"Dead men don't cause problems."
Or, in regard to official Soviet history: "Paper will take anything written on it"
He put the above dictum into practice quite brilliantly, as is illustrated in the following passage from Krushchev's 1956 secret speech to the 20th Party Congress:
"...One of the most characteristic examples of Stalin's self-glorification and of his lack of even elementary modesty is the edition of his 'Short Biography,' which was published in 1948.
......
"Here are some examples characterizing Stalin's activity, added in Stalin's own hand:
'In his fight against the sceptics and capitulators, the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites and Kamenevites, there was definitely welded together after Lenin's death, that leading core of the party... that upheld the great banner of Lenin, rallied the party behind Lenin's behests, and brought the Soviet people into the broad road of industrializing the country and collectivizing the rural economy. The leader of this core and the guiding force of the party and the state was Comrade Stalin.'
"Thus writes Stalin himself! Then he adds: 'Although he performed his task as a leader of the party and the people with consummate skill and enjoyed the ureserved support of the entire Soviet people, Stalin never allowed his work to be marred by the slightest hint of vanity, conceit or self-adulation.' " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20041120/8cda3979/attachment.htm>