Lenin’s Testament

On June 30, 1956, Vladimir Lenin's politics testament (1923) was published in Moscow. An excerpt from the article:

"I think that fundamental in the question of stability from this point of view are such members of the Central Committee as Stalin and Trotsky. The relations between them constitute, in my opinion, a good half of the danger of a split which could be avoided and the avoidance of which, in my opinion, should be furthered by, among other things, raising the number of members of the Central Committee to 50 or 100.

Having become General Secretary, Comrade Stalin has acquired immense power, and I am not sure that he will always know how to use this power with sufficient caution. On the other hand, Comrade Trotsky, as already shown by his struggle against the Central Committee over the question of the People’s Commissariat of Railroads, is distinguished not only by outstanding abilities. Personally, he is no doubt the most able man in the present Central Committee, but he is also possessed by excessive self confidence and overly attracted by the purely administrative side of matters.

These two qualities in the two outstanding leaders of the present Central Committee may inadvertently lead to a split and, unless our party takes measures to prevent it, the split may occur unexpectedly.

I shall not go on to characterize the other members of the Central Committee as to personal traits. I shall recall only that the October episode of Zinoviev and Kamenev was not, of course, fortuitous, but that it ought as little to be held against him personally as the non-Bolshevism of Trotsky.

Of the young members of the Central Committee I wish to say a few words about Bukharin and Piatakov. These are in my opinion the most outstanding forces (among the youngest) and the following should be borne in mind in regard to them: Bukharin is not only a most valuable and most eminent Party theoretician, he is also rightly considered the favorite of the whole Party, but it is very doubtful whether his theoretical views can be classified as fully Marxist, because there is something pedantic in them (he never studied and, I think, never fully understood dialectics).

25/XII.-Next, Piatakov, a man of undoubtedly outstanding will and outstanding ability, but too much given to administration and the administrative aspect of matters to be relied on in a serious political issue.

Of course, I make both comments only as regards the present, on the assumption that both these outstanding and devoted workers may find occasion to increase their knowledge and correct their one-sidedness. -LENIN. 25/XII/22. Dictated to M. V.

POSTSCRIPT TO LETTER OF DEC. 24, 1922.

Stalin is too rude [Russian: grubyi] and this failing, which is quite tolerable in our midst and in relations among us Communists, becomes intolerable in the office of General Secretary. Therefore, I propose to the comrades that they think of a way of removing Stalin from this post and appointing to it another person who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in one advantage alone, namely, that he be more tolerant, more loyal, more courteous and more considerate to comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may seem an insignificant trifle. But I think that from the point of view of averting a split and from the point of view of the mutual relations between Stalin and Trotsky, of which I wrote above, it is not a trifle, or it is such a trifle as may acquire decisive importance. LENIN. Dictated to L. F. Jan. 4, 1923."