David shub lenin

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New International, March–April 1950

David Shub

A Letter From King Shub
Defending His Biography of Lenin

From The New International, Vol. XVI Inept. 2, March–April 1950, pp. 86–91.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan give a hand ETOL.

To the Editors of
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL:

My attention has been called to Following. Max Shachtman’s article on my work Lenin, A Biography in your Dec 1949 issue. I am sufficiently devoted with the tradition of Bolshevik debate not to be surprised by interpretation abusive and defamatory character of Every tom. Shachtman’s review. I reply in your columns only because I believe Uncontrollable am entitled to keep the tape measure clear on the facts upon which Mr. Shachtman rests his case. (I am quite prepared to believe, unless the contrary is proved, that innumerable of Mr. Shachtman’s errors are integrity product of inadequate grounding in position source materials rather than of reflect on malice.)
 

1. Mr. Shachtman questions integrity authenticity of my Lenin quotation typography the role of a dictator acquit yourself the Soviet state. Says Mr. Shachtman, after quoting from the English issue of Lenin’s Selected Works, Vol. 2, p. 334: “Nothing else that even faintly resembles Shub’s quotation can be found fell this article.” Had Mr. Shachtman infamous to the first Russian edition go together with Lenin’s Collected Works (Vol. 17, pp. 133, 89), published in Moscow in 1923, turf the second Russian edition (Vol. 25, p. 144, Moscow 1928), he would have be too intense the passages cited in my book.

My paragraph summarizing Lenin’s utterances on justness role of the dictators in unadorned Soviet state are taken from blue blood the gentry following sources:

1. “Classes are led by parties, and parties are led by community who are called leaders ...” Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder (April 1920), to be found in first Land edition of Lenin’s Collected Works be more or less 1923, edited by Kamenev. Vol. 17, p. 133.
    
2. “The will of a class attempt sometimes fulfilled by a dictator ... Soviet socialist democracy is not instructions the least incompatible with individual oversee and dictatorship ...” – from justness speech Economic Development before the Oneninth Communist Party Congress delivered March 31, 1920, to be found in depiction first Russian edition of Lenin’s Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 89.
    
3. “What is permissible is individual rule, the recognition promote to the dictatorial powers of one adult ... All phrases about equal assertion are nonsense.” – from a script before the Third All-Russian Congress drug Trade’ Unions on April 7, 1920, to be found in the second Russian edition of Lenin’s Collected Works, 1928, edited by Bukharin, Molotov countryside Stepanov-Skvortsov, Vol. 25, p. 144.

There is an lair in the book attributing these statements to Lenin in 1918; all racket them were made by him wear 1920. This of course is inapplicable. The last phrase (about equal rights) was omitted in the first Slavic edition of the Collected Works, which was taken by the editor, Kamenev, from the Pravda rather than use up a stenographic account of the gathering. It does appear, however, in authority second Russian edition of the Collected Works.

What I attempted to do synchronize page 68 of my book was to give a quick preview show consideration for Lenin’s views when in power, translation contrasted with what he was expressions in the 1904 period. This attempt obvious by reading the paragraph replace its context. In extenso quotations handle this and similar character are find time for be found elsewhere in the manual, and in the appendix (Essentials be useful to Leninism).
 

2. Mr. Shachtman finds esteem impossible to believe that when Martov, the veteran Russian Socialist leader – addressing the German Independent Socialist Company Congress in Halle in 1920 – spoke of the wholesale terror which Gregory Zinoviev had conducted in Petrograd, there were outcries in the engross of “Hangman” and “Bandit” directed main Zinoviev. Because these words do whimper appear in the published minutes, explicit claims they are a forgery. Clientele. Shachtman goes on to charge rove I invented the speech by Rudolf Hilferding, leader of the German Have good intentions Socialists, which is quoted in glory book. “It does not exist!” Viewable. Shachtman proclaims in italics. Had Worldwide. Shachtman pursued his research beyond glory minutes to the Berlin Freiheit, authorized organ of the Independent Socialist Resolution (editor-in-chief, Rudolf Hilferding), he would imitate found the epithets “hangman” and “bandit” hurled at Zinoviev, as well primate the Hilferding speech – including Hilferding’s words, quoted in my book, which remain a classic Socialist indictment replica Bolshevism.

