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Formation of Soviet Union - Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923

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100% found this document useful (8 votes)
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Formation of Soviet Union - Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923

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Kate Epadze
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Russian Research Center Studies, 13

THE FORMATION OF
THE SOVIET UNION
THE FORMATION OF
THE SOVIET UNION
COMMUNISM AND NATIONALISM
1917-1923

REVISED EDITION

Richard Pipes

With a New Preface

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS


Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
TO MY PARENTS

© Copyright 1954, 1964, 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
Sixth printing, 1997

First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 1997

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 64-21284


� ISBN 0-674-30950-2 (cloth)
ISBN 0-674-30951-0 (pbk.)
PREFACE, 1997
Until the end of World War II, the w9rld was dominated by Europeans
who by virtue of superior political and military organization as well as eco­
nomic preponderance had succeeded in subjugating a large proportion of
the nonwhite races. Tsarist Russia was a full-fledged member of this imper­
ial club. At the turn of the century, it controlled an empire that stretched
from the Baltic to the Pacific, comprising a multitude of races and national­
ities. In this empire, in which they fairly monopolized the higher levels of
political and military power, the Russians constituted at best 40 percent of
the population.
Even so, Russia's empire displayed some unique features. Unlike the
Western colonial empires, which were separated from the metropolitan
areas by oceans, its was territorially contiguous. Furthermore, Russian dom­
ination extended over several European nations-the Poles, the Finns, and
the three Baltic peoples-which violated the unwritten law that Europeans
did not conquer and reduce to colonial status fellow-Europeans. 0 These
peculiarities explain in some measure why Russians were not aware that
they had built an empire. They preferred to view their country as a multina­
tional state, not unlike the United States, whose ethnic minorities would
surely, over time, succumb to the greater economic as well as cultural
power of the dominant nation and assimilate. Russian prerevolutionary
political parties of both the center and the left, while opposing discrimina­
tion of the minorities, did not envisage granting them independence, on the
assumption that the future democratization of the country would in and of
itself resolve its national tensions. The economic bonds linking the border­
lands to the metropolis, especially after the advent of industrialization in
the 1890s, were believed to make disintegration of the empire all but
impossible. The Bolsheviks were the only Russian party to pledge to all
national minorities the right of self-determination up to and including sepa­
ration. But as their internal discussions make clear, this slogan was a tactical
device intended to win over the minorities. Should these people actually
0
True, the Austro-Hungarian Empire displayed some of the same characteristics but to
a much smaller degree because it rested on a partnership of Austrians and Magyars and
allowed considerable autonomy to its minorities, which was not the case in Russia.
Vl PREFACE, 1997
choose to avail themselves of it, Lenin assured his associates, they would
be brought back into the fold for the sake of the superior principle of
"proletarian self-determination."
Hence it came as a great shock �hen in 1917-1918 Russia flew apart, as
the regions inhabited by the ethnic minorities separated themselves and pro­
claimed their independence, reducing Russia to its seventeenth-century bor­
ders. This unexpected occurrence was in large measure due to their desire to
escape the Bolshevik coup and the Civil War that followed. But it had the
effect of encouraging the rise of nationalist feelings among the minorities, as
they observed with dismay that the Russians living in their midst identified
themselves with Soviet power, regarding it as the representative of Russian
national interests.
Even though they had proclaimed the slogan of "national self­
determination," the Bolsheviks were not about to let go of areas rich in eco­
nomic resources, such as Caucasian petroleum, Ukrainian grain, and
Central Asian cotton. Hence they proceeded without delay to reconquer
the separated borderlands. The reconquest took more than three years,
being finally completed in February 1921 with the capture of Tiflis, the cap­
ital of independent Georgia. The only areas that succeeded (for the time
being) in maintaining their newly won sovereignty were the five European
regions of the defunct Russian Empire-Poland, Finland, Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia-in good measure thanks to the protection extended to
them by Great Britain and France, which preferred to keep the communists
out of Europe.
The story of the disintegration of the Russian empire and its reintegration
by the communists into a new political entity, the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, is the subject of The Formation of the Soviet Union.
As is so often the case, my original intention was to write a very different
book. In the summer of 1948, having passed my qualifying examinations for
the doctorate in history at Harvard, I cast about for a dissertation topic. My
attention was attracted by the contradiction between the hostility toward all
manifestations of nationalism expressed by Marx and other socialists, the
Bolsheviks included, and the aggressive Russian chauvinism displayed by the
ostensibly Marxist Soviet regime of the time. The final five years of Stalin's
dictatorship were characterized by the eruption of an aggressive nationalism
that extolled Russians as something akin to a master race. The conquests of
tsarism, once denounced as crass imperialism, were now hailed as voluntary
acts of submission on the part of the conquered peoples. Russians were cred­
ited with all kinds of technical innovations: I recall one Soviet spokesman
allowing the Americans only two inventions-the waffle iron and the electric
chair. These expressions of jingoism emphasized how much, for all the lip ser­
vice it paid to Marxism, Stalinism resembled Nazism.
My doctoral dissertation, completed in 1950, dealt mainly with the the­
oretical approaches to nationalism among the Bolsheviks during Lenin's
PREFACE, 1997 vii
lifetime. It would serve as the basis of the first and last chapters of my
book. In the course of working on this subject I discovered a far more sig­
nificant topic, namely, the "nationality question," that is, the emergence of
the sense of national identity among Russia's subject peoples, its manifesta­
tions during the Revolution and the Civil War, and the difficulties the
Bolsheviks faced in having to cope with nationalist sentiments among the
non-Russians whom they had forcibly incorporated into the new Soviet
empire. These facts were for me a discovery because, like most everyone at
the time, lhad viewed the Soviet Union as a multinational state rather than
as an empire, a state that had succeeded in neutralizing ethnic passions by
granting the minorities federal states and cultural autonomy. The contem­
porary sources I read while working on my dissertation made me realize
that this conventional wisdom was wrong, that underneath the fa�ade of an
amicable comity of nations the Soviet Union was really an empire, the last
left on earth.
I further became aware that early in the history of the Soviet Union there
occurred a psychological synthesis of communism and Russian nationalism
that after World War II would give rise to the kind of chauvinism that had
attracted my interest. In the years 1950-1953, at the suggestion of my
teacher, Michael Karpovich, I reworked my thesis for publication, expanding
its scope to cover the whole complex story of ethnic aspirations and conflicts
during the Revolution and the Civil War. It proved to be an excellent sugges­
tion, for no such study existed at the time, and, to the best of my knowledge,
none has been produced since.
The Fonnation of the Soviet Union was published in 1954, one year after
Stalin's death and shortly before his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, in an effort
to discredit the dead tyrant, began to release archival documents revealing
Stalin's conflicts with Lenin on a variety of issues, including the nationality
question. In the light of these revelations, I subsequently revised the final
chapter of the book for a new edition that came out in 1964 and that is repro­
duced in the present edition. Although a great deal of material, both primary
and secondary, on the subject has appeared in Russia and abroad in the past
three decades, I do not believe that it has substantially affected either my nar­
rative or my conclusions. Still, were I 'to write today I would make some
changes and additions.
The archival evidence that came to light after I had written my book
revealed something of which I had not been aware, namely, the deter­
mined efforts of the German and Austrian governments before and during
World War I to promote separatism among the Russian minorities as a
means of permanently weakening Russia. 0 It is now known, for example,
that Vienna financed Lenin's activities in 1914 to reward his championship
of independence for the Russian Ukraine. t Were I to write a new edition
0
See Winfried Baumgart, Deutsche Ostpolitik, 1918 (Vienna-Munich, 1966), passim.
t Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution (New York, 1990), 377.
Vl ll PREFACE, 1997
of The Formation, I would stress more heavily the role of the Germans and
Austrians in stimulating separatist trends, especially among the Ukrainiatis
and Georgians.
Another aspect of the nationality issue that I would treat differently
tod ay concerns the role it played in the Civil War. I wrote this book before
undertaking intense study of the Red-White conflict, when I was not as yet
fully aware of the role it had played in its outcome. It has since become evi­
dent to me that the refusal of the White generals to concede independence
to Finland and Poland was a significant and possibly decisive cause of their
defeat. The much more astute-if also more cynical-tactic of the
Bolsheviks to grant these two countries not only independence but almost
any borders they desired served to turn the Finnish and Polish governments
against the Whites. 0
Russian archives have revealed some interesting facts about communist
nationality policies that expose the true attitude of Soviet leaders toward
"self-determination." I especially cherish a message sent by Lenin to his oper­
atives in the Baltic regions during the westward advance of the Red Army in
the 1920 war with Poland. Urging them to do everything in their power to
impose a communist government on Lithuania, he wrote: "We must ensure
that we first sovietize Lithuania and then give it back to the Lithuanians."f
This instruction neatly exposes the true meaning of the proclamations about
national self-determination and the indignant denials that Moscow wanted to
"export" revolution.
As is evident from the closing passages of the book, I was convinced in
1954, on the basis of historical precedent, that, for all its appearance of
solidity and the measures taken to stifle local nationalism, the Soviet Union
remained vulnerable to the same centrifugal forces that had torn tsarist
Russia apart. In particular, the nominal political and the genuine linguistic
concessions the communists had to make to the minorities as compensa­
tion for their forcible integration into the USSR were likely to institution­
alize ethnic loyalties and defeat Moscow's plan to create a new, "Soviet"
nationality. Subsequent researches into the nationality question in the
post-Stalinist Soviet Union, some of them involving interviews with
refugees from the borderland areas, confirmed me in the belief that minor­
ity nationalism was very much alive in the USSR. In articles published in
scholarly and other periodicals during the 1950s and 1960s, I argued that
the communists had by no means "solved" the nationality question but
merely driven it underground, and hence that they confronted the same
prospects of imperial collapse as tsarism. I did not expect that the minori­
ties would bring about the disintegration of the Soviet state any more than
they had destroyed the tsarist empire, but I thought it likely that the
instant communist authority, for whatever reason, weakened in the center,
0
I deal with this subject in ID)' Russia under the Bol,shevik Regime (New York, 1994), 88-g5.
t Richard Pipes, ed., The Unknown Lenin (New Haven, Conn., 1996), 84.
PREFACE, 1997 IX

the borderlands would demand independence. This prospect seemed to


me quite certain on the basis of the Russian experience of the years
1917-19 24.
My belief turned out to be justified, although events did not quite follow
the course I had envisaged. In the late 1980s, for reasons that need not be
gone into here, the Soviet leadership began to experiment with economic,
political, and cultural reforms that with remarkable speed led to the unravel­
ing of its authority and the dissolution of the regime resting on it. The minori­
ties played no part in this process. But as soon as the central government
began to spin out of control they reasserted themselves. In 1991, following
the abortive coup of die-hard communists in Moscow, the Soviet Union fell
apart into its constituent republics.
Up to that point, events had developed more or less as I had anticipated.
But the sequel followed a different course. I had expected the states that
would emerge from the USSR promptly to evolve into viable political and
economic entities. As it turned out, I had underestimated two factors. One
was that the relentless purges on charges of "bourgeois nationalism" by Stalin
and, to a lesser degree, his successors had annihilated the nationally conscious
minority intelligentsia, replacing it with cadres of docile apparatchiks whose
careers depended solely on the favor of Moscow and not at all on the support
of their own people. These functionaries were even less qualified than their
predecessors in 1917 to lead their nations to independence. Secondly, I did
not make sufficient allowance for the political consequences of the deliberate
Soviet policy of integrating the economies of the borderlands with those of
Russia. This policy made the republics economically interdependent to the
point where they experienced grave difficulties in making good their claims to
sovereignty. As a result, even after they had become nominally independent,
the ex-Soviet republics continued to be in considerable degree politically
and economically tied to Russia. The process of imperial disintegration
proved to be slower and less clear-cut than in the case of the Western
empires, even though this time no physical force was employed to prevent
the former dependencies from going their separate ways.
This conceded, the fact remains that the Russian/Soviet empire has been
broken up for the second time, and this time, very likely for good. As the
futile attempt to keep tiny Chechnia from gaining independence has demon­
strated, today's Russia lacks the military prowess to invade and reincorporate
its one-time colonies. And even if it did posses such prowess, it would be
unlikely to use it because the industrial democracies on which it is highly
dependent for economic aid would not let this kind of intervention go unpun­
ished. The republics are entering into profitable contractual arrangements
with foreign firms for the exploitation of natural resources on their territory,
which reduce their e�,onomic dependence on Russia. Cadres of local politi­
cians are emerging less beholden to Moscow and more responsive to their
native constituencies. All this suggests that the prospect of reintegrating the
X PREFACE, 1997
empire, so appealing to many Russian politicians even of a democratic per­
suasion, is little more than a mirage. With nearly nine-tenths of its population
consisting of ethnic Russians, Russia is for the first time since the sixteenth
century a truly national state rather than an empire. This event spells the end
of the imperial era of Europe� history.

Richard Pipes
September 1996
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION
This book was originally written in 1948-1953, when the cult of
Stalin was most intense, and information on Stalin's role in the shaping
of the Soviet Union was hard to come by. I had been forced, therefore,
to construct my narrative of the whole critical period 1921-1923 - the
years when the principles of the Union were being formulated and car­
ried into practice - from fragmentary and often unreliable evidence.
Two years after the book had been published, the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union held its Twentieth Congress, at which it condemned
the "cult of personality." Shortly afterwards, historical institutes in Russia
proper and in the republics began to publish quantities of monographs
and collections of documents bearing on the history of the Revolution,
Civil War, and establishment of the Union. The purpose of these pub­
lications was essentially political and propagandistic: to denigrate Stalin
an,d depict Lenin as the infallible and virtually singlehanded architect
of the Soviet multinational state. In so doing, however, they revealed a
great deal of information about two vital episodes: the subjugation of
Georgia and the formulation of the constitutional principles, because
these were issues over which Lenin quarreled and virtually broke off
relations with Stalin.
The appearance of this material necessitated a thorough revision of
the latter part of my book. I have rewritten for the present edition the
section dealing with the conquest of Azerbaijan and Georgia and all of
Chapter VI. Nothing p{iblished either inside or outside of the Soviet Union
on the preceding period ( 1917-1921) seems to have affected significantly
that part of my narrative. The official Soviet interpretation of this period
has remained substantially the same as it had been in Stalin's days, and the
most important documents bearing on it are still locked up in archives.
Hence, I have left Chapters I-IV and most of Chapter V unchanged.
The corresponding sections of the bibliography - the latter part of
Chapter V ( Azerbaijan and Georgia) and Chapter VI - have been
brought up to date to include the most important works used in pre­
paring this edition.
Richard Pipes
January 1964
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
This book deals with the history of the disintegration of the old
Russian Empire, and the establishment, on its ruins, of a multinational
Communist state: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Its main em­
phasis is on the national movements in the borderlands, and on the rela­
tions between them and the Communist movement. It has as its main
objective an analysis of the role which the entire national question played
in the Russian Revolution.
The relatively limited span of time which this history covers -from
1917 to 1923 ( if one excludes the general introductory chapter concerned
with pre-1917 events) -would make it possible to present a coherent
chronological account, were it not for the fact that the Revolution ran a
somewhat different course in every borderland region, so that a general
survey requires numerous digressions in the narrative and shifts from
area to area. The author hopes that the reader will tolerate the complexity
of the history as a feature of the topic itself.
Insofar as this study is concerned largely with the political aspect of
the national question, as distinct from its cultural or economic aspects,
peoples without a geographically defined territory of their own, such as
the Jews, or those which did not play an important part in the political
development of the Soviet state, are not treated, except in passing. Nor
does the book discuss those national groups which succeeded in sepa­
rating themselves from Russia in the course of the Revolution: the Finns,
the Baltic peoples, the Poles.
In dealing with foreign words the following general principles are
used. Proper names of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians are given
in transliteration, except in the case of figures internationally known,
where the prevailing English spelling is substituted; thus Trotsky, not
Trotskii. Names of persons of Turkic or Caucasian stock are shown in
the form which they themselves employed at the time of the Revolution,
that is in almost all instances in their Russified form; but, wherever
possible, the native one is also given: for example, M. Chokaev ( Chokai­
ogly). The same rule applies to political parties and institutions: they
are given in their Russified form, with the Osmanli Turkish or Arabic
equivalents in parentheses. Geographic terms appear in the form current
during the period 1917-1923, and where those differ from the terms used
in 1952, the latter are also supplied.
PREFACE T O T H E F I R S T ED I T I O N Xlll

Throughout, the Library of Congress system of transliteration of


Slavic languages is used, with the ligatures and diacritical marks omitted.
This system is shown in the table on pages 302-303.
All the dates for the year 1917 are given according to the Julian calen­
dar, then current in Russia. For 1918, when a calendar reform was intro­
duced, both the Julian and Gregorian dates are used, while for 1919 and
the years following all dates are according to the Gregorian calendar.
In 1917 the Julian calendar was thirteen days behind the Gregorian one.
When the sources were unclear about which calendar was followed,
only a single date is given.
I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Michael Karpovich,
who originally suggested the subject of this study and who has made
many further suggestions in the course of its writing; to the Russian Re­
search Center of Harvard University, and especially to its director, Pro­
fessor Clyde Kluckhohn, for the most generous assistance; to Professor
Robert L. Wolff, for his painstaking critical analysis of the entire manu­
script; and to Professor Merle Fainsod for his helpful comments. I would
also like to thank the personnel of the Hoover Library and Institute in
California for their help in my research. Dr. Franz Schurmann has kindly
translated for me most of the Turkish sources; I have also received
assistance with the Armenian materials. The maps were prepared by
Mr. Robert L. Williams of the Yale Cartographic Laboratory. Mrs.
Merle Fainsod and my wife have given much of their time to editing
the manuscript, while Mrs. Wiktor Weintraub has assisted me ably in
verifying the accuracy of citations and references. Miss Margaret Dal­
ton has been of great assistance in typing the manuscript for publica­
tion, and Mrs. James E. Duffy has contributed much experience in the
final editing of the book.
Richard Pipes
May 1954
CO NTE NTS

T H E N AT I O N A L P RO B L E M I N R U S S I A
The Russian Empire o n the Eve of the 1917 Revolution 1
National Movements in Russia 7
The Ukrainiana and Belorussians. The Turkic Peoples, The Peoples of the Caucasus.
Socialism and the National Problem in Western and Central Europe 21
Russian Political Parties and the National Problem 29
Lenin and the National Question before 1913 34
Lenin's Theory of Self-Determination 41

1 1 1 9 1 7 A N D T H E D I S I N T E G RAT I O N O F T H E R U S S I A N
EMPI RE
The General Causes 50
The Ukraine and Belorussia 53
The Rise of the Ukrainian Central Rada (February-June 1 9 1 7 ) . From July to
the October Revolution in the Ukraine. Belorussia in 1 9 1 7.
The Moslem Borderlands 75
The All-Rwsian Moslem Movement. The Crimea in 1 9 1 7, Bashkiriia and the
Kazakh-Kirghh; Steppe, Turkestan and the Autonomous Government of Kokand.
The Caucasus 93
The Terek Region and Daghestan, Transcaucasia.
The Bo'lsheviks in Power 107

Ill S O V I E T C O N Q U E S T O F T H E U K RA I N E A N D
B ELORUSSIA
The Fall of the Ukrainian Central Rada 1 14
The Communist Party of the Ukraine: Its Formation and Early Activity
( 1918 ) 126
The Struggle of the Communists for Power in the Ukraine in 1919 1 37
Belorussia from 1918 to 1920 150

I V S O V I ET CO N Q U EST O F T H E M O S L E M B O R D E R LA N D S
The Moslem Communist Movement in Soviet Russia ( 19 1 8 ) 155
The Bashklr and Tatar Republics 161
The Kirghiz Republic 172
Turkestan 174
The Crimea 184

V S O V I ET C O N Q U E S T O F T H E CA U CAS U S
The Transcaucasian Federation 1 93
Soviet Rule in the North Caucasus and Eastern Transcaucasia ( 1918 ) 1 95
The Terek Region. Baku.
The Independent Republics ( 1918-19 ) 204
.Azerbaifan. Armenia. Georgia.
xvi C O NTENTS
The Prelude to the Conquest 214
The Conquest 221
The Fall of Azerbaijan, The Fall of Armenia. The Fall of Georgia,
V I T H E E S TA B L I S H M E N T O F T H E U N I O N O F S O V I E T
S O C I A L I S T R E P U B L I CS
The Consolidation of the Party and State Apparatus 242
The RSFSR. Relations between the RSFSR and the other Soviet Republics. The
People's Republics.
The Opposition to Centralization 255
Nationalist Opposition: Enver Pasha and the Basmachis. Nationalist-Communist
Opposition: Sultan-Galiev. Communist Opposition: the Ukraine. Communist Oppo-
sition: Georgia,
Formulation of Constitutional Principles of the Union 269
Lenin's Change of Mind 276
The Last Discussion of the Nationality Question 28 9

CO N CL U S I O N 29 4
Chronology of Principal Events 298
Ethnic Distribution of Population, 1 897 and 1926 300

The System of Transliteration 302

Bibliogra phy 3°4


No�s �9
Index 3 53
I L L U STRATION S
Following page 98

Volodimir Vinnichenko. 1921 ( Ukrainska Vilna Akademiia Nauk SShA, Volodymyr


Vynnychenko, New York, 1 953 ) .
Mikhail Hrushevskii ( Ukrainian Museum UVAN, New York ) .
Simon Petliura, 1 9 1 7 ( private ).
Hetman Skoropadski and Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin, 1918 ( Za velych natsii,
Lwow, 1938 ) .
Grigorii Piatakov - ( M. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia Kommunisticheskoi Partii Ukrainy.
Kharkov, 192a ) .
Vladimir Zatonskii ( Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia ) .
Khristian RakotJskii { Prozhektor, 3 1 August 1924 ) .
Mykola Skrypnik ( Ravich-Cherkasskii, fsforiia ) .
Mehmed Emin Resul-zade, 1951 ( photograph by author ) .
Mustafa Chokaev, 1917 ( Revue du Mende Musulman, June 1922 ) .
Dzhafer Seidamet and Chelibidzhan Chelibiev, 1917 ( private ) .
Zeki Validov ( Togan ), 1953 ( pritJate ) .
Joseph Stalin a s Commissar of Nationalities, 1917 ( Zhizn' natsional'nostei, no. 1,
1923 ) .
Mirza Sultan-Galiev (Zhizn' natsional'nostei, no. 1 , 1923 ) .
_Said Alim Khan, last Emir of Bukhara ( William E . Curtis, Turkestan, New York,
19u ) .
Enver Pasha ( Louis Fischer, The Soviets in World Affairs, Princeton, 1952 ) ; ( repro-
duced by permission of Princeton University Press and Jonathan Cape, Ltd. ) .
No i Zhordaniia ( private ) .
lrakly Tseretelli, 1917 ( private ) .
Akaki Chkhenkeli ( private ) .
Budu Mdivani, 1 922 ( L'Illustration, no. 4 128, 1 5 April 1 922, p . 332 ) .
Filipp Makharadze ( private ) .'
Grigorii Ordzhonikidze ( I. Mints and E. Gorodetskli, eds., Dokumenty po istorii
grazhdanskoi voiny v SSSR, I, Moscow, 1940 ) .
Sergei Kirov ( Mints and Gorodetskii, Dokumenty ).
Stepan Shaumian ( Mints and Gorodetskii, Dokumenty ) .
The General Secretariat of the Ukrainian Central Rada, 1917 ( private ) .
Mikhail Frunze and Ordzhonikidze at Tiflis, 1924 ( USSR in Construction, April­
May 1936 ) .
Negotiations between Soviet authorities and Basmachi leaders in the Ferghana region,
1921 ( K. Ramzin, Revoliutsiia v Srednei Azii, Moscow, 1928 ) .
MAPS
The Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Crimea ( 1922 ) 1 17
Central Asia and the Volga- Ural Region ( 1922 ) 1 57
The Caucasus ( 1 922 ) 196
Abbreviations U sed in the Notes and Bibliography

IM lstorik marksist
KA Krasnyi arkhio
LR Letopis' ( and Litopis) revoUutsii
LS Leninskii sbomik
NZ Die N eue Zeit
NV Novyi vostok
PR Proletarskaia revoliutsiia
RN Revoliutsiia i natsionafnosti
SP Sovetskoe pravo
SR Sotsialist-Revoliutsioner
VE Vestnik Evropy
VI Voprosy istorii
vs Vlast' sovetov
ZhN Zhizn' natsional'nostei

CSt-H Hoover Library and Institute, Stanford, California.


DLC The Library of Congress, Washington, D .C.
NN The New York Public Library, New York.
NNC The Columbia University Library, New York.
Brit. Mus. The British Museum, London.
Doc, Int. Bibliotheque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine, Paris.
I
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM
IN RUSSIA

The Russian Empire on the Eve of the 1917 Revolution

The Russian Empire, as it appeared in 1917, was the product of


nearly four centuries of continuous expansion. Unllke other European
nations, Russia was situated on the edge, of the vast Asiatic mainland
and knew relatively few, geographic deterrents to aggrandizement.
This geographically favorable situation was made even more advan­
tageous by the political weakness of Russia's neighbors, who were
especially ineffective on the eastern and southern frontiers. Here vast
and potentially rich territories were either under the dominion of inter­
nally unstable and technologically backward Moslem principalities, or
else sparsely populated by nomadic and semi-nomadic groups without
any permanent political institutions whatsoever - forces incapable of
long range resistance to the pressures of a large and dynamic state.
Hence Russia, somewhat like the United States, found outlets for expan­
sive tendencies along its own borders instead of overseas. The process
of external growth had been rapid, beginning with the inception of the
modern Russian state and developing in close connection with it. It has
been estimated that the growth of the Russian Empire between the end
of the fifteenth and the end of the nineteenth century proceeded at the
rate of 130 square kilometers or fifty square miles a day. 0
Almost from its very inception the Moscow state, had acquired do­
minion over non-Russian peoples. Ivan the Terrible conquered Kazan
and Astrakhan and brought the state a large number of '.furks (Volga
Tatars, Bashkirs) and Finns ( Chuvashes, Mordvinians) from the region
of the Volga River and its tributaries. In the seventeenth century, the
0 A. Brueckner, Die Europaelsierung Russlands (Gotha, 1888), g. This process
slowed down in the century between 1761 and 1856 to a rate of thirty square miles
a day. During approximately the same time (1790-1890), the United States ex­
panded at double that rate, or sixty square miles a day; cf. data in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica (11th ed., 1911), XXVII, 365.
z THE FORMATION
' I
OF THE SOVIET UNION

tsars added Siberia, populated by Turkic, Mongol, and Finnish tribes.


The left-bank regions of the Dnieper River, with their Cossack popula­
tion - the forerunners of modern Ukrainians - came under a Russian
protectorate in 1654. During the eighteenth century, moving west, Peter
the Great conquered from Sweden the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea
(today's Estonia and Latvia), while Catherine the Great, as a result of
agreements with Austria and Prussia, seized the eastern provinces of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Catherine's successful wars with Tur­
key brought Russia possession of the. northern shores of the Black Sea,
including the Crimean peninsula. The Transcaucasian Kingdom of East­
ern Georgia was incorporated in 1801, Finland in 1809, and the central
regions of Poland in 1815. The remainder of Transcaucasia and the
Northern Caucasus were acquired in the first half of the century, and
Alexander II added most of Turkestan. c� /
The first systematic census, undertaken in 1897, revealed that the
majority (55.7 per cent) of the population of the Empire, exclusive of
the Grand Duchy of Finland, consisted of non-Russians. 0 The total
population of the Empire was 122,666,500. The principal groups were
divided, by native language, as follows (the' figures are in per cent) : l
Slavs
Great Russians 44.32
Ukrainians 17.81
Poles 6.31
Belorussians 4.68
Turkic peoples 10.82
Jews 4.03
Finnish peoples 2.78
Lithuanians and Latvians 2.46
Germans 1.42
Caucasian Mountain peoples (gortsy) 1.34
Georgians 1.07
Armenians 0.93
Iranian peoples 0.62
Mongolians 0.38
Others 1.03
0
A. I. Kastelianskii, ed., Formy natsional'nago dvizheniia (St. Petersburg, 1910),
283. The criterion employed by this census was language, not nationality, that is,
all those citizens who considered Russian their native tongue were listed as Rus­
sians. Since, however, the Russian language was the lingua franca of the Empire
and was spoken by many educated non-Russians, the census tended to overestimate
the proportion of Russians in the population. The 1926 census, which investigated
both the language and the nationality of the inhabitants, revealed that six and one­
half million citizens of the Soviet Union (or 4.5 per cent of the entire population) of
non-Russian nationality considered Russian their mother tongue. It is not far fetched
to suppose, therefore, that the true proportion of non-Russians at the end of the
nineteenth century was close to 60 per cent.
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 3
One of the anomalies of pre-1917 Russia was the fact that although,
to quote one observer, "the Russian Empire, Great Russian in its origin,
ceased being such in its ethnic composition," 2 the state, with some excep­
tions, continued to be treated constitutionally and administratively as a
nationally homogeneous unit. The principle of autocracy, preserved in
all its essentials until the Revolution of 1905, did not permit - at least
in theory - the recognition of separate historic or national territories
within the state in which the monarch's authority would be less absolute
or rest on a legally different basis from that which he exercised at home.
In practice, however, this principle was not always consistently applied.
At various times in history Russian tsars did grant considerable autonomy
to newly conquered territories, partly in recognition of their special
status, partly in anticipation of political reforms in Russia, and in some
cases they even entered into contractual relations with subject peoples,
thus limiting their own power.
Poland from 1815 to 1831 and Finland from 1809 to 1899 were in
theory as well as in practice constitutional monarchies. Other regions,
such as the Ukraine from 1654 to 1764, Livonia and Estonia from 1710
to 1783 and from 1795 to the 188o's, enjoyed extensive self-rule. 3 But
those exceptions were incompatible with the maintenance of the principle
of autocracy in Russia itself. Sooner or later, for one reason or another,
the privileges granted to conquered peoples were retracted, contracts
were unilaterally abrogated, and the subjects, together with their terri­
tories, were incorporated into the regular administration of the Empire.
At the close of the nineteenth century, Finland alone still retained a
broad measure of self-rule. Indeed, in some respects, it possessed greater
democratic rights than Russia proper; Finland under the tsars presented
the paradox of a subject nation possessing more political freedom than
the people who ruled over it. It was a separate principality, which the
Russian monarch governed in his capacity as Grand Duke ( Velikii
kniaz'). The tsar was the chief executive; he controlled the Grand
Duchy's foreign affairs; he decided on questions of war and peace; he
approved laws and the appointments of judges. The tsar also named
the resident Governor General of the Grand Duchy, who headed the
Finnish and Russian armies and the police on its territory, and who was
responsible for the appointments of the local governors. A State Secre­
tary served as the intermediary between the Russian monarch and· the
Finnish organs of self-rule. The Finns had complete control over the
legislative institutions of the state. They possessed a bicameral legislative
body, composed of a Senate and a Seim (Diet). The Senate considered
legislative projects and performed the function of the supreme court of
the state. The Seim was the highest legislative organ in the country.
Called every five years on the basis of nation-wide elections, it initiated
and voted on legislation pertaining to its domain. No law could become
4 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

effective without its approval. Finnish citizens in addition enjoyed other


privileges. Every Finnish subject, while in Russia proper, could claim all
the rights of Russian citizens, although Russian citizens in Finland were
considered foreigners. In every respect, therefore, Finland had a uniquely
privileged position in the Russian Empire, which resembled more closely
the dominion relationship in existence in the British Empire than the
customary colonial relationship prevalent in other parts of Russia.4 The
Finns had, originally acquired these privileges from the Swedes, who
had ruled their country before the Russian conquest. The tsars preserved
them because Finland was acquired by Alexander I, a monarch of
relatively liberal views, who, for a time, had thought of introducing a
constitutional regime into Russia proper.
Prior to 1917, the Russian Empire also possessed two protectorates,
the Central Asian principalities of Bukhara and Khiva. In 1868 and 1873
respectively, these states recognized the sovereignty of the Russian tsar
and ceded to him the right to represent them in relations with other
powers. They also granted Russians exclusive commercial privileges and
were compelled to abolish slavery in their domains. Otherwise, they
enjoyed self-rule.
The remaining borderlands of the Empire were administered, in the
last decades of the ancien regime, in a manner which did not differ
essentially - though it differed in some particulars - from that in effect
in the territories of Russia proper. Whatever special powers the Imperial
Government deemed necessary to grant to the authorities administering
these territories were derived not so much from a recognition of the
multinational character of the state or from a desire to adapt political
institutions to the needs of the inhabitants, as from the impracticability
of extending the administrative system of the Great Russian provinces in
its entirety to the borderland.
Whereas, for example, Russia was divided into provinces (gubernie),
administered by governors, most of the borderland areas were grouped
into General Gubemie, which included anywhere from a few to a dozen
regular provinces, and were headed by governors general, usually high
army officers. The distance of the borderlands from the center, the spar­
sity of population in some and the existence of strong nationalist tradi­
tions in others, required that the persons administering such areas be
granted greater powers than was necessary in the central provinces of the
Empire. The governor general was a viceroy, with extraordinary powers
to maintain order and to suppress revolutionary activity. He had a right
to employ any means necessary to the performance of his duty, ,including
arrests or expulsions without recourse to courts. In some regions, the
governor general also received additional powers, required by local con­
ditions. There were ten such governors general: in Warsaw ( with jurisdic­
tion over ten Polish provinces), in Kiev ( with jurisdiction over the
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 5
Ukraine, or Little Russia, including the provinces of Kiev, Volhynia, and
Podolia) , in Vilna (today's Lithuania and Belorussia, with the provinces
of Vilna, Grodno, and Kovno) , two in Central Asia (Turkestan and
Steppe) , and two in Siberia (the so-called· Irkutskoe, and Priamurskoe).
The Governor General of Finland, although bearing the title, had in
effect very little authority, and could not be classed in the same category
as the other governors general. The official heading the administration
of the Caucasus, on the other hand, while formally called a viceroy, was
for all practical purposes a full-fledged governor general. The city of
Moscow, because of its importance and central location, also formed a
general gubernia.5
Under the governor general were the provincial governors who had
to communicate with the cenh·al political institutions of the Empire
through him, but who, as a rule, were called "military governors" (voen­
nye gubernatory), and had both civil and military jurisdiction. The
military governors of Turkestan were directly appointed by the Russian
Ministry of War.
The gubernie, or provinces, were - as elsewhere in Russia - further
subdivided into districts (okruga, or less commonly uezdy), but in the
eastern borderlands such circumscriptions generally embraced much
larger territories and had a simpler structure. On the lowest administra­
tive level there existed considerable variety. In some regions, the popula­
tion was divided into villages or auly; in others, where the inhabitants
were nomadic, they were organized into tribes; in yet others, they were
administered together with the local Russian population.
Russian law also made special provisions for certain groups of non­
Russian subjects. Russia, prior to 1917, retained the system of legally
recognized classes and class privileges, long since defunct in Western
Europe. Within this system there was a social category of so-called
inorodtsy, a term which has no exact equivalent in English and can best
be-rendered by the French peuples allogenes. The inorodtsy comprised
the Jews and most of the nomadic peoples of the Empire, who were
subject to special laws rather than to the general laws promulg�ted in
the territories which they inhabited.° For the nomadic inorodtsy, this
meant in effect that they possessed the right to self-rule, with their native
courts and tribal organization. Their relations with the Russian authori­
ties were limited to the payment of a fixed tribute or tax, usually to an
agent of the Ministry of Interior or of State Properties. By settling on
land and abandoning nomadic habits, an inorodets changed from his
status to that of a regular Russian citizen, with all the duties and privi-
0 The Russian Code of Law defined inorodtsy as subjects belonging to the fol­
lowing groups: the Siberian nomads ( which included those of the Steppe General
Guhernia of Central Asia), the natives of the Komandorskie Islands, the Samoeds,
the nomads of the province of Stavropol, the Kalmyks, the Ordyntsy of the Trans­
caspian region, the mountain peoples of the Northern Caucasus, and all the Jews.
6 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
leges of the class which he had joined; as long as he retained his inoro­
dets status, he gave nothing to the government and received nothing in
return. 6 Russian treatment of the nomads was, on the whole, character­
ized by tolerance and respect for native traditions. Much of the credit
for this must be given to the great liberal statesman, M. M. Speranskii,
who, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, had laid down the basic
principles for their administration.
For the other subgroup of inorodtsy, the Jews, membership in this
class entailed stringent restrictions ( most of them stemming from eight­
eenth-century legislation). These forbade them to move out of a strictly
defined area in the southwestern and northwestern parts of the Empire,
the so-called Pale of Settlement, to purchase landed property, or to
settle outside the to�s. Such disabilities brought severe social and
economic suffering, for the Jews were crowded into towns where they
had no adequate basis for livelihood and had to rely heavily on primi­
tive handicraftsmanship and petty trade to survive. By creating abnormal
economic conditions in the Jewish communities and preventing them
from taking their place in the life of socfety, the restrictive legisla­
tion contributed to the large number of Jews found in radical movements
at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Jew could alter his status
only by adopting Christianity. 0
At no point in its history did tsarist Russia formulate a consistent
policy toward the minorities. In the early period of the Empire, ap­
proximately from the middle of the sixteenth until the middle of the
eighteenth century, the attitude of the government toward its non­
Russian subjects was influenced strongly by religion. Where discrimina­
tion existed, the principal reason was the desire of the regime to convert
Moslems, Jews, and other non-Christians to the Orthodox faith. Toward
the end of the eighteenth century, with the secularization of the Russian
monarchy, this religious element lost its force, and political considera­
tions loomed ever larger. Thereafter, the treatment of the minorities,
as of the Great Russians themselves, was largely determined by the
desire on the part of the monarchs to maintain and enforce the principle
of autocracy; minority groups which challenged this effort in the name
of national rights were treated as harshly as were Russian groups which
challenged it in the name of democracy or freedom in general.
The period from the accession of Alexander III ( 1881) to the out­
break of the 1905 Revolution was that in which persecution of the
minorities culminated. The Russian government perhaps for the first
time in its entire history adopted a systematic policy of Russilication and
minority repression, largely in an endeavor to utilize Great Russian
national sentiments as a weapon against growing social unrest in the
0
Exceptions were made only in the case of certain categories of Jews who were
either rich merchants or had a higher education.
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 7
country. During this period, Finnish privileges were violated through
a suspension of the legislative powers of the Seim ( 1899), the introduc­
tion of the compulsory study of Russian in Finnish secondary schools,
the subordination of the Finnish Ministry of Post and Telegraphs to
the corresponding Russian institution, and other restrictive measures.
Polish cultural activity was severely limited; the Jewish population was
subjected to pogroms inspired or tolerated by the government, and to
further economic restrictions ( for instance, the revocation of the right
to distill alcohol); the Ukrainian cultural movement was virtually brought
to a standstill as a result of the prohibitions imposed on printing in the
Ukrainian language ( initiated in the 1870's); the properties of the
Armenian church were confiscated by the Viceroy of the Caucasus
( 1903). It was, however, not accidental that this era of Russification
coincided with the period of greatest governmental reaction, during
which the Great Russian population itself lost many of the rights which
it had acquired in the Great Reforms of Alexander II ( 1856-1881).
The outbreak of the Revolution of 1905 and the subsequent establish­
ment of a constitutional monarchy brought to a halt the period of national
persecution but it did not repair all the damage done in the previous
quarter-century. The Dumas, especially the First, in which the minorities
were well represented, 0 gave only slight attention to the national ques­
tion, though they provided an open rostrum of discussions on that topic.
In 1907, the government regained supremacy over the liberal elements;
it changed the electoral laws in favor of the Russian upper classes, among
whom supporters of the autocracy were strong, depriving the remain­
der of the population of a proportionate voice in the legislative insti­
tutions of the state. The borderlands, where liberal and socialist parties
enjoyed a particularly strong following, were hardest hit by the change,
and some ( Turkestan, for instance) lost entirely the right to representa­
tion.
National Movements in Russia
The paradox - and tragedy - of Russian history in the last century
of the ancien regime was the fact that while the government clung to
the anachronistic notion of absolutism, the country itself was undergoing
an extremely rapid economic, social, and intellectual evolution, which
required new, more flexible forms of administration. The nineteenth
century was a period when capitalism and the industrial revolution
penetrated Russia, stimulating the development of some social classes
0
In the First Duma, the Russians had 59. 1 per cent of seats, the Ukrainians
13.8 per cent, the Poles 11.3 per cent, the Belorussians 2.9 per cent, the Jews 2.8
per cent, the Lithuanians 2.2 per cent, the Estonians 0.9 per cent, the Tatars 1.6
per cent, the Latvians 1.3 per cent, the Bashkirs 0.9 per cent, the Germans 0.9 per
cent, the Mordvinians 0.4 per cent, the Karaites, Kirghiz, Chechens, Votiaks, Bul­
garians, Chuvashes, Moldavians, and Kalmyks had each 0.2 per cent ( Pervaia Gosu­
darstvennaia Duma, I [St. Petersburg, 1907], 11 ) .
8 THE F ORMATION O F THE SOVIET UNION
which had previously been· weak (a middle class, an industrial proletariat,
and a prosperous, land-owning peasantry), and undermining others (e.g.,
the landed aristocracy). Western ideas, such as liberalism, socialism,
nationalism, utilitarianism, now found a wide audience in Russia. The
Russian monarchy, which until the nineteenth century had been the
principal exponent of Western ideas in Russia, now lagged behind.
The second half of the reign of Alexander I (1815-1825) marked
the beginning of that rift between the monarchy and the articulate
elements in Russian society which, widening continuously, led to con­
spiratorial movements, terrorist activity, and revolution, and finally, in
1917, to the demise of monarchy itself.
The national movement among the minorities of the Russian state,
which also began in the nineteenth century, represented one of the
many forms which this intellectual and social ferment assumed. Because
the traditions and socio-economic interests of the various groups of
subjects, including the minorities, were highly diversified, their cultural
and political development tended to take on a local, and in some cases,
a national coloring. Romantic philosophy, which first affected Russia
in the 182o's, stimulated among the minority intellectuals an interest in
their own languages and past traditions, and led directly to the evolution
of cultural nationalism, the first manifestation of the national movement
in the Russian borderlands.
Next, in the 186o's and 187o's, the spread of Russian Populism, with
its emphasis on the customs and institutions of the peasantry, provided
the minority �ntellectuals with a social ideology and induced them to
establish contact with the broad masses of their own, predominantly
rural, population. Finally, the development of modern political parties in
Russia, which took place about 1900, led to the formation of national
parties among the minorities, which in almost all instances adopted
either liberaJ or socialist programs and affiliated themselves closely with
their Russian counterparts. Until the breakdown of the tsarist regime,
such Russian and minority parties fought side by side for parliamentary
rights, local self-rule, and social and economic reforms; but while the
Russian parties stressed the general needs of the whole country, the
minority parties concentrated on local, regional requirements. The fact
that the minorities in Russia developed a national consciousness before
their fellow-'iiationals across the border ( the Ukrainians in Austrian
Galicia, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Azerbaijanis in Persia, and
so on), was a result of the more rapid intellectual and economic growth
of the Russian Empire.
The refusal of the tsarist regime to recognize the strivings of the
minorities was part of the larger phenomenon of its failure to respvnd
to the growing clamor on the part of all its citizens for fundamental
reforms, and had equally dire- results.
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 9
The Ukrainians and Belorussians
The Ukrainians and Belorussians ( .2.2.3 and 5.8 million respectively
in 18g7) descended from the Eastern Slav tribes which had been sepa­
rated from the main body of Russians as a result of the Mongolian inva­
sions and Polish-Lithuanian conquest of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. For over five centuries, these two parts of Eastern Slavdom
developed under different cultural influences. By the end of the eight­
eenth century, when Moscow had conquered the areas inhabited by the
other Eastern Slavic groups, the dissimilarities caused by centuries of
separate growth were too considerable to permit a simple fusion into
one nation. Through contact with their western neighbors, those peoples
bad acquired distinct cultural traditions with their own dialects and
folklores. Moreover, the steppes of the Black Sea region had for several
centuries following the Mongolian invasion remained a no man's land,
where runaway serfs, criminal elements, or simply adventurers from
Poland, Muscovy, or the domains of the Ottoman Empire bad found a
haven. In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, those
groups to which the Turkic name "Cossack" ( freebooter) was applied,
had formed an anarchistic society with a center along the lower course
of the Dnieper, which lived in complete freedom, hunting, fishing, or
pillaging. In the course of time, these Cossacks - with their ideal
of unlimited external and internal freedom - developed a new socio­
economic type of great importance for the future Ukrainian national
consciousness.
Tied by the bonds of religion and the �emory of common origin,
but separated by cultural and socio-economic differences, the Ukrainians
and Belorussians did not coalesce completely with their Great Russian
rulers. The rapid economic development of the rich Ukrainian agricul­
ture following the liberation of the serfs, especially in the last two dec­
ades of the ancien regime, when the Ukrainian provinces became one
of the world's leading grain exporting regions, created an additional basis
for Ukrainian nationalism. There now emerged a prosperous class of
independent farmers, without parallel in Russia proper. On the whole,
this Ukrainian peasantry knew neither the communal type of land owner­
ship nor the service relationship between peasant and landlord ( harsh­
china). Its soil was individually owned, and paid for by money, not by
personal labor.
During the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth century, it was still
an open question whether the cultural and economic peculiarities of
the Ukrainian people would lead to the formation of a separate nation.
The absence of a Ukrainian intelligentsia and centripetal economic forces
militated against; the Cossack tradition and the interests of the Ukrainian
peasants for. Throughout its existence, the Ukrainian movement had to
10 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

develop in an atmosphere of skepticism in which not only the validity


of its demands but the very existence of the nationality it claimed to
represent was seriously questioned by persons unconnected with the
movement. This accounts, at least in part, for the great vehemence with
which Ukrainian nationalists tended to assert their claims.
The cultural phase of the Ukrainian movement began in the 182o's,
under the stimulus of the ideas of Western romanticism transmitted
through Russia. Scholars began it by undertaking ethnographic studies
of the villages of southwestern Russia, where they uncovered a rich and
old folklore tradition and the ethos of a peasant culture, the existence
of which had been scarcely suspected. On this basis, there arose in
Russia and in the Ukrainian provinces a sizable provincial literature
which reached a high point with the publication in 1840 of the Kobzar,
a collection of original poems in Ukrainian by Taras Shevchenko, then
a student at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts. This began the trans­
formation of a peasant dialect into a literary, and subsequently, a national
language. In 1846, a number of writers and students at Kiev founded the
Cyril and Methodius Society - a secret organization permeated with the
spirit of utopian socialism, German idealism, and the notions of interna­
tional brotherhood and social equalitarianism. Present also was a strong
element of cultural Pan-slavism. This society, like others of similar type
in Russia proper, was suppressed in 1847.
In the second half of the century, the Ukrainian movement patterned
itself after Populism, prevalent in Russia at the time. It devoted itself
to the social problems of the peasantry, and displayed strong sympathy
for peasant customs and manners. The cultural movement received a
temporary setback in the 187o's when the Russian government, suspect­
ing a liaison between the "Ukrainophiles·· (as the Ukrainian Populists
were called ) and Polish nationalists, issued edicts which for all practical
purposes forbade printing in the Ukrainian language. For the next thirty
years, its center shifted to Galicia, where it enjoyed greater freedom
owing to Vienna's interest in utilizing Ukrainian ( Ruthenian ) patriotism
as a counterbalance to Polish nationalism in this province,
Until the end of the nineteenth century, the Ukrainians had no po­
litical parties of their own. In the Ukraine, as in Galicia, there were
numerous provincial organizations of a cultural character, the so-called
Hromady (Communities) , devoted to the study of Ukrainian life, but
they took no part in political activity. It was only in 1900 that a society
of young Ukrainians founded the first political organization, the Revolu­
tionary Ukrainian Party ( or RUP for short) . This party, established in
Kharkov, represented a merger of various groups dissatisfied with the
purely cultural activity of the older generation, and determined to give
the Ukrainian movement a political expression. The RUP utilized the
local Hromady to spread its influence to the provincial towns and vii-
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 11
lages. Its headquarters were located in Kiev, but the nerve center was
abroad, in Lemberg ( Lwow, Lviv) , where the RUP printed propaganda
to be smuggled into Russia, and engaged in other illegal activities. The
RUP united several divergent tendencies : separatist, anarchistic, Marxist,
Populist, and others. At first the extreme nationalist, irredentist element
won the upper hand; the first program of the RUP _( 1900) demanded
unconditional independence for a "greater Ukraine" extending between
the Don and the San rivers. 7 But before long, the more moderate ele­
ments prevailed and the RUP withdrew the demand for Ukrainian
independence from its program, replacing it with a demand for autonomy
within the Russian Empire. The RUP played a part in stimulating agrar­
ian disorders in the Ukraine in 1902-1903, and in spreading ideas of
Ukrainian nationalism among the masses. It also served as a training
ground for many of the future political leaders of the Ukrainian cause.
A few years after its formation, the RUP began to fall apart, as the
various groups which it had united stepped out to form independent
parties. The first to depart where the separatists ( samostiiniki ) who,
dissatisfied with the gravitation of the party toward Russian socialist
organizations, founded the National Ukrainian Party ( NUP) in 1902.
Next went the extreme left radicals, who, in 1905, joined the Russian
Social Democratic Labor Party. The remainder of the RUP adopted the
Social Democratic program and renamed itself the Ukrainian Social
Democratic Labor Party ( USDRP) . Its program included the demand
for Ukrainian autonomy and the establishment of a regional Seim ( Diet)
in Kiev. In 1905, the liberal elements of Ukrainian society who had not
been associated with'the RUP formed a separate Ukrainian Democratic
Radical Party ( UDRP) . Thus within a few years, a large number of
Ukrainian parties appeared on the scene - an early manifestation of
the extreme factionalism which was to become a characteristic trait
of Ukrainian political life. The USDRP and UDRP were the most influen­
tial, though none of them seems to have had a numerous following or
a very efficient apparatus. The USDRP cooperated closely with the
Russian Marxists, whereas the UDRP supported the Russian Kadets.
The Belorussian movement developed more slowly than the Ukrain­
ian. Its cultural phase did not get well under way until the beginning of
the twentieth century, with the publication of the Nasha niva ( Our
Land ), the first newspaper in the Belorussian language. The first Belo­
russian national party was the Belorussian Revolutionary Hromada,
founded in 1902 in St. Petersburg by a group of students associated with
the Polish Socialist Party ( PPS ) , and later renamed the Belorussian
Socialist Hromada. The Hromada took over the program of the PPS,
adding to it a statement on the national question, which demanded the
introduction of federal relations in Russia, with territorial autonomy for
the provinces adjoining Vilna and national-cultural autonomy for all
12 THE F O RMATION O F THE S O V I E T UNION
the minorities of the region. 8 The Belorussian movement, operating in
one of Western Russia's poorest areas, and having to compete with
Polish, Jewish, Russian, and Lithuanian parties, remained ineffective and
exercised no influence on political developments in prerevolutionary
Russia.9

The Turkic Peoples


By 1900 Russia had within its borders nearly fourteen million Turks
- several million more than the Ottoman Empire itself. The remaining
Moslems were either of Iranian stock, or else belonged to North Cau­
casian groups whose racial origin is uncertain.
Culturally and economically, the most advanced Turks in Russia
were the Volga Tatars (over two million in 1897 ) who inhabited the
regions adjacent to Kazan. Descendants of the Kazan Khanate which
had been conquered by Ivan IV, the Volga Tatars had early abandoned
the nomadic habits of their ancestors and had settled in the cities and
on the soil. Taking advantage of the geographic location of their territory,
they developed considerable commercial activity, serving as middle-men
between Russia and the East. This economic position they retained
after the Russian conquest. A statistical survey undertaken at the begin­
ning of the nineteenth century, revealed that the Tatars owned one-third
of the industrial establishments in the Kazan province, and controlled
most of the trade with the Orient. 10 The Volga Tatars were the first of
the Turks in Russia, qr for that matter, anywhere in the world, to develop
a middle class. This enabled them to assume leadership of the Turkic
movement in Russia.
The Crimean Tatars and the Azerbaijani Turks were next in order
of cultural advancement. Both these groups had come relatively late
under Russian dominion, the former in 1783, the latter in the first decade
of the nineteenth century. The Crimean Tatars were the remnants of
the Crimean Khanate which, at one time, had dominated the Black Sea
steppes and from the middle of the fifteenth century to the Russian con­
quest had, been under the protection of the Ottoman Sultan. At the time
of the Russian occupation, they had numbered, according to contem­
porary estimates, one half million, 1 1 but several waves of mass migration
to Turkish Anatolia hac\ reduced that number by 1862 to one hundred
thousand. 12 In 1897 there were in the Crimea 196,854 Tatars. 13 The
Crimean Tatars owed their cultural advance partly to contact with other
nations, made possible by their geographic location, and partly to the
wealth acquired from subtropical horticulture.
The Azerbaijanis ( 1,475,553 in 1897 ) lived along the Kura River
valley of Transcaucasia. They formed a smaller part of that branch of
the Turks, the majority of whom then, as now, inhabited northwestern
Persia. The Azerbaijanis were an agricultural people, consisting of a
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 13
peasantry and land-owning aristocracy. With the development of the
Baku oil industries on their territory, the Azerbaijanis also acquired the
beginning of an urban middle class.
The Central Asian Uzbeks (about two million in 1897, not counting
those inhabiting Khiva and Bukhara) also were largely settled, and had
developed an urban trading and artisan class. At the time of the Russian
conquest they were politically and economically the rulers of Turkestan. 0
The remaining Turkic groups in Russia consisted largely of semi­
nomads: Bashkirs of the southwest Ural region ( 1,493,000 in 1897 ) ; the
Kazakhs and Kirghiz ( 4,285,800 ) , and the Turkmens of Central Asia
( 281,357 in 1897 ) ; and the numerous small tribes of Siberia. The majority
of those groups combined cattle-breeding and the tending of sheep with
agriculture.
Nearly all the Turkic peoples spoke similar dialects of the same
language and had a common racial descent. An observer might have
expected, therefore, that "Turkism" or "Pan-Turkism" would provide the
basis for a national movement of the Turkic groups in Russia. This, how­
ever, did not prove to be the case. The concept of a single Turkic people
emerged only at the end of the nineteenth century and, before the Revo­
lution of 1917, had not had an opportunity to affect even the Turkic
intelligentsia, let alone the broader masses of the population.
The Turks in Russia, insofar as they felt a sense of unity, were much
more conscious of their common Moslem faith than of their common
ethnic origin. Since Islam, like most Oriental religions, is not · only a set
of beliefs but also a way of life, it affects family relations, law, commerce,
education, and virtually every other aspect of human existence. This
religious bond provided the main basis of the Turkic movement; it was,
prior to 1917, always more important than the ethnic element. But it
also presented great difficulties to the slowly developing national move­
ment among the Russian Turks which from the first took on an openly
westernizing character, and as such was anticlerical. Its leaders found
themselves thus in the position of having to uproot the very ideas which
provided the raison a:etre of their movement.
- The national awakening of Russian Turks had its beginning in the
Crimea. Its leader was Ismail-bey Gasprinskii (Gaspraly or Gaspirali)
who, in 1883-84, established in his native city of Bakhchisarai a Turkish­
language newspaper, the Terdzhiman (Terciiman, meaning Interpreter )
which before long became the prototype for all Moslem periodical publi-
0 The term Uzbek is used throughout this study in the Soviet sense; i.e., as

consisting of two principal groups: the people known before the Revolution as
Sarts, and composed of the descendants of the original Iranian inhabitants of Central
Asia, largely urbanized and Turkicized; and the Uzbeks proper, a Turkic people
formed in the fourteenth century, who had split away from the main body of the
nomadic Turks and who in the course of the sixteenth century had conquered most
of Turkestan.
14 T HE FORMATION O F THE SOVIET UNION

cations in Russia and served as an organ of Moslems throughout the


entire country. Gasprinskii also founded a new school system, based on
the principles of modern education, to replace the medresse, which
taught Arabic and restricted instruction to subjects bearing on religion. 14
On the basis of the experience which these efforts provided, there grew
up in Russia within one generation a considerable network of periodical
publications and "new-method," or so-called dzhaddidist ( jadidist ) 0
schools. By 1913 Russia had sixteen Turkic periodical publications, of
which five were daily newspapers. 15 All except three of those were writ­
ten in the dialect of the Volga Tatars which was quickly gaining accept­
ance as the literary language of all Russian Turks. In the same year, there
were published in Russia 608 books in Turkic languages in a total edition
of 2,812,130 copies, of which 178 titles and 1,282,240 copies were devoted
to religious subjects, while the remainder were secular. 16 The reformed
school system, which the tsarist government allowed to develop freely,
spread to the Volga region and from there to Turkestan. On the eve of
the First World War, Russian Turks had access to a considerable number
of elementary and several secondary schools of the secular, Western kind
which taught youth in their native languages free from government inter­
ference or supervision. f From educational institutions of this kind, sup­
ported largely by wealthy Kazan or Baku merchants, emerged the intelli­
gentsia which, during the Russian Revolution and the first decade of
Soviet rule, was to play a crucial role in the history of the Moslem
borderlands.
Beginning with the Russian Revolution of 1905, the political move­
ment among Russian Turks took two parallel courses. There was an
All-Russian Moslem movement, and there were local movements of the
various national groups. Occasionally the two forms actively supple­
mented one another, occasionally they conflicted, but they never merged
completely. In 1905 and 1906, the leading representatives of the Moslem
intelligentsia met in three congresses, the first and third at Nizhnii Nov­
gorod (now Gorkii), the second at Moscow. At those meetings, the
principle of unity of all Russian Moslems was asserted through the
establishment of a Moslem Union ( Ittifiiq-ul-Muslimin or Ittifak ) and
agreements for the caucusing of the Moslem deputies in the Russian
Dumas. The Third Congress (August 1906) adopted resolutions urging
the introduction of regional autonomy into Russia, without specifying
whether or not it was to rest on the national principle.17
In the First and Second Dumas, in which they had thirty and thirty­
nine deputies respectively, the Moslems formed a separate Moslem Fac­
tion in which the Volga Tatar Saadri Maksudov (Maksudi) later came to
0
The term is derived from the Arabic word jad'id, meaning "new."
t Validov,
Ocherk. Rybakov, "Statistika" states that in 191 1 there were in Russia
87 Moslem private institutions, of which 34 were educational.
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 15
play a dominant role. The majority of them supported the Russian liber­
als or Kadets, though small socialist groups were also present within the
Faction. The change of electoral laws, effected in 1907 to favor the elec­
tion of Russian deputies, reduced the number and importance of Moslems
in the last two Dumas.
Simultaneously with the All-Russian Moslem movement - which was
dominated by liberal elements - there developed regional Turkic par­
ties, generally of a more radical character. The Volga Tatars again
led the way. In 1906 two Volga Tatar writers, Fuad Tuktarov and Gaijaz
(Ayaz) Iskhakov (Iskhaky), founded a local counterpart of the Russian
Socialist Revolutionary Party, which, grouped around the newspaper
Tang (Dawn), advocated the immediate transfer of all land to the people
and, wherever possible, of factories to the workers. The relations of
their party, the Tangchelar ( Tangelar ) , with the pro-Kadet Ittifak were
cool and occasionally hostile. 18
In Azerbaijan a group of young Turkic intellectuals, many of whom
had been closely associated with the local Bolshevik organization during
the 1905 Revolution, formed in Baku in 1911-12.'the Moslem Democratic
Party Mussavat ( Musavat) . Its original leader was a young journalist,
Mehmed Emin Resul-zade. The £rst program of this Party had a pro­
nounced Pan-Islamic character, expressing the desire for the reestablish­
ment of Moslem unity throughout the world and the revival of the ancient
glories of Islam. It advanced no specillc demands for the Azerbaijani
people. 19 Indeed, the very concept of a distinct Azerpaijani nation did
not come into being until 1917, when local nationalists applied to their
people the geographic name of the Persian province inhabited by Turks.
These two parties, established among the leading Turkic peoples in
Russia, had no counterparts among the smaller Turkic groups which
were to acquire national organizations only during the Revolution of
1917.

