At one of the Soviet party congresses, so the story goes, Stalin held up a telegram which he said he had just received from the disgraced Trotsky. ‘This is what he now confesses!’ said the dictator triumphantly, and read: I WAS WRONG—STOP—YOU WERE RIGHT—STOP—YOU SHOULD BE LEADER—STOP. This was greeted with three minutes of thunderous applause. But as Stalin was about to sit down, a hand went up in the middle of the hall and a little old man stood up. ‘Pardon me, comrade Stalin,’