalin, Ordzhonikidze, and Dzerzhinsky 10 . This question greatly tormented V.I. throughout his subsequent illness.

This is where the conflict came in, which led to V.I.’s letter to Stalin 5/III-23 11, which I will cite below. Here is how it was. The doctors insisted that V.I. not say anything about business. What had to be feared most of all was that V.I. would not tell something to N.K., who was so accustomed to sharing everything with him that sometimes, completely involuntarily, without meaning to, she could let it slip. The PB instructed Stalin to ensure that this prohibition of doctors was not violated. And then one day, having apparently learned about some conversation between N.K. and V.I. 12, Stalin called her to the telephone and in a rather harsh form, obviously hoping that this would not reach V.I., began tell her not to talk to V.I. about business, otherwise, they say, he will drag her to the Central Control Commission. N.K. was extremely agitated by this conversation: she was completely unlike herself, she was sobbing, rolling on the floor, etc. She told V.I. about this reprimand a few days later, adding that she and Stalin had already made peace. Stalin, indeed, called her before this and, obviously, tried to smooth out the unpleasant impression made on N.K. by his reprimand and threat. But she told Kamenev and Zinoviev about this same cry from Stalin over the phone, obviously mentioning the Caucasian affairs as well.

One morning Stalin called me into V.I.’s office. He looked very upset and distressed. “I didn’t sleep all night today,” he told me. “Who does Ilyich think I am, how does he treat me? Like some kind of traitor. I love him with all my heart. Tell him that sometime." I felt sorry for Stalin. It seemed to me that he was so sincerely upset.

Ilyich called me for some reason, and I told him, among other things, that his comrades bow to him. “Ah,” objected V.I. “And Stalin asked me to convey warm greetings to you, asked you to say that he loves you so much.” Ilyich grinned and remained silent. “Well,” I asked, “should I tell him hello from you?” “Pass it on,” Ilyich answered rather coldly. “But, Volodya,” I continued, “he’s still smart, Stalin.” “He’s not smart at all,” Ilyich answered decisively and winced.

I did not continue the conversation, but a few days later V.I. learned that both K [amenev] and 3 [inoviev] knew that Stalin had treated N.K. rudely, and in the morning, he was very upset , asked to call a stenographer, asking first whether N.K. had already left for the People's Commissariat for Education, to which he was answered positively. Volodicheva came, and V.I. dictated the following letter to her to Stalin:

“Strictly confidential. Personally. Dear Comrade Stalin! You had the rudeness to call my wife to the phone and curse her. Although she expressed her consent to you to forget what was said, nevertheless this fact became known through her to Zinoviev and Kamenev. I do not intend to forget so easily what was done against me, and needless to say, I consider what was done against my wife to have been done against me. Therefore, I ask you to weigh whether you agree to take back what was said and apologize or whether you prefer to break off relations between us. Sincerely, Lenin 13. Recorded by M.V. 5/III-23.”

V.I. asked Volodichev to send this letter to Stalin, without telling N.K. about him, and to give a copy in a sealed envelope to me.

But, having returned home, N.K. realized from V.I.’s upset appearance that something was wrong. And she asked Volodicheva not to send letters. She, they say, will talk to Stalin herself and ask him to apologize. This is what N.K. reports now, but it seems to me that she did not see this letter and it was sent to Stalin - the way V.I. wanted. Stalin’s answer was somewhat delayed 14, then they decided (the doctors with N.K. must have) ) not to hand it over to V.I., since he felt worse, and so V.I. did not recognize his answer, in which Stalin apologized.

But no matter how irritated V.I. was with Stalin, I can say one thing with complete conviction. His words that Stalin was “not smart at all” were said by V.I. absolutely without any irritation. This was his opinion about him - definite and established, which he conveyed to me. This opinion does not contradict the fact that V.I. valued Stalin as a practitioner, but considered it necessary that there should be some kind of restraining principle to some of his habits and characteristics, due to which V.I. believed that Stalin should be removed from the post of Secretary General . He spoke about this so definitely in his political testament, in the characterization of a number of comrades that he gave before his death and which never reached the party. But more on that another time.

News of the CPSU Central Committee. 1989. No. 12. P. 195-199

1 This note by M. I. Ulyanova was discovered after her death among her personal papers. It is not possible to accurately date the record. Ed.

2 See this volume, p. 235-237. Ed.

3 See: Lenin V.I. Complete. collection op. T. 54. pp. 329-330. Ed.

4 See ibid. pp. 674-675. Ed.

5 This refers to Lenin’s “Letter to the Congress” (see: Poln. sobr. soch. T. 45. P. 343^348). Ed.

6 Martov L. (Tsederbaum Yu. O.), after the Second Congress of the RSDLP, one of the leaders of the Mensheviks. In 1920, having emigrated abroad, he lived in Berlin. Ed.

7 Shklovsky G. L., in 1918-1925. worked through the NKID. The following letter from V.I. Lenin to G.L. Shklovsky dated June 4, 1921 is stored in the Central Archive of the IML:

“Comrade Shklovsky!

I received your long letter after sending you my note.

You are quite right that accusing me of “protectionism” in this case is the height of savagery and vileness. I repeat, the intrigue here is complex. They use the fact that Sverdlov, Zagorsky and others died.

You will have to “go first.” There is prejudice, stubborn opposition, and deep distrust of me in this matter. This is extremely painful for me. But this is a fact. I don’t blame you for your letter. I understand that this is very difficult for you.

I have seen more such examples in our party now. The “new” ones have come, they don’t know the old people. If you recommend it, they don’t trust you. If you repeat a recommendation, mistrust deepens and perseverance is born. “We don’t want to”!!!

There is nothing left: first, by battle, to win new youth to your side.

Hello! Lenin."

(TsPA IML, f. 2, on. I, d. 24562; autograph. Partially published in the magazine “Young Communist.” 1924. No. 3. P. 8 - from the words “You will have to...” to the words “. ..to your side").

Sverdlov Ya. M., since November 1917, Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Zagorsky (Lubotsky) V. M., since 1918 secretary of the MK RCP (b). Died on September 25 in a bomb explosion in the building of the MK party. Ed.

9 See note. us. 236. Ed.

10 L. B. Kamenev came to Vladimir Ilyich in Gorki on July 14, August 3 and 27, and September 13; N.I. Bukharin - July 16, September 20, 23 and 25, 1922 Ed.

12 V.I. Lenin began work on October 2, 1922. The first working day after illness ended at 21:30. Ed.

13 See the article by V. I. Lenin “On the question of nationalities or “autonomization” (Pol. sobr. soch. T. 45. pp. 356-358, 594-596). Ed.

14 See: Lenin V.I. Poli. collection op. T. 54. pp. 329-330. Ed.

15 The cause of the conflict was N.K. Krupskaya’s recording (with the permission of O. Ferster) of V.I. Lenin’s letter to L.D. Trotsky on December 21, 1922 (see: Poli, collected works. T. 54. P. 327 , 672). Ed.

15 Lenin V.I. Complete. collection op. T. 54. pp. 329-330.

16 M. A. Volodicheva, having detained Vladimir Ilyich’s letter at the request of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, handed it personally to I. V. Stalin on March 7, who immediately wrote his response. Ed.