The Peoples of the Caucasus


The term Caucasus (Kavkaz ) is applied to the territory adjoining
the northern and southern slopes of the Caucasian Mountains which
stretch between the Caspian and Black seas, a thousand-mile-long chain
with elevations surpassing those of the European Alps. Under tsarist
administration this area was divided into six provinces or gubernie
(Baku, Tillis, Erivan, Elisavetpol, Kutais, and Chernomore), £ve regions
or oblasti (Batum, Daghestan, Kars, Kuban, and Terek), and one sepa­
rate district or okrug (Zakataly) . Topographically, the Caucasus can be
divided into two main parts, separated from each other by the Caucasian
range. The Northern Caucasus (Severnyi Kavkaz ) includes the steppes
stretching from the mountains toward the Volga and Don rivers and
the northern slopes of the mountains themselves. South of the range is
16 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

Transcaucasia ( Zakavkaz'e ) , an area covered by mountains of medium


height and traversed by three river valleys : the Rion, Kura, and Araks
( Aras ) . The total territory of the Caucasus is 158,000 square miles.
The Caucasian population is extraordinarily heterogeneous. It may
safely be said that no other territory of equal size anywhere in the world
displays a comparable diversity of languages and r�,,ces. The mountains
of the Caucasus, situated near the main routes of Asiatic migrations into
Europe and to the Near Eastern centers of civilization, have offered a
natural haven for peoples seeking escape from wars and invasions, and
in the course of the past three thousand years nearly every one of the
peoples inhabiting or passing through the region has left its mark on
the Caucasus' ethnic composition. In 1916 the Caucasus had 12,266,000
inhabitants, divided into the following principal groups : 20
Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians 4,023,000
Azerbaijanis and other Moslems .2,455,000
Armenians 1,860,000
Georgians 1,791,000
Caucasian Mountain peoples 1,5 19,000
Other European peoples 140,000
Other indigenous peoples 478,000

The greatest ethnic heterogeneity is to be found in the Northern


Caucasus, and especially in its eastern sections, Daghestan and Terek.
The term "Caucasian Mountain peoples" ( Kavkazskie gortsy, or simply
gortsy ) has no ethnic significance; it is merely a general term used to
describe the numerous small groups inhabiting the valleys .and slopes
of the Caucasian range. There one can find living side by side the
descendants of the Jews carried into captivity by the Babylonians; of
the Avars, who had ravaged Eastern Europe between the sixth and
eighth centuries; and of numerous other small peoples, some of whom
number no more than a few hundred. In Transcaucasia, on the other
hand, in addition to the Azerbaijani Turks, there are two sizable national
groups : the Georgians and the Armenian.s. Their racial origin is still a
matter of dispute, but it is certain that they have inhabited their present
territories continuously for over two thousand years. Their history has
been closely associated with that of the entire Near East, and, at various
times, they have been subjected to the dominant powers in that region,
the Persi�ns, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Byzantines, Mongolians, and Turks.
The central factor in the historical development of the Georgians
and the Armenians was their adoption of Christianity in the fourth
century. As a result of this, they entered into contact with Byzantium,
and through it, with Europe. This bond with the West not only brought
these two peoples under different cultural influences from those of their
neighbors, but also developed in them a consciousness of distinctness, of
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 17
separateness from the civilization of the Near East, which remained long
after they had been cut off from the main body of their co-religionists
by the spread of Islam. Surrounded on all sides by Moslems, the Christian
Georgians and Armenians always felt themselves drawn to Europe and
were susceptible to Western ideas. For the same reason, they passed
voluntarily under Russian dominion, and once incorporated into Russia,
got along well with their Christian rulers. Eastern Georgia became a
vassal of Russia at the end of the eighteenth century to escape Persian
misrule; it was not allowed to enjoy the privileges of vassalage for long,
however, and in 1801 it was incorporated into the Russian Empire by a
tsarist edict. Russian Armenia came under Russian l'l;lle as one of the
prizes of the victorious wars which the tsars waged with Persia at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. Russia ruled only a small part of
the Armenian population, the majority of which continued to live on
territories of the Ottoman Empire.
The Caucasus is a purely geographic, not a historic or cultural con­
cept. There never was, or could have been, a "Caucasian" national move­
ment. The ethnic, religious, and socio-economic divergencies separating
the main groups of the population from each other, not only prevented
the emergence of a united cultural or political movement, but actually
led to internal frictions and at times to armed conflicts. Instead of one,
there were separate national movements of the principal ethnic groups.
The Georgians were primarily a rural people, composed of a largely
impoverished ancient feudal aristocracy (5.26 per cent of the entire
Georgian population in 1897) and a peasantry. The Georgian urban class
was small and insignificant. It was the declasse nobility which, from the
beginning, assumed the leadership over the cultural and political life of
Georgia. The Georgians possessed nearly all the elements that usually
go into the formation of national consciousness: a distinct language, with
its own alphabet; an ancient and splendid literary heritage; a national
territory; and a tradition of statehood and military prowess. In the 187o's,
a cultural movement arose among the Georgian aristocracy, which, with
its interest in the newly liberated peasant, assumed forms akin to Rus­
sian populism.21
The political phase of the national movement in Georgia acquired a
somewhat unusual character. VVhether it was due to the fact that the
carriers of the national ideology in Georgia did not belong to the middle
class but to an anti-bourgeois nobility, or whether it was caused by the
general receptivity to Western ideas characteristic of the Georgians, or
by still other causes, the Georgian movement became from its very in­
ception closely identified if not completely fused with Marxian socialism.
Marxism was introduced into Georgia in the 188o's and at once en­
countered an enthusiastic reception. In the First Duma, six of the
seven Georgian deputies were Social Democrats; in the Third, two out of
18 ,THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

three. Georgian socialists did not form separate organizations of their


own, but joined the regional branches of the Russian Social Democratic
Labor Party, where they soon attained considerable prominence. They
had no national demands. Noi Zhordaniia, one of the chief theoreticians
of the movement, stated repeatedly that all demands for autonomy were
utopian, and that Georgia would obtain sufficient self-rule as a result of
the anticipated future democratization of Russia.22 At the beginning of
the twentieth century, a small group of intellectuals, dissatisfied with this
attitude, left the Social Democratic Party and founded a separate or­
ganization, Sakartvelo ( Georgia), which in time transformed itself into
the Georgian Party of Socialists-Federalists. Their program, close in so­
cial questions to that of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party, called
for the establishment of a Russian Federal Republic with autonomy for
Georgia. Its popular following, however, judging by elections to the
Dumas, was small. About 1910 the Georgian Mensheviks somewhat
modified their views and adopted formulae calling for extraterritorial
cultural autonomy for Georgia. 0
The absence of territorial demands in the program of the most power­
ful party of the Georgian movement need not be interpreted as an indica­
tion of the lack of Georgian national sentiment. The national ideals of
the Georgian intelligentsia were identified, ideologically and psycho­
logically, with the goals of Russian and international �ocialism. As long
as this attitude persisted - that is, as long as Georgian intellectuals
believed Marxist socialism capable of dealing with the problems posed
by the development of the Georgian nation - there was no necessity to
advance territorial demands.
The position of the Armenians was different from that of the Georgi­
ans in several important respects : instead of living in a well-defined area
of their own, the Armenians were scattered in small groups among hos­
tile Turkic peoples throughout Eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasia, and
had a numerous, influential middle class. The paramount issue for the
Armenians, ever since the massacres which their population had suffered
in the Ottoman Empire in the 1890's, was Turkey and the Turks. Their
main concern was how to save the defenseless Armenian population
from further massacres engendered by the religious and socio-economic
conflicts between the Armenian bourgeoisie or petty bourgeoisie and the
Turkic land-owning and peasant classes, as well as by the cynical atti­
tude of the central government of Turkey. In this respect, the problems
facing the Armenians were not unlike those confronting the Jews in the
western regions of the Empire. Then there was also the question of de­
vising a political solution which would be suited to the ethnic distribu­
tion of the Armenian population and provide its urban classes with com-

0 This term will be explained below.


THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUS SIA 19
mercial advantages. The Armenian movement acquired early in its history
a conspiratorial, para-military character, It was essentially middle and
lower middle class in content, and much less socialist in spirit than the
political movements in Georgia or in most of the remaining Russian
borderlands.
The cultural movement in modern Armenia had begun already in
the 1840's, at first under the influence of German and French, and then
of Russian, ideas, and was actively supported by Armenian merchants
residing in the Levant and Western Europe. Its organization centered
around the separate Armenian Church establishments and its head, the
Catholicos. In the 189o's there were numerous Armenian schools, as well
as many societies and cultural centers, supported by the church in Rus-
sian Armenia.23
The first Armenian political party was the H nchak (Clarion) founded
in 1887 in Switzerland. This party was socialist in character. In the 189o's,
some of its members separated and founded the Dashnaktsutiun (Fed­
eration) which during the next quarter of a century came to occupy a
dominant role in Armenian political life. The Dashnaks were, in their
social program and in their general reliance on terroristic methods of
struggle against the Ottoman government, somewhat akin to the Russian
Socialist Revolutionaries, though the latter refused to establish direct
relations with the Dashnaktsutiun on the grounds that it was allegedly
a petty-bourgeois, nationalistic group which employed socialist slogans
only as camouflage. 24 The national program adopted by the Dashnaktsu­
tiun in 1907 made the following demands concerning the Russian Cau­
casus:
Transcaucasia, as a democratic republic, is to be a component
part of the Federal Russian Republic, The former is to be connected
with the latter in questions of defense of the state, foreign policy,
monetary and tariff systems.
The Transcaucasian Republic is to be independent in all its internal
affairs: it is to have Jts parliament, elected by means of universal,
direct, equal, secret, and proportional vote. Every citizen, regardless
of sex, is to have the right to vote beginning at the age of twenty.
Transcaucasia is to send its representatives, elected by the same
system of universal elections, to the All-Russian Parliament.
The Transcaucasian Republic is to be divided into cantons, which
are to have the right to broad local autonomy, and communes with
an equal right to self-rule in communal matters.
In determining cantonal borders, it is imperative to take into
account the topographical and ethnographical peculiarities of the
country in order to form groupings as homogeneous as possible. 25
The Dashnak program also demanded cultural autonomy, and the right
to use local languages in addition to the governmental language of all
20 T H E F O R M ATION OF T H E S O VIET U N I O N
Russia, Whereas in Russia the Armenian population was too scattered
to permit application of national autonomy, the party did request ter­
ritorial rights for · the Armenians in that part of its program which dealt
with the Ottoman Empire. 26
The North Caucasian peoples had no ipdigenous national parties
despite the fact that they were less assimilat�d and in many respects
more dissatisfied · with Russian rule than were the peoples of Trans­
caucasia. The mountains of the Caucasus had been conquered by Russia
in some of the bloodiest and longest campaigns of its entire history. NQ
other acquisition had cost Russia as yiuch effqrt as that impoverished
land inhabited by the wild and independent mountaineers. The forceful
expulsions carried on by the tsa:-fat regime, the niass migrations of the
people of whole regions following the Russian conquest, punitive expedi­
tions, Cossack encroachments on land, the hostility of the men of the
mountains for the inhabitant of the plains, of the Moslem for the Chris­
tian - all this created a suitable foundation for national animosities.
But it was not sufficient to produce an organized national movement.
The North Caucasian mountain peoples possessed no ethnic unity and
formed no cultural community; they were isolated from each other by
mountain ranges. Moreover, some of the groups fey_9ed among them­
selves, largely as a result of great discrepancies in the distribution of
land. 27
The Caucasus therefore had not one but several national movements
developing side by side. Of unity, there was none. The Georgians had
their eyes turned to Russia, to Europe, and to socialism; the chief con­
cern of the Armenians was the Turk on both sides of the frontier; the
Azerbaijanis participated in the All-Russian Moslem movement; and the
inhabitants of the mountains had developed as yet no definite political
orientation.

The national movements among the minorities inhabiting the Russian


Empire arose under the stimulus of the same forces which had affected
Russian society in the nineteenth century: Romantic idealism, with its
glorification of the Volk and of historic traditions; Populism, with its
idealization on the peasantry; the spirit of Western enlightenment; so­
cialism.
Two features of the minority movements stand out. In the first place,
before 1917, among the peoples discussed, there had been in evidence no
separatist tendencies. The Russian Empire was considered by most of its
inhabitants to be a permanent institution which required not destruc­
tion but democratization and social reform. In the second place, in most
of the borderlands, there was an alliance between nationalism and social­
ism. This phenomenon was perhaps due to the fact that the majority of
the nationality groups did not possess indigenous middle classes, which
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 21
in Russia proper, as in other European countries, formed the backbone
of the liberal forces. On the other hand, the nationalists could not ally
themselves with Russian rightist groups because the Russian rightists
automatically opposed them.
Socialism and the National Problem in Western
and Central Europe
Marx and Engels left their followers little guidance in matters of
nationality and nationalism. In Western Europe, whence they drew the
bulk of the source material for their economic and political studies, the
minority problem presented no serious issue: most of the states were
nationally homogeneous, without significant minority populations. This
appeared to Marx and Engels a normal situation and one fully justified
by the progress of historic forces :
No one will assert that the map of Europe is definitely settled.
All changes, however, if they are to be lasting, must be of such a
nature as to bring the great and vital European nations ever closer
to their true natural borders as determined by speech and sym­
pathies; while at the same time the ruins of peoples ( die Voelker­
truemmer) , which are still to be found here and there, and are no
longer capable of leading a national existence, must be incorporated
into the larger nations, and either dissolve in them or else remain as
ethnographic monuments of no political significance.28
The natural tendency of the capitalist era, in the opinion of Engels,
was to form large national states "which alone represent the normal or­
ganization of the ruling bourgeoisie of Europe, and which are also in­
dispensable for the establishment of a harmonious international coopera­
tion of peoples, without which the rule of the proletariat is not pos­
sible." 29 Both Marx and Engels viewed the small Slav states of Eastern
Europe as anachronistic and considered them ever ready to compromise
with absolutism in order to realize their selfish national aims; Engels even
approved of the medieval German expansion eastward and the conquest
of the small Slavic groups, arguing that it was the latter's "natural and
inescapable destiny to permit the completion of the process of dissolu­
tion and absorption by their stronger neighbors." 3 0 In the minority prob­
lem both founders of modem socialism were in favor of the great powers,
of centralism, and of cultural Gleichschaltung. 0
While tending to disregard the minority question, Marx and Engels
were not unaware of nationalism as such, which, of course, did exist in
Western Europe and on some occasions hindered the development of an
international socialist movement. B11:! though conscious of its force, Marx
0
S. F. Bloom in The World of Nations ( New York, 1941 ) demonstrates, how­
ever, that Marx neither envisaged nor favored the complete disappearance of national
differences.
22 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
and Engels saw no reason to fear that in the long run nationalism
could prevent the proletarian movement from taking, what they con­
sidered, its inevitable course. Such confidence was partly caused by the
fact that Marx and Engels shared some assumptions p;evalent among
liberal thinkers of their day, including the faith in the capacity of capital­
ism and democracy, with their free trade and opportunities for the ex­
pression of popular will, to level national differences and to bring into
being a world-wide international civilization. But the confidence in the
ability of socialism to overcome nationalism was also inherent in the
fundamental tenets of Marxism. The capitalist state, according to Marx,
was doomed to disintegrate under the pressure of the economic contra­
dictions which it was constantly engendering. The enrichment of the
upper classes and the pauperization of the proletariat inevitably re­
sulted in a realignment of interest groups within every state. It caused a
class struggle which was diametrically opposed to nationalism. Either
one or the other had to emerge as the victor, and Marx had no doubt
which side history had destined for that role. Nationalism could hamper
the growth of class consciousness; it could perhaps delay it, and for those
reasons, it was important to fight against it. But eventually nationalism
had to yield to class rivalries and to the international unity of the prole­
tariat. To admit that under some circumstances the economic interests
of a society could coincide with its cultural divisions was essentially
contrary to Marx's entire system.
Ethnic isolation and petty states as typical of the feudal era; national­
ism and the national state as characteristic of the capitalist era; inter­
nationalism and the disappearance of national animosities as proper to
the socialist era - such were, in bare outline, the basic views of Marx
and Engels on the nationality question. This was the heritage which they
bequeathed to their followers.
The principal exponent of the orthodox Marxist views on the national­
ity question in the early twentieth century was the Polish socialist, Rosa
Luxemburg. Early in her career Rosa Luxemburg devoted much attention
to the economic development of Poland: her researches led her to the
conclusion that Poland's striving for independence had become illusory
and retrogressive because economic forces which had been in operation
throughout the nineteenth century had tied that country firmly to Russia
and to the other two occupying powers. Developing her thesis in a
series of articles published in the first decade of the century, she argued
that Marx's approval of Polish independence movements, sound for the
middle of the nineteenth century, was not valid in the twentieth, partly
because of economic factors, and partly because Russia had adopted a
constitution and ceased to be the bulwark of European absolutism which
it had been in Marx's day. Poland should satisfy herself, consequently,
with autonomy within a democratic Russian state. And although Rosa
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 23
Luxemburg's views, as her biographer points out, did not lead her to
condemn outright all independence efforts of small minorities ( she was,
for instance, sympathetic to the cause of the nationalities fighting for
independence in the Balkans ) , in Eastern European socialist circles "Lux­
emburgism" came to be used, in effect, as synonymous with uncom­
promising hostility toward all national movements in general.8 1 Her views
gained considerable following among t�e left-wing Marxist groups in
Eastern Europe, especially in Poland.
The post-Marxian socialist movement, identified with the Second
International ( 1889-1914 ) , when socialism enjoyed its golden age, found
the strict Marxian approach of the Luxemburg school more of an obstacle
than a help in dealing with the challenge of nationalism. At the begin­
ning of the twentieth century the circumstances which had permitted
Marx and Engels to disregard the nationality question had changed.
First of all, socialism had now left the confines of Western Europe and
had penetrated the East, where the minority problem was far from set­
tled. In that region, the Austrian, Russian, and Ottoman Empires had
numerous and dynamic minority populations with cultural and historic
traditions as old as or older than those of the ruling nations. How were
the socialists in these countries to deal with the minority problem? It
was impossible to ignore it. To advocate that the subject peoples sub­
ordinate themselves to their rulers and, by abandoning their language
and cultural traditions, bow to their "inescapable destiny" was, in view
of the deep-rooted national loyalties, impractical as well as politically
inexpedient. To urge the disintegration of empires into their component
national states was contrary to the historical tendencies of capitalism,
which favored integration and centralization.
Moreover, the basic assumption -on which Marx and Engels had
founded their belief in the eventual disappearance of nationalism was
obviously considerably incorrect. Side by side with the development of the
international socialist movement, and very often in close association with
it, there was taking place a development of nationalism in ::Western
Europe and elsewhere. As a result of social legislation initiated by the
more advanced Western states, the general rise in living standards of
the workers, and other causes, the proletariat was acquiring a greater
stake in the well-being of its state than it had had in Marx's time. The
poor were in many cases not becoming poorer but richer, and conse­
quently were not as immune to nationalist propaganda as had been ex­
pected. The emergence and spread of so-called Revisionism within the
Second International, which challenged some of the basic premises of
Marxism, reflected socialist realization of these facts. Western socialists,
however, did little to find a_ �olution to the problems with which the
growth of nationalism had confronted them, O and it remained for their
. � See Bibliography, p. 308.
24 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

colleagues in the Austrian Empire to evolye a theoretical and practical


approach to this vexing question.
The Hapsburg monarchy, the first multinational empire to develop a
strong socialist movement, had within its borders several large minority
groups (Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Italians, Serbians, Croatians, Ru­
manians) with historical traditions and a developed sense of national
consciousness. The Social Democrat there, operating on a mass level and
in cooperation with parties from the non-German areas, was compelled
to face the national problem much more urgently and in many more
forms than the Social Democrat in the West. First of all, he was faced
with the question whether the party was to be organized as one for the
whole empire or to be divided along territorial or national lines; second,
he had to decide how to conduct socialist propaganda among the groups
of the population which did not speak German, and how to reconcile the
different and often conflicting economic interests of the various national­
ities; and, finally, he was required to formulate a constitutional system,
satisfactory to all the inhabitants of the empire.
The national problem first came up for discussion at the Bruenn Con­
gress of the Austrian Social Democrats, held in 1899. There two solutions
were suggested, both based on the premise that the political unity of the
empire was to be preserved.
The first, advanced by the party's Executive Committee, proposed
that the empire be divided into provinces corresponding as closely as
possible to the ethnographic limits of each nationality, and that within
these provinces the numerically dominant ethnic group receive full au­
thority over cultural and linguistic affairs. 82 This proposal was based on
the principle of territorial national-cultural autonomy.
As a counterproposal, the South Slav delegation suggested a novel
scheme of extraterritorial national-cultural autonomy. According to this
plan, every national group was to have self-rule in linguistic and cultural
matters throughout the entire empire regardless of territorial divisions.
The �tate was to be divided not into territories but into nations. In the
opinion of its advocates, this project avoided the harmful institutionaliza­
tion of rigid national-territorial divisions and, furthermore, offered a
more practical solution of the national problem in areas where the popu­
lation was ethnically too mixed to make the customary territorial division
feasible.83
The Bruenn Congress finally accepted neither the project of the
Executive Committee nor the South Slav proposal, but a formula which
represented a compromise between the territorial and extraterritorial
principles of cultural autonomy :
1. Austria is to be transformed into a democratic federation of
nationalities ( Nationalitaetenbundesstaat ) .
THE NATION AL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 25
.2. The historic Crown lands are to be replaced by nationally
homogeneous self-ruling bodies, whose legislation and administra­
tion shall be in the hands of national chambers, elected on the basis
of universal, equal, and direct franchise.
3. All self-ruling regions of one and the same nation are to form
together a nationally distinct union, which shall take care of this
union's national affairs autonomously.34
At the Bruenn Congress, the Austrian party was reorganized along
national lines.
In the next decade the idea of extraterritorial or personal national­
cultural autonomy was adopted and further developed by two prominent
theoreticians of the Austrian socialist movement, Karl Renner and Otto
Bauer. Renner and Bauer endeavored to reconcile the nationalist move­
ment among the minorities of the empire with the socialist striving for
proletarian unity. This much appeared certai� to them: nationalism had
to be faced directly and the nation had to be recognized as a valuable
and enduring form of social organization:
Social Democracy proceeds not from the existing states but from
live nations. It neither denies nor ignores the existence of the nation
but on the contrary, it accepts it as the carrier of the new order,
which is visualized not as a union of states but as a community of
peoples, as nations . . . Social Democracy considers the nation both
indestructible and undeserving of destruction . . . Far from being
unnational or antinational, it places nations at the foundation of its
world structure.35
But this was not enough. If one viewed impartially the development
of the preceding century, Bauer asserted, it was impossible to escape
the conclusion that nationalism and national differences, instead of dis­
appearing, were actually on the increase. This phenomenon he con­
sidered to be inherently connected with the very forces which accounted
for the growth of socialism. The rule of the aristocracy or the upper
middle class created an illusion of growing cultural internationalization
of Europe and the rest of the world, because those ruling circles did
possess something resembling an international civilization, be it in the
classical heritage, be it in the code of mann-ers of the feudal nobility, or
be it in the commercial civilization of the modern era. But this was not
true of the lower classes of the population, especially of the rural masses.
Illiterate and living in isolation from each other, those groups were
deeply rooted in local traditions and preserved the national customs
which the upper classes had already lost. They were unaffected by con­
tact with other nations. With the spread of Social Democracy, as those
lower classes should obtain control over the instruments of political
power, those differences, previously submerged, would come to the
26 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIE T UNION
surface. Language, the world outlook or ethos of each people, and local
interests were destined to assume a greater role in international relations.
Nor would those differences vanish. Bauer believed that subjection of
individuals or peoples of different mentalities or psychological inclina­
tions to a common experience tended to accentuate their initial differ­
ences. He based this belief on the assumption that an identical experi­
ence would separate rather than unite people with dissimilar perceptive
systems.°' The triumph of socialism would therefore "result in an increas­
ing differentiation of nations . . . a sharper expression of their peculiar­
ities, a sharper separation of their natures." 36
The views of the two Austrian socialists - unprecedented and revolu­
tionary in modern socialism - required that Social Democracy find a
scheme capable of utilizing what was valuable and permanent in the
national movement, and neutralize what was harmful. In the first cate­
gory were the linguistic and cultural aspects of nationalism; in the latter,
the political.
Such a scheme, Renner and Bauer believed, was the principle of extra­
territorial autonomy. Each nation, "treated not as a territqrial corpora­
tion, but as a union of individuals," 3 7 should be entered, with the names
of all the citizens who considered themselves as belonging to it, in a
national register ( Nationalkataster ) . The subjects thus registered would
possess the right to administer their cultural affairs autonomously as one
body, regardless of where they happened to reside. Control over the
cultural affairs of each nation would be exercised by elective organs
which would be given the right to tax their subjects. National culture
would thus be placed on the same personal level as religion. The prin­
ciple cuius regio, eius natio would be eliminated, much as the principle
cuius regio, eius religio had been abandoned in Western Europe several
centuries earlier. Coexistent with the extraterritorial organs of cultural
autonomy, Bauer and Renner envisaged an elaborate system of territorial
organs of administration, partly to take care of political problems which
were not connected with nationality questions, and partly to protect the
organs of cultural autonomy from encroachments by the central govern­
ment.
The advantages of this system seemed considerable. By channeling
it into the cultural sphere, extraterritorial national-cultural autonomy
would neutralize nationalism as a psychological barrier to proletarian
cooperation; it would make it unnecessary for the nationalities to seek
independent statehood; and finally, by divorcing nationality from terri­
tory, such an autonomy would be unaffected by the constant movements
0O. Bauer, Die Nationalitaetenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie (Vienna, 1907);
a criticism of the philosophical assumptions of this viewpoint was undertaken by the
Menshevik S. Semkovskii in his Marksizm i natsional'naia p roblem;-a, I (Melitopol,
19.24 ). Semkovskii traced Bauer's theory of "national apperception" to neo-Kantianism.
THE NATI O N A L P R O B L E M I N R U S S I A 27
of population which the expanding industrialization of Central and
Eastern Europe was likely to cause. Under this plan, "the advance of
the classes shall no longer be hampered by national struggles . . . The
field shall be free for the class struggle." 0
The so-called Austrian project - of which Renner was the legal and
Bauer the social and political theoretician - was a brilliant attempt to
analyze and solve the national problem. It marked a clear-cut departure
from traditional nineteenth-century socialist views on the national ques­
tion and provided a solution especially well-suited for the needs of
Eastern Europe where the ethnographic map was so heterogeneous as to
make a territorial demarcation into nati.onal states impractical. Its greatest
weakness was perhaps a tendency to oversimplify nationalism. By con­
sidering it essentially a cultural phenomenon, Renner and Bauer missed
its broader social and economic implications. Their work must be viewed
as a compromise between the theories of socialism and the realities of
nationalism, and as such, it had an iIIl,mediate success, particularly in,
Russia.
The first political party to include . the Austrian plan in its program
was the Jewish socialist party, the Bund. The Bund arose in the western
provinces of Russia in 1897 as the result of a merger of various organiza­
tions which had originally been devoted exclusively to the improvement
of the economic situation of the Jewish working population. About 1895
these groups decided to abandon their previous concentration on purely
economic ends and to engage in political agitation as well. It became
apparent at once that this deci§ion made it necessary to assume a definite
attitude toward the national question. L. Martov described the change
which the party had to undergo in the following words :
In the first years of our movement, we expected everything from
the Russian working class and looked upon ourselves as a mere addi­
tion to the general Russian labor movement. By putting the Jewish
working-class movement in the background, we neglected its actual
condition, as evidenced by the fact that our work was conducted in
the Russian language. Desiring to preserve our connection with the
Russian movement . . . we forgot to maintain contact with the
Jewish masses who did not know Russian . . . Obviously, it would
be absurd to further restrict our activity to those groups of the
Jewish population already affected by Russian culture . . . Having
placed the mass movement in the center of our program, we had to
adjust our propaganda and agitation to the masses, that is, we had
to make it more Jewish.38
The Bund consequently began to employ in its work the Yiddish lan-
0Bauer, Die Nationalitaetenfrage, 362. The system of extraterritorial cultural
autonomy was successfully applied in Estonia in the 192o's; cf. E. Maddison, Die
Nationalen Minderheiten Estlands und ihre Rechte ( Tallinn, 1926 ) .
28 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

guage. But it took the party somewhat longer to arrive at a positive


national program. As late as 1899, at its Third Congress, the majority of
the delegates refused to supplement the party program demanding civil
equality with a request for national equality, on the gr01'.mds that the
class interests of the proletariat must not be distracted by the national
question.89
Soon afterwards reports reached Russia of the discussions at the
Bruenn Congress, and of the project of extraterritorial autonomy ad­
vanced there by the South Slav delegation. This news had an immediate
effect. No other solution of the national question better met the needs
of the Jewish minority in Russia, scattered as it was over large territories
without a national home of its own. The Fourth Congress of the Bund,
held in 1901, adopted a general statement in favor of the ideas advanced
by the South Slav delegation at Bruenn: "The concept of nationality is
also applicable to the Jewish people. Russia . . . must in the future be
transformed into a federation of nationalities, with full national autonomy
for each, regardless of the territory which it inhabits." 40
Carrying this thesis further, the Bund now demanded that Russian
Social Democracy, with which it was affiliated, recognize the Bund as the
organization representing the Jewish proletariat in Russia, and conse­
quently grant it the status of a "federal,. unit within the party. This
request was turned down at the Second Congress of the Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party ( 1go3 ) , and, in protest, the Bund temporarily
disassociat�d itself from the Russian party. In the following decade,
Bundist theoreticians, outstanding among whom were Vladimir MedeJm
and Vladimir Kossovskii, translated into Russian the principal Austrian
works dealing with the problems of nationalism and socialism, in justi­
fication of the Bund stand. 4 1 On the whole, Jewish socialists in Russia
were more moderate in their demands and more reserved in their recog­
nition of the , permanent values of nationality than were the Austrians.
Through their publications, the works of Renner and Bauer first became
widely known in Russia and began to exercise influence on other parties.
From the Bund, the idea of extraterritorial autonomy spread to
the Armenian Dashnaktsutiun, the Belorussian Socialist Hromada, the
Georgian Socialist Federalist Party Sakartvelo, and the Jewish SERP, all
of which adopted it as supplementary to territorial national autonomy.
In 1go7, those minority socialist parties met at a special conference at
which the majority of the delegates expressed strong preference for the
Austrian project.42
Thus, in the first decade of the twentieth century socialist parties
in the multinational states of Central and Eastern Europe began to grap­
ple with the national question. Theoretical lines were laid down, practical
solutions were constructed, and party work was adapted to suit the
traditions and peculiarities of the minority populations.
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 29
Russian Political Parties and the National Problem
Russian liberals, represented by the Constitutional Democratic, or
Kadet, Party, viewed the entire national problem primarily as a by­
product of absolutist oppression and restrictive legislation, and opposed
any decentralization of Russia along national lines. In January 1906,
when _they formulated their formal program, the Kadets made the
following provisions concerning the national minorities:
1. All Russian citizens, regardless of sex, religion, and nationality
are equal before the law. All class differences and all restrictions of
personal rights and property rights of Poles, Jews, and all other sep­
arate groups of the population without exception must be changed.
11. In addition to full civic and political equality of all citizens,
the constitution of the Russian Empire should also guarantee all peo­
ples inhabiting the Empire the right to free cultural self-determina­
tion, such as : full freedom to employ different languages and dialects
in public life; freedom to establish and to maintain educational in­
stitutions and various gatherings, societies, and institutions which have
the purpose of protecting and developing the language, literature,
. and culture of every people; and so forth.
12. Russian must be the language of the central institutions, the
Army, and . the Fleet. The use of local languages in governmental
and social institutions and schools, maintained at the expense of the
government or of organs of self-rule, on a basis of equality with the
state language is to be regulated by general and local laws, and
_., within them, by the institutions themselves. The population of every
region must be assured of the opportunity to receive elementary, and
insofar as it is possible, higher education in the native tongue.
25. Immediately after there is established an All-Empire demo­
cratic representative body with constitutional rights, there must be
introduced into the Kingdom of Poland an autonomous organization
with a Sejm, elected on the same basis as the representative body
of the whole empire, with the condition that the governmental unity
shall be preserved and that [the Kingdom of Poland] shall participate
in the central government on the same basis as other parts of the
Empire. The frontier between the Kingdom of Poland and the neigh­
boring provinces may be corrected in accordance with the national
composition and the desires of the local population; at the same time,
there must be established in the Kingdom of Poland general govern­
mental guarantees of civic freedom and the right of nationalities
to cultural self-determination; the rights of the minorities must be
safeguarded.
26. Finland. The constitution of Finland ·securing it a special posi­
tion in the government must be fully reestablished. All further meas­
ures applicable both to the Empire and to the Grand Duchy of Fin­
land must be henceforth agreed upon between the legislative organs
of the Empire and the Grand Duchy of Finland. 43
30 T H E F O R M A T I O N O F T H E S O VI E T U N I O N
Kadet opposition to federalism was due not so much to a desire to
preserve a centralized, unitary state ( for in other sections of their pro­
gram, the Kadets came out in favor of extensive local self-rule for the
provinces of the empire) as to the conviction that Russian conditions
made federalism impracticable. Federalism presupposed a certain equi­
librium among its constituent units, a balanced distribution of strength.
This could not be attained in Russia, where the Great Russian popula­
tion itself was al�ost equal in number to all the remaining ethnic groups
put together; for this reason alone, the liberals felt, federalism was un­
suitable for Russia.44
The liberals did little to advance a solution of the nationality problem
in the Dumas in which they played an important role. Even the question
of Polish autonomy, explicitly formulated in their program, remained in
the background, as other more urgent issues of the day occupied the
party's attention, to the keen disappointment of Polish deputies.45 Shortly
before the outbreak of the First World War, there emerged in the Kadet
party a right wing, which showed great antipathy to the national aspira­
tions of the minorities, and moved close to the views of the conservative
parties.46
Of the two principal Russian socialist parties, the Socialist Revolu­
tionary Party took an earlier interest in the n;itional problem and as­
sumed a more liberal attitude toward the demands of the minorities than
its Social Democratic rival. Within the Social Democratic party itself the
Menshevik wing preceded the Bolshevik faction. Neither the SR's nor
the SD's, however, devoted much attention to this problem. Russian
socialists trusted in the omnipotence of democracy and in its ability to
solve of itself all the political ills of the state. The leading socialist theore­
ticians, particularly among the Marxists, were oriented westward, in the
direction of Europe; there they drew their inspiration and their factual
material, and there they looked for socialist prototypes valid for the
whole world. Except for a brief period following the 1905 Revolution,­
Russian Marxist socialism remained largely a conspiratorial movement
out of touch with the broad masses of the population, inexperienced in
the affairs of the state, and unaffected by the practical business of
politics, such as had forced Austrian Social Democracy to modify its
views.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party, established formally in 1902, con­
tinued the traditions of the nineteenth-century Russian populist move­
ment, and inherited its liberal attitude toward the minorities.47 This
heritage helped the SR's to win the support of most of t4e socialist
parties active among the minority nationalities. As the First Congress,
held in 1905, they approved a programmatic statement which in addition
to full civic equality for all citizens regardless of nationality, included
demands for :
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 31
A democratic republic with broad autonomy of regions and com­
munities ( obshchiny ) both urban and rural; the widest possible
application of the federal principle to the relations among the in­
dividual nationalities; the recognition of their unconditional right
to self-determination . . . the introduction of the native language [s]
in all local, public, and state institutions . . . ; in areas with a mixed
population, the right of every nationality to a part of the budget
devoted to cultural and educational purposes, proportionate to its
number, and to the disposal of such funds on the basis of self-rule. 48
Coming out in favor of federalism and the principle of national-
cultural autonomy, the Socialist Revolutionary Party became the first to
take into account the existence of a national problem in Russia, and
to present a concrete program for dealing with it. However, the rank
and file of the SR's were far from convinced of the appropriateness of
the solution advocated by the party program. Already at the First Con­
gress the national question caused heated debates, and numerous dele­
gates voiced objections to the resolution, particularly to the statement
granting the nationalities an "unconditional right to self-determination."
Some speakers pointed out that the economic importance of the border­
lands for Russia made it impossible to acquiesce in the separation of
the national minorities, while others challenged the wisdom of allowing
the national principle, even by implication, to override the principle of
class revolution.49
The ambivalent attitude of the SR's toward the nationality question
emerged in the course of the conference of the so-called national-socialist
parties convened in 1907 on the initiative of the Russian SR's. At that
conference, in which the majority of the representatives of the minority
socialist parties voted in favor of extraterritorial national-cultural auton­
omy, the Russian SR delegates abstained on the grounds that this prin­
ciple was not compatible with the national program of their party. 50
They promised that the party would open a general discussion of the
nationality question and, before long, arrive at a more definitive program­
matic statement.
Little was done to carry out this pledge. In 1910 a debate was started
in the Socialist Revolutionary periodical press on the initiative of the
leaders of the Jewish SERP, an affiliate of SR, but its positive results
were negligible. 5 1 Viktor Chemov, a leader of the SR's, stated that
there could be no general solution of the national problem in Russia,
and, though he personally favored extraterritorial national-cultural auton­
omy in areas with a mixed population, the national question would need
to be solved separately in each province. 52 The national program, some
SR writers admitted, was the weakest point in the party's platform and
a stumbling block to the spread of socialism in Russia.Im
Unlike the SR's, whose political philosophy was of native origin and
32 THE FORMATION . OF THE SOVIET UNION

rested on the notion of a free association of communes which made


allowance for a federation of nationalities, the Social Democrats were
Marxists and shared the Marxist partiality for the great state, for the
centralization of political power, and for the world-wide rather than the
local aspects of the socialist movement. Believing that Russia's historical
development pointed toward a middle-class, national state of the Western
type, they looked upon the entire growth of minority movements as a
retrogressive process. Their national program was essentially not unlike
that of the Kadets.
The program of the original Russian Marxist group, Liberation of
Labor ( Osvobozhdenie Truda ) , drawn up in the 188o's, contained no
mention of the national problem, confining itself to a demand for the ·­
establishment of "full equality for all citizens, regardless of religion and
national origin." 54 The manifesto of the First Congress of the RSDRP
(18g8) also made no reference to this question.
The party was for the first time squarely confronted with the national
question in 1901, when the Bund demanded that the Jews be recognized
as a nation, and the Bund be permitted to function as the exclusive repre­
sentative of the Jewish working class in Russia. The lead�!.s of the Rus­
sian Social Democratic Labor Party reacted to these requests with angry
amazement. Martov, writing for the editorial office of the party organ,
Iskra, branded the request of the Bund as nationalistic, un-Marxian, and
completely impractical.511 Trotsky followed some time later with similar
accusation�, 116 and Plekhanov was ready to expel the Bund from the
party.117 Lenin jeered : "The Bundists need now only to work out the idea
of a separate nationality of Russian Jews, whose language is Yiddish and
whose territory is - the Pale of Settlement." 118 The truth of the matter
was that the Russian SD's were completely unprepared to deal with the
problem which the Bund had brought into the open.
In 1903, at their famous Second Congress, the Social Democrats in­
cluded in their program the following requests:
3. Broad local self-rule; regional self-rule for those localities which
distinguish themselves by separate living conditions and the composi­
tion of the population.
7. Destruction of social orders (soslovii) and full equality for all
citizens, regardless of sex, rdigion, race, and nationality.
8. The right of the population to receive education in its native
tongue, secured by the establishment of schools necessary for that
purpose at the expense of the government and of organs of self-rule;
the right of every citizen to use his native tongue at gatherings; the
introduction of native languages on a basis of equality with the state
language in all local social and government institutions. 0
0
Points 3 and 8 in the program were inserted under the pressure of the Menshevik
faction, over the objections of the more centraUstically inclined Bolsheviks. Cf. S. M.
THE NATIONA L PROB L E M IN R U S S I A 33
9 . The right of all nations ( natsii) in the state to self-determina­
tion.59
The ninth point of this Social Democratic program requires some
clarification because it later became an object of a heated controversy.
The principle of "national self-determination" was generally recognized
by socialists in Europe and in Russia as a basic democratic right, like,
for instance, the principles of equality of the sexes or of freedom of
speech. It was adopted from the program of the Second International
which had placed this principle in its platform in 1896. Its introduction
into the program of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party put on
record the opposition of the Russian Marxists to all forms of discrimina­
tion or oppression of one nation by another. It was not a programmatic
statement but rather a declaration, and was understood as such at the
time. 60
Until 1912 Menshevik and Bolshevik writers alike rejected the two
theoretical solutions which had gained the greatest following among Rus­
sian minority parties : federalism on the one hand, and cultural autonomy
of the territorial and extraterritorial varieties on the other. Federalism
was considered reactionary, because it decentralized the state and de­
layed the inexorable process of economic unification; cultural autonomy
because it strengthened the barriers separating the proletariats of vari­
ous nationalities, and made it possible for the bourgeoisie to obtain a
decisive influence over the cultural development of the people. 61 Na­
tionalism in all its manifestations was viewed as a middle-class, capitalist
phenomenon, inimical to the interests of socialism.
Not atypical was the attitude of G. V. Plekhanov, one of the principal
theoreticians of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Throughout
his long publicistic activity, in the course of which he took the oppor­
tunity to deal with virtually every imaginable social and political topic,
he found it necessary to write only one article dealing with the questions
of nationality and nationalism, and even then only in response to a ques­
tionnaire. In this essay, written for the Revue socialiste in 1905, he re­
asserted opinions which were prevalent among socialists in the West
in the nineteenth century : the proletariat had literally no fatherland, and
if occasionally workers fell under the influence of nationalist emotions
it was because class-differentiation in their countries was as yet insuffi­
ciently developed. 62 The economic causes of nationalism were disappear­
ing as a result of the world-wide activities of capitalism and the growth
of class bonds among the exploited elements of all countries. Hence
Plekhanov saw no reason to fear that the national problem in either of
its forms could present any serious obstacles to the growth of the social­
ist movement.
Schwarz, The Jews in the Soviet Union (Syracuse, 1951), 25-26. They were lacking
in Lenin's original programmatic project; see LS, no. 2 ( 1924), 46, 165.
34 THE F ORMATION OF THE! SOVIET UNIO�
These premises induced Plekhanov to discourage all attempts on the
part of his colleagues to come to grips with the nationality movement.
When in 1908, for instance, the Caucasian Mensheviks reported to him
on the growth of nationalism in their region and urged the party to
devote more attention to that problem, Plekhanov replied with anger
that this was not the business of socialists. Genuine Marxists dealt with
such phenomena by "advancing a systematic criticism of the nationalis­
tic argumentation." 63 Similar sentiments prevailed among the lesser lights
of the party. Indeed at times the vehemence with which Social Demo­
crats attacked the claims of some minorities, such as the Jews or Ukraini­
ans, was no less intense than that displayed by the most reactionary
parties of the right. 64
The Mensheviks were the first to steer away from this uncompromis­
ing stand. In the light of the importance which the Social Democratic or­
ganizations of the national minorities had acquired in the Menshevik
faction (for instance, the Georgians and the Jews) , and the general evo­
lution of this section of the party toward the views held by the right
( Revisionist) wing of the Second International, such a change was not
unexpected. The Mensheviks remained adamant in their hostility to the
idea of federalism, but they slowly reconciled themselves to national­
cultural autonomy.
In August 1912 a conference took place, in Vienna, of the right-wing
elements of the Menshevik fashion, who, because they desired a formal
break with the Bolshevik groups, had received from them the nickname
of "liquidators." The meeting was attended by some of the outstanding
figures of the Russian Marxist movement - Martov, Aleksandr Marty­
nov, Leon Trotsky, Pavel Akselrod, and others - but the majority of
the delegates came from the ranks of the non-Russian Social Democratic
parties: the Bund, the Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party, the Cau­
casian parties, and, as guests, the representatives of the Polish Socialist
Party and the Lithuanian Social Democratic Labor Party. 65 This meet­
ing - afterwards called the "August Conference of Liquidators" - took
the first timid steps in the direction of a national program which the party
had heretofore lacked. It asserted in its resolution that national-cultural
autonomy was not contrary to the party's program guaranteeing national
self-determination. 66 Plekhanov objected to this statement as impractical
and "nationalistic," 6 7 but national-cultural autonomy gained in popu­
larity, and in 1917 it was officially incorporated into the Menshevik
platform.68
Lenin and the National Question before 1913
Lenin's changing attitudes toward the national question reflected
very clearly the growing importance of this problem in Russian political
life : he became more and more aware of national emotions and alive to
THE NATIONAL P R O B L E M IN R U S S IA 35
the need for an acceptable solution. Though Lenin was perhaps the most
doctrinaire of all prominent Russian Marxists in his fundamental assump­
tions, he was also the most flexible in his choice of means. Once he
realized the value of the national movement as a weapon for fighting the
established order, he stopped at nothing to employ it for his own ends.
There are three clearly distinguishable phases in the development of
Lenin's approach to the national problem : from 1897 to 1913, from 1913
to 1917, and from 1917 to 1923. In the first, he formulated his basic views
on the problem; in the second, he developed a plan for the utilization
of national minority movements in Russia and abroad; and in the third,
after having, for all practical purposes, abandoned this plan, he adopted
a new scheme derived from his practical experience as ruler of Russia.
By 1923 Lenin had undergone another evolution of his views, and was
apparently prepared to modify his policy further, but he was prevented
by illness and death from carrying out this intention.
Until 1913, Lenin was not well acquainted either with the general
and the socialist literature on the national question, or with its political
and economic aspects. But with his characteristic sense for political re­
alities, he acknowledged early in his career the possibility of an alliance
between the socialists and minority nationalists. The development of
socialism, Lenin believed, did not preclude the possibility of the occa­
sional, transitory emergence of various non-proletarian forces. Social
Democracy had to be prepared to util�ze such forces, whether they ex­
pressed dissatisfaction on the part of other classes, or of religious groups,
or of national minorities. "Undoubtedly the class antagonism has now
pushed the national questions far into the background," he wrote, "but
one should not maintain categorically, lest one become a doctrinaire, that
the temporary appearance of this pr that national question on the stage
of the political drama is impossible." 69 When it was useful, socialists also
should support nationalist movements, never forgetting that such support
was conditional and temporary : "it is the support of an ally against a
given enemy, and the Social Democrats provide this support in order to
speed the fall of the common enemy, but they expect nothing for them­
selves from these temporary allies and concede nothing to them." 70 Here
is the key to Lenin's entire treatment of the nationality question formu­
lated as early as 1897-1903.
The party program, Lenin said, quoting Kautsky, was written not
only for the present, but also for the future; it had to state not only what
was expected of society, but also what was demanded of it. 7 1 For this
reason, it was absolutely necessary to include in the party program a
statement concerning the right of all nations to self-determination. If
properly interpreted, this statement was in no way contradictory to the
general principles of Marxism. The Social Democrats, unlike the Socialist
Revolutionaries, did not support the right of nationalities unconditionally,
36 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

but in a qualified manner, in full dependence on the interests of the


proletariat. 72

Social Democracy . . . has as its fundamental and principal task


to assist the self-determination, not of peoples or of nations, but of
the proletariat of every nationality. We must always and uncondi­
tionally strive toward the closest unification of the proletariat of all
nationalities, and only in individual, exceptional cases can we advance
and actively support demands for the creation of a new class state,
or the replacement of a state's full political unity by the weaker
federal bond. 13

Such were the fundamental views at which Lenin had arrived by


1913. They remained with him until the end of his life. He looked upon
the national movement mainly as a force suitable for exp loitation in the
struggle for power. In this respect, he differed from other Russian Social
Democrats who considered nationalism an obstacle to the socialist move­
ment and urged either that it be fought directly ( Plekhanov ) , or else
that it be neutralized by being diverted into cultural channels ( the
majority of ,Mensheviks ) .
Lenin sh;ired, however, the prevailing Social Democratic hostility to
federalism. When, in 1903, the Armenian Social Democratic publicists
demanded the establishment of a federal system in Russia, and the in­
troduction of cultural autonomy, Lenin objected: "It is not the business
of the proletariat," he wrote, "to p reach federation and national au­
tonomy . . . which unavoidably lead to the demand for the establish­
ment of an autonomous class state." 74 He repeatedly condemned fed­
eralism as economically retrogressive, and cultural autonomy as tending ··
to divide the proletariat.
But by late 1912 it became necessary for the Bolsheviks to issue a
more specific programmatic statement. All the other major parties in
Russia had adopted definite programs for the solution of the minority
question. In August of that year, even the Mensheviks who until then
had been reticent, began to advocate national-cultural autonomy. Some­
thing had to be done. Lenin had moved in the summer to Cracow, and
there had the opportunity to witness personally the extent to which the
national question had interfered with the development of the socialist
movement in the Austrian Empire and in the neighboring provinces of
Russian Poland. 75 With great zeal, he applied himself at once to the
study of the pertinent literature, · which until then he had known only
second-hand, principally from the writings of Karl Kautsky. He now read
Bauer's chief work and Kautsky's criticism of Bauer, and then several
books dealing with the minorities in Russia, especially the Jews and the
Ukrainians. 76 He also compiled population statistics and economic data.
Before long, he realized that the nationality problem played a much
THE NATI ONAL P R O B L E M IN R U S S IA 37
more important role in the life of Russia in general, and of socialism in
particular, than he had until then supposed. The potential ally, whose
utilization he had posited fifteen years earlier, was immediately avail­
able as a weapon against the established regime in Russia. An alliance
with the nationality movement - on the conditions previously laid down
- was a vital necessity, but such an alliance required a concrete na­
tional program with which to approach and to win the sympathy of the
minorities.
In the final two months of the year, other events took place which
made the need for such a program ever more urgent. On December 10,
1912, a Georgian Menshevik deputy, Akaki Chkhenkeli, made a speech
in the Duma in which he demanded the "creation of institutions neces­
sary for the free development of every nationality." 77 This declaration
greatly angered Lenin. He considered it a breach of party discipline, and
brought up the subject at a conference of his followers held in Cracow
in January 1913, at which Stalin was present. 78 At this meeting, Lenin
suggested a formal condemnation of Chkhenkeli's speech, and, to provide
an immediate answer to the Bundist and Caucasian socialists who had
by now become the chief exponents of the Renner-Bauer formula in the
Russian Social Democratic movement, he commissioned Stalin to write
an article on this topic.
Stalin's appointment was apparently due not so much to his com­
petence in the field - for he had previously written no work on the sub­
ject - but to the fact that, being a Caucasian, he was abreast of develop­
ments in the area where the Austrian doctrine had gained its greatest
following. Far better informed than Stalin was Lenin's able Armenian
follower, Stepan Shaumian, who as early as 1906 had written a lengthy
work attacking nationalist sentiment in Transcaucasia. But in 1912 Shau­
mian was in the Caucasus and unavailable to do the job Lenin wanted
done.79 Lenin may well have turned over to Stalin the notebook in which
he had kept notes on the reading he had done since the summer, and
probably gave other sugges�ions as well. Had this particular notebook not
disappeared, we might be in a better position today to determine the
extent of Stalin's indebtedness to Lenin in the writing of the article on
"Marxism and the National Question." so Lenin expected Stalin to go
through all the Austrian and other socialist writings in order to refute
the ideas which were gaining prevalence among Russian Marxists. 81 The
product of Stalin's efforts, however, hardly fulfilled these expecta­
tions.
Stalin's much-publicized essay consists of three principal parts.82 The
first discusses the concept of the nation; the second inadequately de­
scribes and criticizes the Austrian project, and the third deals with the
theory of cultural autonomy in the Russian socialist movement. The
nation is defined as a "historically evolved, stable community arising on
38 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET UNION
the foundation of a common language, 0 territory, economic life, and psy­
chological makeup, manifested in a community of culture." 83 Stalin
argues that Bauer had confused the concept of the nation with that of
an ethnic group, and then goes on to characterize nationality movements
as essentially bourgeois in character, thus echoing the standard Marxist
view before Renner and Bauer had published their studies.
The Austrian project, Stalin asserts, would increase national dif­
ferences by creating within each state artificial communities of various
classes, who were being in reality separated from each other by eco­
nomic developments. It would thus inevitably lead to a cleavage in the
ranks of the proletariat. As proof, Stalin points to Russia, where, in his
opinion, the spread of the Renner-Bauer theories had already weak­
ened party unity and assisted the growth of nationalistic tendencies
within the Bund and the Caucasian branches of the party. He denies
that the Jews are a nation, and condemns the Bund for its efforts to re­
tard the natural process of assimilation of the Jewish population in Rus­
sia. In conclusion, he suggests that the only truly Marxist solution of the
national problem is that advanced by the Social Democratic program :
the right to self-determination ( which he does not attempt to clarify),
the establishment of civic equality and broad regional autonomy, com­
bined with the protection of minority languages and the creation of
minority schools.
Stalin's article added nothing new to the theoretical discussions of
the national problem, and represented only a temporary pronouncement
of the Bolsheviks on a question which they had previously ignored. An
analysis of Stalin's arguments reveals at once their inadequacy. Their
greatest weakness was the failure to come to grips with the fundamental
assumptions of Renner and Bauer : that nations were the natural forma­
tions of human society, that they were worth preserving, and that, far
from disappearing with the spread of democracy and socialism, they
would grow in importance. The validity of these views determined the
soundness of the entire Austrian project, yet Stalin avoided this argu­
ment and merely repeated, without substantiation, the shop-worn cliches
about the inevitable disappearance of national differences. By failing to
place the argument on this level, Stalin missed the main point of dis­
agreement between the supporters and opponents of the Austrian plan.
His analysis of Renner's conception of nationality was faulty, and his
own definition of a nation as unoriginal as it was dogmatic. Stalin re­
proached Bauer for allegedly "confusing the nation, which is a historical
The English translation of Stalin's essay, J. Stalin, Marxism and the National
0

