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On the activities of Lenin in 1917-1922DIGEST OF ARTICLES, MOSCOW 1958
S. S. Gililov
DEVELOPMENT BY V. I. LENIN OF THE PRINCIPLES OF BUILDING A MULTINATIONAL SOVIET STATE
The overthrow of the rule of the exploiting classes as a result of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat was the decisive condition for the elimination of national oppression and national enmity, for the realization of equality and cooperation of all nations, and also for the Russian proletariat to win the confidence of its brothers of other nationalities. The task of the working class, which had come to power, was to ensure the unification of the peoples of Russia on the basis of real equality. Even before the October Revolution, Lenin wrote that the working class in the socialist revolution would unite the peoples “not by force, not by force, but by voluntary consent, by the solidarity of the working people against the exploiters. The proclamation of the equal rights of all nations has become a deceit for the bourgeoisie, for us it will be truth, which will facilitate and hasten the enlistment of all nations to our side .
With all its domestic and foreign policy, the Soviet state promoted the voluntary unification and fraternal cooperation of the peoples liberated from national oppression within the framework of a single multinational socialist state.
From the first day of the establishment of Soviet power, in the conditions of a fierce struggle against the overthrown classes, the Bolshevik Party began to implement the main demand of its program on the national question, giving all peoples the right to self-determination, ensuring political equality for all nations.
Already the Second Congress of Soviets, which announced the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the transfer of power to the soviets, proclaimed the right of every nation freely, without the slightest coercion, to decide on the form of its statehood.
The decrees on peace and land adopted by the congress reflected the principles of the national policy of the new government, which corresponded to the most vital interests of all the peoples of Russia.
The documents of a constitutional nature, reflecting the main provisions of the Leninist program of the party on the national question, were the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia", as well as the appeal of the Council of People's Commissars "To all working Muslims of Russia and the East", which were of great importance for winning tens of millions of the most backward in the Soviet Union to the side of Soviet power. conditions of tsarist Russian peoples.
The policy of internationalism pursued by the Communist Party, the provision of the opportunity for each nation to build a life of its own accord, the assistance of the Russian working class to the working people of all nations in their struggle against the counter-revolutionary national bourgeoisie for genuine independence, already in the first months of Soviet power ensured the recognition of Soviet power by all the peoples of the former Russian Empire. .
The increased desire of the working people of all nationalities to unite with the Russian people as a result of the correct policy of the Party raised the question of the state form of the unification of nations. For the first time, the Party faced the urgent practical task of determining and ensuring the necessary form of correct relations between numerous nations, the concrete form of their state structure, without which it was impossible to strengthen the world's first proletarian state and ensure its development along the path of socialism. This task was solved by the Communist Party under the leadership of V. I. Lenin.
The Bolshevik Party proceeded from the premise that the decisive force determining the reorganization of society on a socialist footing was the alliance of the working class and the working peasantry, with the proletariat and its party playing the leading role. In Russia, it was impossible to ensure and strengthen this union without taking into account the fact that the country was inhabited by many dozens of peoples who were at various stages of economic and social development - from the presence of remnants of the primitive communal system to the highest level of developed capitalism. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of the oppressed nations were the peasant masses, and the Russian proletariat that had risen to the revolution was part of the former oppressor nation. Therefore, the alliance between the working class and the peasantry could not be ensured without overcoming the certain distrust of the working people of various nations in the Russians inherited from tsarism.
It was precisely in determining the correct relationship between the proletariat of the former sovereign nation and the peasantry of the former oppressed nationalities that the class essence of the national question in our country consisted.
The Bolshevik Party, its leader V. I. Lenin, long before the revolution, fighting for the right of nations to self-determination, emphasized that the goal of the working people was not at all the separation of nations and the formation of small national states. On the contrary, the Bolsheviks were well aware that the working class was interested in the preservation and formation of large states.
However, the creation of a large socialist multinational state could only be the result of a voluntary, fraternal union of the working people of all nations. Lenin considered the principle of the absolutely voluntary union of nations as the basis of the entire policy of the party on the national question under the dictatorship of the proletariat. In fraternal assistance to backward peoples, in treating them on an equal footing, in taking into account the national characteristics of each people, Lenin saw the force that, on the day after the liquidation of bourgeois-landowner oppression, should lead the working masses of all nations to their mutual close alliance. He wrote that “the freer Russia is, the more resolutely our republic recognizes the freedom of secession of the non-Great Russian nations, the more other nations will be attracted to an alliance with us, the less friction there will be, the fewer cases of real secession will be, the shorter the time for which some secede from nations, the closer and stronger - in the final analysis - is the fraternal union of the Russian proletarian-peasant republic with the republics of any other nation.
The party was faced with the task of working out a new plan, unprecedented in history, for the state structure of nations under the dictatorship of the proletariat, based on the principles of proletarian internationalism. It fell to the lot of V. I. Lenin and his comrades-in-arms to further develop Marxism in this matter, taking into account the initial practical experience of the Soviet state.
The great historical merit of Lenin was that he gave the most important provisions on national autonomy, saw in the Soviet federation the necessary form of voluntary association of nations that met the requirements of the transition period from capitalism to socialism, determined the nature of the relationship between sovereign republics within the framework of a single union state. Thus, Lenin developed the principles of relations between nations, the ways and methods of solving the national question under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In developing the principles of the state structure of the peoples of the USSR, V. I. Lenin relied on the most important indications of the founders of Marxism on this issue, on the historical experience of the international labor movement and the practice of the Bolshevik Party.
The program demands of the Marxist Party on the national question have always been associated with the tasks of democratizing social relations, the solution of the class tasks of the proletariat, and the implementation of the principles of internationalism in the organization and education of the working masses. Therefore, the content of the main program requirement on the national question was determined depending on concrete historical conditions.
In the pre-October period, the party proceeded from the fact that the solution of the national question was a demand of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and therefore the slogan of the right of nations to self-determination was put forward by the Bolsheviks as an integral part of the general democratic program in the bourgeois-democratic revolution.
Under the conditions of the victorious socialist revolution, this demand was associated with the tasks of socialist construction and had to be implemented in concrete forms of the state structure of nations.
Life has shown that as a result of the February bourgeois-democratic revolution the national question was not resolved. The provisional bourgeois government, in words, recognized the right of self-determination of nations, but in reality ignored the demands of even the bourgeoisie of the national outskirts, while maintaining full national oppression.
Therefore, after the October Revolution, our party was faced with the task of implementing the program demand of the Bolsheviks on the national question and further developing the national policy of the party under the dictatorship of the proletariat, in particular, determining the principles for building a Soviet multinational state in a new historical situation.
In order to elucidate questions connected with the development of the principles of state construction under the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is necessary to keep in mind certain propositions developed by Lenin even before the October Revolution.
In connection with the discussion and refinement of the national program of the party, Lenin paid much attention to the question of the administrative division of the multinational state. In the article “Results of the Discussion on Self-Determination,” he criticized the national nihilism of the Polish Social Democrats, who assigned nations in a socialist society the role of only a cultural and linguistic unit, and showed what fundamental provisions should be taken into account in state national construction.
In matters of administrative division, it is necessary to proceed from the national composition of the population.
Engels, in his Po and the Rhine, wrote that the boundaries of large and viable European nations in the course of historical development, which absorbed a number of small and unviable nations, were determined more and more by the "language and sympathies" of the population, and he calls these boundaries " natural." Lenin, analyzing this proposition of Engels, showed that it applies only to the era of progressive capitalism, that imperialist capitalism has broken down democratically defined boundaries, leaving as a legacy, socialism that will replace it, already other boundaries. In turn, victorious socialism does not renounce the democratic definition of borders and does not ignore the "sympathies" of the population. On the contrary, under socialism these boundaries are determined according to the will and "sympathies" of the population. “Socialism, organizing production without class oppression,3 .
In Critical Notes on the National Question, Lenin emphasizes that “the national composition of the population is one of the most important economic factors, but not the only one and not the most important among others. Cities, for example, play the most important economic role under capitalism, and cities everywhere—in Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, Great Russia, etc.—are distinguished by the most varied national composition of the population. It is absurd and impossible to separate cities from economically gravitating towards them villages and districts because of the "national" moment. Therefore, Marxists must not stand entirely and exclusively on the basis of the "national-territorialist" principle .
The Bolshevik Party demanded the replacement of the old administrative divisions of Russia, established by the feudal landlords and officials of the autocratic serf state, with new divisions that would be based on the requirements of modern economic life and take into account, as far as possible, the national composition of the population. The resolution of the "summer" 1913 meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP with party workers demanded that the boundaries of self-governing and autonomous regions be determined on the basis of the consideration by the local population of economic and living conditions, the national composition of the population, etc.
Lenin emphasized that the creation of autonomous units with an integral, unified national composition is extremely important for the elimination of all national oppression and for uniting around these units people of a given nationality scattered across different parts of the country or even the globe.
However, taking into account the national composition of the population is still insufficient in establishing a democratic administrative division.
Having embarked on state building after the victory of the socialist revolution, the Bolshevik Party, when establishing a new administrative division, took into account both points: both economic conditions and the national composition of the population. Thus, in the draft resolution of the Council of People's Commissars on the creation of autonomous regions of the Kalmyk, Mari and Votyak peoples, Lenin crossed out in the phrase "autonomous regions of the working peoples - Kalmyk, Mari and Votyak in the territories of their national predominance" the words "in the territories of their national predominance", and in paragraph 2 th project, where it was written "final establishment of boundaries", the word "final" 5 .
With this amendment, Lenin showed that it was impossible to proceed only from the predominance of the population of one nationality, it was necessary to take into account all the factors in the aggregate. However, depending on the specific conditions that have developed, one of these points can be put forward in the first place. In some cases, when determining administrative boundaries, it is necessary, first of all, to take into account economic ties.
