Clarification of the national question would be a contribution to a correct approach to the more general problem of the crisis of the bureaucratized societies and therefore to the struggle for their revolutionary socialist renewal.
Livio Maitan, November 1989 Acknowledgements
The article by Trotsky "The Ukrainian Question" is taken from Writings of Leon Trotsky (1938-1939], published by Pathfinder Press, New York, 1974.
The article by Ivan Dzyuba is a chapter reprinted from his book Internationalism or Russification, published by Monad Press, New York, 1974.
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ANTONIO MOSCATO
The national question
in Soviet history
NATIONAL problems in the USSR are to a large extent the consequence ot decisions made in the Stalinist period, particularly with respect to the Baltic countries. But in certain cases — the Caucasus for instance — they are a consequence of decisions taken at the end of the Leninist era. Therefore it seems useful to look at a series of events and examine political positions dating back to just atter the October revolution.
From 1917 to 1919 the national question had been taken up by the Bolsheviks in a very simple way, recognizing the right of all the oppressed peoples of the Tsarist Empire to self-determination. Independence was granted to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Caucasan republics and to the Ukraine. In certain cases (the Baltic Republics and Poland) this decision had cost the communists of these countries dearly as they were severely repressed by the conservative or reactionary governments established after secession from the Empire. In this period the national question was closely linked to the struggle for or against the revolution. A great number of Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish and Georgian communists became leaders of the Soviet state whereas the Russian conservatives served the states which attacked revolutionary Russia. As for Jewish people, a great number of whom lived in the lands of the Tsar-
ist Empire, they were faced with different choices. A number of them emigrated, either out of fear of the pogroms unleashed by the White Guards during the civil war, or because of the difficulty of adapting in a system where, particularly during war communism, there was not a great deal of space for artisan or commercial activities. Others took their place in the new state.
Many of its leaders were Jewish (Trotsky, Zinvoviev, Kamenev, Litvinov
There is nothing to be criticized about the policy of the revolutionary state on the national question up to at least 1920. The difficult reconquest of the
Ukraine had resulted in some abuses, but there was no Russian national oppression over the Ukrainians. In fact, differences on this occasionally led to big splits both among the Ukrainians and sometimes among the communists of Russian origin (the Russian communists were not dominant inside the leading Boishevik group where all the minorities were over-represented).
In any case, Lenin had explained on several occasions that the Ukraine had the right to dispose of its own future up to and including the right to secession. He said this at the time of the Kerensky government and repeated it after the seizure of power, rejecting any attempt to deal with the question in an administrative way — even when such a proposal was put forward by the
Ukrainian Communists. The polemic against the provisional goverment was targeted above all at Kerensky's hypocrisy. He talked about Ireland and the question of the Russiqn Ireland and the Russian Algeria, I.E. of Turkestan, Armenia, the
This extract came from a very general speech, linked to the polemics of that particular time. In an article in Pravda dealing specifically with the Ukraine,
Russian revolutionary democracy, if it wants to be really revolutionary, if it wants a true democracy, must break with this past in order to regain, for itself and for the workers and peasants of Russia, the fraternal confidence of the workers and peasants of the Ukraine,
In the same article he explained the Bolshevik ideas in more detail by showing how the respect for national aspirations were perfectly compatible with internationalist sentiments and the desire for a great world socialist fed-
We are not supporters of small states... We are for the closest union of all workers from all countries against the capitalists, against their own and those of all the other countries. It is precisely because we want this union to be freely agreed that the Russian worker, while having no trust either in the Kussian bourgeoisie or the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, is today in favour of the Ukrainian's right to separation. He does not want to impose his friendship on them but wants to win it by treating them as equals, as allies, as brothers in the fight for socialism.?
12 International Marxist Review etc.).
Algeria without raising
Ukraine and Finland etc.
eration of workers states:
Lenin set out his principles very clearly:
including allowing the right to free separation.?