Question ( New York, 1942 ) , 12, renders the words "stable community arising on
the foundation of a common language," as "stable community of language," which,
of course, is quite a different concept.
THE NATIONAL PROB LEM IN RUSSIA 39
category, with the tribe, which is an ethnic one," 84 whereas Bauer clearly
and repeatedly defined the nation as a historical concept.85 Stalin's asser­
tion that Bauer had divorced "national character" from the economic and
other conditions which had produced it, was equally unfound,e d: Bauer
had made it very explicit that he objected to all "fetishism" of the concept
of national character, since it was not an independent factor, but one
conditioned by economic and other historic forces.86 Similar faults can
be found with other statements of Stalin concerning the ideas of Bauer
and Renner. His page references to their works concern pages suspi­
ciously close together, which suggests that he may well have read their
books only in part. In some instances, he does not refer to those sections
where answers to his charges could be found. The definition of the nation
which Stalin employed without any attempt to justify it or to compare it
with other existing definitions, was very curious. Odd, from the Marxist
point of view, was the word "stable" in reference to the nation; odd also
was the statement that a nation was an economic and psychological com­
munity. Lenin was before long vehemently to attack such views, because
he realized that they constituted the heart of the Renner-Bauer thesis.
Stalin's exposition of the practical aspects of the Austrian program
was equally incorrect. He wrongly says that the Austrian Social Demo­
cratic Party at its Bruenn Congress had accepted the project of extra­
te�itorial autonomy. 87 Furthermore, his argument that the Austrian
scheme was impracticable in Russia because the tsarist government could
easily destroy "such feeble institutions as 'cultural' Diets," 88 was com­
pletely invalid for two reasons. In the first place, no advocate of the
program of extraterritorial cultural · autonomy had suggested its intro­
duction into an absolutist state; the entire project was devised for a
democracy. In the second place, Renner, desiring to prevent such an
eventuality even in a democratic state had actually drawn up an
elaborate scheme for the transformation of national institutions into the
state's regional administrative apparatus.
The entire attack on the Bund and the Caucasian Mensheviks also
rested on a logical fallacy. Stalin's main case against extraterritorial na­
tional-cultural autonomy was that it inevitably led to a split of the Social
Democratic Party along national lines. As proof, he cited the Austrian
experience, where indeed the emergence of the idea of national-cultural
autonomy had been followed by a division of the Austrian Social Demo­
cratic Party into its national components. Yet the ,r�Jation between the
two events was hardly a causal one. The pressure for the adoption of
extraterritorial autonomy and the party reorganization were both effects
of one and the same cause : the national aspirations of the Austrian
minorities.
Finally, the practical program advanced by Stalin as a solution of
40 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

the minority question in Russia contained nothing new. It simply para­


phrased Points 3, 7, 8, and g of the party program, adopted jointly by the
Mensheviks and Bolsheviks at the 1903 Congress in London.
Considerable doubt has been thrown by several authorities on Stalin's
4uthorship of this essay. 89 One biographer of Stalin has even asserted
that Lenin might have provided Stalin with an outline of the article,
as well as_the mat�!ia� �nd the ideas.90 The direct evidence concelJling
the origin of the article is of course very scanty. But a textual analysis,
although it does not reveal the true author, at least indicates that Lenin's
positive participation in its writing was not quite so great. In the essay,
the terms "national culture" and "national psychology" play a prominent
part, both in the definition of the nation and in the subsequent discus­
sion. Lenin, however, always denied the very existence of "national
culture" and labeled those who espoused such concepts victims of
"bourgeois" or "clerical" propaganda. 91 Both these concepts, on the other
hand, were widely employed by Stalin in subsequent speeches and writ­
ings of undisputed authorship. Indeed, the entire positive attitude to­
ward the nation permeating this article is very characteristic of Stalin's
attitude toward the national problem. Lenin's approach was more nega­
tive, and he certainly never admitted the existence of such a phenomenon
as "psychological national makeup." At the same time, the concept of
national self-determination, in the sense in which Lenin was to develop
it in his own writings of 1913 - that is, as signifying the right to separa­
tion - was entirely absent from the essay. 0
We have seen that the essay wrongly asserted that the Bruenn Con­
gress of the Austrian Social Democracy had accepted extraterritorial
national-cultural autonomy. Lenin, however, never tired of pointing out
to the Russian followers of Renner and Bauer, as proof of the imprac­
ticability of their views, that even the Bruenn Congress had rejected this
proposal. 92 In addition the essay commits some factual blunders of the
most flagrant nature. It is difficult, for example, to conceive how Lenin
could ever have asserted that "at the end of the eighteenth and begin­
ning of the nineteenth centuries . . . North America was still known
as New England." 93
Thus, on the basis of what is known of Lenin's and Stalin's ideas on
the national question, it is possible to state that the essay on «Marxism
and the National Question," though undoubtedly written under Lenin's
instructions and very likely with some of his assistance, did not, on the
0 It may be observed that in an article written in 1913, soon after the essay on

"Marxism and the National Question" had been composed, Stalin said that the right
to national self-determination was a general one, and included the right to autonomy
and federation ( Stalin, II, 286 ) . Lenin subsequently ridiculed this idea, not only
because he was in principle opposed to federation, but also because he felt that
there could not be any "right" to autonomy and federation from the purely logical
point of view; cf. Lenin, XVII, 427ff.
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RU S S IA 41
whole, represent Lenin's opinions, 0 The character of the work and the
ideas expressed in it indicate that in the main it was a work of Stalin's.
This essay represented no advance over discussion held by Russian Social
Democrats previous to 1913, but rather a not too intelligent restatement
of old arguments, replete with errors in fact and in reasoning. It pro­
vided no new program for the solution of the minority question. Viewed
as a polemical piece, the essay had some passing importance, because it
contained an early attack by the Bolsheviks on the Austrian theories, but
before long Lenin was to formulate his own views, and neither he nor
anybody else bothered to refer to Stalin's article, which would long ago
have been relegated to total oblivion, were it not for its author's subse­
quent career. f

Lenin's Theory of Self-Determination


Lenin spent a considerable part of the two years preceding the out­
break of World War I continuing his researches into the nationality prob­
lem and writing polemical articles on its various aspects. Until 1914, most
of his writings were directed against the followers of Renner and Bauer,
whom he called "rightists"; thereafter he turned mainly against the "left­
ists," who included his Bolshevik colleagues, the majority of whom had
accepted the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg. Trying to steer a middle course
between the two views, neither of which satisfied him, Lenin developed
his own national program which centered on a novel interpretation of
the concept of national self-determination.
The fundamental weakness of Lenin's new approach to the nationality
problem was bis endeavor to reconcile two sets of mutually exclusive
premises : those derived from Marxism and those supplied by political
realities. Renner and Bauer had given up the first; Rosa Luxemburg and
her followers had ignored the second. In a sense, each had achieved a
consistent program. Lenin, wishing to avoid both pitfalls, created a pro­
gram which as a solution of the national problem was neither consistent
nor practical.
Lenin continued to believe that nationalism, in all its aspects, was

0 The point has often been made that Stalin, being ignorant of German, needed

help to do his research. This argument is not entirely valid because the principal
sources for the essay, such as Bauer, Renner, and the protocois of the Bruenn Con­
gress, had been translated into Russian by Jewish socialists and the footnotes seem
to show that Stalin used the Russian translations. Only two of the sources to which
reference is made were written in German, and it is possible that Stalin learned of
their contents from Lenin's notes or possibly from Bukharin; on the latter see Wolle,
Three, 582.
f The Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute in Moscow possesses two letters of Lenin in
which reference is made to Stalin's article. Their character can be surmised from
the fact that they have never been published in their entirety, and only one sentence
from each, taken out of context, has been permitted by Soviet censorship to appear
in print. Cf. Stalin, II, 402-03.
42 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
essentially a phenomenon proper to the capitalist era and destined to
vanish with the demise of capitalism itself. Like Marx and Engels, he
viewed it as a transitory occurrence whose disappearance the socialists
should help speed. He never shared Renner's and Bauer's faith in the
intrinsic values of nationality, or in the desirability of preserving the
cultural heterogeneity of the world. From the point of view of funda­
mental assumptions and long-range expectations he belonged in the
ieftist" camp of Rosa Luxemburg. But at the same time, Lenin, unlike
Rosa Luxemburg, was keenly aware that the force of nationalism was far
from spent, particularly in those areas where capitalism was still in its
early stages of development. He desired to utilize the national move­
ments emerging in various parts of the Russian Empire and for that rea­
son he refused to adopt the negative attitudes of the leftists. In his
awareness of the political implications of the national strivings of the
minorities, he came much closer to the position of the "rightists."
According to Lenin, the world, viewed from the aspect of the national
problem, could be divided into three principal areas : the West, where
the problem had been solved because each nationality had its own state;
Eastern Europe, where the process of capitalist development and its
inevitable companion, the national state, were only in their formative
stage; and the backward, colonial, and semi-colonial areas where capital­
ism and nationalism have not yet penetrated at all. 94 As far as socialism
was concerned, the national problem was therefore one affecting pri­
marily Eastern Europe and the backward areas of the world. Capitalism
spreading from Western Europe to the East had to accommodate itself in
national states. The large, multinational empires had to transform them­
selves into national states, and the minor nationalities, incapable of
attaining statehood, had to be swept out of their long isolation by the
force of industrial development, and had to lose their identity through
assimilation in the cities and factories with the industrially more ad­
vanced nationalities. Thus, by the time economic development in Eastern
Europe should have attained the level existent in the West, Eastern
Europe would have lost its multinational character. What economic
forces had begun, democracy would complete. By creating equal oppor­
tunities for all national groups, and by removing the main causes of
national hostility, oppression and persecution, democracy would pave
the road for a supra-national world system of government and an inter­
national culture of the socialist era.
It is obvious that neither the Renner-Bauer nor the Luxemburg
scheme could satisfy tpese assumptions. The Austrian plan of extra­
territorial cultural autonomy was based on what Lenin considered a
faulty concept of "national culture," and strove artificially to preserve
all those ethnic differences which capitalism was already sweeping away.
Culture to Lenin could have only a class character. "Only the clericals
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 43
and the bourgeoisie can talk of national culture. The toilers can talk
only of an international culture of the universal worker movement." 95
What is usually referred to as "national culture" is in reality the culture
of the ruling bourgeoisie, and is squarely opposed to the democratic,
socialistic culture of the oppressed classes. 96 ''. • • the entire economic,
political, and spiritual existence of humanity becomes already ever more
internationalized under capitalism. Socialism will internationalize it com­
pletely." 97 Like Kautsky before him, Lenin argued that extraterritorial
autonomy ran contrary to the processes of history. On the one hand, it
hindered the process of assimilation; on the other, it ignored the natural
tendency of capitalism to form national states and to break up multi­
national empires.
Since Lenin also remained adamant in his opposition to the federalist
project adopted by the Socialist Revolutionaries and their affiliates,98 he
had to find a third solution. But what formula was capable of satisfying
the capitalist tendency towards the creation of national states without
hindering the process of internationalization of cultures or breaking up
the unity of the proletarian movement? Lenin believed that he had found
such a formula in the slogan of national self-determination, as defined
and limited by him in the summer of 1913.
As had been indicated previously, point g in the Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party's platfonn ( "the right of all nations in the state
to self-determination") had been adopted as a general democratic dec­
laration. It meant, broadly speaking, that Social Democracy was in prin­
ciple opposed to any form of national oppression and favored the freedom
for subjugated peoples. As a statement of principle, it was open to
divergent interpretations. It could mean national territorial autonomy,
cultural autonomy of a territorial or extraterritorial kind, or the establish­
ment of federal relations. Probably the only interpretation not held by
those who had voted this statement into the party's program was that it
implied the right to secession and the formation of independent states.
With the possible exceptions of Poland and Finland, none of the border
peoples of the Empire were considered either willing or ready to separate
themselves from Russia.
Casting about for a way out of the dilemma in which his beliefs had
placed him, Lenin seized upon Point g in the Party's program and rein­
terpreted it in a way best suited to his purposes. In the summer of 1913,
he thus defined what he understood by the right to self-determination:
"The paragraph of our program [ dealing with national self-determina­
tion] cannot be interpreted in any other way, but in the sense of political
self-determination, that is, as the right to separation and creation of an
independent government." 99 Every nation living in the state had, as a
nation, one right and one right only: to separate from Russia and to
create an independent state. A people who did not desire to take ad-
44 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

vantage of this right could not ask from the state for any preferential
treatment, such as the establishment of federal relations, or the granting
of extraterritorial cultural autonomy. It had to be satisfied with the gen­
eral freedoms of the state, including a certain amount of regional au­
tonomy inherent in "democratic centralism." 0
The right of national self-determination, interpreted in this manner,
seemed to Lenin to fulfill all the requirements of a good socialist solu­
tion of the national problem: it made possible a direct appeal to the
nationalist sentiments among Russian minorities for the purpose of win­
ning their support against the autocracy; it was democratic, and as such
conducive to the ultimate victory of socialism; it was in harmony with
the tendency of capitalism to form national states; and it speeded the
assimilation of the minorities.
As Lenin's Bolshevik followers and other socialists were quick in
pointing out, however, there was one serious difficulty with this ap­
proach. Interpreted in this manner, the right of self-determination seemed
to place socialists in a position of giving blanket endorsement to every
nationalist and separatist movement in Eastern Europe. Carried to its
logical conclusion, such a slogan could lead to the break-up of Eastern
Europe into a conglomeration of petty national states. How could this
be reconciled with the international character of Marxism, with its
striving for the merger of states and the disappearance of national
borders? Did it not surpass even the Austrian program in separating the
workers of various countries from each other?
Lenin, however, did not believe in the likelihood of Eastern Europe
disintegrating into its national components, and felt certain that if his
slogan would affect the future political structure of that area at all, it
would be in the opposite direction. He had two principal arguments to
support this contention. In the first place, he argued, the economic forces
- the ultimate determinant in history - worked against the breakup
of great states. The centrifugal forces evident in Eastern Europe were
mainly psychological in their origin. As long as national oppression was
permitted, the victim-nation would remain receptive to nationalist agita­
tion; once this oppression was done away with, the psychological basis
for nationalism and separatism would vanish too. And what better way
was there of striking at the very root of national antagonism than to
guarantee every nation the right to complete political freedom? Lenin
was convinced that once the minorities were assured of a right to sep­
arate and to form independent states, they would cast off the suspicions
which he considered the primary cause of national movements. Then
0
"The principle of democratic centralism and autonomy of local institutions
means namely full and universal freedom of criticism, as long as it does not violate
the unity of a specific action - and the inadmissibility of any criticism which un­
dermines or hinders the unity of an action decided upon by the party" ( Lenin, IX,
:z.75 ) .
THE N A T I O N A L P R O B L E M I N R U S S I A 45
and only then could economic factors have a free field to accomplish their
centralizing, unifying task, unopposed by nationalism. The minorities
would find it advantageous to remain within the larger political unit, and
thus a lasting foundation for the emergence of large states and an even­
tual united states of the world would be created.
Lenin's second argument against the charges that his slogan threat­
ened a breakup of Russia, was his qualification of the right to self­
determination. To advance the right to separation did not mean, Lenin
asserted, to condone actual separation. Certainly he had no intention of
favoring an "unconditional" right to self-determination, since "uncondi­
tional" to him were only the rights of the proletariat. Whether this or
that minority should, at a given moment, secede from Russia depended
upon any number of unforeseeable factors. Whenever the interests of
nationality and the proletariat conflicted, the former had to yield to the
latter, and the right to separation had to go overboard. Furthermore,
Lenin said, he sponsored the right to self-determination as a general
democratic right, much as he favored the right to divorce without actu­
ally advocating divorce. The duty of the socialists of the oppressed ethnic
groups was to agitate for a union with the democratic elements of the
oppressing nation, whereas the socialist� of the oppressor nation must
guarantee the minorities the right to self-determination. 100
It is clear, therefore, that Lenin neither desired nor expected the
right of national self-determination, in the sense in which he had defined
it, to be exercised:
The freedom of separation is the best and only political means
against the idiotic system of petty states ( Kleinstaaterei ) and
national isolation, which, fortunately for humanity, are inevitably
destroyed through the entire development of capitalism. 101
We demand the freedom of self-determination, i.e., independence,
i. e., the freedom of separation of oppressed nations, not because we
dream of economic particularization, or of the ideal of small states,
but on the contrary, because we desire major states, and a rapproche­
ment, even a merging, of nations, but on a truly democratic, truly
international basis, which is unthinkable without the freedom of
secession. 102
Separation is altogether not our scheme. We do not predict sep­
aration at all.1° 3
Lenin assumed a si�ilar attitude towards the question of an official
state language. Like most Marxists, he desired the eventual transforma­
tion of the Russian Empire into a national state, in which the minorities
would assimilate and adopt the Russian tongue. But, he warned, this goal
could be brought al:>0ut only voluntarily; it could be made possible only
by granting the mi:r;i.orities the right to employ freely their own native
46 THE FORMATION O F THE S OVIET UNION
tongues. In time, the greatness of Russian culture and the material ad­
vantages accruing to those who had mastered its language would bring
about cultural and linguistic assimilation. 104
It was rather difficult to win over other Marxists to these views, and
Lenin spent a considerable part of the prewar years writing and speaking
publicly in support of his theses. In 1913 and 1914, he delivered a series
of lectures on this subject in Switzerland, Paris, Brussels, and Cracow,
debating against the proponents of the Renner-Bauer and Rosa Luxem­
burg views alike. 105
The outbreak of the war involved Lenin in further theoretical diffi­
culties and forced him to broaden the definition of self-determination.
The war caused a well-known cleavage within the ranks of European
Social Democracy. Socialists of all the major European powers supported
the military efforts of their governments, thus violating repeated pledges
of mutual cooperation against future international conflicts. Socialists of
the Entente powers argued that the Allied side deserved support as pro­
tecting the world from Prussian militarism; those of the Central powers,
on the other hand, argued that they were defending the world from the
yoke of Russian absolutism and reaction. vVhatever the point of their
argument, both sides referred to the founders of modem socialism to
prove that socialism was not opposed to war as such, but rather im­
posed upon its adherents the obligation to support the side which was
the more progressive. Their disagreements centered around the questions
which side represented progress and which would Marx have supported
were he alive in 1914.
Lenin, like the whole Zimmerwald left, of which the Bolsheviks were
part, disagreed fundamentally with this approach. He argued that the
war of 1914 was entirely different from those which had been fought in
the nineteenth century. It was not one in which socialists could take
sides. This was a new kind of war, an Imperialist war. The capitalist
period had entered its final phase, that of finance capitalism, in which,
having outgrown national limitations, it struggled for economic control
of the entire world. The principal aim of capitalism now was the con­
quest of new markets, especially in the colonies, and the era of national
wars was over. The Allies and the Central powers were equally guilty,
equally reactionary, so that the attitudes of Marx, correct for the middle
of the nineteenth century, were no longer applicable. The task of the
socialists, Lenin and his followers argued, was to bring about a trans­
formation of the international conflict into a civil war and to prepare
for an imminent socialist revolution in the belligerent states.
If this was true, however, then one of the main arguments which had
induced Lenin to apply to Eastern Europe the right to national self­
determination or separation, and to reject the thesis of Luxemburg -
namely, the theory that capitalism spreading in the East would accom-
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA 47
modate itself in the national state - was invalidated. Nationalism and the
national state had become things of the past. Arguing against Lenin,
Martov stated the view prevalent among the Social Democrats:
The farms in which this or that national party might wish to
realize the right of its people to self-determination may run contrary
to the forces of social development and the interests of the proletariat.
Let us take, for instance, the Armenian people. The recognition of
its right to solve- its political destiny does not oblige us to support
the slogan of any nation which might wish to realize its right to self­
determination through the formation of a separate state with its army,
with its tariff wall, etc. If we should find that such a new state would
have no economic basis for its development, then, from the point of
view of the interests of the proletariat we shall, while asserting the
right of free self-determination, demand that the Armenian nation
realize this self-determination in another form. 106
This other form of "free" self-determination which they were going
to "demand" was for the majority of Mensheviks national-cultural au­
tonomy. To most Bolsheviks on the other hand, the acceptance of the
theory of Imperialism meant the abolition of all borders and the creation
of a supra-national state. This was the position taken by Grigorii Piata­
kov, Nikolai Bukharin, and the overwhelming majority of Bolshevik
writers. To them, Lenin's stand appeared entirely inconsistent. If the
whole national idea in the era of Imperialism became an empty phantom,
devoid of content, how could Marxists support national movements? Early
in 1915, using this argument, Piatakov and Bukharin came out openly
with a demand for the removal of Point 9 from the party program. When
Lenin refused and cited Marx's views of the 186o's to support his views,
Bukharin inquired of him, perplexed:
What? The sixties of the last century are "instructive" for the
twentieth century? But this is precisely the root of our (logical) dis­
agreements with Kautsky, that they [sic] "instruct" us with examples
from the pre-Imperialist epoch. Thus you advocate a dualistic con­
ception: in regard to the defense of the fatherland you stand on the
basis of the present day, while in regard to the slogan of self-deter­
mination, you stand on the position of the "past century." 107
Bukharin's sentiments were shared by Karl Radek, who also argued
that Lenin's slogan attempted to "tum back the wheel of history" and
to revive the anachronistic idea of the national state. 10 8 Late in 1915
Lenin engaged in a bitter argument with the editors of the Bolshevik
periodical Kommunist over the printing of Radek's attack on the right
to self-determination, and when they refused to yield to Lenin's demands
that this article be retracted, Lenin caused the journal to be suspended. 109
During 1915 and 1916 most of the outstanding Marxist intellectuals of
48 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O V I E T U N I O N
Bolshevik leanings, organized around the society Vp ered (Forward) -
among them the historian Mikhail Pokrovskii and the future Soviet
Commissar of Education Anatolii Lunacharskii - quarreled with Lenin
on this issue. 11 ° Feliks Dzerzhinskii, the future head of the secret police;
Shaumian, who in 1918 was to serve as Extraordinary Soviet Commissar
for the Caucasus; Aleksandra Kollontai; and many other followers of
Lenin's found themselves unable to accept his stand. Indeed, it is safe
to say that throughout the years of the First World War, Lenin stood
entirely alone in his insistence on the continued validity of the slogan
of national self-determination, against the opposition of all the Zimmer­
wald groups.
Opposition, however, did not cause Lenin to yield. On the contrary,
after 1914, Lenin reasserted his convictions with increasing vehemence,
although with a significant shift of emphasis.
While gathering materials for his essay on Imperialism, he realized
that the colonial dependencies of the great European powers contained
over a half billion people who were, according to his views, victims not
only of capitalist exploitation but also, in a sense, of national oppression.
He immediately perceived an intimate connection between the problem
of Imperialism and the nationality question. In the African and Asiatic
colonies, which served as the economic foundations of the entire Im­
perialistic system, there existed a vast reservoir of potential allies of
socialism in its struggle against Imperialism. This struggle could be
effectively undertaken only on a world-wide scale and socialism had to
take full advantage of the forces of popular dissatisfaction by allying
itself with the liberation movements in the colonies. Inasmuch as those
areas had not yet undergone the phase of national development which
Western Europe had already left behind, the struggle in the backward
areas of the world could be expected to assume at first national forms.
Imperialism, therefore, Lenin argued, did not eliminate the national
question or the need for a party statement on self-determination. If
anything, it reemphasized its importance. Imperialism was basically
national oppression on a new basis. 1 1 1 It merely transferred the center
of national movements from Europe to the colonial and semi-colonial
areas of the world. The slogan of self-determination thus became of
greatest importance as a weapon of socialist action and agitation. 1 1 2 More­
over, Lenin was careful to point out, this slogan did not lose its validity
in Europe either. Although, by and large, the epoch of national move­
ments was a matter of the past as far as"Europe was concerned, national­
ism was not entirely out of the question in an Imperialist age even there.
"If the Euro pean proletariat should find itself powerless for a period
of twenty years; if the present war were to end in victories like those
achieved by Napoleon and in the enslavement of a number of viable
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUS SIA 49
national states . . . then there would be possible a great national war
in Europe." 11 3
For this eventuality, the socialists had to be prepared.
The connection between Imperialism and national movements in the
colonial areas was not an original discovery of Lenin's, He had adopted
it freely from the works of several Western socialists such as Rudolf
Hilferding and Hermann Gorter. 11 4 Lenin was, however, the most persist­
ent champion of this idea among Russian socialists, and the first to
correlate it with the slogan of national self-determination.
This reasoning explains why, instead of abandoning self-determina­
tion during the war, Lenin espoused it ever more vigorously. At the end
of the war, he asserted that in the era of Imperialism the slogan of self­
determination was assuming the same role which it had played in
Eqrope during the period of the French Revolution, and was acquiring
exceptional importance in the Social Democratic platform. Those who
persisted in ignoring national movements were waiting for a "pure
revolution" instead of a "social revolution," in which the support of non­
proletarian groups was essential. 11 5 At the end of 1916 Lenin started
work on a major study of the national question; he was unable to com­
plete it owing to the outbreak of the February Revolution. The existing
drafts indicate that, had it been finished, this study would have repre­
sented the most exhaustive treatment of the question in all the R�ssian
socialist literature and would have reemphasized the importance which
Lenin by that time attached, to national movements. 11 6
Lenin's theory of national self-determination, viewed as a solution
of the national problem in Russia, was entirely inadequate. By offering
the minorities virtually no choice between assimilation and complete
independence, it ignored the fact that they desired neither. Under­
estimating the power of nationalism and convinced without reservation
of the inevitable triumph of class loyalties over national loyalties, Lenin
looked upon national problems as something to exploit, and not as some­
thing to solve. But as a psychological weapon in the struggle for power,
first in Russia and then abroad, the slogan of self-determination in
Lenin's interpretation was to prove enormously successful. The outbreak
of the Russian Revolution allowed the Bolsheviks to put it to consider­
able demagogic use as a means of winning· the support of the national
movements which the revolutionary period developed in all their magni­
tude.
II
1917 AND THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE
RUSSIAN EMPIRE

The General Causes

The outbreak of the Russian Revolution had, as its initial conse­


quence, the abolition of the tsarist regime and, as its ultimate result, the
complete breakdown of all forms of organized life throughout Russia.
One of the aspects of this breakdown was the disintegration of the
Empire and the worsening of relations between its various ethnic groups.
In less than a year after the Tsar had abdicated, the national question
had become an outstanding issue in Russian politics.
Immediately after resuming power, the Provisional Government
issued decrees which abolished all restrictive legislation imposed on the
minorities by the tsarist regime, and established full quality of all
citizens regardless of religion, race, or national origin. 1 The government
also introduced the beginnings of national self-rule by placing the ad­
ministration of the borderlands in the hands of prominent local figures.
Transcaucasia and Turkestan were put under the jurisdiction of special
committees, composed largely of Duma deputies of native nationalities,
to replace the governors general of the tsarist administration. The south­
western provinces were put in charge of Ukrainians, though the govern­
ment refused to recognize the existence of the entire Ukraine as an
administrative unit until forced to do so under Ukrainian pressure in
the summer of 1917.2 Those were pioneering steps in the direction of
adapting the governmental machinery to the multinational character
of the Empire and giving the minorities a voice in the administration of
their territories, but unfortunately the local committees to which the
Provisional Government had relegated authority possessed very little
real power, and after the summer of 1917 functioned only nominally.
The Provisional Government considered itself a temporary trustee of
state sovereignty, and viewed its main task as that of preserving unity
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 51
and order until the people should have an opportunity to express its
own will in the Constituent Assemply. Throughout its existence the gov­
ernment resisted as well as it could all pressures to enact legislation
which might affect the constitution of the state. Any such measures it
regarded as an infringement on popular sovereignty. This attitude, sound
from the moral and constitutional points of view, proved fatal as political
practice. The February Revolution had set into motion forces which
would not wait. The procrastinating policies of the Provisional Govern­
ment led to growing anarchy which Lenin and his followers, concen­
trating on the seizure of power and unhampered by any moral scruples
or constitutional considerations, utilized to accomplish a successful coup
iietat.
The growth of the national movements in Russia during 1917, and
especially the unexpectedly rapid development of political aspirations on
the part of the minorities, were caused to a large extent by the same fac­
tors which in Russia proper made possible the triumph of Bolshevism:
popular restlessness, the demand for land and peace, and the inability
of the democratic government to provide firm authority.
The growing impatience of the rural population with delays in the
apportionment of land which caused the peasantry of the ethnically
Great Russian provinces to turn against the government and to attack
large estates, had different effects in the eastern borderlands. There
the dissatisfaction of the native population was not so much directed
against the landlord as against the Russian colonist; it was he who had
deprived the native nomad of his grazing grounds and with the aid of Cos­
sack or Russian garrisons had kept the native from the land which he
considered his own by inheritance. When the February Revolution broke
out, the native population of the Northern Caucasus, the Ural region and
much of the steppe districts of Central Asia expected that the new
democracy would at once remedy the injustices of the past by returning
to them the properties of which they had been deprived. When this
did not happen, they took matters into their own hands, and tried to
seize land by force. But in doing so they encountered the resistance of
Russian and Cossack villages. Thus, in the second half of the year, while
a class struggle was taking place in Russia proper, an equally sav­
age national conflict developed in the vast eastern borderlands of the
Empire: Chechen and Ingush against Russian and Cossack; Kazakh­
Kirghiz against the Russian and Ukrainian colonist; Bashkir against the
Russian and Tatar.
In the Ukraine, too, the agricultural question assumed a national
form although for quite different reasons. The Ukrainian "peasants, espe­
cially the rural middle class, found it advantageous, as will be seen, in
view of the superiority of the soil in their provinces, to solve the land
question independently of Russia proper.
52 THE FORMATION 0£ THE SOVIET UNION
War-weariness was another factor which tended to increase national­
ist emotions. Non-Russian soldiers, like their Russian comrades, desired
to terminate the fighting and to return home. Uncertain how to go about
it, they organized their own military formations and military councils,
hoping in this manner to be repatriated sooner, and to obtain by com­
mon action a better response to their demands. By the end of the year
the formation of such national units had increased to the point where
non-Russian troops, abandoning the front, frequently returned to their
homes as a body. Once on their native soil, they augmented native
political organizations and provided them with military power. The
national movement in 1917 had perhaps its most rapid development in
the army.
The Bolsheviks, inciting Russian peasants and soldiers against the
government, were persuasive in contending that the government did
not grant their demands because it had become a captive of the "bour­
geoisie." The non-Russian, on the other hand, could be led to believe
that the trouble lay not so much in the class-character of the Provisional
Government, as in its ethnic composition. Nationalistic parties in some
areas began to' foster the idea that all Russian governments, autocratic
as well as democratic, were inspired by the same hostility toward the
minorities and should be equally mistrusted.
Immediately after the fall of the ancien regime the minorities, like
the Russians, established local organs of internal self-rule. The original
purpose of these institutions was to serve as centers of public discussion
for the forthcoming Constituent Assembly and to attend to non-political
affairs connected with the problems of local administration. Whether
called Soviet, Rada ( in the Ukraine and Belorussia), Shura ( among
the Turkic peoples), or their equivalents in other native languages, they
were originally not intended to infringe upon the authority of the
Provisional Government. In time, however, as the authority of the Pro­
visional Government declined, these organs acquired a correspondingly
greater voice in local affairs. At first they only assumed responsibility
over supply and communication, the maintenance of public order, and,
in some cases, the defense of their territories from external enemies -
services which Petrograd could not provide. But at the end of 1917,
when, as a result of the Bolshevik coup, a political vacuum was created
in the country, they appropriated sovereignty itself. While the soviets,
largely under the influence of the Bolsheviks and left SR's, proclaimed
the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the establishment of
rule of the Congress of Soviets, the minority organizations took over
the responsibilities of government for their own peoples and the �erri­
tories which they inhabited. These local organs of administration which
arose in the borderlands during the October Revolution and succeeding
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 53
months were based on the principle of national self-rule and functioned
alone or in condominium with the soviets.
For a time it seemed possible that these national organs would co­
operate with the new Russian government. In the initial period of Com­
munist rule no one knew how the new regime would treat the minorities.
But before long it became apparent that the Soviet government had no
intention of respecting the principle of national self-determination and
that in spreading its authority it was inclined to utilize social forces
hostile to minority interests. In the Ukraine, it favored that part of the
industrial proletariat which was, by ethnic origin and sympathy, oriented
toward Russia and inimical to the striving of the local peasantry; in the
Moslem areas, the colonizing elements and the urban population com­
posed largely of Russian newcomers; in Transcaucasia and Belorussia,
the deserting Russian troops. The triumph of Bolshevism was interpreted
in many borderland areas as the victory of the city over the village, the
worker over the peasant, the Russian colonist over the native.
It was under such circumstances that the national councils, bolstered
by sentiments which had matured in the course of the year, proclaimed
their self-rule, and in some instances, their complete independence.

The Ukraine and Belorussia

The Rise of the Ukrainian Central Rada (Febrqary-]une 1917)


The news of disorders in Petrograd reached Kiev on March 1. Faced
with the prospect of impending civic disorganization, the city officials
took the initiative into their own hands and created an Executive
Committee of all local social and political organizations, the so-called
IKSOOO (Ispolnitelnyi Komitet Soveta Ob"edinennykh Obshchestven­
nykh Organizatsii: The Executive Committee of the Council of Combined
Social Organizations), in the hope that such an institution, representing
the forces of public opinion, could maintain order more successfully
than the obsolescent bureaucratic machinery of the old regime. The
IKSOOO included the political parties, which had formed rapidly in
Kiev during the weeks following the outbreak of the Revolution, as well
as representatives of the city administration and other organizations of
all the nationalities inhabiting the city. The Soviet of Workers' Deputies
joined it in the latter part of March.
The Ukrainians also took steps to organize themselves. Their first
center was located in the club Rodina (Fatherland), where the TUP,
the Society of Ukrainian Progressives, had its headquarters. This society
was an association of intellectuals of moderate political views, composed
mostly of members of the pro-Kadet Ukrainian Democratic Radical
Party. On March 4, the leaders of the TUP in association with Ukrainian
54 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
socialists, who had gathered in Kiev, formed the Ukrainian Central
Council or Rada, as a center for Ukrainian affairs in the Kiev region.
Originally the Rada consisted of a number of diverse educational and
cooperative institutions, which had no definite political or social program
except perhaps a general sympathy with the ideal of Ukrainian autonomy.
It elected as its chairman in absentia the historian, Mikhail Hrushevskii,
who was at that moment making his way to Kiev from Moscow. At a
period when public opinion, so long repressed by the tsarist regime, was
searching eagerly for institutional forms capable of formulating and
executing its wishes, when parties and soviets were mushrooming in
every part of the country, the creation of an Ukrainian council attracted
little attention in Kiev or elsewhere. The predominantly cultural inter­
ests of the original founders of the Rada, as well as the modest, concilia­
tory attitude with which they deferred to the Provisional Government,
gave no reason to suspect that the Rada would follow a course of political
action capable of endangering the newly established authority. In a
telegram to Prince Lvov, the chairman of the Council of Ministers, the
Rada stated on March 6: ''We greet in your person the first ministry
of free Russia. We wish you full success in the struggle for popular rule,
convinced that the just demands of the Ukrainian people and of its
democratic intelligentsia will be completely satisfied." 3
Soon, however, more radically inclined Ukrainian political figures,
returning from the front and from the tsarist exile, began to arrive in
Kiev - men who before the war had been associated with socialist and
nationalist movements. They at once assumed effective leadership over
the Rada and steered it away from reliance on the Provisional Govern­
ment toward an independent pursuit of national aspirations. Typical of
their sentiments were the remarks made by Hrushevskii upon his arrival
in Kiev:
Nothing is more erroneous than to dig out now old Ukrainian
petitions and again to hand them over to the government as a state­
ment of our demands . . . If our demands of five, four, three, and
even one year ago had been granted then, they would have been
accepted by Ukrainian society with deep gratitude . . . but they
can in no way be considered a satisfaction of Ukrainian needs, "a
solution of the Ukrainian question" at the present moment! There
is no Ukrainian problem any more. There is a free, great Ukrainian
people, which builds its lot in new conditions of freedom . . . The
needs and claims of the Ukraine are being advanced in all their
breadth/'
Hrushevskii placed the demand for territorial Ukrainian autonomy in the
forefront of the Rada's program, and with his friends applied himseH at
once to the task of transforming the Rada into a supreme political center
of the Ukrainian nation.
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 55
To attain this status, the Rada called together at the beginning of
April an Ukrainian National Congress, to which it invited all those groups
which demanded in their programs the establishment of Ukrainian
territorial autonomy. Despite its name, therefore, the Congress repre­
sented only one segment of the population and within it only one political
tendency. The Congress adopted a series of resolutions, calling for the
transformation of Russia into a federal republic, with the Ukraine as an
autonomous part, and formulated a representational system for the
various provinces populated by Ukrainians, by means of which delegates
to the Rada were to be elected in the future. A commission was ap­
pointed to work out a project of autonomy for presentation to the All­
Russian Constituent Assembly.5
Shortly after the formation of the Rada, the old Society of Ukrainian
Progressives ( TUP), which represented liberal, moderate elements and
at the outbreak of the Revolution had been the only active Ukrainian
organization remotely resembling a political party, declined in influence.
After changing its name to that of the Socialist Federalist Party and
losing its leading lights, including Hrushevskii, it gave way to groups
with more radical political and economic programs. Two parties, the
Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party and the Ukrainian Socialist
Revolutionary Party, deserve special mention because of the importance
which they attained within a short time.
The USD ( or USDRP) was a resuscitation of the prerevolutionary
party of the same name. At the beginning of April, soon after its reestab­
lishment, this party decided to abandon its hostility to the national
movement, and to climb on the bandwagon of Ukrainian nationalism. At
that time it joined the Rada by subscribing to the program of autonomy,
to the considerable chagrin of the Russian Social Democratic Labor
Party in Kiev, which had hoped to use its Ukrainian counterpart as a
weapon against the Rada and its ''bourgeois-nationalist" leaders. The
USD had in its ranks the most active and experienced leaders of the
Ukrainian movement, including several of the original founders of
the RUP in 1900: the writer Volodimir Vinnichenko, Simon Petliura, N.
Porsh and others. The USD acquired a dominant role in the affairs of
the Rada, pursuing a course of nationalism mixed with some elements
of socialist radicalism, and vacillating between one and the other depend­
ing on the political requirements of the moment.
The USR ( or UPSR) was a younger party, which was formally
established only after the outbreak of the revolution. Its leaders were
young men, mostly students (P. Khristiuk, M. Kovalevskii), less ex­
perienced and less well known than their rivals of the USD. The USR,
as a consequence, played a much smaller part on the political scene in
the first half of 1917. Its influence on the predominantly peasant masses
of the Ukrainian population, however, was considerably stronger than
56 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

a mere survey of the political balance of power in the Rada would indi­
cate. The USR formulae for the solution of the agricultural problem,
headed by demands for the nationalization of land and the establishment
of a Ukrainian Land Fund, were very popular in the village, and assured
the party the sympathy of the peasants.
The USD and the USR, as well as most other, minor, Ukrainian parties
of the period, agreed on the need for extensive Ukrainian territorial
autonomy. At first they were disposed to wait for the All-Russian Con­
stituent Assembly to formulate and ratify officially the right of the
Ukrainians to self-rule, but before long their demands became more
urgent. This development was largely due to the pressure of the Ukrain­
ian soldiers and peasants.
As soon as the news of the February Revolution had reached the
Western Front, Ukrainian soldiers who previously had had no inde­
pendent units but had fought side by side with the Russians, began to
use the Ukrainian language and to form organizations based on the
principle of territorial origin ( zemliachestva). When the troops learned,
a short time later, of the establishment of a Rada in Kiev, many Ukrain­
ian officers and soldiers began to look to it for leadership and in some
instances to consider themselves directly bound by orders issued by the
Rada. All throughout the second half of March and the first half of
April, Ukrainian soldiers stationed in Kiev held impromptu meetings
demanding the formation of separate Ukrainian military units and the
creation of a Ukrainian national army. 6 In the first half of April an all­
volunteer regiment named after Bohdan Khmelnitskii, the Cossack leader
of the seventeenth century, was formed in Kiev and sent to the front.
The Ukrainian soldiers were strongly influenced by the example of
Polish units which began to form at that time on the Southwestern front
with the sanction of the Provisional Government, and were permeated
with enthusiasm for Cossack ideals.
How violent was the nationalism which had taken hold of the soldiers
became evident in the course of the First Ukrainian Military. Congress
which opened on May 5. During the debates, the speakers attacked the
Provisional Government for its failure to treat the Ukraine on equal
terms with Poland and Finland, to both of which it had promised inde­
pendence, and for ignoring demands of the Ukrainians to form military
units on their own soil. Some voices were raised in favor of Ukrainian
independence and separate representation at the future peace confer­
ences. The general tone of the sessions was so extremely nationalistic that
Vinnichenko, the delegate of the Rada and a leading member of the USD,
felt forced to plead with the delegates to remain loyal to the Russian
democracy which had given the Ukraine its present freedom. Vinni­
chenko's suggestion that the Congress elect Petliura as its chaiqnan was
turned down on the grounds that the Rada, for which he spoke, had
_,
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EM PIRE 57
taken no part in convoking the Military Congress and consequently had
no right to impose candidates on it. The Congress closed on May 8, with
the resolution to send a delegation to the Petrograd Soviet to discuss the
formation of Ukrainian regiments, and to establish a permanent Ukrain­
ian General Military Committee ( UGVK ) . The delegates recognized
the Rada as the organ representing Ukrainian, public opinion.7 Several
days after the Congress closed, the Ukrainian delegates to the Kiev
Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies separated themselves into a distinct faction.
When the Ukrainian soldiers at the front learned of the decisions of
the Military Congress, they too began to form national units, despite the
remonstrations of Russian officers' and soldiers' committees. Among them,
as among the Kievans, there was hope that the Rada would take care
of their interests by terminating the fighting and helping the Ukrainians
get their share of the land.8 The behavior of the soldiers left no doubt
about their impatience with the status quo. Anxious to win and retain
the support of the Ukrainian troops, the Rada included in its platform
their demand for the creation of national military units.
The Ukrainian peasantry also displayed nationalist sentiments. The
soil in the Ukrainian provinces was better but less plentiful than in
the central regions of Russia. The peasantry of these provinces had every­
thing to gain if empowered to dispose of the local land according to its
own wishes, and much to lose if compelled to abide by any likely future
all-Russian solution of the land question. The Ukrainian village feared
most of all having to share the property, which it looked forward to
acquiring from the state, church, and large private owners, with the
landless peasantry of the north. This desire to apportion the rich
Ukrainian black earth independently of Russia, for the sole benefit of
the local population, became a powerful factor in the development of
nationalist sentiments among the Ukrainian rural masses. Under the
influence of the USR they favored a land program providing for the
nationalization of all land and the establishment of a Ukrainian Land
Fund, with exclusive control over the land and the right to apportion it
in accordance with the directives of a Ukrainian Diet ( Seim ) . This
formula presupposed a fairly wide degree of autonomy. At the Regional
Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies (Kiev,
April 22 ) the peasant section voted for the introduction of autonomy
with provisions for land distribution which would benefit the local in­
habitants.9 At the First All-Ukrainian Peasant Congress (Kiev, May 28-
June 2 ) similar resolutions were adopted, and pressure was applied
upon the Rada to undertake more energetic steps toward Ukrainian
self-rule. 10
As the result of the intimate connection between peasant economic
aspirations and the slogan of autonomy, the rural restlessness and impa­
tience which in one way or another affected the villages throughout the
58 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
entire Empire, assum�d in the Ukraine nationalistic forms. The more
eagerly the peasants demanded land, the more ardently they espoused
the slogan of "autonomy now."
Early in June the Rada sent the Provisional Government a note con­
taining a list of demands, calling for the recognition of the principle of
Ukrainian autonomy, the separation of the twelve provinces with a
predominantly Ukrainian p opulation into a special administrative area,
the appointment of a commissar for Ukrainian affairs, and, finally, the
formation of a Ukrainian army. 1 1
These demands placed the Provisional Government in a difficult
position. In principle, most of the cabinet members were not opposed
to autonomy for the non-Russian regions of the state. Alexander Keren­
sky, who had strong influence in the government, was actually identified
with pro-Ukrainian sympathies, owing to his defense of Ukrainian rights
in the prerevolutionary Dumas. 12 Upon the outbreak of the February
Revolution the TUP had singled him out for special favor by sending
him an individual message of congratulations, in recognition of his
championship of the Ukrainian cause. 1 3 But the government was loath
to make the kind of commitment the Rada had requested because of
its general political philosophy, which forbade constitutional changes
prior to the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. It also had specific
objections. The government considered the Rada neither truly representa­
tive of the Ukraine, nor authorized to speak in its name. Furthermore,
it feared also that the introduction of the national principle into the
army would disorganize and weaken the country's armed forces at
the very time when they were being readied for an all-out offensive
against the enemy. Moved by such considerations, the Provisional Gov­
ernment turned down the requests of the Rada, suggesting that the
questions which it had raised wait for the convocation of the All-Russian
Constituent Assembly. Only the demand concerning the army met with
a partly favorable reply. Petrograd agreed that something could be done
for those Ukrainians who desired to serve under national banners, but
on condition that the military authorities of the Kiev district give their
approval to any scheme affecting the organization of the army. 1 4
This action of the cabinet was favorably received by Russian and
Jewish elements in the Ukraine, which were becoming very concerned,
if not alarmed, by the behavior of the Ukrainians. The principal non­
Ukrainian parties of that region, from the most conservative to the most
radical, roundly condemned the actions of the Rada. The IKSOOO and
the Kiev Soviet alike expressed approval of the Provisional Government's
reply. 1 5
On Ukrainian political circles, however, the effect of the cabinet deci­
sion was quite different. Infuriated by what they considered an insolent
refusal of their modest demands, and convinced that it foreshadowed
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 59
the attitude of Russian ruling circles toward the whole question of
Ukrainian self-rule, they decided to challenge the authority of Petrograd.
The government reply had reached Kiev shortly before the Ukrainian
Peasant Congress was to close. At the last session Hrushevskii read to the
agitated audience the message from the capital and concluded with
these menacing words : "We have finished celebrating the holiday of the
Revolution, and now we have entered into its most dangerous period,
one which threatens with major destruction and disorder. We must pre­
pare to resist effectively any hostile attack . . . I greet you, brothers,
and repeat that, come what may, there will be a free autonomous
Ukraine." 1 6 The peasant delegates voted on the spot to disregard the
government order and to take steps for the immediate introduction of
autonomy.
At the same time as Petrograd turned down the Rada's petition, it
refused to grant the UGVK permission to convene a Second Ukrainian
Military Congress. Enraged Ukrainian soldiers held protest meetings
and urged the Rada to act on its own, without reference to the govern­
ment. Acting in defiance of Petrograd, the UGVK resolved to proceed
with its plans, and set June 5 as the date for the opening of the con­
gress.
On June 10 the Rada issued an official manifesto, the so-called First
Universal,° in which, addressing itself to the entire Ukrainian people, it
announced that the Ukraine would henceforth decide its own fate and,
without separating itself from Russia, take all the necessary measures
to maintain order and to distribute the land lying within its borders.
The Rada reasserted its claim to the exclusive representation of the
Ukrainian national will and imposed upon the Ukrainian society a
special tax, the proceeds from which were to be used to pay for
the Rada's administrative functions. From the juridical point of view the
First Universal was a highly questionable document, but this was a
period when juridical considerations were far from uppermost in people's
minds, and in Kiev it was received by the Ukrainian population with
great emotion, bordenng on religious reverence.17
During the second half of June the Rada underwent a series of
internal structural transformations from which it emerged equipped
with the apparatus of a full-fledged government. Its membership was
broadened to include not only Ukrainian organizations, such as the
Congress of Ukrainian Workers, but also to leave room for the_/ rion­
Ukrainian population of the region over which it claimed jurisdiction. In
this manner, the Rada evolved from a national into a territorial institu­
tion. Next a Small Rada, consisting of forty-five members representing
the various elements united in the Rada, was formed. The Small Rada
0
"Universals" were originally decrees issued by Polish monarchs; in the seven­
teenth century this term was adopted by the Hetmans of the Cossack Host.
60 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

was to sit permanently and to perform legislative functions when its


parent body was not in session. Finally, a General Secretariat was cre­
ated: an executive organ similar to a ministry to carry out the decisions
of the Rada. Vinnichenko ( USD ) was appointed its Chairman and
Secretary of Interior, with most of the remaining posts going to Ukrain­
ian Social Democrats and Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries. Plans were
also made to organize a vast network of provincial radas to work with
the Central Rada in Kiev and under its aegis.
An anomalous situation was thus created. The Rada, though it pro­
fessed loyalty to the Russian Government and denied all intention to
separate, had in reality disobeyed the regime and established a de facto
government, which claimed considerable authority over a section of the
republic. The precise extent of the Rada's claims was very uncertain, and
its leaders did nothing to correct that situation. But it was clear that the
authority of the Provisional Government had been seriously challenged.
The developments transpiring in the latter half of June threw panic
into the ranks of local non-Ukrainians. For a time rumors that the Rada
was planning a coup were circulating in town. 1 8 The IKSOOO endeav­
ored to sound out Ukrainian politicians about their intentions but it
failed to arrive at a modus vivendi with the Rada. The Rada delegates
insisted that the price for their cooperation was unqualified recognition
on the part of the non-Ukrainian groups united in the IKSOOO that
the Rada alone represented the Ukrainian people. 19
After the establishment of the General Secretariat the conflict be­
tween the Rada and the Provisional Government had reached a very
dangerous point. Since neither of the protagonists, however, felt strong
enough to settle the outstanding issues by force, negotiations were opened
to seek a solution to the impasse. On June 28 a delegation of govern­
mental leaders composed of Kerensky, Irakly Tseretelli, and M. I. Teresh­
chenko arrived in Kiev. After three days of prolonged and often acri­
monious discussions, an agreement was reached and presented for
approval of the government in Petrograd. The terms were embodied in
the resolution of the Provisional Government on the Ukrainian Question
of July 3, 1917. An excerpt follows :
Having heard the report of the Ministers Kerensky, Tereshchenko,
and Tseretelli on the Ukrainian question, the Provisional Govern­
ment has accepted the following resolution : to appoint, in the ca­
pacity of a higher organ of administration of regional affairs in the
Ukraine, a separate organ, a General Secretariat, the composition of
which will be determined by the government in agreement with a
Ukrainian Central Rada augmented on a just basis with democratic
organizations representing other nationalities inhabiting the Ukraine.
The Provisional Government will put into effect measures concern-
THE DISINTEGRATION O F THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 61
ing the life of the region and its administration by means of the above
defined organ.
While it considers that the questions of the national political or­
ganization of the Ukraine and the methods of solving the land ques­
tion there must be settled by the Constituent Assembly within the
framework of a general decree concerning the transfer of land into
the hands of the toilers, the Provisional Government views with sym­
pathy the idea of the preparation by the Ukrainian Central Rada of
a project concerning the national political status of the Ukraine in
accordance with what the Rada itself conceives as the interests of
the region, and of a project for the solution of the land question, for
presentation to the Constituent Assembly. 20
This agreement, although in the nature of a compromise, represented
a substantial victory for the Rada, above all because it recognized by
implication what the Rada had until then in vain claimed: that it was
an institution authorized to speak for the Ukrainian people. The majority
of the Kadet ministers of the Provisional Government refused to give their
approval to the document and resigned from the cabinet in protest.
For the time being an open break between Russian and Ukrainian
political circles was avoided. But the rising temper of Ukrainian national­
ist emotions and the rapid weakening of the government's ability to resist
onslaughts upon its authority made it questionable whether the make­
shift solution arrived at in July could last for any length of time.