An example is the formation of the South Ossetian autonomy separately from the North Ossetian, taking into account their isolation from each other and the close economic ties of South Ossetia with Georgia. At the same time, the speech of the Georgian Mensheviks against the transfer of the city of Tskhinvali (now Staliniri, the capital of the republic) to South Ossetia on the grounds that the Ossetian population was not predominant there was absolutely absurd. It was necessary to reckon with the economic ties of this city with the surrounding population.
In other cases, circumstances arose when the national moment came to the fore, the correct resolution of which also contributed to the development of economic ties. So, for example, when the issue of granting autonomy to the Bashkir and Tatar peoples was being decided, the Ural Regional Executive Committee opposed this, arguing that the administrative division according to the national principle brings with it the “disorder”, the “death” of the entire national economy, and at the same time the proletariat . There is no doubt that this position reflected great power tendencies. After a meeting on the question of convening the Constituent Congress of the Tatar-Bashkir Soviets in May 1918, three Urals achieved a meeting with Lenin through Ya. M. Sverdlov. The representative of the Ural Regional Executive Committee, Tuntul, presented the opinion of the Regional Executive Committee to Lenin. To all Tuntul's arguments about that the allocation of autonomies would destroy the production basis of the industry of the Urals, Lenin, according to the memoirs of one of the participants in this conversation, replied: “We need to think hard, comrade Tuntul. Think. Of course, it is important that the ties with industry are not severed, but will not this tie be stronger when we act on the national question as our program, the program of our Party, says?...”6 .
This fact is another evidence that Lenin approached the solution of each issue not mechanically, applying the well-known formulas of Marxism, but creatively, proceeding from the specific conditions that had developed.
Thus, starting after the victory of the socialist revolution, to create a new administrative-territorial division, the party was guided by the principles of regionalization scientifically developed by Lenin. These foundations consisted in the need to take into account, firstly, economic conditions and, secondly, the national composition of the population.
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Of great importance for the construction of the Soviet multinational state were the provisions developed by Lenin on questions of autonomy.
Long before the October Revolution, Lenin put forward the demand for national-territorial autonomy, as in keeping with the slogan of the party program of the right of nations to self-determination and in opposition to the absolutely unacceptable revisionist program of cultural-national autonomy. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the demand for national-territorial autonomy was included by Lenin in the resolution of the "summer" 1913 (Poronin) conference on questions of national policy. The resolution of the Poronin Conference, as new in comparison with the previous presentation of the question, pointed out the need to grant the nationalities of Russia regional autonomy, instead of regional self-government, which had previously been recommended by the program of our party. The demands of the Poronin resolution on questions of autonomy were repeated in the resolution of the April Conference of 1917.
Lenin considered autonomy as a plan for the organization of a democratic state, "as a general, universal principle of a democratic state with a motley national composition, with a sharp difference in geographical and other conditions" 7 .
Putting forward the demand for national-territorial autonomy, Lenin defined its content and tasks. Autonomy should ensure the widest self-government of territories that are distinguished by a special way of life and the national composition of the population, the conduct of public affairs and the organization of local schools, courts, administration in the native language, that is, the right to use the native language in all spheres of socio-political life, and thus the introduction of the indigenous (formerly backward) population to state, economic, cultural and educational activities, which leads to the comprehensive development of the nation, nationality.
The demand for autonomy was related to the conditions of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and was put forward as part of the general democratic program developed by the Bolshevik Party. However, only the socialist revolution opened the possibility for its implementation.
At the same time, the victory of the socialist revolution put forward new demands for autonomy. The main one was the need to create autonomy on the basis of the Soviets as organs of power of the working class and the working peasantry. Only Soviet autonomy could resolve the national question, ensure genuine freedom and equality of peoples, strengthen their friendship, and involve the oppressed and backward nations in socialist construction.
Therefore, from the first day of the formation of the Soviet government, Lenin constantly emphasized the demand for the creation of autonomies on the basis of the Soviets and mercilessly exposed all attempts by the enemies of the working class to seize on autonomy as a form by which the power of the national bourgeoisie could be preserved.
It is known that after the October Revolution the national bourgeoisie of the border regions launched a struggle against Soviet power, using the demand for self-determination of nations and autonomy and interpreting them as the right to create an "independent" bourgeois state.
International imperialism supported such national bourgeois governments in order to establish its dominance in the national borderlands. “... The independence of Georgia,” Lenin noted in July 1918, “has turned into the purest deceit, “in fact, it is the occupation and complete seizure of Georgia by the German imperialists, an alliance of German bayonets with the Menshevik government” 8 .
No less striking example was the Kokand autonomy, formed by the nationalist bourgeoisie, which advocated the preservation of private ownership of land and means of production. This bourgeois autonomy was also closely connected with foreign imperialism.
Under such conditions, Soviet autonomy was the most important means of fighting to isolate the counter-revolutionary national bourgeoisie from the broad masses of the people and a means of extending Soviet power to the outskirts of Russia.
Of great importance for the struggle against the counter-revolutionary national bourgeoisie and the development of autonomy precisely on a Soviet basis was the fact that the Party raised the question of the right of nations to self-determination in a new way. Under the conditions of a socialist revolution, in contrast to a bourgeois-democratic revolution, the demand for the self-determination of nations takes on a new content. The self-determination of nations under these conditions was organically connected with the development of socialist democracy. The Third Congress of Soviets clearly formulated this idea in the resolution "On the Policy of the Council of People's Commissars on the National Question."
It is known that according to the program demand of the party and the first decrees of the Soviet power, each nation received the right to self-determination. But who is the spokesman for the will of nations?
V. I. Lenin classically formulated the answer to this question:
“In the question of who is the bearer of the will of the nation to secede, the RCP stands on the historical-class point of view, taking into account what stage of its historical development the given nation stands on: on the path from the Middle Ages to bourgeois democracy or from bourgeois democracy to Soviet democracy. or proletarian democracy, etc.” 9 . This formulation was defended by Lenin in the struggle against the opportunists, and it became wholly part of the program of our party adopted by the Eighth Congress of the RCP(b).
If, before the socialist revolution, the working people of the oppressed nations could support their national bourgeoisie in its demands for autonomy and independence, because this would be a movement forward from the Middle Ages to bourgeois democracy, then after the victory of the socialist revolution, the bourgeoisie only covered itself with the slogan of independence and autonomy, trying to strangle the revolutionary movement of the working people. masses of their nationality and fighting against the Soviet power, which initially won in the central part of Russia.
Under the conditions of the victorious socialist revolution, all nations (regardless of backwardness and survivals of the Middle Ages) were moving towards Soviet democracy, and in this case only the working masses, led by the proletariat, could be the spokesmen for the will of the nations. Such a formulation of the question facilitated the party's struggle for the formation of Soviet autonomy. In the situation that developed at that time, the only way to create Soviet autonomy, in which the working people could become masters of their political, economic, cultural and national life, was the complete removal of the privileged and exploiting classes from power.
Therefore, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, the Soviet government, Lenin closely watched to ensure that the formation of national autonomies took place only on the basis of Soviets.
This principle has been consistently put into practice throughout the entire national construction of our country. In a telegram to the Tashkent Congress of Soviets of the Turkestan Territory in April 1918, signed by Lenin and Stalin, it was stated that "The Council of People's Commissars will support the autonomy of your region on a Soviet basis."
The Avai magazine of March 20, 1918 reported that Lenin and Stalin, in a conversation with a delegation on issues of Kyrgyz (Kazakh) autonomy, emphasized the need to create it only on the basis of the Soviets.
The Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for Turkestan Affairs noted in a special decision that “bourgeois-nationalist elements will try, under the banner of asserting autonomy, to consolidate the positions of the “native bourgeoisie” 10. The Commission launched a huge amount of work to prevent such attempts.
Only on the basis of the Soviets did national autonomy ensure genuine and broad democracy for the working masses of the former oppressed nations and create full opportunities for their all-round development. As Lenin foresaw, Soviet autonomy turned out to be the best form of democracy capable of drawing the many millions of previously oppressed nations into active participation in socialist construction. Such opportunities were given to nations that before the October Revolution had not even had their own statehood in the bud.
Defining the tasks of the party in relation to assistance to non-Russian peoples, the 10th Party Congress pointed out the need to develop and strengthen Soviet statehood among these peoples in forms that correspond to their national and living conditions: courts operating in their native language, administration, authorities, including local people who know the way of life. and psychology of the local population; press, school, theater and cultural and educational institutions, as well as a wide network of courses and schools of both a general educational and vocational nature for the accelerated training of local cadres of skilled workers and Soviet Party workers.
This program of liquidating the backwardness of the emancipated peoples, of involving them in active socialist construction, could be carried out only through national autonomy. It was through Soviet autonomy that the party solved the problem of eliminating national inequality, waged a stubborn struggle against all remnants of national oppression and colonial slavery, planted industry on the outskirts, relying on cadres of indigenous nationality devoted to Soviet power.
Providing equality of rights to all nations by granting autonomy, the Soviet state thereby rallied all nationalities in a single state, organized mutual assistance and cooperation of various nations, their joint government, which favored the more successful development of the Soviet state as a whole and each nation separately.
Soviet autonomy was granted to all the nations and nationalities of Russia, distinguished by their unique way of life, culture and language, regardless of the population, size of the occupied territory and location. In this sense, all nations were equal. However, one or another form of autonomy depended on the level of socio-economic and cultural development, the presence in the past of elements of statehood, national personnel and other conditions. Autonomies were formed in the form of a national republic, region, territory, district, and sometimes even a district and a village council. At the same time, as the living conditions of the nation changed, the transformation of autonomous units was carried out, their transition from one form to another.
