peoples’ movement was growing into a mighty upsurge.
Lenin gave the party the April Thesis which said that
the time has matured for the seizure of power by the
proletariat and for the socialist revolution. It said that
the Bolsheviks can and must seize power. Then, what
about Trotsky? He was the editor of a paper. Just
before three months of the seizure of power he came
to Moscow, contacted Lenin and joined the Bolshevik
party. Perhaps, Lenin thought that he may be helpful
for revolution. But Trotsky took it as an opportunity.
He became a Minister. But Trotsky continued to work
against Lenin even after joining the Bolshevik party.
His line was, the revolution and socialism are not
possible in a single Country. He advocated a ‘world
rev olution.’ Inspite of this, he was given the
membership of the Bolshevik Party and also an
important position in the Central Committee. However,
the Bolshevik blueprint of revolution was leaked by
Trotsky and Zinoviev. These two were the important
members of the Central Committee. It was leaked to
the enemies. Lenin and Stalin could expose comrades
and were able to lead the proletariat to seize power.
Once the power was seized, the question before the
Bolsheviks was how to sustain it. First World War was
going on at the time for a division of loot and territories
among the imperialist powers. Russia was encircled
by the German forces. And also in Siberia and other
parts of Russia there were forces of the so called allied
(imperialist) powers which were opposing Germany.
The American, British and other imperialist powers
thought that the Soviet power cannot survive for long.
They thought that the Bolshevik party is too weak and
therefore cannot sustain power. They hatched the
conspiracies. They have sent a British agent to Moscow
to carry out the conspiracy to liquidate the Bolshevik
leaders. And in 1918, Sidney Ralle got the report that
on 21 st August, 1918 the Central Committee of the
Bolshevik party was going to meet in Moscow in a
theatre house. He reported that he had purchased a
security chief Vendie by paying him 50,000 roubles
as an advance. This security chief of the central
Committee was supposed to guard and provide the
security to the Central Committee. But, unexpectedly,
the Central Committee meeting was deferred to
September 8 th . On Sept, 7 th, when Lenin was coming
out of a factory after giving a lecture, he was shot by
a British agent. The upper portion of Lenin’s lungs
was damaged. He was immediately rushed to the
hospital. The conspiracy was to arrest all the Central
Committee members together with Lenin, take them
along the street and shoot all of them down in the
open day light. This conspiracy was foiled because
of the vigilance of Red guards, vigilance of Stalin all
the conspirators were arrested. Somehow Ralle could
escape from Moscow. But, as Lenin was shot one day
November - 2017
before the Central Committee meeting, naturally, his
health went on deteriorating. It was really sad even
though he lived for three more years and played an
active role. Before this shooting incident, the Germans
were controlling some Russian territories. So the
peace talks were to be held between Russia and
Germany. At that time, Trotsky was the Foreign
Secretary. He was sent to peace talks to sign the
Brest-Litovsk peace treaty. The Central Committee
and Lenin gave specific instructions to Trotsky. But
Trotsky had shown no interest in it. He violated all the
instructions and as a result the treaty could not be
signed. Germany attacked the Russian territory in
three fronts. As a result, the Petrograd and Moscow
were on the verge of collapse. The Red Guards and
the armed workers and peasants actually stopped
the German forces from annexing the territories.
Another team was sent to Brest-Litovsk to negotiate
and sign the peace treaty. Trotsky was excluded from
the team. A treaty was signed at the c ost of losing
some territories. Trotsky hoped and believed that the
Bolsheviks cannot sustain, but collapse. He hatched
conspiracies but failed.
After a long time in 1957, Khrushchev raked up
the question whether Stalin’s leadership had Lenin’s
approval knowing well that Stalin was elected as the
General Secretary of the Party right in the presence
of Lenin and Lenin was clear in his evaluation of Stalin
as well as in his choice of Stalin as the General
Secretary of the Party. Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev
and others sought to make use of a small incident
where Stalin was said to have behaved rudely to sow
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