From July to the October Revolution in the Ukraine


The Ukrainian national leaders, having compelled the Provisional
Government to grant them administrative powers, were now free to
demonstrate their political abilities. In fact, however, the Rada and its
General Secretariat failed miserably to take advantage of th�ir June
triumph. The four months separating the June agreement from the Oc­
tober Revolution was a period of progressive disintegration of the
Ukrainian national movement, marked by indecision, by internal quar­
rels, by unprincipled opportunism, and above all, by an ever-widening
gulf between the masses of the population and the politicians who
aspired to represent them.
During the first half of 1917 the Ukrainian political parties - the
USD's, the USR's, and other groups - were, for all their ideological
differences, in close agreement, because the struggle for autonomy against
the Provisional Government had provided a bond. But once this struggle
was over and positive steps were required, the harmony which had
prevailed when the Rada had been in its formative stage gave way to
internal wrangling. Furthermore, each party was pulled apart by a
progressive hardening of tendencies, by a polarization of left and right
62 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
wings, which considerably hampered effective action on the part of the
Ukrainian national institutions.
It is difficult to obtain a clear picture of the history of the Ukrainian
parties during this period. They were of relatively recent origin and had
formed under conditions of rapid revolutionary change. Their leaders
were for the most part young and inexperienced. They had little contact
with public opinion, and, as a consequence, the activities of the parties
often reflected not so much the political realities of the country as the
personal relations and ideas of the small group of people who took
charge of the political organizations. This largely accounts· for the con­
fusing vacillations of the Ukrainian parties in the third quarter of 1917.
The USD's continued to maintain effective control. over the General
Secretariat despite their small organized following. Their aims were
primarily political and they paid little attention to the growing agrarian
unrest in the Ukraine. Vinnichenko, of the USD, remained Chairman
of the General Secretariat throughout most of its existence, and the
majority of his colleagues also belonged to this party. The USO's domi­
nated, by their eloquence and organizational skill, the Ukrainian soldiers'
and workers' congresses which were held throughout 1917. In the second
half of the year the party began to split into two factions: one, led by
Vinnichenko, urged a more conciliatory attitude toward the Provisional
Government and a policy of moderation; another, dominated by Parsh,
demanded a more radical course and closer ties with Russian extreme
socialist groups hostile to Petrograd.
As the year progressed, the USR's displayed growing dissatisfaction
with USO control of the executive organs of the Rada. They began to
charge that the USO influence was much greater than its popular follow­
ing warranted, and that the party paid lip-service to socialism while in
effect concentrating almost exclusively on the attainment of political ends.
The USR's were more radically inclined than their rivals, and felt that,
with the spread of the revolution, socio-economic activities should take
precedence over politics; yet they possessed neither the personnel nor
the political skill to wrest control of the Secretariat away from the USO's.
The conflict between the two leading parties broke into the open in the
middle of July, when the USR's walked out of the USO-dominated
Ukrainian Workers' Congress because it had refused to adopt their
formula for the solution of the land problem. Relations between the two
groups continued to worsen during the latter half of July.
At the beginning of August the growing interparty strife brought
about a crisis. Vinnichenko and his colleagues who favored a moderate
attitude toward Petrograd resigned from the General Secretariat, and the
USR's announced that they would boycott a new Secretariat if it were
again formed by the USD's. Until the end of the month frantic attempts
were made to find suitable replacements, all of which failed, either be-
THE DISINTE GRATION OF THE! RUSSIAN EMPIRE 63
cause those political figures who were appointed were found unaccept­
able to the Rada, or because those whom the Rada had found acceptable
refused to take the proffered posts. Finally, at the end of August a new
cabinet, without USR's, who, while continuing their boycott agreed not
to vote against it, was formed by Vinnichenko and approved by Petro­
grad.
The popular following of the Ukrainian parties in the urban areas
was not large enough to render them effective. Elections held in Ukrain­
ian cities and small towns for new city councils ( dumy ) at the end of
July, showed that among them they controlled less than one-fifth of the
urban electorate. In Kiev itself, the combined USD-USR ticket received
20 per cent of the total vote, as against 37 per cent cast for the ticket of
the united Russian socialist parties, 15 per cent for the ticket of "Russian
voters," a group hostile to the Ukrainian movement, g per cent for the
Russian Kadets, and 6 per cent for the Bolsheviks. 21
In twenty other towns ( including Kharkov, Poltava, Ekaterinoslav,
and Odessa, ) the USD and USR parties, running separately from Rus­
sian parties, captured 13 per cent of the seats on the city councils,
and on combined tickets with Russian socialist parties, an additional
15 per cent. 22 This showing was far from brilliant, and though their
following was stronger in the rural areas, as the elections to the Constit­
uent Assembly three months later were to indicate, the weakness of the
Ukrainian parties in the politically crucial urban centers was to have an
adverse effect on their whole future history.
One of the salient features of the Ukrainian movement at this period
was the fact that its leaders, instead of consolidating their gains and
establishing the sorely needed political machinery, preferred to squander
their energies on fruitless quarrels with Petrograd over the scope of
their authority. As a result of this misguided effort they wasted favorable
occasions, lost further contact with the masses, and helped .to weaken
the liberal and middle-of-the-road socialist Russian forces, with which,
in the ultimate analysis, their own interests were closely connected. When
the crucial test came, early in 1918, they were guite incapable of defend­
ing their authority.
The agreement reached with Kerensky during his visit to Kiev had
laid down general principles of the new administration of the Ukraine,
but it did not specify with sufficient clarity the division of powers
between the Rada and the Provisional Government. In the middle of
July, Vinnichenko left for Petrograd to discuss the draft of a constitution
which the Small Rada had prepared, and to arrive at a formal and more
precise accord. 23 The Rada's interpretation of its powers was broad,
considerably broader than Petrograd's. The new coalition government
formed in the Russian capital at that time was more conservative than
the government with which the Rada had signed the original agreement,
64 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

and even less disposed to make immediate concessions to the Ukrainian


nationalists. The representatives of the Ukrainian General Secretariat
found, to their great dismay, that the government jurists appointed to
deal with them wanted to limit their authority and interpreted the
General Secretariat as a mere administrative organ of the Provisional
Government rather than as an autonomous government. Arguments
began to develop over the number of secretariats and provinces within
the General Secretariat's jurisdiction. Angered by these unexpected
difficulties, Vinnichenko returned to Kiev even before the talks were
completed. On August 4, Petrograd issued a "Temporary Instruction of
the Provisional Government to the General Secretariat of the Ukrainian
Central Rada." This document, drafted by Baron B. E. Nolde and A. Ia.
Galpern, consisted of nine points:
1. Until the time when the Constituent Assembly decides on the
issue of local government, the General Secretariat, which is appointed
by the Provisional Government at the suggestion of the Central Rada,
shall function as the higher organ of the Provisional Government in
matters of local administration of the Ukraine.
.2. The authority of the General Secretariat is to extend over the
provinces: Kiev, Volhynia, Podolia, Poltava, and Chernigov, with the
exception of the counties: Mglinskii, Surazhskii, Starodubskii, and
Novozybkovskii. It can also be extended over other provinces or
their parts in the event that the provincial administrations ( zemskie
upravleniia) created in these provinces in accordance with directions
of the Provisional Government shall express themselves in favor of
such an extension.
3. The General Secretariat consists of general secretaries of the
following departments : (a) internal affairs, ( b ) finances, ( c) agri­
culture, ( d) education, ( e ) trade and industry, ( f ) labor, and also
of a General Secretary of nationalities and a General Clerk.
In addition, the General Secretariat includes, for the control of its
affairs, a General Controller who participates in the meetings of the
Secretariat with a right to a determinative vote.
Not less than four of the · secretaries must be appointed from
among persons belonging to nationalities other than Ukrainian.
The secretary for nationalities shall have three assistant secre­
taries, with provisions being made for each of the four of the most
numerous nationalities of the Ukraine to have a representative either
in the person of the Secretary or in one of his assistants.
4. The General Secretariat considers, works out and presents to
the Provisional Government for approval projects which affect the
life of the region and its administration. These projects may, prior to
their submission to the Provisional Government, be presented for dis­
cussion to the Central Rada.
5. The sovereign rights of the Provisional Government in matters
of local administration, which enter into the competence of the or-
THE DISINTEGRATION O F THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 65
gans outlined in Article 3, are· exercised through the General Secre­
taries. More specific definition of these matters shall be given in a
separate appendix.
6. In all matters, described in the aforesaid article, the local au­
thorities of the region are to get in touch with the General Secre­
tariat which, following communication with the Provisional Govern­
ment, shall transmit the directives and orders of the latter to the
local authorities.
7. The General Secretariat is to submit a list of nominees for
the government positions described in Article 5 and they are to be
appointed by order of the Provisional Government.
8. The relations between the higher governmental organs and
individuat civic authorities with the Secretariat and the individual
secretaries, as well as the relations of the latter with higher govern­
mental institutions and departments, are to take place through a
separate Commissar of the Ukraine in Petrograd, appointed by the
Provisional Government. Legislative suggestions and projects con­
cerning only the local affairs of the Ukraine, as well as measures of
importance for the whole state, which shall arise in the separate de­
partments or shall be considered by interdepartmental and depart­
mental commissions - when they demand, by virtue of special ap­
plication to the Ukraine, the participation of the representative of
the office of the Commissar on the aforesaid commissions - shall be
treated in the same manner.
g. In urgent and unpostponable cases the higher governmental
institutions and departments [shall] transmit their orders directly to
the local authorities, informing simultaneously the Secretariat.
Prime Minister: Kerensky
Minister of Justice : Zarudnyi. 24
This Instruction evoked great dissatisfaction in Ukrainian political
circles. Many Ukrainians felt that the government had reneged on the
July agreement by reducing the General Secretariat to the status of a
mere administrative organ of the Provisional Government, and depriving
the Rada of the broad powers which they thought the agreement had
implied. Specific objections were made to the refusal of Petrograd to
grant the Ukrainian organs jurisdiction over military affairs, supply, and
means of communications, and to its limitation of Ukrainian rule to a
mere five provinces instead of the entire twelve which had been claimed
in the First Universal.25 And yet, in fact the Instruction did not deviate
from the June agreement which at the time had been very favorably
received by the Rada. 26 It actually represented an important step for­
ward in the development of Russian federalism. For the first time in
history a Russian government had recognized the national principle as
a basis for the administrative division of the state, and had ceded a part
of its authority to an organ of self-rule formed along national-territorial
lines.
66 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIE T UNION
The cooler heads in the Rada realized the importance of Petrograd's
concession and the futility of fighting the Provisional Government for
more power. "We have now received more than we had demanded two
months ago," Vinnichenko told the Ukrainian critics of the Instruction in
the course of debates in the Small Rada.2 7 The General Secretariat and
then the Small Rada finally accepted the Instruction, though under
protest. During the following months, the bitterness over the Provisional
Government's action remained, and at the first opportunity the General
Secretariat appropriated the functions and territories of which it felt it­
self unjustly deprived.
The General Secretariat, however, did little if anything to exercise
the authority which the Provisional Government through the Instruction
had granted it. Above all, it failed to establish contact with the cities
and villages of the Ukraine. Nothing came of the intention to establish
provincial radas, and instead the countryside was dominated either by
soviets, which had no responsibility to the General Secretariat, or by
Free Cossack and Haidamak 0 units, which the rural population began
to organize spontaneously for local self-defense and other, less meritori­
ous purposes, such as looting. In August, at the conference of provincial
representatives convened by the General Secretariat, nearly every
speaker reported the prevalence of civic disorder and the complete
collapse of local institutions in his region.28 Dmytro Doroshenko, a mem­
ber of the Small Rada and the head of one of the Ukrainian provinces,
thus describes the work of the General Secretariat at this time:
The General Secretary of Finance, Tugan-Baranovskii, left Kiev
and did not return for two months, without even bothering to send
any information concerning his whereabouts. Most of the secretariats
did not know where to start, how to begin. There was not the slight­
est contact or communication with the provinces, even though this
was not difficult to obtain, the more so because all five provincial
commissars were our own people - Ukrainians . . . When finally
in the middle of August ( one and one-half months after the final
approval of the General Secretariat! ) V. Vinnichenko convened the
congress of provincial and county commissars, somebody inquired :
whose commissars were they: the Provisional Government's or the
General Secretariat's?
None of the General Secretaries ever appeared outside Kiev,
despite resolutions of the General Secretariat to the contrary. To the
provinces were sent neither orders, nor instructions, nor information,
but only proclamations. Kiev would not even answer questions, and
0
The term Haidamak, lilce many others in the Cossack vocabulary, is of Turkish
origin; the Turkish verb haydamak means to pillage or ravage. Haidamachestvo, a
form of banditry prevalent in the so-called Right Bank ( i.e., Polish ) Ukraine in the
eighteenth century, combined violent anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism with sheer
brigandage.
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUS S IAN EMPIRE 67
provincial governors, coming to Kiev, could not without much trou­
ble obtain personal interviews on urgent matters with the head of
the Secretariat. 29
E qually critical accounts of the General Secretariat's administrative
performance were given by one of the heads of the USR, Khristiuk, and
Vinnichenko himself had to admit that his critics were correct, although
he attempted to justify himself by pointing to the desperate lack of
means and personnel at his disposal. 0
Moreover, the Ukrainian Rada and its organs were rapidly losing
the sympathies of the Ukrainian population itself. Much of the support
which the Rada had initially secured among the Ukrainian peasants and
soldiers stemmed from popular dissatisfaction with the Provisional Gov­
ernment and especially with its procrastinating l�nd policy. The popula­
tion urged the Rada to obtain more authority, hoping that it would be
utilized to put into effect the desired legislative measures. But since
the Rada had failed to act, and by virtue of the June agreement had
actually transformed itself into an organ of the Provisional Government,
there was no longer the same compelling reason to support it. What
could have been the purpose of wresting more authority from Petrograd,
if it was to be placed at the disposal of Petrograd's own regional repre­
sentative? The behavior of the USR's in the Small Rada during August
and September, their protests against the General Secretariat's inactivity
in the field of socio-economic reform, and their subsequent refusal to
participate in the formation of a new Secretariat, reflected the dissatisfac­
tion of the Ukrainian peasantry with the existing state of affairs. Nor were
the Ukrainian workers happier. In mid-July the First All-Ukrainian
Workers' Congress, convened in Kiev by the Rada, proved to be very
critical of the existing Ukrainian institutions, and condemned the Rada
for displaying "bourgeois" tendencies. In general, its whole temper was
closer to that of the Bolsheviks than to the spirit fostered by the Ukrain­
ian -national parties to which most of the delegates belonged.30 The same
situation prevailed at the Third Congress of Peasants of the Kiev area
held in September. 3 1
Thus the Rada and its General Secretariat drifted aimlessly while
the clouds of the impending October storm were gathering ever thicker
over the entire country.
The relations of the Rada with the Bolshevik party, which was
destined to come to power in Russia, represented a curious mixture of
mutual hostility and attraction. From the point of view of long-range
objectives the Ukrainian and Bolshevik movements not only had little
0
See Vinnichenko's speech in the Small Rada on August 10, in Manilov, 1.91.7
god, 205. In later times Vinnichenko placed much of the blame for the inactivity
of the Ukrainian institutions on the Provisional Government; see his Vidrodzhennia
natsii, II ( Kiev-Vienna, 1920 ) , 40; Khristiuk, Zamitky, I, 1 1off.
68 T H E FORM ATION O F THE SOVIET UNION

in common, but were essentially antagonistic. Whereas the Ukrainians,


especially the USD's, were interested in promoting their national cause,
the followers of Lenin wanted a world-wide revolution based on the
principle of proletarian class interests, and fought all those who espoused
nationalism. The "betrayal" of the USD in joining the Rada tended to
confirm in the minds of the local Bolsheviks the "counterrevolutionary"
role of nationalism and to reemphasize the danger which it presented
to their movement. 32 The Bolsheviks alone, of all the major parties in
Kiev, refused to enter the Small Rada after the Provisional Government
had issued its August Instruction. In other regions of the Ukraine, espe­
cially in the industrial areas of the East, where their party was stronger,
the Bolsheviks simply did not take the Ukrainian movement into account
and disregarded entirely the problems which it posed.33 Piatakov, the ac­
tual boss of the Bolshevik party of the southwestern region centered in
Kiev, who even before the Revolution had been known as an opponent
of the temporary alliance with nationalism advocated by Lenin, stated
bluntly the attitude of the local Bolsheviks in 1917:
On the whole we must not support the Ukrainians, because their
movement is not convenient for the proletariat. Russia cannot exist
without the Ukrainian sugar industry, and the same can be said in
regard to coal { Donbass ) , cereals (the black-earth belt ) , etc. . . .
We have before us two tasks: to protest against the measures of
the government, and especially those of Kerensky, on the one hand,
and to fight against the chauvinistic strivings of the Ukrainians on
the other. 34
But the Bolsheviks were willing to use the Ukrainian movement
insofar as it weakened the Provisional Government. Thus, as early as
June g, the Kiev Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was startled
to hear a Bolshevik orator defend the right of the Ukrainians to seize
power. A few days later, during a large parade organized by the Soviet,
Bolshevik and Ukrainian participants moved away from the main body
of demonstrators and marched side by side in their own separate
columns. 35 At the same time, writing in the Russian Bolshevik press,
Lenin came out in defense of the Ukrainian nationalists and echoed
their charges against the Provisional Government, though he was care­
ful to stress his opposition to separatism.36
Reciprocating, the Ukrainian organizations refused to support the
Kiev Soviet and the non-Bolshevik parties in their condemnation of
Lenin's abortive July coup in Petrograd. The July uprising, Vinnichenko
stated at the time, presented no danger for the Ukraine. 37 ."One has to
admit," he added a few days later, "that if it were not for the Bolsheviks
the revolution would not move ahead." 38
In August and September, when the General Secretariat was func-
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 69
tioning a s an official organ of the Provisional Government, and the Small
Rada admitted into membership various non-Ukrainian groups and par­
ties, including Russian socialists whom the Bolsheviks were fighting, the
relations between the two groups were less openly cordial. The Leninists
went ahead with their own conspiratorial and demagogic work, but at
the same time refrained from stepping on the toes of the Ukrainian na­
tionalists, who were potentially useful to them. At the beginning of
August the Bolsheviks even entered the Central Rada, though they still
refused to join the more important Small Rada.39 As is known from the
memoirs of a prominent local Bolshevik leader, two attitudes towards
the Ukrainians prevailed at that time within the ranks of the Kievan
Bolshevik Committee. 40 There was a "left" view, which urged a direct,
uncompromising attack on Ukrainian nationalism, and a "right" view,
which wanted to exploit it; this was the beginning of a vital split within
the Bolshevik movement in the Ukraine on the nationality question,
which was to plague it for years to come.
In October, the Bolsheviks and the Ukrainian nationalists moved
closer once more, again as a result of altercations between the latter and
the Provisional Government. 4 1 Scarcely had the Small Rada accepted the
Provisional Government Instruction ( August g), when the leaders of the
Ukrainian parties began to demand a separate Constituent Assembly for
the Ukraine. This notion found a lively echo among the masses, for it
revived hopes that measures would be taken to apportion the land in a
manner satisfactory to the local population and perhaps also to terminate
the war. 42 But the more the Ukrainian leaders pressed this project, the
worse became their relations with the Russian groups, who saw in it a
further step toward anarchy and the decline of legitimate authority. And
though nothing came of this idea - the General Secretariat, despite its
violent insistence on its right to convene such an Assembly, had no power
to bring it about - a new tug-of-war between Petrograd and Kiev got
on its way. In the middle of October the government ordered the chair­
man of the General Secretariat to report to Petrograd to explain its
activities. The impending crisis was resolved by the outbreak of the
October Revolution. 0
The new difficulties with the Provisional Government, as well as the
growing radicalism of the populace, induced the USD's to veer left. At
the party's Fourth Congress, held in September, the left-wingers, led by
Porsh, persuaded the delegates to adopt a series of resolutions essentially
identical with those advanced by the Bolsheviks. "In the entire country,
as well as in the separate lands," one of the resolutions stated, "there
must be established at once a homogeneous revolutionary democratic
0
Vinnichenko charges in his memoirs that the Provisional Government wanted
to lure the General Secretariat to Petrograd in order to place it under arrest ( Vinni­
chenko, Vidrodzhennla, II, 5g-60 ) ,
70 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
rule of the organized proletariat, peasantry, and soldiers." 43 This, in
effect, was a demand for the cession of all power to the soviets. Other
resolutions called for the termination of the «imperialist war," the trans­
fer of control over public lands and large estates to local peasant com­
mittees, the establishment of government and worker control over fac­
tories, maximum taxation or confiscation of large capital, and finally,
the transformation of the Russian Empire into a Federal Russian Re­
public.H
But it was only on the eve of the Bolshevik coup in Russia that the
Ukrainian nationalists came out openly and actively in support of the
Bolsheviks. On October 25, when reports from Russia brought the first
news of an uprising in Petrograd, the Bolshevik deputies in the Kiev
Soviet began to press for the creation of a Revolutionary Committee with
which to seize power in the city. At the same time they entered into
negotiations with the Ukrainians. The Kievan Bolsheviks were far too
weak in Kiev and the remaining areas of the right-bank Ukraine to
attempt singlehanded a seizure of power against the forces loyal to the
government, and for that reason they felt compelled to arrive at some
form of compromise with the Ukrainians. Vladimir Zatonskii, a leading
Kievan Bolshevik and a participant in the negotiations, thus describes
the agreement:
The situation was such that the Central Rada was ready at this
moment to support what appeared, from its viewpoint, the weaker
side: the Petersburg Bolsheviks. Naturally, they wanted to support it
cautiously, without compromising themselves in the eyes of the bour­
geois world and without strengthening the position of the Bolsheviks
in the Ukraine. At the same time the Central Rad a was greatly in­
terested in being recognized by the Bolsheviks, as it was obvious that
without such recognition the Rada could not really become a regional
center.
The principal purpose of our entering [the Small Rada] was the
formation of a united front against the Whites on the following con­
ditions: the Central Rada assumed the responsibility for using its
influence with the railroad personnel in order to prevent all the re­
actionary military units from leaving the confines of the Ukraine,
including the Rumanian and southwestern fronts, for the suppression
of the uprisings in Petrograd and Moscow. A detachment of Kiev
cadets [iunkers] already on its way was to be stopped. All work in
this direction was to be conducted by the joint efforts of the Rada
and the Bolsheviks. We, on our part, agreed not to start an armed
rebellion against the [pro�government] Staff in Kiev, but if the latter
should initiate an attack, then each side obliged itself to cbme to the
aid of the other against the Whites ( no one doubted that in the face
of this agreement between the Bolsheviks and the Central Rada, the
Staff would not dare to lift a finger ) . The Central Rada, for its part,
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUS S IAN E MPIRE 71
undertook to observe a friendly neutrality towards the Bolshevik up­
rising in the north, and not to express itseH against it anywhere in
any form.45
With this agreement in their pockets, the Bolsheviks joined the Small
Rada and sent delegates to the special Revolutionary Committee which
the Rada had formed.
The October agreement between the Reds and Ukrainians afterwards
gave rise to much controversy. Ukrainian nationalist writers prefer to
ignore this embarrassing chapter in their history, and so, perhaps, would
Bolshevik authorities, were it not for the fact that in the latter period of
the Revolution the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine split into two factions,
both of which utilized the record of the October days for purposes of
interparty polemics. On the face of it, the October agreement with the
Rada was extremely advantageous to the Bolsheviks: at the price of a
promise to call off an attack against the military forces loyal to the Pro­
visional Government, which admittedly for lack of strength they could
not have undertaken anyway, they had secured the assistance of the
Rada in neutralizing pro-government troops throughout the southwestern
regions of the Russian Empire.
But as early as the next day ( October 26) , the right-wing Bolsheviks,
who had conducted the negotiations with the Ukrainians, had reason to
doubt the value of their compact with the Rada. At the meeting of the
Small Rada in which the Bolsheviks now participated, a debate arose
over the events of the previous day. Russian SR's and Mensheviks ob­
jected to the presence of the Bolsheviks and demanded to know what
had happened to account for their inclusion in the Revolutionary Com­
mittee of the Rada. A spokesman for the Ukrainians replied that the
Leninists had been admitted because they had promised not to seize
power in the Ukraine. Upon hearing these words Zatonskii, the Bolshe­
vik representative, rose to his feet and heatedly protested that the con­
ditions under which his party had agreed to join the Rada the previous
day were entirely different:
The Central Rada not only did not condemn the Bolshevik move­
ment but, on the contrary, it spoke of its ideological content, of its
revolutionary character; it was stated that Bolshevism was the op­
posite of the counterrevolutionary tendencies of the Provisional Gov­
ernment. Yesterday it was said that the Central Rada was entirely
indifferent to what was going on in Petrograd, that it cared only
about the preservation of order in the Ukraine. I repeat, there was
no censure. The only thing that had been said then was that the
Central Rada could not subscribe to the slogan of "all power to the
Soviets" . . . At yesterday's meeting of the Rada it was definitely
said that if the Central Rada will not support the Bolshevik move­
ment, then at any rate it will not oppose it. It was said that the Cen-
7z THE F ORMATION OF THE SOVIET U NION

tral Rada will take all measures to prevent the sending of troops
from the Ukraine for the suppression of the uprising [in Petro­
grad] .46
The Bolsheviks, Zatonskii concluded, had joined the Rada only on this
basis, No one challenged his memory, but a resolution condemning the
Petrograd uprising was adopted, and as a consequence the Bolsheviks left
the Small Rada.
The Bolsheviks decided now to proceed on their own with a seizure
of power in Kiev. On the twenty-seventh they prevailed on the Soviet of
Workers' Deputies ( where they enjoyed a majority as they did not in the
general Kievan Soviet ) , to form a separate Revolutionary Committee. But
the actual military forces at their disposal were still very small, and it
was unlikely that they could win without aid from the Ukrainians. For
this reason the Bolsheviks did not completely break with the Rada, but
left the door open for further cooperation based on the agreement of
two days before, hoping that at a critical moment the Rada would change
its mind and come to their assistance.47
On October 28, while the rebels were readying for action, pro-govern­
ment troops surrounded their headquarters, and arrested the entire Bol­
shevik Revolutionary Committee. Immediately other pro-Bolshevik units,
located on the outskirts of the city, began to shoot and attack.
At this critical moment the Rada finally decided to throw its forces
into the struggle on the side of the Bolsheviks. On October 29, it issued
an ultimatum to the headquarters of the armies of the Provisional Gov­
ernment in Kiev, demanding the immediate release of the arrested Bol­
shevik leaders from the Revolutionary Committee and the withdrawal
from Kiev of all reinforcements which the government had brought into
the city during the previous weeks to suppress the anticipated Bolshevik
coup.48 At the same time, Ukrainian patrols occupied strategic points in
the city, and prevented pro-government units from liquidating the centers
of rebel resistance.
Faced with the hostility of the Ukrainians, the Kievan Staff had no
choice but to capitulate. Two days later, representatives of the Staff met
with emissaries of the Rada, and accepted their terms. 49 The arrested
Bolsheviks were released, and the Staff left the city with its troops. The
rule of the Provisional Government in the center of the Ukraine thus
came to an end through the joint efforts of the Ukrainian Central Rada
and the Bolsheviks.
While the fighting for the city was still in progress, the General Secre­
tariat took steps to enlarge the scope of its authority. Several secretariats,
previously vetoed by the Provisional Government, were added, and an
announcement was made to the effect that the jurisdiction of the Rada
extended over additional provinces. 50
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RU SSIAN EMPIRE 73
In other cities of the Ukraine the Rada and its Secretariat did not
play the same critical role as in Kiev, because their provincial organiza­
tions were insignificant. This was the case in the smaller towns of the Kiev
province; 5 1 in the Kherson province, including the city of Odessa; 52 in
the Ekaterinoslav province; 53 and in the Chernigov province.154 Effective
rule over these areas was assumed, soon after the outbreak of the October
Revolution, by the local soviets without significant intervention of the
Ukrainian groups. In other areas where they were politically more influ­
ential, the Ukrainian parties - USD and USR alike - followed the ex­
ample set by the Kievans and aided the Bolsheviks. In Kharkov, the
USD's and USR's entered the Bolshevik-controlled Revolutionary Com­
mittee and helped overthrow the local authorities.55 In Poltava the
USD's even suggested a merger with the Bolsheviks in the fall of 1917,
and though this idea fell through, they and the USR's sided with the
Bolsheviks during the October Revolution. 56 In the city of Ekaterinoslav
( Dnepropetrovsk ) the USD's reached an agreement with the Bolsheviks,
by virtue of which they offered to accept the rule of the local soviet in
return for Bolshevik recognition of the Central Rada's Revolutionary
Committee. 57

Belorussia in 1917
When the February Revolution took place, the Belorussian national
movement was still in its embryonic stage. There was only one Belorus­
sian political party : the Hromada, which had a very small organized fol­
lowing and was unknown to the masses of the population. At the time
of the first postrevolutionary Belorussian conference, held in Minsk on
March 15, 1917, the Hromada mustered only 15 followers.158 Political
life in the Belorussian lands was dominated by Russian and Jewish so­
cialist parties. There is no evidence that in 1917 the peasantry, which
composed the mass of the Belorussian people, possessed any conscious­
ness of ethnic separateness.
An important element in the history of this movement in 1917 was the
fact that Belorussia was a battleground, with its western half occupied
by German and Polish armies, and its eastern half occupied by Russian
troops. The political fortunes of the Belorussians were almost entirely
dependent on the attitude of the combatants.
In March, at the Belorussian conference, a Belorussian National Com­
mittee composed of representatives of all the ethnic groups and all the
social classes of the territory, was organized. This committee prepared
a statement which was submitted to the Provisional Government for con­
sideration. In its essential points the statement followed the program
of the SR's, who had assumed the leadership of the Belorussian cause
and exercised within it a dominant ideological influence. The committee
74 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
demanded _the establishment of federal relations in Russia, and the
granting of an autonomous status to Belorussia, 59
In the summer the Hromada gained the upper hand in the National
Committee and steered it toward a more radical course. The committee
held a second Belorussian sonference in July, at which, \_ under the im­
pression of events taking place in the Ukraine, a Belorussian Rada was
established. 60 The main goal of the Rada was to realize an agrarian
policy modeled after that of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party. It
specifically excluded landowners from the right to participate in its
activities. The Rada took charge of the Belorussian soldier organizations
which were being formed at the western front, and early in October,
after merging with the Belorussian Military Council, renamed itself the
Great Belorussian Rada.
The Bolshevik party on Belorussian territory was inconspicuous in
the first half of the year. It was officially organized in Minsk at the end
of May6 1 by Bolsheviks of prewar standing who had been drafted and
served at the time of the Revolution in the ranks of the Western Army.62
The Bolsheviks concentrated their agitation and propaganda efforts on
the Russian soldiers at the western front, and as the soldiers grew more
and more war-weary, Bolshevik influence increased. The Leninist slogans
of peace had great success among the troops, especially after the failure
of the summer offensive undertaken by the Provisional Government in
the West. In the fall of 1917, the Bolshevik party in Minsk grew at a
meteoric rate: 2,530 members at the end of August; 9,1go in the middle
of September; 28,508 members and 27,856 candidates at the beginning of
October.es The Minsk Committee then reorganized itself as the North­
western Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party ( Bol­
shevik ) , with authority over the party cells located on the territories co­
inciding with today's Lithuania and Belorussia. The party membership
was almost exclusively Russian and military in composition, with some
following among the Jewish urban population. It had virtually no contact
with the Belorussian inhabitants. 64
The destruction of the Provisional Government by the Bolsheviks,
and the disintegration of the anti-Bolshevik socialist parties which fol­
lowed it, left the political field in Belorussia to two parties: the Bolshe­
viks, who controlled large parts of the Russian Army, and the Belorussian
Rada, which had some influence among the native soldiers and the
intelligentsia.
In early November, the Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd issued direc­
tives to the Northwestern Committee to form a Soviet government and
to assume power over their territory. Carrying out this order, the local
Bolsheviks organized an Executive Committee and a Council of Com­
missars of the Western Region ( Obliskomzap ) , and demanded that all
organizations situated in tlie provinces adjoining Minsk subordinate
THE DISINTEGRATION O F THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 75
themselves to those organs. 65 The question of relations with the Rada
was left, for the time being, open.
The elections to the Constituent Assembly on Belorussian territory
gave the Bolsheviks a considerable victory, owing mainly to the soldier
vote. The Belorussian national party failed to elect a single candidate.
At the (western ) front the Bolsheviks obtained 66.g per cent, and the
SR's 18.5 per cent of the votes. In the Minsk district the Bolsheviks ob­
tained 63.1 per cent, the SR's 19.8 per cent, the Mensheviks and Bundists
1.7 per cent, and the Hromada a mere 0.3 per cent of all the votes. 66
In the city of Minsk the Hromada polled 161 votes out of 35,651 votes
cast.67
On December 14 the Hromada convened in Minsk a Belorussian Na­
tional Congress to discuss the problems created by the Bolshevik coup.
In attendance were nearly 1,900 deputies, among them a large propor­
tion of anti-Communist Russians. The Congress debated the political
future largely from the point of view of the effect which the establish­
ment of the new authority in Petrograd was likely to have on the whole
country. Finally, on the night of December 17-18, under circumstances
that are completely unclear, the Congress proclaimed the independence
of Belorussia.
It may be questioned to what extent this Congress, or that part of
it which passed the resolution establishing the republic, represented the
wishes of the people over who� it claimed authority. One month earlier
the Hromada, participating in the elections to the Constituent Assembly
on a platform of autonomy, had polled a mere 29,000 votes in an area
populated by several million; how much would it have obtained had its
program been nationally more radical? At any rate, the separation of
Belorussia in 1917 was an ephemeral act, devoid for the time being of
political significance. Unlike the nationalists in the Ukraine and in some
other regions of the Russian Empire, the Belorussian nationalists lacked
a popular following. Only in the period of the Civil War and the ensu­
ing period of Soviet rule did their movement mature and the act of
separation acquire political and psychological importance.

The Moslem Borderlands

The All-Russian Moslem Movement


Political life among the Russian Moslems, which matured rapidly
in the atmosphere of freedom prevailing in 1917, showed three principal
tendencies. On the extreme right were the religious groups, composed of
the orthodox Moslem clergy and the wealthiest elements of Moslem
society, especially from Turkestan. Their social and political ideas were
conservative, paralleling in some respects the views of the Russian
Octobrists. These groups were relatively weak on an all-Russian scale,
76 THE F ORMATION OF THE S O VIET UNION
but in some areas, notably the Northern Caucasus and parts of Central
Asia, where Moslem orthodoxy was still deeply rooted in popular con­
sciousness and the religious leaders enjoyed great respect, the right wing
played an important role. The center group was liberal. Its leaders came
from the ranks of the Ittifak; they were westernized, and in their political
and social ideologies associated closely with the Russian Kadets, although
due to the uncompromising attitude of the Kadets toward the Ottoman
Empire, and particularly their insistence on the annexation of the Straits,
the Moslem libera]s had cooled considerably toward them since the out­
break of the First World War. On the left were the young Moslem
intellectua]s, who, in addition to subscribing to the secularism and
Westernism of the liberals, were also imbued with the ideals of socialism,
largely of the Socialist Revolutionary type. At the beginning of the
Revolution it was the liberals who assumed leadership over the Moslem
movement, partly by virtue of their greater political experience derived
from participation in the Dumas. But in the latter half of the year, as
the entire country moved toward the left, and as the liberal elements
with which the centrists were associated lost authority in Russia, the
leadership passed to the radically inclined nationalists.
The All-Russian Moslem movement, which endeavored to unite the
sixteen million Moslems in Russia on the basis of religious identity, was
from its very inception in the hands of the Moslem liberals. It was essen­
tially a reform movement, whose chief purpose was the secularization
and democratization of Moslem life in Russia. Its political aims were
moderate and less emphasized.
In April 1917 the Moslem faction of the Russian Duma held a spe­
cial conference at which it decided to convene an All-Russian Moslem
Congress in Moscow at the earliest opportunity. The Duma deputies
discussed the norms of representation and issued directives to Moslem
organizations throughout the country to make the necessary prepara­
tions. In the second half of April, Moslems in · all parts of the Russian
Empire held provincial conferences and elected deputies for the Moscow
session.
The First All-Russian Moslem Congress opened formally on May 1.
On hand were about one thousand delegates, including two hundred
women. The very first day passed in violent quarrels. Some deputies from
Turkestan and the Northern Caucasus objected at the outset to the
presence of women, as contrary to the usages of Moslem religion and
unbecoming to what they considered the dignity of the occasion. When
the subject of female emancipation was presented for discussion, the
same deputies, largely clergymen, tried to shout down all speakers ad­
vocating legislation in favor of Moslem women, such as equal rights to
inheritance, the removal of the veils, enactments prohibiting bigamy and
the marriage of minors. But the westernized intelligentsia, with the
THE DISINTEGRATION O F THE RU S SIAN E MPIRE 77
assistance of the small liberal wing of the clergy, succeeded eventually
in defeating the opponents of emancipation, and resolutions proclaiming
equal rights for women were passed. This was an event of great historic
significance. Russian Moslems were the first in the world to free women
from the restrictions to which they had been traditionally subjected in
Islamic societies.
The Congress next took steps to form a new religious administration.
In tsarist Russia there had been no unified body to serve all the Moslems,
and the Mufti of Orenburg, the spiritual head of the so-called Moslems
of Inner Russia (i.e., the Volga-Ural region, Siberia, and the central
provinces of Russia proper ), had traditionally been appointed by the
Emperor at the suggestion of the Minister of Interior. This procedure
was now changed. The Congress appropriated the right to religious self­
rule by appointing a new Mufti, Alimdzhan Barudi, a progressive asso­
ciated with the jadidist movement and the Ittifak party from the be­
ginning of the century, and by electing a Religious Administration
(Dukhovtwe Upravlenie ) - the nucleus around which the Moslems of
the other parts of the Russian Empire were expected with time to gather.
The third topic on the agenda was the national question. Here two
divergent viewpoints at once emerged. One group of deputies, dominated
by the Volga Tatars, desired the preservation of the admini.strative unity
of the Russian Empire and the solution of the nationality question by
means of national-cultural autonomy. This position was taken by the
deputies associated with the Russian Kadet and Social Democratic par­
ties, both of which opposed federalism. The prevalence of Volga Tatars
in this group can be partly explained by the fact that this nationality
had no separate territory of its own, but lived scattered among Russians
and Bashkirs : national-cultural autonomy was therefore well suited to
meet its particular situation and to preserve the position of leadership
which it had attained among Russian Moslems. A contrary proposal was
advocated by a leader of the Azerbaijani delegation, Mehmed Emin
Resul-zade, with the support of the Bashkirs and the Crimean Tatars. He
and his backers favored federalism with territorial self-rule for each
nationality. The Congress voted 446 to 271 for the second, the federalist,
proposal:
The form of government which is most capable of protecting the
interests of the Moslem peoples is a democratic republic , based on
the national, territorial, and federal principles, with national-cultural
autonomy for the nationalities which lack a distinct territory.
For the regulation of the common spiritual and cultural problems
of the Moslem peoples of Russia and for the purpose of coordinating
their activities, there is established a central All-Moslem organ for
all Russia, with legislative functions in this sphere. The form of this
organ, its composition as well as its functions, shall be determined by
78 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S OVIET U N I O N
a constituent assembly ( Kurultai ) of the representatives of all the
autonomous regions. 68
Before closing, the Congress appointed a National Central Council
or Shura ( MilU merkezl §Ura ) to represent the Empire's Moslems in the
Russian capital and to prepare legislative projects resulting from the
Congress' decisions for submission to the All-Russian Constituent Assem­
bly. Akhmed Tsalikov ( Tsalykkaty ) , a North Caucasian Menshevik
( Ossetin by nationality ) was elected to the chairmanship of the Council.
In the summer of 1917 the Council prepared a memorandum, in which
it urged that the portfolio of agriculture and top positions in several other
ministries of a future Russian democratic government be given to
Moslems. 69
The May Congress demonstrated beyond doubt that the leadership
of the Moslem movement in Russia was firmly in the hands of western­
ized, secularized groups of the center and the left, and that, whatever
the issues dividing them, Russian Moslems ( at least their politically
active elements ) did have a sense of unity and of a community of in­
terests which made joint activity possible.
The Second Moslem Congress met in Kazan on July 2 1 . The political
horizon in Russia was cloudy. This Congress, augmented by delegates
of the three other Moslem congresses - Military, Spiritual, and Lay ­
taking place simultaneously in Kazan, decided to proceed at once with
the realization of the second part of the resolution on the nationality
question adopted at the First Congress, and to provide Russian Moslems
with autonomous cultural organs. A committee was appointed to put all
the necessary measures in this direction into effect. 70
The Second Congress was more radically inclined in social questions
than the First. Its platform for elections to the Constituent Assembly
included, in addition to the national program of the First Congress, de­
mands for the nationalization of all land and the introduction of an
eight-hour working day. The Congress decided that an All-Moslem
Democratic Socialist Bloc, which was to compete in the elections on this
platform, would form a separate Moslem Faction at the Constituent
Assembly. 71
On November 20, 1917, the Commission, appointed by the Kazan
Congress, convened in Ufa a National Assembly, or Milli Medzhilis
(MilU Meclis ) . This Assembly elected three ministries: religion, educa­
tion, and finances, to assume responsibility over the three main functions
of national-cultural autonomy for the Moslems of Inner Russia. In this
manner the first part of the May resolution was realized: the second ­
federalism - was to await the All-Russian Constituent Assembly.
Thus, by the time the Bolsheviks came to power, Russian Moslems
had acquired the rudiments of a state-wide religious and cultural ad-
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RU S S IAN EMPIRE 79
ministration. The movement, which had culminated in the Medzhilis,
evoked great enthusiasm among Russian Moslem intellectuals, many of
whom viewed it as a beginning of a great Islamic revival"' not only in
Russia but outside its borders as well. From the political point of view,
however, the All-Russian Moslem movement was weak. With the rapid
disintegration of the Russian state, the scattered regions inhabited by
Russian Turks were separated one from another. The Crimea, Central
Asia, the Northern Caucasus, and Azerbaijan followed their own ways.
The Medzhilis and the entire political tendency which it symbolized
came to represent, before long, little more than a small group of Volga
Tatar political figures. As such, its chances of survival were small, be­
cause, unlike other Turks who resided in borderland regions, the Volga
Tatars inhabited the center of the Empire, surrounded by Russians and
other non-Moslem ethnic groups. To make matters worse for them, the
Bashkirs, resenting the domination of the Tatars and their unwillingness
to recognize the Bashkirs as a distinct people, separated themselves from
the Medzhilis and proclaimed their own republic. 72

The Crimea in 1917


The first Crimean Tatar conference met in Simferopol in March 1917.
Its resolutions called for the nationalization and distribution of all the
so-called vakuf ( vakif) lands ( properties given in usufruct to the Moslem
clergy ) and the establishment of popular control over Moslem religious
institutions 73 Chelibidzhan Chelibiev ( Celebi Celibiev) , a young lawyer
educated in Constantinople, who had served as chairman of the con­
ference, was elected Mufti of the Crimean Tatars.° Chelibiev, like many
other local Moslem leaders, belonged to the Crimean Tatar National
Party ( Milli Firka ) , founded in July 1917 by a group of young intel­
lectuals, most of whom had been educated in Turkey and in Western
Europe. 7 4 The party's program asked for the federalization of Russia,
cultural autonomy for the minorities, and the nationalization of all church
and private lands. 75 Until 1920, when the Crimea was definitely Soviet­
ized, the Milli Firka enjoyed virtual control over the political life of the
Tatar population, which neither the right-wing clergy nor the liberals,
the followers of Gasprinskii, could effectively challenge. In September
1917, when the Tatar clergy - which opposed the Milli Firka's land
program - held a conference in Bakhchisarai, the Milli Firka ordered
it closed. 76
The relations of the Tatar nationalists with the local Russian elements
were not as good as the Tatars might have wished, considering that the
0
Since the last decade of the eighteenth century Russia had two Muftis, one in
Orenburg, for the Moslems of Inner Russia, and another in the Crimea, for the
Moslems of the Taurida Province and the Western regions. For this reason in 1917
the Moslems of those two areas elected their separate Muftis. The Moslems of Central
Asia had no common religious leader,
80 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
Russians ( and Ukrainians) on the peninsula outnumbered them two to
one. 0 The chief source of friction between the two ethnic groups was
the fact that, among the Russian inhabitants of the Crimea, the strongest
and best organized political party in the first half of 1917 were the
Kadets, whom the Tatars disliked for their support of the wartime agree­
ments between Russia and the Entente concerning the Ottoman Empire.
In June and July 1917 the Tatars and the Kadet-dominated administra­
tion of the Crimea entered into a direct conflict. The Tatars began to
demand the immediate transfer to their own organizations of control
over all Moslem schools in the Crimea and also asked to be given the
right to form a native military regiment. The government refused these
demands and arrested, Mufti Chelibiev at the end of July, and although
the incident was quickly terminated by his release and the granting of
both Tatar demands, it did much to alienate the Tatars from the demo­
cratic regime. 77
Relations with the Russian socialist parties were somewhat better,
largely because the Milli Firka shared with them some radical ideals, but
the cultural gap separating the Russians from the Tatars was too wide to
permit friendship. The Crimean Soviets did not interfere in the work of
the Milli Firka and its congresses, and the latter, in turn, did not par­
ticipate in the Soviets. "The Soviet had no definite policy on the national­
ity question. It conducted no work among the minorities. It had no
representatives of the minorities among its personnel. It took no part in
the formation of minority organizations whatsoever," wrote one Bolshe­
vik observer. 78
The Bolsheviks began to play an important role in Crimean politics
toward the end of the year. The first Bolshevik organizations in the
Crimea were formed in June and July 1917, partly under the influence
of Baltic Fleet sailors who had been sent there from Petrograd for pur­
poses of agitation, and partly as a result of the skillful work of an able
party organizer, Zhan ( Jean ) Miller, dispatched to the Crimea by the
Bolshevik Central Committee. 79 Bolshevik strength was concentrated in
Sebastopol. A port city, serving as the chief naval base for the entire
Russian Black Sea Fleet, Sebastopol had a large non-resident population
composed of sailors and soldiers responsive to Bolshevik peace slogans.
In the middle of the summer, the Bolshevik party there had 250 members,
a poor showing in comparison with the 27,000 SR's and 4,500 Mensheviks,
but an important nucleus for future revolutionary work. 80 Bolshevik
strength in other towns of the peninsula was insignificant; a few railroad
0
The Tatars constituted in 1897 34.1 per cent, in 1921 25.7 per cent of the
total population of the Crimea; the Russians and Ukrainians ( there are no separate
statistics for the two groups ) 45.3 and 51.5 per cent. The remainder of the popula­
tion consisted of Jews, Germans, Greeks, Poles, and Armenians ( S. A. Usov, lstoriko­
ekonomlcheskie ocherki Kryma [Simferopol, 1925], 29 ) .
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSS IAN EMPIRE 81
workers in Feodosiia, thirty-five members in Yalta, the workers of one
factory in Simferopol.8 1
By October 1917 the Russian sailors in Sebastopol and the Tatar
military formations presented the only effective force on the peninsula.
As Bolshevik influence in Sebastopol increased, the Tatar nationalists
moved closer to Russian liberal and socialist groups.
The news of the Bolshevik coup in Russia was unfavorably received
by all the Russian socialist parties in the Crimea, including the local
Bolshevik organizations, which, at the First All-Crimean Party Con­
ference in November 1917, condemned Lenin's overthrow of the Pro­
visional Government. 82 The Sebastopol Soviet did likewise. 83 At the end
of November the Bolshevik Central Committee dispatched to Sebastopol
another delegation of heavily armed Baltic sailors who took command of
the situation and rallied behind them the more radically inclined local
personnel. On December 24 the Bolsheviks loyal to Lenin walked out
of the Sebastopol Soviet and organized a Revolutionary Committee.
This committee, with the help of the Baltic sailors, arrested and executed
summarily a considerable number of naval officers and several of the
important SR ·and Menshevik leaders. 84 Several days later it compelled
the Executive Committee of the· Soviet to resign. This coup against the
Soviet gave the Bolsheviks mastery of the city.
In the meantime, the Tatar nationalists, watching anxiously the de­
terioration of public order in the Crimea, decided to act. On November
26 they convened in Bakhchisarai a Tatar Constituent Assembly ( Kurul­
tai ) . Elected on the basis of a broad franchise of all adult male and
female Tatars in the Crimea, the Kurultai assumed legislative authority
in matters pertaining to the internal administration of Crimean Tatars.
It appointed as military commander of all Tatar military units garrisoned
in various towns of the peninsula Dzhafer Seidamet ( Cafer Seydahmet ),
a member of the Milli Firka. Next, it adopted a "Crimean constitution,"
modeled after Western democratic prototypes, which introduced civil
equality and secular principles, and abolished, among other things, the
inequality of Moslem women and the titles of the Tatar nobility. 85 It
also appointed a £.ve-man National Directory, with Chelibiev as Chair­
man, and Seidamet as Minister of Foreign Affairs and of War. Thus the
Kurultai established Tatar territorial self-rule and created a de facto
Tatar government in the Crimea.
With the Sebastopol Bolsheviks aspiring to authority also, it was only
a question of time before the two groups clashed.
Bashkiriia and the Kazakh-Kirghiz Steppe
In the steppe regions of the southern Urals and the northern and
eastern parts of Central Asia ( today's Kirghiz SSR, Kazakh SSR, and
Chkalov province ) the course of the entire Revolution and Civil War
82 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
was deeply influenced by a traditional conflict between the native Turks
and Russian colonists over land. Nowhere in the Empire did the national
struggle assume such violent forms as here, where nationalism merged
completely with class and religious antagonisms. From 1917 until 1923,
these territories suffered all the horrors pf what early Soviet accounts
called, with much justice, "a colonial revolution." 86
The Western Bashkirs, inhabiting the region of the Kama River, were
acquired by Russia shortly after the capture of Kazan, in the middle of
the sixteenth century; the other Bashkirs, inhabiting the southwestern
and southeastern parts of the Ural mountains, came into Russian hands
only in the eighteenth century. The Western Bashkirs placed themselves
under Russian protection voluntarily, mainly in order to obtain assist­
ance against the neighboring Kazakh-Kirghiz tribes. The Kazakh-Kirghiz,
in turn, came under Russian rule in the first half of the eighteenth cen­
tury. All these inhabitants of the steppe were treated by Russian law as
inorodtsy, and as such retained a considerable measure of autonomy.
But Russian privileges for the inorodtsy applied to the internal life of the
people themselves and did not guarantee the integrity of the territory
which they inhabited. Before long the Russian conquerors began to
encroach upon the domain of the nomads and to enforce a land policy
which created great dissatisfaction.
The Bashkirs and Kazakh-Kirghiz were preponderantly semi-nomadic
in their habits and stayed so until the early 193o's, when they were sub­
jected to Soviet collectivization. Though in some areas they had already
begun to settle and to engage primarily in agricultural pursuits, the bulk
of their population continued to graze cattle and sheep, and to change
their summer habitat from region to region in accordance with seasonal
requirements and the availability of fodder. Their economy was not
intensive but extensive, and required great stretches of land, which the
nomads had possessed until they had come into direct contact with the
Russians, who were an agricultural people and who, having insufficient
soil in their homeland, migrated to the sparcely inhabited territories in
the East. The Russian population movement, which proceeded in an
eastern and southeastern direction, 87 led across the territories of the semi­
nomads. The Russians colonized, they built cities and fortresses, and
beginning in the early eighteenth century, industrial centers as well. The
Turkic tribes, resenting the encroachment of aliens, tried to stem their
advance by force, and often rebelled. The Bashkirs were particularly
troublesome to the Russian government. In the first half of the eighteenth
century, when the Russians began to exploit, the mineral deposits . of the
Urals and to expel the steppe nomads into the mountains and forests, the
Bashkirs revolted regularly every few years. They also played a prom­
inent part in the Pugachev rebellion ( 1773-1774 ) .
The influx of Russians gathered impetus after the liberation of the
THE DI SINTE GRATION OF THE RUS S IAN EMPIRE 83
serfs in Russia ( 1861 ) , when large numbers of Cossacks and of peasants,
freed from bondage, migrated from the central provinces of the state.
But the most significant colonizing effort was undertaken by the govern­
ment itself, during the p eriod of the so-called Stolypin reforms ( 1907-
1911 ) . In an attempt to relieve the pressure on the overcrowded Russian
village, and to solve the agrarian unrest which the land shortage had
caused, Stolypin undertook,-an ambitious program of colonization of the
eastern steppe regions. The Russian peasants, freed by legislation from
the responsibilities of communal land-ownership, were given generous
allotments of land suitable for agricultural purposes in one of the steppe
provinces, and were assisted by loans and other means to establish them­
selves permanently in their new homes. This entire operation was con­
ducted by a special Bureau of Resettlement ( Pereselencheskoe Uprav­
leniie ) . The land was obtained either by purchase or, more frequently,
by a transfer of ownership from the Crown, which claimed for itself
most of the territories inhabited by the Turkic nomadic tribes, to the
settler. The center of colonization was the Semirechensk province, ad­
ministratively a part of Turkestan, but settlements were also founded
in the adjoining provinces. By 1915-16 there were established on the
Kazakh-Kirghiz territories 530 Cossack and peasant colonist settlements
with 144,000 persons. 88 By 1914 the government had distributed in the
Semirechensk province alone 4,200,000 desiatinas ( or 1 1,340,000 acres )
pf land, of a total of 3 1 million desiatinas available in that province,89
including most of the land of agricultural value.
The colonization of the steppe was undertaken without sufficient con­
sideration for the interests of the native population, and it created great
hardships, particularly among the Kazakh-Kirghiz. They were in effect
expelled from the best grazing lands, and prevented from pursuing their
traditional mode of life. As a result, they revolted. The incident respon­
sible for the outbreak of the great nomadic rebellion in 1916 was not
directly connected with the tsarist land-policy, but nothing except the
great dissatisfaction created among the natives by the colonization could
account for the violence and desperation of the rebels. The Kazakh­
Kirghiz were, under tsarist rule, traditionally exempt from military serv­
ice. During the war, however, the Russian government decided it re­
quired additional manpower, and in July 1916 ordered the drafting of
Kazakh-Kirghiz for noncombatant, rear-line duty. The natives interpreted
the new order as the beginning of a new policy toward the steppe no­
mads, and took to arms. They attacked Russian and Cossack settlements
and murdered officials indiscriminately, though the brunt of their wrath
was visited upon those connected with the colonial administration. The
greatest number of fatalities occurred in the Semirechensk province; of
nearly 2,500 Russians and Cossacks who lost their lives in the revolt,
almost 2,000 were settled in Semireche. 90 The government, utilizing local
84 THE F O R MATION O F THE S O VIET UNI O N
army garrisons and colonist detachments, suppressed the rebellion by
the end of September, with dire results for the natives. Some 300,000
Kazakh-Kirghiz were expelled from their habitations and forced either
to take refuge in the mountains or else to flee across the border into
Chinese Sinkiang.9 1 Most of their animal stock, including 60 per cent of
the cattle, and their unmovable belongings were appropriated by the
colonists. 92
The 1916 Kazakh-Kirghiz revolt was the most violent expression of
popular dissatisfaction in the history of Russia between the revolutions
of 1905 and 1917. At the time of the downfall of the tsarist regime the
relations between Russians and natives in the steppe region were already
strained to such an extent that as soon as the state authority had relaxed
its hold a national conflict was virtually inevitable.
During the Revolution of 1905 Kazakh-Kirghiz intellectuals began to
publish local newspapers, but until 1917 they formed no separate political
organizations. In the first two Dvmas the deputies of the nomads co­
operated with the Moslem Faction and followed Kadet leadership.
Among the most active deputies from the Kazakh-Kirghiz regions was
Alikhan Bukeikhanov ( Ali Khan Bokey Khan or Biikeikhanoglu ) , whose
political career had been temporarily terminated in 1906 when he signed
the so-called Viborg Manifesto ( a protest issued by members of the
First Duma following its dissolution ) . Bukeikhanov was involved in the
1916 Kazakh-Kirghiz rebellion, and in 1917 was appointed a member of
the Provisional Government's Turkestan Committee. 93 Another local po­
litical figure was the teacher and writer Akhmed Baitursunov ( Baytur­
sun ) , who edited the newspaper Kazak, the leading na,tive publication
of the area.
In April 1917 Bukeikhanov, Baitursunov, and several other native
political figures took the initiative in convening an All-Kazakh Congress
in Orenburg. In its resolutions the Congress urged the return to the
native population of all the lands confiscated from it by the previous
regime, and the expulsion of all the new (i.e., post-1905 ) settlers from
the Kazakh-Kirghiz territories. Other resolutions demanded the transfer
of the local school administration into native hands, and the termination
of the recruitment introduced in 1916. 94 Three months later another
Kazakh-Kirghiz Congress met in Orenburg. There for the first time the
idea of territorial autonomy emerged, and a national Kazakh-Kirghiz
political party was formed: the Alash-Orda ( the word "Alash" denoting
the legendary founder of the local tribes, the word "Orda" the seat of the
ancient Kazakh Sultans, and by inference, government in general ) .95
The Alash-Orda had as. its ultimate purpose the unification of the three
principal Kazakh-Kirghiz hordes, Small, Middle, and Great ( Kchi Dzhus,
Orta Dzhus, and Ulu Dzhus ) into one autonomous "Kirghiz" state; the
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUS SIAN EMPIRE 85
separation of state and religion; and special privileges for the Kazakh­
Kirghiz in the distribution of land.96
The Bashkirs dispatched a delegation to the First All-Russian Moslem
Congress held in Moscow in May 1917, led by a twenty-seven-year-old
Orientalist and teacher, Zeki Validov (Ahmed Zeki Velidi, or, as later
known, Zeki Velidi Togan ) . Validov presented to the Congress a project
of Bashkir autonomy, suggesting that it be granted either within what
he called "Greater Bashkiriia" - a Bashkir-Tatar state of the Volga-Ural
region - or else in the form of "Small Bashkiriia," comprising the ter­
ritories populated by the southern and southeastern Bashkirs alone. The
Moslem Congress refused to make such commitments, and Validov, who
had a quarrel with the Volga Tatar leadership of the Congress, withdrew
from it with fifty Bashkir deputies. 97 Shortly afterwards (July 1917 ) the
Bashkirs held their First Congress in Orenburg, at which they decided
to seek territorial autonomy jointly with the Turkic tribes of the east
and south, that is, of the steppe region and Turkestan. 98 Indeed, in some
respects the Bashkirs had more in common with the semi-nomadic
Kazakh-Kirghiz than with the agricultural and commercial Tatars with
whom they were geographically connected. Validov, who headed the
Bashkir national movement throughout the period of the Revolution, co­
operated closely with the Alash-Orda and the Moslem nationalists in
Turkestan.
Thus, in July 1917, both the Bashkirs and the Kazakh-Kirghiz had
placed the demand for territorial autonomy in the forefront of their
political programs. The idea of autonomy was intimately connected with
the land question which at that time was the greatest concern of the
Turkic tribes. With broad self-rule, they felt, it would be possible to
legislate in favor of the natives, and to expel the newcomers.
In the meantime, while political parties were being formed and pro­
grams were being formulated, the conflict between the semi-nomads and
Russians broke into the open again. In July 1917 the Russian peasants
of the Semirechensk province voted at their conference in Vernyi (Alma­
Ata ) to take all the necessary measures to subdue the natives, including
forceful expulsion.99 In the summer, groups of Kazakh-Kirghiz refugees
of the 1916 rebellion began to trek from China back to their homes in
Russian Central Asia. The Russian settlers, still bitter over the rebellion
and unwilling to yield the properties which they had acquired as loot,
had no intention of permitting the natives to return. Detachments of
colonists were organized to deal with them. The colonists' brutal treat­
ment of the nearly starved and virtually defenseless returnees, evoked
protests throughout Central Asia. 10 0 There were mass slaughters and in
some instances the natives were burned alive. The victims numbered,
according to a contemporary Moslem source, 83,000 dead. 1 0 1 In Septem-
86 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
her 1917, when the violence reached its peak, the Provisional Govern­
ment placed the entire Semireche under martial law. 1 02
In the neighboring Bashkir regions also, recurrent clashes broke out
in the summer and fall of 1917 between Russian and native settlements,
though these were not of such dimensions as those of the Kazakh-Kirghiz
steppe. 103 There, too, the nomads were particularly hostile to the col­
onists who had settled under the Stolypin program.
Toward the end of 1917, when the authority of the Provisional Gov­
ernment in the steppe had reached its nadir, the Bashkirs and Alash­
Orda leaders established contact with the Orenburg Cossacks, who
formed something of a third force in that area. In December the Oren­
burg . Cossacks made an alliance with the natives. The Bashkirs and
Kazakh-Kirghiz established their political centers in the city of Oren­
burg, and there in December they held their respective congresses, at
which the autonomies of Bashkiriia and of the Kazakh-Kirghiz steppe
were proclaimed. 1 0 4 The head of the Orenburg Cossacks, Ataman Dutov,
took over the command of the anti-Bolshevik movement in the x_egion
and agreed to cooperate with the Bashkir and Kazakh-Kirghiz political
leaders. 1 05
The Bolsheviks, though they bad virtually no party apparatus on this
territory ( the first formal Bolshevik organizations in the Steppe territory
of Central Asia were formed only in 1918 ) , gained strength rapidly at
the end of the year. Their following was greatest among the military
garrisons, but in time they won support of the" railroad workers and of
the colonists. 100 A large number of the colonists went over to the Bol­
sheviks when it became evident that the Communist slogan of "prole­
tarian dictatorship" could be conveniently employed against the natives.
Their logic was simple: Bolshevism meant the rule of the workers, sol­
diers, and peasants; the Kazakh-Kirghiz had no workers, soldiers, or
peasants; therefore, the Kazakh-Kirghiz must not rule but be ruled.
Numerous among the colonists who, realizing the possibility of exploit­
ing the Soviet system to their own advantage, embraced the Bolshevik
cause were the well-to-do peasants ( or kulaks ) and officials of the tsarist
colonizing administration. The latter group, after the collapse of the
Provisional Government, had assumed effective. authority in the steppe
regions and headed the opposition to the native nationalist movement. 107
Turkestan and the Autonomous Government of Kokand
Turkestan was the last important territorial acquisition of tsarist Rus­
sia. In the 186o's and 187o's Russian armies defeated and subjugated,
with relative ease the divided and technologically backward principalities
of Bukhara, Khiva, and Kokand, and thence moved into the Transcaspian
territories adjoining Afghanistan ( Merv captured in 1881 ) . In 1867 the
Government General of Turkestan was established with headquarters
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 87
in Tashkent. The total losses incurred by the Russians in the conquest
of Turkestan between 1847 and 1881 were 1 ,000 killed and 3,000
wounded. 108
After its conquest Turkestan became both politically and economically
a colonial dependency of Russia. The administration of the country was
placed entirely in the hands of the military; the Moslem native,s did not
participate in it. The provinces of Turkestan° were before long found
suitable for the cultivation of cotton, and with the help of Russian and
foreign capital large-scale cotton plantations were established. On the
eve of World War I, Turkestan supplied more than one half of Russia's
cotton requirements; during the war, all. The Russians who had settled
in Turkestan belonged largely to the privileged urban class. It had been
estimated that about 1900 between one-third and one-half of the entire
Russian population in that area consisted of noblemen, officials, clergy­
men, merchants, and other elements connected directly either with the
administration or with the commercial establishments which were de­
veloping the economy of Turkestan. 10 9 The Russian newcomers, like the
other Europeans who had followed in their wake, lived in separate quar­
ters of the city, and kept apart from the indigenous Moslem population,
much as the Western population did in other colonial areas of Asia and
Africa.
Unlike the steppe regions inhabited by the Bashkirs and Kazakh­
Kirghiz, Turkestan profited considerably from Russian rule. Russian
military authorities imposed order and stopped the perpetual warring be­
tween the native tribes, while the economic development, made pos­
sible by Russian railroad and canal construction, and by Western capital,
improved the material condition of the natives. A1min Vambery, the
Hungarian Orientalist who was strongly anti-Russian in his sentiments,
concluded a comparative study of Russian administration in Central
Asia and the British rule in India with an appraisal not entirely unfavor­
able to the former:
Judging dispassionately and without prejudice, as it is seemly to
do in matters of such moment, we must frankly acknowledge that
the Russians have done much good work in Asia, that with their
advent order, peace, and security have taken the place of anarchy
and lawlessness, and that, notwithstanding the strongly Oriental col­
oring of their political, social and ecclesiastical institutions as rep­
resentatives of the Western world, they have everywhere made a
change for the better, and inaugurated an era more worthy of
humanity. 1 10
0
The General Guhernia of Turkestan consisted of five provinces ( oblasti ) :
Semirechensk, Syr-Daria, Ferghana, Samarkand, and Transcaspia, and two dependen­
cies, the principalities of Khiva and Bukhara. The statistics which follow do not
include the dependencies.
88 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
The material benefits which Turkestan derived from Russian rule
notwithstanding, the relations between the natives ( 6,806,085 in 1910 )
and the Russians (406,6o7 in 1910 ) did not rest upon a healthy basis. 111
The Russians formed a privileged paste, and the Moslem population not
unnaturally resented this fact; the livelihood of the Russians depended
largely upon the preservation of the political and economic preponder­
ance of Russia in Turkestan, and for that reason they were not only
disinclined to sympathize with the political strivings of the natives, but
were determined to fight tooth and nail for undiminished Russian �on­
trol of the area. In Turkestan the fight for autonomy on the part of the
natives met, in consequence, with the most resolute opposition. In the
course of the Revolution and Civil War the latent socio-economic hostili­
ties between the two groups, strengthened by religious animosities, broke
into the open, and assumed aspects not unlike those which prevailed in
the Bashkir and Kazakh-Kirghiz steppes.
The native political movement in the Turkestan of 1917 consisted of
two wings: a religious-conservative wing, organized in the Ulema Dzhe­
mieti ( Ulema Cemiyeti; Association of Clergymen ) led by Ser Ali Lapin,
and a secular-liberal one, led by Munnever Kari and Mustafa Chokaev
( Chokai-ogly ). The Ulema had monarchist inclinations and concen­
trated on the introduction of Moslem courts and the establishment of
religious law ( shariat or shar'i'a ) throughout Turkestan. Its rivals, people
connected with the jadidist movement, wanted a westernization of
Moslem life in Turkestan and the increased participation of the natives
in the political life of the country. 11 2 The two groups, representing the
clerical, orthodox elements, and the middle-class, lay elements respec­
tively, at first were hostile toward each other, but in the latter part of
the year, as Russian opposition to native political aspirations solidified,
they moved closer and eventually merged. In addition, there was a
Moslem socialist movement, organized in the "Union of Toiling Moslems"
in Skobelev ( Ferghana ) and the "lttihad" in Samarkand. These associa­
tions were largely under SR and Menshevik influence, and numerically
they were extremely weak, but in the revolutionary period they were
exploited with some success by the Bolsheviks. 1 1 8
In 1917 the leadership of the political movement of the Turkestan
natives was in the hands of the liberal Moslems, who took the initiative
in convening at the beginning of April a Turkestani-Moslem Congress.
The resolutions of the Congress demanded the introduction of a federal
system in Russia, and the return to the natives of all the conn.seated
lands. The Congress appointed a Turkestan Moslem Central Council
( Shurai-Islamiye ), with Mustafa Chokaev as its chairman. The Central
Council established within a short time a network of provincial organiza­
tions in di parts of Turkestan, and endeavored to centralize the political
activities of the Turkestan natives.114 It participated in the May All-Rus-
THE DIS INTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 89
sian Moslem Council, and established contact with the Alash-Orda; but
then, as throughout the remainder of the Revolution and Civil War, the
Moslem organizations in Turkestan and the steppe regions developed
independently of each other.
The Turkestan Committee, composed of nine men ( five Russians and
four Moslems ) appointed by the Provisional Government to replace the
tsarist Governor General Kuropatkin, had no power whatsoever. In the
summer of 1917, following the withdrawal of the liberal members from
the Russian cabinet, the Turkestan Committee, composed largely of
Kadets, also tendered its resignation. Petrograd appointed a new Com­
mittee under the Orientalist Nalivkin, but it too was ineffective. The
actual authority was in the hands of the Tashkent Soviet, headed by a
Russian Socialist Revolutionary, the lawyer G. I. Broida, and dominated
by SR's and Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks had no separate party organiza­
tion in Tashkent until December 1917, nor in other parts of Turkestan
u�til 1918, but they did maintain a distinct faction within the Soviet and
on a number of occasions advanced Leninist resolutions. In June 1917
the Bolshevik faction in the Tashkent Soviet numbered only five men,1 1 5
and the size of their organized party following at that time can be
gauged by the fact that in December 1917 the strongest Bolshevik cell,
that of Tashkent, had a mere sixty-four members. 1 1 6 The weakness of
the Bolsheviks, however, was offset by the growth of a left wing within
the SR party, and the ultimate triumph of Communism in Tashkent in
late 1917 was made possible largely by the cooperation of the Left SR's
with the Bolsheviks. The Tashkent Soviet represented the interests of
the European population of Turkestan, especially the soldiers and the
skilled workers.
The idea of autonomy was not widely developed among Turkestan
Moslems, and certainly it had no such urgency as in the other regions
of the Empire inhabited by Turkic peoples. But the necessity for some
form of territorial self-rule e�erged early in the course of public discus­
sions concerning the elections to the Constituent Assembly in the sum­
mer of 1917. The Russians, being outnumbered fifteen to one by the
natives, had every reason to fear that if the elections were to be based
on the principle of universal, direct vote, they would be completely sub­
merged by the Moslems and possibly lose to them all the nominations.
They preferred therefore a curiae system of voting, in which Russians and
natives balloted separately. Projects to this effect were widely discussed
in Russian circles, and one of them was formally accepted by the Tash­
kent Soviet. 1 1 7 At the same time, the Soviet submitted to the Turk�stan
Committee of the Provisional Government a scheme whereby the ad­
ministration of the city would be divided into two parts, a Russian and
a native. 1 1 8
The Moslem Central Council objected to such legislative projects
go THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
which would, in effect, preserve the privileges of the Russian population
in Turkestan, and on its demand the Tashkent Soviet withdrew the
previously accepted electoral plan. 11 9 To offset the numerical weakness
of the Russians without recourse to the system of curiae, the Central
Council offered to guarantee the Russians a minimum number of deputies
in the Constituent Assembly. The discussions concerning the forthcoming
elections indicated that the problems of the future administrative status
of Turkestan were much more complex than the Moslems had antici­
pated, and beginning with the summer of 1917, the question of territorial
autonomy occupied ever more attention in the discussions of the Central
Council. But nothing, perhaps, stimulated autonomist tendencies more
than the chauvinistic, colonial mentality of the irresponsible elements
who, in the fall of 1917, had gained control over the Tashkent Soviet and
had begun to pursue extremely oppressive policies toward the natives.
The revolutionary temper among the Russian soldiers and railroad
workers in Tashkent matured more rapidly than it did in other border­
lands of the Empire, at least partly because of the shortage of food in
Turkestan caused by the reduction of shipments from the Northern
Caucasus. As early as September 1917, the Soviet, swayed by Left SR
and Bolshevik slogans, proclaimed the overthrow of established authority.
It arrested Nalivkin, and tried to take over Turkestan. The Provisional
Government reacted at once, dispatching to Tashkent a punitive expedi­
tion under General Korovnichenko, whom it also entrusted with the
administration of the area. Korovnichenko suppressed the uprising and
restored order in Tashkent. 12 0
While on his way to Tashkent, the general was met by representatives
of the Moslem Central Council, who presented him with a list of de­
mands upon the acceptance of which they conditioned their cooperation
with the authorities. Their demands consisted of four points : ( 1 ) the
termination of the old system of separation of native courts from Euro­
pean courts, and the transfer of the entire judiciary into Moslem hands;
( 2 ) the establishment of an autonomous Turkestan Legislative Assembly
with authority to vote on all legislative measures applicable to Turkestan;
( 3 ) abolition of Russian electoral privileges; ( 4) the removal of Russian
troops from Turkestan and their replacement by Bashkir and Tatar
units. 121 The demands of the Central Council apparently represented a
compromise of its views with those of the Ulema. General Korovnichenko
promised to take those rather extreme and not entirely practical requests
into consideration, but before an official reply could be given, Tashkent
was taken over by the Soviet.
The October Revolution began in Tashkent at 12 o'clock noon of
October 25, when a group of railroad workers opened fire on the Cossack
club in the city. Two days later the Soviet, dominated by a Bolshevik
and left-SR coalition, obtained control over the Tashkent fortress, and
THE DISINTEGRATION O F THE RUS S IAN E M PIRE 91
on November 1 it arrested the local representatives of the defunct Pro­
visional Government.,. 22 In Perovsk ( Kzyl-Orda ) the Soviet assumed au­
thority on October 30, in Pishpek ( Frunze ) on November 5. 1 23 The
countryside remained unaffected by the October Revolution. It was
Tashkent, the one-time center of the tsarist colonial and military ad­
ministration, which assumed the role of a fortress of Bolshevism in all
of Central Asia.
On November 15, 1917, the new masters of the city assembled the
Third Regional Congress of Soviets, which proclaimed the establishment
of Soviet rule throughout Turkestan. A Turkestan Council of People's
Commissars ( Turksovnarkom ) was appointed to administer the area,
under the chairmanship of a Russian army lieutenant, Kolesov; the other
cabinet posts were distributed between seven Bolsheviks and eight Left
SR's. 1 24 A Revolutionary Committee was created to deal with the opposi­
tion to the new Soviet government.
The Turkestan Moslem Central Council established contact with the
new Soviet authorities, and tried to sound them out on the issue of terri­
torial autonomy for Turkestan. Kolesov, speaking in the name of the
government, declared himself opposed to this idea. 1 25 The entire question
of Moslem political aspirations came up for discussion at the Congress of
Soviets, and the overwhelming majority of the deputies expressed itself
not only against any territorial self-rule for Turkestan which might
weaken, in any way whatsoever, the authority of Russia, but also against
the participation of Moslems in the Soviet government in Central Asia.
The remarkable resolution of the Bolshevik faction at the Congress,
accepted by a majority vote, read as follows :

