Thirteenth Congress
THE TWELFTH Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to which Trotsky refers in one of the articles published here, took place in April
1923. The national question was discussed at this congress, particularly in order to counter the dangerous tendencies which had appeared at the time of the Georgian affair. The congress took a firm position against all expressions reactionary" the attitude of all the central and local organizers by whom
"the Union of republics is not considered as a union of equal states with the mandate of guaranteeing the free development of national republics, but as a siep towards the liquidation of the republics, as the beginning of a so-called ver, that the solution of the national question should mean increased powers
For example, the Georgian Mdivani said among other things:
The national question is not limited, as so many comrades who occupy important posts unfortunately think, to questions of language or national and culural autonomy. The econom-
Ic factor must not in any cirucmstance be excluded from the national question. On the contrary, this factor should be the content of the national question... We can discuss the maximum or minimum level of economic activity which will be entrusted to different nationalities but we must above all affirm here that the economic factor is the starting point for the
CHRISTIAN RAKOVSKY
Speech to the of "the chauvinism of a great power"
"single and indivisible' republic"
for the republics in the economic field.
It condemned as " anti-proletarian and
. A number of speakers explained, moreo-
58 International Marxist Review solution to the national question. One of the main speeches was that made by Christian Rakovsky who was at the time president of the Council of People's Commissars in the Ukrainian Republic and who in 1922 had already had lively polemics with Stalin and Ordjonikidzé on the national question. We are reproducing a major part of this speech which was published in Christian Rakovsky Selected Writings on the Opposition in the USSR 1923-30, Allison and Busby, New York-London 1980. I must say frankly that when I see the calmness with which especially the Russian section of our party reacts to arguments which unfortunately have taken on too much of a local colour, I fear for the future of our party. In fact, comrades, this is one of the questions which touches the foundations of Soviet Russia and of our party. This must be said openly and honestly at a party congress: the national question is one of those questions which promises a Civil War if we do not show indispensable sensitivity and understanding in our attitude towards it. This is a question of the "union" between the Russian proletariat and the sixty million non-Russian peasants who raise their demands for participation in the economic and political life of the Soviet Union under the national flag. And so I say: Lenin would explain this situation to us with the authority of a leader and with all the insight of his genius. Comrades, why has the national question been raised a third time? I fear that it will still come up a fourth and a fifth time; in another year or two we shall still be discussing the national question. I must confess that for some time before the congress we had cherished the hope that the national question would be at the heart of the congress, as Lenin proposed. But in fact it has been the tail-end. Our comrades are suffering this debate on the national question with impatience. [Voice from the audience: "Not at all!"]. I don't mean to reproach anyone, for on this question we are all guilty. And when I see how hard it is for our organizations in the Ukraine, which are working in conditions of a national struggle, when I see how hard it is for us to make them understand the significance of the national question, I begin to fear for Soviet power. And this question is even more difficult in Russia.
