Memorandum to L.B. Kamenev, December 22, 1922

Source: Tom 17

22/XII.1922.

Comrade Kamenev!

I received your note. In my opinion, we should limit ourselves to a statement in your report, without staging a demonstration at the fraction. How could the Old Man have organized correspondence with Trotsky when Foerster has absolutely forbidden it?

I. Stalin.

Source: Izvestiya TsK KPSS. 1989. No. 12, p. 192.

NOTE

This is a reply to a note from Kamenev (no later than December 22).

"The Old Man" was Lenin's Party nickname.

Foerster, O. -- a German neurologist.

"Last night," wrote Kamenev, "Trotsky telephoned me. He said he had received from the Old Man a note in which the Old Man, expressing satisfaction with the resolution adopted by the Plenum on foreign trade, nevertheless asks Trotsky to deliver a report on this question to the fraction of the Congress [i.e., the Communist fraction of the Tenth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, then in session -- Ed.] and thereby prepare the ground for raising this question at the Party Congress. The idea, apparently, is to consolidate his position. Trotsky did not express his own opinion but asked me to refer this question to the CC's commission for conducting the Congress. I promised him I would pass this on to you, which I am now doing."

Stalin's perplexity about the "correspondence with Trotsky" was caused by the violation of the Plenum of the CC of the RCP(b) decision of December 18, 1922 (an "unrecorded" one, according to L.A. Fotieva's assertion): "Comrade Stalin is charged with personal responsibility for the isolation of Vladimir Ilyich both with respect to personal contacts with officials and correspondence."

In this connection, Stalin could not but make a remark to N.K. Krupskaya, to whom Lenin dictated, about her improper attitude toward the CC's decision, and could not but remind her of the existence of the Central Control Commission.

Stalin did not know that, as Krupskaya wrote to Trotsky, "Prof. Foerster authorized today (i.e., December 21, 1922 -- Ed.) the dictation of a letter," and he was acting in accordance with the collective will of the Central Committee. His opponents later extracted maximum effect from the resulting incident.