“Soviet autonomy,” I. V. Stalin wrote in 1920, “is not something frozen and given once and for all, it allows for the most diverse forms and degrees of its development. From a narrow, administrative autonomy (Volga Germans, Chuvashs, Karelians), it passes to a broader, political autonomy (Bashkirs, Volga Tatars, Kirghiz), from a broad, political autonomy - to its even more expanded form (Ukraine, Turkestan), finally, from the Ukrainian type of autonomy to the highest form of autonomy, to contractual relations (Azerbaijan). This elasticity of Soviet autonomy is one of its first virtues, because it (elasticity) makes it possible to embrace the entire diversity of the outskirts of Russia, standing at the most diverse stages of cultural and economic development .
The implementation of Soviet autonomy in various forms made it possible for Soviet power to penetrate into the most remote corners of the outskirts of Russia.
Through Soviet autonomy, ensuring the right of all peoples to use their native language in various spheres of socio-political life, widely attracting people of indigenous nationalities to work in government, education and the national economy, the Bolshevik Party, in a fierce struggle against manifestations of great-power chauvinism and local nationalism, solved the problem the involvement of all nations in active socialist construction.
* * *
However, the implementation of autonomy does not end with the organization of the Soviet multinational state and the establishment of equal relations between different nations. Autonomy reflects one side of this issue, namely, the form and degree of self-government of nations, their independence and sovereignty, their dependence on the central government. The other side is the question of the form and nature of the relationship between nations, between self-governing state-administrative units within a single state, the form of union relations.
As is known, this form is federative relations (allied relations). However, the party came to them from a complete denial of federation, through its permissibility as a means of resolving the national question in concrete historical conditions, to its full recognition as the most expedient form of the state structure of nations under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
For the first time, the federation was recognized by the party as acceptable as a plan for the state structure of the Soviet republics during the transitional period in January 1918 in the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People”, written by Lenin and approved by the Central Committee of the party.
On the eve and during the First World War, when the national question was very acute, V. I. Lenin repeatedly spoke out against the federation, referring to the views of Marx and Engels on this issue. He expressed this point of view especially sharply in a letter to S. Shaumyan on December 6, 1913, where he wrote: “We are against federation in principle — it weakens economic ties, it is an unsuitable type for one state” 12 .
Such a sharply negative attitude towards the federation, expressed in this letter, is explained by the fact that Lenin then considered the national program of the party in terms of a bourgeois-democratic revolution and proceeded from the fact that a federation under the conditions of a bourgeois republic cannot be a means of resolving the national question and destroying national oppression. .
However, while denying federation as a principle of the state structure of nations, Lenin at the same time emphasized that Marx and Engels in some cases, under certain conditions, considered federation as a major step forward in resolving the national question.
Lenin also allowed it for individual countries in a definite historical situation as a step forward from the forcible retention of nations in one state and towards the elimination of national oppression. As for the conditions in Russia, at that time he categorically rejected a federal structure for her.
Lenin began to talk about the admissibility of a federation under the conditions of Russia in 1917, during the period of the party's struggle for the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one. So, in a speech at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in June 1917, speaking out against the Mensheviks, who demanded in Izvestia that the pre-war situation be preserved, Lenin noted that even the peasant congress came closer to the truth, expressing with his demand for a federal republic the idea that the Russian republic does not want to oppress a single people, and does not want to live with any people on the basis of violence.
More specifically about the admissibility of the federation as a general principle in resolving the national question in a multinational state, without refusing to criticize the shortcomings of the federal republic, Lenin expresses in his work “State and Revolution”, written in August 1917.
In connection with the fundamental changes brought about by the socialist revolution, the question of federation was posed in a new way. Immediately after the October Revolution, Lenin allowed federal relations between the peoples of our country.
Already in the "Manifesto to the Ukrainian people ...", written on December 3 (16), 1917, Lenin speaks of the right of the Ukrainian Republic to completely secede from Russia or enter into an agreement with the Russian Republic on federal relations. In the draft agreement between the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionaries, on which Lenin indicated the date of its transfer—December 22, 1917—points 2 and 3 are formulated as follows: “II. The organization of the all-Russian federal government from representatives of the Soviet republics of individual regions and nationalities. III. Opening on January 5, with 400 deputies of the Constituent Assembly, which should do the following: 1) the proclamation of the federal structure of the Russian People's Republic on the basis of recognizing the power of the Soviets of Peasants', Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and establishing the general principles of the country's constitution "13 . Lenin has no objections to such formulations.
In the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of December 30, 1917 (January 12, 1918), written by Lenin, on the Rada's response to the Council of People's Commissars, it is indicated that the national "demands of Ukrainians, the independence of their people's republic, its right to demand federal relations, are recognized by the Council of People's Commissars in full and no disputes do not call." In these documents, as we see, the question of federative relations is already raised in practice.
Finally, in January 1918, in the draft “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People”, Lenin wrote, and the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets approved that “The Russian Republic was advised to be established on the basis of a free union of free nations, as a federation of Soviet national republics.” The Declaration stated that each nation is given the opportunity to decide for itself whether and on what grounds it wishes to participate in the federal government and in individual federal Soviet institutions. Thus, the voluntary nature of the unification of nations was emphasized and the conditions under which the nations would agree to enter into federal relations were not specified. In his concluding remarks before the closing of the congress, Lenin said: “In Russia, in the field of internal politics, the new state system of the socialist Soviet Republic has now been finally recognized as a federation of free republics of different nations inhabiting Russia.”14
The III All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which adopted the "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People" and a special resolution "On Federal Institutions of the Russian Republic", consolidated, in Lenin's words, the organization of the new state power created by the October Revolution. The few months that have passed since the revolution have shown that the working class rules the country, not dividing, but uniting all the peoples of Russia into one family.
Lenin showed particular concern for the strengthening and further development of the Soviet federation when drafting and adopting a new party program. In this program, the Eighth Party Congress defined the tasks for the further development of the federal republic of Soviets as the only type of state corresponding to the transitional period from capitalism to socialism in our country.
Such is the path that the Party, together with Lenin, has traveled from the rejection of the federation to its final recognition as its own plan for the state structure of the Soviet republics during the transitional period.
What allowed Lenin to draw a new conclusion about the role of the federation, to recognize it as a form of organization of the multinational Soviet state?
The fact is that by the time of the October Revolution, a number of nationalities were in fact in a state of complete isolation from each other. Centrifugal forces have developed incredibly. Under the influence of the national liberation movement in the border regions, exploited by the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations, national governments were formed. The internal counter-revolution and international imperialism supported these governments, hoping in this way to restore the capitalist order in Russia. Under these conditions, the federation turned out to be a blessing in comparison with separatist tendencies, a powerful means of uniting the working masses of disparate nations.
In a situation where relations between the center and the outlying regions were disrupted, when the latter could become the prey of international imperialism and be used to inflame inter-ethnic struggle on the territory of our country, the federation of Soviet republics was a major step forward. Its creation was facilitated by the fact that, in response to the correct and flexible national policy of the Bolshevik Party, uniting tendencies appeared from below, on the part of the working people of the former oppressed nations. The path of the unification of nations turned out to be more difficult than it seemed before the October Revolution. In a number of cases, national movements reached the point of actual secession of nations, and this showed the unacceptability of the old plan of autonomy within the framework of a unitary state, put forward in the context of relatively underdeveloped national movements.
Finally, if we proceed from the main objection to federation that took place before the October Revolution, that is, from the fear that federation would contradict the tasks of centralization, then practice has shown that the forms of federation that emerged in the course of socialist construction did not interfere with the goals of the economic rapprochement of the nationalities of Russia, did not contradict the principles of democratic centralism.
V. I. Lenin saw this in the very first weeks of the existence of Soviet power. Summarizing the experience of the first measures of Soviet power, the practice of socialist construction, and proceeding from an analysis of the concrete historical situation, Lenin abandoned the outdated and outlived conclusion about the unsuitability of the federation and replaced it with a new conclusion about the federation. Thus, Lenin discovered the necessary form of organization of the Soviet multinational state at that moment, making an important contribution to the treasury of Marxism, developing the teachings of Marx and Engels.
In his report at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), Lenin himself noted that only the practice of socialist construction, the experience of the newly formed Soviet republics, led to the conclusion about the need for a federation. He said that only when the proletarian republics appeared, and only to the extent that they arose, was the party able to write: "a federative association of states organized according to the Soviet type."
The decisions of the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) note that the federation of Soviet republics is that general form of state union that makes it possible: a) to ensure the integrity and economic development of both individual republics and the federation as a whole; b) to embrace the entire diversity of life, culture and economic conditions of various nations and nationalities at different stages of development, and in accordance with this apply one or another type of federation; c) to establish peaceful cohabitation and fraternal cooperation of nations and nationalities that have linked their fate in one way or another with the fate of the federation.
Soviet federation and autonomy were combined with the principle of democratic centralism. They made it possible to successfully link decentralization in local matters with centralization in military, political and economic matters affecting common interests.
In the first years of Soviet power, a strong central government was needed, capable of leading the country out of the economic ruin, intensified by the war, and turning it into a single military camp in the struggle against internal counter-revolution and foreign intervention. At the same time, the Soviet government was faced with the task of ensuring the all-round development of each nationality, freed from centuries of social and national oppression. The Soviet Federation, in combination with the Soviet autonomy, resolved the contradiction between the desire of each nation for free national development and the need for maximum centralization of all the country's forces in order to strengthen and develop the Soviet system, ensuring the unity of action of the working people of all nations in solving national problems and at the same time opening up the broadest possibilities for the development of local initiative and self-activity of the working people of each nation. The principle of democratic centralism strengthens the Soviet state in every possible way; on its basis, the sovereignty of each nation is ensured, the advancement of the economy and culture of all the peoples of our country.
