Talk:Lenin's Testament

message: Based just on my own reading of the document, and my knowledge that it was only discovered years later, led me want to know more about the document's claims to authenticity.    
Lenin shows great foresight in this document.   Any time you 'rediscover' a lost document whose author is extremely prescient, questions of authenticity immediately leap to mind. 
Not saying the document is inauthentic-- just saying--  inquiring minds like mine wanna know :) --HectorMoffet (talk) 04:49, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconding this. Kotkin has a skeptical reading of the testament and its provenance, in light of documentary evidence, including the lack of dictation notes and doctors' journal indicating Lenin had already lost his speech at the time it was authored. It may have been Krupskaya's interpretation of Lenin's opinion rather than an actual dictation. As-is, the article relies too much on primary sources and takes those at face value. iml (talk) 02:01, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

text: On the other hand,  Robert Service, one of the most knowledgeable western scholars on Lenin and Bolshevism, suggested that the document may have been tampered with already in 1923 and partly suppressed by Stalin and his associates. They could not eradicate the criticism of Stalin but there may have been even more pungent parts that were removed. 195.67.149.174 (talk) 16:07, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

text: I added this. Would welcome others' edits and corrections. SS451 (talk) 01:57, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Authenticity needs to be discussed

message: Russian;
М.: Изд-во Московского университета. 2003. 717 С.: ил. Тир. 5 000 [...] В монографии доцента кафедры политической истории факультета государственного управления МГУ нм. М.В.Ломоносова В,А. Сахарова речь идет о цикле последних работ В.И. Ленина [...]  Книга Сахарова * результат более чем де и летних и Тедов Аний зной интересной и сложной проблемы. Научная самостоятельность автора и его профессионализм проявляются уже в историографическом введении
Translation;
Moscow: Moscow University Press. Moscow State University. 2003. 717 P.: il. Circulation. 5 000 [...] In the monograph of the Associate Professor of the Department of Political History of the Faculty of Public Administration of the Moscow State University n.a. M.A. Lomonosov. M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University V.A. Sakharov deals with the cycle of Lenin's last works [...] Sakharov's book* is the result of more than a decade of interesting and complex research. The author's scientific independence and professionalism are already evident in his historiographical introduction
Russian;
Сахаров первым поставил вопрос о необходимости атрибуции текстов ленинского «Завещания», так как подлинники их предоставляют собой машинописные тексты, о которых нельзя с уверенностью сказать, что они являться записью диктовок Ленина. Их читали в архиве многие история, но только автор рецензируемой монографии пришел к заключению, что, прежде чем использовать эти записи в качестве ленинских документов, необходимо еще доказать их принадлежность Ленину с использованием всей совокупности прямых и косвенных свидетельств
Translation;
Sakharov was the first to raise the question of the need to attribute the texts of Lenin's "Testament" because their originals are typewritten texts about which one cannot say with certainty that they are a record of Lenin's dictations. Many historians have read them in the archives, but only the author of the monograph under review has concluded that, before using these records as Lenin's documents, it is necessary to prove that they belonged to Lenin, using the totality of direct and indirect evidence
The document then goes on to explain situations, context, etc.
--BunnyyHop (talk) 21:36, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Link. , the article had no OCR so I had to transliterate it. Also, my Russian is not the best. «Архиве многие историки, но толко [...]». It might be better if you create an account and access the file yourself, as your reading proficiency will be incredibly greater. Later В. П. Иванов says «Важным является установление факта неоднократного изменения Н.К. Крупской в ходе внутрипартийной борьбы в 1920-х гг. своих показаний относительно предназначения "Письма к съезду"», so I guess you can see where he's going with this. Note that I didn't include here the points of view of the other two scholars, just Ivanov's. --BunnyyHop (talk) 00:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Texts that you copy-pasted above do not appear in this link. How did you get them? I only found this by that author. There he denies that Katyn massacre has been committed by the NKVD. So yes, Stalinist he is. My very best wishes (talk) 04:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  , you have to register here. I'll read that text later. --BunnyyHop (talk) 05:01, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: So you do know Russian? This registration is like placing yourself to a database of FSB. My very best wishes (talk) 05:12, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I found it here on website "stalinism.ru" created by Stalinists. This is no better than "sources" on Stormfront (website). I especially like that one, "Stalin as a benefactor of Jews". These Jews? My very best wishes (talk) 21:11, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