What is all this about? Comrades, why are we raising the national question for a third time? Because the more we pose it the further away we get from a communist understanding and solution of the national question. In approaching the nationalities question we have a prejudice, a deep prejudice, and one that is all the more dangerous because it is a communist prejudice, because its appearance is communist, because it has roots in our programme, and
Speech by Rakovsky 59 because this prejudice conceals our ignorance on the nationalities question. I remember a very characteristic remark of comrade Stalin. When I returned from abroad after the adoption of the programme on the Union, comrade Stalin told me: "You know, many people have asked me: is this long-range, is this not a diplomatic move?" Yes, comrades, the whole nationalities policy, all the inter-Union relations of our Soviet government, have been understood by the majority in the Ukraine and by even more in Russia as a certain strategic game of diplomacy: "For goodness sake, we solved the nationalities question way back in the October revolution. Our country is communist: we all stand for internationalism." Tell me, comrade, how many of you, can explain in what way the October revolution solved the nationalities question? Don't forget that in 1919 authoritative comrades declared at the congress that the nationalities question no longer existed, and one of those comrades said this before you here the day before yesterday. That was not his first mistake — we all make mistakes — but this was said; and if authoritative comrades, the authors of The ABC of Communism, confess to their mistake on the nationalities question, then what is the rank and file to do? And here we have a multitude of responsible comrades who regard the national question with a smile, with a sneer: "But we are a country that has gone beyond the stage of nationalities," as one comrade expressed himself; "we are a country where material and economic culture opposes national culture. National culture is for backward countries on the other side of the barricades, for capitalist countries; and we are a communist country." And here I should remind you of the very correct words spoken yesterday by comrade Makharadze: "State power is not created for communists: it exists for all the workers and peasants." All the time we talk about the smychka ("union") between the workers and peasants. Well, I ask you: out of a mass of 140,000,000 how many are internationalists? If we were to take only the Communist Party, then I do not know in what percentage a deep feeling of internationalism is embedded and in what percentage the feeling of internationalism coexists with nationalism. And if it is a question of the non-party masses, the peasant masses, then under what banner will they gain access to political and cultural life? Are we really going to force the Georgians to learn Russian as the Tsarist gendarmes did? That was in the days of Tsarism and we cannot bring them back. Are we really going to force the Chekists to see to it that the non-Russians learn Russian? Atter all, the native language and the native school leads to national consciousness, and national consciousness leads to a desire to know where the peasant's ruble goes. In the past it was necessary to take from the peasants to defend the country from landlords and generals, and the peasants gave with-
out asking because they knew what the goal was. But once the Civil War was over and the accounting began, everyone has wanted to know where his or her ruble goes, how much he or she gives and how much is received. And in hand with national consciousness comes the feeling of equality which Lenin spoke about in his letter. And because of centuries of Tsarist domination, the nationalities are now experiencing this feeling of equality in a much deeper
And so I say: when you have these masses before you, what question does the party confront? It faces the question of how to find the smychka between our proletarian and communist internationalism and the national development of wide layers of the peasant masses with their aspiration for a national life, for their own national culture, for their own national state. It is mainly through the national development of the separate, autonomous and independent republics and oblasts — people sneer at some of them — it is mainly through these new republics that we will bring the sixty million non-Russian peasants who now feel alien in our Soviet Union to Soviet power and the
Communist Party. That is precisely the task of the party. I will allow myself to say that the communist prejudice which exists in many communists is not peculiar only to us: it has been present in many socialists. I can remind you of one passage from Marx's correspondence with Engels, a very characteristic passage which was also used by Vladimir Illyich in his old articles. I will read it to you. Discussing the Austro-Hungarian War in a letter to Engels dat-
Yesterday there was a session of the Council of the International on the current war ... As was expected the session eventually came to the question "of nationalities" and of our attitude to them ... The representatives of "Young France" (non-workers) care out with the announcement that all nationalities and even nations were "antiquated prejudices"... The
English laughed very much when I began my speech by saying that our friend Lafargue and others, who had done away with the nationalities, had spoken to us in French, that is in a language which was incomprehensible to nine-tenths of the meeting. I also suggested that by the negation of nationalities he appeared, quite unconsciously, to understand their absorption
Iask you, Russian communist comrades, how many times have you experienced such feelings in relation to other nations? I have heard comrades say that the Ukrainian language was invented by Galicians. In the end is it not a feeling of great-national chauvinism that creeps in through the Russian people who have never known national oppression, who on the contrary were the oppressors for centuries? It is unfortunate that I do not see here on the list those comrades who, at the plenum on the national question, expressed those
60 International Marxist Review and stronger way than we think.
ed 20 April 1866, Marx wrote:
by the model French nation.
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
in the nationate ad on ., same opinions which Lafargue held sixty years ago.
