Bolshevik Leaders correspondence

Bolshevik leadership Correspondence. 1912-1927
Collection of documents 1996.
Compiled by: A.V.Kvashonkin, L.P.Kosheleva, L.A.Rogovaya, O.V.Khlevnyuk.

No. 208

F. E. Dzerzhinsky — A. I. Rykov

April 5, 1926

5/IV-26

I value Pyatakov very much, but in view of his conspiracy with Kamenev, I am ready to give him up if they give me a deputy for Promplan. Would you agree to give Smilga away?

[Dzerzhinsky]

But not with the replacement of Pyatakov?

[Rykov]

No. Pyatakov will have to be given work not in the economic field.

[Dzerzhinsky]

I don't think there is anything to be done right now.

There will be fewer major disagreements with Pyatakov in the economy.

They (Pyatakov-Trotsky) make an attempt to lead Kamenev-Zinoviev in the struggle "for power". This he will do to a much greater extent if he is freed from loading.

[Rykov]

RTSKHIDNI. F. 76. Op. 2. D. 168. L. 11. Autographs.

No. 209

G. E. Zinoviev, L. B. Kamenev - Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

April 16, 1926

Copy .

To the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Tov. Rykov proposed that the members and candidates of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission be sent a letter from Vladimir Ilyich against Kamenev and Zinoviev, written almost nine years ago at the height of our differences . Everyone understands that the distribution of this letter in a hundred (or more) copies right now may have the sole purpose of carrying out the well-known "theory of compromise". Such use of this document is clearly contrary to the real will of Vladimir Ilyich.

It is known that Vladimir Ilyich wrote (see Lenin, vol. XVII, p. 373), returning to the October (1917) disagreements, the following:

“Just before the October Revolution in Russia and shortly after it, a number of excellent communists in Russia made a mistake, which we now reluctantly recall. Why reluctantly? Because, without special need, it is wrong to recall such errors that have been completely corrected. During the period I have indicated, they showed hesitation in the direction of the fear that the Bolsheviks would isolate themselves too much, take too risky an uprising, and be too uncompromising to a certain section of the “Mensheviks” and “Socialist-Revolutionaries”. The conflict reached such a point that the named comrades defiantly resigned from all responsible posts of party and Soviet work, to the greatest joy of the enemies of the Soviet revolution. Matters have reached the point of extremely fierce polemics in the press on the part of the Central Committee of our Party against those who have resigned. And in a few weeks, in a few months at the most,

From these words of V[ladimir] I[lyich] it is quite clear that to use his letter, written 9 years ago, to try to discredit Zinoviev and Kamenev, means to act contrary to the will of Lenin. The October mistake by Kamenev and Zinoviev was recognized by themselves and, according to V[ladimir] I[lyich], they "completely corrected it." Our Party, on the initiative of Lenin, appointed Zinoviev as early as November 1917 to the post of chairman of the Leningrad Soviet, and then chairman of the Comintern. He remained a member of the Politburo all the time without a break. Kamenev, as soon as he returned from the Finnish arrest - to the post of chairman of the Moscow Soviet, member of the Politburo, deputy Vl[adimir] Ilyich] as chairman of the STO.

The proposal to send V[ladimir] I[lyich's] letter was submitted to the Politburo by Comrade Rykov. In view of this, we consider ourselves entitled to recall the following facts. At the April (1917) party conference Comrade Rykov was farther away from Lenin than any of the Bolsheviks. From April to October, comrade Rykov remained furthest from the position of comrade Lenin. In October 1917 Comrade Rykov made the same mistake as we did . Tov. Rykov was not elected to the Central Committee at the April (1917) conference and, at Lenin's insistence, was not elected to the Central Committee until the IX Congress (1920). Comrade Rykov is now taking the initiative to use, as an instrument of inner-Party struggle, Lenin's letter, to which Vladimir Ilyich himself never returned.

1) There are letters from Lenin on the national question in which Comrade Stalin's policy is sharply criticized . These letters are devoted to deeply fundamental questions. V[ladimir] I[lyich] never took these letters back. On the contrary, it is known that until the very end of his life he was greatly disturbed by this very question. They were read by the delegations of the 13th Congress, but they were not handed over, and a number of members of the Central Committee of the current composition do not know them in their original form.

2) There is a so-called "testament" of V[ladimir] I[lyich] 5 in which he directly proposes to the party to remove comrade Stalin from the post of general secretary, since V[ladimir] I[lyich] fears that Stalin is capable of abusing the enormous power concentrated in the hands of the general secretary. The essence of this letter, the testament, is as follows: remove Comrade Stalin from the post of general secretary and work together with everyone, including Trotsky, despite the fact that all of you have made mistakes and have weaknesses. This most important letter was only read by the delegations of the Thirteenth Congress and was not handed over.

And this testament was written not in 1917, but in 1923, not in the midst of an acute, albeit short-lived conflict, but in a situation when Vladimir] I[lyich] was giving his last advice to the party. V[ladimir] I[lyich] never took back the proposal to remove Stalin from the post of General Secretary, on the contrary, all this indicates that V[ladimir] I[lyich] did not put this proposal into practice only because he could no longer be neither at the twelfth nor at the thirteenth congresses. This testamentary letter was also mentioned in the debate at the Politburo, to which Comrade Rykov refers in his proposal.

We consider it generally wrong and contrary to Lenin's policy to use Lenin's letters for those purposes for which they were clearly not intended. But if the majority of the Politburo took this path, then it would be absolutely necessary to send out not only the letter of V[ladimir] I[lyich] dated 1917, but also the above-mentioned documents with an exact indication of the time of their writing 6 .

G. ZINOVEV. L. KAMENEV.

April 14, 1926.

RTSKHIDNI. F. 17. Op. 71. D. 83. L. 1-3. Typewritten copy.

Notes:

1 This refers to Lenin’s letter to the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b) dated October 19 (November 1), 1917, in which he accused Zinoviev and Kamenev of strike-breaking and demanded that they be expelled from the party for their speeches against an armed uprising (Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 34, pp. 423-427). On April 15, 1926, the Politburo decided to send this letter to the members of the Central Committee, obliging them to return the document to the Secretariat of the Central Committee after reading it, without making a copy of it (RTsKhIDNI. F. 17. Op. 3. D. 556. L. 7-8 ).

2 Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 41. S. 417.

3 In early November 1917, Rykov filed an application for resignation from the Central Committee and resigned as People's Commissar for Internal Affairs in protest against the decision of the Bolshevik Central Committee, which rejected the idea of creating a government of representatives of all Soviet parties.

4 Lenin V. I. PSS. T. 45. S. 356-362.

5 "Letter to the Congress" (Ibid., pp. 343-348).

6 The final clash between the Stalinist group and the new opposition over the Leninist documents took place at the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission in July 1926.