>>161368It is inconsistent with the facts according to this:
https://espressostalinist.com/the-real-stalin-series/lenins-testament/TROTSKY OPPOSED BOLSHEVIKS
Trotsky’s experience in the Russian working-class movement prior to 1917 was essentially the experience of an emigre. From the outset of his acquaintance with Lenin he became an opponent of the Bolsheviks in general and of Lenin in particular. At first he was definitely on the side of the Mensheviks. Then he broke with them to take up a position between the two contending forces, calling for unity where unity was impossible, while reserving for Lenin and the Bolsheviks the most bitter of his polemics. On the wave of the revolution of 1917 he capitulated to Lenin as the master Revolutionary, in the hope that in due time the Master’s mantle would fall upon him.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 67
Yet it had occurred to me that Trotsky, who was essentially an intellectual aristocrat, not to say an intellectual snob, was somewhat out of place in the Bolshevik milieu.
Duranty, Walter. I Write as I Please. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1935, p. 199
In point of fact, I was resisting art as I had resisted revolution earlier in life, and later, Marxism; as I had resisted, for several years, Lenin and his methods.
Trotsky, Leon. My Life. Gloucester, Massachusetts: P. Smith, 1970, p. 148
LENIN CHOSE STALIN TO SOLVE PROBLEMS
I well remember that in one of my conversations with Lenin in 1921 he referred to Stalin as “our Nutcracker” and explained that if the “political bureau were faced with a problem which needed a lot of sorting out Stalin was given the job.”
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 72
…wherever the situation seemed most hopeless, wherever incompetence and disloyalty were weakening the cause, on no matter what front and under any conditions, there Stalin was sent, with the results we have seen outlined above.
Cole, David M. Josef Stalin, Man of Steel. London, New York: Rich & Cowan, 1942, p. 50
…Taking advantage of the traditional hatred felt in the province for everything Russian, the social revolutionaries and their Mensheviks allies were agitating for secession from the USSR and the setting up of an independent state of Georgia.
As usual the task of cleaning up other peoples failures descended on Stalin. Taking Ordjonikidze with him, he hurried to Tiflis to settle the problem once and for all.
Cole, David M. Josef Stalin; Man of Steel. London, New York: Rich & Cowan, 1942, p. 59
Voroshilov states, “During 1918-1920, Comrade Stalin was probably the only person whom the Central Committee dispatched from one fighting front to another, choosing always those places most fraught with danger for the revolution. Where it was comparatively quiet, and everything going smoothly, where we had successes, Stalin was not to be found. But where for various reasons the Red Army was cracking up, where the counterrevolutionary forces through their successes were menacing the very existence of the Soviet Government, where confusion and panic might any moment develop into helplessness, catastrophe, there Stalin made his appearance. He took no sleep at night, he organized, he took the leadership into his own strong hands, he relentlessly broke through difficulties, and turned the corner, saved the situation.”
Life of Stalin, A Symposium. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1930, p. 49
In 1919 Stalin, then Commissar of Nationalities, was also made Commissar of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, an organization created by Lenin to have teams of workers and peasants inspect government functioning in order to check corruption and bureaucracy. This method of mass democratic control embodied the essence of Lenin’s concept of how a proletarian state should function. The fact that he appointed Stalin as its director shows his faith in him–as he testified in 1922 when Stalin’s control of two commissariats was questioned.
“We are [Lenin wrote] solving these problems, and we must have a man to whom any representative of the nationalities may come and discuss matters at length. Where are we to find such a man? I think that even Preobrazhensky could not name anybody else but Comrade Stalin.
This is true of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Directorate. The work is gigantic. But to handle the work of investigation properly, we must have a man of authority in charge, otherwise we shall be submerged in petty intrigues.”
That the Inspectorate could ever have worked, given the state of the inherited bureaucratic apparatus, is doubtful, and the degree of Stalin’s responsibility for its failures is not clear. But Lenin’s open attack, regardless of his motive, could not but serve to undermine Stalin’s authority as General Secretary and hence disrupt the Party.
Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 49-50
Lenin made no bones about his support of Stalin in that ministry of the ministries, when, replying to the objections of oppositionists, he said:
“Now about the Workers’-Peasants’ Inspection. It’s a gigantic undertaking…. It is necessary to have at the head of it a man of authority, otherwise we shall sink in a morass, drown in petty intrigues. I think that even Preobrazhensky could not name any other candidature than that of Comrade Stalin.