When the Soviet regime began to become consolidated after the victory over Denikin, Lenin strongly opposed any idea of annexing the Ukraine to
Soviet Russia. Neither did he have any intention of imposing a speeded-up collectivization or "cultural assimilation" onto the Ukrainian people.
Just to give an idea of the approach he took to the question of relations with the Ukrainian nation we can refer to a passage from the Draft resolution of the Central Committee on Soviet power in the Ukraine that was personally
In view of the fact Ukrainian culture (language, school etc.) has been suppressed for centuries by Russian Tsarism and the exploiting classes, the CC, RCP makes it incumbent on all
Party members to use every means to help remove all barriers in the way of the free development of the Ukrainian language and culture. Since the many centuries of oppression have given rise to nationalist tendencies among the backward sections of the population, RCP members must exercise the greatest caution in respect of those tendencies and must oppose them with words of comradely explanation concerning the identity of interests of the work-
This is not just tactical advice or a call to a prudent style of argument. In fact the resolution, challenged by a sizeable minority made up mainly of
Ukrainians, also included a series of organizational proposals:
RCP members on Ukrainian territory must put into practice the right of the working people to study in the Ukrainian language and to speak their native language in all Soviet institucons; they must in every way counteract attempts at Kussification thatpush the Ukrainian language into the background and must convert that language into an instrument for the
Furthermore Lenin emphasized that the specificity of the Ukraine lay in the very high percentage of the peasantry in the population while the working class was very largely Russian. During an initial period there was a preponderance of Russians and Jews in the Bolshevik Party and in the Soviet institutions. By taking account of that Lenin formulated some very precise conditions which are a sort of advance preview of the NEP:
1) The complete abolition of the landed proprietorship re-established by Denikin and
2) State farms to be organized in strictly limited numbers and of limited size and in
3) In organizing peasants in communes, artels, etc., the Party policy must be strictly adhered to, which in this respect does not permit any coercion, leaving it to the peasants to decide freely for themselves and penalizing all attempts to introduce the principle of
Regarding it as beyond dispute for every Communist and for every politically-conscious worker that the slosest alliance of all Soviet republics in their struggle against the menacing forces of world imperialism is essential, the RCP maintains that the form of that alliance drafted by Lenin in November 1919.
ing people of the Ukraine and Russia2.4
Communist education of the working people.
The tasks for land policy in the Ukraine are to:
Finally the resolution concluded:
The national question in Soviet history 13 the transfer of the landed estates to peasants possessing little or no land.
each case in conformity with the interests of the surrounding peasantry.
14 International Marxist Review must be finally determined by the Ukrainian workers and labouring peasants themselves?
During 1920 the "form of union" became much more clearly defined following external events which put the nationalist tendencies arguing for a complete separation from Russia to a hard test. In February, a Ukrainian military committee was formed made up of five members including three Bolsheviks. It had re-established Soviet power in at least the most important centres. The adventurer, Simon Petljura, who for a certain time had succeeded in building up a separatist force by exploiting anti-Russian and even antiSemitic hatred, called on Pilsudski's Polish government to help defeat the Bölsheviks. The Polish army occupied the Ukraine for some weeks. This was a complete catastrophe for the separatist movement which lost all popular support. The hatred of the Ukrainian peasants for the Polish landlords proved to be much greater that their animosity for Jewish intermediaries and especially the "Muscovites" '. A sector of the nationalist leaders split from Petljura and rallied to the Soviet regime that was definitively re-established by the victorious offensive of the Red Army. The right to self-determination in the Caucasus region
However it was actually in the same year (1920) that the right to self-determination began to be challenged by Soviet leaders. We are not here referring to the continuation of the Red Army's offensive right up to Warsaw which cost the Polish Communist movement dear. We consider that ultra-left errors were made on this occasion but there had not been a specific underestimation of the national question.
