To Stalin from Dzerzhinsky

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

Stalin Correspondences

F. E. Dzerzhinsky to I. V. Stalin, G. K. Ordzhonikidze

October 5-6, 1925

I ask that the following letter of mine be read out at the meeting of the Leninist faction:

Leonov's letter read out by Comrade Uglanov reveals a conspiracy by the leaders of the Leningrad organization against the party. The organizers of this conspiracy [were] Zinoviev and Kamenev. Unfortunately, I learned about this letter only when it was read by Comrade Uglanov at faction 1 , and, unfortunately, it was read out after a 6-hour discussion. If it had been announced at the beginning, the whole discussion and the whole course of the work of the faction would have had to take on a completely different character. The discussion should have been not about the work and inconsistencies in the seven, but about this new Kronstadt within our party. Now the question is no longer only and not so much about the existence of our faction, but about a direct threat to the existence of the Party and Soviet power. In 1917, when Zinoviev and Kamenev changed the revolution 2- behind them there was neither the Petrograd organization, nor workers and peasants in general, and the leader of the workers and peasants lived, and Zinoviev and Kamenev were miserable cowards. Now it's not. There is no leader. The majority of the peasantry is not with us, although it is not against us - we have not yet had time to organize it in our favor - right now the Party is intensely busy with this. By fighting Trotskyism, the Party has created for itself all the conditions to win over the peasantry—to organize its majority in favor of an alliance with the workers. The Party has drawn up and is carrying out a most complicated plan on how to maneuver in our most difficult conditions, when the world revolution has dragged on and it is necessary to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat in a peasant country, which cannot exist without the maximum development of productive forces, primarily agriculture - on the soil, namely, not any but on the basis of the NEP, that is, the commodity economy. It was clear to everyone - in the discussion about Trotsky - to everyone, at least in words - first of all, Zinoviev and Kamenev and the Leningraders, who demanded the most draconian measures against Trotsky3—that this plan in relation to the peasantry can be carried out only on one condition—with the unity of our party, with the unity of the proletariat itself. And this was absolutely true, because despite the fact that we are growing and recovering so quickly, without which we would surely have died, this growth itself creates and organizes ever greater difficulties and dangers, while simultaneously creating the prerequisites for overcoming them. To use these prerequisites, time and endurance are needed, and the unity of the party and the proletariat is greater than ever, greater than before Kronstadt, which ended our discussion of the trade unions and our war communism. Then we had our entire victorious Red Army, which had not yet gone over to a peaceful position, was still thoroughly saturated with military gunpowder, not yet touched by the discussion on debunking its official leader Trotsky. Now, without the unity of the party, its Central Committee, its Leninist composition, without the unity of the proletariat, we will not be able to carry out our plan. Without unity, without this condition, Thermidor is inevitable, because without this condition we will not fulfill our most complex plan, we will not be able to fulfill it. The dangers of forces that have not realized themselves and have not yet organized themselves against the dictatorship and the proletariat are enormous, and each of our splits, each crack among us is now, and cannot but be now, the only and sufficient organizer of these forces against us. The result is inevitable: the Leninists, like spiders, will devour themselves, according to the foresight of the Mensheviks and Trotsky - who will appear on the scene - one as "equality and democracy", the other as the "communist" Bonaparte - the savior of "the poor and the revolution." Zinoviev formulas and from the "epoch" of the struggle against Trotsky, and from the "epoch" of preparations for the fight against "Bukharin-Ustryalov" - will be useful to them, and not to Zinoviev. Such a fate is being prepared for us and for themselves by Zinoviev, Kamenev, Sokolnikov and the Leningrad elite. After all, it is now obvious that Zinoviev and Kamenev, having embarked on the path of Trotsky, having raised a struggle for their power, which the Party does not want - they do not understand this - the blind - as they did not want Trotsky's power, enter into this struggle, having previously disarmed the Party in a discussion with Trotsky when they forced the party to exalt them themselves, to forgive them all their past in order to debunk their predecessor, Trotsky*. But they forgot that the party had to debunk Trotsky solely because, having actually attacked Zinoviev, Kamenev and other members of the Central Committee of our party, he raised his hand against the unity of the party, that is, only for what Zinoviev has now taken up with the difference that Trotsky's supporters then managed to prepare for the coup a small part of the Moscow organization, then led by Kamenev, and now Zinoviev has succeeded in preliminary, in a conspiratorial way, to demoralize the entire official Leningrad organization and attract Nadezhda Konstantinovna. Thus, after the fight with Trotsky, the party enters this fight not only disarmed in relation to Zinoviev and Kamenev, but also with a split among the proletariat itself. All the falsity of Zinoviev's sincerity is there—and all his wretchedness. He does not understand and did not understand all the dangers in which we live and which he spoke about, when he needed it - these dangers - for him they were scares, in which he himself did not believe, he did not feel them the way he felt in [19]17 with his own skin - the flight of bullets, smoke, gunpowder. Meanwhile, my deepest conviction is that I am not just talking about this now, but have always said both at the seven and in the Politburo that these dangers are also real around us, as in [19]17 I followed Lenin, because really, not an example Zinoviev, "physically" felt - yes, I felt with the instinct of a revolutionary "the steps of history" - for I am not a theoretician and I am not a blind supporter of personalities - in my life I personally loved only two revolutionaries and leaders - Rosa Luxembourg and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - no one else * . Zinoviev and Kamenev - Sokolnikov opened your little souls. You claim to be the official and sole heirs of the leader of the workers and peasants. Ambition is killing you. You do not feel the dangers, although you can talk about them like no one else, and you think that it is Stalin or Bukharin that is preventing you from being recognized. Don't forget about Lenin's will - it's no coincidence that you weren't with him in October. Lenin said what the party feels with all its guts. And the party is now grouped around those who guarantee its unity and its collective creativity to the maximum.