Trotsky, Leon, Stalin. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1941, p. 346
… But while Trotsky won fame by his speeches, Stalin was sent to one critical front after another as the representative of the Central Committee, and was determining policy by short and concise telegrams to Lenin.
Pritt, Denis Nowell. The Moscow Trial was Fair. London: ” Russia To-day,” 1937, p. 10
Stalin was directly involved in all of the major events of this time. He was already influential and indispensable to Lenin. He had signed the statement warning the right-wing members, who were agitating for coalition, and he had rejected the Menshevik proposal that Lenin and Trotsky should be excluded from a coalition government. He was to support Lenin strongly during the party crisis over the peace treaty with Germany. At the same time he was demonstrating his capacity for handling numerous responsibilities.
Grey, Ian. Stalin, Man of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, p. 102
“Lenin could not get along without Stalin even for a single day,” Pestkovsky wrote. “Probably for that reason our office in the Smolny was under the wing of Lenin. In the course of the day he would call Stalin out an endless number of times, or would appear in our office and lead him away. Most of the day Stalin spent with Lenin.”
Grey, Ian. Stalin, Man of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, p. 105
The same Pestkovsky refers to close collaboration between Lenin and Stalin. “Lenin could not get along without Stalin even for a single day. Probably for that reason our office in the Smolny was ‘under the wing” of Lenin. In the course of the day, he would call Stalin out an endless number of times, or would appear in our office and lead him away. Most of the day Stalin spent with Lenin. What they did there, I don’t know, but on one occasion, upon entering Lenin’s office, I discovered an interesting picture. On the wall hung a large map of Russia. Before it stood two chairs. And on them stood Ilyich and Stalin, moving their fingers over the northern part, I think across Finland.
…At that period, Lenin had great need of Stalin. There can be no doubt about that. Zinoviev and Kamenev had been waging a struggle against Lenin;… He [Stalin], therefore, played the role of chief-of-staff or of a clerk on responsible missions under Lenin.
Trotsky, Leon, Stalin. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1941, p. 247
Trotsky made speeches [in the spring and summer of 1919] which were so violent one could see he was frightened. Defeat, capture and death began to menace the Soviet leaders. Lenin however, kept calm. He did not indulge in the histrionics of Trotsky but instead called Stalin to the rescue, to put things right at the chief point of danger– Petrograd.
What he had accomplished at Tsaritsyn and Viatka he was asked to repeat at Kronstadt and Petrograd.
Graham, Stephen. Stalin. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1970, p. 59
Stalin was a first-rate administrator, the only one Lenin could rely on. His judgment had been proved by now [1917]…he was a useful man to have beside one in a tight corner. Of Lenin’s colleagues he had emerged as the only man, Trotsky excepted, fit for the highest places.
Snow, Charles Percy. Variety of Men. New York: Scribner, 1966, p. 249
While Lenin remained in Moscow to hold all the strings in his hand and Trotsky rose to new heights as commissar of war, the other Soviet leaders were sent on special missions to one crisis spot after another as need arose. Lenin showed the same confidence in Stalin as a troubleshooter as he had in 1917, choosing him to deal with some of the most critical situations. Nor was his confidence misplaced. In the chaotic conditions that were general in 1918-19 Stalin did not lose his nerve but showed he could exercise leadership and get things done, however rough his methods, including summary execution without trial.
Stalin’s first assignment was to the key position of Tsaritsyn, on the Volga (later renamed Stalingrad, and now Volgograd), with the responsibility of making sure that the food supplies to Moscow and Petrograd were not cut off. Twenty-four hours after his arrival on June 6, he reported that he had dealt with a “bacchanalia of profiteering” by fixing food prices and introducing rationing. On July 7, the day after the attempted Socialist Revolutionary coup he reassured Lenin:
“Everything will be done to prevent possible surprises here. Rest assured that our hand will not tremble. I’m chasing up and bawling out whoever requires it. We shall spare no one, neither ourselves nor others. But we’ll send you the food.”
Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. New York: Knopf, 1992, p. 98
STALIN PROPOSED TROTSKY BE ADMITTED TO THE PARTY
At the sixth Congress of the Bolshevik party, it was here on Stalin’s proposal, obviously with the approval of Lenin, that Leon Trotsky was admitted to the party.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 101
When Stalin proposed that Trotsky and his colleagues be admitted to the party he was little concerned about the personal relations between Trotsky and himself.