Communist Party policy began to shed the principles that had inspired the revolution in the Caucasus region. Between 1917 and 1920 the presence of Bolsheviks in the region had been weak and had met strong resistance. In Georgia where economic and cultural development had been greater the Mensheviks enjoyed majority support while Armenia was under the leadership of the Dasnak bourgeois nationalist party and Azerbaidjan was under the influence of the Musavat (= Equality) nationalist party. An attempt to set up a united "Transcaucasan" commissariat was shortlived. The Bolsheviks were rather strong in Baku where there was a rather strong — although non-native - proletariat. But Communists ran into serious difficulties after the BrestLitovsk treaty since, in the absence of any Transcaucasus delegation, the Soviet government was obliged to make territorial concessions including handing over the Kars and Batum provinces as well as the Ardahan Armenian district to Turkey, the ally of the Central European empires.
The national question in Soviet history 15 Furthermore, the Turks, after having quickly occupied Batum, sought to extend their conquests. The Soviet government's weakness and the Turkish threat pushed the Transcaucasan assembly to proclaim the independence of all those territories that had been part of the Russian empire except those occupied by Turkey and Baku where a Soviet government had been formed (made up mainly of Russians and Armenians who were afraid of the regional threat of the Azeris). The Transcaucasan Republic broke up by May 26,1918. A few days later the independent Republics of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaidjan were established. But the Armenian Republic was swept away by the Turks in the space of a few weeks. At the same time Azerbaidjan became a puppet state under foreign occupation while Georgia, wanting to avoid the same fate, asked for and received the protection of Germany. The latter was interested in Georgian manganese reserves and at the same time wanted to have a base in the region to control both Soviet Russia and Turkey (considered an unstable ally).
The situation was made even more complicated by the arrival of English troops who took over Baku, massacred the Bolshevik government and offered their "protection" to Georgia and to two other republics which were "reformed" and placed under the control of pro-British governments. The English presence in the region, apart from in Baku which was occupied up to 1921, was not sufficient to guarantee a stable structure. The weak government installed by the occupying force in Baku was overturned in April 1920 by a Communist insurrection which resulted in the formation of a Soviet socialist republic of Azerbaidjan led by Kirov, Ordjonikdize and Mikoian — a Russian, a Georgian and an Armenian.
In November of the same year, the Turks unleashed a new offensive to try and sweep away once again all traces of an independent Armenia. The Dasnak government was incapable of organizing resistance. This task was taken over by a revolutionary committee supported by Red Army detachments. In December 1920 there was a Soviet socialist republic of Armenia whose territory was been seriously eroded by Turkish conquests and which was only holding together through fear of new Turkish attacks. Turkey had already exterminated more than a million Armenians. The weakness of the Soviet leadership team triggered off a popular uprising two months later in Erevan and in other towns against the grain requisitions and war communism's economic policy. This situation was only really brought under complete control after the NEP turn had been made. Furthermore, in February 1921 Soviet Russian troops, supported by Georgian elements, invaded the Georgian republic on the pretext of an incident on the Armenian frontier and overthrew
This episode represented a turn in the history of Soviet Russia. A letter from Lenin to Ordjonikidze expressed great concern over the status of the new republic and proposed an alliance with Jordania, the Menshevik leader whose government had just been overthrown. Lenin asked the Georgian
Communists whether there was complete agreement on the three following
First, we must immediately arm the workers and the poor peasants in order to build a strong
Second, there must be a special policy of concessions to Georgian intellectuals and smau traders. We must understand that not only is it a miscalculation to nationalize them but we should even agree to certain sacrifices to specifically improve their situation and to leave
Third, it is of vital importance to look for an acceptable compromise to create a bloc wil
Jordania and Georgian Mensheviks like him, who, immediately before the insurrection, were not absolutely hostile to the idea of a soviet regime in Georgia under certain conditions.