Speech by Rakovsky 61
I request an extension of fifteen minutes. [Voices saying "ten minutes" and "five minutes". '•] I haven't yet said the most important thing. [Chairman: "Let us put it to the vote — fifteen, ten or five? Who is for fifteen minutes? Who for ten? The majority is for ten."]
Comrades, what's the issue here? In my opinion, communist prejudice is still an insufficient explanation. I think that Stalin has remained only on the threshold of an explanation of the real state of affairs on the national question. He should have gone further and posed the question: why are we raising this question at a congress for the third time? Not only in relation to NEP, or to the international situation which was created with the beginning of NEP: there is another, more important reason.
I repeat, there is a second, more important reason, namely the fundamental discrepancy being created daily and growing larger and larger between our party, our programme on the one hand, and our state apparatus on the other. This is the central, the crucial question. We often say that the party should lead, and back these words up by adducing many second-rate facts. But there is one fact that should strengthen a hundredfold the conviction that our party must be firm leadership in our state. And that is precisely the fact that often, particularly on the national question, our party must be firm leadership in our state. And that is precisely the fact that often, particularly on the national question, our party comrades are guided not by a proletarian party psychology, but by what one might call, to put it mildly, a narrow executive bureaucratic psychology, i.e. the psychology of the state organs. And these central state organs: what do they represent? In his articles Vladimir Illyich gave an appropriate description of them. They are the melange of a Tsarist and a bourgeois administration, touched up with a soviet and a communist brush, but only on the surface and nothing else.
You will say that it is communists who are at the head of the soviet organs. But what is at issue is the fact that these same communists yield to the psychology of their own apparatus and become narrow-minded themselves. I would advise you to read Engels' introduction to The Civil War in France, his general description of bureaucracy. Our central authorities begin to view the administration of the whole country from the viewpoint of the comfort of their office armchairs. Naturally, it's tiresome to administer twenty republics; how convenient it would be in the whole lot were unified, and you had only to press one button to administer the entire country. From the bureaucratic point of view this would be simpler, easier, more pleasant. If I were to tell you the story of the struggle the republics are forced to wage with our central administration, it would be the story of a struggle for survi-
62 International Marxist Review val. How many of these central apparatuses know the Soviet constitution? I receive a document from the Sovnarkhoz: "To the Chairman of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic". I receive one from the Central Committee: "To all the Guberniya Committees, Oblast Committees and Central Committees of Autonomous Republics". The apparatus of the Central Committee goes no further: for it, nothing else exists outside the autonomous republics. I won't even speak of the struggle that we are forced to wage against the bureaucratic apparatus. Comrades, I am not concerned only with the fate of the Ukraine, but I speak about all these mistakes because the correct or incorrect line on the national question directly reflects the revolutionary role of our party. What happened after the creation of the Union of the Republics? "Union": this was understood by many central organs to mean that they could pounce on the individual republics with all their weight. I could draw on many examples to illustrate this attitude. For example, the People's Commissariat of Land the the People's Commissariat of here sign an international agreement on behalf of the Ukraine, even though no one has given them the authority to do so. Even at the founding of the Union constitution they didn't have that right. What else happened? I'll give you a few more facts. Right after the All-Union Constitution was voted on, the Commissariats began their work of centralizing. In Izvestia a press report stated that secretariats were being created to rule the republics in the following Russian Commissariats: National Economy, Labour, and Finance. What does this mean? This means it will be worse than before, and only when the Secretariat of the Central Committee checked these Secretariats did they refrain from their original building. You may say, Comrades, there is the Central Committee, but I must state that our tragedy lies in the fact that the narrow point of view — for which the leadership of a country is not a political question, international or internal, but a question of convenience — this point of view is such a strong pressure on the Central Committee that sometimes it is an obstacle. We have had some extraordinarily typical events. At the February 24 plenum of the Central Committee it was resolved that: "It is confirmed in the party procedure that prior to the establishment of normal Union organs, the existing system of relations between soviet organs would remain unchanged." That was decided in February. No changes in the mutual relations. In March we found ourselves confronted by a whole series of legislative acts signed by the USSR. By the way, the most typical decree was about the Concessions Committee. What does this mean? It means that the Concessions Committee will deal with the wealth of all the republics, it will deal with the steel of the Ukraine, the coal, oil, manganese etc. of the outlying areas. That's what the Conces-
