The Stacks project

Proof. Choose a surjection $R^{\oplus n - 1} \to M$. We may lift the map $f$ to a map $f' : R^{\oplus n} \to R^{\oplus n - 1}$ (Lemma 10.5.2). It suffices to prove $f'$ has a nonzero kernel. The map $f' : R^{\oplus n} \to R^{\oplus n - 1}$ is given by a matrix $A = (a_{ij})$. If one of the $a_{ij}$ is not nilpotent, say $a = a_{ij}$ is not, then we can replace $R$ by the localization $R_ a$ and we may assume $a_{ij}$ is a unit. Since if we find a nonzero kernel after localization then there was a nonzero kernel to start with as localization is exact, see Proposition 10.9.12. In this case we can do a base change on both $R^{\oplus n}$ and $R^{\oplus n - 1}$ and reduce to the case where

Hence in this case we win by induction on $n$. If not then each $a_{ij}$ is nilpotent. Set $I = (a_{ij}) \subset R$. Note that $I^{m + 1} = 0$ for some $m \geq 0$. Let $m$ be the largest integer such that $I^ m \not= 0$. Then we see that $(I^ m)^{\oplus n}$ is contained in the kernel of the map and we win. $\square$