I really want you to keep in mind that both the internal and international conditions in
Georgia require that Georgian Communists do not implement Russian formulas but develop skilfully and flexibly an oniginal tactic based on a more conciliatory attitude towards petty.
For his part, Trotsky said that military intervention was an easy, total success and had not resulted in any international complications (except a new anti-Communist campaign by the Second International which had followed the affair very closely by sending a delegation including Kautsky, Vandervelde and Ramsay Macdonald to Georgia in September 1920). But he emphasized at the same time that the method adopted for the "Sovietization"
Trotsky's concern, Lenin's recommendations and the Georgian Communists' proposals (whose leadership included militants with great political experience who were to be nearly entirely exterminated by Stalin in the
1930s) did not prevent Stalin's strong man in the Caucasus, Ordjonikidze, wreaking havoc. The consequences are not yet overcome today.
Initially Lenin had put forward the economic unification of the three Caucasan republics which he thought would simplify administration. Fusion of the Soviet socialist republics of the Transcaucasus was only formally sanctioned on March 12,1922 but it had already been achieved in practice in the first months of the year before. It involved the submission of local leaders to the Moscow representative. For-example, as is recalled in the manifesto adopted by the Armenian movement of Nagorno Karabash in 1987, on
March 16, 1922 the government signed a treaty with Turkey which fixed the frontiers not just between the Soviet republics and the Turkish state but also
16 International Marxist Review the Menshevik government.
points:
Georgian Red Army.
bourgeois elements of all sorts.
them the possibility of continuing their small scale business.
of Georgia would have very serious consequences later:
between different Caucasan republics without any consultation with them.
This is the treaty which assigned to Azerbaidjan the region that is so contested today, even if formally speaking the constitution of the autonomous region
Lenin's last energies were directed to trying to limit the damage caused by the crude way the national question was being tackied. Moshe Lewin described this episode in his book Lenin's Last Struggle (Wildwood House
1969). The extract from Lenin's political testament which deals with the
I suppose I have been very remiss with respect to the workers of Russia for not having intervened energetically and decisively enough in the notorious question of autonomization which, it appears, is officially called the question of the union of Soviet socialist republics..10
Lenin had received information also from those who had been guilty of violating principles and he knew perfectly well that the way in which national questions were dealt with was only the reflection of a more general
These were his words on learning that an opponent had been the victim of
It is said that a united apparatus was needed. where did that assurance come from? Did it not come from that same Russian apparatus which, as 1 pointed out in one of the preceding sections of my diary, we took over from Tsarism and slightly anointed with Soviet oil??!!
In this text Lenin had not forgotten the extenuating circumstances, in the first place the isolation, the absence of aid from more developed countries, the conditions created by the war and the struggle against famine...but also pointed out the personal responsibility of Ordjonikidze, Dzerjinski and espe-
I think that Stalin's haste and his infatuation with pure administration, together with his spite
It is quite natural that in such circumstances the "freedom to secede from the union" by which we justify ourselves will be a mere scrap of paper, unable to defend the non-Russians from the onslaught of that really Russian man, the Great-Russian chauvinist, in substance a
As we know, the last period of Lenin's life was marked by his effort to counter the Soviet state's authoritarian and bureaucratic degeneration. The national question held a key place in this last struggle. It can be said that
Lenin felt guilty of having underestimated for so long the dangers and of even dates from July 7, 1923.
Lenin'slast battle national question is quite explicit throughout:
regression:
...we can imagine what a mess we have got ourselves into...
physical violence. He went on:
cially of Stalin.
Lenin dictated the following:
rascal and a tyrant, such as the typical Russian bureaucrat is.. '2
The national question in Soviet history 17 against the notorious "nationalist-socialism", played a fatal role here.
tolerating tendencies to forced assimilation of non-Russian nationalities, to the extent that in certain processes he had only identified those aspects of administrative simplification. It would be possible to draw up a real anthology by collecting all Lenin's anguished thoughts on this in his last writings.
