18 they published in the Menshevik newspaper, Novaya Zhizn, a statement declaring that the Bolsheviks were making preparations for an uprising and that they considered it adventuristic. Kamenev and Zinoviev thus disclosed to the enemy the decision of the Central Committee to stage the uprising, and that the uprising had been organized to take place within the very near future.
This was treason against the party and against the Revolution. In this connection, V. I. Lenin wrote: "Kamenev and Zinoviev revealed the decision of the Central Committee of their party on the armed uprising to Rodzyanko[1] and Kerensky[2] . . ." He put before the Central Committee the question of Zinoviev's and Kamenev's expulsion from the party.
However, after the Great Socialist October Revolution, as is known, Zinoviev and Kamenev were given leading positions. Lenin put them in positions in which they carried out most responsible party tasks and participated actively in the work of the leading party and Soviet organs. It is known that Zinoviev and Kamenev committed a number of other serious errors during Lenin's life. In his "testament" Lenin warned that "Zinoviev's and Kamenev's October episode was of course not an accident." But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting.
Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers' movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? We are deeply convinced that, had Lenin lived, such an extreme method would not have been used against any of them.
- ↑ Mikhail V. Rodzyanko (1859–1924), President of the Third and Fourth Dumas, and a leader in the democratic February Revolution. He played a prominent role in its first days, but later vanished completely from the political scene. Lenin and other Bolsheviks concocted a completely false story that he had inspired behind-the-scenes reactionary forces which influenced the policies of the Provisional Government in 1917.
- ↑ Alexander F. Kerensky (born 1881) was President of the Provisional Government from July to October 1917.
Committee, at a meeting on October 16, confirmed its decision to stage an insurrection, Kamenev on October 18 published an article in his own and Zinoviev's name in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, in which he argued that an insurrection would be a grave mistake. Novaya Zhizn was a daily which appeared in 1917–18 under the editorship of Maxim Gorky and a number of recent leading figures in the Bolshevik party who had disagreed with Lenin's policy of immediate socialist revolution.
