Addendum to the Report of the Commission on the National Question

Addendum to the Report of the Commission on the National Question
at the XII Congress of the RCP (b)
April 25, 1923

A source: Stalin I.V. Works. - T. 5. - M.: OGIZ; State Publishing House of Political Literature, 1947, pp. 279–280.

Comrades, in reporting to you on the work of the section on the national question, I forgot to mention two more small additions, which cannot be ignored. To paragraph 10 in paragraph "b", which says that a special body should be established to represent all, without exception, national republics and national regions on the basis of equality, it must be added: "with possible consideration of all nationalities that make up these republics", in view of the fact that that in some of the republics to be represented in the second chamber there are several nationalities. For example, Turkestan. There, in addition to the Uzbeks, there are Turkmens, Kirghiz and other nationalities, and it is necessary to make a representation in such a way that each of these nationalities is represented.

2nd addition to the 2nd section at the very end. It says:

“In view of the enormous importance of the activities of responsible workers in the autonomous and independent republics and in the border areas in general (the establishment of links between the working people of a given republic and [c.279] the working people of the rest of the Union), the congress instructs the Central Committee to take care of especially careful selection of these workers, so that their composition fully ensures the actual implementation of the decisions of the party on the national question.

Then two words about a remark made by Radek in his speech. Comrades Armenians ask me about this. This remark, in my opinion, is not true. Radek said here that the Armenians oppress or can oppress the Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan and, conversely, the Azerbaijanis can oppress the Armenians in Armenia. I must declare that in general such phenomena do not occur in nature. The opposite happens, that in Azerbaijan the Azerbaijanis, like the majority, oppress the Armenians and slaughter them, as was the case in Nakhichevan, where almost all Armenians were slaughtered, and the Armenians in Armenia slaughter almost all the Tatars. It was in Zangezur. But for a minority in a foreign state to oppress the people of the majority, such unnatural things never happened.

Twelfth Congress of the Russian communist party

(Bolsheviks). Shorthand

report. M., 1923.