In a desperate search for allies in a battle he knew would be very difficult,
Lenin wrote to Kamenev a rather strange letter where he announced a "war
His last letters, dictated a few hours before being definitively struck down by illness, contained a new proposal for an alliance with Trotsky on the Georgian question. He sent a note to Mdivani and other Georgian leaders who had ben attacked and stripped of their responsibilities. This note is particularly important since at the beginning Lenin mistrusted the information he had received and had taken a position against them.. This is what he said:
Dear comrades, I am following your case with all my heart. I am indignant over Ordjonikidze's rudeness and the conivance of Stalin and Dzerjinski. I am preparing for you notes and a
This was Lenin's last text. Like other writings of the same period it shows that certain of the present problems go back a long time and the founders of the Soviet state were at least partially conscious of the gravity of these problems, while not being able to roll back the degeneration process.
What Lenin had seen as a danger of bureaucratic degeneration needing to be removed, became later the norm and "model". While Lenin had expressed his horror for the gross excesses of the "Russian bureaucrat" and more generally for "Russian barbarism", Stalin lost no time in glorifying the Russian people, its genius, its right to be the guide of the USSR peoples (and not only of the USSR). Ideas of equality both between individuals and between
The initial degradation in relations between the nations of the USSR was not however the consequence of Great Russian harassment as Lenin had feared. The "reconquest" of the Asian territories which had been part of the
Tsarist empire, was carried out by rather similar methods to those used in the colonial wars (just as in the Caucasus). The generally little-known and dramatic events that led to much bloodshed in Soviet Asia up to the beginning of
18 International Marxist Review against Great Russian chauvinism", life or death struggle"
Russian, a Ukrainian, a Georgian etc. 13 speech. 14
The Stalinist period nations was slammed as "petty-bourgeois"
the 1930s was caused by:
', adding that it was not "a minor war but a
". He proposed that the Soviet Union be led in turn by a
• the non-understanding by the rare Communists (nearly all of Russian or Jewish origin) of problems in societies that were still in a pre-capitalist
• and the fact that it was the Russians (often settlers, ex-Tsarist civil servants or priests) who rallied to the Soviet regime and thereby stirred up hostil-
Many people lost their lives on both sides. Division did not always run on strictly nationalist lines — it was occasionally ethnic and very rarely on a class or social basis. A particularly negative role was played by forced collec-
Livization. Obviously the Russian people also suffered from this policy. But the national minorities, especially the Ukrainians, perceived it as a real plan of genocide against them. The devastation was immense. For example in
Kazakhstan the indigenous population was reduced by 50% following the collectivization and the elimination of traditional economic structures. More generally the imposition of a sedentary form of economic life met armed resistance which, in the medium term, worsened the conditions of those who
People suffered in many ways: under the brutal programme of "dekulakization"; as a result of the incompetence of the officials responsible for agriculture and managing the new collective farms; and in the deportation of millions to the inhospitable Northern regions and their use in forced labour to dig canals between the Baltic and the White Sea or the Volga basin. It was all made worse by the anti-religious persecution which hit the non-Russian
Crude campaigns in support of atheism, the closure of churches, mosques and synagogues, the arrest of priests and believers, found guilty of "proselytism" or of having "corrupted" youth with religious teaching, affected all faiths, including the Russian Orthodox. After 1941, given the catastrophe of the first phase of the war, Stalin was obliged to ask for the help of the ecclesiastical hierarchy who were freed from prisons and given special treatment in order to build support for transforming the anti-Nazi struggle into "a great patriotic war of the Russian people". Certain faiths were repressed more who appeared more dangerous because they did not have any hierarchy; the
Churches which had a role of ethnic "unifier" such as the Catholics or the
Uniates (which was forced to reunite with the Orthodox Church it had spilt from three centuries earlier) in Lithuania or in the territories taken from
• The weakness, indeed the lack, of a working class;
phase;
ity from the native peoples.
were supposed to be "civilized"
Churches particularly hard.
viciously: the "old believers"
Poland in 1939; and finally Islam.