At the present time one cannot permit the admission of Moslems


into the higher organs of the regional revolutionary authority, because
the attitude of the local population toward the Soviet of Soldiers', Work­
ers', and Peasants' Deputies is quite uncertain, and because the native
population lacks proletarian organizations, which the [Bolshevik] fac­
tion could welcome into the organ of the higher regional government. 1 26
The Congress of Soviets organized a Third Congress of Turkestan
Moslems, which was composed largely of members of the socialist Union
of Toiling Moslems and Ittihad, in order to secure a formal approval
of the Soviet government on the part of the "Moslem population." This
task it dutifully fulfilled. The Soviet-sponsored Moslem congress in­
cluded none of the political parties which in the course of the preceding
half a year had identified themselves with the Moslem national cause; it
was little more than another rump congress, similar to those which the
Bolsheviks were organizing in many other parts of the Empire where
their following was weak and the local population was not likely to
approve of Soviet rule.
92 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
Immediately after the Tashkent Sovnarkom had turned down the
Moslem proposal for autonomy, the Central Council opened deliberations
whether to wait for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly or to
proclaim autonomy at once on its own initiative. The provincial organiza­
tions favored the latter course. 127 Some Russian anti-Soviet parties, no­
tably the Right SR's, also fostered the notion of autonomy, hoping in this
manner to unseat the Bolsheviks from Tashkent. 1 28 On December 22,
the Turksovnarkom, in a last-minute attempt to bridge the ever-widen­
ing gulf between the Soviet and the Moslems, is said to have offered
Mustafa Chokaev the chairmanship of the Turkestani Soviet government;
but Chokaev, apparently convinced that this would place him at the
mercy of the Reds, refused. 129 The Central Council instead made prepa­
rations for the convocation of a Fourth. Extraordinary Congress in De­
cember. There was little doubt that this Congress would proclaim the
autonomy of Turkestan, and thus challenge the authority of the Tashkent
Soviet. The Moslems originally had planned to hold the Congress in
Tashkent, but in view of an attack of Russian soldiers on a Moslem
crowd celebrating a religious holiday, and the general tension between
the old and new town quarters, it was decided to transfer the Congress
as well as the seat of the Central Council to the town of Kokand, located
in the Ferghana valley, by railroad 220 miles east of Tashkent. In Kokand
the population was predominantly ( 96% ) Moslem, and there was less
danger of soldier violence.
The Congress opened formally on November 28, 1917, in the old
palace of the Kokand Khans. The Soviet's control of the main railroad
lines prevented many delegates from arriving on time or at all. Noticeable
was the presence of .numerous deputies of Bukharan Jews and of anti­
Bolshevik Russian parties. The principal question confronting the 180
deputies was that of the future political status of Turkestan. Some voices
were raised in favor of independence, others in favor of autonomy within
a Russian federation; but all agreed that some form of territorial au­
tonomy was necessary. There were complaints that the advent of Bol­
shevism had sharpened the colonist appetite for native land, and had
placed the Moslems at the mercy of the worst elements of the Russian
population. 1 30 Separatist tendencies were weak, and on the whole, the
attitude toward Russia in general and toward the non-Communist Rus­
sian political parties in particular, was friendly. 1 8 1 In the end the deputies
voted in favor of autonomy:
The Fourth Regional Moslem Congress of Kokand, meeting in an
extraordinary session and expressing the will of the peoples inhabit­
ing Turkestan on the matter of autonomy, upon the bases proclaimed
by the Great Russian Revolution, declares the territory of Turkestan
to be autonomous but united with the Russian democratic federative
republic. The task of determining the forms of said autonomy is left
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 93
to the Constituent Assembly of Turkestan. The Constituent Assem­
bly must be convened as soon as possible. The Fourth Congress de­
clares solemnly that the rights of the national minorities inhabiting
Turkestan will be strictly safeguarded. 1 82
The date of the Constituent Assembly of Turkestan was set for March
20, 1918. Before dispersing, the deputies elected a People's Council
( Halk §Urasi ) of fifty-four members to perform the functions of a Pro­
visional Parliament until March, and also an Executive Committee to
serve as a provisional government. Chairmanship of the Council was
entrusted to the head of the Ulema, Lapin; whereas the Executive Com­
mittee Chairmanship went to leaders of the Central Council, Muham­
medzhan Tenichbaev ( Tinishbayoglu, a member of the defunct Turke­
stan Committee ) and after his resignation, to Chokaev. Membership in
the Council was divided along national lines: thirty-six seats were appor­
tioned to Moslems, eighteen to Russians. 1 33 The question of a merger
with the Southeastern Union, organized by the Cossacks, which was
placed before the Congress by the Bashkir leader Zeki Validov, was left
open for the Turkestani Constituent Assembly to decide. 134
The Kokand Congress created in the Executive Committee a counter­
government to the Soviet regime in Tashkent. The tenacious refusal of
the Tashkent Bolsheviks to accede to Moslem demands for some form of
territorial self-rule was no doubt a major factor in the split between
them and the native political organizations. "Our principal and most
serious mistake," a Soviet participant wrote of these events in retrospect,
"was our entirely incorrect if not inexplicable political line in the na­
tionality question." 135 Early Soviet historians readily admitted that this
mistake was not accidental but was intimately connected with the inter­
ests and mentality of the groups which had passed over to the Soviet
cause in Turkestan. According to Safarov, Soviet power in Tashkent, in
1917 and early 1918, was largely in the hands of "adventurers, careerists,
and plain criminal elements," who were determined by all means to
preserve and extend the privileged position enjoyed by the Russian pro­
letariat and the European settlers in Turkestan. 136

The Caucasus
The Terek Region and Daghestan
The Revolution in the Northern Caucasus had a very complex course.
The mountain ranges created barriers between adjoining regions, so that
their historical development proceeded at times independently of each
other. Daghestan, in the eastern sector of the Caucasian chain, and Terek,
in its center, though geographically adjacent, followed different courses.
Furthermore, in each region different national groups faced different
problems and took advantage of the Revolution to realize their own
94 THE F O R M A T I O N O F T H E S O V I E T U N I O N

aspirations. The extraordinary geographic and ethnic heterogeneity of


the entire area is reflected in its revolutionary history.
The Terek Region ( or oblast' ) , with the administrative center in the
city of Vladikavkaz ( Dzaudzhikau ) , had in 191 2 a population of approxi­
mately 1 ,200, 000 , composed of the following principal ethnic groups : 13 7
Russians
Natives of the mountains ( Gortsy )
Chechens 245,538
Ossetins 139,784
Kabardians 1 0 1, 189
Ingushes 56,367
Kumyks 34, 232
Others 37, 0 84
Nogais 35, 1 5 2
Kalmyks 1,792
Armenians 24,0 12

The Russian population was divided into two distinct groups : the
Terek Cossacks and the so-called inogorodnye. The former had inhabited
the northeastern foothills of the Caucasian Mountains since the middle
of the sixteenth century, when they had been settled as a military guard
to protect the domain of the tsars from the incursions of the nomads and
the mountain peoples. In the cour1ie of the eighteenth century they had
lost most of the privileges of self-rule which they had originally pos­
sessed, but in a number of respects they still remained a privileged so­
cial order. The most important advantage which they enjoyed over the
remaining groups of the population, Russian and non-Russian alike, was
an abundance of land. Owing to government generosity, the Terek Cos­
sacks possessed more than twice as much land per capita as the native
inhabitants of the mountains ( 13.57 desiatinas to the latter's 6. 0 5 ) . 138
They formed, in other words, something of a landed middle class - a
status which in the course of the Revolution was to influence profoundly
their relations with the other groups of the region. In 191 2 the Terek
Cos�acks numbered 268,000. They lived in settlements, or stanitsy, along
the Terek River or the valleys radiating from the river into the mountains .
The inogorodnye ( "people from other towns" ) were, as their name
indicates, migrants : newcomers who had arrived in the Northern Cau­
casus in recent times. They were largely Russians, but among them were
also Georgians and Armenians . The first wave of inogorodnye consisted
of peasants, who had moved into the rich lands of the North Caucasian
steppes from Russia following the liberation of the serfs ( 1861 ) . Most of
these migrants had settled in the western section of the Northern Cau­
casus, in the Kuban and Don districts, where they rented land from the
Cossacks. In the Terek Region there was less land, and consequently the
THE DIS INTEGRATION O F THE R U S S IAN E M P IRE 95
peasant newcomers were less numerous. The second wave of inogorodnye
had arrived toward the end of the nineteenth century, in connection with
the development of the oil industry ( Maikop, Groznyi ) and the con­
struction of railroad repair shops; they filled the towns of the Terek
Region as laborers, merchants, officials. The term inogoroclnye had no
official sanction, but it was in common use in the Northern Caucasus and
it did have certain social significance. In an area where the majority of
the population had consisted for several centuries entirely of native
tribes and Cossack military settlers, the influx of an urban element and a
landless peasantry created a new and distinct class of inhabitants. The
inogorodnye and the Cossacks did not get along well. The former dis­
liked the Cossack privileges, wealth, and readiness to help the government
to suppress popular resistance against absolutism; the Cossacks resented
the fact that the newcomers threatened their privileged position.
The third element in the Terek Region were the natives, or gortsy.
These people, however, constituted no unit either in the ethnic, cultural,
or socio-economic sense.
The Kabardians were a Cherkess people. At the end of the sixteenth
century they had gained complete control over the· entire North Cau­
casian plain, and established dominion over most of the other native peo­
ples. They had acquired possession of much land, and long after the
Russians had conquered the Northern Caucasus, the Kabardians re­
mained the richest group in that area. Their per capita ownership of
land was 17.5 desiatinas, which was even higher than that of the Terek
Cossacks. 139 Owing to this wealth the Kabardians were viewed by some
of the poorer mountain peoples with as much hostility as the Cossacks
themselves. The Ossetins, who inhabited the central sector of the Terek
Region, along the Georgian Military Highway connecting Vladikavkaz
with Tillis, belonged to the Iranian race. Among the indigenous peoples
of the Northern Caucasus they were culturally the most advanced. Hav­
ing in their majority accepted Christianity in the fourth century they
had come under the influence of neighboring Georgia, and, after Russian
conquest, had adapted themselves far more easily to Western civilization
than their Moslem neighbors. At the beginning of the twentieth century
the Ossetins had a sizable intelligentsia, educated in Russian schools,
and an urban population. The Kabardians and Ossetins both were pri­
marily agricultural peoples.
The Chechens and Ingush presented a special problem. Inhabiting
the nearly inaccessible mountain ranges bordering on Daghestan, they
were always, from the Russian point of view, a troublesome element.
Unassimilable and warlike, they created so much difficulty for the Rus­
sian forces trying to subdue the Northern Caucasus that, after conquer­
ing the area, the government felt compelled to employ Cossack units to
expel them from the valleys and lowlands into the bare mountain regions.
96 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
There, faced by Cossack settlements on the one side, and wild peaks on
the other, they lived in abject poverty tending sheep and waiting for the
day when they could wreak revenge on the newcomers and regain their
lost lands. The Ingush and Chechens, with average land allotments of
5.8 and 3.0 desiatinas, were the poorest people in the area. Their hatred
was concentrated on the Cossacks. 140
It is not difficult to perceive that the socio-economic and cultural situa­
tion in the Terek Region was conducive to a three-cornered struggle
among the Cossacks, the inogorodnye, and the land-hungry mountain
peoples. In the course of the Revolution the Cossacks found their prin­
cipal support among the White Guards; the inogorodnye cooperated with
the Bolsheviks; and the natives shifted for themselves, seeking escape
from spreading anarchy in independent national activity or in alliances
with the Turks, Azerbaijanis, and Bolsheviks.
The population of Daghestan - a region occupying the northeastern
end of the Caucasian range - was one of the most primitive in the Em­
pire. Here was the center of extreme religious fanaticism where Sufism
and divinely inspired sheikhs still held undisputed sway. The Revolution
in Daghestan therefore assumed the character of a religious war of the
natives against the Christians and westernized Moslems.
The national movement among the inhabitants of the mountains was
led, in 1917, by the intelligentsia, the nobility, and the moneyed elements,
who strove for the attainment of autonomy within a Russian federation
and an improvement of the economic conditions of the native population.
The religious tendency, on the other ha�d, represented an expression of
Muridism, a form of Sufism. It stressed the role of God-appointed imams,
or spiritual leaders, who exercised complete power over their followers.
Muridism had enjoyed its greatest popularity in the North Caucasus in
the middle of the nineteenth century, at the height of native resistance
to Russia. Its hero was Shami!, the leader of the Caucasian wars of the
183o's and 184o's; its ideal, the establishment of a theocratic Moham­
medan state; its leaders were the mullahs, the clergy. If the nationalistic
movement enjoyed greater popularity among the peoples who were
culturally and economically more advanced, the religious movement
dominated the backward regions, especially Chechnia and Daghestan.
Although both these tendencies asserted the principle of unity of the
natives and employed Pan-Islamic slogans, they were too divergent in
their ultimate goals to merge.
In May 1917, the nationalists convened a congress of gortsy in
Vladikavkaz. Advancing no political demands, they asked for free educa­
tion for all citizens, the continuation of the war, and popular support of
the Provisional Govemment. 141 The Second Congress was to have taken
place in the village of Andi, high in the mountains of Daghestan where
Shamil had once been active, but the nationalist deputies were scattered
'tH� DISINTE GRATION OF THE RUS SIAN E M P IRE 97
by the religious extremists who appeared there in large numbers on the
eve of the Congress, and threatened them with violence. Instead, the
nationalists met in September in Vladikavkaz, and there formed -a Union
of Mountain Peoples ( Soiuz Gorskikh Narodov ) . The Congress pro­
claimed the Union an integral part of the Russian Empire, and drew up a
constitution regulating the internal relations of its member nations. 142
The intention of the nationalists was to include all the Moslem groups
inhabiting the northern as well as southern slopes of the Caucasian
range in one autonomous state.
The clergy in the meantime elected as their imam a sixty-year-old
Arabic scholar and wealthy sheep-owner from Daghestan, Nazhmudin
Gotsinskii. The son of a right-hand man of Shamil's, Gotsinskii knew well
how to combine the prophetic appeal, popular among the native popula­
tion, with political expediency. He succeeded in establishing himself as
the de facto ruler of the high mountain districts of East Caucasus for a
major part of the revolutionary period, and in obtaining complete con­
trol over the minds and bodies of his fanatical followers. Gotsinskii's
assistant, and later chief rival, was Uzun Khadzi, who was even more
extreme in his religious views. "I am spinning a rope with which to hang
all engineers, students, and in general all those who write from left to
right," he once said of his aims. 14 3
The Terek Cossacks, who already in March 1917 had elected their
own Ataman and formed a Military Government, tried in the autumn to
enter into a union with the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban, for the
purpose of forming a Southeastern Union ( Iugo-vostochnyi soiuz ) . Faced
with growing hostility from the urban population; from the inogorodnye,
who dominated the soviets; and from the non-Cossack rural population,
who refused after the outbreak of the February Revolution to pay rent
to the Cossack landowners and demanded that all land be nationalized;
the Terek Cossacks offered an alliance to the native nationalists. On
October 20, 1917, the Union of the Mountain Peoples and the Terek
Military Government united in a Terek-Daghestan Government ( Tersko­
Dagestanskoe Pravitefstvo ) , which was to enter the Southeastern
Union. 144
These plans, however, were brought to nought by the outbreak of a
full-scale war between the Cossacks and the Chechens and Ingush.
Having waited with growing restlessness for nearly a year to regain the
lands which they had lost to the Russians in the previous century,
the Chechens and Ingush finally lost their patience. In December 1917
they swooped down from the mountains and attacked the cities and
Cossack settlements. Vladikavkaz, Groznyi, and the entire Cossack line
along the Sunzha River suffered from the blows of the attackers, who
looted and pillaged. The Terek-Daghestan Government, whose authority
had never extended beyond the confines of Vladikavkaz and which had
98 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
proved unable even to defend that city from the invaders, dissolved itself
in January 1918. The war of the Chechens and Ingush with the popula­
tion of the plains ended for the time being all possibility of cooperation
between the Cossacks and the natives. The Russians - Cossack and
inogorodnye alike - now forgot their disagreements and united to
defend themselves against the common danger. In the early part of 1918
a bitter national struggle between Moslems and Russians broke out in
the Terek Region. The immediate advantage of this struggle accrued to
the Bolsheviks, who, supported by a sizable proportion of the inogorodnye
and Russian soldiers returning home from the Turkish front, organized
the resistance of the Russians against the natives.

Transcaucasia
Transcaucasia was in 1916 and 1917 under the authority of the Grand
Duke Nikolas Nikolaevich, who led Russian troops in successful cam­
paigns against the Turks. When the news of the abdication of Tsar
Nicholas II reached the Headquarters of the Caucasian Army he resigned
his post. His military functions were assumed by General Yudenich, and
his civil powers were taken over by the Special Transcaucasian Commit­
tee ( Osobyi Zakavkazskii Komitet, or Ozakom for short ). The Ozakom
exercised little authority and limited itself during its existence to the
introduction of organs of local self-rule ( zemstva ) into Transcaucasia. 1 45
Real power in Transc�ucasia in 1917 was wielded by the soviets,
especially those located in the two principal towns, Tillis and Baku. Until
the end of the year both soviets were dominated by the Mensheviks
and the SR's, the former enjoying greater popularity among the industrial
workers, the latter among the soldiers. The Tiflis Soviet was a Menshevik
stronghold. The Baku Soviet was at first divided equally among SR's,
Mensheviks, Mussavatists, and Dashnaks, but by the beginning of 1918,
as the result of the influx of deserting soldiers from the front, it inclined
more and more to the left, until for a brief time it came entirely under
Bolshevik control. The Transcaucasian Soviets were united for the pur­
pose of coordinating their work in a Regional Center ( Kraevoi tsentr
sovetov ) located in TiHis, which passed resolutions on all political and
economic measures of general interest for the Caucasus and enforced
them through a network of subordinate provincial soviets. The Ozakom
did little more than rubber-stamp its decisions. In a sense, therefore,
in the spring of 1917 Transcaucasia represented the realization of the
Menshevik ideal of a «bourgeois" government ( i.e., the Provisional Gov­
ernment and the Ozakom ) controlled and directed by "proletarian"
organs of self-rule ( i.e., soviets ) .
Largely because of this arrangement and the discipline maintained
by the army fighting the Turks, the first year of the Revolution passed
in Transcaucasia with relative calm. Neither the anarchy, caused by
Volodimir Vinnichenko, 1 921 Mikhail Hrushevskii

Simon Petliura, 191 7 Hetman Skoropadski and Kaiser Wilhelm 11


in Berlin, 1 918
Grigorii Piatakov Vladimir Zatonskii

Khristian Rakovskii, 1924 Mykola Skrypnik


Mehmed Emin Resul-zade, 1951 Mustafa Chokaev, 191 7

Dz7iaier Seidamet and Chelibidzhan Zeki Validov (Togan), 1953


Chelibiev, 1917
Joseph Stalin as Commissar of Mirza Sultan-Galiev
Nationalities, I 91 7

Said Alim Khan, last Emir of Bukhara Enver Pasha


Noi Zhordaniia lrakly Tseretelli, 1917

Akaki Chkhenkeli Budu Mdivani, 1 922


Filipp Makharadze Grigorii Ordzhonikidze

Sergei Kirov Stepan Shaumian


The General Secretariat of the Ukrainian Central Rada, 191 7. Sitting in the center,
Vinnichenko; sitting at extreme right, Petliura; standing at extreme left, Pavel Khristiuk.

Mikhail Frunze and Ordzhonikidze at Ti-flis, 1924


-A° fll dl;-
Negotiations between Soviet authorities and Basmachi leaders in the Fe rghana region, 1921
THE DIS INTEGRATION O F THE RU S S I AN E M PIRE 99
the breakdown of political institutions, nor the lootings and attacks on
the population by the disintegrating army, which occurred in other parts
of the Empire, disturbed the peace. The Revolution in its violent form
came to Transcaucasia only in 1918.
In the course of 1917 the political parties of the three principal ethnic
groups, the Georgians, Azerbaijanis, and Armenians, emerging from war­
time inactivity or suppression, reorganized very quickly and assumed a
much more important position in Transcaucasian affairs than they ever
had enjoyed in the prerevolutionary period.
The Georgian Mensheviks continued to devote their main efforts not
to the pursuit of local aims but to participation in Russian political life.
Owing to their influential position in Russian Social Democracy, the
Georgians, immediately after the outbreak of the February Revolution,
assumed leadership over some of the highest political institutions in the
center of Russia. Nikolai Chkheidze and Irakly Tseretelli, both Social
Democrats from Georgia, played important roles in the Petrograd Soviet
and were in the very center of Russian political life. 14 6 In the coalihon
government, established in May, Tseretelli occupied a ministerial chair.
By virtue of its intimate relations with the all-Russian socialist movement,
Georgian Social Democracy, at least until 1918, was not a "national"
party. It advanced no specific demands for the Georgian people, and as­
sumed no specifically "Georgian" attitude on matters pertaining to the
Caucasus.
This was not true of the other two parties active among the non­
Russian groups in Transcaucasia.
The outbreak of the First World War had placed the leaders of the
Azerbaijani national movement in an awkward position. Their pro­
Turkish sympathies were generally known. In 1912, in the course of the
Balkan War, the Mussavat had even published in Constantinople a mani­
festo, in which-\t accused the Russian government, "the Asiatic bear,"
of being the enemy of all Islam, and urged the Moslems of the Caucasus
to support the Ottoman Empire. 14 7 From 1914 to 1917 the Mussavatists
had to suspend open political activity, and to function semilegally under
the cover of educational and philanthropic organizations. 1 4 8 Although the
establishment of democracy in Russia made it possible for them to act
in the open again, the Azerbaijani nationalists had to be very cautious
as long as Russia remained' at war with the Ottoman Empire. Until the
spring of 1918, when the Turkish conquest of Transcaucasia became
inevitable, the Azerbaijani nationalists cooperated closely with Russian,
Georgian, and Armenian groups, and gave no open indication of their
pro-Turkish sympathies.
In addition to the Mussavat, two other important Moslem parties
were active in Transcaucasia in 1917. The Neutral Democratic Croup
( NDG ) represented the Sunni Moslems of Azerbaijan ( the majority of
100 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

the people were Shiite ) , but in all other respects it was identical with the
Mussavat. The Moslem Union spoke for the conservative clergy and
the landowning classes. 1 49
In April 1917 the Caucasian Moslems held a conference in Baku. The
conference was dominated by the Mussavat, under whose influence it
passed resolutions favoring the establishment of a democratic Russian re­
public, the introduction of federalism, the creation of an all-Moslem or­
ganization in Russia, with competence in religious and cultural matters,
the conclusion of a peace without annexations or contributions, and the
maintenance of friendly relations with the other national minorities. 15 0 The
same program was advanced by the Azerbaijani delegation at the May
All-Russian Moslem Congress in Moscow, where it championed the
federalist cause against the idea of cultural autonomy sponsored by
the Volga Tatars. The Baku Congress also appointed an All-Caucasian
Moslem Bureau, with permanent residence in Tiflis, to function as a
center for Moslem affairs.
At the end of June the Mussavat merged with the Turkish Federalist
Party, newly founded in the heart of the Moslem landowning district in
Transcaucasia, Elisavetpol ( Gandzha� today Kirovabad ) . The Federal­
ists, headed by Ussubekov ( Nasib bey Yusufbeyli ) , represented the in­
fluential Azerbaijani landed aristocracy. By merging with it, the pre­
dominantly urban, middle-class Mussavat gained greatly in strength. At
the same time, however, it lost something of its earlier radical social
character. The Federalists, while agreeing with the Mussavat on most
programmatic issues, strongly opposed the idea of land expropriation as
desired by the Mussavatists, and favored government purchase of private
estates for distribution to landless peasants. For some time this important
question caused disagreements between the Azerbaijani political leaders,
but £nally in October 1917 the Mussavat gave in and agreed to the
Federalist formula. 151 The name of the new party was officially changed
to the Turkish Federalist Party Mussavat, though the term Mussavat
( or Musavat ) continued in general use.
There can be no doubt that the new Mussavat enjoyed mass following
among all elements of the Moslem population in Transcaucasia. In the
elections to the Baku Soviet it consistently polled the largest number of
votes in the industrial regions of the town, and in October 1917 it re­
ceived the over-all greatest vote cast in the reelections to the Baku
Soviet, more than twice the number won by the Bolsheviks. 1 52 In the
elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Transcaucasian Turks voted
along national lines, giving the Mussavat 405,917 votes, and the other
Moslem parties ( mainly of a conservative, religious orientation ) 228,-
889. 15 3 The total vote of 634,206 thus won by the Moslem parties repre­
sented, in round figures, 30 per cent of all the votes cast in the elections
throughout Transcaucasia ( 1,996,263 ) and corresponded to the proportion
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 10 1

of Moslems in the entire population of Transcaucasia. In the Baku


province the Mussavat received go per cent of the total vote. 154
To the Armenians the First World War brought a terrible tragedy.
Caught in a conflict between Turkey and Russia, they were at first
courted by both of the contestants and finally all but annihilated as a
result of their choice. The geographical situation of the Armenian popu­
lation - in the center of the theater of operations - demanded that
they pursue a course of strict neutrality, and this was the policy which
the Dashnaktsutiun, which by then dominated Armenian political life
on both sides of the border, had initially adopted. When in 1914 the
Ottoman government, controlled by the Young Turks whom the Dash­
naks had helped six years earlier to come to power, offered the Arme­
nians the pledge of autonomy in return for their assistance against
Russia, the Dashnaks refused on the grounds of neutrality. 155 Soon after
the outbreak of war, however, the leaders of the Dashnaktsutiun changed
their mind, and convinced of an Allied victory, threw in their lot with
the Russians. They organized Armenian volunteer detachments to fight
side by side with the tsarist army, to help them reconnoiter the Eastern
Anatolian districts and, after receiving from St. Petersburg vague
promises of a unification of all Armenia under a Russian protectorate,
they prepared uprisings of the Armenian population in the rear of the
Turkish lines. 156 This unwise policy, undertaken by the Russian Dashnaks
over the protests of the Constantinople Committee of the party, induced
the Turks to take very drastic measures against the Armenian popula­
tion. An order issued by the Ottoman government in 1915 decreed the
expulsion of all Armenians from the eastern border of Turkey to the
deserts of Mesopotamia. Carried out with great brutality by front-line
troops, the expulsion decree resulted in a massacre of the Armenian
population, in the course of which, according to reliable estimates, one
million people, or more than one-half of the entire Armenian popula­
tion of the Ottoman Empire, had perished. 157 The remainder, except for
a small group which by hiding saved itself from persecution, fled to the
Russian Caucasus.
The massacres of 1915 cast a deep shadow on Armenian politics. In
1917 the Russian Caucasus was crowded with refugees from Anatolia,
hungry, impoverished, and desperate. The events of the war brought
Armenian-Turkish hostility to a degree of bitterness never before known;
the Armenian and Azerbaijani inhabitants of the Caucasus, though not
directly involved in the massacres, were ready to pounce upon each
other at the slightest provocation. The Armenians were, as a result of
this situation, completely dependent upon Russia and favorably in­
clined to any Russian government, as long as it was anti-Turkish.
Armenian loyalty to the Provisional Government was, therefore, as
great as that of the Georgian Social Democracy, but for different reasons.
102 THE FORMATION O F THE SOVIET UNION
The Dashnak Regional Conference held in April 1917 voted confidence
in the Provisional Government and urged that all nationalities wait with
their demands for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. 1 58 At
the so-called State Conference, organized by the Provisional Government
in the fall, Armenian deputies were among the most vociferous defend­
ers of the regime. 1 59
By September, however, it became apparent that the Provisional
Government in Russia was on the verge of collapse. In order to safe­
guard the interests of the Armenian population and to have a center
capable of administering the needs of the Armenian refugees, the Ar­
menian National Council in Tillis - formed in the course of the war ­
decided to form an organ of self-rule by convening an Armenian National
Conference. 1 60 The Armenian Council had at its disposal some three
thousand Armenian armed volunteers whom it had organized during the
war with the assistance of the tsarist regime. Now it began to press
Petrograd for permission to unite under one command all those troops
until then serving in small detachments scattered throughout the Russian
Army. The Provisional Government, after some hesitation, agreed, and by
the end of the year the Council assumed direct command over an Arme­
nian Corps, manned and officered entirely by Armenians. 1 6 1
In the elections to the Constituent Assembly the Dashnaktsutiun
polled 419,887 votes, or 20 per cent of all the votes cast in Transcaucasia
- the great majority of the whole Armenian vote. 162 Whatever its past
mistakes and the terrible price the Armenian population had to pay for
them, the Dashnaktsutiun, with its party apparatus and military force,
represented the only hope the Armenians had of being saved from utter
destruction at the hands of the Moslems.
In November 1917 the Russian army fighting deep in Turkish territory
started to disintegrate. Within a few weeks after the news of the October
coup in Russia had spread to the rank and file, the excellent fighting
body, which 9nly a short time earlier had captured supposedly impreg­
nable Turkish .fortresses, threw down its arms and became a motley horde
of deserters hastening home by all available means to share in the antici­
pated distribution of land. This fact completely changed the situation
which had prevailed in Transcaucasia since the February Revolution.
The prospect of a Turkish advance on Tiflis and Baku threw in­
describable panic into the population. The fear of the Moslem invader
in general, and the memory of recent Armenian massacres in particular,
caused the political parties of all views to seek a rapprochement for the
purpose of finding a practical way of preventing the Turks from seizing
defenseless Transcaucasia. At the same time steps had to b·e taken to
control the inflow of deserting soldiers, who, in passing across Trans­
caucasia on the way north, threatened to upset public order. Since there
was no institution for coping with such problems, it had to be created.
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUS SIAN EMPIRE 103
On November 1 1 the heads of the leading political parties formed a
temporary government under the name Transcaucasian Commissariat
( Zakavkazskii Komissariat ) to replace the defunct Ozakom. The Georgian
Menshevik and one time Duma representative, E. P. Gegechkori, became
its chairman. He was assisted by another Menhevik, two Socialist Revo­
lutionaries, two Dashnaks, four Mussavatists and one Georgian Federalist.
The task of this temporary government was to maintain order until the
time when the All-Russian Constituent Assembly had established a new
government for the entire Russian state.
After the Bolsheviks bad dissolved by force the Constituent Assembly,
the Transcaucasian deputies returned home and organized a Trans­
caucasian Diet ( Zakavkazskii Seim) with residence in Tiflis. The norms
of representation in the Diet were established by tripling the number
of candidates elected from each party to the Constituent Assembly, with
the addition of representatives of national minorities and of parties which
had failed to have any candidates elected.
Thus, at the beginning of February 1918 Transcaucasia possessed a
legislative body ( Seim ) and an executive organ ( Komissariat). As these
institutions assumed effective control over the entire area the soviets and
their Regional C�nter relinquished authority. The emergence of these
new political bodies, as is evident from the circumstances surrounding
their origin, was due not so much to the growth of separatist tendencies
( for as yet they did not exist ) as to the imperative need for some sort
of political authority in a country abandoned to its fate by the former
rulers and exposed to dangers which only a formal government could
meet. The actual separation from Russia, which took place in April 19 18,
was to a large extent inspired by similar considerations.
The new organs of self-rule at once tackled the two most pressing
dangers threatening the internal security of Transcaucasia, the collapse
of the front and the influx of deserters, and a new threat, closely con­
nected with them: Bolshevism. The Commissariat issued orders to local
soviets to disarm all soldiers entering the territory of Transcaucasia.
This instruction, though necessary, led in some localities to bloody clashes
between the native population ( which the soviets could not always
control ) and the soldiers. The worst incident occurred early in January
1918 near the railroad station at Shamkhor, ninety miles east of Tiflis,
where a Moslem mob attacked a train full of soldiers and, after disarm­
ing them, slaughtered several hundred defenseless Russians. 16 3 In other
areas the enforcement of the Commissariat's directives proceeded more
smoothly, since most soldiers were in any case so eager to leave the
Caucasus and set out for home that they gladly surrendered their
weapons.
The movement of the deserting soldiers gave the Bolshevik party in
Transcaucasia its first opportunity to gain a mass following. Despite the
104 THE FORMATION O F THE SOVIET UNION
fact that at the beginning of the century, and especially during the 1905
Revolution, the Bolsheviks had perhaps won more adherents for their
cause in the Caucasus than in any other borderland area of the Empire,
at the beginning of 1917 their party was completely disorganized. Arrests
by the tsarist police after the 1905 Revolution, exile to remote places in
Siberia, and the preference of the Georgian Bolsheviks for working in
Petrograd and other cities of Russia proper, destroyed the party apparatus
which they had once s.ucceeded in establishing. At the beginning of 1917
there were in Tiflis at the most fifteen to twenty persons, and in Baku
twenty-five persons, of definite Bolshevik sympathies, and even they
continued to work closely with the Mensheviks. 164 In Baku, the in­
dustrial heart of Transcaucasia, the Bolshevik Shaumian was elected
Chairman of the Soviet, but entirely because of his personal popularity .
When he tried to have the Soviet pass Leninist resolutions condemning
the Provisional Government, he was voted out and replaced by a Socialist
Revolutionary ( beginning of May 1917 ) . 165 At the end of May the Baku
Bolsheviks still had no organization of their own. Only in June ( June 6
in Tillis, June 25 in Baku ) did they form a separate party.166
Unable to break the control of the major indigenous and Russian
parties over the population, the Bolsheviks began to concentrate their
attention on the soldiers. Bolshevik agitators held meetings in the squares
of Tillis and Baku to attract the attention of the men on leave; they also
sent voluminous literature to the garrisons and to the front. Their line of
argument was as follows : the Mensheviks and SR's, working hand-in­
hand with the bourgeoisie, want to bleed the army to death fighting
for their own interests; the soldiers should therefo re stop fighting and
return home. By adapting their propaganda to the temper of the troops,
the Bolsheviks soon gained a considerable following. In November and
December 1917, when the soldiers were crossing Transcaucasia on the
way home, mainly along the railroad route connecting the Turkish front
with Russia via Baku and the Terek region, the Bolsheviks attracted many
of them into Red detachments. 167 The dependence of the Bolsheviks
upon soldier support was well illustrated by the results of the elections
to the Constituent Assembly. In all Transcaucasia the Bolsheviks received
85,960 votes. This represented only 4.3 per cent of the total vote in
Transcaucasia. 168 A breakdown of the election figures for Baku ( which
gave the Bolsheviks the largest number of votes ) reveals that the Bol­
shevik ticket won only 14 per cent of the votes cast in the industrial
districts of the city, while gaining 79 per cent of the votes cast by the
soldiers. 169
The Bolsheviks also derived some additional strength in Baku from
the fact that the Mussavat throughout 1917 maintained toward them a
position of friendly neutrality.· The Azerbaijani nationalists favored Bol­
shevik slogans demanding the termination of the war and considered
THE DISI NTEGRATIO N O F THE RUSS IAN E M P IRE 105
Leninist policies to be advantageous to the Ottoman Empire. They came
out on a number of occasions in support of Bolshevik resolutions. The
Baku Bolsheviks, in turn, spared the Mussavat from the blistering attacks
which they were leveling at all other parties in the area, and in general
carefully avoided treading on the toes of Azerbaijani nationalists. 0
In October 1917 the Bolsheviks convened in Tillis their First Con­
gress to centralize the work of all their organizations, including those of
the Northern Caucasus. A total membership of some 8,6oo was claimed;
2,6oo were from Tillis, mainly soldiers of the TiHis garrison; about 2,200
were from Baku, also predominantly men in uniform. 170 The Congress
elected a Regional Committee ( Kraevoi Komitet ) under the chairman­
ship of Filipp Makharadze, an old Georgian Social Democrat and a
Leninist since 1905, 171 and adopted resolutions including one on the
nationality question which condemned separatism and federalism for
Transcaucasia, but supported the idea of Transcaucasian autonomy. 172
Another resolution called for emphasis on agitation in the army.
The Bolsheviks had at first hoped to employ the troops which they
had won for their cause to overthrow the Transcaucasian Seim and to
seize power. 173 But this project presented great difficulties. The fact that
the Georgian Mensheviks in November 1917 had proclaimed the rule of
local soviets in Transcaucasia made it impossible for the Bolsheviks to
clamor for the transfer of all power to the soviets, as they had done with
much success in other parts of the country. Then also the very factors which
had induced the troops to sympathize with Bolshevik agitation, war­
weariness and the desire to · return to the native village, also made them
unsuitable for Bolshevik purposes. It was impossible to capture and hold
power with people whose chief desire was to disperse and leave the
Caucasus. The Red leaders watched with dismay as the principal force
which they had secured with much effort dissipated itself and vanished
before their very eyes. 174 At the same time the Transcaucasian authorities,
headed by people who for over two decades had worked in common
conspiratorial organizations with the local Bolsheviks and knew well
their tactics, took steps to nip the conspiracy in the bud.
The Bolshevik Regional Committee, in agreement with Petrograd,
had set the date of the coup for early December. 175 The plan was to
utilize the Tiflis garrison, entirely under Bolshevik control, and one of
the pro-Bolshevik infantry regiments stationed in that city to dissolve the
Seim and establish the rule of the Council of People's Commissars . But
on November 14 the Transcaucasian Commissariat proclaimed martial
law in Tiflis, and expelled from the town the regiment which the Bolshe-
0
Ratgauzer, Revoliutsiia, 9-10; B. Iskhanian, Kontr-revoliutsiia v Zakavkaz'e, I
( Baku, 1919 ), 61-62, 84-85. Iskhanian states that between April and November 1917
not one of the issues of the Bolshevik daily in Bakul Bakinskii rabochii, carried
criticism of the Mussavat.
106 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
viks had intended to use. At the same time a Cossack detachment was
sent to Baku to deal with the Bolsheviks active there. Finally, on No­
vember 16, a short time before the coup was to have taken place, a group
of Georgian workers, organized by the Menshevik-controlled Tiflis
Soviet into a "Red Guard," boldly seized the local arsenal and disarmed
its garrison. As a consequence of this action the Regional Committee
decided to abandon temporarily its plans for a seizure of power in Tif­
lis.1 76 The Bolshevik party was outlawed in Tiflis in February 1918, and
soon afterwards its leaders had to leave Georgian territory for Baku and
the Northern Caucasus.
Lenin, who had counted much on the success of the TiHis operation,
was furious when the news of the liquidation of the garrison reached
him. 177 The failure of the Tiflis Regional Center caused the Bolshevik
Central Committee in Petrograd to shift the center of operations for
Transcaucasia from Tillis ,�o Baku. Early in December, Shaumian was
appointed Extraordinary Commissar for Transcaucasia and was directed
by the Central Committee to seize power. 178
At the time, however, an even greater threat to Transcaucasian
security than the Bolshevik conspiracy was the collapse of the war front.
As soon as the Russian armies had left the front lines, the Turks began
to advance. One after another fell the fortresses won by tsarist troops in
the campaigns of 1915 and 1916: Erzinjan ( middle of January 1918 ) ; Er­
zerum ( end of February ) ; Trebizond ( early March ) . Soon the Turkish
armies approached the prewar borders of Russia. Between them and
Tiflis stood only a handful of loyal Russian troops and a few Armenian
volunteer detachments.
To stem the Turkish tide the Transcaucasian Commissariat dispatched
to Trebizond in the second half of February a delegation headed by the
Georgian Menshevik Akaki Chkhenkeli, accompanied by numerous pleni­
potentiaries of the Azerbaijani and Armenian political parties. The posi­
tion of the Transcaucasian deputies vis-a-vis the Turks was most difficult.
A day or two after they had left Transcaucasia for Trebizond, news
arrived that the Soviet government had signed a peace treaty with the
Central Powers at Brest Litovsk in which, without the slightest regard
for the wishes of the local population, it had ceded to the Ottoman
Empire most of the territories acquired by Russia in the war of 1877,
including Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, with large Armenian and Georgian
populations. The Transcaucasian Seim at once denied the validity of the
Brest Litovsk Treaty for the Caucasus and voted to seek a separate agree­
ment with Turkey.1 79
But on what legal grounds could Transcaucasia, which had not
yet claimed its independence, escape the diplomatic commitments
of the Russian government? Chkhenkeli, in answer to this logical ques­
tion posed to him by the Turks, replied vaguely that Transcaucasia had
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RU S S IAN EMPIRE 107
a de facto sovereignty as a result of the coIIapse of the legitimate Rus­
sian government, but, aware of the anomaly of his position, he began to
press Tiflis for concessions to the Turks. 180 Inasmuch as the Turks had
occupied Ardahan and were beginning to lay siege to Kars, the Transcau­
casian Commissariat decided to yield, and on March 28/April 10 officially
accepted the Brest Litovsk Treaty as a basis for further negotiations. 181
But the Turks now posed new demands. On March 31/April 13 they
informed the Transcaucasians that in order to make it possible for the
representatives of the other Central Powers to take part in the talks,
Transcaucasia had to proclaim its independence. This the Seim refused
to do. The following day the negotiations in Trebizond were broken off
and the delegation recalled. 182 Transcaucasia - still without a sovereign
government - was in a state of war with the Ottoman Empire.
The country was placed in a critical situation. On April 1/14, one
day after the disruption of diplomatic talks, the Turks marched into the
port city of Batum, the third largest town in Transcaucasia. The great
fortress of Kars fell ten days later. Logic dictated the acceptance of
the Turkish proposal, the more so as the proclamation of independence
would have freed Transcaucasia from suffering further unpleasant sur­
prises which continued association with the new Russian regime was
bound to bring. But anti-separatist tendencies were very deeply rooted
among the majority of Transcaucasian political leaders - Russian, Geor­
gian, and Armenian alike. The Mussavatists alone were not too
displeased with the turn which events had taken and with the improve­
ment in their position caused by the Turkish victories, but outwardly
they maintained neutrality.
For nearly two weeks the halls of the Seim in Tillis reverberated with
debates on the question of independence. 183 Finally, on April 9/22, over
the protests of Kadet and SR members, the independence of the Trans­
caucasian Federation was proclaimed. The motives were clear:
The peoples of Transcaucasia are faced with the following tragic
situation : either to proclaim themselves at present an inseparable
part of Russia, and in this manner to repeat all the horrors of the
Russian Civil War an,d " µien become an arena of a foreign invasion,
in this case Turkish; ,-or to proclaim independence and with their
own powers defend the physical existence of the whole country.
When the issues boil down to this, then the only solution is the im­
mediate proclamation of political independence and the creation of
the independent Transcaucasian Federative Republic. 18 4
The Bolsheviks in Power
The separation of the borderlands previously under the control of
the Provisional Government was accompanied by a loss of other Russian
territories, some under enemy occupation. Lithuania and Finland pro-
108 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
claimed their independence in December 1917; Latvia followed shortly
afterwards. Poland, which was entirely occupied by German troops, en­
joyed de facto independence recognized officially by the Soviet delegation
to the Brest Litovsk Peace Conference. Estonia severed its bonds with
Russia in February 1918. In addition vast areas, inhabited by Russians
who did not desire to be subjected to the Soviet regime, formed their
own governments and proclaimed statehood. Most important in this cate­
gory was the Siberian Republic created by the SR's, and the Southeastern
Union, embracing the Cossack regions of the Northern Caucasus and the
Urals, both established in January 1918. It is not far-fetched to assert
that at the beginning of 1918 Russia, as a political concept, had ceased
to exist.
The disintegration of the Russian Empire confronted the young Bol­
shevik government with difficulties which it did not anticipate and for
which it had made no provisions. Lenin's entire national program was
designed to exploit the national problem/ in Russia in order to weaken
tsarist authority and the Provisional Government. The alliance with the
minority nationalists in 1917 had provided the Bolsheviks with much
assistance, notably in the Ukraine, and there was every reason to expect
that in the Civil War, which started almost immediately after the October
coup, the slogan of national self-determination could also be successfully
employed, this time as a weapon against anti-Soviet forces.
But a breakup of the Russian domain into a conglomeration of small
national states was the last thing Lenin desired. Not only was it contrary
to his repeatedly stated preference for large states, but it also under­
mined the economic foundations of the state which the Bolsheviks were
attempting to establish. Deprived of its borderlands, Soviet Russia had
neither sufficient food, nor fuel, nor raw materials.
The question which confronted Lenin after he had come to power,
therefore, was how to reconcile the slogan of national self-determination
with the need for preserving the unity of the Soviet state.
First, however, it was necessary to prevent �e slogan of national
self-determination from doing more harm. Lenin acted quickly. Utilizing
Bolshevik organizations established in the borderlands in the days of the
Provisional Government, and the Russian troops which to a large extent
followed Bolshevik leadership, he overthrew wherever possible the newly
formed national republics. The dissolution of the Belorussian Rada; the
attempted coup in Transcaucasia; the invasion of the Ukraine; as well
as the suppression of the Moslem governments of Kokand, Crimea, the
Alash Orda, and the Bashkir republic, which will constitute the subject
matter of subsequent chapters of this book, were all a complete violation
of the principle of national self-determination. It can scarcely be a sub­
ject for wonder that Lenin so flagrantly disregarded his previous pledges.
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN E M P IRE 109
Having once ventured upon a course of political lawlessness by over­
throwing the Provisional Government and by dissolving the popularly
elected Russian Constituent A ssembly, Lenin could hardly have shown
deference to the institutions founded by the minorities. Fundamentally,
his disregard of the wishes of the minority populations was not different
from his disregard of the will of the Russian people; both had their roots
in Lenin's general contempt for democratic procedures and in his convic­
tion that the spread of the revolutionary movement required firm, un­
hesitant action against all who dared to stand in its way.
The first public indication that the principle of national self-determi­
nation ( in Lenin's interpretation ) required also theoretical change came
on December 12, 1917, in an article by Stalin. With no record of having
favored this principle, Stalin, at any rate, had previously abstained from
criticizing Lenin's views openly, as many other Bolsheviks had done. Now,
writing in connection with the Ukrainian crisis, Stalin asserted that the
Soviet government could not permit national self-determination to serve
as a cloak for counterrevolution. The Council of People's Commissars,
he wrote, was ready to recognize th� independence of any republic but
"upon the demand of the working population of such an area." 185 A
month later he restated his case against Lenin's theory even more
strongly : "It is necessary to limit the principle of free self-determination
of nations, by granting it to the toilers and refusing it to the bourgeoisie.
The principle of self-determination should be a means of fighting for
socialism." 1 86
Such an interpretation of the principle of national self-determination
had nothing in common with Lenin's views. It was essentially identical
with the argument of the "leftists" whom Lenin had attacked with much
vigor during World War I. "Proletarian self-determination" - if one ac­
cepts Communist terminology - meant the class struggle and the estab­
lishment of the worker's dictatorship by means of soviets and the Bolshevik
party. National self-determination rested on the principle of class co­
operation and had as its aim the establishment of a national state.
Lenin, occupied at the time with other, more pressing matters, paid no
attention officially to Stalin's attempt to reinterpret the slogan of national
self-determination, but he took the matter up in March 1919, when the
party platform came up for revision at the Eighth Party Congress. Bukh­
arin, who belonged to the '1eftists" on the national question, was as­
signed the task of preparing a draft of a new program. In an attempt to
reconcile Lenin's views with those of the '1eftists," with whom Stalin
also sympathized, Bukharin introduced in his project a double formula :
for the advanced nations the slogan of "self-determination of the working
classes," for the underdeveloped, colonial areas the slogan of "national
self-determination." 1 87 During the debates at the Congress, both Bukh-
110 THE F O R M A TI O N O F THE S OVIET UNIO N
arin and Piatakov criticized the Leninist slogan as impractical. Bukharin
asserted that he had adopted Stalin's formula of "proletarian self-determi­
nation" as more consistent with Communist doctrines. 188
Lenin replied to Bukharin - and indirectly to Stalin, who did not
speak in defense of his views - that such an attitude was unrealistic and
illogical: it drew too neat a distinction between advanced and backward
countries. Class differentiation, as experience has shown, had not even
taken place in such economically advanced countries as Germany, let
alone elsewhere. "Proletarian self-determination" was synonymous with
proletarian dictatorship, Lenin argued, and so far had been accomplished
only in Russia. It certainly provided no solution for the nationality ques­
tion. The party program had to take into account realities, and for that
reason it was necessary to continue support of national self-determination,
even if in a qualified form. Speaking of the proponents of the Bukharin­
Piatakov-Stalin line, Lenin said scornfully, "In my opinion, this kind of
a Communist is a great Russian chauvinist; he lives inside of many of
us, and must be fought." 1 s9
On Lenin's suggestion the Congress adopted a national program
which retained the right to national self-determination, with qualifica­
tions:
2. In order to overcome the suspicion of the toiling masses of the
oppressed countries toward the proletariat of the states which had
oppressed these countries, it is necessary to destroy all and every
privilege enjoyed by whatever national group, to establish full equal­
ity of nations, and to recognize that the colonies and the nations
which possess full rights have a right to political secession.
3. For the same purpose, as one of the transitional forms on the
way to full unity, the party proposes a federative unification of states,
organized on the Soviet pattern.
4. As to the question who is the carrier of the nation's will to
separation, the Russian Communist Party 0 stands on the historico­
class point of view, taking into consideration the level of historical
development on which a given nation stands: on the road from the
Middle Ages to bourgeois democracy, or from bourgeois democracy
to Soviet or proletarian democracy, and so forth. 1 9 0
Tl!e new formula neatly solved the problem which confronted the Com­
munists. It gave them a free hand to agitate for national independence
and to attract the sympathies of the nationalists in those areas where the
Communists were trying to come into power, without hampering their
efforts to overcome nationalist opposition where they were already in
0
Early in 1918 the Bolsheviks formally adopted the name of the Russian Com­
munist Party ( Bolsheviks ) ( Rossiiskaia Kommunisticheskaia Partiia [bol'shevikov] ) .
Henceforth, the terms Bolshevik and Communist are used interchangeably.
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 111