Here was the issue which was to form the great divide in the Bolshevik ranks. Could Russia advance to socialism without a revolution in the West?
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 102
From 1898, when Trotsky was 19, to 1917, he had hardly been in Russia; and until, on Stalin’s proposal, he and his group were accepted into the Bolshevik party in July, 1917, he had fought the Bolsheviks with voice and pen.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 124
And while Stalin was only the executor of the union [with the left wing–the Internationalists], it is one of the many ironies of the revolution that under his guidance Trotsky was admitted into the Bolshevist sanctum, and elected for the first time a member of the new Central Committee, where he stayed until Stalin, in a different role, expelled him.
Levine, Isaac Don. Stalin. New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, c1931, p. 130
TROTSKY JOINED PARTY WITH ULTERIOR MOTIVES
When he joined the Bolshevik party he did not regard it as a collective body which would have any power over him. On the contrary Trotsky regarded his joining as a means of acquiring power over the party and becoming second in command to Lenin.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 101
Characteristically Trotsky made a spectacular entry into the Bolshevik Party. He brought with him into the Party his entire motley following of dissident leftists.
First as Foreign Commissar and then as War Commissar, Trotsky was the chief spokesman of the so-called Left Opposition within the Bolshevik Party.
Footnote: Following his removal from the post of Foreign Commissar, Trotsky publicly admitted the error of his opposition to Lenin at Brest-Litovsk and again offered unreserved co-operation with Lenin.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 191
In August 1917 Trotsky made a sensational political somersault. After 14 years of opposition to Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Trotsky applied for membership in the Bolshevik Party.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 190
I had been told, for instance, that Trotsky as a former Menshevik did in a sense represent a kind of minority section in the Bolshevik party, which he had joined only in 1917,…
Duranty, Walter. I Write as I Please. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1935, p. 213
TROTSKY’S HUGE EGO AND NOT A TEAM PLAYER
The disagreement [between Trotsky and the Bolsheviks] was fundamental and was never eliminated. It was now to appear again in quarrels with Stalin concerning the Red Army. The fact is, he [Trotsky] never really accepted the principal governing the relationship of Lenin’s party with the masses because he was incapable of believing in the creative power of the proletariat. He was an egotist, with all the over-confidence of the egotist. He was of the stuff of which dictators are made, and his conception of leadership had as its premise the recognition of his abilities plus a proletariat which would do as he ordered. They had to be organized. He would organize them as part of a machine under the control of a staff drawn from the middle classes–the intelligentsia and the Army officers, with himself at the head. He was efficient. He admired efficiency. But he could never surrender himself to the idea of integrating himself with the proletariat, or believe that the qualities he saw in the middle-classes were latent in the proletariat also and that the revolutionary struggle would bring the working-classes into the ranks of leadership. They could be educated in the long run, he thought, but not in the short. His intellectual snobbery ruined him as a revolutionary.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 125
In his memoirs British agent Bruce Lockhart writes, “we had not handled Trotsky wisely. At the time of the first Revolution he was in exile in America. He was then neither a Menshevik nor a Bolshevik. He was what Lenin called a Trotskyist — that is to say, an individualist and an opportunist. A revolutionary with the temperament of an artist and physical courage, he had never been and never could be a good party man.”
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 190
Before the Revolution the Bolshevik and Menshevik wings of the Russian social democracy were in perpetual conflict. The head of the former was Lenin, the highest authority among the latter was held by Plekhanov. Trotsky could recognize no other authority than his own. His temperament and his whole nature drove him to radicalism.
It is remarkable that everything in Trotsky’s character and career that helped him forward also contributed to his fall. Why? Because everything promoted his radical defect, his vanity.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 119
It was entirely intelligible that the young Trotsky should join the revolutionaries…. Very soon, however, he lost the vivid concrete love and compassion for the individual human being. More and more he saw only the masses in whose name and for whose benefit he pursued his social and political ideas. The sense of being an intellectual revolutionary leader lifted Trotsky in his own estimation above the masses. He felt his superiority to all whom he met; he never felt close to the masses, whether Russian or Jewish, but enthroned himself, quite unconsciously, in Olympian aloofness above real life, above the masses. He remained essentially an aristocrat.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 121