A people's tragedy

fn5 The contents of the Testament were made known to the delegates of the Thirteenth Party Congress in 1924. Stalin offered to resign but his offer was rejected on the suggestion of Zinoviev to ‘let bygones be bygones’. The conflict with Lenin was put down to a personal clash, with the implication that Lenin had been sick and not altogether sound in mind. None of these last writings was fully published in Russia during Stalin’s lifetime, although fragments appeared in the party press during the 1920s. Trotsky and his followers made their contents well known in the West, however (Volkogonov, Stalin, ch. 11).