The national question in Soviet history 19
, the millenarian sects and the protestant groups
20 International Marxist Review The result of this campaign and repression was in the last analysis to strengthen all religions. Although the number of mosques was limited (there was only 200 in the whole of the USSR in the 1970s) the number of believers runs into the millions. In fact among the burning issues Gorbachov has to confront is the diffusion of an anti-Russian nationalist feeling fuelled by Islam - one of the most striking signs of this are the green headbands worn today by young people in Baku or Tashkent. The Second World War - the "punished peoples" The present Soviet leadership rejects any modification of the existing structure of the complex mosaic of the USSR peoples not because it does not understand the well-founded reasons for the demands of the different nationalities. In reality it fears that if the injustices of the past are in some way remedied then other movements will take off to obtain reparations in turn. One of the most well known cases is that of the Tatars of the Crimea. The whole people were "punished" by Stalin on the pretext that some of its members had betrayed the USSR. But during the Second World War many peoples, and not only the Tatars — were suspected of collaborating with the Nazis (including the Germans of the Volga, the Kabardins, the Balkars, the Czhechs, the Inguscs, the Ossetians, the Kalmudians etc.) and deported into distant regions of the Soviet Far East. In a great many cases, including for the Tatars, more than a half of the deportees died during the terrible exodus. The Volga Germans, who had lived there for over two centuries, had practically no relations with their country of origin and even less with Nazism. In 1917 they were among the first to set up a soviet and to support the Bolsheviks, particularly during the difficult Civil War years. As for the other peoples, Alexander Nekric has proved that not only did they not collaborate with the Germans any more than the Russians, Ukrainians or Bielorussians did (who could not be deported en masse mainly because there were too many of them but also they were often very much committed to the anti-Nazi resistance — even if this contribution is not mentioned in "official history". 15
Certain of these peoples have been cleared of this injustice. Survivors of the deportations went back to their regions of origin in the Khrushchev period. Others have not been compensated for their sufferings and above all have not won the "right of return". A significant number of the Volga Germans have given up and have finally accepted West Germany's offer of settlement. They "returned" to a country which they have not known for many generations and with which they have no links. In any case they have never won
The national question in Soviet history 21 back their regional autonomy.
The Crimean Tatars deserve our respect for their extraordinary tenacity in having never given up their struggle to reclaim their rights. Representatives of the democratic movement like Piotr Grigorenko have given years of their life to this cause and Sakharov has also fought long and hard in this campaign.
But we should remember too many peoples who have gone through deportation, annexation, redrawing of their countries' frontiers and other collective punishments which have left very deep marks, have not even won what the Crimean Tatars have achieved
In practice if all the injustices and wrongs of the Stalinist period were to be exorcised than you would have to shake up the structure of the USSR from top to bottom. The government would have to deal also with the problems of the Baltic countries, annexed to the USSR as a result of the RibbentropMolotov treaty, or of Moldavia, an "invented" republic both in terms of its ianguage (which is only a dialect variant of Rumanian and transcribed into Cyrillic script) and its frontiers (which do not correspond to those of Bessarabia since a narrow strip on the coast was given to the Ukraine, probably in order to prevent the "socialist republic" of Moldavia having access to the sea). You are really talking here about annexation policies. It would also be necessary to go back over the dramatic events in the regions taken from Poland in 1939 with the deportation and extermination of hundreds of thousands.