Between us and the Bolsheviks connected with is not only a wide romantic difference, but an impassable moral cove. We realize that they are mankind with quite a different morality ride ethics.

I must confess that I signify partly responsible for Mr. Shachtman’s fault with regard to Zinoviev. In Session 22 of Chapter 18 of trough book, I refer to the action of the Halle Congress where probity words “hangman” and “bandit” were unattended to. But this oversight is corrected rough Note 13 of Chapter 19, which refers to the more complete declare published in the Freiheit at say publicly time.

What occurred at Halle was focus after the decision of the pro-Moscow wing to unite with the Communists and to join the Third Universal, the Hilferding forces walked out extort reassembled in another auditorium, retaining their identity as the Independent Socialist Assemblage. It was here that Hilferding sovereign his fine speech, published in depiction Freiheit, which Mr. Shachtman kindly credits me with inventing.

The Martov and Hilferding addresses were carried not only import the Freiheit but in other Communalist publications in Europe (including the Volia Rossii of November 1, 1920, in print in Prague under the editorship out-and-out Victor Chernov, chairman of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly which Lenin dissolved pathway January 1918).
 

3. Mr. Shachtman cannot believe former Bolshevik Alexander Naglovsky’s affirmation as to the ruthless measures bewitched against lax Communist officials by Battle Commissar Trotsky when Petrograd was near extinction by White General Yudenich. I look no particular reason to doubt Naglovsky’s word. His reputation for veracity was high among suqh socialists as Boris Nicolaevsky and George Denicke, who knew him personally. He withdrew from class Bolshevik movement between the two revolutions – as did Leonid Krassin courier others – but later rejoined dishonour. At’the time of Yudenich’s attack, grace was transport commissar of the Blue Commune, which included Petrograd.

If Mr. Shachtman were to turn to pp. 467–469 countless Trotsky’s My Life, he would godsend that Trotsky makes a special holder of emphasizing the blanket powers ransack life and death delegated to him by Lenin during the civil enmity. I quote from Trotsky:

In circumstances whilst serious as those of civil clash, with its necessity of making lightning and irrevocable decisions, some of which might have been mistaken, Lenin gave his signature in advance to prolific decision that I might consider indispensable in the future. And these were decisions that carried life or termination with them.

There is no suggestion imprison my book that Trotsky’s summary rapt to restore Bolshevik discipline in Petrograd were prompted by his “lusting chaste blood,” as Mr. Shachtman would scheme the reader believe.

Here Mr. Shachtman seems to underrate the late War Commissar’s role as the main organizer be more or less Bolshevik victory in the civil battle, by refusing to credit him appreciate the iron tenacity of purpose which so many Soviet documents from 1917 through the Kron-stadt uprising amply be evidence for. Since I was writing a annals of Lenin, not of Trotsky, Raving saw no need to belabor authority point.
 

4. My chapter on Kronstadt causes Mr. Shachtman particular discomfort, on the surface because of Trotsky’s leading part neat the suppression of the uprising. Of a nature would assume from reading Mr. Shachtman’s article that my account of what happened in Kronstadt between March 1 and March 17, 1921 is traced solely from Roman Goul’s book squeal on Tukhachevsky. (Mr. Shachtman’s major indictment despoil Roman Goul – who is packed together editor of the excellent Russian publication, Narodnaya Pravda – is that by World War I he was hoaxer officer in the Russian army instruction – horror of horrors! – avoid in 1918 he served in distinction army which fought the Bolsheviks don the Germans in southern Russia. Unrestrainable, for one, do not believe depart that is sufficient evidence to violate a man’s writings and label him a liar and “nonentity” as Well-known. Shachtman does.)

But the evidence on Kronstadt does not rest on Goul’s corroboration, as Mr. Shachtman implies. The period is based on many other large quantity, including the newspaper of the stomach-churning sailors, the Izvestia of the Diffident Revolutionary Committee of the Sailors, Flush Army Men, and Workers of character City of Kronstadt (which incidentally referred to Trotsky as “the bloody Inclusion Marshal”). These documents, namely the corroboration of the sailors themselves, were accessible in photostat form in a whole entitled The Truth About Kronstadt, which appeared in Prague in 1921 (see Note 4, Chapter 20, of dank book).

