Supressed Testament of Lenin

Author: Leon Trotsky
Website: RL Online
Department:
Page: 1   ( 15) pages

Summary: Complete English text of Trotsky's historic work.

Foreward

The document later known as "Lenin's Testament" was, as Trotsky says in his biography of Stalin, "Lenin's last advice on how to organize the party leadership." A year before his death Lenin, with his unerring political insight, saw in Stalin's policies the beginnings of what Lenin himself called "bureaucratism not only in the Soviet institutions but also in the party." It was against this danger that he dictated a confidential letter giving his estimate of the leaders in the Central Committee and, ten days later, added a postscript in which he proposed to remove Stalin from his post as General Secretary of the party. 

A detailed account of the political background and the circumstances surrounding Lenin's testament is given by Leon Trotsky in his article "On Lenin's Testament"—written ten years later in Turkey, where Trotsky had been driven into exile by Stalin. 

The authenticity of the testament is unquestioned. After Lenin's death the document became known to so many party leaders that—although it was of course suppressed—to deny its existence would have been impossible. As late as 1927 Stalin himself, in the International Press Correspondence of November 17, 1927, openly accepted the authenticity of Lenin's testament, writing about it as follows: 

It is said that in the "Testament" in question Lenin suggested to the party Congress that it should deliberate on the question of replacing Stalin and appointing another comrade in his place as General Secretary of the party. This is perfectly true. 

It was not long, however, before the Stalinists, even in face of the incontrovertible evidence and their own admissions, began to deny the very existence of such a document. They have of course expunged from their official literature every reference to it. But their machine of repression and falsification has not been able to bury this last advice of Lenin to the party. 

Trotsky wrote about the last period of Lenin's life and the origins of the "legend of Trotskyism" on a number of other occasions. The reader is referred especially to My Life, chapters 28 and 38-40; and the "Letter to the Bureau of Party History" in The Stalin School of Falsification. 

The Testament of Lenin . . .