All this explains why the Gorbachov team rejects autonomy demands and has a hesitant and unstable political line. It is also the reason why so many pages of Soviet history still remain blank. Present problems
As we have already stated the causes of today's tensions go back a long way. But they are also the result of social contradictions that have worsened during the so-called period of stagnation. This comes out even more clearly if you examine the immediate starting point for some of the ongoing conflicts. For example the national movement in Yerevan, with the first anti-Russian polemic for a century, started around a very concrete question — a protest against a chemical factory polluting the centre of the town. The authorities in the republic had closed it down but Moscow forced its re-opening on the basis of "higher Soviet requirements" The nuclear power station — which had miraculously escaped the earthquake
22 International Marxist Review and has only now been closed down — had also been at the centre of a very dynamic campaign which the population maintains failed because of the passivity of the republican authorities faced with the central regime. The environmental question has also emerged as a bone of contention between Moscow and the Baltic Republics. Clearly, since there is great centralization in the USSR, then all the wrong choices involving dangers to the population are attributed to the USSR authorities and are felt as a form of national oppression whereas often it is really a case of bureaucratic insensitivity (confirmed by the fact that certain of the most serious ecological disasters have affected the Baikal Lake region and Siberian areas that are both part of the Russian republic). In other cases there are different factors producing discontent. In the Baltic countries there has been a general outcry against central ministries getting involved in the least little decision for example on the norms for breadmaking! In Baku there is indignation about the decision to take away the trial of the people accused of inciting the Sungait anti-Armenian pogrom from the local courts. In Alma Alta there has been a big reaction to the replacement of local leaders by people "parachuted" in from the centre. Nearly everywhere there has been reactions against the political practice of predetermining access to the nomenklatura and even to higher education on the basis of ethnic quotas.
The existence of significant variations in economic vitality between the different republics is often attributed to national oppression. However the problem is more complicated. First of all among the republics which are most concerned about the national question at the moment there is on the one side, Azerbaidjan, which is indeed at the bottom of the ladder for national income and for the highest infant mortality and on the other side there is Estonia which on all criteria is at the other end of the ladder.
Furthermore great inequality and unevenness exists within the same republic. For example between an industrialized town like Baku and the mountainous regions with primitive farming of Azerbaidjan — not to speak of the great differences within the gigantic Russian republic. In addition there is resentment which only partially and indirectly has an economic origin. For instance there is the relative popularity of Pamiat, the chauvinist Russian association founded on the pretext (perhaps at the beginning with sincere intentions) of protecting historic monuments and the environment. Its popularity flows from the discontent of the poorest and worst paid layers of Russian society, which harbours resentment and hate against the Georgian or Armenian farmer who sells his products at high prices (but
who must pay his/her airline ticket and give bribes to all sorts of officials).
Furthermore, the thesis according to which there are "troublemakers" is still very much in evidence in the Soviet press and Gorbachov himself has taken up this refrain, notably with respect to the Armenians in the Karabach committee and the Estonian Popular Front. For its part the most properestroika press often denounces the destabilization manoeuvres of the most corrupt parts of the bureaucracy who throw oil on the fire of nationalist hatred. There is some truth in this. However like the first explanation it depends in the end on rather a conspiracy view of history. As we said at the beginning, the national question in the Soviet Union has very deep roots and has now become explosive. Today one of most difficult and urgent tasks for
Soviet revolutionaries is to develop an overall analysis of the problem in the present period and to draw up a correct approach on the question.
!. Lenin Collected Works (CW), Lawrence and Wishart, London. Vol.24 page 566.
Notes
Ibid.
1.
Ibid pp 163-4.
5.
Ibid p. 165.
Ibid p. 165-166.
8.
L. Trotsky, Stalin,
10.
11. Ibid p. 605.
12.
Ibid p 606.
13.
14.
15.
Lenin CW Vol.25 p.94 (French edition)
Lenin CW Vol.30 p. 163.
Lenin CW Vol. 32, pp 166-167 (French edition)
Lenin CW Vol.36 p.605.
See Lenin CW Vol.33 p.339 (Italian edition)
See Lenin CW Vol. 45 p.628
Aleksandr Nekritch, Les Peuples Punis, Maspero, Paris, 1982.
The national question in Soviet history 23
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