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December 30th, 1922:

A day which, in conjunction with the October 4 years prior, would define the rest of the 20th Century. The Declaration on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, were on this day ratified.

The purpose of these documents was clear: The unification of what was up until then, separate republics, founded in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and ensuing Russian Civil War, that saw the exhausted Entente powers send waves of troops to rescue the White Army from the rebellion, all in vain.

Another purpose was the adoption of the idea of the "Permanent Revolution", and that the acts of the Bolsheviks could not and would not be confined to the USSR alone--- an idea that would just a few years later, be erased from the country by the illegitimate tyrant Stalin.

It also included the clause of this union being voluntary, with the Socialist Republics maintaining the right to secede at their own will, a clause whose interpretation would ultimately be the union's demise nearly 7 decades later.

Lenin was still in control of the USSR in 1922, but his health was rapidly deteriorating. He had already suffered a stroke earlier in the year and believed he would be unable to attend the 12th Congress of the Communist Party, coming up in 1923. He therefore began drafting up the last writing of his life, which would become known as Lenin's Testament.

In these writings and letters, he rejected the bureaucracy that he was already well aware Stalin was in the process of forming...

Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.

 ...whilst praising Trotsky for his leadership and defense of the Revolution:

Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. (Central Committee of the Soviet Union) on the question of the People's Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.

Lenin was deeply concerned with the growing rift in the party between Stalin and Trotsky, as well as the fear of the "Great-Russian" ethnical dominance present under the Tsar, which would harm minorities in the union such as Ukrainians and Georgians, leading to the clause of right to secession for their protection.

In particular, he became increasingly blunt and harsher with his comments against Stalin, who had begun acting abusive against the representatives of Georgian ethnicity (rather ironic to his origins): 

“...the Great-Russian chauvinist, in substance a rascal and a tyrant, such as the typical Russian bureaucrat is.”

...

“I think that Stalin’s haste and his infatuation with pure administration, together with his spite against the notorious ‘nationalist-socialism’, played a fatal role here. In politics spite generally plays the basest of roles.”

It continues, leading to Lenin openly advising others of the Central Committee to consider Stalin's removal before he got too much power:

Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail.

But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky, it is not a [minor] detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.

In time, of course, the last acknowledgement proved it could not be more accurate. Following this writing, Lenin began to turn to Trotsky for help against Stalin, writing in this letter to his 2nd in command: 

Top secret
Personal

Dear Comrade Trotsky: It is my earnest request that you should undertake the defence of the Georgian case in the Party C.C. This case is now under ‘persecution’ by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, and I cannot rely on their impartiality. Quite to the contrary.

I would feel at ease if you agreed to undertake its defence. If you should refuse to do so for any reason, return the whole case to me. I shall consider it a sign that you do not accept.

Stalin would also receive a letter from Lenin, with no remorse in his tone:

You have been so rude as to summon my wife to the telephone and use bad language. Although she had told you that she was prepared to forget this, the fact nevertheless became known through her to Zinoviev and Kamenev.

I have no intention of forgetting so easily what has been done against me, and it goes without saying that what has been done against my wife I consider having been done against me as well.

I ask you, therefore, to think it over whether you are prepared to withdraw what you have said and to make your apologies, or whether you prefer that relations between us should be broken off.

Lenin would suffer another stroke 4 days after writing the letter, March 9th, 1923, ending his active political career. He would die less than a year later, on January 21st, 1924.

With the symbol of the Revolution out of the way, Stalin acted without hesitation, banning Lenin's Testament from the Thriteenth Congress, then the USSR all together. It would not be revealed to the Soviet people until 1964, 11 years after Stalin's death.

At the time, people did not understand the scope of what the division in the Communist Party would mean for the country, though it would become evident soon enough: 

On Stalin's side, total control of the USSR would be his for 24 years, during which he would oversee the persecution of ethnic minorities, the most famous event of which being the Holodomor famine against the Ukrainian people, and cement his contemporary image in the victory against Germany in The Great Patriotic War. His legacy was so corrupted that even the bureaucrats that followed him had to take measures to erase his image from the Soviet legacy, though the damage was already done, and would lead to the collapse of the country in December 1991, just days shy of the country's 70th birthday.

On Trotsky, the Left Opposition would be formed in October 1923, and would fight against Stalin's growing power until its purging and explement from the country. Trotsky would continue his fight in exile, founding the Fourth International, and not resting in carrying on Lenin's final political struggle until he reached his death bed following the fatal act of a Stalinist Assassin.

What is the meaning of this in modern context? A lot of things: The danger of war, political organizations with no solution to the issues of the day, but rather plenty of options to make it worse, the growing danger of fascism across the world (Germany I'm talking to you), it goes on.

I will never know if you will ever take these words seriously over "reliable news sources", but spare at least the time to take what these other sources are saying, and not take them at their word, even after basic comparison: add extra thought. Analyze what these events mean, using historical context. I might just sound like some daft Language Arts teacher here, but it is only in these actions that we can really piece together the meaning of these happenings, and what could be done to mend the wounds of them. And, if you peer hard enough, perhaps you will see for what it is worth: 

The goals of the Bolshevik Revolution, for what they were meant to be.