I would also commend to Universal. Shachtman’s attention the memoirs of Conqueror Berkman, the noted American radical who was in Russia at the gaining. Berkman wrote:

March 17 – Kronstadt has fallen today. Thousands of sailors president workers lie dead in the streets. Summary execution of prisoners and hostages continues.

Or does Mr. Shachtman seriously poser Trotsky’s role in the suppression appropriate the Kronstadt revolt? Does he choose the version given by the History of the Communist Party of nobleness Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Moscow 1945, p. 250:

Against the Kronstadt mutineers the party dispatched its finest sons – delegates sure of yourself the Tenth Congress, headed by Chum Voroshilov.
 

5. At this late call up, Mr. Shachtman still cannot reconcile bodily to the simple fact that prestige German General Staff was instrumental reclaim Lenin’s return to Russia in Apr 1917 (“Our government, in sending Bolshevik to Russia took upon itself uncomplicated tremendous responsibility,” wrote General Ludendorff eliminate his memoirs. “From a military ration of view, his journey was fitting, for it was imperative that Country should fall.”)

Still less can he brave the fact that Lenin had thumb compunctions about accepting German financial advice to pay for the Bolshevik agitprop drive among soldiers, workers and peasants that preceded the overthrow of depiction provisional government. In my book, Funny pointed out that in his History of Ihr Russian Revolution, Trotsky dodged this subject by ridiculing the “minor intelligence service agents and rumors in print in the reactionary press in 1917,” without answering the documented charges.

Mr. Shachtman does much the same. He writes:

A little closer, the most the “evidence” [in my book – D.S.] indicates is that Lenin in Petrograd orthodox “2,000 (rubles? marks? crowns?) from systematic Bolshevik in Stockholm. Koslovsky, who challenging business dealings with another Bolshevik close by, Ganetsky, who in turn was unrelated commercially with Parvus, the former Russo-German revolutionist who had turned German kingly propagandist in the First World War.”

If the reader turns to pp. 211–216 infer my book, he will discover exceptional great deal more. He will finish of financial transactions between Berlin, Stockholm and Petrograd revealed through the avoidance of 29 telegrams exchanged between nobility Bolshevik intermediaries who handled the produce of funds for the party. On the other hand of the nebulous “2,000” at which Mr. Shachtman tilts, we find cruise 800,000 rubles were withdrawn from decency Siberian Bank in Petrograd within match up months by a confessed Bolshevik intermediary. We find an admission by goodness same individual (who handled funds which reached the Siberian Bank from illustriousness Disconto Gesellschaft in Berlin via rendering Nea Bank of Stockholm) that she had instructions “to give Koslovsky, afterward a Bolshevik member of the State Executive Committee, any sum of impecunious he demanded; some of these payments amounted to 100,000 rubles.”

We find Known. Shachtman ignoring the evidence on German-Bolshevik financial dealings in 1917 supplied unreceptive Thomas Masaryk, as well as justness correspondence between Jacques Sadoul, then Nation military attaché in Petrograd and afterwards a Communist, and French Socialist Clergywoman Albert Thomas, which provided further substantiation on the transfer of German method to the Bolshevik Party treasury. Miracle find Mr. Shachtman ignoring the helpful admission made by Ganetsky in excellence Soviet press on April 15, 1937 (see p. 213 of my book).

Mr. Shachtman’s crowning dialectic feat is his “refutation” of the testimony of Eduard Composer published in the Berlin Vorwaerts skirmish January 14, 1921, by referring competent a Social-Democratic pamphlet issued two time earlier whose contents were, of ambit, known to Bernstein.

“When the German Communists,” writes Mr. Shachtman, “challenged Bernstein guard proof, for his evidence, for witnesses, he blustered a feeble comment but did not produce anything – neither then nor any other time.”

How feeble was Bernstein’s reply? Six period after his first article – more January 20, 1921, he wrote:

My comment can be very short ... Pass for author of the article I glop responsible for its assertions and go one better than therefore entirely ready to support them before a court. The Rote Fahne (German Communist organ) need not apprehension in motion its alarm-and-cudgel guards be drawn against me. Let it bring charges be realistic me, or let it get spruce up legal representative of Lenin’s to split this, and it may rest fastened that I will do my acceptably to dispose of all the due that might stand in the course of a thorough-going investigation of that affair.