control. The double standard which the new formula provided was in
the future to prove extremely convenient.
The right to national self-determination, as Lenin had interpreted it
before 1917, however, was gone, and with it died the heart of the
Bolshevik national program. It was necessary to provide something in
its place.
Before November 1917 the Bolsheviks, like the Mensheviks, had
opposed tlie federal idea, but now that the state had fallen apart, the
prerevolutionary arguments against this concept were no longer valid.
Federalism, which had been a centrifugal factor as long as Russia was
one, now became a centripetal force, an instrument for welding together
the scattered parts of a disintegrated empire.
For this reason, within a month or two after they had seized power,
the Bolsheviks reversed their old stand and took over the Socialist
Revolutionary program of a federated Russia.
The first official statement to this effect was drawn up by Lenin in
January 1918, in connection with the Bolshevik attack on the Ukraine:
"The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of the Ukraine . . . is
proclaimed the supreme authority in the Ukraine. There is accepted a
federal union with Russia, and complete unity in matters of internal and
external policy . . ," 1 9 1 Simultaneously, Lenin prepared a general state­
ment which served as a model for a resolution adopted by the Third
Congress of Soviets held at the end of January 1918. "The Soviet Russian
Republic," he wrote, "is established on the basis of a free union of free
nations, as a federation of Soviet national republics." 1 92
At the beginning of April 1918 a Constitutional Commission was
appointed to prepare a draft of the fundamental law of the Russian Soviet
republic. Headed by · Iakov Sverdlov, the commission had, as one of its
chief assignments, to determine the nature of the federal system which
was to be instituted in the new state. The question was whether the
basic units of the federation were to be economic, geographic, ethnic,
or historic regions. Each viewpoint had its sympathizers. To reach a
decision, the commission appointed two of its members, Mikhail Reisner
( of the Commissariat of Justice ) , and Stalin, to prepare projects for a
federal constitution. 193
Reisner, who presented his draft at the next meeting of the Com­
mission, argued for a federation based on the economic principle. In a
socialist republic, he held, the national factor was secondary, and should
be limited to cultural matters. It was unwise to create national-territorial
units, or to pursue "hidden centralism under the cover of a federal
structure." Instead, he proposed that the Russian federation be based
on voluntary associations of trade unions, cooperatives, communes, and
other local institutions. Reisner's project thus called for a federation of
1 12 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
socio-economic groups rather than nationalities, organized extraterri­
torially rather than territorially, and offering the minorities cultural, in
place of political, self-determination.
This project was rejected because the members of the commission
felt that it ignored both the centrifugal tendencies in evidence since
early 1917, and the fact that the republics which were already in exist­
ence on the territory of the defunct Russian Empire were national in
character.
Stalin, who was not present when Reisner had read his paper, re­
appeared at the third session, but without the promised project. He
brought with him only a brief statement, which demanded flatly that
the . federation be based on the principle of national-territorial autonomy,
and neither explained nor justified this request. It seems likely that
Stalin merely conveyed the wishes of Lenin, who several months earlier
had indicated that he desired the Soviet federation to be established
along national-territorial lines. Stalin made no other contribution to the
work of the commission because a few days later he left for the front.
The idea of national-territorial autonomy was accepted by the commis­
sion and embodied in the Soviet Russian Constitution of 1918. Soviet
Russia thus became the first modern state to place the national principle
at the base of its federal structure.
To have an organ capable of dealing with the national question
Lenin created in November 1917 a special Commissariat of Nationality
Affairs (Narodnyi komissariat po delam natsional'nostei, otherwise known
as Narkomnats ) . The chairmanship of this commissariat was turned over
to Stalin. Its original functions consisted of mediation in conflicts arising
among the various national groups in the country and of advising other
agencies of the government on problems connected with the minorities. 1 94
But in time, especially after 1920, it assumed broader responsibilities
and became one of the several vehicles which Stalin used to obtain con­
trol over the party and state apparatus of the entire country.
The activities of the Narkomnats may be divided into two periods:
from its foundation until 1920; and from 1920 until its dissolution in
1924. Until the end of the Civil War the borderland areas were separated
from Moscow, and the Narkomnats' field of operations was restricted
largely to the minority populations residing in Russia proper. It issued
general appeals to the non-Russians, urging them to support the Soviet
regime; it conducted propaganda among the· prisoners of war; it closed
minority organizations of a military or philanthropic nature established
during the war in various cities of Russia. 0
0
The Narkomnats suppressed the following organizations : the Caucasian Bureau;
all Moslem organizations formed by the All-Russian Moslem Central Council; the
Georgian Commissariat of Military-National Affairs; the Higher Lithuanian Council in
Russia; the All-Russian Moslem Council; the Armenian National councils; the Union
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 1 13

In the first period the Narkomnats consisted of a chairman, Stalin,


a vice-chairman, S. S. Pestkovskii ( a Pole, by origin ) , a collegium, and a
number of national sub-commissariats which were created to deal with
the individual nationalities. The personnel was selected haphazardly,
and was composed largely of "leftists" who opposed Lenin's national
policy, including his new idea of federalism and his concessions to· the
minorities. 1 95
In some cases functionaries of this commissariat were placed at the
head of the governments which were established by the Soviet authorities
in areas conquered from the White Guard. The Narkomnats also en­
deavored at various times during the Civil War to obtain exclusive
control over . the Communist underground movements operating in the
borderlands, but there is little evidence that it succeeded in realizing this
or many other of its claims. 0 In general, the Narkomnats seems to have
exercised in 1918 and 1919 a very limited influence on the course of
events in the borderland areas: it acquired importance -in Soviet political
life only after 1920, when Stalin, having assumed once more personal
management of its affairs after his return from the Civil War, changed
its personnel and broadened its functions far beyond its original scope.
of Jewish Veterans; and the Central Bureau of Jewish Communities ( Narodnyi
komissariat po delam natsional'nostei, Politika sovetskoi vlasti po natslonarnym delam
za trl goda [Moscow, 1920] ) .
0
E . I. Pesikina, Narodnyi komissarlat po delam natsional'nostei ( Moscow, 1950 ),
84-89. Pesikina asserts that the Narkomnats actually conducted "all" underground
operations in the regions occupied by the enemy ( p. 84 ) , but gives no evidence to
support this contention,
III
SOVIET CONQUEST OF THE UKRAINE
AND BELORUSSIA

The Fall of the Ukrainian Central Rada

LI nlike the pattern in other parts of the old Russian Empire where,
following the overthrow of the Provisional Government, authority was,
in most cases, vested in the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'
Deputies, the situation in the Ukraine did not permit such a direct trans­
fer of political power. The existence of the Ukrainian Central Rada,
which claimed to be the national soviet for the territory, complicated
matters. It resulted in an uneasy condominium in which sovereignty was
shared between the Rada with its General Secretariat exercising control
over the city of Kiev and, to some extent, over the right-bank ( i.e., west
of the Dnieper) rural districts, and the city soviets, most of which were
Bolshevik-dominated, ruling the remaining towns.1 For a brief time, at
the end of October and the beginning of November 1917, it seem,ed pos­
sible for the two governing agencies to cooperate and even to merge,
much as they had done during the crucial days of the October Revolu­
tion. But with the disappearance of the Provisional Government the
fundamental divergence of interests between them came to the fore and
led to an armed struggle which finally resulted in the Bolshevik conquest
of the Ukraine.
During the first day or two following the liquidation of the Kievan
pro-government Staff there was utter confusion in the city. No one knew
who was in command: the City Soviet, the Rada, or the newly formed
Council of Peoples' Commissars in Petrograd. The Bolshevik Committee
in Kiev, especially its right wing, which had favored cooperation with
the Ukrainian nationalists and had brought about the establishment of the
Rada's Revolutionary Committee, anticipated that the defeat of the pro­
Kerensky troops would be followed by the convocation of an All-Ukrain­
ian Congress of Soviets. Its members expected that this congress would
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 115

appoint a Ukrainian Central Executive Committee and that this com­


mittee in turn would assume power over the entire territory of the
Ukraine in close liaison with the Petrograd Soviet. Until such time as
this operation should have been completed, the Kievan Bolsheviks were
ready to recognize the authority of the Rada and of its Revolutionary
Committee. 2
The Ukrainian leaders of the Rada, however, were not quite ready
to follow Bolshevik suggestions. The fall of the Provisional Government
had caught them unprepared. In the past they had concentrated so
strongly on fighting the moderate socialist and liberal groups in charge
of the Russian state that they lacked a plan of action now that the old
government was gone. Their cooperation with the Bolsheviks had been
an opportunist maneuver, but apparently in their planning they had
never foreseen that it might bring success. For several days there were
heated debates in the Rada, the General Secretariat, and the Ukrainian
press. Finally, on November 3, the General Secretariat announced that it
was assuming all the power in the territory of the Ukraine ( which it
interpreted to include, in addition to the five provinces recognized as
Ukrainian by the Provisional Government Instruction of July 1917, the
provinces of Kharkov, Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, and Taurida, the latter
without the Crimean peninsula). In the same declaration the General
Secretariat restated its desire to remain part of a Federal Russian Re­
public, vigorously denying any striving for independence, despite the
Bolshevik coup in Russia:
The central government of Russia has no means of administering
the state. Entire regions are left without any centers to govern them;
political, economic, and social disorder is spreading. As a conse­
quence the General Secretariat adds the following secretariats: food,
military, justice, post, telegraphs, and means of transportation. The
authority of the General Secretariat is broadened to include all those
provinces in which the majority of the population is composed of
Ukrainians . .
All rumors and ·discussions about separatism, about the separation
of the Ukraine from Russia are either counterrevolutionary propa­
ganda or a result of simple ignorance. The Central Rada and the
General Secretariat have announced firmly and clearly that the
Ukraine is to be a part of a federal Russian republic, as an equal
governmental entity. The present political situation does not alter
this decision one bit. 3
A similar spirit pervaded the Third Universal which the Rada issued
on November 6, which proclaimed the Ukraine a People's Republic and
a component part of the Russian Federation.4 Now it was the Bolsheviks
who were caught unprepared. 5 The Rada's action added new fuel to the
struggle between the two principal factions of the Kievan party organiza-
116 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
tion. Despite their initial disappointment, those who had urged a "soft''
policy toward the Ukrainians and the utilization of their political ma­
chinery retained control of the Kievan Committee throughout the month
of November. They concentrated their efforts now on convoking an All­
Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, with the cooperation of the Rada if
possible, without it if not. In this they had the support of the newly
appointed Commissar of Nationalities, Stalin.6 In view of the dominant
role played by Bolsheviks in the soviets and the pro-Bolshevik sympa­
thies of the left-wing USR's and USD's, there was every reason to expect
such a congress to act in accordance with their wishes. The left-wingers
on the other hand, who included most of the non-Kievan members of
the Regional Committee, took a more intransigent attitude toward the
Ukrainian nationalists. Asserting that the alliance with the Rada spread
confusion among the Bolshevik rank and :file and would result only in
further disappointments, they urged a clear break with the Ukrainians.
The only manner in which the Rada could avoid an open conflict
with the Bolsheviks and the soviets was to comply with the Bolshevik
demand to convoke a Congress of Soviets. This it feared to do, for the
simple reason that its own strength lay in the villages, and not in the
towns, where the soviets functioned. The soviets were "Russian" institu­
tions and could easily be used to establish the rule of the essentially non­
Ukrainian cities over the Ukrainian countryside. 7
Instead of following the Bolshevik program, the Rada began to
concentrate on aiding Russian moderate socialist groups to reestablish
in Russia a coalition socialist government that would replace Lenin's
regime and create an All-Russian federation. The Rada refused to recog­
nize the Council of People's Commissars as the legitimate government
of Russia and requested that it be replaced by a more representative
socialist body.8 In November the General Secretariat convened in Kiev
a conference of nationalities to initiate action leading to the creation of a
federal union of Russia. Under the circumstances those were the only
sensible lines of policy. The Rada's transfer of support in the short space
of a few weeks from the moderate socialists to the Bolsheviks and back
again is characteristic of the lack of policy which plagued the Rada
throughout its existence.
In November and December the soviets of several cities of the
Ukraine, Ekaterinoslav, Odessa, and Nikolaev, joined the Kievan Soviet
in recognizing the authority of the Rada and the General Secretariat. 9
The Kharkov Soviet alone refused to do so, and not only pledged its
allegiance to the Bolshevik government in Petrograd, but as the month
went on, assumed an increasingly hostile attitude toward the Ukrainian
political center. The authority of the Rada over the whole country was
as ineffective after the proclamation of the Republic as it had been in
the days of the Provisional Government. In most towns the Rada had at
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 117
its disposal volunteer haidamak detachments: an asset of somewhat
dubious value, since, as future events were to show, they deserted the
Rada in some very critical moments. The rural areas continued to rule
themselves in isolation from the rest of the world. The issue between the
Rada and the Bolsheviks could be put, therefore, not so much as "who
now rules the Ukraine?" - since, in fact, after the fall of the Provisional
Government, the answer was "nobody"-but "who will rule it?"

The Ukraine,
Belorussia and the Crimea
(1922}
Ad'mini$frative Divisions before 1917
Infernal Border Dec. 1922
lntetnolional Bound-ory 1922

Orel•

Kursk•

Romania

100 Mi!es

In view of the Rada's refusal to convene the All-Ukrainian Congress


of Soviets, the Kiev Bolshevik Committee, in cooperation with the City
Soviet, decided to proceed on its own. Appealing over the head of the
General Secretariat to the soviets located in the towns and villages of the
Ukraine, it urged them to send their representatives to Kiev to attend
the forthcoming congress, whose date they had set for December 4. At
the same time the Bolsheviks made plans for the First Congress of the
Bolshevik Party of the Southwestern Territory.
118 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
Lenin and his government had every reason to agree with the Kievan
Bolsheviks' friendly attitude toward the Rada, and indeed, in the early
part of November Petrograd made several courteous gestures in its direc­
tion. As late as November 24, Trotsky, about to depart for the Brest
Litovsk peace discussions with the Central Powers, offered to include a
representative of the Rada in his delegation and voiced his desire that
"the Ukrainian toiling masses convince themselves in fact that the All­
Russian Soviet government placed no obstacles on the path of Ukrainian
self-determination, whatever forms it may take, and that the Russian gov­
ernment recognized the People's Ukrainian Republic fully and most
sincerely." 10
Toward the end of November, however, the relations between Petro­
grad and Kiev worsened. The main cause of friction lay in relations be­
tween the Ukrainian Rada and the Don Cossacks. After the overthrow of
the Provisional Government, the region of the Don Cossacks, southeast
of the Ukraine, became one of the main centers of anti-Bolshevik activity.
Here had gathered a considerable number of high tsarist officers and
conservative political statesmen who hoped to utilize the Don Cossack
regiments, traditionally loyal to the ancien regime because of the privi­
leges which it had bestowed upon them, as the nucleus of an army with
which to overthrow the conspirators who had seized power in Petrograd.
In November the Don Cossacks, under the headship of Ataman Kaledin,
proclaimed a Cossack Republic. When the Ukrainian Rada issued its
appeal to the borderlands of the Russian Empire to cooperate with it
in the creation of a Russian Federation, they were among the first to
respond. The relations between the Ukrainians and their Eastern neigh­
bors were not entirely devoid of friction, especially after Kaledin began
to suppress on his territory worker organizations which had considerable
Ukrainian membership; they were, however, sufficiently friendly to
frighten the Bolshevik High Command in Petrograd with the prospect
of a "Vendee" on its vulnerable southern flank. In the eyes of the Bolshe­
viks, the Rada, in permitting Don Cossack troops to cross Ukrainian terri­
tory on their way home from the front, aided the counterrevolution.
Further disagreements arose concerning Ukrainian activities at the
front. As long as the Provisional Government had controlled the Russian
Army, the Bolsheviks had done everything in their power to disorganize
and demoralize the troops fighting the Germans and Austrians, and for
that reason had openly welcomed the aid of the Ukrainian nationalists
who had demanded the creation of separate Ukrainian military units.
But once in the saddle, the Bolsheviks were not inclined to be so friendly
to such efforts. Anxious to keep the front as stable as possible, the Bol­
sheviks objected to Petliura's attempts to separate Ukrainians from the
army and to return them home. When Petliura issued instructions to the
Ukrainian soldiers serving in the Russian Army to disobey the orders of
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 119
the Soviet government and to place themselves under his command, the
relations between Petrograd and Kiev approached a breaking point.
Krylenko, then in charge of the Stavka ( Russian Army Headquarters)
countermanded Petliura's order.11
The issue which finally led to an open break were the repressive
measures which the Rada took against the Kiev Soviet at the end of
November. On receiving information that the Bolsheviks were plotting
a seizure of power by the local soviets, the Rada's General Secretariat
arrested the leading Bolshevik personalities and expelled from the city
the military units loyal to them. This action placed the Rada in complete
control of Kiev and removed the possibility of a Red rebellion. 12
The activities of the Ukrainian Rada made it clear that the Ukrainian
nationalists would not continue the policy of sympathetic neutrality
which they had adopted during October. Faced with the alternative of
violating his program of national self-determination or damaging what
he considered the best interests of the proletariat, Lenin without much
hesitation chose the former course. Orders were issued to Soviet officers
in charge of the recently seized Stavka to prepare for a campaign against
the Don Cossacks and if necessary to take action against the forces of
the Rada. The Red Commanders worked out a plan calling for the seizure
of Kharkov and Ekaterinoslav in the east, and diversionary attacks on
Kiev from the north ( Chernigov) and west ( Podolia). 13
On December 4 the General Secretariat received a formal protest
from Petrograd sent through the Stavka. It charged that the Rada's policy
of separating Ukrainian troops from Russian units, of disarming Soviet
soldiers on Ukrainian territory ( i.e., those troops whom the Bolsheviks
had hoped to use in Kiev for the abortive coup at the end of November),
and of supporting the separatist tendencies of the Don and Kuban region,
was aiding the counterrevolution and would no longer be tolerated. The
note ended with the following ultimatum:

1. Will the Central Rada stop its attempts aimed at disorganizing


the united front?
2. Will the Central Rada now agree to prevent the movement of
all troops to the Don, Ural, or other regions without the approval
of the Supreme Commander?
3. Will the Central Rada agree to aid the revolutionary army in
its fight against the counterrevolutionary Kadet-Kaledin rebellions?
4. Will the Central Rada agree to stop all attempts to disarm
Soviet regiments and the Workers' Red Guard in the Ukraine and to
return the arms at once to those who had been deprived of them?
In the event that no satisfactory answer to these questions will be
forthcoming within 48 hours, the Council of People's Commissars will
consider the Central Rada in a condition of open war against the
S oviet government in Russia and the Ukraine. 14
120 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
The General Secretariat replied to Petrograd the following day with
a Hat refusal. The Ukrainian note stressed the right of the Ukrainians to
rule themselves and accused the Bolsheviks of violating their pledges.
On the issue of the Don Cossacks, which formed the heart of the Bolshe­
vik charge, the General Secretariat stated that it had permitted the free
movement of the Don Cossacks to their homeland for the same reason
as it had allowed Russian troops to cross the Ukraine to return home, or
had demanded free passage for Ukrainian soldiers to cross Russian ter­
ritories on their way to the Ukraine. The intervention of Russian Com­
munist troops in the Don Cossack lands, however, was a different matter:
this was not demobilization and self-determination as were the other
troop movements, but war, and the Ukraine reserved the right not to
permit the passage of belligerents across its territory. 15 The note also
emphasized that the General Secretariat did not recognize the Council
of People's Commissars as the legitimate government of all Russia.
Simultaneously with their ultimatum to Kiev, the Bolsheviks made
preparations for the transfer of their forces to the Don and Kuban re­
gions. In the first two weeks of December Russian troops, composed
mainly of workers and sailors from Petrograd and Moscow, began to
pour into Kharkov, which was selected as the base of operations. V. A.
Antonov-Ovseenko, the Bolshevik commander of the Red troops which
had seized the Winter Palace in Petrograd during the October coup,
arrived in Kharkov in charge of the offensive against Kaledin and the
Ukrainians.
The rejection of the Bolshevik ultimatum by the Ukrainians did not
result in the immediate outbreak of hostilities. Throughout the month
of December Petrograd and Kiev carried on discussions, partly directly,
partly through the Ukrainian delegates to the All-Russian Congress of
Peasants held in Petrograd. At the beginning of December, Zinoviev
arrived in Kiev for talks; 16 a week later a delegation of pro-Bolshevik
Ukrainian peasant representatives came there for the same purpose. 17
But all attempts at a peaceful solution of the impending conflict failed,
and it is difficult to see how it could have been otherwise, since nothing
short of an actual surrender of all sovereign rights on the part of the
General Secretariat would have satisfied the Bolshevik demands. While
these discussions were still in progress, the Bolshevik press began to lay
down a heavy barrage of invective and threat against the Rada, but
before taking direct action the Soviet government decided to see what
the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets would bring.
The Congresses of Soviets, which, according to Bolshevik formulae,
performed the functions of constituent assemblies of the new regime,
were not institutions with a formal system of organization and repre­
sentation. There were no fixed norms for selecting the delegates, no
standard operating procedures, and no agreed-upon methods of selecting
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 12 1
presidia. Consequently, the congresses were generally unrepresentative
of the regions which they were supposed to rule. Both in 1905 and in
1917, the majmity of socialists, including the followers of Lenin, had
regarded the soviets as organs of proletarian opinion or weapons of
pressure upon the government, and not as institutions of political rule.
Only after Lenin had realized their importance as instruments of attain­
ing power, did they assume a larger role. They were ill-equipped to
perform the legislative and executive functions which the Bolshevik coup
had thrust upon them. The Bolsheviks took advantage of the irregulari­
ties in the structure of the soviets to seize control of the key positions in
them in many regions of Russia and to maneuver them to suit their own
purposes. The average worker, peasant, or soldier cared little about this
constitutional imperfection. He was far more interested in what was done
to satisfy his demands than in how it was done or by whom. Such an
attitude facilitated the Bolshevik task. But there were instances when a
determined opponent of the Bolsheviks could also take advantage of this
situation for his own benefit. This occurred in the Ukraine.
The Rada had at first intended to boycott the Bolshevik-sponsored
Congress of Soviets, but then it changed its mind and issued instructions
to all Ukrainian provincial organizations to dispatch to Kiev as many
delegates as possible. Obeying this directive, virtually every Ukrainian
cooperative and military and political organization in the country sent
at least one representative, with the result that on the appointed day the
Ukrainian delegates simply flooded Kiev. When the Congress of Soviets
opened, 2,500 delegates demanded admission. The handful of Bolshevik
representatives present - a hundred at most - was lost in the crowd
of pro-Rada deputies. Unable to prevent them from participating, the
Kievan Bolsheviks hoped to attain their ends - the proclamation of
Soviet rule in the Ukraine - by means of skillful direction of the Con­
gress, but the Bolshevik self-appointed directing committee had barely
taken its seat and opened the meeting, when a group of USR leaders, sur­
rounded by an armed retinue, entered the assembly ·-hall and ejected the
Bolshevik chairman bodily from the podium. The direction of the Con­
gress thus passed into the hands of Rada supporters. 18
The new chairman placed before the Congress the issue of the Bolshe­
vik ultimatum which had arrived in Kiev that same day. The reading of
the Petrograd note evoked a storm of protests. Even some Bolsheviks,
apparently taken by surprise and unaware of Lenin's intention to bring
the crisis with the Rada to a head, apologized before the Congress and
called the ultimatum a "misunderstanding." 19 The Congress adopted a
strong resolution condemning the action of the Bolshevik government:
Considering the ultimatum of the Council of People's Commissars
an attack on the Ukrainian People's Republic, and declaring that the
demands voiced in it violate the right of the Ukrainian people to
122 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
self-determination and to a f!ee creation of forms of political life, the
All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets of Peasants', Workers', and Soldiers'
Deputies resolves that the centralistic plans of the present govern­
ment of Moscow ( Great Russia), by leading to war between Mus­
covy and the Ukraine, threaten to break completely the federal rela­
tions which Ukrainian democracy strives to establish.
At a time when the democracy of the entire world, led by the
vanguard units of international socialism, is fighting for the attain­
ment of general peace, which alone will provide the peasant and
proletarian masses with an opportunity to struggle successfully for
the interests of the toilers, the threat of a new fratricidal war an­
nounced by the Council of People's Commissars to the Ukraine,
destroys the brotherhood of the laboring classes of all nations,
awakens the manifestations of national animosity, and obscures the
class-consciousness of the masses, in this manner favoring the
growth of the counterrevolution.
Declaring that the reply of the General Secretariat given on
December 17 [New Style] is the proper answer to the attempt of the
People's Commissars to violate the rights of the Ukrainian peasants,
workers, and soldiers, the All-Ukrainian Congress of Peasants', Work­
ers', and Soldiers' Deputies deems it necessary to take all measures in
order to prevent the spilling of brotherly blood and appeals warmly
to the peoples of Russia to stop, with all means at their disposal, the
possibility of a new shameful war. 20

This was an unmistakable rebuke to the Bolsheviks. The Bolshevik


delegates, enraged by the unexpected turn of events, demanded that the
deputies vote on a resolution of their own proclaiming the entire Con­
gress a "meaningless show." When the majority refused to do so, the
Bolsheviks walked out of the Congress, followed by some fellow-travelers
of the Left USR. The entire group, some 150 delegates, departed for
Kharkov, which, with the inflow of Red troops from the north, was being
transformed into an alternate capital of the Ukraine, loyal to the Bol­
shevik regime.
While the Congress of Soviets did not accurately reflect the actual
political sympathies of the Ukrainians, since it represented not the popu­
lation at large but ill-defined political institutions and organizations, there
can be little doubt that the Ukrainian parties had a more numerous fol­
lowing in December 1917, than they had had before the October Revolu­
tion. One of the main causes for this change was the disintegration of the
Russian middle-of-the-road socialist parties in the fall of 1917, and the
transfer of a considerable portion of their following to the Ukrainians.
The political primacy of the USD's and USR's in the heart of the Ukraine
manifested itself in the elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assem­
bly held in December 1917. Those two parties, running on a joint ticket,
received the largest number of votes in the provinces of Kiev ( 6oo,ooo
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 123
votes of a total 850,000), Podolia ( 596,000 votes), Poltava, and Ekaterino­
slav. In the city of Kiev they received approximately twice the number
of votes which they had won in the July elections to the city dumas. In
Kherson the USR's, running on a joint ticket with the Russian SR's, also
received the largest number of votes. In the province of Kharkov, how­
ever, the pro-Ukrainian vote was insignificant. 21
The "soft" policies of the right-wing factions of the Kievan Bolsheviks
having ended in a fiasco, the left wing now took over. Upon their arrival
in Kharkov, the Bolshevik deputies who had walked out of the All­
Ukrainian Congress of Soviets joined the Bolshevik-controlled Congress
of Soviets of the Donets and Krivoi Rog Basins, meeting at Kharkov at
the time; and together, on December 11, they formed a new All-Ukrain­
ian Congress of Soviets. This rump group appointed a Central Executive
Committee, which announced that it was henceforth to be considered as
the sole legal government of the entire Ukraine. The new "government,"
composed of Kiev and Kharkov Bolsheviks, first of all sent a telegram to
Petrograd in which it pledged its allegiance to the Soviet government,
and declared all the decrees of the Russian Council of People's Commis­
sars to be applicable to the Ukraine. 22 On December 12, with the aid of
freshly arrived worker and sailor detachments from Moscow, the Kharkov
Bolsheviks accomplished a coup against the other socialist groups and
seized power in the city. The split between the Bolsheviks and the
Ukrainian nationalists was now complete, and the outbreak of an
armed conflict was only a matter of time.
The new strategy of the Bolsheviks consisted of raising local rebellions
throughout the Ukraine and employing returning soldiers and friendly
worker organizations in the seizure of power. In the middle of December
clashes between Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Red troops occurred in many
towns. The local soviets seized power in Odessa ( December 12 ) , Eka­
terinoslav ( December 26-8), and elsewhere. The only town in which an
attempted Bolshevik coup failed was Kiev, where the Rada disposed of
strong detachments and the pro-Soviet troops had been expelled at the
end of November. Lenin for a time had hoped to acquire Kiev by mak­
ing an alliance with a Left USR group which was to take over the Rada
and expel the anti-Soviet elements, but this plot failed when the Rada got
wind of it and arrested the ringleaders of the conspiracy. 23 The only
remaining way to dispose of the Rada was to employ the military forces
assembled in Kharkov and to strike directly at the heart of Ukrainian
resistance.
The General Secretariat, although well aware of the dangers besetting
it, took no definite course of action to meet them. The minutes of a secret
session of the General Secretariat held on December 15, several days after
a rival Soviet Ukrainian government had been formed in Kharkov, indi­
cate that the leaders of the Ukrainian forces were utterly confused and
124 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
had no notion what to do. There were complaints that the General Secre­
tariat lacked money and consequently could not dispatch agitators with
which to keep its own troops in line; that it had no general plan of
action; and, above all, that the Ukrainian soldiers were becoming less and
less reliable under the influence of Bolshevik propaganda. A Special
Commission for the Defense of the Ukraine was formed, but there was
little hope of successful resistance. 24
On January 4/17, 1918, the Kharkov Bolsheviks proclaimed the Rada
"an enemy of the people" and the next day a number of detachments of
Antonov-Ovseenko's command left Kharkov in the direction of Poltava;
They consisted of units of so-called "Red Cossacks," organized by the
Kharkov government of pro-Communist Ukrainians; of a Red Guard,
formed in Kharkov of various local elements, with criminal groups pre­
dominating; and finally of a hard core of Russian workers, soldiers, and
sailors sent from the north, who composed the bulk of the invading
force. 2 5 The over-all command of this motley army was entrusted to
Lieutenant Colonel Muraviev, an ex-officer of the Tsarist Army of Left
SR sympathies whom Antonov-Ovseenko had appointed a member of his
staff. The entire group consisted of 600 to Boo men,2 6 but its battle
strength was greater, for it was preceded by Bolshevik agents dispatched
from Kharkov to organize fifth columns in the regions lying on the path
of the army. 2 7 Muraviev, whose ultimate destination was Kiev, took a
route leading across the southern fringes of the Chernigov province,
where the Bolsheviks had considerable party following in the railroad
towns. The march on Poltava presented no difficulties. Only on the very
outskirts of the city were the Soviet forces met by small detachments of
Ukrainian troops, but those were easily dispersed and on January 6/19,
Poltava was occupied. M uraviev lost no time in informing the local
citizens of his mission:
Citizens! The Civil War has started. The Civil War goes on. From
the Baltic to the Black Sea across the Danube towards Vienna, Ber­
lin, Paris, and London we shall march with fire and sword, establish­
ing everywhere Soviet power. With fire and sword we shall destroy
everything which will dare to stand on our way. There will be no
mercy for any of our enemies. 28
To instill further terror, the Bolshevik Commander issued proclama­
tions reporting fictitious executions of nonexistent people, and dispersed
the Poltava Soviet's numerous Socialist Revolutionary and Menshevik
members, replacing them with his own soldiers. The Red troops in the
captured town went on a wild orgy, which Muraviev himself described
as a "drunken bacchanalia." 29
Such statements and actions on the part of the commander of the
Soviet army invading the Ukraine were hardly calculated to win the s ym-
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 125
pathies of the population for the Soviet cause. But the forces loyal to the
Rada were badly demoralized. During the early months of the Civil War
the population at large was confused, bewildered, hesitant. A good agita­
tor was worth hundreds of armed men; he could sway enemy troops and
thus at times decide crucial conflicts. 30 The Bolsheviks, in preparing to
invade the domain of the Rada, were well aware of this, and spared
neither money nor personnel to infiltrate into the Ukrainian military units
which Petliura had stationed in the northeastern region adjacent to the
Kiev province in anticipation of a Red Army strike. The Ukrainian troops
were composed entirely of volunteers whose political consciousness was
quite undeveloped, and who were easily influenced by propaganda. Bol­
shevik agitators had considerable success in persuading the soldiers that
they could best serve Ukrainian interests by joining the invaders, and
many of those who did so were, according to one of the Bolshevik agents,
not at all aware "that [the establishment of] the Soviet Ukraine was the
result of their own armed struggle in alliance with Soviet Russia, con­
trary to the wishes of the Central Rada and in opposition to it." 3 1
The advance of the Red troops was considerably eased by the work
of such agitators. Whole Ukrainian detachments on which the Rada had
relied for the defense of Kiev, either passed to the invaders or else re­
fused to move to the front. A large number of units from the two original
Ukrainian volunteer regiments, the Bohdan Khmelnitskii and Polubot­
kovskii, as well as a Taras Shevchenko detachment, went over to the
Red Army.32
After the capture of Poltava, Muraviev directed the Kharkov Red
Guard detachments to turn south and seize Kremenchug. He himself,
leading the main Red forces, which were increasing daily with the addi­
tion of local Red Guards of soldiers who had deserted Ukrainian units,
and of other pro-Bolshevik elements, turned northward, to Grebenka.
From there he moved on to Kiev along the Kursk-Kiev railroad line.
The Ukrainians, whose troops were concentrated in this area, put up a
stiff fight. At the railroad station of Kruty a major battle took place
which lasted several days. The Reds finally won and resumed their march
on the Ukrainian capital.
While the Red troops were advancing, the General Secretariat issued
its Fourth and last Universal ( January 9/22, 1918 ), in which it pro­
claimed the independence of the Ukraine. 33
At the same time the remnant of the local Bolshevik party decided to
foment an uprising in Kiev, despite orders from the Kharkov Bolsheviks
to the contrary.34 The Communists seized control of the Kiev arsenal on
January 16/29, and for several days successfully resisted the Ukrainian
troops, but eventually Petliura's men, augmented by units retreating into
Kiev from the front, gained the upper hand. The Reds surrendered, and
a large majority of them were slaughtered by the Ukrainian soldiers.85
126 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
On January 26/February 8, 1918, the Red Army marched into Kiev, and
the leaders of the Rada with the remaining loyal troops fled. Soon after­
wards the Soviet government of the Ukraine moved from Kharkov to
Kiev.
The Communist Party of the Ukraine:
Its Formation and Early Activity (1918)
The Bolshevik government established in the Ukraine in January 1918
was a failure. First of all, it was a regime founded on sheer military force
without the active support or even the sympathy of the Ukrainian people.
Muraviev, in his dispatch to Lenin reporting the capture of Kiev, frankly
referred to the regime as one "established by means of bayonets." 36 To
make matters worse, the behavior of the Red Army conquerors in the
Ukraine not only failed to win new adherents for the Soviet cause, but
even alienated those groups of tlie population who at first were not
averse to the reestablishment of Russian rule. The invading army con­
sisted largely of Russian industrial workers - who looked upon rough
and ready methods of dealing with opposition, real and imaginary, as
the best way of completing the "job" they had been assigned - and of
criminal elements, enlisted in the so-called Red Guard, who took advan­
tage of the war to pillage, loot, and murder at will. Discipline was ex­
tremely lax. The Red soldiers were frequently drunk, and organized
pogroms against the local population which their commanders had no
means of curbing. Nor did Muraviev himself help the situation. An un­
balanced, sadistic megalomaniac, who, according to Antonov-Ovseenko,
delighted in talking without end about "the How of blood," 37 he issued
orders to "annihilate without mercy all officers and junkers, haidamaks,
monarchists, and all enemies of the revolution found in Kiev." 38 At a
time when there were no courts to distinguish between "friends" of the
revolution and its "enemies," this ordinance left much room for the sol­
diery to exercise freely its vodka-stimulated passions upon the defense­
less population.
No one knew better than the Ukrainian Communists who followed the
conquering Russian armies how deeply such behavior would alienate the
people, but they were powerless to take preventive measures, in part
because they had no real strength and were fully dependent on the mili­
tary to get them to Kiev, and in part because they were hopelessly
divided among themselves. The history of the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine
is one of endless internal quarrels. There were arguments over the terri­
tory within which each group was to operate; there were "deals" between
some factions directed against others; there were petitions to the various
"bosses" in Moscow and exploitation of rivalries among them for the
purpose of gaining local supremacy. In all these controversies the in-
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUS SIA 127
terests of the masses of the population, for whose ultimate benefit the
entire Communist effort was allegedly made, were treated as only one
of the numerous factors which had to be considered in the struggle for
power. It is characteristic of the Bolshevik mentality that, in objecting
to the excesses of the invading Red Army, the Ukrainian Communists
did not denounce the behavior of Muraviev and his troops as inhuman,
but as a tactical mistake which had alienated the population whose sup­
port was needed for the proper functioning of the government. Lenin,
too, when he intervened, did so for the sake of the smoother operation
of the party and its governmental organs, and not out of any concern for
the welfare of the inhabitants.
The trouble had started with the arrival in Kharkov of Red troops
from Moscow early in December 1917. The Kharkov Revolutionary Com­
mittee ( Revkom) , was then dominated by a group of aggressive Bol­
sheviks, composed largely of Latvian and Russian workers, headed by
F. A. Artem ( Sergeev), an able and energetic Bolshevik of long standing.
The commanders of the Red detachment paid little attention to the local
Revkom and proceeded at once to arrest local citizens, exact contribu­
tions, disarm Ukrainian troops present in the city, and take other repres­
sive measures against the "counterrevolution," all without so inuch as
consulting the Kharkov Bolsheviks. Artem and his colleagues naturally
resented this, and jealous of their authority, made strong remonstrances,
but to no avail. Antonov-Ovseenko, contemptuous of the "softness" of the
Revkom, ignored pleas that he respect its prerogatives and take into
account the "peculiar conditions of the Ukraine." 39
When the Kievan Bolsheviks arrived in Kharkov following their walk­
out from the unsuccessful All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, Antonov­
Ovseenko, hoping to find a political counterweight to the Kharkov Bol­
sheviks, established amicable relations with them. Soon, however, they
too turned against him. The Kievans were dissatisfied with the slowness
of his preparations for an attack against the Central Rada; they were
eager to return to Kiev and they voiced objections to the fact that the
bulk of the Red forces were being thrown not against the Ukrainian
nationalists but against Ataman Kaledin on the Don. 40 The disputes
between the Kievans and Antonov-Ovseenko, who in the meantime had
been appointed Soviet Commissar of War, came to a head over the be­
havior of the army in the territory which it conquered from the Rada
once the invasion had got underway. The activities of Muraviev, and
especially his public speeches, were so distasteful to the Kievan govern­
ment-in-exile that it published in the Kharkov press official announce­
ments disclaiming any responsibility for his political statements.41 When
the Red officers began to remove officials appointed by the Bolshevik
Ukrainian Executive Committee and to replace them with their own
128 THE F O RMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
personnel, the Kievans took their protests to Lenin himself, and Lenin
intervened on their behalf with a telegram "To the People's Commissar,
Antonov [ -Ovseenko]":
As a result of complaints of the People's Commissariat [of the
Ukraine] concerning friction between you and the Central Executive
Committee of the Ukraine, I request that you inform me about your
point of view on the matter; on the whole, our interference in the
internal affairs of the Ukraine, except as it is imperative for military
reasons, is undesirable. It is more convenient to put various measures
into effect through organs of local government, and in general, it
would be best if all misunderstandings were solved on the spot.42
Since Antonov-Ovseenko did not reply, Lenin followed the telegram with
a letter, dated January 21/February 3, 1918:
Comrade Antonovl I have received from the Central Executive
Committee ( Kharkov) a complaint against you. I regret very much
that my request for an explanation on your part did not reach you.
Please get in touch with me as soon as possible by direct wire -
by [numbers?] one or two through Kharkov - so that we may talk
to the point and clear things up. For heaven's sake, apply every
effort to remove all and every friction with the Central Executive
Committee ( Kharkov). This is super-important for the sake of the
state. For heaven's sake, make up with them and grant them any
sovereignty. I strongly request you remove the commissars whom you
have appointed.
I hope very, very much that you will fulfill my request and will
attain absolute peace with the Kharkov Central Executive Commit­
tee. Here there is needed national super-tact.
On the occasion of victories over Kaledin and Co. I send you my
warmest greetings and wishes and regards. Hurrah and Hurrah! I
shake your hand.
Your Lenin.43
The friction between Kharkov and Kiev Communists on the one hand,
and the Red Commander and his staff on the other, was of brief duration
and terminated with the successful close of the Ukrainian campaign.
After the seizure of Kiev, Antonov-Ovseenko, confident that the Ukrain­
ian Central Rada was completely destroyed, ordered one part of the
troops fighting in the Ukraine to the Don Theater of Operations, and
dispatched the remainder, of which Muraviev was made Commander, to
the so-called Southwestern or Rumanian front.
Now, however, a new and more serious struggle developed, this time
within the Ukrainian Communist organization itself. Its causes lay in
certain peculiarities of the Ukrainian historical development. Since the
Ukraine had never been an independent state with a definite territory,
the name, "Ukraine" was used loosely during the Revolution to denote
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 129
the region located in the southwestern part o f the Russian Empire. Where
this country began and where it ended was anybody's guess. Differences
of opinion on the subject became strikingly evident under the Provisional
Government, in the summer of 1917, when the Rada had defined the
Ukraine as a land encompassing nine or even twelve provinces, while
Petrograd had thought in terms of a mere five provinces. The disputed
areas lay on the left bank of the Dnieper River, in the provinces of
Kharkov, Ekaterinoslav, Taurida, and Kherson. These provinces were in
part industrialized, and their cities populated with Russians who had
migrated from the north relatively recently. The proletarian elements
there were almost entirely Great Russian or fully Russi:6.ed, and although
the rural population consisted of Ukrainian-speaking peasants, this entire
territory had historically, ethnically, culturally, as well as economically,
as much in common with Moscow as with Kiev.
This fact was reflected in the organizational development of the Bol­
shevik Party. In 1917 there were two Bolshevik Party regional organiza­
tions operating in the territory of the later Soviet Ukraine, one in Kiev,
another in Kharkov. At All-Russian Bolshevik Party Congresses in 1917,
the two groups participated independently of each other. The Kievan
group, controlling the Southwestern Region, was the smaller of the two,
with approximately 7,800 members, whereas the Kharkov group, with its
organizations spread over the industrialized towns of the Donets and
Krivoi Rog regions, had more than double that number ( 15,800 ) .44
When the majority of the Kievan Bolsheviks had conducted a "soft"
policy toward the Ukrainian Rada (fall 1917 ) , the Kharkov Reds had
refused to follow them. In December 1917 at the Bolshevik Conference
held in Kiev, the two centers formed a joint Regional Party Committee
( Kraevoi Partiinyi Komitet ) .45
Throughout 1918 and part of 1919 the two groups continued to dis­
play divergent tendencies. When the Kievans had arrived at Kharkov in
December 1917, the local Revkom had let them know at once that they
would not be allowed to interfere in the affairs of the provinces located
on the left bank of the Dnieper, and that in general they were unwel­
come.46 The hostility of the Kharkov group toward the Kievan Bolsheviks
was mainly motivated by the fear that if a Soviet Ukrainian Republic
were actually established, its political center would be located in Kiev,
and that subsequently all the remaining party organizations on Ukrainian
territory, including those of Kharkov, would be compelled to subordinate
themselves to the Kievan Communist apparatus. When the Ukrainian
Soviet government had been formed in December, the Kharkov group
had consented to join its Executive Committee only on the condition that
"its people" were given a proper number of important posts .47 There were
quarrels between the two groups over office space, over the name to be
given to the new government ( whether to use the word "Ukrainian" or
1 30 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
not ) , and over many other issues, big and small. The arrival of Antonov­
Ovseenko had only temporarily swayed the balance of power in favor
of the Kievans, with whom the Red Commander made common cause.
The Bolshevik Central Committee, anxious to preserve unity, requested
the Georgian Communist, Grigorii Ordzhonikidze, on his way to Eka­
terinoslav to supervise the collection of food, to stop in Kharkov to recon­
cile the warring parties.48 There is no evidence that he succeeded in
carrying out this part of his mission.
In January 1918 the Kharkov Communists, with their colleagues from
Ekaterinoslav and the other industrial centers of that territory, decided
to terminate the interference of their Kievan comrades, and to free them­
selves, once and for all, from the "Ukrainian chauvinism" of the right­
bank Communists. They called together a Congress of Soviets of the
left-bank provinces, and there, despite protests from Mykola Skrypnyk
and some other Ukrainian Communists, founded a separate "Donets­
Krivoi Rog Soviet Republic," 49 This meant, in effect, that the Soviet
Ukraine was deprived of its industrial territories and divided into two
parts with separate governments and separate capitals.
It is difficult to say how long Moscow would have permitted such an
anomalous situation to exist. But the two "governments" had barely been
established when the territory of the Ukraine proper was occupied by
the German and Austro-Hungarian armies, and both groups had to seek
refuge in Russia.
The Bolshevik military command, and even the political leaders in
Moscow, had been so firmly convinced that the capture of Kiev signified
the end of resistance on the part of the Ukrainian Rada that they had
not given much thought to the possibility of a Ukrainian-German agree­
ment.50 But this is precisely what happened. The Rada, since December,
had had a delegation in attendance at the Brest Litovsk discussions. The
diplomats of the Central Powers, sensing the advantages to be derived
from splitting the parties sitting across the discussion table from them,
had entered into separate negotiations with the representatives of the
Ukrainian Rada. On January 26/February 8, 1918, the very day when
Red troops occupied Kiev, the Ukrainians reached an agreement with
the Central Powers providing for the latter's occupation of the Ukraine.
The German and Austro-Hungarian armies marched in a few days later.
The Soviet forces were incapable of offering even token resistance.
As soon as news of the occupation had reached Kiev, all government and
party organizations began feverishly to evacuate eastward. During the
twenty days the Soviet Ukrainian government had been in control of
Kiev, it had not had the time to establish its authority over the country.
The Germans entered the city on February 18/March 3, 1918, one week
after the panic-stricken Communists had departed for Poltava.
The return of the Rada and the military occupation of the Ukraine
THE UKRAINE AND BE LORUSSIA
completely altered the situation, and provided the local Bolsheviks with
a subject for renewed disagreements. The Kharkov Bolsheviks were not
at all unhappy over the plight of their Kievan comrades. Rather, they
applauded their own wisdom in having formed a distinct republic, and
interpreted the destruction of the Ukrainian Soviet government as an
excellent opportunity for a Rnal break with the Kievans. "Economically
our basin is connected with the Petrograd Republic," mused one of their
press editorials on March 6, 1918, shortly after the German armies
entered the city of Kiev, "politically it is also more convenient for us to
join the Russian federation. The conditions of national life in the prov­
inces of Kharkov and Ekaterinoslav also do not tie us to the Ukraine. The
proletariat of the Donets Republic must focus all its efforts in the direc­
tion of asserting its autonomy and independence from the Ukraine." 5 1
In March and April two basic tendencies - left and right - crystal­
lized quite clearly among the Bolsheviks operating in Ukrainian territory.
The left was dominated by Kievan Bolsheviks ( who in 1917 had belonged
to what then was termed the right wing ) . It desired an active policy
of underground work and partisan warfare against the Rada and its Ger­
man protectors and insisted on the revolutionary potentialities of the
Ukrainian population. Its tactics called for an alliance with the peasant
masses in that country. The right ( which in 1917 had constituted the
left wing ) , on the other hand, argued that the Ukraine, having no prole­
tariat, was incapable of systematic revolutionary activity, and that the
reestablishment of Soviet rule there had to await the outbreak of the
world revolution. The latter faction was led by Bolsheviks from Kharkov
and Ekaterinoslav. In consequence of their stress on the national revolu­
tion, the leftists desired the formation of a united Ukrainian Communist
Party, which would merge the organizations of the southwestern terri­
tory with those of the Donets-Krivoi Rog Basin, and remain distinct from
the Russian Communist Party. The rightists, on the other hand, oriented
as they were toward Moscow, opposed such tendencies as separatist. 5 2
In time the two factions began to reflect ever more clearly the internal
contradictions of Ukrainian Bolshevism. The left stood for a peasant­
based revolution, and for a certain measure of interparty democracy; the
right, for a strictly proletarian movement, and for complete subordination
to the central party organs in Moscow. 0
The victory, for the time being, went to the left. At the Second All­
Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, held in Ekaterinoslav in March 1918, this
group succeeded in compelling the right to give up the idea of a
separate Donets-Krivoi Rog Republic and agree to the inclusion of their
territory and the territories of the two other Soviet republics which had
0 It is probably no accident that the leader of the left, Piatakov, was "tried" and

