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The Forged Bolshevik Signature: A Problem in Soviet Historiography
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
Extract
The problem of the origin of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies in the 1905 Revolution is an important one in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement and the formative stages of the organs of the Soviet state. The problem is a complex one, involving both theory and practice—the conflicting theories of the revolution held by the various revolutionary parties in Russia in 1905 and the actions taken by their members both at the center and in local headquarters. Two revolutionary organizations are of paramount importance in this connection, the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP).
Because the problem is directly related to major doctrinal controversies that broke out between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks after the 1905 Revolution, the historical record and its interpretation have been subject to powerful pressures.
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References
1 Evidence of the forgery has previously been presented twice, independently, outside the Soviet Union: Robert M. Slusser, “The Problem of the Origin of the Moscow Soviet of 1905” (unpublished master's thesis, Columbia University, 1960), and S. M. Schwarz (
) No. 7, 1961, pp. 143-48. Mr. Schwarz's article is concerned only with the events of 1905, and does not deal with the historiographical problem involved.
2 (
) (Moscow, 1920), pp. 212-13.
3 (
) No. 5, 1922, pp. 184-95; see especially p. 190.
4
Idem, (
) No. 4, 1925, p. 85; republished in book form (Moscow, 1925), see p. 9.
5 (
) (Moscow and Leningrad, 1925), pp. 398-99.
6 (
) (Moscow, 1926), p. 94.
7 (
) (Moscow and Leningrad, 1926), p. 441.
8 Ibid., p. 414. The Federative Committee was formed in Moscow shortly after the October General Strike in 1905 for the purpose of coordinating the actions and policies of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
9 () (Moscow and Leningrad, 1931).
10 (
) No. 6, 1931, pp. 229-31.
11 () (2nd ed.; Moscow and Leningrad, 1934).
12
Idem, () (Moscow, 1930), V, cols. 413-17.
13 () (2nd ed.; Moscow, 1938), VII, cols. 141-45.
14 () (Moscow, 1955). All references to the origin of the Moscow Soviet were deleted from this edition. Vasiliev-Iuzhin died in 1937, according to the 3rd ed. of the (
) (Moscow, 1959), II, col. 163.
15 () No. 6, 1935, pp. 49-59.
16 (
) (Moscow, 1941).
17 Ibid., p. 215.
18 () (Moscow, 1948), p. 19.
19 Ibid., pp. 19-20.
20 ibid., p. 22.
21 Kostomarov cites Kolokolnikov's memoirs from the manuscript in the Archive of the Institute of the History of the Party. The memoirs, however, had already been published in part in the Soviet Union under the title (
) (Moscow, 1925), pp. 215-35
22 “The Soviets were not invented by any party. You know very well that there was no party which could have invented them. They were called into existence by the revolution in 1905.” () XXVI (4th ed.; Moscow, 1949), p. 445.
23 History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course (New York, 1939), pp. 79-80.\
24 (
) (2nd ed.; Moscow, 1951), pp. 150-51
25 (
) No. 1, 1955, pp. 3-10.
26 (
) (Moscow, 1955), I, p. v.
27 (
) (Moscow, 1955), I, p. xiii.
28 Ibid., pp. 405-6.
29 (
) (Moscow, 1955), p. 54.
30 () (Moscow, 1955), pp. 303-4; comment by Kostomarov, p. 13. It is noteworthy that the forged text of “Toward the Struggle” was omitted from a fuller collection of Bolshevik leaflets from the 1905 Revolution which the Institute of Marxism-Leninism published in 1956. See () (3 vols.; Moscow, 1956).
31 () V (Moscow, 1955), p. 139.
32 (
) (Moscow, 1955), p. 136.
33 (
) No. 10, 1955, p. 5.
34
) No. 3, 1956, pp. 158-63.
35 () No. 1, 1956, pp. 242-44.
36 Ibid., p. 244.
37 (
) (Moscow, 1956), pp. 282-317.
38 (
) No. 4, 1957, pp. 17-29.
39 (
) (Moscow, 1958), pp. 189-209.
40 Ibid., p. 198.
41 () VIII (Moscow, 1959), pp. 50-118.
42 ibid., p. 74.
43 ibid., pp. 74-75.\
44 () (Moscow, 1959), pp. 271-334; passage cited, pp. 305-6.
45 ibid., p. 306.
46 () (1905-1907 it.) (Moscow, 1959), p. 90.
47 () (Moscow, 1959), pp. 97-98; English-language ed., History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Moscow, 1960), p. 111. In the 2nd revised edition (Moscow, 1962) the passage on the origin of the Soviets has been left unchanged but a reference to the domination of the St. Petersburg Soviet by the Mensheviks, including Trotsky and Khrustalev, has been eliminated, along with the contrasting reference to the Moscow Soviet as Bolshevik-dominated (p. 102).
48 (
) No. 2, 1960, pp. 61-80; see especially pp. 61-62.
49 (
) (Moscow, 1961), pp. 255-56.
50 (
) (Moscow, 1962), by a group of authors. Galkin's contributions are the chapters (
); pp. 246-397. The quotation from the leaflet “Toward the Struggle” occurs on p. 350, with a reference to Kostomarov's 1955 collection of leaflets (see note 30 above).
51 The German scholar Oskar Anweiler came close to recognizing this fact in his study, Die Rdtebewegung in Russland, 1905-1921 (Leiden, 1958), but was misled by accepting as genuine the falsified Bolshevik text of the leaflet “Toward the Struggle,” which he characterizes as “solitary evidence for an initiative of the Bolsheviks in the formation of the Soviets in 1905” (p. 97). Despite this unintentional support for the thesis of the Bolshevik initiative in the establishment of the Soviets, Anweiler's book was subjected to attack in a review by E. A. Beliaev in Ecmopua CCCP, No. 5, 1960, pp. 210-13