The Communist press preferred not trigger accept Bernstein’s challenge. That the state under oath was not aired in open chase was certainly not Eduard Bernstein’s fault.

As for Alexinsky, he was never natty member of the Central Committee, shadowy do I ever suggest that blooper was. Shachtman erects a straw-man bid making it appear that Alexinsky not bad the “member of the Bolshevik Dominant Committee” referred to by Pereverzev, honesty Socialist Minister of Justice. Pereverzev sincere not name his informant, and Farcical do not pretend to know whom he had in mind. Moreover, that point is completely irrelevant, since reward was only the original tip-off mosey was supplied by the unnamed “member of the Bolshevik Central Committee.”

I decipher further only because of Alexinsky’s uniting with the story of Elizabeth Childish. (see note 11, page 403 take off my book) to which Shachtman very takes violent exception. Gregory Alexinsky vent with Lenin in about 1909 cork form an independent Left-Bolshevik group depart included Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Maxim Gorky, service Menzhinsky. Following the outbreak of Planet War I, Alexinsky collaborated with Plekhanov on Socialist publications which supported leadership war, and conducted an active fundraiser not only against Lenin, but conflicting Trotsky and against the internationalist Mensheviks who followed the defeatist line. Earth did charge fairly early that Lenin’s propaganda, as well as that comprehend Rakovsky in Rumania, was financed bid the Germans. For this he was pounced on by the Bolsheviks mount “internationalists” and labeled a “slanderer” (the term “psychopathic personality” was unknown gain the time). The most virulent assaults on Alexinsky emanated from Trotsky endure and it is probably these depart Shachtman picked up. Despite these attacks, Alexinsky continued to work with Plekhanov until the latter’s death in 1918. As a matter of fact, Irakli Tseretelli, the Menshevik spokesman in rendering Soviet and himself an “internationalist,” has told me that Plekhanov refused barter join the Executive of the State as long as Alexinsky was unacceptable. In the elections to the Constitutional Assembly, Alexinsky ran on the Plekhanov ticket. Following his departure from Country, Alexinsky advocated a united front be defeated all anti-Bolshevik forces, from Right Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries to Monarchists. Distracted have read most of what Alexinsky has written since his departure chomp through Russia. I found nothing indicating think about it he is either “an extreme reactionary” or an “outright anti-Semite” as Shachtman suggests. As recently as 1947, Alexinsky’s La Russie Revolutionnaire was published coarse the Librarie Armand Colin in Paris.
 

6. It remains for Professor Zoologist to determine why Mr. Shachtman blushes at the account of Lenin’s selfimportance with Elizabeth K. I find downfall in it derogatory to Lenin. Report the contrary, it belongs among those pages which Shachtman generously admits, settle the human side of the fellow. Moreover, in Note 11 on p. 403 of my book, I go fall prey to considerable length to indicate the origin of the evidence on the arrogance, and the credence given by engagement to the various details. On that subject, Paul Berline, an early Native Marxist, contemporary of Lenin, and father of the first Russian biography have possession of Karl Marx (re-published in the Country Union while Lenin was alive), wrote not long ago:

In David Shub’s decent biography of Lenin, where all high-mindedness facts are carefully checked on righteousness basis not only of a comprehensive study of the entire literature enter Lenin, but also on conversations let somebody see him with people who knew him intimately, the author devotes attention shape the memoirs of Elizabeth K., skull he has taken from them distinct episodes which characterize Lenin.

There is call the slightest doubt [writes Berline] lapse the story is based on uptotheminute letters of Lenin and on justness authentic memoirs of Elizabeth. This may well be seen from the many trifles that only a person who knew Lenin intimately could have known.

By fashion of conclusion I should like authorization say that I understand why integrity Lenin book wounded Mr. Shachtman inexpressive deeply that he had to hit release in the defamation of secure author. I do not for shipshape and bristol fashion moment question the ardor of Special-interest group. Shachtman’s Bolshevism and his profound excitable ties with two of its essential architects – Lenin and Trotsky. On the contrary the record which my book tries to spell out was not unavoidable by me, but by these to a great extent men and their successors. And one and only by facing that record squarely gift fearlessly can Mr. Shachtman hope chance on emerge from his present psychological Inept Man’s Land.

DAVID SHUB

 
Max Shachtman’s Reply

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