executed as a Trotskyist twenty years later, while Artem, who headed the right,
has been given a prominent place in the Stalinist Pantheon.
1 32 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
arisen since 1917 ( Odessa and the Crimea) in a single Ukrainian Soviet
Republic. There is some evidence
' that the influence of Lenin was instru-
mental in terminating the shortlived but potentially explosive dual re-
gime. 53 At this Congress the Ukraine was also proclaimed an independent
Soviet republic. According to early Communist sources this step was
taken for purely tactical reasons. The left faction, which dominated tlie
Congress, was opposed to the Brest Litovsk Treaty, and hoped that b,y
proclaiming Ukrainian independence from Soviet Russia it could 9ori­
tinue to fight against the German invaders, without involving Russia in
a war with the Central Powers. 54
The left continued to dominate the party apparatus at the Taganrog
Conference of Ukrainian Bolsheviks ( or Communists, as they formally
called themselves henceforth) which met in April 1918. A Communist
Party of the Ukraine - KP ( b)U - was formed by merging the two sepa­
rate organizations heretofore operating on Ukrainian territory. This party,
in accordance with the resolutions of the Conference, was to be inde­
pendent of the Russian Communist Party and was to join the Third In­
ternational.55 Plans were made to call together an All-Ukrainian Party
Congress and to undertake extensive underground work, but before any
of those projects could be carried out the Germans had extended their
occupation to the left-bank regions of the Ukraine, including Kharkov
and Ekaterinoslav. The Ukrainian Communists were compelled to flee to
Moscow.
Both factions utilized the period between the Taganrog Conference
in April and the First Congress of the Communist Party of the Ukraine,
which took place in Moscow at the beginning of June, to win support
from the leading members of the Communist hierarchy. The opinion of
Lenin was especially important. It is nearly impossible to ascertain now
what Lenin's views on this subject really were; for after his death, both
sides claimed that they had had his backing. 56 The Kremlin had some
reasons to throw its support behind the leftists, because they understood
much better the importance of an alliance with the Ukrainian peasantry
and stood closer to Lenin on the issue of the minority policy than did the
rights. On the other hand, however, the leftists came dangerously near
the views of the Russian Left SR's on the question of the Brest Litovsk
Treaty and the continuation of the war against Germany. Their policy of
active underground movement against the occupants 0f the Ukraine
threatened to lead to the resumption of hostilities with the Central Pow­
ers, a danger Lenin wanted at all costs to avoid. In view of the impor­
tance of this issue, Lenin perhaps tended on the whole to agree with the
rightists. M. Maiorov, one of the leaders of the left, is probably correct in
stating that Lenin trusted neither one nor the other faction, considering
the rightists to be opportunists, and the leftists hot-heads. 57 Trotsky, ac­
cording to Maiorov, supported the rights and refused to issue arms and
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 1 33
ammunition to the partisans who had been recruited for resistance by
th� left. 58 Stalin, on the other hand, as far as one can judge on the basis
of an article written in March 1918 and some of his actions later in the
year, supported the left and urged a "patriotic war" against the invading
Germans in the Ukraine. 59
Whatever his own predilections, Lenin finally settled on a compro­
mise. He approved the demand of the left for the creation of a Central
Revolutionary Committee to command the consolidated underground
forces operating in the Ukraine, but fully applied the weight of his great
prestige in convincing the leftists to act cautiously and to avoid provok­
ing Germany into a resumption of hostilities. 60 He also urged the two
factions to come together, and to create a Ukrainian Communist Central
Committee composed of representatives of both. 61
The leftists owed their temporary supremacy not only to the assistance
of Lenin on certain crucial issues between them and their rivals, but also
to their alliance with some radical, non-Bolshevik parties operating in the
Ukraine. This alliance was a direct result of the short-sighted, incon­
siderate policy applied by the German occupation forces toward the
Ukrainian peasantry.
The main motive which had induced the German High Command to
occupy the Ukraine was the prospect of securing large food supplies £or
their blockaded and hungry homeland. Even before they had signed the
treaty with the Ukrainians, they bluntly insisted that the Rada should
promise to provide, within a space of several months, one million tons
of cereals. 62 The Ukrainian politicians, well aware of the mood of the
Ukrainian peasantry, recoiled at the thought of such promises, which
were certain to be highly unpopular, but they were in no position to
bargain and had to give in. 63 As soon as they had entered the Ukraine,
the Germans began to collect large qua_ntities of foodstuffs to dispatch
westward. The peasants in many areas resisted them passively and in
some areas actively. German units were attacked by angry peasants and
disarmed, whereupon the GerIJ1an Command turned to the Rada, de­
manding that it maintain order and keep the population under control.
The Rada was scarcely in a position to do either. Violent quarrels be­
tween the more radical elements of the USD and USR, on the one hand,
and the nationalist wjng, inclined to collaborate with the occupant, on
the other, paralyzed the Rada completely. 64 Finally the Germans, disap­
pointed at the impotence and socialist leanings of the Rada, on whose
active cooperation they had previously counted, decided to get rid of
the useless ally. One day, at the end of April 1918, German soldiers
entered the hall where the Central Rada was holding its session, and
ordered all those present to disperse. 65 Thus the Ukrainian Central Rada,
after one year of stormy history, came to an inglorious end.
The occupying power replaced the disbanded Rada with a puppet
1 34 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
government headed by Hetman Pavlo Skoropadski, an ex-officer of the
Tsarist Army and a commandant of Free Cossack detachments loyal to
the Ukrainian movement. Food-collecting now proceeded more rapidly,
unhampered by dissident voices of Ukrainian politicians. But resistance
among the peasantry continued, and the Germans took to repressive
measures. Collective fines and the shooting of hostages, at times at the
rate of ten Ukrainians for one German, became common practice. Field
courts were introduced to deal summarily with the local population,
when it tried to prevent the troops from carrying out their orders. 66
German civil authorities in the Ukraine protested to Berlin against the
brutality of the military command and urged that the interests and
moods of the population be taken into account, but with little effect.67
From the middle of 1918 the entire Ukraine became the scene of a
growing peasant rebellion, which was to hold the country in its bloody
grip for nearly two years.
The German behavior in the occupied regions provided an excellent
opportunity for the Bolsheviks to win a foothold in the Ukraine. In June
1918 there was a further break within the USD and USR parties; the
left-wing elements of both passed over to the Bolsheviks and participated
in the Second All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. The Left USR's even
formed a separate party under the name Ukrainian Socialist Revolution­
ary Fighters ( USR Borotbisty, or simply Borotbisty, as they were hence­
forth called). In Ekaterinoslav, at the Congress of Soviets which had
proclaimed the establishment of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, there
were more Ukrainian and Russian Left SR's in attendance than there
were Bolsheviks. 68
By virtue of their views on the role of the Ukrainian peasantry and
the need for active resistance to the German occupation, the leftists in
the Ukrainian Communist movement had greater affinities to the radical
defectors from the defunct Rada than their rivals. This explains the
superiority which the left could attain over the right, dependent as the
latter was for its strength on the industrial centers of the occupied terri­
tories.
The First Congress of the newly formed KP ( b)U met in Moscow at
the beginning of June 1918. The debates between the rights and lefts
flared up once more, and the leftists again won, though with slender
majorities, on the issue of revolutionary activity in the Ukraine. A Cen­
tral Committee, composed almost exclusively of leftists, was created, and
subordinate to it, a Revolutionary Committee to direct the conspiratorial
and partisan work.69 On one very important issue, however, the leftists
lost. In April, at the Taganrog Conference they had succeeded in pass­
ing a resolution stating that the KP ( b )U was an independent Communist
party, separate from the RKP ( b ) , and able to join the Third Interna-
THE UKRAINE A N D B E L ORUS S I A 135
tional on a par with foreign Communist parties. Such independence in
party matters Lenin would not tolerate. Homogeneity of the Communist
movement and strict unity of its command had been cardinal tenets of
his long before he had come to power, and perhaps the only principles
to which he had remained loyal throughout his life. The summer of
1918 was a period when Moscow undertook to bring into line th�
numerous provincial Communist party organizations which had grown
up in the course of the Revolution and early Civil War, and which had
taken advantage of the lack of contact between the center and the
borderlands to attain local autonomy.
The long debates over the status of the Ukrainian party took place
behind closed doors. When the delegates finally emerged from their
meeting, it was announced that the KP ( b ) U was henceforth to function
as a constituent part of the Russian Communist Party, and to carry out
all orders emanating from the RKP's Central Committee. The KP ( b ) U
would, as a consequence, have no separate representation at the Third ,
International. 70 This was an unmistakable victory for the rightists.
Unmindful of their defeat on the organizational question, the leftists
proceeded at once to prepare for the uprising in the Ukraine. Members
of the Revolutionary Committee were dispatched there to get in touch
with the peasant partisan leaders. 7 1 Arms were purchased from German
soldiers. Contact was established with the Bolshevik cells that had man­
aged to survive German repression. Everything seemed to proceed
smoothly, insuring the success of a mass rebellion, capable of overthrow­
ing the Skoropadski regime and forcing the Germans to evacuate the
Ukraine. The Bolshevik underground considered the time ripe :
The general political conditions at that time were most favorable
[sic!] . German rule, violence, and the indemnities which the con­
querors widely imposed, tortures, mass executions, punitive expedi­
tions, the burning of villages, the destruction of all peasant and
worker organizations, the nullification of all the achievements of the
Revolution, starvation wages, ruined enterprises, the high price of
all necessities, and, finally, the complete return to the landowners
and factory proprietors of all their previous privileges - all this pro­
vided splendid soil for the widespread growth of the revolutionary
movement and for the development of an active will to fight among
the masses. 72
On August 5, 1918, the Revolutionary Committee of the KP ( b )U issued
its Order Number 1, calling for a general uprising in the Ukraine. 73
Despite its favorable prospects the August 1918 Ukrainian rebellion
was an utter fiasco. The Bolshevik defeat was even more disastrous than
the most determined opponents of the left faction had reason to antici­
pate. The sporadic, half-hearted uprisings which occurred throughout the
136 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIE T UNION

country were easily suppressed by the Germans. In the Poltava province,


where the Communists had counted on scores of thousands of peasants
to take to arms, only one hundred obeyed their call; in most of the re­
maining regions there was no response at all. In the northern part of the
Chernigov province alone did the uprising achieve some success, but
not enough to save the situation. 74 The leftists had obviously overesti­
mated their ability to organize the spontaneous peasant disorders which
German policies had provoked into a mass rebellion, and their penalty
for making this mistake was loss of control over the party apparatus.
In October 1918 the Second Congress of the KP ( b)U met in Moscow.
This time the rightists, supported by Kamenev, who spoke at the Congress
as the representative of the Central Committee of the RKP, won a de­
cisive victory. Kamenev joined the rights in criticizing as highly danger­
ous the left-wing tactic of dependence on the partisan peasant move­
ment. He also insisted, with the backing of the right, that all Soviet forces
presently available in the south, be sent to fight against the Whites con­
centrating on the Don, and not against the Germans, as Piatakov of the
left had demanded. "A Communist is not a man who merely defends his
house," said one of the rights at this occasion, "but one who can defend
his interests on the Don." 75 In accordance with this dictum all the par­
tisan detachments which the leftists had been able to salvage from the
disastrous operations of August 19 18, were to be sent far away from the
Ukraine, to the North Caucasian front. In this move Moscow saw a prac­
tical example of the principle of the subordination of local, national
interests to the good of the international socialist cause, as represented by
Soviet Russia. A new Central Committee was appointed, with the key
positions dominated by rights ( Artem, Emmanuil K viring, and others),
thqugh Piatakov was also included, for the sake of interparty unity. 76
Stalin was made a permanent member of the Central Committee of the
KP ( b)U as a representative of the Central Committee of the RKP. The
main tasks of the Ukrainian party were now formulated, in accordance
with the wishes of the right faction, "to prepare the Ukraine for the
entry of the Russian Soviet Army, [to occur] in connection with the out­
break of the German revolution which is fully ripened and anticipated
at any time"; to establish a strong party apparatus in the industrial cen­
ters of the Ukraine, and to subordinate them completely to Moscow. 77
The stress was now on the world revolution, on the proletariat, on Rus­
sian control and assistance.
In November 1918 the Germans and their allies surrendered in the
West, and the war was over. With the evacuation of German and Aus­
trian troops from the Ukraine, the field was again open to a struggle for
power.
T HE UKRAINE AND BE LORUSSIA 1 37
The Struggle of the Communists for Power
in the Ukraine in 1919
The year 1919 in the Ukraine was a period of complete anarchy. The
entire territory fell apart into innumerable regions isolated from each
other and the rest of the world, dominated by armed bands of peasants
or freebooters who looted and murdered with utter impunity. In Kiev
itself governments came and went, edicts were issued, cabinet crises were
resolved, diplomatic talks were carried on - but the rest of the country
lived its own existence where the only effective regime was that of the
gun. None of the authorities which claimed the Ukraine during the year
following the deposition of Skoropadski ever exercised actual sovereignty.
The Communists, who all along anxiously watched the developments
there and did everything in their power to seize control for themselves,
fared no better than their Ukrainian nationalist and White Russian com­
petitors.
Peasant uprisings, which had already made themselves felt in the
summer of 1918 as protests against German food and land policies, grew
in intensity in the fall and winter of that year. Throughout the Ukraine
there appeared bands of peasant partisans who attacked estates, robbed
and killed the Jewish inhabitants, and from time to time launched bold
forays on large cities. The whole country was for the larger part of 1919
completely at their mercy. Like peasant rebellions in general, this one
too lacked a clearly formulated socio-economic and political program;
the peasants definitely did not want the return of the landowners and the
reinstitution of tsarist agrarian legislation, which they identified with the
German occupants, the Hetrnan, and the White Armies, but they had
no idea what they did want. Lacking a common organization and
imbued with a strong spirit of neo-Cossack anarchism, the peasant par­
tisans were utterly incapable of providing the country with anything
resembling a firm government, despite the fact that some of their leaders
or bat'ki attained temporary control over considerable areas.
The heads of the deposed Ukrainian Central Rada began to reestab­
lish contact with each other early in the fall of 1918, when popular resist­
ance to the Germans and to Skoropadski was gathering momentum. They
started at once secret preparations for a return to power. A Ukrainian
National Union was founded to replace the defunct Rada, and with it as
an executive organ, a Directory of five men, headed by Vinnichenko, was
created. The clandestine organizations had their center in Kiev.
The Directory soon did acquire some military forces of its own, but
they were not sufficient to cope with the German-supported regiments
of Skoropadski. To secure the indispensable assistance for the incipient
struggle, the Directory established contact with the Communists. The
Soviet government in the spring of 1918 had sent to Kiev a peace delega-
138 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
tion headed by the Bulgarian-born Communist, Khristian Rakovskii, and
the Ukrainian-born Dmitrii Manuilskii. Ostensibly, the task of this dele­
gation was to sign a peace treaty with the Ukrainian government, at first
the Rada, and then with Skoropadski, but in reality it engaged mainly
in conspiratorial activity and served as the center for Communist agita­
tion in the Ukraine.78 In September or October 1918 Vinnichenko, who
as the chairman of the Directory and a political figure of known radical
social views had been delegated to deal with the Soviet representatives,
arrived at an agreement with Manuilskii. The Soviet diplomat pledged
that the Red Army would help the Ukrainian forces unseat Skoropadski
by diverting German attention, that Moscow would recognize the Direc­
tory as the legal government of the Ukraine, and that it would refrain
from intervention in Ukrainian affairs. Vinnichenko for his part promised
that after the overthrow of the Skoropadski regime and the establishment
of the Directory as the Ukrainian government, the Communist Party
would be allowed to operate legally on Ukrainian territory. 79 History
was repeating itself. Again, as they had done a year earlier, Bolshevism
and Ukrainian nationalism joined hands against a common enemy.
After the Germans had evacuated the Ukraine, Hetman Skoropadski
made frantic attempts to come to terms with the White Russian generals .
From an exponent of Ukrainian national ideals as he now transformed
himself into a champion of "Russia, one and indivisible." so The clandes­
tine Directory, sensing that the opportunity for a seizure of power had
approached, left Kiev and transferred to Belaia Tserkov, fifty miles
southwest of the Ukrainian capital, the seat of Bohdan Khmelnitskii's
headquarters during his rebellion against Poland in 1648. In the middle
of November the Directory announced the deposition of the Hetman and
the assumption of power. It issued at once several radical land decrees
and proclaimed other socialist measures, calculated to win the sym­
pathies of the peasantry and the worker population of the cities. 81 At the
same time the Directory signed an agreement with the newly formed
Ukrainian government of Galicia, merging the Russian and the Austrian
Ukraine into one state.
The fight against Skoropadski lasted one month. The regiments of
the Directory were augmented by peasant partisans, who joined them
to help overthrow the detested regime of the Hetman and to prevent the
anticipated return of the landowners. The advance on Kiev was a trium­
phal procession. On December 1/14, 1918, the Ukrainian regiments en­
tered the city, and on the same day the Hetman resigned. There was
every reason to expect that a long period of cooperation between the
Communists and the Ukrainian nationalists lay ahead : they had the same
enemy in General Denikin, who was as hostile to separatist tendencies
among Russian national minorities as he was to Bolshevism; they had
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 139
reached a gentleman's agreement as to future relations; and last but not
least, their social and economic slogans had much in common.
Such cooperation probably would have been established, had it not
been for the fact that the Communists themselves were quite divided
over the Ukrainian policies, and as a result pursued two distinct and
contradictory courses of action. The Rakovskii-Manuilskii agreement
with the Directory was in harmony with the views of the right. It rested
on the assumption that the potentialities for a genuine revolutionary
movement in the Ukraine were as yet too small to permit active Com­
munist intervention. In accordance with the right-inspired resolutions of
the Second Congress of the KP ( b )U, this agreement stressed the task of
building a strong Communist apparatus, and of legalizing the party in
the Ukraine. But the leftists, who despite their recent defeats still played
an important part in Ukrainian Communist circles in exile, were not con­
tent to yield to their opponents. From the abortive August rebeilion they
had managed to salvage some partisan detachments which - apparently
contrary to the decisions of the Second Congress of the KP ( b)U -
were kept in readiness on the northern border of the Ukraine. The leftists
were convinced that in the event of a German withdrawal they could
accomplish an immediate seizure of power, before the Ukrainian national­
ists retook the initiative. The nine-man Revolutionary Committee of the
Ukraine, formed earlier in the year, was still in existence, and under the
leadership of Piatakov and S. A. Bubnov, was directing from Russian-held
territory preparations for an active invasion of the Ukraine at the very
time when Rakovskii and Manuilskii were negotiating with the Directory.
Its plans called for an alliance with the peasant partisan leaders operat­
ing in the left-bank regions and for the seizure of Kiev by means of an
internal Communist uprising. In this the leftists had the support of
Stalin, who felt that the German evacuation had made it mandatory to
abandon the previous cautious policy and to adopt these aggressive
plans. 82 In November 1918 Moscow secretly ordered the formation of a
Soviet government bf the Ukraine under the chairmanship of Piatakov. 83
The uprising organized by the left in Kiev in mid-November failed
to materialize. Instead of accomplisl:iing a coup the Kievan Communists
got in touch with the commanders of Petliura's troops and coordinated
with the Directory their plans for fifth-column activity. Discussions were
also opened concerning the merger of Communist forces with those of
the Directory, but they failed, since neither side trusted the other suffi­
ciently. 84
The Piatakov government, residing in Kursk, was impatiently await­
ing Moscow's permission to reveal its existence and to commence hos­
tilities. But Moscow hesitated. The initial victories of the Directory, its
ability to secure the support of the peasantry, coupled with a succession
140 THE FOR MATION O F T H E SOVIET UNION
of Bolshevik defeats on the Don and in the Baltic areas, madt: the Com­
munist leaders loath to engage in new adventures. The commanders of
the Red Army were definitely opposed to the opening of a new front. 85
The heads of the newly formed Kursk Ukrainian Soviet government
sensed that Moscow might change its mind and bombarded the Party
Central Committee with telegrams and letters insisting that they be
permitted to carry out their original mission. Precious time was passing,
the Directory was becoming stronger with every day, and unless the
Central Committee realized the urgency of the �ituation, the whole
Ukraine would be lost.86 "A large number of factors," Zatonskii and
Piatakov wired to Stalin at the end of November, "1ead us to believe that
you are speculating with Petliura's movement." 87
The impatience of the Ukrainian Soviet government angered Lenin:
in one of the numerous direct-wire conversations held between Kursk
and Moscow at the end of November, Stalin, who acted as an inter­
mediary, warned Zatonskii and Piatakov to control their tempers lest they
incur Lenin's wrath. 88 Finally on November 28 Stalin telegraphed the
Kursk Government permission to proceed with its plans.89 Immediately
the existence of the government was proclaimed and overt operations
against the Directory began. At its first meeting the government voted
to form a Military Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Army, provided the
Military Soviet of the Russian Republic gave permission.90 The new
Provisional Government of the Ukraine was composed of Piatakov
( Chairman), Zatonskii, Kotsiubinskii, Artem, Kliment Voroshilov, and
Antonov-Ovseenko. '°'
The Directory had barely set foot in Kiev when it began to receive
disquieting reports from the north and northeast. There was news of
Soviet troop movements, of the occupation of various Ukrainian towns
by the Red Army, and of anti-Directory proclamations issued by Com­
munists. "Receiving reports of such proclamations, we were so struck
and surprised," writes Vinnichenko, "that at first we did not want to
believe their authenticity, thinking that those proclamations were for­
geries, issued by the followers of the Hetman with the purpose of pro­
voking hostility between Ukrainian democracy and the Russian Com­
munists, and weakening both sides by setting one against the other." 91
Unfortunately for the · Directory, its intelligence proved to be correct.
The Ukrainian nationalists had a new war with Soviet Russia on their
hands.
The Directory protested to Moscow against the invasion, but the
0
Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 1.00. Re�ent Soviet sources state that this govern­
ment was "headed" by Artem and Voroshilov, omitting mention of Piatakov and
the other commissars; cf. Istoricheskii zhurnal, no. 1-2 ( 1942 ) , 82. This distortion
is probably motivated by a desire to obliterate the memory of those who were purged
by Stalin in the 193o's,
THE UKRAINE AND B E L O R U S S I A

Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Chicherin, merely replied that his


government was utterly ignorant of any armed conflict with the Ukraine:
We must advise you that your information concerning the ad­
vance of our troops into the territory of the Ukraine does not cor­
respond with the facts. The military units which you have perceived
are not ours. There is no army of the Russian Soviet Republic on
Ukrainian territory. The military operations taking place on Ukrai­
nian territory involve the army of the Directory and the army of
Piatakov. Between the Ukraine and Soviet Russia there are at present
no armed conflicts. The Directory cannot be unaware that the gov­
ernment of the Russian Socialist Republic has no aggressive inten­
tions against the independence of the Ukraine, and that already in
the spring of 1918 our government dispatched a warm greeting to
the Ukrainian [Soviet] government, which had come into existence
at that time. 92
Chicherin's reply entirely misrepresented· the situation. Piatakov in­
deed had no army of his own; he was chairman of a revolutionary gov­
ernment which was appointed by the Central Committee of the RKP ( b)
in Moscow, and the KP ( b)U, of whose Central Committee he was a
member, was both in name and in fact a mere regional organization of
the Russian Communist Party. He was, in a sense, an agent of Soviet
Russia. Nor did Moscow's recognition of the first Soviet government of
the Ukraine, which was run by self-appointed commissars, fully sub­
servient to the Soviet Russian Council of People's Commissars, have any
bearing on the issue of° Ukrainian national sovereignty.
According to reports conveyed to Kiev by the Directory's emissary in
Moscow, the invasion of the Ukraine was undertaken by Piatakov with­
out the knowledge or approval of Len:frt, who supported Rakovskii's and
Manuilskii's policies of conciliation toward the Ukrainian nationalists. 93
Could it be that Stalin's backing of the leftists in November 1918 was
contrary to the wishes of the Party Central Committee? Vinnichenko
states that, at the very time of Piatakov's invasion of the Ukraine, Lenin
and the other leaders of the Russian Communist Party had already placed
their signatures on the Rakovskii-Manuilskii agreement with the Direc­
tory.94 Be this as it may, sometime in January 1919 Piatakov was deposed
from the chairmanship of the Ukrainian Soviet government, and replaced
by Rakovskii, who could be better depended on to perform the role of a
moderator in the factional struggles within the Ukrainian Communist
Party and to follow directives from Moscow. The appointment of a
Russified Bulgarian, who only a few months before had represented
Soviet Russia in diplomatic negotiations with the Ukraine, and who had
publicly expressed extreme skepticism concerning the very existence of
the Ukrainian nation, as head of the Soviet government of the very same
14 2 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
Ukraine, was an important step forward in the process of centralization
of the political apparatus on Soviet territory. 95 Rakovskii was given two
principal directives by Lenin: to win over to the Soviet side the left­
wing Ukrainian parties, especially the Borotbisty, and to adopt a more
conciliatory policy toward the Ukrainian peasantry.96
On January 3, 1919, Soviet troops, composed of partisans and regular
Red Army detachments, entered Kharkov. The Directory sent an ulti­
matum to Moscow, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the Red
armies. When this request was turned down on the grounds that the war
in the Ukraine was a civil war, and not a war with Russia, the Directory
declared war on the Soviet government ( January 18, 1919 ) . Petliura was
now made the Supreme Commander ( H olovnyi Ataman ) of the Ukrain­
ian armed forces, which consisted of units of Free Cossacks and in­
fantry battalions, officered and largely manned by Ukrainians from Aus­
trian Galicia, who had stayed behind after the armies of the Central
Powers had evacuated the Ukraine.
The Directory could offer no serious resistance. First of all, the
peasant partisans, with whose help it had come into power, deserted soon
after Kiev had been captured and the Hetman removed. The peasants
and their leaders had already grown tired of the new government, which,
contrary to their expectations, had accomplished no miraculous improve­
ments, and they now went over in droves to the advancing Bolsheviks.
In this manner the Directory lost to the enemy the chief partisan leaders
-Makhno, Zelenyi, Hryhoryiv - who attached themselves to the in­
vading Soviet army. In the second place, the Directory had never succeeded
in establishing effective government. The leaders of the state were ac­
tually at the mercy of their military commanders and of the various local
Atamans, who ruled their respective regions in a manner which has
been aptly compared with that of Chinese war lords� 97 The responsi­
bility for the terrible anti-Jewish pogroms which spread over the entire
Ukraine during the reign of the Directory, for the forceful suppression
of trade unions, and other acts of violence, must rest most heavily on
the shoulders of those unsavory elements; though popular resentment,
not unnaturally, was directed against the Directory itself. 98 The internal
struggles within the Directory between the socially radical groups led by
Vinnichenko and the more nationalistic faction, headed by Petliura, also
did not help its cause. Before long, all the socialist groups, including
the USR's proper ( as distinguished from the Borotbisty ) and the Bund
had broken openly with the Directory and gone over to the Communists.
Having lost the support of the peasantry, of the urban population, and
of the most influential political parties, the Directory now transformed
itself into a military dictatorship, dominated by Galician officers, whose
brutal Ukrainian chauvinism was unpopular with the population. In its
last days the Directory tried in vain to maintain itself by seeking support
THE UKRAINE AND B E L ORU S SIA 143
from the Western Allies, who had landed troops in Odessa, and from
General Denikin, as well as by appealing to the populace with promises
of a quasi-Soviet system of government, in which sovereignty would re­
side in so-called Toilers Soviets ( Trudovy e Sovety ) . 9 9
On February 6, 1919, almost a year since it had first set foot in the
city, the Red Army reentered Kiev. The second Soviet government which
followed in its wake lasted for seven months, until the end of August
1919, when in tum it gave way to the White Armies of General Denikin.
It was no more successful than the preceding Ukrainian governments,
to a large extent because it failed to follow the instructions which Lenin,
with his usual sense for political realities, had given Rakovskii at the
beginning of the year. Instead of adopting a moderate policy toward
the peasants, the Communists instituted a system of land collectivization,
forcing independent peasants into communes and transforming confis­
cated estates into state f arms ( sovkhozy ) . 1 00 The Communists of the
Ukraine, and especially the left-wingers, jealous of their own authority,
refused to admit the Borotbisty into the KP ( b ) U, contrary to Lenin's
specific directives. Contempt and hostility toward the _Ukrainian lan­
guage on the part of the government also alienated the Ukrainian in­
telligentsia, who for two years had grown accustomed to free activity.
Barely two or three months after its assumption of power, the Soviet
Ukrainian government also lost the support of the principal partisan
leaders, Makhno and Hryhoryiv, who now turned against the Bolsheviks
and under the slogan, "Down with the Communists, Jews, and Russians;
long live the rule of true Soviets!" continued to carry out their destruc­
tive work.
The remainder of the year passed in continuous civil strife. In the
fall of 1919 the White Armies of General Denikin occupied large sections
of the Ukraine, including Kiev. They also failed to establish order, and
by their unwise attitude toward the peasantry and pogroms against the
Jewish inhabitants, incurred the hatred of a large segment of the popu­
lation. The second Soviet government and the top echelons of the Com­
munist Party of the Ukraine evacuated together with the retreating Red
Armies to Russia.
While the territory of the Ukraine was in White hands ( fall 1919 )
and the leaders of the KP ( b ) U were pounding the pavements of the
Russian capital - a general staff without an army - Moscow completed
the process of centralizing in its hands all Soviet Ukrainian party institu­
tions.
The defeats suffered by the Ukrainian Communist organization from
the very beginning of the Revolution, had considerably weakened the
case of those groups within the KP ( b ) U which had argued that their
party should enjoy a certain degree of autonomy. Not that either of the
two principal factions in the KP ( b ) U, or even the center, led by Skryp -
144 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
nik and composed largely of Ukrainian nationals, objected to th� pn­
macy of Moscow and the Central Committee of the RKP. Piatakov and
Bubnov, who headed the left; Artem and Kviring, who dominated the
right; as well as Skrypnik of the center, were as one in their hostility to
Ukrainian nationalism and shared the conviction that the Ukraine must
remain part of Soviet Russia, subordinating itself entirely to the directives
of Lenin and his chief assistants. Until the end of 1919, at any rate, there
was no evidence in the KP ( b)U of a "nationalist deviation"; actually,
the top organs of that party were almost exclusively staffed by Russians.
But there were elements in the KP ( b)U, mainly in its left and center
factions, who believed in greater party democracy and in the necessity
of lending the Communist movement an autochthonous character. Those
elements had fought, in vain, at the First Congress of the KP ( b)U ( June
1918) for the principle of an autonomous Ukrainian organization.
The fact that the KP ( b)U was hopelessly divided, that it could· not
secure a mass following and in moments of crisfs invariably had to appeal
to the Soviet Russian army for assistance, made it difficult to plead with
Moscow for autonomy. The failure of the KP,( b)U to� contribute to the
defense of the Ukraine against the White forces was the final bit of
evidence attesting to the party's ineffectuality.
On October 2, 1919, Moscow ordered the dissolution of the Central
Committee of the KP ( b)U and of the Soviet civil administration in the
Ukraine. 101 Control over the Ukrainian party organizations operating in
Soviet Russia as well as those operating underground on territories oc­
cupied by Denikin, was assumed directly by the Central Committee of
the Russian Communist Party. A year and a half after its foundation, the
Communist Party of the Ukraine had become a mere shadow: an organi­
zation without authority, without influence, without even a formal center.
Following the dissolution of the Central Committee of the KP ( b)U
and the simultaneous liquidation of the Ukrainian Council of Defense
which had performed the functions of a civil administration in the
Ukraine, the Ukrainian institutions virtually disappeared from the Soviet
political apparatus. There remained only a three-man Zafrontovoe biuro
( literally, "the beyond-the-front bureau") with h'.eadquarters in Moscow,
which busied itself largely with the direction of the Communist under­
ground in the Ukrainian areas occupied by the White Armies of General
Denikin. Most of the leaders of the old Ukrainian Soviet apparatus went
into the service of the central and provincial organs of the RKP, while those
who had at one time belonged to the right wing of the KP ( b)U, and as
such were opposed even to organizational concessions to Ukrainian na­
tionalism, took advantage of the demise of the KP ( b)U's Central Com­
mittee to disassociate themselves from Ukrainian affairs once and for all.
Yet not all the persons connected with the Ukrainian Communist
movement took the decision of Moscow with equanimity. A small but
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 14 5
vocal group composed of persons who had at one time belonged variously
to the pro-peasant, left wing of the KP ( b ) U ( 1918 ) , to non-Communist
radical groups such as the Borotbisty or to the left wing of the USD,
and even some Communists connected with the central Soviet apparatus
who had no sympathies for the Ukrainian national cause but felt that it
had been a mistake to dissolve Ukrainian'. Soviet organizations - all
these divergent elements immediately began a struggle for the reestab­
lishment of the liquidated institutions.
In November 1919 some of the nationally conscious members of the
KP ( b ) U who had taken refuge in Moscow held a series of unofficial
meetings to discuss means of reversing the Central Committee's decision
on the Ukrainian Party. This decision, viewed by Communists hostile to
the Ukrainian cause as a deserved punishment for its weakness and in­
effectuality, was interpreted by these groups as an unjust reprisal for
the failures stemming from Moscow's own mistakes. Some of the Com­
munists who had remained in the occupied parts of the Ukraine or were
serving with the Red Armies on the Ukrainian front shared this latter
attitude. In this group was Manuilskii, who was stationed as a Soviet
supply commissar in the Chernigov province. Manuilskii sharply criti­
cized Soviet policies in the Ukraine, particularly the unwillingness of the
Communists to induce Ukrainians to join the government. In an article
published in the Chernigov Communist press at that time, he compared
the Communist regime in the Ukraine to a typical colonial administration,
and drew parallels between the appointments under both systems of a
token number of natives to positions in the government, for the sole
purpose of creating the impression that the regime enjoyed local sup­
po rt. 102
In the latter part of November, when Ukrainian affairs were at their
lowest ebb, and indeed the whole Soviet government seemed on the
verge of collapse under White blows, fifteen prominent members of
the KP ( b ) U held a special conference in Gamel, close to what had
recently been the Ukrainian border. The Central Committee of the RKP
somehow learned of the Ukrainian plans and issued a directive which
forbade the conference to take place; it even dispatched two trusted
Ukrainian Communists to Gomel to see to it that the directive was
obeyed. But the Ukrainians chose to disregard the instruction of the
center on the grounds that their meeting was an informal one and as
such did not require the sanction of the Central Committee. The two
emissaries from Moscow not only failed to stop the proceedings, but
were themselves prevailed upon to join in the conference. 103
The Gamel conference agreed quickly on the desirability of reestab­
lishing a Ukrainian Central Committee and a Ukrainian Soviet govern­
ment. But on all other issues it was divided. One group, led by G. Lap­
chinskii, wanted the maximum of independence for the Ukrainian party
146 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

and state apparatus. Its resolution asked that the Soviet Ukraine, upon
its liberation from the Whites, be granted the status ·of a sovereign re­
public and be federateo with all the other Soviet republics { including
those which would presumably arise outside the confines of the old
Russian Empire ) in matters of defense and economy only. Further it
demanded that the government apparatus of the whole Soviet federation
be separated from that of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Re­
public { RSFSR ) , with which until then it had been almost completely
merged. This so-called Federalist group represented a new nationalist­
communist tendency in Ukrainian Communism. Opposed to it was a
group led by Manuilskii, who was also chairman of the Gomel confer­
ence. This faction desired the closest possible merger of the Soviet
Ukraine and Soviet Russia, and criticized the Federalist proposals as un­
Communist in spirit. 104
The two factions clashed bitterly over the question of whether or
not to admit into the future Ukrainian Soviet government representatives
of the Borotbisty. The Borotbisty, it will be recalled, were left-wingers of
the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Party, who in 1918 had split
from the right-wingers and adopted a distinct party name. In March
1919 they once more changed their name, assuming the cumbersome title
of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries Communists Borot­
bists ( in Russian, Ukrainskaia Partiia Sotsialistov-Revoliutsionerov Kom­
munistov Borotbistov ), and .five months later, most of them having
merged with the dissident radical elements of the Ukrainian Social Demo­
cratic Party, formed the Ukrainian Communist Party ( Borotbists ) :
Ukrainskaia Kommunisticheskaia Partiia ( Borotbistov ), or, for short,
UKP. 0 Despite these mergers, the members of these groups continued
to be popularly known as Borotbisty. The UKP had a foreign bureau
located in Vienna under the direction of Vinnichenko, the onetime chair­
man of the General Secretariat of the Ukrainian Central Rada ( 1917 )
and a leader of the USD. Following repeated disagreements over social
policies with the USD's right wing, headed by Petliura, Vinnichenko had
broken with the USD's, and allied himself with the Ukrainian crypto­
Communists.10 5 The UKP was willing to cooperate with the Russian
Communist Party on condition that the Ukrainian Red Armies retain
their separate status, and that the UKP be permitted to join the Comin­
tern as the principal representative of Ukrainian Communism. 106 Organi­
zationally, the UKP was quite ineffective, but its leaders did enjoy a
certain following in the Ukrainian village, a following which the KP ( b ) U
desperately needed.
The swing of such rarties as the left USR and left USD to a pro­
Soviet position offered the KP ( b ) U an excellent opportunity to improve
0
Not to be confused with the Communist Party of the Ukraine, KP ( b ) U, the
official branch of the Russian Communist Party.
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 1 47
its situation, but most of the leaders of the KP ( b)U were hostile to the
idea of cooperation with them, partly because they disliked the national­
istic flavor of such groups, and partly because they were apprehensive
', lest an alliance with them water down the Communist spirit of their own
party. On April 6, 1919, the Central Committee of the KP ( b)U had de­
clared itself opposed to the inclusion of Borotbisty representatives in the
Ukrainian Soviet government. 107 The Communist authorities in Moscow,
however, especially Lenin, had taken a different view of the matter and
immediately issued a directive ( signed by Stalin) ordering the KP ( b)U
"to arrive at an agreement with the USR's in the sense of [allowing] the
entrance of representatives of the Ukrainian SR's into the Ukrainian
Soviet government." 108 Obedient to orders from above, the KP ( b)U had
issued appropriate instructions to all its local organizations, 109 but there
is no evidence that they had been carried out before the autumn of 19 19,
when the Communist regime had been expelled from the Ukraine by the
White forces.
The Federalists, striving for a broad alliance with non-Communist
radical groups, desired the formation of a new Communist Party of the
Ukraine, composed of remnants of the KP ( b)U; the KPU, and those
Borotbist groups which had retained their independent status. The new
party was to posses a Bolshevik nucleus, but remain formally separate
from the ineffective and virtually defunct KP ( b)U. 110 This idea they
fostered at Gamel, but with little success. Manuilskii, speaking for the
majority, which he headed, stated that the admission of the Borotbisty
would not be possible until the latter had changed some of their attitudes,
and particularly until they had given up the demand for separate Ukrain­
ian armies. 1 1 1 The Federalists were also defeated on their resolutions
concerning Russo-Ukrainian relations.
Undaunted by this defeat, the Federalists took their case directly to
the Central Committee of the RKP. Sometime in November 1919 they
presented it with a memorandum in which they called for a reevahiation
of the party's national policy in the Ukraine. Arguing that the Commu­
nists in the Ukraine lacked contact with the village and in the past had
depended too much on Moscow, they asserted: "In the struggle for the
reestablishment of Soviet power [in the Ukraine] the leading role must
unconditionally belong not to the Moscow center, but to the Ukrainian
center." In this connection they also asked for a reconsideration of the
party's decision concerning the Ukrainian Central Committee. 112
· The Central Committee of the RKP did not favor this request with
a reply, since it obviously ran conb"ary to all the principles underlying
Communist strategy in the borderlands. But this memorandum undoubt­
edly played a part in inducing Lenin to raise the Ukrainian question at
the Eighth Party Conference, held in Moscow December 3-5, 1919.
Having been taken to task for his concessions to minority nationalists by
1 48 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O V I E T U N I O N
Rakovskii, Manuilskii, Bubnov, and several others present at the Confer­
ence, Lenin delivered a scathing attack on Great Russian chauvinism in
Communist ranks. 0 He was especially critical 9f the policies pursued by
his opponents in the Ukraine, and of their tp).wi�� h�ndling of the Borot­
bisty, whose assistance, he believed, was vital for the party's effective
operation there.11 3
Lenin's speech produced immediate results. Soon after the Eighth
Conference closed, a new party center for the Ukraine was formed in
Moscow. It consisted of Rakovskii, Zatonskii, Kossior, Petrovskii, and
Manuilskii. At the same time a skeleton Soviet Ukrainian government was
created under Rakovskii, Manuilskii, Zatonskii, one Borotbist, and one
member of the KPU. 114 The presence of Rakovskii and Manuilskii in both
these bodies indicated that they would continue the old centralist, anti­
nationalist policy, while the inclusion of Borotbists in the government
signified an effort to attract the non-Communist radicals into active
participation in the Soviet administration.
The alliance with the Borotbisty, brought about under Lenin's pres­
sure did not last long in the face of the undiminished hostility of the
majority of Communists. The new Soviet organs entered Kharkov late
in December 1919, in the wake of the victorious Red Armies. In March
1920, on instructions from Zinoviev, the Chairman of the Comintern,
the Borotbisty dissolved their separate organizations and merged with the
KP ( b)U. 115 The Foreign Bureau of the UKP also disintegrated at this
time. Vinnichenko, who had migrated to the Soviet Ukraine in the winter
of 1919-20, quickly became disappointed with Communist rule and
once more emigrated. 1 1 6 The new Soviet regime in the Ukraine thus
remained firmly in the hands of centralists who owed all their allegiance
to Moscow, and who lacked even those native roots which the leaders
of the Communist movement in the Ukraine had possessed in the earlier
stages of the revolution.

The history of the Ukraine from 1917, when the old regime had
collapsed, until early 1920, when Soviet rule was finally established,
reflects a state of rapidly spreading anarchy, which, both in its extent and
its duration, is perhaps unique in the history of modern Europe. Over
these three years, no fewer than nine different governments attempted
to assert their authority over the land. None succeeded. The democracy
of the Provisional Government, the moderate socialism of the Rada and
its General Secretariat, left- and right-wing Communism, the Cossack
Hetmanate and the German occupation armies, the proto-fascist Direc-
0 The stenographic records of this conference are missing. It is possible, as one

of the participants to the Twelfth Party Congress ( 1.923 ) suggested, that they had
been destroyed by the persons whose reputation was likely to suffer from them; see
Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd RKP - Stenograficheskii otchet ( Moscow, 1.923 ) , 546.
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 1 49
tory, peasant anarchism, and the military rule of the White Armies - all
failed alike. With each year the country disintegrated further, until by
1919 it no longer represented one country, but an infinite number of
isolated communities.
The main protagonists in this struggle for power were the Ukrainian
nationalists and the Russian Communists.
The Ukrainian movement which emerged in the course of the Russian
Revolution was, despite its ultimate failure, a political expression of
genuine interests and loyalities. Its roots were manifold: a specific
Ukrainian culture, resting on peculiarities of language and folklore; a
historic tradition dating from the seventeenth-century Cossack commu­
nities; an identity of interests among the members of the large and
powerful group of well-to-do peasants of the Dnieper region; and a
numerically small but active group of nationally conscious intellectuals,
with a century-old heritage of cultural nationalism behind them. All the
evidence points to the fact that nationalist emotions during the period
of the Revolution received a strong stimulus by having an opportunity
to act in the open and to influence directly the masses of the population.
The weakest feature of the Ukrainian national movement was its
dependence on the politically disorganized, ineffective, and unreliable
village. Despite their numerical preponderance, the peasants provided
a most unsatisfactory basis for the development of political action be­
cause of their political immaturity, which made them easily swayed by
propaganda, and because of their strong inclinations toward anarchism. The
fate of the Ukraine, as of the remainder of the Empire, was decided in
the towns, where the population was almost entirely Russian in its
culture, and hostile to Ukrainian nationalism. The Ukrainian cause was
further weakened by the inexperience of its leaders and the shortage of
adequate administrative personnel. The political figures came mainly
from the ranks of the free professions, with a background of journalism,
the law, or university life, but 'without any knowledge of the actual
workings of government. Of course, the same weakness affected the
Bolshevik regime in Soviet Russia, but the Communists had the ad­
vantage of inheriting from the previous regime large cadres of officials
whom they could utilize until proper replacements were available. The
Ukrainians harl no such reserves because, until 1917, their country had
been ruled mainly by Russian bureaucrats, and the natives who had
entered the tsarist service were or became Russified. This shortage of
personnel with which to administer the country was one of the greatest
weaknesses of Ukrainian governments, and forced them eventually into
a complete dependence on Galician Ukrainians. And, finally, much of the
blame rests directly on the shoulders of the Ukrainian leaders themselves.
So overwhelmed were they with the rapid growth of Ukrainian national
sentiments among the masses, and so impressed with the ease with which
150 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
they had triumphed over the Provisional Government, that they greatly
overestimated their own strength. Instead of concentrating on the task
of establishing good relations with Russian democratic forces and on
winning the support of the non-Ukrainian groups of the population, the
nationalist leaders preferred to engage in the fruitless pursuit of "high
politics," in ridiculous squabbles over the mere appearances of sover­
eignty, in grandiose acts which bore no relation to political reality. In
the long run this cost them the sympathy of many influential elements on
Ukrainian territory. One cannot fail to notice a certain emotional in­
stability and unrealism on the part of the leaders of the Ukrainian move­
ment. These faults played an important part in their ultimate downfall.
The position of the Communists was in almost every respect opposite
to that of the nationalists. Their strength centered in the towns, - not in
the villages; they had a well-organized party apparatus, supplied with per­
sonnel and financial resources from Russia; they had a keen sense of
political reality, and a ruthless strategy. Yet they too failed, and after
two years of ups and downs, were completely swept off the political
stage. Their main weakness lay in the fact that they were essentially
foreigners on Ukrainian soil, strangers to its peasant culture, its interests,
and its ambitions.
The Ukrainian national movement did not perish with the termination
of the Revolution and the reestablishment of Moscow's dominion at the
end of 1919. Rather, it now penetrated into the Communist Party and
state apparatus, with the result that the early 192o's saw a reappearance
of nationalist tendencies, this time within the very Bolshevik ranks.
Belorussia from 1918 to 1920

Of all the national movements which emerged in the course of the


Revolution, the Belorussian one was perhaps the weakest. Not only was
it very young and out of touch with the masses of the population, but
it had to operate in territories which were for the major part of 1917-
1920 under the occupation of one foreign power or another. The Belo­
russian national parties could not conduct the kind of political action
which provided their counterparts in other regions of Russia with oppor­
tunities to penetrate public consciousness and to secure mass support.
The history of Belorussia during this period was therefore not greatly
affected by a national movement; the latter was confined almost entirely
to diplomatic activity pursued by a numerically small, divided, and
politically ineffective intelligentsia.
Acting on orders from Moscow, the Minsk Bolsheviks commanded the
pro-Soviet troops at the end of December 1917 to disband the Belorus­
sian National Congress which had endeavored to establish an independent
Belorussian Republic, and proclaimed the rule of the Bolshevik-dominated
Soviets.
THE UKRAINE AND BELORU SSIA
The first Soviet government of Belorussia - and there were to be
three of them - was established by the Communist organs in Minsk with
the support of Russian troops of the western front at the end of 1917,
and lasted for one hundred days. Its authority extended only to the
regions occupied by pro-Communist regiments and to the major cities,
such as Minsk, Vitebsk, and Bobruisk, where the local soviets followed
Bolshevik leadership. In mid-February 1918 German armies marching
eastward began"to occupy the Belorussian provinces. At the. end of
February they entered Minsk, which the Soviet authorities had already
cleared a few days earlier. Collaborating with the Germans were troops
of the Polish Legion and of the Russian-sponsored Polish army, which
had gone over to the Germans following the Bolshevik coup.
On the eve of the German occupation of Minsk, some of the mem­
bers of the First All-Belorussian Congress of 1917, disbanded by the
Communists, emerged from hiding, and hoping to secure German recog­
nition, formed a Provisional Government of i Belorussia. The Germans,
however, informed the would-be Minsk government that they could not
recognize it, because in January another Belorussian Assembly had been
established under their auspices in Vilna, which had proclaimed the
independence of Belorussia and formed its own administration. Under
German prodding, the Minsk and Vilna Belorussian organizations rec­
onciled their claims, and in March 1918 they issued a joint proclamation
announcing the establishment of an independent Belorussian National
Republic ( in Russian, Belorusskaia Natsional'naia Respublika) . 117 The
government of the newly formed state applied to the Kaiser for moral
support and material aid. 11 8 A group of radically inclined Belorussian
nationalists, dissatisfied with the policy of collaboration with the Ger­
mans, went over to the Communists and sought refuge in Russia.
Neither the Germans nor the Pc;,les paid the slightest attention to
the wishes of the Belorussian government, which in effect could do
nothing but issue proclamations and appeals. In the spring of 1918 the
Germans, displeased with the socialist inclinations of the nationalists in
charge of the government, forced some of them to resign and entrusted
the leadership of the puppet administration to a one-time conservative
Duma representative and wealtny landowner, R. Skirmunt; but he too
proved unsatisfactory ·and was removed. While they did not dissolve the
Belorussian Rada, as they had its Ukrainian counterpart, the Germans
permitted the Belorussian nationalists even less jurisdiction in their ter­
ritories than they allowed the Ukrainians.
The repressive policies undertaken by the German armies in the
territories under their occupation in the summer of 1918 produced in
Belorussia a reaction resembling that which took place in the neighboring
Ukraine. Here also the urban proletariat and above all the peasantry be­
came very restless under German rule, and in some areas took to arms.
152 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
The 1918 agragrian revolts in Belorussia did not equal in dimension and
violence those in the Ukrainian provinces, but they similarly benefited the
Communists.
Following the German occupation, those Communists who did not
escape eastward went underground. The subterranean Bolshevik cells on
Belorussian territory were directed by the Northwestern Regional Com­
mittee of the Party, located in Smolensk { then in Soviet hands ) , which
adopted the same tactics as those pursued by the left-wing Communists
in command of the KP ( b ) U : it strove for an alliance with the rebellious
peasantry and th� partisan detachments arising spontaneously in reaction
to German maltreatment. In the middle of July the underground net­
work convened a conference of Commm::1.ist cells operating in Belorussia.
There is evidence that in August 1918 the Belorussian Communists par­
ticipated in the ill-fated uprising which the Ukrainian left wing had
organized in an attempt to overthrow the German occupation. 1 19
Whell' in November 1918 the Germans began to evacuate their troops,
Belorussia had no nationalist organization capable of assuming political
authority, such as existed in the Ukraine in the Directory. The personnel
of the German-sponsored Belorussian National Republic quietly departed
from Minsk for Germany. When the Red Army reoccupied Belorussia
in the latter part of December 1918, the country . was in the hands of
soviets dominated by Russian and Jewish parties, inclined by seven
months of German occupation to be sympathetic to the Communists.
In December 1918 the question of the future status of Belorussia came
up for discussions at the congress of the Northwestern Regional Commit­
tee of the Russian Communist Party meeting in Moscow. The Soviet
government decided that Belorussia was to be made a national republic,
and directed the Northwestern Regional Committee to carry out this
decision. As the first step in this direction, the Committee was instructed
to change its name to that of the Communist Party of Belorussia,
KP ( b ) B. 120 The government of th� new republic was to have been com­
posed of members of the KP ( b ) B and of the left-wing adherents of the
Belorussian National Committee who had earlier in the year gone over
to the Communists. The Belorussian nationalists were somewhat unhappy
over such an arrangement, for they realized full well that as long as the
Communist Party in Belorussia remained in the hands of what ha_g. been
the Smolensk organization, they would have little authority. They re­
quested Moscow for permission to form another, purely Belorussian
Communist Party, but this was denied. 121
Before long the pro-Communist Belorussian nationalists had an open
quarrel with their Communist allies. The German retreat had cleared
not only Belorussia, but also the adjacent western territories, enabling
the Soviet regime to expand beyond the 1917 front line. The Commu­
nists hoped to avail themselves of this opportunity by extending the
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 1 53
newly created Belorussian Soviet Republic to include Lithuania. In Feb­
ruary 1919 the Belorussian republic was merged with Lithuania in a
single Lithuanian-Belorussian Soviet Republic ( Litbel, from the initial
letters of their names), and one month later the Communist parties of
the two areas were also combined. The government of the Litbel republic
was located in Vilna, and headed by K. Mitskevich-Kapsukas, a half­
Belorussian, half-Lithuanian Communist serving in the Commissariat of
Nationalities. The united party was placed under the chairmanship of
the Belorussian nationalist, Z. Zhylunovich. 122 The Belorussians protested
against those measures. They resented the fact that Belorussian nationalism
had been exploited for tactical reasons, and that their republic was
being used a-s a mere device for Soviet expansion. Before long Zhylu­
novich resigned his position, and as the Communists began to put into
practice measures unpopular with the local population ( such as national­
izing for the benefit of the sovkhozy all of the confiscated large estates),
other nationalists followed his example. 123
In April 1919 the armies of independent Poland marched into
Lithuania and Belorussia, and for the following year most of the terri­
tories claimed by Litbel were under Polish occupation. The Poles pur­
sued two contradictory policies in regard to the Belorussian movement.
The Warsaw Sejm declared at the beginning of May that Belorussia was
historically an inalienable part of the Polish Commonwealth, and de­
creed the complete integration of the occupied territories with Poland.
Marshal Pilsudski, on the other hand, hoping to offset the relative weak­
ness of the new Poland in relation to Russia by forming a union of the
small states located along Russia's eastern border, adopted a more con­
ciliatory attitude. At the moment when the Polish Sejm was voting for
annexation, Pilsudski offered the Belorussians federal ties with Poland. 124
In general, however, the Polish occupation forces showed little regard
either for the social radicalism prevalent among the masses of the popula­
tion or for the nationalist emotions of a part of the Belorussian intel­
ligentsia. The Poles ordered the return to the landowners of the land
confiscated by the Communists and by the peasants themselves, and
introduced Polish as the official language on Belorussian territories. 125
At the end of 1919 Lenin, fearing a possible Polish offensive, at the
time when his regime was fighting for its very life against Denikin, put
out feelers to Pilsudski, offering to accept what was then the western
frontline as the permanent Polish-Russian frontier. 12 6 Had this proposition
been accepted, virtually all of Belorussia would have gone to Poland.
But Pilsudski's ambitions were greater. In December 1919 he made an
agreement with Simon Petliura, by virtue of which, in return for Galicia,
he promised to dislodge the Communists from the Ukrainian territories
located on the right bank of the Dnieper River. In April 1920 the Polish
armies opened an offensive in the Ukraine against Soviet Russia, which,
154 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
although initially successful, ended in a Polish defeat and nearly caused
the capture by Red Army troops of Warsaw itself. As a result of its de­
feats, Poland evacuated a major portion of Belorussia.
On August 1, 1920, the Communists, having once more acquired
control of Belorussia, reestablished the Belorussian Soviet Republic. The
idea of a combined Lithuanian-Belorussian state was given up. The
Treaty of Riga ( March 192 1 ) drew the borderline in such a way as to
bisect the territories populated by the Belorussians, the western half
going to Poland, the eastern to Soviet Russia. Lithuania became an in­
dependent republic.
IV
SOVIET CONQUEST OF THE MOSLEM
BORDERLANDS

The Moslem Communist Movement in Soviet Russia (1918)

As has been pointed out earlier, Lenin had stressed prior to 1917
the great importance of the Orient in the struggle for power. He per­
sistently supported the slogan of national self-determination largely be­
cause he believed that national movements among the colonial peoples
would play a crucial role in a world-wide revolution. This faith-
strengthened rather than weakened after Lenin's advent to power-ex­
plains the great lengths to which he and his regime were willing to go
to win the sympathies of the Eastern peoples residing in the Russian
Empire. Pan-Islamism, Pan-Turanianism, religious orthodoxy - all these
sensitive areas of Moslem consciousness were played upon by the Soviet
government during the Revolution in order to gain a foothold in the
Moslem borderlands and to penetrate the Asiatic possessions of the West.
Early in December 1917 the Soviet government issued, over the
signatures of Lenin and Stalin, an appeal to Russian and foreign Moslems
in which it made extremely generous promises in return for Moslem
support:
Moslems of Russia, Tatars of the Volga and the Crimea, Kirghiz
and Sarts of Siberia and of Turkestan, Turks and Tatars of Transcau­
casia, Chechens and Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, and all you
whose mosques and prayer houses have been destroyed, whose be­
liefs and customs have been trampled upon by the Tsars and oppres­
sors of Russia: Your beliefs and usages, your national and cultural
institutions are forever free and inviolate. Organize your national life
in complete freedom. This is your right. Know that your rights, like
those of all the peoples of Russia, are under the mighty protection
of the Revolution and its organs, the Soviets of Workers, Soldiers,
and Peasants. 1
156 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
The Communist appeal further pledged the annulment of all inter­
national agreements concerning the dismemberment of Turkey, including
the treaties which had called for the cession of Constantinople to Russia
and for the detachment of Turkish Armenia. The entire tone of the
proclamation left no doubt that the Soviet regime, by failing to make its
customary distinction between "toilers" and "exploiters," was bidding
indiscriminately for the support of all Moslem groups.
Among Moslems in Russia, Marxist influence was very limited, and
where it did exist (Vladikavkaz, Baku, Kazan), it was Menshevik in
character. In general, Moslems had been far more affected by liberal
and Socialist Revolutionary thinking than by Marxism. In November
1917 the Soviet government had, for all practical purposes, no basis for
political action in the Moslem borderlands. To offset this weakness, the
Bolsheviks made an attempt to win over the All-Russian Moslem move­
ment, despite the fact that the ideology of this movement was entirely
different from their own, and that in the past its leaders had on more
than one occasion displayed hostility to Lenin and his tactics. 2
By December 1917 there existed, as organs of the All-Russian
Moslem movement, a Constituent Assembly, or Medzhilis, sitting in
Kazan; three ministries (religion, education, and finance); and an
Executive Council, or Shura, in session in Petrograd. The Shura had at
its disposal several thousand Moslem troops, composed largely of Volga
Tatar veterans of the tsarist armies. In the provinces inhabited by
Moslems and in all the major Russian cities, the Shura had established
branch offices which endeavored to enlist support for its cause and
campaigned for the elections to the Constituent Assembly. The Chairman
of the Shura and of all its provincial organizations was the Ossetin Men­
shevik, Akhmed Tsalikov.
Sometime in December 1917 Stalin got in touch with Tsalikov and
offered him an opportunity to join the Soviet government on seemingly
very advantageous terms. "In order to cooperate with the [Soviet] re­
gime," Stalin assured him, "the Executive Committee of the Moslems
must not at all assume this or that party label; it is sufficient to have a
straightforward and loyal relationship, so that their united efforts on
behalf of the Moslem toiling masses may proceed at full speed." 0 If
Tsalikov were willing to cooperate on those conditions, Stalin stated, he
could have the chairmanship of the Commissariat of Moslem Affairs
which the Soviet government intended to establish in the near future. 3
Tsalikov, however, backed by a majority of the Medzhilis, refused the
offer and in the Constituent Assembly, where he headed the Moslem
0 Pravda (Petrograd), No. 26, 2/15 December 1917. Pravda implies the initiative

was taken by Tsalikov, but other sources indicate that it came from Stalin; cf. A
Saadi, "Galimdzhan Ibragimov i ego literaturnoe tvorchestvo," Vestnik nauchnogo
obshchestva tatarovedeniia (Kazan), no. 8 ( 1928), 29-30,
THE MOSLEM BORDERLANDS 157
faction, attacked the Bolsheviks in strong language for their treahnent
of the minorities.4
Balked in his attempt to secure the support of the Moslem Executive
Council and with it of the whole apparatus of the All-Russian Moslem
movement, Stalin next approached the other Moslem political figures who
began to gather in Petrograd for the opening of the All-Russian Constit­
uent Assembly. Early in January he persuaded three deputies to collabo­
rate with him. Among them the most influential figure was Mulla Nur
Vakhitov, a twenty-seven-year-old Volga Tatar engineer from Kazan,