text: Now I see. That Russian "historian" simply did not like the careful criticism of Stalin by Lenin in his "Testament" («тов. Сталин, сделавшись Генсеком, сосредоточил в своих руках необъятную власть, и я не уверен, сумеет ли он всегда достаточно осторожно пользоваться этой властью»). That's why author is trying to deny everything we know about it, including even the authorship by Lenin. This is an extreme whitewashing of Stalin. I am surprised that Kotkin bought this BS. My very best wishes (talk) 00:37, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: It really does not matter what this Stalinist thinks because the authencity challenge is notable because other respectable historians have taken it up, not because he has taken it up.PailSimon (talk) 10:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: This sub-thread is only about specific Russian language sources. So far this is no. Writings by neo-Stalinists are just as good for sourcing as writings by neo-Nazi. This whole thread is entitled "Authenticity is historical consensus". Yes, it certainly is. My very best wishes (talk) 03:41, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verification 

message: I deleted an unsourced statement that Soviet leadership used party discipline to force Trotsky to write in opposition to the Eastman article. All I can find on this is the citation-less assertion here, and a website called "Academic Kids" that has merely copy/pasted this wiki article. Given the range of historical sources that address the subject events of these articles, I think we should find a formal source if we are to include the assertion.  JArthur1984 (talk) 13:45, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trotsky "forced" to write in opposition to Eastman 

message: I see that the infobox image of handwritten text was added in April from the Russian language Wikipedia. The image info is in Russian and I can't read it. Is anyone able to understand that information, and if so, can you weigh in on its provenance and authenticity? 
I ask in part because (from what I recall) Kotkin claims that there was no handwritten original of the Testament's dictation in the archives, which is one reason he questions its authenticity; if there actually is a handwritten original, I'm wondering if any scholars have commented on this issue. SS451 (talk) 15:52, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: There could not be a handwritten original because Lenin dictated (due to his stroke) to his secretaries, and could not write. Some of the handwritten secretary notes were preserved, others were destroyed (see Buranov excerpt below), and some were typed with a typewriter. Buranov (in Lenin's Will, pp.40-41) writes: "At the same time Stalin began to alter Lenin's dictations. The latter is proved by the survival of Alliluyeva's original copy of Lenin's text of December 23, 1922, and by the abridging of Lenin's article on the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, published in Pravda in January 1923. Trotsky did not know about the original wordings of Lenin's texts. The evidence of Stalin's intrusion into Lenin's texts was found many years later: the original wording of the article on the "Workers' and Peasants' Inspection" was only discovered as the text of Lenin's Complete Works was being prepared for publication in 1956; but the records dated December 23, 1922, were not discovered until 1989. Since the other handwritten reports of Lenin's dictations of December 1922 were burned, it is impossible to prove whether Stalin reworded any of the other texts and documents that became known as Lenin's will. But the above-mentioned "editorial" intrusions by the General Secretary into Lenin's documents leave open the great probability of equally or more serious falsifications of everything Lenin dictated from December 1922 through early January 1923." Magneez (talk) 19:37, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Handwritten notes by the secretaries are what I meant, and what Kotkin says do not appear in the archives for the Testament. Kotkin does present that as though this is an unusual and suspicious occurrence, but it seems this source claims that there are a number of omissions from the archives. SS451 (talk) 17:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Provenance of infobox image 

message: The majority of bourgeois economists think deficits matter, the majority of 'muricans believe in Magic Sky Dude, the majority of doctors recommend Lucky Strikes, etc. ad nauseam. So? EDIT: This article cannot be taken seriously unless or until a conscienscious editor who isn't a Nazi addresses in this article the allegations of fraud wrt the "Testament" by Prof. Grover Furr, or for that matter his meticulous dissection of Kotkin's "sources" in his book Stalin: Waiting...For The Truth! (a play on Kotkin's Stalin: Waiting for Hitler). Veracity matters...so does mendacity.
142.126.146.27 (talk) 15:31, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is fairly good in this regard. The idea is that on Wikipedia we are meant to be compiling an encyclopedia in which sources receive attention in proportion to their WP:DUE weight, not forming our own judgments of what competing historical explanations are more persuasive. Instead of waiting for someone else to bring forward the perspective you believe has not been accorded sufficient weight, please bring them forward specifically -- i.e. the specific proposition you think is missing, the work cited, and page number. JArthur1984 (talk) 15:50, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Majority view" (POV tag)