Speech by Rakovsky 63 sions Committee is. Of course, on the substance of it, I am not opposed to the creation of the All-Union Concessions Committee, in fact I would defend it. But not with indifference as to how it is established. We receive a reply from the Secretariat of the Central Committee that the All-Union Congress of Soviets resolved that the functions of building the Union should temporarily be under the control of the Russian Central Executive Committee, in which there isn't a single nationality or republic represented, and which is now deciding how to deal with the wealth of the separate republics. But I ask: was the resolution of the plenum of the Central Committee known to the All-Union Central Executive Committee? I don't know what the Secretariat will reply to that, but the fact that it was left out in the first reply is direct evidence. Although in the past we had such clear evidence that our central Soviet organs were yielding to a "narrow-minded psychology" ", they were given ten times, even twenty times more rights than beforehand in the Union constitution. Instead of checking or curbing their rights they are given, on the contrary, as a reward, as a decoration, as a premium for their stupid bungling of the national question, to the detriment of party and state policies, to the detriment of our external policies (and I have lots of material on how our policy is viewed externally) - these organs are given even more functions. After December, after the first All-Union Congress of Soviets, they have become the masters of the lives of all of us. There is no step that can be taken by the national republics of which it could be said beforehand that it would be permitted. The district executive committee knows its rights better than the national republics.
My position, comrades, is that our building of the Union has been incorrect. As you know, this is not only my opinion but also Vladimir Illyich's. I warned of this forthcoming big mistake in September in a special memorandum to the Central Committee. Comrades, what is the conclusion of all this? The conclusion is that we can write another ten resolutions, but apart from storing them in libraries and archives they will come to nothing. We must resolve this question practically. Comrade Stalin has already introduced here a big amendment, for a two-chamber system. But we must go decisively further, we must take away nine-tenths of the power of the All-Union Commissariats and hand them over to the national republics. [Applause.] Comrades, as I am proposing the first amendment, allow me to explain it. Comrade Stalin, in his first speech, not in the antithetical one of today, but in his first speech when he displayed a careful attitude to the national question, he indicated that besides the internal circumstances there are also circumstances of an external nature and, at the same time, he indicated the colossal signifi-
04 International Marxist Review cance that the national question will have in the coming revolution, owing to the inevitable confrontation between the nations of the East and the Western imperialist states. One could also add another perhaps insignificant aspect, but one which makes it necessary to treat the internal national question with special care, and that is the national question in the West. But unfortunately now comrade Stalin didn't even refer to it. There is nothing about the East or the West. Today in the committee Stalin said that perhaps if we added an amendment on the West this could weaken the Eastern aspects, as if this aspect were included in his theses. But that aspect is not in his theses.
For this reason, comrades, I consider it necessary that there be in these theses — in one or another form. I don't wish to argue here about which thesis it should be added to, that is up to Stalin or the CC — that there be a mention of what Vladimir Illyich has been telling us over and over in the past period, and what we have been discussing here, namely that if we are to become the centre of the struggle of the oppressed nationalities outside the boundaries of the USSR, we must internally, within the boundaries of the USSR, make a correct decision on the national question. For if we talk about national self-determination on the external front, but don't allow it internally, then obviously everyone will reproach us for our hypocrisy. I remind you, of the words of Vladimir Illyich: "We cannot afford to make the smallest mistake in this field because, while undermining our principled sincerity [these are his words] it can also undermine our struggle in defence of oppressed nationalities against imperialism."
