THE FALSIFIERS ARE BACK AT WORK
At the XXth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, A A Pankratova had demanded that Soviet textbooks return to historical truth. Solemn promises were made about this. But there's many a slip...
In the Nouvelle Revue Internationale, no 6, one Pavel Reiman wrote a long article on "The Origins of the Communist International." Though suffering from certain faults of oversimplification, this article tried on the whole to be objective - till it reached the First Congress of the C I. From there on, Pavel Reiman wields with virtuosity one of the most pernicious forms of the lie: the lie by omission.
It is under these conditions that on March 2nd
1919 there opened the First Congress of the
Communist International, in which there participated representatives of the Communist Party of Russia led by Lenin (the delegation included, notably [!], J. Stalin, G. Chicherin, and V. Vo-
We open the volume containing the minutes of the First Congress of the C I, and we find the following list of the delegates of the Russian Communist Party: Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Stalin, Bukharin, Chicherin. There were two alternates with voice but without vote: Obolenski and Vorovski.
It will be said to us: it is not possible to speak of falsification, since the author states that the Russian delegation included notably the persons whom he names. Of course Pavel Reiman can hide his nudity behind this magnificent fig-leaf of the little word "notably" But it is easy to retort to him that by omitting from his list the three Russian delegates who, together with Lenin, were entrusted with the reports to the Congress (Bukharin on the directives of the C I; Zinoviev on the attitude toward the Second International; and Trotsky on the Manifesto of the Congress), he just plain lies by omission. For how can one describe "the origins of the Communist International" while passing over in silence three of the four authors of the CI's founding documents? How to give a valid description of its history while passing in silence over the name of the President of the C I, who was elected in 1919 and remained in office until 1926, George Zinoviev?
The falsifiers who are getting back at work are not only pernicious; they are above all stupid. The minutes of the 1917 and 1918 meetings of the Central Committee of the Russian C P have just been published. The names of Zinoviev, Trotsky, and Bukharin are spread out over every page. The conspiracy of silence is broken. To want to keep it going, each little valet in his own reserved corner, is a labor that is vain and condemned in advance to failure. We shall make a prediction for Pavel Reiman's benefit: before a year has passed, the whole of Soviet youth will know that Zinoviev was the president of the C I and that Trotsky dratted the Mani restos of its First Congress as well as those of the three following congresses.