V. I. Lenin made sure that each autonomous unit in the conditions of a federal Soviet state received everything necessary for its political and economic development, but at the same time, that in the conditions of decentralization the common interests of the centralized state were not forgotten or infringed. Therefore, when an autonomous republic was formed, its rights were determined and the interests of the entire state were stipulated. The party waged a struggle against both chauvinistic and nationalist elements who neglected the interests of the centralized state.
When, for example, during the formation of the Bashkir Republic, the competence of the organs of state administration of the republic was not stipulated, then the bourgeois nationalists in the Bashrevkom took advantage of this to interpret the autonomy of Bashkiria as its complete independence from Soviet Russia. Then a special resolution of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "On the state structure of Bashkiria" was adopted, which indicated the limits of decentralization of power. Foreign affairs and foreign trade fell entirely under the jurisdiction of the central government; military affairs were subordinated to the territorial Military Commissariat, and the commissariats for food, finance, the SNKh, post and telegraph, labor and communications - to the corresponding commissariats of the RSFSR 15 .
The decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the formation of the Turkestan Soviet Socialist Republic also stipulated what was within the competence of the federal government (foreign relations, foreign trade, military affairs); which commissariats are subordinate to the federal commissariats (it is stipulated that all decrees of the federal government concerning these commissariats mechanically apply to the Turkestan ones). A special resolution established a commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR for Turkestan affairs, which was entrusted with: a) direct management of those sectors that constitute the exclusive competence of the federal government (protection of the interests of centralism); b) the right to suspend the operation of decrees and orders of the federal government and its bodies in order to change them in accordance with local conditions (protection of the decentralist rights of autonomy). This point was included in the draft resolution by the People's Commissariat of Justice - Kursk, and Lenin fully supported it. Moreover, Kursky was entrusted with the final wording of the resolution; c) control over the implementation of the measures of the central Soviet government and the delimitation of the interests of individual national formations (the correct balance of centralism and decentralism, the deployment of local initiative in the common interest)16 .
Defending the principles of democratic centralism, Lenin, in a speech at the Congress of Chairmen of Provincial Soviets in July 1918, said: “... Only that construction can deserve the name socialist, which will be carried out according to a large general plan, striving to evenly use economic and economic values. The Soviet government has no intention of belittling the importance of local government and killing its independence and initiative. The peasantry itself came to the necessity of putting centralism into practice through experience .
Lenin simultaneously waged a merciless struggle against manifestations of great-power chauvinism on the question of the rights of national autonomies.
Under the conditions of Soviet power, federation and autonomy are distinguished by the fact that here the boundaries of increasing the rights to places can be wider, because in the absence of private ownership of the means of production, the vital interests of the working people of all republics, all nations coincide, in contrast to bourgeois countries, where the interests of capitalist groups are different.
Under Soviet power, greater independence can be ensured for the republics united in a federation, which does not contradict the tasks of centralism, for the Communist Party, being the ruling party, builds itself on the principles of democratic centralism and always has the opportunity, through party organizations, to monitor the correct balance of local and central interests. At the same time, the party is not built on a federal basis.
At a time when federative relations were taking shape between the independent Soviet republics, the 8th Congress of the RCP(b), in a resolution on the organizational issue, specifically stipulated the provision that if such republics as Ukraine, Belarus and others exist as independent, then "this does not mean at all that the RCP should, in turn, be organized on the basis of a federation of independent communist parties. The congress decided that "the existence of a single centralized Communist Party is necessary", in which the central committees of the national communist parties enjoy the rights of the regional committees of the party and are entirely subordinate to the Central Committee of the RCP (b).
By extending its right of a single center to all the republics, the Party always has the possibility of correcting any Party organization. Thus, at the 11th Party Congress, Lenin cited the example of how the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, contrary to the opinion of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), removed from work smart people who were at the head of the Central Board of the Coal Industry, located on the territory of Ukraine, only because between this organization and a conflict arose between the Ukrainian commission for the use of small mines. On this occasion, Lenin said: “Ukraine is an independent republic, this is very good, but in terms of the party it sometimes takes - how to put it more politely? — detour, and somehow we will have to get to them” 18 .
In the conditions of bourgeois society, with the existence of many parties representing antagonistic classes, the federation cannot resolve the national question and observe the principle of democratic centralism.
The voluntary nature of the Soviet federation ensures the equality of all the national republics united in the federation. Equality of rights for all peoples included in the federation is one of the main conditions for the eradication of the remnants of nationalism and the establishment of the ideology of friendship between peoples. The Soviet Federation brought the formerly backward nations into state administration and socialist construction, united all the peoples of our country in the struggle for the preservation and flourishing of the Soviet state.
Summarizing the experience of the country of the Soviets, shortly after the October Revolution, Lenin characterized the federation as a transitional form to the complete unity of the working people of different nations. In 1920, he noted that “the federation has already in practice revealed its expediency both in the relations of the RSFSR with other Soviet republics (Hungarian, Finnish, Latvian in the past, Azerbaijani, Ukrainian in the present), and within the RSFSR in relation to nationalities that did not have before there was neither state existence nor autonomy (for example, the Bashkir and Tatar Autonomous Republics in the RSFSR, created in 1919 and 1920)” 19 .
Just like autonomy, federation manifested itself in various forms and improved in its development. The peoples themselves determined the form of these relations. It is no coincidence that Lenin, in his "Letter to the Workers and Peasants of the Ukraine on the occasion of the victories over Denikin," indicates that the workers and peasants themselves will decide "what kind of federal connection to establish . "
The forms of autonomy and federation depended on the degree of economic and cultural development of the nation and were improved, refined, defined more scientifically and accurately as the Soviet state and each nation within it developed. Lenin emphasized that a nation can try various forms of federative relations until it is convinced which one suits it best. This depends on the internal processes of the development of nations, on how far the proletariat manages to overcome the vacillations of the peasant masses, how strong the nationalist tendencies are, etc. Much also depended in our country on the conditions of civil war and military intervention, which was taken into account after the liberation interventionists. “We cannot be surprised at all,” wrote Lenin, “and should not frighten us—even such a prospect,21 . Some nations experienced forms of regional autonomy, then republican within the Russian Federation, then the form of the Union Republic within the USSR (especially in Central Asia). The forms of autonomy in the North Caucasus repeatedly changed, where at first one North Caucasian republic spontaneously formed, which turned out to be unviable due to the national diversity of the population.
The Soviet government used various types of federation: a federation based on autonomy (Bashkiria, Tataria, Dagestan, etc.); on contractual relations with independent Soviet republics (Ukraine, Azerbaijan in 1920); intermediate steps between them (Turkestan, Belarus). Subsequently, the federation took the form of the Transcaucasian and Central Asian Federation and, finally, the form of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The variety of forms of federative ties reflected the variety of specific conditions for the existence of various nationalities. Life itself suggested which of the forms and when was the most expedient.
Using the example of Central Asia, one can see how, in connection with the development of the nations themselves, the forms of federative relations changed.
Specific conditions did not allow in the first years of Soviet power to carry out a national delimitation in Central Asia.
In his remarks on the draft of the Turkestan Commission on the tasks of the RCP (b) in Turkestan, Lenin wrote in 1920: “1) Instruct to draw up a map (ethnographic, etc.) of Turkestan with a subdivision into Uzbekistan, Kirghizia and Turkmenia. 2) Find out in more detail the conditions for the merging or separation of these 3 parts” 22 .
Lenin then demanded that this question be clarified in detail. And when the Turkcommission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars considered the implementation of the national delimitation at that time to be premature, the issue was postponed. At that time, all the peoples of Central Asia (except for the Kazakhs) were united as part of one Turkestan Republic, which was part of the RSFSR.
Further developments in Central Asia led to the formation of the Bukhara and Khiva republics, which at one time were not even called socialist (here the main tasks of the revolution were anti-feudal and anti-imperialist).
Therefore, at the time of the formation of the USSR, these republics were not included in it, but remained in contractual relations with the RSFSR.
Only in 1924 did the national delimitation of Turkestan take place. In October 1924, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party, Rudzutak made a report on the national delimitation of the Central Asian republics, in which he stated: “In order to eliminate national strife, so as not to consider every economic event from the point of view of a clash of national interests, the population came to the conclusion that it was necessary to delimit Turkestan and Central Asia on a national basis” 23 .
As the independent republics of Central Asia developed further, they became union republics of the USSR.
However, the form of the federation did not change its main purpose, namely, to ensure, as Lenin emphasized, "the transition to a conscious and closer unity of the working people who have learned to voluntarily rise above national strife" 24 , to strengthen the close friendship of the peoples of our country.
Acting as a means of resolving the national question, the Soviet federation (unlike the bourgeois federation) unites only national state formations, that is, areas that naturally combine the features of life, the originality of the national composition and the necessary integrity of the economic territory.
Thus, the Soviet federation turned out to be the form that ensures the voluntary cooperation of nations within the framework of a multinational state in the period of transition from capitalism to communism.
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The first federation in our country took shape in the form of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. The formation of the RSFSR was an event of world-historical significance. The Russian Federation, built on the basis of autonomy, served as a model of state structure for other Soviet republics. It embodied the Leninist principles of the state structure of nations. The decisions of the 10th Congress of the RCP(b) noted that the RSFSR was the only country in the world where the experience of peaceful coexistence and fraternal cooperation of a number of nations and nationalities was successful on the basis of mutual trust and the voluntary desire of the working people of various nations for an alliance.
Autonomy within the framework of the Russian Federation was a means of overcoming the mistrust of the previously oppressed peoples towards the Russian people and thereby created the conditions for a voluntary union of various nations within the framework of a single state.
