The Stalin School of Falsification (1937) by Trotsky Leon

Author:Trotsky, Leon [Trotsky, Leon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marxists Internet Archive
Published: 2013-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

The Stalin School of Falsification

Two Speeches at the Session of the Central Control Commission

* * *

THE PLAN to remove Trotsky from the leadership was conceived back in the period of Lenin’s first illness, namely in 1922. Throughout the following year, 1923, the preparatory work proceeded in full swing. Toward the end of the year the campaign was brought into the open. This work was under the guidance of the “triumvirate”: Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. In 1925, the triumvirate fell apart. Zinoviev and Kamenev found themselves caught in the wheels of the ma chine they had created against Trotsky. Henceforth the Stalinist faction set itself the task of completely transforming the leading staff by removing from posts all those who had directed the party and the Government under Lenin. At the joint plenary session of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission [48], in July 1926, Trotsky read a declaration which quite accurately foretold the future measures the Stalin faction would apply in order to substitute the Stalinist leadership for the Leninist. In the course of the next few years that program was carried through by the Stalinists in amazing conformity with the predictions made.

The most important step on that path was to place Trotsky on trial before the Presidium of the Central Control Commission on charges of these two crimes: (1) making “factional” speeches at the Plenum of the ECCI; (2) participating in a farewell demonstration to Smilga, a member of the Central Committee, who, a short time previously, had been sent to the city of Khabarovsk in the Far East as punishment for being in the Opposition. Zinoviev was likewise charged with similar crimes. The proposed penalty was to remove both of them from the Central Committee.

We print below the two speeches by Trotsky at the Presidium of the Central Control Commission which sat as the court of trial. The author has considerably condensed his two speeches wherever questions of minor importance were concerned. In other respects the speeches are reprinted as they were delivered except for minor corrections in style.

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