from Stalin to 9th party congress

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

JV Stalin to the Presidium of the IX Party Conference

September 23 [1920]

Comrade Stalin's statement 1 .

Certain passages in yesterday's speeches by comrades Trotsky and Lenin 2 could give comrade comrades the conference a reason to suspect me of misrepresenting the facts. In the interest of truth, I must state the following:

1) Comrade Trotsky's statement that I portrayed the state of our fronts in a rosy light does not correspond to reality. I was, it seems, the only member of the Central Committee who ridiculed the current slogan about the "march on Warsaw" and openly warned comrades in the press against being carried away by successes, against underestimating the Polish forces. It is enough to read my articles in Pravda.

2) Comrade Trotsky's statement that my calculations about the capture of Lvov were not justified contradicts the facts. In mid-August, our troops approached Lvov at a distance of 8 versts and they probably would have taken Lvov, but they did not take it because the high command deliberately refused to take Lvov and at the moment when our troops were 8 versts from Lvov, the command transferred Budyonny from the Lvov region to the Zapfront for the latter's assistance. What does Stalin's calculations have to do with it?

3) Comrade Lenin's statement that I am partial to the Western Front, that the strategy did not fail the Central Committee, does not correspond to reality. No one denied that the Central Committee had a telegram from the command about the capture of Warsaw on August 16th. The point is not that Warsaw was not taken on August 16 - this is a small matter - but the point is that the Western Front was, it turns out, in front of a catastrophe due to the fatigue of the soldiers, due to the lack of rears, and the command did not know this, did not notice . If the command had warned the Central Committee about the actual state of the front, the Central Committee would doubtless have renounced the offensive war temporarily, as it is doing now. The fact that Warsaw was not taken on August 16 is, I repeat, a small matter, but the fact that this was followed by an unprecedented catastrophe, which took 100,000 prisoners and 200 guns from us, is already a big oversight by the command, which cannot be ignored. That is why I demanded in the Central Committee the appointment of a commission3 , which, having found out the causes of the disaster, would insure us against a new defeat. T. Lenin, apparently, spares the command, but I think that it is necessary to spare the cause, and not the command.

23/9

I. Stalin.

RTSKHIDNI. F. 558. On. 1. D. 5570. L. 2. Autograph.

Notes:

1 In a somewhat revised form, this statement of Stalin was delivered by him on the morning of September 23 at the third meeting of the IX Conference of the RCP(b). For the text of Stalin's speech, see: The Ninth Conference of the RCP(b). protocols. M., 1972. S. 82.