Without the creation of the Russian Federation, where the Russian people acted as a liberator from the social and national yoke of the previously oppressed nations and their faithful assistant in raising the economy and culture, in introducing these nations to state administration, it would be impossible to destroy the former national mistrust in such a short time.
Lenin warned that distrust of the Russian people, as a representative of the former oppressor nation, could not be eliminated in a short time. Therefore, he believed that “special caution is necessary in relation to national feeling, careful implementation of equality and freedom of secession of nations in practice in order to take away the ground from this mistrust and achieve a voluntary close union of the Soviet republics of all nations” 25 .
The Bolshevik Party, long before the October Revolution, paid special attention to educating the Russian working class in the spirit of proletarian internationalism and a merciless struggle against the contemptuous attitude of the Russian bourgeoisie and the Russian petty bourgeoisie towards people of non-Russian nationality. V. I. Lenin constantly emphasized Marx's thesis that a people oppressing other peoples cannot be free.
The Russian working class, having come to power, with its truly internationalist policy paralyzed the activity of the national bourgeoisie of the border regions, which cultivated hatred for the Russian proletariat as a representative of the former oppressor nation, and thus tried to organize "their" peoples to fight against Soviet power.
Lenin, after the October Revolution, concretized the formulation of the question of the tasks of the communists of the former great-power nation in nation-building. It was not enough for the Russian proletariat to grant the formerly oppressed nations the right to secede. He had to develop a huge work to organize assistance to emancipated peoples.
The Russian working class acted as the leader and organizer of all peoples in the struggle against the enemies of Soviet power, for building a new life in the interests of the working people of all peoples without exception. He was vitally interested in the liberation of the peoples who had been oppressed in the past, and he well understood that without the liberation of all the oppressed nations there could be no lasting victory for the revolution. By its organization, enormous sacrifices in the name of victory, selfless devotion to the cause of the revolution, all-round assistance to backward and oppressed nations in the past, the Russian working class has won the respect of all peoples, carried them away with its struggle, rallied them around itself. It is no coincidence that when Bukharin, in the draft party program for the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), speaking about the international significance of the experience of the RSFSR, wrote about the unification of the national republics "on the territory of the former Russia", Lenin corrected him, inserting instead of the words "on the territory of the former Russia" the words "around Soviet Russia". This Lenin amendment once again speaks of his deep respect for the national sovereignty of peoples.
The result of the victory of the socialist revolution was the desire of the liberated peoples for an alliance with the Russian proletariat, the hallmark of which was respect for the equality and sovereignty of the former oppressed peoples. The Russian nation was the first to embark on the path of socialist development and render all possible assistance to the formerly oppressed nations in their economic and political development. That is why all the peoples of the former Russian Empire rallied around the Russian proletariat.
On December 3, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Republic proclaimed the recognition of the Ukrainian People's Republic, its right to secede from Russia and enter into negotiations with the Russian Republic on federal relations. Their desire for federal ties with the Russian people was expressed by the Ukrainian people in the decision of the Congress of Soviets of Ukraine in December 1917 and somewhat later in the Declaration of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine. The Byelorussian people also spoke out in favor of federative ties with Soviet Russia at the conference of Byelorussian communists in December 1917 and at the first congress of Soviets of Byelorussia. The peoples of the Baltic countries did the same as soon as their territories were liberated from the invaders. The government of Soviet Russia provided enormous assistance to all peoples who had begun building their statehood by providing loans,
The most important document that determined the correct construction of relations between the Russians and other peoples of our country was written by Lenin in 1919, adopted by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and approved by the VIII All-Russian Conference of the Party, “The draft resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on Soviet power in Ukraine ". The fact that such a resolution was adopted both at the plenum of the Central Committee and at the party conference testifies to the great importance the party and Lenin attached to this issue, discussing it so widely. The resolution stated that the party would strive to establish federal ties between the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR on the basis of earlier decisions of the Soviet government. It defined the tasks of the communists in removing all obstacles to the free development of the Ukrainian language and culture, emphasized the duty of party members to treat with the greatest caution the nationalist tendencies inherited by the backward part of the Ukrainian population from the past, and explain the identity of the interests of the working masses of Ukraine and Russia. The resolution stated that the members of the RCP (b) on the territory of Ukraine should in every possible way oppose attempts to push the Ukrainian language aside and should turn it into an instrument of communist enlightenment of the working masses. The resolution clearly defined the tasks in relation to the peasantry, food and land policy, taking into account the specific historical conditions that have developed in Ukraine. With such documents, Lenin armed the party with correct tactics in the national question. They specifically outlined the national policy of Soviet Russia, the fraternal attitude of the Russian people towards non-Russian nationalities. It was thanks to the existence of such a policy that the Russian working class united around itself all the peoples of our country, subsequently creating a single union state.
The Leninist principles of building the Soviet multinational state were legally formalized in the first constitution of the RSFSR, adopted in 1918. Lenin directly participated in the development of this constitution. The main daily leading work in the constitutional commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was carried out by I. V. Stalin and Ya. M. Sverdlov. They waged a struggle against the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were then part of the government, and the so-called specialists, who tried to build a constitution on the basis of bourgeois law. JV Stalin was the author of the most important documents that formed the basis of the constitution - the theses "On the type of federation of the Russian Soviet Republic" and "General provisions of the constitution of the RSFSR." In these documents, the anti-Marxist draft constitution of Professor Reisner (representative of the People's Commissariat of Justice in the constitutional Commission) was subjected to devastating criticism.
However, the work of drafting the first Soviet constitution turned out to be so complicated that it required the direct participation of V. I. Lenin. In addition to the fact that Lenin's "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People" became an integral part of the constitution, Lenin probably wrote articles on the rights and duties of citizens. At the last stage of the development of the constitution, Lenin headed the commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). While reading the draft presented by the board of the NKJ, written by Reisner and supported by People's Commissar of Justice Stuchka, Lenin made a number of remarks that showed the unacceptability of this draft.
The constitution developed with the participation of V. I. Lenin was adopted by the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Lenin described it as a document that consolidated the successes achieved by the Soviet government in building a socialist state.
On the basis of this constitution, the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government launched their activities for the further rallying and unification of all the peoples of our country.
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So, already in the first months of Soviet power, the Bolshevik Party was armed with a clear practical program for the state structure of nations, with knowledge of the specific forms of uniting various nations in a single state. The Party and the Soviet government worked out this program on the basis of a generalization of the practical experience of state building.
The unfolding civil war and foreign military intervention did not push the issues of state building into the background. During the civil war, the most important issues of the formation of national statehood were resolved, a federation of peoples gradually took shape on the basis of Soviet autonomy. This process was facilitated by the military-political alliance of the peoples of our country, formed in the struggle against internal and external counter-revolution, which ensured victory over enemies and the further strengthening of friendship between peoples.
As the territory was liberated from the interventionists and the White Guards, allied relations between the Soviet republics were restored and developed. The Communist Party, even in the conditions of the unfinished difficult civil war and intervention, carried on the work begun immediately after the October Revolution on the state structure of nations and the creation of Soviet autonomy and federation.
Lenin not only worked out theoretically the principles of the state structure of nations, but also directed the daily work of the Party in their implementation, testing and improving these principles by practice and experience in state building. During the years of the civil war, he took an active part in directing the party's measures to strengthen fraternal relations between the Soviet republics and ensure autonomy for nations liberated from the yoke of counterrevolutionary forces.
Lenin did not separate the tasks of the state organization of nations from military unity in the struggle against the interventionists and the White Guards. In February 1920, he said that along with the formation of the Bashkir Autonomous Republic, it was necessary to create the Tatar Republic and pursue the same policy in relation to all nations, while ensuring a close-knit military alliance of these peoples. At the same time, Lenin emphasized the need to take into account the characteristics of each nation, to provide assistance in their independent and free development.
Lenin pointed out that it was necessary to teach the peoples how to win independence and statehood. In his report “On the Current Situation and Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power” in July 1919, he noted that the Ukrainian peasants did not yet know how to win their independence and statehood.
Answering questions from an American journalist in July 1919, Lenin declared: "... We do our best to help the independent, free development of each nationality" 26 .
Lenin's instructions dealt not only with general issues of establishing the principles of freedom and equality of peoples, but also with the state structure of almost every nation.
Lenin took part in the formation of the Belarusian Soviet Republic, he was the author of all the main documents of the party and government on the issue of self-determination of Ukraine and the nature of its relationship with Soviet Russia. Lenin worked out in detail the tasks of the party in the conditions of Ukraine in the draft resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) "On Soviet Power in Ukraine" and in the "Letter to the workers and peasants of Ukraine regarding the victories over Denikin."
Specific tasks for the construction of the autonomies of Central Asia were defined in Lenin's letter to the communists of Turkestan and in his comments on the project of the Turkestan Commission on the tasks of the RCP (b) in Turkestan.
Lenin's letter to G.K. Ordzhonikidze dated March 2, 1921 and his telegram addressed to the Revolutionary Military Council of the XI Army about the attitude towards the sovereignty of Georgia had the same significance for the republics of Transcaucasia.
Lenin made fundamental amendments to the draft resolution of the Council of People's Commissars on the creation of autonomous regions of the Kalmyk, Mari and Votyak peoples.
How seriously and comprehensively Lenin delved into issues related to the state structure of each nation is evidenced by the history of the project for the creation of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic.
The first step in the formation of national autonomies after the October Revolution was made in relation to the Bashkir and Tatar peoples. In March 1918, the People's Commissariat for National Affairs developed a regulation on the Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Republic. But the unfolding hostilities in the Volga region did not allow the formation of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic at that time.