What I am writing I had to say, because it is the truth that Zinoviev called on us to find today. And the revealed truth, perhaps, will help you find an outcome. I am not a politician, I do not know how to find a way out and propose it myself. Perhaps in condemning me you will find a particle of a way out, but I am leaving the faction, remaining a Leninist, because I do not want to be a participant in a split that will bring the death of the party, because I cannot be useful as a party politician. I will not take part in the split, I will carry out all the Soviet work entrusted to me by the Party.

F. Dzerzhinsky.

Written after the meeting of the faction, on the night of 5 to 6 October [19]25, in two copies.

I will give one to Stalin, the other to Sergo. Both copies were written by me 4 .

RTSKHIDNI. F. 76. Op. 2. D. 28. L. 1-8. Autograph. Political diary. 1964 - 1970. Amsterdam. 1972. S. 238-241.

Notes:

1 TOC \o "1-5" \h \z See note 1 to document no. 183.

2 See note 1 to document No. 209.

3 See note 1 to document No. 187.

4 At the beginning of the letter there is a note by Dzerzhinsky: “T. Stalin, a copy of Comrade Sergo” (crossed out: “copy to Nadezhda Konstantinovna”),

No. 194

P. I. Popov to I. V. Stalin

December 22, 1925

Copy.

22/XII-25

Urgently.

T. Stalin.

Dear comrade!

From the chair of the Party Congress 1 , speaking about the work of the CSB, you made a number of incorrect assertions.

You are one of the most responsible leaders of the Party, and I hope that you will not refuse from the pulpit of the same congress to correct your incorrect assertions.

You said:

“The same can be said about the unfortunate grain-forage balance of the CSB, given in June, according to which it turned out that the wealthy had 61 percent [cents] of commodity surpluses, the poor had nothing, and the middle peasants had the remaining percentages. The funny thing here is that a few months later the CSB came up with a different figure - not 61 percent, but 52 percent. And recently the CSB gave the figure not 52 percent, but 42 percent. Well, how can you count? We believe that the CSO is the citadel of science. We believe that no governing body can calculate and plan without CSB figures. We believed that the CSO should provide objective data, free from any preconceived notions, because an attempt to fit a figure to this or that prejudiced opinion is a criminal offence. But how can you believe after that the figures of the CSB,2

1) Your statement that according to the CSB it turned out that the wealthy had 61 percent of commodity surpluses is incorrect. This is not true because the grain-forage balance, as a certain statistical operation, could not determine commodity surpluses - its task was different - in order to compare production and consumption, to determine net surpluses, balance surpluses, which cannot coincide with commodity surpluses.

Firstly, you were undoubtedly incorrectly informed about the essence of the statistical operation (balance sheet) and, secondly, you (when you were present in the Politburo) did not pay attention to my categorical statements: that the grain-forage balance in no way determined commodity surpluses and could not determine.

2) Your assertion that "recently" the CSB gave the figure of 42% of commodity surpluses is incorrect. It is not true because the CSB did not give such a figure. You obviously did not quite understand the numerical data of the diagram that I demonstrated to the Politburo.

It turned out to be 42% surplus, and not 61%, not because the CSO replaced 61% with a new figure of 42%. No, not because. 61% was obtained if we combine the farms of 3 groups with net balance surpluses. Percentage of net (balance sheet) surplus:

6-8 tithes - 19

8-10" - 12

over 10 acres - 30

61

In the Politburo, I demonstrated the unification of not 3 sowing groups, but only two:

8-10 tithes -12

over 10 acres - 30

42

So, no substitution was made and the CSO did not give any incorrect figures to the Politburo. Someone, but not the Central Statistical Board, combined 3 groups, but I grouped them in my own way, meaning to single out the farms of 2 groups with a net surplus and at the same time having crops above the average.

3) Your statement that the CSB adjusted the figures to one or another preconceived opinion is incorrect.

It is not true because the CSO is a scientific institution and does not deal with fraud and never has.

I agree that fitting figures to a certain opinion is a criminal offense, but, on the other hand, it is necessary to somehow qualify the false statements that are spread about the activities of the CSO.

Your duty from the same high pulpit is either to publish my letter, or to state that your statements are not true.

You must know that CSO is not a private institution. It is a scientific institution and carries out certain work necessary for socialist construction. Throwing the above false statements into the ranks of the party comrades, and through them and through the press - and into the population, on the accuracy and completeness of information on which the accuracy and completeness of statistical information depends, you undoubtedly create conditions under which the work of state statistics cannot proceed normally, You are undoubtedly instilling suspicion and disbelief in the work of the CSO, because you say, "how can one trust the figures of the CSO after that."

You, a staunch and old Party comrade, are accustomed to telling the truth, and therefore I am deeply convinced that you will now tell both the members of the Party and the population the truth - that your statements about the activities of the CSB do not correspond to reality in the respect I have indicated.

With communist greetings, P. Popov.

PS A number of articles are published against the CSB in Pravda, my articles - answers - are not printed. Is it normal?

RTSKHIDNI. F. 558. Op. 2. D. 192. L. 1-2. Typewritten text.

Notes:

1 We are talking about the political report of the Central Committee, made by Stalin at the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b) on December 18, 1925.

2 XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Verbatim report. M.-D., 1926. S. 44.