Editing Lenin's Testament (section)

==Political impact and repercussions==
{{Expand section|date=February 2021}}

===Short term===
Lenin's testament presented the ruling [[triumvirate]] or [[list of Troikas in the Soviet Union|troika]] ([[Joseph Stalin]], [[Grigory Zinoviev]], and [[Lev Kamenev]]) with an uncomfortable dilemma. On the one hand, they would have preferred to suppress the testament since it was critical of all three of them as well as of their ally [[Nikolai Bukharin]] and their opponents, [[Leon Trotsky]] and [[Georgy Pyatakov]]. Although Lenin's comments were damaging to all of the communist leaders, Joseph Stalin stood to lose the most since the only practical suggestion in the testament was to remove him from the position of the General Secretary of the Party's Central Committee.<ref name=Felshtinsky/>

On the other hand, the leadership dared not go directly against Lenin's wishes so soon after his death, especially with his widow insisting on having them carried out. The leadership was also in the middle of a factional struggle over the control of the Party, the ruling [[political faction|faction]] being loosely allied groups that would soon part ways, which would have made a coverup difficult.

The final compromise proposed by the triumvirate at the Council of the Elders of the 13th Congress after Kamenev read out the text of the document was to make Lenin's testament available to the delegates on the following conditions (first made public [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/12/lenin.htm in a pamphlet] by Trotsky published in 1934 and confirmed by documents released during and after [[glasnost]]):

* The testament would be read by representatives of the party leadership to each regional delegation separately.
* Taking notes would not be allowed.
* The testament would not be referred to during the plenary meeting of the Congress.

The proposal was adopted by a majority vote, over Krupskaya's objections. As a result, the testament did not have the effect that Lenin had hoped for, and Stalin retained his position as General Secretary, with the notable help of [[Aleksandr Petrovich Smirnov]], then [[Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union)|People's Commissar of Agriculture]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/12/lenin.htm|title=Leon Trotsky: On Lenin's Testament (1932)|last=Trotsky|first=Leon|website=www.marxists.org|access-date=2017-08-09}}</ref>

According to Rogovin, Lenin's proposals for party reform such the elevation of the [[Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Control Commission]] and [[Rabkrin]] were significantly watered down. Rogovin stated that the membership of the Central Committee increased by nearly ten times but two-thirds of those elected to Congress were local officials subject to party and state control.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Zakharovich |title=Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years |date=2021 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-1-893638-97-6 |page=132 |language=en}}</ref>

===Long term===
Failure to make the document more widely available within the party remained a point of contention during the struggle between the [[Left Opposition]] and the Stalin-Bukharin faction in 1924 to 1927. Under pressure from the opposition, Stalin had to read the testament again at the July 1926 Central Committee meeting.

Lenin's concerns over Stalin's harsh leadership and over a split between Trotsky and Stalin were later confirmed, with Trotsky being expelled from the Soviet Union by the Politburo in February 1929. He spent the rest of his life in exile, writing prolifically and engaging in open critique of [[Stalinism]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Beilharz |first=Peter |title=Trotsky, Trotskyism and the Transition to Socialism |publisher=Barnes & Noble |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-389-20698-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=McNeal |first=Robert H. |year=2015 |title=Trotsky's Interpretation of Stalin |journal=Canadian Slavonic Papers |volume=5 |pages=87–97 |doi=10.1080/00085006.1961.11417867}}</ref> In his later autobiography, ''[[My Life (Trotsky)|My Life]]'', Trotsky would view his "testament" as reflective of his wider struggle against [[nomenklatura|the bureaucratization of the party]]. He also maintained that Lenin had intended for him to be his successor as [[Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union|Chairman]] of [[Sovnarkom]] of the Soviet Union with his proposed appointment as deputy chairman.<ref name="Courier Corporation">{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography |date=5 April 2012 |publisher=Courier Corporation |isbn=978-0-486-12340-0 |page=479 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F4fqc7eZbjUC&dq=as+would+allow+me+to+become+lenin%27s+deputy+and+as+he+intended+his+successor+to+the+post+of+chairman+of+the+soviet+of+people%27s+commissaries&pg=PA479 |language=en}}</ref> He explained that this process would have begun after their alliance in 1923 with the formation of a [[Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|commission]] to mitigate the growth of the [[bureaucracy|state bureaucracy]]. Trotsky maintained that this action would have facilitated the conditions for his succession in the party.<ref name="Courier Corporation"/> In February 1940, Trotsky would write his own "Testament" modelled on Lenin's, shortly before his assassination, in which he reiterated his belief in a communist future of mankind and that his personal honour among thousands of other purged victims would be rehabilitated by a "new revolutionary generation".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=1521|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky |language=en}}</ref>

In 1938 Trotsky and his supporters founded the [[Fourth International]] in opposition to Stalin's [[Communist International|Comintern]]. After surviving multiple attempts on his life, Trotsky was assassinated in August 1940 in [[Mexico City]] by [[Ramón Mercader]], an agent of the Soviet [[NKVD]]. [[Censorship in the Soviet Union|Written out of Soviet history books]] under Stalin, Trotsky was one of the few rivals of Stalin to not be [[Rehabilitation (Soviet)|rehabilitated]] by either [[Nikita Khrushchev]] or [[Mikhail Gorbachev]].{{sfn|Deutscher|2003b|p=vi}} Trotsky's rehabilitation came in June 2001 by the [[Russia|Russian Federation]].<ref>[http://memorial-nic.org/iofe/3.html В. В. Иофе. Осмысление Гулага.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110821184248/http://memorial-nic.org/iofe/3.html|date=21 August 2011}} НИЦ «Мемориал»</ref>

From the time that Stalin consolidated his position as the unquestioned leader of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, in the late 1920s, all references to Lenin's testament were considered [[anti-Soviet agitation]] and punishable as such. The denial of the existence of Lenin's testament remained one of the cornerstones of [[historiography in the Soviet Union]] until Stalin's death on March 5, 1953. After [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s [[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences]], at the [[20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|20th Congress of the Communist Party]], in 1956, the document was finally published officially by the Soviet government.