With the defeat of Kolchak and the liberation of part of the territory in March 1919, the Autonomous Bashkir Soviet Republic was formed within the so-called small Bashkiria. This agreement was confirmed by Lenin as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.
A struggle unfolded around the question of the formation of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic.
Nationalist Tatar circles made an attempt to maintain or even strengthen their past dominant position in relation to the Bashkirs. The Bashkirs opposed such attempts.
At a meeting chaired by Lenin, convened in October 1919, on the eve of the opening of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East, the question of the autonomy of the Tatars and Bashkirs, who remained outside the borders of Lesser Bashkiria, was discussed.
After the congress, disagreements on this issue were transferred to the Central Committee, where, under the chairmanship of Lenin, a second meeting of a group of delegates to the congress was held with the participation of members of the Central Committee. Closing the meeting, Lenin declared that the Central Committee would put these questions up for discussion and reveal its attitude towards them.
On December 13, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) held a meeting with representatives of Muslim nationalities, in which Lenin took part. At this meeting, supporters of the mixed republic, in particular Sultan-Galiev, accused the Bashrevkom of nationalism, of kulak aspirations to create only the appearance of Soviet power, etc. On the contrary, opponents of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic argued that its supporters were working for nationalists, not the workers voted for the republic, that the Bashkirs are afraid of the Tatars, etc. On the same day, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) adopted a resolution on this issue. “In view of the fact,” the resolution stated, “that a significant part of the All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East and, in particular, all representatives of the Communists of Bashkiria are against the creation of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic, not to create one and cancel the decree of the People's Commissariat of National Affairs of March 22, 1918 on the Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Republic. Propose to party members not to continue campaigning for the Tatar-Bashkir Republic"27 .
While the issue of creating an Autonomous Republic was being decided in the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the nationalists cooked up resolutions and telegrams of Bashkir rallies approving the decision of the 2nd Congress of the Communist Muslims of the East on the formation of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic. On January 21, 1920, Said-Galiev, the chairman of the Central Bank of the communist organizations of the peoples of the East, sent to Lenin a bundle of similar resolutions (here are the decisions of the peasants of the Bashkir villages, the Muslim workers of the Alafuzov factory, the gunpowder factory of Kazan, the political department of the central Muslim military collegium, cadets of infantry courses, etc.). e.) 28 .
On January 29, 1920, the Central Committee of the Party sent a letter to the Kazan, Ufa, Saratov, Samara, Simbirsk and Perm Party Committees, in which it indicated that after the decision of the Central Committee of December 13, 1919, which canceled the Regulations on the Tatar-Bashkir Republic, additional materials were received, and after a new presentation by the Central Bank of the communist organizations of the peoples of the East, the Politburo of the Central Committee on January 26 decided to accept in principle the organization of the Tatar Soviet Socialist Republic, without prejudice to the question of its territory, internal organization and relationship to the entire federal Soviet republic until familiarization with considerations on this issue put forward by interested party organizations. The Central Committee outlined its draft in a letter and asked that considerations be sent as soon as possible 29.
The struggle around this issue continued. On March 12, 1920, the Validovites filed a statement with the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, demanding that 13 prominent communist workers be immediately recalled from Bashkiria, including Artyom, authorized by the Central Committee of the RCP (b). The Validovites demanded that the Central Committee oblige all Russian communists to unquestioningly obey Validov's Bashrevkom, and announced their resignation in an ultimatum if their demands were not accepted. At the same time, the 5th Ufa Provincial Congress of Soviets passed a resolution in which it considered the creation of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic as the first steps towards the implementation of the great slogans of the constitution of the RSFSR and the slogans of self-determination of nations 30 .
But Lenin deeply and comprehensively studied this question. On March 22, he received a delegation consisting of Sultan-Galiyev, Said-Galiyev and Mansurov. Said-Galiev, describing this conversation with Lenin, reported that all three convinced him that the Bashkirs who remained outside the borders of Lesser Bashkiria should enter the Tatar Republic, that there was almost no difference between the Tatars and the Bashkirs. But Lenin smashed their arguments, showed that a stronger nation that had just liberated should not take on the role of a benefactor in relation to a less powerful nationality, much less act contrary to its desires. Lenin turned the conversation to the question of a Tatar republic without a territory with a predominantly Bashkir population.
After Lenin had thoroughly studied this question, he received his final decision. On May 27, 1920, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on the formation of an autonomous Tatar SSR was published.
The Leninist principles of the state structure of nations determined the content of the work of the People's Commissariat for Nationalities, which acted as the initiator of Soviet legislation on the national question. Narkomnats prepared the most important documents that determined the national policy of the Soviet government. He made sure that the general measures taken by the Soviet government corresponded to the national characteristics of each nationality. All the people's commissariats and departments had to coordinate with the People's Commissariat for Nationalities measures relating to the life of various nationalities. The People's Commissariat for National Affairs did a great job of preparing questions related to the new administrative division of the country in the interests of bringing the working masses of the formerly oppressed peoples closer to the proletariat of Russia. The People's Commissariat of Nationalities paid the main attention to the development of the statehood of the previously oppressed nationalities. He established close ties with party organizations of various nationalities, studied the living conditions, culture and characteristics of peoples, took an active part in the creation and organization of autonomous republics, determined the forms of autonomy in accordance with the specific conditions and needs of nationalities. The specific structure of the People's Commissariat for National Affairs, which was distinguished by the fact that this people's commissariat was not built according to the branch principle, but had national commissariats and departments, was subordinated to the tasks of the state structure of nations.
Lenin daily followed the work of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities and determined its tasks. In July 1918, on the instructions of Lenin, the People's Commissariat of Nationalities was specially engaged in the work of translating the most important state documents and other literature into national languages 30 . Lenin was the author of the draft resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of October 30, 1920, on the organization of a special commission to discuss the issue of authorized people from the People's Commissariat for National Affairs in all the outskirts of the Soviet Republic and regions, whose task was to monitor the correct implementation of the national policy 31 .
By the end of the civil war, the Party had carried out an enormous amount of work on the administrative organization of the peoples of our country. The report of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) for the period from the 9th to the 10th Party Congress indicated that Soviet Russia recognized the independence of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, Azerbaijan and Soviet Belarus. Allied treaties were concluded with these republics, which provided for mutual relations in detail, especially in the field of military and economic tasks common to all Soviet republics. Further, the report stated that in connection with the will of the peoples on the territory of the RSFSR, the Turkestan, Kirghiz (Kazakh), Bashkir, Tatar, Dagestan and Mountain Autonomous Republics were formed. In addition, national regions have been identified within the RSFSR: Volga Germans, Karelian Labor Commune, Chuvash, Kalmyk, Votskaya and Mari 32.
The formation of Soviet autonomous republics and regions, the establishment of strong federal ties between the independent republics basically ended the period of preparation for the organization of a multinational Soviet state, which coincided with the end of the civil war.
* * *
The Soviet multinational state went through several stages in its development: from the military-political union of nations during the years of the civil war, supplemented by an economic union during the years of transition to peaceful construction, to the unification of independent republics in a single state.
At each stage of state building, the leading role of V. I. Lenin manifested itself with all its might.
With the end of the civil war, the party faced the task of restoring and further developing the national economy. The economic development of the independent Soviet republics required a clearer formalization of relations between them.
By the end of the civil war, contractual relations had developed between the republics, which, however, did not provide a full opportunity for the reorganization of the Soviet multinational society on socialist principles. The transition to the New Economic Policy required a closer economic association of all independent republics. This was also required by the tasks of defense against external aggression.
Already in March 1920, in the initial outline of theses on national and colonial questions for the Second Congress of the Comintern, Lenin spoke of the need to establish a closer union of the Soviet republics in order to preserve them under conditions of encirclement by militarily more powerful imperialist powers, to restore the productive forces destroyed by imperialism and ensuring the well-being of workers. Lenin pointed out that a close union of republics corresponds to the tendency towards unity, which is objectively inherent in the socialist economy.
Lenin's arguments in favor of a closer union of the Soviet republics formed the basis of the corresponding demand in the resolution of the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b).
The decision of the congress pointed out that the common interests of the defense of the Soviet republics, on the one hand, the task of restoring the productive forces destroyed by the war, on the other hand, and the necessary food aid to the non-grain Soviet republics from the grain (this was already dictated by the famine of 1921), on the third hand, imperatively dictated the need for a state union of individual Soviet republics as the only way of salvation from imperialist bondage and national oppression. In this document, the question of the form of a closer union of the republics as their state union was already quite specifically raised.
The impetus that accelerated the preparations for the unification of the independent Soviet republics into a single state was the agreement signed on February 22, 1922 on the transfer to the RSFSR of the representation of eight independent republics at the all-European economic conference in Genoa. The first experience of joint action by all Soviet republics in the international arena frustrated the plans of the imperialists in Genoa and The Hague and opened the way to the establishment of broad economic ties with the capitalist countries. Taking into account the experience of Genoa, Lenin, dwelling on the tasks of the delegation that later went to the Lausanne Conference, said: “I am sure that our diplomats will not lose their faces there, and that the interests of all federal republics (emphasized by me. - S.G.) Together with the RSFSR, we will be able to defend there as well.”
The transition to the offensive against the capitalist elements on the rails of the New Economic Policy, the tasks of further developing the first successes in the restoration of the national economy, the transition to the implementation of the GOELRO plan by the end of 1922 raised the question of a state union of the republics in practice. Within the republics themselves, a broad movement for unification into one union state unfolded.
At the beginning of 1922, by decision of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the issue was discussed in the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on further clarifying the relationship between the two republics and the coordinated activities of some people's commissariats of both republics. However, in the course of the negotiations it became clear that the matter could not be limited to just a few people's commissariats and only relations between the two republics.
