 As he neared death after suffering strokes, Lenin's Testament (December 1922) named Trotsky and Stalin as the most able men in the Central Committee, but he harshly criticised them.Lenin said that Stalin should be removed from being the General Secretary of the party and that he be replaced with "some other person who is superior to Stalin only in one respect, namely, in being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite, and more attentive to comrades".Upon his death (21 January 1924), Lenin's political testament was read aloud to the Central Committee, who choose to ignore Lenin's ordered removal of Stalin as General Secretary because enough members believed Stalin had been politically rehabilitated in 1923.