Therefore I am proposing that you include the following thesis. Today at the committee it was too long, we had taken it from our Ukrainian theses, but I have shortened it and propose it as changed:
The colossal revolutionary significance which transforms the struggles of Eastern nations and colonies for their freedom from the yoke of the imperialist states, and also the re-formation of the European liberation movements in various occupied provinces, makes it even more necessary for the party to assume the responsibility of carrying out a correct theoretical and practical solution to the national question within the boundaries of the Soviet Union.
Only the strictest agreement between our policy on the national question within the country and that policy which we propagate on the national question in our state and party line outside the borders, can give the Soviet Union and the Communist Party the moral authority and the principled sincerity which will make them, in the broadest sense, the base for the struggle of the world proletariat with imperialism. [Stalin intervenes asking people to reject it. It is rejected.]
Speech by Rakovsky 65
Comrades, my second amendment has much greater significance, although the first amendment concerns out internal situation. We consider — here I am speaking on behalf of the Ukrainian comrades — that the biggest mistake was made today in the section where Stalin's formulation was accepted on the two-tiers system. First of all, comrades, in order to avoid all arguments, we are the most decisive supporters of the two-tier system. So that's not the issue, it's something else. Why was a two-tier system created? In order that it gives guarantees to the individual republics. That is the basis of the two-tier system. But in the resolution which was accepted today, not only does the two-tier system not give us, the individual republics, any guarantees; on the contrary, in reality it strengthens even more the system that already exists, a system which operates in the following way: out of 360 deputies to the All-Union Central Committee, 280 if not more come from the RSFSR. 80 belong to the rest of the independent republics taken together.
What did the Commission accept today? That in the so-called second tier of all the nationalities — take notice of that word — the nationalities will participate with an equal amount of votes. Thus each of the 15 autonomous republics and oblasts of the RSFSR will have four votes. The central region will have four votes, Ukraine four votes and Byelorussia four votes. What do we get here? In reality the RSFSR will have 64 or 70 votes, Ukraine four and Byelorussia four. Yes indeed, comrade Stalin's position turns out to be quite comfortable, and yet he says: "I recognize all nationalities, and you don't want to recognize Kirghiz." [Voices: "It's true!"] If that is the case, then allow me to tell you: I am ready to sign this very radical project of Stalin's if he is ready for Kirghiz, Turkestan and all of the other autonomous republics to become independent republics. Then each one can enter the second tier on an equal footing.
But what do we actually get here? Why are we creating this second tier? In order that the individual republics may receive, according to their needs and their taxation capacity, help from the central allocation. But the autonomous republics have one allocation in the RSFSR, they have one central commissariat in the RSFSR, they have one general Council of Ministers of the RSFST — they are automatically tied to the RSFSR. And so it will happen that in one room in the All-Union Central Executive Committee they all go along one defined line, then they will enter the second room and say they are independent and individual republics. No, allow me — if they are independent then they must be really independent, thus cutting the ties with the [Russian] Federation. I consider it absolutely necessary, given the different levels of cultural and political development, and in defence of the Federation, that
66 International Marxist Review in the second tier there should be, not nationalities, but state units. We told Stalin long ago that we don't want an equal vote with the RSFSR. No, we are much more humble. We would be satisfied if the RSFSR. No, we are much more humble. We would be satisfied if the RSFSR would content itself with no more then two-fifths of the vote in the second tier, and if those two-fifths were to be divided among the republics. It's its own business, but if the RSFSR wanted to give an example of liberalism and democratic nationalism, which Stalin uses as an argument against our two-tier system, then the RSFSR should create, under its own All-Union Central Executive Committee, a second tier to which those republics would be invited If we object decisively to comrade Stalin's proposals, then it is not because we have less of a feeling for equality than others. If we are to speak freely and frankly it isn't necessary to create a second tier, and if isn't necessary to say that it will develop a basis for guaranteeing the rights of individual republics. Therefore I support the following resolution: "No one state unit participating in the second tier can have more than three fifths of the votes."
LEON TROTSKY