| “ | 3. In 1907 Stalin took part in the expropriation of the bank of Tiflis. The Mensheviks following the bourgeois philistines expressed indignation against the “conspiratorial” methods of bolshevism and its “anarcho-Blanquism”. We can have only one attitude toward this indignation: contempt. The fact of taking part in a resolute, tho only partial blow at the enemy can add only honor to the revolutionary resoluteness of Stalin. It is astonishing, however, that this fact has been removed in cowardly manner from all the official biographies of Stalin? Is it in the name of bureaucratic respectability? After all we think not. It is more likely for political reasons. For, if participation in expropriation in itself cannot compromise a revolutionist in the eyes of revolutionists, the false political appraisal of that situation compromises Stalin as a politician. Separate blows at the institutions of the enemy, including “treasuries”, are compatible only with the revolutionery offensive of the masses; i.e., with the ascent of the revolution. When the masses are retreating, partial, separate, partisan blows unavoidably degenerate into adventures and lead to demoralization of the party. In 1907 the revolution was receding and the expropriations degenerated into adventures. Stalin, at any rate, showed in that period that he was unable to distinguish between high and low tides. He will disclose in the future more than once (Esthonia, Bulgaria, Canton, the third period) incapability of political orientation on a broad scale.
4. Stalin, from the time of the first revolution leads the life of a professional revolutionist. Prisons, exiles, escapes. But during the entire period of the reaction (1907–11) we do not find a single document – article, letter, resolution – in which Stalin formulated his own appraisal of the situation and its perspectives. It is impossible that such documents do not exist. It is impossible that they are not preserved, if only in the archives of the police department. Why don’t they appear in the press? It is perfectly obvious why: they are unable to strengthen the absurd characterization of the theoretical and political infallibility that the apparatus, which means Stalin himself – creates for itself. |
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| — Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) A Political Biography of Stalin , 1932 |