In July, the Plenum of the Zakkraykom of the RCP (b) instructed G. K. Ordzhonikidze and other comrades who were going to Moscow to raise the question of relations with the RSFSR in the Central Committee of the RCP (b). On August 11, at a meeting in the Central Committee of the RCP (b), a proposal was discussed on the transition to the practical creation of a union of republics.
V. I. Lenin played a special role in the correct solution of the question of the unification of the republics into a single state. It was he who determined how relations between the union republics in the future unified state should be built so that these relations were truly equal in rights, that is, that the basic principle of uniting nations in a single state was fully observed.
Lenin saw the prototype of the union state in the principles of the organization of the Transcaucasian Federation, the creation of which coincided with the preparatory work for the unification of all Soviet independent republics.
Lenin initiated the creation of a federation of the republics of Transcaucasia, proceeding from the fact that as a result of the management of the Mensheviks, Dashnaks and Musavatists, who utterly aggravated national relations between the three republics (up to open interethnic wars), without a federation it was impossible to restore the economy, economically closely related to each other republics of Transcaucasia, and to establish national peace among the peoples.
Already in the article "On a single economic plan", written on February 21, 1921, Lenin, speaking about the placement of regional power plants according to the GOELRO plan, emphasized that the Caucasus in this plan was taken as a whole, assuming an economic agreement between the republics. In response to Ordzhonikidze's telegram about the desperate food situation in Transcaucasia, on April 9, 1921, Lenin urgently demanded the creation of a regional economic body for the entire Transcaucasus. In a letter to the communists of the Caucasus dated April 14, Lenin expressed the hope that a close alliance between the republics of the Caucasus "will create a model of national peace, unseen under the bourgeoisie and impossible in the bourgeois system."
In this letter, Lenin spoke out against the mechanical transfer of the experience of Soviet Russia to the national outskirts. He emphasized as the most important condition for the successful development of Soviet power in the Transcaucasus an understanding of the peculiar specifics of these republics, in contrast to the RSFSR, the need to modify tactics in relation to the specific conditions of Transcaucasia.
On November 3, 1921, the Plenum of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) adopted a resolution in which it considered it urgent and necessary to conclude a federal union between the republics of Transcaucasia.
Having familiarized himself with the project for creating a federation, on November 28 Lenin gave his draft proposal on the formation of a federation of the Transcaucasian republics, which was adopted the next day by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). In this draft, Lenin proposed to recognize the federation as unconditionally subject to implementation, but he warned against haste, demanded the widest possible discussion of this issue in the party, and especially among the worker and peasant masses. Lenin foresaw the possibility of further sharp struggle around the question of federation and therefore considered it necessary to write in the decision that in the event of great opposition, the Central Committees of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan should accurately and timely report this to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b).
Stalin spoke about the role of Lenin in the creation of the Transcaucasian Federation at the XII Congress of the RCP (b). He emphasized that it was no accident that Lenin demanded that the federation be introduced there immediately, that the Central Committee of the RCP (b) three times confirmed this demand of Lenin.
The situation dictated the need for the fastest creation of this federation. The Federation of the Transcaucasian Republics produced positive results—it established a lasting peace and created a united front of the Transcaucasian republics in the struggle for the restoration of the national economy and against the capitalist encirclement.
Unlike the RSFSR, the Transcaucasian Federation was built not on the basis of autonomy, but on a union of three equal republics. Above them, with the voluntary consent of all the united republics, stood the Union Council, in which the interests of all three republics were equally represented. True, the Zakkraykom allowed excessive centralization of some sectors, which was used by the opposition, especially in Georgia, but Lenin saw the main thing in the principle of a union of equal republics and achieved its implementation during the formation of the USSR.
In September 1922, all the independent republics discussed the draft resolution drawn up by Stalin for the upcoming Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) "On the Relations of the RSFSR with the Independent Republics." In this project, it was recognized as expedient the formal entry of independent Soviet republics (except for Bukhara, Khorezm and the Far East, the question of which was left open and relations with which were still to be temporarily built on a contractual basis) into the RSFSR. The competence of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council of People's Commissars and the STO of the RSFSR extended to the corresponding central Soviet institutions of the united republics 34 .
The draft proposed the old principles of establishing federal relations based on autonomy. Hence the idea of the project was called the idea of "autonomization".
The idea of autonomization JV Stalin carried out not only in the theses. As early as August 29, he sent a telegram to Bude Mdivani through the Zakkraykom, in which he indicated that he completely agreed with Ordzhonikidze and Kirov on the need to organize in fact a single economic organism by combining external and economic bodies into one, with the extension of the competence of the Council of People's Commissars, the Defense Council, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Moscow to all Soviet republics 35 .
The theses of I. V. Stalin, sent to all the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the independent republics, were essentially not rejected.
The Presidium of the Zakkraykom and the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of Azerbaijan and Armenia approved them. The majority of the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia voted against the theses, not because they demanded a different principle of federal relations, but because this majority consisted of deviators who opposed any unification of the Soviet republics .
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, although it opposed the idea of "autonomization", recognizing the need to preserve the independence of the Ukrainian SSR, but in the same decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine of October 3, 1922, it was indicated that if the Central Committee of the RCP (b) recognizes the need for the Ukrainian SSR to become part of RSFSR, not to insist on maintaining the formal signs of political independence of the Ukrainian SSR, but to determine relations on the basis of practical expediency 38. The leadership of the Communist Party of Ukraine, fighting against the separatist tendencies that took place in Ukraine at that time, defended, first of all, unity with other republics, but could not really understand the idea of “autonomization”, which was fraught with the danger of manifestation of great-power chauvinism. D. 3. Manuilsky, being at that time the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, in his letter to I. V. Stalin dated September 4, 1922, spoke in favor of “liquidating independent republics and replacing them with broad real autonomy”, that is, for the same idea, “ autonomy". He even tried to give a "theoretical" justification for his views, arguing that education on the outskirts of independent republics corresponded to a certain stage of the revolution, the so-called "national" stage, during which the proletarian dictatorship had to unleash the national question. This, they say, there was an inevitable concession in connection with the discontent of the peasant masses. But under the conditions of the New Economic Policy, when it brings calm to the countryside, it is possible to renounce independence and move on to autonomy.39 . Manuilsky considered the national policy of the party, aimed at establishing genuine equality of nations, as a temporary phenomenon, designed for some short period.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus spoke in favor of maintaining the old contractual relations between the republics and also did not criticize the idea of "autonomization" in essence.
The commission set up by the Central Committee of the RCP(b) to consider the question of relations between the Soviet republics adopted at its meetings on September 23 and 24 a draft resolution proposed by Stalin without significant changes . (The commission, in addition to Stalin, included comrades Ordzhonikidze, Myasnikov, Kuibyshev, and others).
Thus, the discussion of the issue of relations between the independent republics in order to unite them into a single state, both by the Communist Parties of the republics and by the commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), showed that all the proposals made did not go beyond the types of federation already known from practice. It was either about a federation based on autonomy (the project of the commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Armenia and the Regional Committee), or about a federation based on contractual principles (the Central Committee of Belarus).
But life has shown that neither one nor the other type of federal relations could satisfy. A federation based on autonomy did not ensure complete equality of the independent republics and left room for the manifestation of great-power chauvinism, while treaty relations did not provide the necessary unity and nourished all sorts of separatist tendencies.
V. I. Lenin found a new form of federative relations that meets all the requirements of the independence and equality of nations and their unification to solve problems common to all.
Lenin got acquainted with the theses on "autonomization" and the resolutions of the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Soviet republics and on September 27 had a conversation with I. V. Stalin on this subject, and also sent a letter to all members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Lenin sharply criticized the idea of "autonomization" as erroneous, detracting from the rights of nationalities. Lenin called the question of the forms of federal ties paramount. He proposed a fundamentally different solution - not the subjugation of the independent republics of the RSFSR, but the voluntary unification of equal republics, along with the RSFSR, into a new union state.
Lenin demanded in the first paragraph of the draft resolution, instead of "joining" the RSFSR, to write "formal unification together with the RSFSR into a union of Soviet republics ...". At the same time, he explained the meaning of this amendment. “We recognize ourselves,” V. I. Lenin pointed out, “equal in rights with the Ukrainian SSR and others, and together and on an equal footing with them we enter a new union, a new federation.” Instead of mechanically transferring the functions of the central bodies of the RSFSR to the institutions of the republics, Lenin proposed the creation of a "all-federal All-Russian Central Executive Committee" of the union of Soviet republics.
Concerned about ensuring complete equality of all the united republics, Lenin in this letter emphasized: “It is important that we do not give food to the “independents”, do not destroy their independence, but create a new level, a federation of equal republics” 41 .
On October 6, 1922, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was held, which specifically discussed the question of the unification of the republics. On behalf of the commission of the Central Committee, a draft resolution, already revised on the basis of Lenin's instructions, was submitted for discussion by the Plenum, which was adopted as a directive of the Central Committee. The wording of the first paragraph of the resolution was imbued with concern for ensuring the voluntariness and equality of the republics united in a single state. It was recognized as necessary to conclude an agreement between the independent republics (including the RSFSR) on their unification into the Union of Soviet Republics "with the reserving of each of them the right to freely secede from the Union" 42 .
Lenin, due to illness, could not attend the Plenum, but how much concern he showed for the main principle in building a new unified union state - the equality of all the republics included in it, is evidenced by his note, written by him on the day of the Plenum meeting addressed to the members of the Politburo . In it, Lenin wrote: “I declare a life-and-death fight against Great Russian chauvinism ... We must absolutely insist that a Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, etc., take turns chairing the allied Central Executive Committee.” 43. So Lenin demanded that the equality of the union republics be reflected in the procedure for the work of the union Central Executive Committee, in the successive chairmanship of representatives of all the republics that make up the Union.
The plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) reflected in its decisions all the fundamental instructions of V. I. Lenin, crushed all attempts by the opportunists to replace the Soviet federation with a bourgeois confederation (Georgian deviators in order to isolate the republics), as well as propaganda of the expediency of liquidating the national republics (the preaching of Ukrainian deviators).
The plenum appointed a commission to prepare a bill on unification.
The decisions of the Plenum were widely discussed in all the republics and were fully approved. The congresses of the Soviets of all the republics uniting in a single state, in December 1922, decided to form the USSR. In his greeting to the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, Lenin pointed out that the question of the unification of the republics was one of the most important, and the further organization of our state apparatus, the elimination of the flagrant shortcomings found in its work depended on its correct solution.
On December 30, 1922, the First All-Union Congress of Soviets adopted the Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics prepared by the Commission of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). These documents were based on the well-known instructions of Lenin.
The great role of V. I. Lenin in the creation of a new union state was described by M. I. Kalinin, speaking at the congress on behalf of all the delegates, declaring that he sees the new Red Banner of the Union of Soviet Republics in the hands of Comrade Lenin. VI Lenin was elected chairman of the first Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
V. I. Lenin did not abandon his concern for the correct solution of the national question even after the formation of the USSR. He was primarily interested not in the form (although he understood that it was very important to define it correctly and he defined it), but mainly in the content - how the Declaration and the Treaty adopted by the First Congress of Soviets would be implemented in practice.
On the very next day after the congress, seriously ill, Lenin dictated among his last articles the letter "On the question of nationalities or "autonomization" 44 . In this most important document for the correct implementation of the party's national policy, Lenin set the task of further strengthening the union of socialist republics, which is necessary not only for us, but also for the world "proletariat to fight against the world bourgeoisie and to protect itself from its intrigues."
At the same time, Lenin warned against possible distortions of the idea of the equality of nations in the Union in the practical implementation of the decisions adopted by the Congress of Soviets. He feared that the "freedom to withdraw from the Union", which guaranteed the equality of its members and its voluntariness, would not turn out to be "an empty piece of paper." Lenin in this document demanded that the formal equality of nations be supplemented by actual equality. The idea of "autonomization", which undermines the equality of nations, he considered fundamentally wrong and untimely. In this regard, he sharply criticized the haste and administration in the conduct of national policy. “I think,” he wrote, “that the haste and administrative passion of Stalin, as well as his bitterness against the notorious “social-nationalism,” played a fatal role here. Anger generally plays the worst role in politics.
The letter refers to the tactics of the Communist Party on the national question in order to win maximum confidence from the oppressed nations in the past (and without this maximum trust, true friendship of peoples is impossible), it is indicated that the distrust, suspicion and insults that in the historical past were inflicted on "foreigners "The government of the "great-power" nation must be compensated by its new proletarian appeal, concessions in relation to these "foreigners."
Lenin warned that “the “offended” nationals are so sensitive to nothing as to the feeling of equality and to the violation of this equality, even if it’s carelessly, even in the form of a joke” and suggested that it’s better to overdo it in compliance with the national question than undersalt. He demanded a merciless struggle against the facts of great-power chauvinism, from whomever and in whatever form they manifested themselves.
Lenin's instructions in his letter armed the party in its work on the development of the first Constitution of the USSR, in the struggle to ensure lasting friendship among all the peoples of our country. The delegates of the 12th Party Congress were acquainted with this most important document. The congress discussed and adopted a special resolution on the tasks of the party's national policy, which was based on the most important guidelines of V. I. Lenin.
* * *
Thus, the principles of the state structure of nations developed by V. I. Lenin formed the basis of the created Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - the world's first socialist multinational state.
The USSR is a federation in which all union republics enjoy equal rights and equal competence. The equality of all republics is also expressed in the fact that, regardless of the size of their population, they are all represented on an equal footing in the Council of Nationalities and among the deputy chairmen of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and especially in their right to freely secede from the Union by unilateral decision.
The Soviet federation turned out to be such a form of the state structure of nations that made it possible to combine the tasks of the development of each nation with the demand for the economic and political unity of the Union of Republics as a whole. In a socialist country, the form of government, unlike in bourgeois countries, enabled the party to resolve the national question, to ensure peaceful coexistence and fraternal cooperation of all nations.
The Leninist principles of the state structure of nations were the Party's strongest weapon in the matter of educating the working masses in the spirit of proletarian internationalism.
The correctness of the Leninist principles of the state structure of nations has been confirmed by the historical development of the Soviet state, its transformation into a powerful industrial and collective farm power, into a stronghold of friendship between the peoples of our country. Deep trust and indestructible friendship among the peoples of the USSR have been strengthened on the basis of the unprecedented development of the economy and culture of all the nations and nationalities of our multinational state.
As the national economy developed, the development of natural resources, the growth of new cities and the development of the culture of peoples, the administrative-territorial division also changed, new republics and regions were formed, and the rights of autonomous units expanded.
The 20th Congress of the CPSU emphasized with particular force that equality and friendship of peoples constitute the unshakable foundation of the might and invincible strength of the Soviet state system. At the congress, individual facts of violation of certain principles of the Leninist national policy admitted in the past were noted. Guided by the decisions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, at its VI session, sharply criticized the mistakes made and adopted laws expanding the rights of the union republics.
The 20th Congress of the CPSU, restoring and developing the Leninist principles of equality and friendship of peoples, took a course towards expanding the rights of the union republics, increasing their role in state building and in managing the national economy.
One of the indicators of the state sovereignty of the Union republics is their exercise of legislative power. These rights of the republics were considerably expanded by the decisions of the VI session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The Union Republics have been granted the right to implement legislation in the field of the judiciary and legal proceedings, as well as the civil and criminal codes.
Of great political importance in expanding the rights of the union republics is the "Law on placing the resolution of issues of regional, krai administrative-territorial structure under the jurisdiction of the union republics."
A great contribution to improving national economic planning and taking into account the requests of the Union republics should be made by the Economic Commission of the Council of Nationalities, which was formed as an inter-republican, international body, designed to prepare proposals on questions of the economic and cultural development of the Union republics.
The restructuring of the management of industry and construction, carried out on the basis of the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the 7th session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, significantly increased the influence of local authorities on the further development of industry and construction.
The measures planned by the Communist Party and the government of the Soviet Union to change the system of industrial management are in full conformity with the Leninist principles of democratic centralism, they raise the creative activity of all national regions and republics and the level of nationwide planning.
The expansion of the rights of the union republics ensures a more prompt and correct solution of questions of the integrated development of the economy, the growth of personnel from among all the nationalities of the country, and the further strengthening of friendship between the peoples of the USSR.
The principles of the state structure of nations developed by Lenin are of great international significance. Lenin taught that the strengthening of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was necessary for the international proletariat to ensure its victory over the world bourgeoisie. On the basis of Leninist principles, national and state building is carried out in the countries of people's democracy. The solution of the national question in the countries of the socialist camp inspires the working masses of the whole world to a selfless struggle for complete liberation from social and national oppression.
Notes:
1 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 23, p. 15.
2 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 24, p. 304.
3 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 22, p. 310.
4 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 20, p. 33.
5 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 19, op. 2, units 396
6 See Revolution and Nationalities, No. 8, 1935, pp. 20-23.
7 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 20, p. 411.
8 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 28, p. 6.
9 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 29, p. 108.
10 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 122, on. 1, unit ridge 20, l. eleven.
11 I. V. Stalin. Works, vol. 4, p. 355.
12 V. I. Lenin. Soch., vol. 19, p. 453.
13 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f, 2, on. I, unit ridge 5037.
14 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 26, p. 434.
15 Collected Laws No. 45, May 27, 1920, p. 203.
16 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 19, op. 2, units ridge 374. l. 58; units ridge 385, l. 7.
17 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 28, p. 19
18 V. I. Lenin, Op. v. 33, p. 267.
19 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 31, pp. 124.
20 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 30, p. 268
21 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 30, p. 247.
22 Lenin's collection XXXIV, p. 326
23 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 122, op. b/n, unit ridge 6687, l. 33.
24 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 27, p. 130.
25 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 29, p. 90.
26 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 29, p. 477.
27 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. main, unit ridge 44464, d. 1, 3; f. 17, op. 4, units ridge 24, l. 143. It should be borne in mind that this decree played an important role and was adopted with the consent of Lenin in opposition to the aspirations of the bourgeois nationalists to create their own republic.
28 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. main, unit ridge 32298, ll. 2, 7, 9, 10, 11
29 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 2, on. 1, unit ridge 12727, l. 7.
30 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, op. 7. units xp 4, l. sixteen.
31 TsGAOR USSR, f. 1318, unit ridge 77, l. 25
32 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 2, on. 1, unit xp 15987.
33 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 2, app. 1, unit hr 17514, l. four.
34 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 3, on. 1, unit ridge 2479, l. 137.
35 Archive of the Institute of Party History of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, f. 13, on. 1, unit ridge 191, page 18.
36 Therefore, one cannot agree that in the article by S. Yakubovskaya (“Kommunist” No. 10, 1956, p. 36) the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia is given without any comments, giving the impression that the position of those who voted against the theses was correct.
37 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, on. 1, unit ridge 525, l. 50
38 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, op. 1, unit ridge
525, l. 50.
39 Archive of the Institute of Party History of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, f. 13, on. 1. unit ridge 79, l. 1.
40 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 3, ol. 1, unit ridge 2479, ll. 131-134, 136, 142.
41 Pravda, July 11, 1956.
42 Ibid.
43 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 33, p. 335.
44 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 36, pp. 553-559.