Central Asia and the Volga-Ural Region


(1922)

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SINKIANG

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to whom Stalin now offered the chairmanship which Tsalikov had re­
fused. In the spring of 1917 Vakhitov with several friends had formed a
Moslem Socialist Committee of definite Marxist leanings. Its member­
ship �as small, about a dozen persons, but this did not prevent Vakhitov
a Pan-Islamist, from entertaining the hope that it would "spread the idea
of socialism throughout the entire Moslem world." 5 In 1917 his com­
mittee had been pro-Menshevik, disapproving of Lenin's July coup and
158 THE FORMATION OF ,THE SOVIET UNION
participating in the elections to the Constituent Assembly on joint tickets
with the other Moslem socialist parties, rather than with the Bolsheviks.
When, however, he was presented by Stalin with an opportunity to
assume the highest post open to a Moslem in the new government - the
chairmanship of the Moslem Commissariat - he abandoned his previous
associates and went over to the Bolsheviks. The other two deputies
whose cooperation Stalin secured were Galimdzhan Ibragimov, a Volga
Tatar writer, and Sherif Manatov, a one-time employee of the tsarist
secret police and a deputy from the Bashkir regions. 6
Although the name of the newly created Soviet Moslem center im­
plied the status of a regular ministry, represented in the Council of
People's Commissars, it was, in fact, only a subsection of the Commissar­
iat of Nationalities, and as such, responsible directly to Stalin. Its mission
was to organize party cells, spread Communist propaganda, and help
the Soviet regime destroy independent parties and organizations among
Russian Moslems.
Vakhitov tackled his duties with much energy. He dispatched emis­
saries to the provinces with orders to open local branches of the Com­
missariat, the so-called Moslem Bureaus or Musbiuro. In March and April
1918 he called Moslem conferences in the provinces under Soviet control
and opened provincial Moslem Commissariats ( Gubmuskomy) in Ufa,
Orenburg, Kazan, and Astrakhan. Within a few months the Moslem
regions and large cities of Soviet Russia were covered with a network of
Musbiuro and Gubmuskomy, which agitated among the indigenous
Turkic population against the All-Russian Moslem movement and urged
the natives to join the ranks of the Red Army. The propaganda efforts
of the Commissariat were especia11y strong among the Turkish prisoners
of war captured by the tsarist armies. 7
The establishment of the Soviet regime and the outbreak of the Civil
War had induced the leaders of the All-Russian Moslem movement to
accelerate their efforts toward autonomy. The difficulty was that the
Medzhilis, which sat in session from November 20, 1917, until the middle
of January 1918, could not agree which kind of autonomy was most suit­
able for the Tatars. One group, called Toprak<;;ilar Fraksyonu ( i.e., Terri­
torialist faction) wanted an autonomous Volga-Ural state; another, the so­
called Turkculer Fraksyonu ( Turki faction) wanted a system which would
unite all the Turks of Russia. In addition, there was a small leftist group
which favored a compromise with the Soviet authorities. 8 Unable to reach
an agreement, the Medzhilis appointed a committee to settle this prob­
lem, and then dissolved. This committee, functioning in Kazan, decided
at the end of February 1918 in favor of a Volga-Ural autonomous state,
and issued directives for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly of
the region.9
The Bolsheviks, however, did not permit the realization of these
THE MOSLEM BORDERLANDS 159
plans. On February 13/26, having learned of the Committee's resolution,
the Soviet authorities in Kazan organized a Revolutionary Staff and
arrested several Tatars connected with the local Shura, after which they
issued an ultimatum to all the Moslem organizations in the city to
subordinate themselves at once to the Kazan Moslem Commissariat. The
Tatars rejected this demand, and took cover in the native quarter of
Kazan. A brief struggle ensued. Within the native quarter the Bolsheviks
had armed a group of Moslem religious mystics, led by one Vaisov, whose
"legions" they planned to use against the Shura troops.10 Vaisov, how­
ever, was killed by an angry Tatar mob and his followers were disarmed.
The native quarter, therefore, had to be taken from the outside, and this
was accomplished a few days later with the help of a detachment of Red
sailors newly arrived from Moscow.11 The Kazan Shura was closed, and
all its military detachments dispersed. On April 10/23, 1918, the com­
mittee for autonomy was arrested and two days later in Ufa the remain­
ing institutions of the All-Russian Moslem movement were suppressed.
By an official order of the Commissariat of Nationalities all the functions
and properties claimed by the Medzhilis and its subordinate organiza­
tions were transferred to the Moslem Commissariat. 12 Vakhitov and his
agency thus served as an instrument with which the Bolsheviks seized
control of the All-Russian Moslem movement after its leaders had re­
fused to cooperate.
At the beginning of May 1918 Vakhitov convened a conference of
Communists and sympathizers from the Kazan area to discuss the pos­
sibility of founding a Tatar-Bashkir state. His intention was to re-cr�ate
under Soviet auspices the Volga-Ural state which the commission of the
defunct Medzhilis had proposed. The conference was pervaded with a
strongly nationalistic spirit. Moslem speakers vied with each other in
depicting the future glories of Islam and in stressing the importance of a
socialistic Tatar republic for all Asia. Despite protests from the Russian
delegates, the conference voted to establish an Autonomous Tatar-Bash­
kir Republic and to include in it not only the areas inhabited by these
two peoples, but also those populated by other minority groups, such as
the Chuvashes ( who were Orthodox Christians but had asked to be ad­
mitted to the new Moslem state) and the Marii ( also Orthodox Chris­
tians). Vakhitov spoke of the resolution as a great step forward in the
realization of radical Pan-Islamism. Thanking Stalin and Lenin- in that
a
order - for their support, he concluded the conference on triumphant
note: 'We conceive the Tatar-Bashkir Republic as the revolutionary
hearth whence the rebellious sparks of the socialist revolution shall
penetrate the heart of the East!" 13
By the end of May, Vakhitov had at his disposal a respectable
political machine: a high position in the Commissariat of Nationalities,
with the backing of Stalin, its chairman; a network of provincial organi-
160 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

zations of the Musbiuro and Gubmuskom types; and the promise of an


autonomous Moslem state in the very center of Soviet Russia. All that
he still lacked was a separate party organization, and to remedy this
deficiency he convened in June 1918 a conference of all the provincial
branches of the Moslem Commissariat. At this meeting a Russian Party
of Moslem Communists (Bolsheviks), Rossiiskaia Partiia Kommunistov
( b) Musul'man, and a separate Central Committee, Tsentral'nyi Komitet
Musu'l'man Kommunistov, were established. 14 It is not clear whether
Vakhitov undertook this bold venture with or without the specific ap­
proval of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party. At
any rate, there was no time for Moscow to intervene; for before Vakhi­
tov's plans could be carried out, the entire party and state apparatus
which he had erected since his appointment as chairman of the Moslem
Commissariat collapsed.
In the summer of 1918 Czech prisoners of war, who were being trans­
ported from Russian camps to the Western front in Europe by way of
Siberia� clashed with the Bolsheviks, and took over a number of cities
along the railroad lines. The Czech rebellion was of sufficient dimensions
for Soviet rule in the Volga-Ural region, tenuous to begin with, to fall.
Communists and other elements associated with the Soviet regime hastily
evacuated the Kazan province and retreated westward with the Red
Armies. The Musbiuro and Gubmuskomy vanished overnight. Vakhitov
himself was captured by the Czechs in Kazan and executed, together
with a number of other locally prominent Bolsheviks.
Deprived of their leader and of their political machine, the Moslem
Communists were completely at the mercy of Moscow, which lost no
time in showing its hand. In November 1918 the Central Committee of
the Russian Communist Party convened in Moscow a congress of Moslem
Communists. Stalin, addressing the delegates, paid them high compli­
ments: "Nobody can bridge the gap between the West and the East as
easily and as quickly as you can," he said, "since to you are open the
doors of Persia and India, Afghanistan, and China." 15 But at the same time
the authorities he represented felt that Moslem Communists should
carry out their mission under closer supervision of the Russian Commu­
nist Party. The conference had to sign its own death warrant by dissolv­
ing the Russian Party of Moslem Communists and subordinating the
surviving Musbiuro and Gubmuskomy to the local offices of the RKP.
The name of the Central Committee of the dissolved party was changed
to read: the Central Bureau of Moslem Organizations of the Russian
Communist Party, Tsentral'noe biuro musul'manskikh organizatsii
RKP ( b), and the new body was placed directly under the control of the
Russian Central Committee. Stalin was elected the latter's permanent
representative in the Moslem Central Bureau. 16
Behind these administrative changes lay the fact that the young
THE M O S LEM B O RDERLANDS

Moslem Communist movement had ceased to exist as an independent


force. Nothing was left of its original status except the fact that it still
retained an All-Russian Moslem fo rm, but even that was not permitted
to last. In March 1919 the Central Bureau created at the November 1918
Congress was transformed into the Central Bureau of the Communist
Organizations of the Peoples of the East, Tsentral'noe biuro kommunisti­
cheskikh organizatsii narodov Vostoka, which also included non-Moslem
nationalities and was headed by Mustafa Subkhi, an Ottoman Turk and
a member of the Third International, originally from Constantinople. 1 7
Shortly afterwards the Moslem Commissariat itself was dissolved and
replaced by a Tatar-Bashkir Commissariat with a correspondingly more
limited sphere of activity. Alongside of it were created other regional
commissariats ( e.g., fo r Turkestan, Transcaucasia ) .
By the spring of 1919, in other words, not only the organizations of
the Moslem Communists in Russia, but the very concept of Islam had
disappeared from Soviet political life. Events had shown that it was
too dangerous, from Moscow's point of view, to make an indiscriminate
use of Pan-Islamist tendencies on Soviet territories, since this had led to
the establishment of a separate party organization and had deprived the
Bolshevik leaders of full control over their Moslem subjects.
The Bashkir and Tatar Republics
After the death of Vakhitov, the Soviet government abandoned the
idea of a united Tatar-Bashkir state, and instead divided the Volga-Ural
region into separate autonomous republics based on the national-terri­
torial principle.
Zeki Validov, the Bashkir leader who had been arrested by the
Bolsheviks in Orenburg in February 1918, escaped from confinement soon
afterwards, and turned up behind the White lines to organize a Bashkir
army. Within a few months he succeeded in forming several native regi­
ments, which were thrown into the battle on the side of the anti-Soviet
forces organized by the SR-dominated Committee of the Constituent
Assembly ( Komuch ) located in Samara ( Kuibyshev ) .
The collaboration between the Bashkirs and Whites did not last
long. It was wrecked by the White leaders' lack of tact and genuine sym­
pathy for the aspirations of the minor nationalities. The Komuch refused
to make commitments concerning future self-rule and the Bashkir land
demands. Furthermore, friction developed between Validov and the
White leaders over jurisdiction in the Bashkir theater of operations, over
the billeting of Cossack troops in native villages, over the taxation of the
civilian inhabitants, and over the division of military authority. When,
in November 19 18, Admiral Kolchak overthrew the Komuch and estab­
lished himself as dictator, the relations between the Bashkirs and the
Whites deteriorated even further. Kolchak made no bones about his dis-
1 62 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
like of the nationalist movement and issued orders to dissolve the sep­
arate Bashkir corps and to incorporate its units into the White Army. 1 8
Disgusted with the treatment which they received from the Whites, and
even more apprehensive about their fate in the event of a White victory
in the Civil War, the Bashkirs began to discuss the possibility of switch­
ing sides. Early in December 1918 Validov convened a secret meeting
of Bashkir and Cossack leaders, who were dissatisfied with the fact that
their commander, Dutov, had recognized the authority of Kolchak, and
suggested the arrest of Dutov; but the plot was betrayed and sup­
pressed. 19
Through emissaries, covertly dispatched in February 1919 across the
battle lines, Validov offered, under certain definite guarantees, to go over
to the Reds. He demanded promises of extensive self-rule for the Bash­
kirs and the creation of a separate Bashkir republic. In March, after one
month of negotiations, he �eached an agreement with the Communist
regime. The agreement stipulated the establishment of an Autonomous
Bashkir Republic, located within the boundaries of so-called Small Bash­
kiriia,, as defined by Validov at the 1917 All-Russian Moslem Congress.
The Bashkirs were to elect at once a Bashkir Revolutionary Committee
( Bashrevkom ) , which was to exercise supreme authority in all matters
pertaining to Bashkiriia and its inhabitants until conditions permitted
the convocation of a Bashkir Congress of Soviets. The Bashrevkom was
to be master of everything within its territory, with the exception of the
railroads, factories, and mines, which were to be subordinated to the
All-Russian Commissariat of National Economy. The Bashkir armed
forces, while retained as a distinct army, were to come under the juris­
diction of the All-Russian Commissariat of War. 20
On the face of it, this agreement was a far-reaching concession by the
Soviet government. It meant the abandonment of the project of a united
Tatar-Bashkir republic and the establishment of an autonomous state
with far greater political and economic self-rule than Moscow was at
that time generally inclined to grant its republics. To the Bashkirs it
appeared eminently satisfactory. The agreement gave them an oppor­
tunity to realize their national ideals and to enforce their land program.
On February 22, 1919, the Bashkir troops ( amounting at the time to
2,000 men) elected a Bashrevkom, which included Validov, and crossed
the battle line to join the Reds. Their defection had a serious effect on
the morale of the Cossack troops protecting the White front in the Ural
region, and on the whole strategic situation in this sector of the Civil
War. 21 The leaders of the Kazakh-Kirghiz Alash-Orda, with whom Vali­
dov had made common cause in the previous year and a half, decided
to continue their association with the White forces, and fought on the!.
side of Dutov and Kolchak until the summer of 1919, when they too, in
a large majority, went over to the Communists.
THE M O S L E M B ORDERLANDS

From the beginning of their association with the Bolsheviks the lead­
ers of the Bashkir national movement suffered a series of mishaps, owing
partly to the unbridgeable mental gap which separated the two sides,
and partly to a fundamental difference of interests between the Russian
and Bashkir inhabitants of the area. The Bashkirs, having established
contact with the Bolsheviks rather late in the Civil War, had had no
experience with Communist methods, and did not realize that the con­
cessions they had been granted were a tactical move to induce their
defection from the Whites. They interpreted the March 1919 agreement
as granting them political and economic carte blanche and drew up a
series of measures calling for the compulsory expropriation and resettle­
ment of all non-Moslems who had come to the Bashkir areas during the
Stolypin period, and their replacement by Bashkirs residing outside the
limits of the republic. At the same time, they began to plan the creation
of an autonomous Bashkir Communist Party and the exchange of diplo­
matic representatives with the other Soviet republics. 22 In the fall of 19 19,
when the Red Army occupied the Ural area, the Bashrevkom returned to
Bashkiriia and announced in a special decree that it was assuming full
power and that all the inhabitants of the republic were henceforth to
obey its orders. 23
These aspirations were in basic conflict with the interests and atti­
tudes of the local Bolshevik party and state institutions with which the
Bashrevkom had to work. Most Soviet organs in the Ural region, as in the
other Moslem regions, were predominantly Great Russian in their ethnic
make-up : their personnel consisted largely of workers, soldiers of the
military garrisons, and peasant-colonists - all social groups which did
not exist among the Bashkirs. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
various soviets which emerged throughout the revolutionary period "on
Bashkir territories were ethnically Russian and fought for the interests
of the Russian population. The soviets took the side of the Russian colo­
nists in their struggle for land with the Bashkirs. Bashkirs were, in many
instances, excluded from membership in the soviets, 24 and most of the
land which the Bolshevik institutions had confiscated in that area from
the state, church, or private landowners, was distributed to Russian colo­
nists. 25 "Despite our intentions," wrote the delegate of the central Soviet
authorities to Bashkiriia some time later, "we [the Bolsheviks] simply
spearheaded the kulak onslaught of our Russian peasantry on Bashkir
land." 26 The urban and agricultural Tatar elements in the Bashkir terri­
tories also tended to side with the Russians against the natives.
To the Bolshevik party and state institutions functioning on Bashkir
territories the very prospect of Bashkir self-rule was distasteful. Time
after time, congresses of soviets and provincial or regional revolutionary
committees of the Volga-Ural area passed strongly worded resolutions
condemning the establishment of an autonomous Bashkir republic. 27 The
164 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
arguments which. they presented to Moscow stated that this region was
too important economically to be separated from the Ural industrial
centers, that the native population was too weak both physically and
morally to uphold Soviet power, that the Bashkirs in general and the
leaders of the Bashrevkom in particular had fought on the White side
and hence could not be trusted, and finally, that the creation of national
republics ran altogether contrary to the international principles of Com­
munism. It may be said without fear of exaggeration that, except for a
few influential friends in the center, among them Lenin, the idea of a
Bashkir republic found no sympathy whatsoever in Bolshevik circles. 0
For that reason, as one of the leaders of the Bashrevkom stated later,
the main task faced by the Bashrevkom throughout its existence was the
fight for the very survival of the young republic.28
The difficulties began soon after the Bashrevkom had returned to its
homeland in September 1919. It found that during the interval between
the reoccupation of the area by Red troops and its own arrival virtually
the entire territory of the Bashkir republic had fallen under the control
of the Executive Committee of the Ufa province. Even in the capital city
of Sterlitamak all the office buildings were taken over by officials from
Ufa, who completely ignored the existence of the republic. The thinly
scattered but influential Bolshevik Party cells on Bashkir territory were
composed mainly of Russian factory workers, who refused to subordinate
themselves to the Bashkirs and preferred to obey Red institutions in
Orenburg or Ufa. 29 It required a considerable effort, often accompanied
by physical force, for the Bashrevkom to assert its authority on its own
territory against the hostility of Soviet institutions in the neighboring
provinces and Bolshevik organizations within Bashkiriia.
The Bashrevkom was only partly successful, for before long it was
faced with another, even more formidable challenge to its authority: the
Communist Party. Until the end of 1919 responsibility for party activities
in Bashkiriia rested theoretically on the shoulders of the Bashrevkom,
which made no attempt either to organize it more effectively or to intro­
duce its personnel and ideology into Bashkir political institutions. For
this negligence, which stemmed from the antipathy of the Bashkir leaders
toward the elements who filled the local party cells and from their lack
of understanding of the place of the party in a Communist society, they
were severely criticized by envoys sent from Moscow.30 In November
1919, under pressure of the same envoys, the first Bashkir regional Com­
munist Party conference was convened. As might have been expected,
the conference was heavily dominated by Russians, who succeeded in
° Characteristic was the reply given to a Bashkir delegation in 1920 by Lutovinov,
the secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in Moscow: "That
whole autonomous republic, which you take so seriously, is only a game to keep
you people busy" ( Dimanshtein, "Bashkiriia," 143).
THE MOSLEM BORDERLANDS
electing a Regional Committee of the Communist Party ( Obkom ) in
which their own people held all the key positions. In time this Obkom
became a weapon with which local Russians and Tatars, supported by
influential persons delegated from the center, destroyed the national
autonomy of the Bashkirs.
The first task confronting the Obkom was to strengthen the local
Communist Party cells and to centralize the chaotic party organization.
This was difficult to do, because there was little contact with the already
existing cells, and above all, because the broad masses of the Bashkir
population sympathized with the Bashrevkom and displayed undisguised
hostility toward Russian Communist officials. ,,The Obkom used a novel
and very effective method to overcome those obstacles. It so happened
that, at about the same time, the Soviet government in Moscow had
created a Society for Aid to Bashkiriia ( Bashkirop omoshch ) in order to
alleviate somewhat the starvation and disease which had begun to deci­
mate the peoples of the area. When the chairman of this society - the
leader of the right-wing of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, Artem
- arrived in Sterlitamak, the Obkom at once perceived the opportunity
which had fallen into its hands and made common cause with him. The
Obkom and the local agents of the Bashkiropomoshch took advantage of
the desperate plight of the native masses, and of their dependence on
the material assistance which the Communists alone could provide, to
organize among the Bashkirs a powerful network of subordinate Bolshe­
vik cells. A large portion of the 150,000 Bashkirs who received help were
formed into so-called Committees of the Poor, and both the personnel
and financial resources of the allegedly philanthropic society were used
to establish an efficient, centralized party apparatus. 81 Within five months
the party membership in Bashkiriia increased fivefold, and Communist
organizations, all subordinated to the Bashkir Obkom, were set up in
go per cent of the counties. 82
Feeling in a much stronger position, the Russian and Tatar leaders
of the Obkom then directly challenged the authority of the Bashrevkom.
In January 1920, on the basis of rumors that the Obkom planned to do
away with Bashkir autonomy, the . leader of the Bashkirs, Kh. lumagulov
( Validov was at the time in Moscow ) ordered the arrest of several Tatar
members of the Obkom. This provided the Obkom with the opportunity
to strike. Urgent appeals for military assistance were sent out by the
Obkom to the neighboring provinces of Ufa and Orenburg and to the
Turkestan Red Army headed by Frunze, and soon several fortified points
under the command of an officer whom the Bashkirs dubbed "Governor
General" were established throughout the country. Since most of the
Bashkir troops had some time before been dispatched to fight the White
Army on the western front, the Bashrevkom had no armed might at its
disposal. A meeting of the Obkom which followed this occurrence con-
166 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET UNION

demned any attempt either in deed or by word of mouth to increase


Bashkir self-rule, and declared that henceforth the Obkom would direct
the work of the Bashrevkom and approve all of the more important po­
litical appointments in the republic. 33 The Bashkirs were also deprived
of control over the local secret police ( Cheka) .
The Bashrevkom found itself in a difficult situation. Its authority was
becoming rapidly undermined and made dependent almost entirely on
the good graces of the central authorities. The leaders of the Bashrevkom
watched with bitterness a group of foreign Russians and Tatars trans­
form themselves from a minority into a ruling power by means of the
principle of Communist Party dictatorship and use their position to fur­
ther the interests of Russian colonists. The political situation in Bash­
kiriia grew tense. In March 1920 Trotsky held several conferences in
Ufa with representatives of the Bashrevkom and Obkom in an endeavor
to smooth out their differences. A resolution was drawn up favoring the
Bashrevkom and condemning the interference of Bolshevik party organ­
izations in the affairs of the Bashkir state. 34 The principal political figures
on both sides were recalled to Russia, and a special commission to deal
with any future disagreements was established in Moscow, consisting of
Trotsky ( chairman) , Stalin, and Kamenev.
Until this time the Bashkir leaders had continued to believe that their
difficulties with the Communist Party and state institutions were due to
the obstinacy and chauvinism of the local Bolsheviks rather than to the
central authorities. On the whole this assumption was not unjustified.
Evidence indicates that the actions which caused friction between Bash­
kir and Russian institutions were undertaken by the local Bolsheviks on
their own initiative, with little direction from Moscow.35 Both Lenin and
Trotsky had proven themselves friendly to the Bashkirs, and if Stalin
tended to favor the Tatars, he at least desired that the Bashkirs retain
their autonomy. It was generally accepted that, if it had not been for the
influence of Moscow, local Bolsheviks would have done away with Bash­
kir autonomy altogether. But the Bashkir leaders failed to perceive that
the support given them by Moscow was neither disinterested nor per­
manent. In 1920 the Civil War, for all practical purposes, was over, and
the Soviet government was centralizing its political and economic appara­
tus. It could not tolerate the unique powers which the Bashrevkom had
secured in 1919 - powers which were greater than those enjoyed by
any other political institution on Soviet territory.
On May 22, 1920, the Soviet government published, without having
first consulted the Bashkirs, a new decree on Bashkir autonomy.36 This
came as a bolt from the blue. The new law was completely �entralistic
in spirit and deprived the Bashkir government of most of the rights guar­
anteed it by the 1919 agreement. Virtually all the political, financial, and
economic organs were now subordinated to the central authorities and
THE MOSLEM BORDERLANDS

the Bashkirs were left with nothing but minor administrative powers. It
was a clear violation of the understanding reached the previous year, and
the final blow to Bashkir hopes.
Following the publication of the new decree, the Bashrevkom held a
secret meeting, where bitter anger was expressed at this breach of faith,
which had made a comedy of Bashkir autonomy. After more than a year
of cooperation with the Bolsheviks, none of the plans or hopes of the
Bashkir people had been realized: they had neither the land nor the self­
rule of which they had expected so much. A strongly worded resolution
was adopted:
In view of the imperialistic tendencies of the Russians, which
hinder in every manner the development of the national minorities;
in view of the lack of faith of the center toward Bashkir Commu­
nists, Bashkir officials are abandoning Bashkiriia and departing for
Turkestan, for the purpose of creating there an independent East­
ern Communist Party, of which the Bashkir Regional Committee
( Obkom ) will be a part. The Eastern Communist Party must be
admitted into membership of the Comintern. The aim of this exodus
is by no means to rouse the national masses against the Soviet gov­
ernment, but rather, through resignations, to protest against Russian
chauvinism. 37
Another complaint, written by Validov, objected to the new autonomy as
giving the minorities less self-rule than they had enjoyed under Nicholas
II and Stolypin, and accused the Communist Party, especially Stalin, of
ignoring their demands and embarking upon a course of out-and-out
G�eat Russian chauvinism. 38 Some time later, in the middle of June, vir­
tually all the Bashkir government officials left their posts and vanished
into the Ural mountains.
The departure of the Bashrevkom and the other Bashkir officials soon
threw all of Bashkiriia into a civil war which permitted the Russian ele­
ments to obtain further advantages. The Obkom immediately requested
additional armed help from the neighboring provinces and from the
Turkestan Red Army, so that by the end of July 1920 the entire republic
was under occupation. The Russian peasants and workers, mobilized to
deal with the rebels, eagerly flocked into punitive detachments to revenge
themselves on the Bashkirs and to seize the land and cattle which they
had long coveted. Under the pretext that they were suppressing a coun­
terrevolutionary uprising, the Russians began a veritable reign of terror,
accompanied by the indiscriminate looting and murder of the Bashkir
population. 39 The Bashkirs flocked in increasing numbers into the moun­
tains to join the rebels. Thus, in a sense, the Bashkir uprising of 1920
may be viewed as the result of a merger of two separate opposition move­
ments : the initial political opposition of Bashkir officials and intellectuals
was strengthened by the outbreak of a popular rebellion of the Bashkirs.
168 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
The strength of the mass movement was demonstrated by the fact that it
continued for some time after most of the Bashrevkom officials had been
either apprehended or for�ed to Hee abroad.
While the rebellio.n _._was raging, the Obkom completed its conquest
of the political institutions of Bashkiriia. During the summer of 1920,
the Bashkirs, who were now considered to have demonstrated their
unreliability conclusively, were entirely eliminated from the party and
state apparatus. Neither the new Obkom nor the new Bashrevkom, which
was appointed to replace the old one, included even a token number of
Bashkirs.40 Moreover, the First Congress of Soviets of Bashkiriia, assem­
bled in the fall of 1920 for the purpose of electing a new government,
did not include ( at first, at any rate) natives, because all the Bashkir
delegates had been arrested as "nationalists." 41 It is not surprising that
the government elected by this congress consisted of representatives of
all ethnic groups except the Bashkirs.42 Thus the Bashkir Republic, fo r­
mally organized in late 1920, had no natives in its government. The party,
in close alliance with Tatars' and Russian colonists, who now filled the
key positions, and in intimate contact with envoys from the center, had
emerged victorious.
The suppression of the rebellion was only a question of time. It suc­
cumbed to the superior Red forces, to an unusually severe winter, and
to hunger. The Bolsheviks granted amnesty to the rebels. Most of the
leaders of the old Bashre.vkom were captured and returned to minor
posts in the republic, while the remainder either fell while fighting in
the ranks of the Moslem partisans in Central Asia or else, like Validov,
eventually made their way abroad.
All this time, while the Bashkir Republic was experiencing its trials
and tribulations, the question of creating a Volga Tatar state had been
held in abeyance. The Tatars had played a considerably more important
role in the Communist movement than the Bashkirs, and their ambitions
were proportionately greater. The iµea of an autonomous state, which
satisfied the Bashkir nationalists, did not gratify Tatar intellectuals edu­
cated in the reformed schools, who- had been associated in 1917 with the
All-Russian Moslem movement and were steeped in the atmosphere of
Moslem radical proselytism. The Tatar Communists w�re none too eager
to speed the cause of a separate Tatar autonomous state. They preferred
to wait for the termination of the Civil War, when, they hoped, it would
be possible to establish a single Volga-Ural republic, and to resume their
activities on an all-Russian scale. Their leader and ideologist at this time
was a remarkable Volga Tatar Communist, Mirza Sultan-Galiev.
Sultan-Galiev was born in the Ufa province sometime in the 188o's.
He attended the Russo-Tatar Teacher's College in Kazan, and then served
as a Russian-language instructor in the reformed Moslem schools in the
Caucasus. Before the outbreak of the war he contributed frequently to
THE MOS LEM BORDERLANDS 169
the Turkic papers in Baku and in St. Petersburg, writing articles about
Moslem life in Russia and translating from Russian publications. In the
spring of 19 17, he was engaged by the Executive Council of the Moscow
All-Russian Moslem Congress as a secretary, in which capacity he used
his knowledge of languages. Sultan-Galiev had belonged to the left wing
of the All-Russian Moslem movement and may have joined the Moslem
Socialist Committee founded by Vakhitov. In the elections to the Con­
stituent Assembly, he ran unsuccessfully in Kazan on the same ticket with
Vakhitov and Tsalikov. Sometime toward the end of 1917 he went over
to the Communists. After the Bolshevik seizure of Kazan, he was ap­
pointed Commissar of Education and of Nationalities in the local Soviet
government, and in February 1918 he worked with the Revolutionary
Staff which suppressed the Kazan Shura. He escaped from Kazan shortly
after the Czechs seized the city, and arrived in Moscow at the opportune
moment when the Moslem Communist movement had been deprived of
its leadership through the death of Vakhitov.
Stalin at once took Sultan-Galiev into his Commissariat of Nationali­
ties and gave him all the support previously lavished on Vakhitov. As
Stalin's protege, Sultan-Galiev rose rapidly. In December 191� he became
Chairman of the Central Moslem Military College, which the Commis­
sariat of Nationalities had recently taken over from Trotsky's Commis­
sariat of War, and in which was vested authority over the Moslem troops
fighting on the Red side. Throughout 1919 he traveled extensively on
various missions for Stalin and made contacts with Moslem Communists
in the borderland areas. In 1920, finally, he was promoted by Stalin to
membership in the three-man Small Collegium of the Commissariat of
Nationalities, and was made co-editor of the Commissariat's official pub­
lication, Zhizn' natsional'nostei ( The Life of Nationalities ) . He had
become the most important Moslem in the entire Soviet hierarchy and
had acquired a unique position from which to influence the Eastern
policies of the Communist regime. 43
Sultan-Galiev and his followers - the so-called right wing of the
Tatar Communist Party - had a distinct political ideology. In a series of
articles published in the Zhizn' natsional'nostei in the autumn of 1919,
Sultan-Galiev expressed the belief that the Communist leaders had com­
mitted a grave strategic blunder by placing the main emphasis in their
revolutionary activity on Western Europe. The weakest link in the cap­
italist chain was not the West but the East, and the failure of Com­
munist revolutions abroad was directly attributable to the inadequacy
of Soviet efforts in the Eastern borderlands. The spread of the revolu­
tionary movement in the Orient, however, required a distinct approach.
The Eastern peoples lacked an industrial proletariat, they were much
more religious than the Europeans, and hence they_ should not be sub­
jected to the same revolutionary methods used in the West. Only a very
1 70 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
tactful approach, combined with the extensive use of native Moslem
Communists, would permit the spread of Communism in the East. 44 The
right wing thus placed emphasis on the Eastern instead of the Western
revolution, and on the need for conciliatory policies toward the Moslem
religion and traditions.
This ideology did not run contrary to Bolshevik strategy of 1919 and
1920, and hence Sultan-Galiev for a time enjoyed the backing of Moscow.
If anything, the thinly disguised Pan-Islamic tendencies of the rightists
were in harmony with the Kremlin's bid for Moslem support. Owing to
the support of Moscow, the rightists dominated the weaker and less
numerous left wing. Prominent among the leftists were assimilated Tatars,
who had staked their political careers on an alliance with the Russian
interests in the Kazan area and who fought against the concessions which
the Bolshevik leaders were making to Moslem nationalists of Sultan­
Galiev's persuasion. The head of this left faction was also a Tatar, Said
Galiev, but the real power behind it consisted of Russ,ian and other Euro­
pean leaders from Kazan: Karl Grazis, the organizer of the 1917 Bolshe­
vik coup in Kazan, and I. I. Khodorovskii, the chairman of the Kazan
Soviet government ( Gubispolkom ) . 45 The leftists lacked a positive ideol­
ogy, but they were definitely opposed to national self-rule and were
desirous of preserving the privileged position which the Russians and
other Europeans enjoyed in the Kazan province. As early as June 1918,
when the idea of a Tatar-Bashkir state had first been approved by Mos­
cow, Grazis had attacked the "Eastern orientation" of the government. 46
As long as the Tatar right did not press for a republic, there was no
public con:8ict between the two factions. But at the end of 1919, the
Volga-Ural region had been freed from the White Armies, and Sultan­
Galiev with his followers reopened the issue of the Tatar-Bashkir state
whose establishment the Czech revolt in August 1918 had prevented.
This question was placed on the agenda of the Second Conference of
Eastern Communists, held in November 1919. The rightists originally had
wanted a republic embracing all the territories in the Volga-Ural region
inhabited by non-Russian peoples, but they had had to give up this
notion because of Moscow's insistence on the retention of the already
existing Bashkir Republic. The rightists therefore came out in favor of a
separate Volga Tatar republic. The leftists did not oppose this project
directly; they merely expressed the opinion that instead of wasting time
and effort on such secondary matters, it would be better to concentrate
on the military mobilization of the Moslem population. Moscow, how­
ever, backed the right, and resolutions were adopted proclaiming the
principle of a Tatar republic. 47 .Encouraged by their success, the rightists
next tried to persuade Moscow to exclude the city of Kazan from the
prospective state. The bad experiences of the Bashrevkom with Soviet
authorities in Ufa and Orenburg made it seem desirable to draw the
THE M O S LE M B O RDERLANDS 171
new state's borders in such a way as to eliminate towns and rural areas
in which the Russians were in a majority. To this, however, Lenin said
no, and the matter was dropped.48
The leftists did not give up their opposition to the idea of a Tatar
republic. In April 1920 a group of Communist leaders from Kazan and
its vicinity, attending the Ninth Congress of the Russian Communist
Party in Moscow, visited Lenin and attempted to make him change his
mind. Khodorovskii told Lenin that, in the opinion of the Communists
from Kazan, there were among the Tatar party members no leaders who
could be entrusted with authority, and the creation of a republic would
affect adversely the economy of Soviet Russia. "The Tatar comrades,"
Khodorovskii argued, "will not have either sufficient strength or sufficient
courage to collect grain in their republic in the manner in which we have
been doing it in the Kazan province." 49 Considering the fact that the
Kazan Communists had squeezed from the semi-starved peasantry in the
area ten million puds ( 176,000 short tons) of grain in the preceding year,
this was a potent argument. 50 But Lenin was unimpressed. To him, he
said, it did not seem wise to alienate millions of non-Russian peasants for
the sake of a few million puds of bread; on the contrary, it was necessary
to make special concessions to the Tatar peasants in the matter of grain
collection. Stalin, who was also present at the interview, added that until
better Communist cadres among the Tatars were created, one had to
utilize those that were available. 5 1 Their mission a failure, the leftists
returned home, and reported on Moscow's decision. The bad news caused
widespread grumbling in local party circles.
The leftists still had one trump c.ard to play. Possessing control of
the state and party apparatus in Kazan, they were in a position to see
to it that if they could not prevent the Tatar Republic from coming into
being, they could at least make certain that its government would fall
into their own hands. In the spring of 1920 they ordered the mobilization
of the Tatar Communists for the Turkestan front, and in this way got rid
of the main body of the opposition. 52 On June 25, 1920, the Kazan
Gubispolkom formally ceded its authority to a Tatar Revkom, especially
created for this purpose; the Revkom in turn convened a Tatar Congress
of Soviets, which met on September 25, 1920, whereupon the Revkom
dissolved itself, and the functions of government over the new Autonom­
ous Tatar Socialist Soviet Republic were assumed by a Tatar Council of
People's Commissars, under the chairmanship of the leader of the left,
Said Galiev. 53
Once the principle of ethnic division of the Volga-Ural region had
been established, the formation of the other autonomous states in the area
proceeded almost automatically. The Chuvash, who in 1918 had ex­
pressed a desire for a union with the Tatars, were directed to organize
a separate state, and the Chuvash Autonomous Region came into being
1 72 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
on June 24, 1920. 54 The Mari and Votiak Autonomous Regions were de­
creed in November 1920 and January 1921, and were established shortly
afterwards.
Thus, by the end of 1920, Moscow had the situation in the Volga­
Ural region well in hand. The five autonomous republics and regions
created there in the course of 1919 and 1920 were now administered by
elements obedient to the directives of Moscow, and, in addition, there
was a strong Communist Party in the chief towns of the region to super­
vise and control the local governments.
The Kirghiz Republic 0
The Alash-Orda continued, as had been pointed out earlier, to co­
operate with the Whites even after , Kolchak had assumed dictatorial
powers and had done away with the few vestiges of self-rule which the
nationalist organizations had enjoyed under the Committee of the Con­
stituent Assembly. In 1919, however, the affairs of Dutov and Kolchak
went from bad to worse, and before the year was over the Red armies
had occupied considerable areas inhabited by the Kazakh-Kirghiz tribes.
The Soviet government at once took energetic steps to attract the Alash­
Orda to its side, hoping to utilize its prestige and personnel to secure the
support of the native population, as it had done in neighboring Bash­
kiriia.
As early as Janu,�ry 1919, when Orenburg had fallen and the regular
Red Army had gained a foothold in the Central Asiatic steppes, Mikhail
Frunze, the commander of the Fourth Army of the Eastern Front, called
upon all the Kazakh-Kirghiz fighting for the White cause to change their
allegiance and to side with the Communists, pledging them full amnesty
and complete forgiveness for their past activities. 55 The Soviet govern­
ment in Moscow reaffirmed this promise by offering safe-conduct to all
the Kazakh-Kirghiz, including those connected with the Alash-Orda, who
wished to attend a Soviet-sponsored Kirghiz Congress in Orenburg. 56 To
administer temporarily the Kazakh-Kirghiz areas, the All-Russian Council
of People's Commissars appointed on July 10, 1919, a Kirghiz Revolu­
tionary Committee or Kirrevkom. The Kirrevkom was to rule over the
provinces of Uralsk, ,Turgai, Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, and part of the
Astrakhan province. In the decree establishing the Kirrevkom the govern­
ment also ordered all the Kirghiz to be subject to military duty in the
Red Army, and all lands owned by Russians on Kazakh-Kirghiz terri­
tories to remain in the possession of their present owners. 57 The Kir-
0 The Kirghiz republic, established by Soviet Russia in 1920, included areas in­
habited by the Kazakh-Kirghiz tribes, and coincided largely with the pre-1917
Steppe General Gubernia and the Uralsk and Turgai provinces. In the mid-1g2o's
this republic was divided into separate Kirghiz and Kazakh republics. At the time
of the events here described the term "Kirghiz" was in general used by the Soviet
authorities for the tribes for which the term Kazakh-Kirghiz is used by this author.
THE M O S LE M B OR D E R L A N DS 1 73
revkom was composed of seven persons, under the chairmanship of the
Pole S. Pestkovskii of the Commissariat of Nationalities. 58
The Kirrevkom, unlike its Bashkir counterpart, was not in the hands
of local nationalists, but of officials selected by Moscow from among
trusted Communists, largely non-Moslems, and for this reason it could
not serve as an instrument of native opposition as the Bashrevkom had
done in Bashkiriia. In the Kazakh-Kirghiz steppe all the organs of polit­
ical power were, from the beginning of the Soviet occupation in 19 19,
firmly in the hands of Moscow. The local nationalists were powerless to
oppose them even after they had been granted autonomy.
In the summer of 1919 many members of the Alash-Orda, lured by
Communist promises and discouraged by the White defeats in the Urals,
went over to the Reds. Among them was Akhmed Baitursunov, an old
Kazakh-Kirghiz nationalist leader and one of the founders of the Alash­
Orda. As soon as he joined the Communists, Baitursunov went to Moscow
for a private audience with Lenin. 59 The nature of the interview is not
known; but it is not unreasonable to suppose that Lenin made promises
to Baitursunov similar to those which he was in the habit of making at
the time to other non-Russian nationalists, and that among them were
pledges of Kazakh-Kirghiz autonomy and of assistance in the ameliora­
tion of the desperate economic situation of the nomads.
At the beginning of January 1920 the Soviet authorities in Aktiubinsk
convened a Kirghiz conference, at which a new Kirrevkom was elected
to admit members of the Alash-Orda, including Baitursunov. There also
approval was given to a resolution calling for the speedy establishment
of an autonomous Kirghiz state. 60
The circumstances surrounding the establishment of the Kirghiz re­
public so much resembled those which attended the creation of other
Moslem states in Soviet Russia, such as the Bashkir and the Tatar re­
publics, that to describe them",at length would be redundant. Here too
Russian (J provincial institutions located in the urban centers ( Orenburg,
Semipalatinsk ) opposed with all means at their disposal and for much
the same reasons native autonomy; here too, once an autonomous repub­
lic had been created at the insistence of Moscow, the Russians refused
j
to accept its authority and prevented it from- functioning properly; here
too the split between Russians and natives was clear-cut and led to per­
petual friction in party and state organs. 6 1 In the spring of 1920 the rela­
tions between Russians and natives working in local Soviet institutions
approached a break. There were constant quarrels over political and
economic issues connected with the distribution of food and with the
<i In the steppe regions of Central Asia under "Russians" must also be under­
stood the considerable Ukrainian population; unfortunately, the documents do not,
as a rule, distinguish between the two groups, and to the native Moslem any
Orthodox Slav was a "Russian." For this reason it is necessary here to treat Great
Russians and Ukrainians as one.
1 74 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
preparations for the forthcoming Congress of Soviets of Kirghiziia.
Finally, the native nationalists headed by Baitursunov decided, out of
sheer desperation, to make a direct appeal to the highest authority in
Russia, to Lenin himself. In two lengthy telegrams which were sent to
Moscow without the knowledge of the local Communists, and which
seem to have remained unanswered, Baitursunov and his followers de­
manded that the leaders of the party help establish genuine self-rule for
the natives by restraining what they called "local, provincial, and re­
gional imperialists"; ending the "Bonapartist" tendencies of Communist
officials; putting a stop to the stealing and requisitions of native proper­
ties; and equalizing the distribution of food. 62 But the Kazakh-Kirghiz
nationalists were in no position to do much more than send telegrams.
They had no army, no political organizations ( the Alash-Orda was never
recognized by the Communists, even though its members, as individuals,
were welcome) , no contacts in Moscow - nothing, in short, with which
to transform their dissatisfaction into organized resistance.
In October 1920 the Communist Party's Reg�onal Committee in Oren­
burg convened the First Kirghiz Congress of Soviets. The congress estab­
lished an Autonomous Kirghiz Republic with a government consisting of
the commissariats of Interior, Justice, Education, Health, Social Security,
and Agriculture. On the all-important land question the congress voted
to retain the status quo : to stop further colonization of the steppe, but
to allow the Russian colonists already settled there to keep their lands,
including those which they had seized from the natives in 1916 and
1917,63
In 1921 and 1922 the Kazakh-Kirghiz steppe was stricken by famine
which made itself felt most heavily among the natives, who had lost
their cattle in the course of the 1916 rebellion, and who were slighted in
the distribution of food supplies sent in by the government and put at
the disposal of local Communist organs. 6 1 Whole areas were depleted
by the lack of nourishment, and instances of cannibalism were not infre­
quent. In the course of 1921, one million persons perished from hunger
in the Kirghiz Republic. Under those circumstances the establishment of
the Kazakh-Kirghiz autonomous state, formally decreed in October 1920,
was not possible until two years later, when the food situation was nor­
malized. The famine also explains the relative lack during the early
192o's of native popular resistance to the Soviet regime, such as occurred
in neighboring Bashkiriia and Turkestan.
Turkestan
At the end of December 1917 authority over Turkestan was claimed
by two rival governments : a Soviet one in Tashkent, backed by Russian
railroad workers, soldiers, colonists, and the Communist government in
Russia; and a Moslem one in Kokand, supported by the politically con-
THE MOSLEM BORDERLANDS 1 75
scions elements of the native population, and by some anti-Communist
Russian parties.
The news that the natives in Kokand had proclaimed an autonomous
state aroused the ire of pro-Soviet groups in Tashkent. The local soldiers,
who already in November had arrested and executed General Korovni­
chenko, the Provisional Government's representative there, now began
to round up all the inhabitants whom they suspected of sympathy with
the Kokand regime. 65 At the Fourth Regional Congress of Soviets ( Janu­
ary 1918 ) the Communist faction sharply condemned native endeavors
to institute self-rule in Central Asia :
We subordinate entirely the principle of national self-determina­
tion to socialism, recognizing the fact that only in the struggle with
the counterrevolution is the revolution being shaped - the revolu­
tion which will sweep out of its way all obstacles such as the au-
tonomous government of Kokand. 66
Confronted with such menaces from Tashkent, the Kokand govern­
ment tried desperately to secure outside assistance with which to aug­
ment its weak military forces, but without success. Negotiations with
the Cossack Ataman Dutov of Orenburg broke down in the middle of
December over the issue of Moslem self-rule; the Alash-Orda was cool
to Kokand's offers of cooperation, and in any case it had no important
armed forces at its disposal; and the Emir of Bukhara, hostile to the
liberals who predominated in Kokand and anxious to preserve neutrality
in the Russian Civil War, refused even to receive the emissaries who had
been sent to him with requests for help. 67 In January 1918 several small
urban centers in the Ferghana valley recognized the sovereignty of
Kokand,68 but the remainder of Turkestan did not follow suit. The
Kokand government was unable to back up its assertions of authority
even in the city which it had chosen for its residence, because the Rus­
sian Soviet in Kokand would not subordinate itself to the autonomous
institutions.
In late January 1918, when the crisis in Moslem-Russian relations led
to an open conflict, the Kokand government could rely only on a few
hundred ill-equipped and inexperienced volunteers against thousands of
Russian veterans and mercenaries in the service of the Tashkent Soviet.
Its downfall was swift and calamitous.
The struggle which led to the destruction of the autonomous govern­
ment took place in the city of Kokand. 69 At the end of January the local
soviet, persisting in its independent course, took refuge in the fortress,
manned by forty-five Russian soldiers. On the night of January 29/Febru­
ary 1 1, some Moslems penetrated and trie� to take over the fortress, but
they were expelled. The Russians sent for help to the garrisons of the
adjacent towns and to Tashkent. On the following day a small Russian
176 THE F O RMATION O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
detachment, armed with some heavy weapons, arrived from Skobelev
( Fergana) , to bolster the soviet's defenses. While the guns were being
mounted and the Russian and Armenian inhabitants, fearful of an im­
pending massacre, were moving into the walled enclosure, the Kokand
Soviet issued an ultimatum to the Moslem authorities. It called for the
surrender of all arms and the punishment of those guilty of the night
raid. The Kokand government refused, whereupon the fortress op�ned
fire on the native quarter. The panic-stricken Moslem population began
to flee the city and to hide in the mountains.
Through the intercession of Russian civilians, negotiations for a cease�
fire were opened. Despite the uncompromising attitude of the Russian
soldiers, who insisted on exorbitant contributions from the Moslems, there
was good reason to believe that eventually an armistice would have been
reached. The Kokand government was too weak militarily to dislodge the
Russians, while the fortress had ammunition for no more than one week
of fighting. On February 5/18, however, a strong detachment of Russian
soldiers, augmented by German and Austrian prisoners of war whom the
Tashkent Soviet had hired for this purpose, arrived from Tashkent. Per­
filev, the commander of the detachment and at the same time Military
Commissar of the Soviet Turkestan government, insisted that negotiations
with the Moslems be broken off at once. Early the following day he
ordered his troops to assume the offensive by storming the Old City. The
outnumbered Moslem defenders were easily dispersed. After gaining con­
trol over the entire town, Perfilev allowed his men full freedom. The
soldiers, assisted by some Armenians, began to loot the native quarter and
to murder the Moslems who had not escaped when the fighting began.
After three days of stealing and slaughter, when there was nothing of
value left, the soldiers poured gasoline on the houses in the Old City and
set them on fire. The Moslem quarter was almost entirely destroyed. 4
"Kokand is now a city of the dead," wrote a Russian observer a few days
after the troops, loaded with loot, had departed; "it resembles a mortu­
ary, from which emanate odors of mold and carrion." 70
The fall of the city spelled the doom of the Kokand government and
of native hopes for self-rule. Some of the leaders of the ill-fated regime
were arrested by the conquerors and · brought to Tashkent. The head of
the government, Mustafa Chokaev, escaped in time to avoid capture. On
February 9/22, 1918, the Moslem population of Kokand was compelled
to recognize formally the authority of the Tashkent Council of People's
Commissars.71
Emboldened by their success, the Tashkent Bolsheviks decided to
deal next with the Emirate of Bukhara, one of the two independent pow-
0 Kokand never recuperated from the events of February 1918. Its prerevolution­
ary population of 120,000 dropped to 69,300 in 1926 and further to 60,000 in 1936.
THE MOSLEM BORDERLANDS 1 77
ers remaining in Turkestan ( the other being the Khanate of Khiva ) . The
situation there seemed quite favorable for quick and decisive action. Emir
Said Alim Khan of Bukhara was a reactionary and autocratic ruler, who,
by resisting all pressures to introduce Western institutions into his do­
main and by suppressing groups spreading reformist principles, had
alienated the liberal jadidist element, which in all other parts of the
Russian Empire had supplied the backbone of the Moslem nationalist
movement. Sometime at the end of 1917 the Bukharan jadidists, known
as the Young Bukharans, established contact with the Soviet authorities
in Tashkent. In fighting the Emir, therefore, the Communists enjoyed the
advantage of having on their side the local Moslem intelligentsia.
Operations against Bukhara began in the second half of February
1918 under the direction of Kolesov, the chairman of the Turkestan Soviet
government. Kolesov moved with his troops to the gates of the capital
city and on February 28/March 13, after a conference with the Young
Bukharans, presented the Emir with an ultimatum demanding the lifting
of all restrictions on freedom of speech, the abolition of the death penalty
and corporal punishment, the dissolution of the Emir's advisory body
and its replacement by one composed of Young Bukharans, the right of
the Young Bukharans to veto all future governmental appointments,
and finally the reduction of certain taxes.72 The Emir for a time was
apparently considering the acceptance of these humiliating conditions;
but finally, under unknown circumstances, he turned them down. On
March 1/14 Kolesov ordered an attack on the walled city. The battle
ended in a Russian defeat. The local population, imbued with religious
passion, rallied behind the Emir and prevented enemy troops from
penetrating Bukhara, and meanwhile massacred several hundred Russian
residents of the city. After four days of fighting, Kolesov raised the siege
and retreated to Tashkent. With him fled about two hundred Young
Bukharans whose lives were endangered by their conspiracy with the
Soviets. 73 Shortly after Kolesov's retreat, the Turkestan government for­
mally recognized the independence of Bukhara.74
The defeat at Bukhara did not alter the fact that in the spring of
1918 Tashkent's authority extended over the major part of Turkestan.
Under its control were the cities and settlements of the Syr-Daria, Fer­
ghana, and Samarkand provinces, as well as the railroad lines and tele­
graph stations throughout these regions. Only .the countryside - the
desert areas with their oases and the mountains encircling Turkestan
from the south and east - were beyond Tashkent's reach, largely because
the maltreatment of the native population by the Turkestan Soviet gov­
ernment and the elements supporting it had alienated the indigenous
inhabitants. All through 1918 and most of 1919 the persecutions, expul­
sions from the land, and looting of the Moslems by the Soviets continued
1 78 THE FORMATION OF THE S OVIET UNION
unabated, creating a regime which a contemporary Soviet observer de­
scribed as "feudal exploitation of the broad masses of the native popula­
tion by the Russian Red Army man, colonist, and official." 75
The dissatisfaction of the native population with Soviet rule found
expression in partisan warfare, which had its origin in the Ferghana
valley, spread to the neighboring provinces, and finally embraced nearly
all of Turkestan, including the pfincipalities of Khiva and Bukhara. This
popular resistance movement, perhaps the most persistent and successful
in the entire history of Soviet Russia, became known as Basmachestvo,
and its participants as .Basmachis. 0
The Basmachis were originally ordinary bandits who had preyed on
the countryside even before the outbreak of the Revolution. The tsarist
regime had never been quite successful in suppressing them. In 1917
their ranks grew rapidly, owing to the amnesty proclaimed by the
Provisional Government which released many criminals, and to the cur­
tailment of the cotton industry, which had caused widespread unemploy­
ment among the native peasants and had deprived them of their liveli­
hood. The Basmachis were particularly active in the Ferghana valley,
the center of the cotton plantations. They were universally feared by the
population of this area, Russian and Moslem alike; but since there was
no force capable of putting them down, they gradually became stronger
and bolder. 76 At the beginning of 1918 the Kokand government made an
agreement with one of the most powerful of the local robber leaders,
Irgach, appointing pim captain of its troops. 77 When Kokand fell, many
Moslems connected with the autonomous government and some of the
inhabitants of the Ferghana valley who had -been maltreated by Soviet
troops fled to the mountains and joined the Basmachis, endowing Bas­
machestvo with the character of a popular resistance movement. The
natives of the valley, who previously had dreaded them, now, after the
Soviet conquest, often treated the Basmachis as protectors and liberators .
The principal weakness of the Basmachi movement was its lack of
unity. The various detachments operated independently of each other
under the leadership of ambitious and jealous chieftains, who refused
to coordinate their activities and at times engaged in internecine wars.
Not infrequently, in critical situations, Basmachi units went over to the
Reds. Basmachestvo represented essentially a number of unconnected
tribal revolts and exhibited all the shortcomings of such fo1ms of resist­
ance. It never attained its ultimate purpose - the overthrow of Russian
rule in Turkestan - because the Russians were infinitely better organ-
0 The origin of the term is obscure. Zeki Velicli Togan ( quoted in Hayit, Die
Nationalen Regierungen ) traces it from the word "basmak" meaning "to oppress";
the Basmachis would then be "the oppressed." According to sqme Soviet sources, on
the other hand ( ZhN, 2 June 1920 ), it stems from the native term for "robber."
Other sources indicate the root of the term to mean in native Turki "to tread under­
foot," Chacun a son gout.
THE M O S L E M B O RDERLANDS 1 79
ized, controlled the cities and the lines of communication, and had at
their disposal a more numerous and more experienced armed force. But
from 1918 to 1924, and especially in the period 1920-1922 when Bas­
machestvo was at its height, the revolt drove the Communist rulers of
Central Asia to desperation. "The fight against the Basmachis," wrote one
Soviet eyewitness, "was a fight with an entirely new, distinct, and unique
opponent. The Basmachis were made up of partisan detachments, almost
exclusively on horseback. They were elusive and often dissolved in the
neighboring villages literally before the eyes of our troops, who would
immediately undertake a general search of the villages but without any
results." 78 To protect their territories from the rebels, the Soviet au­
thorities had to expend much effort, money, and manpower; late in 1918
a large expeditionary force was dispatched to the mountains to ferret
them out. 79 Operating in the mountains and deserts, the Basmachis suc­
cessfully evaded the regular Soviet forces, and during the Civil War they
almost completely controlled the Ferghana valley and the mountains
surrounding it.
In the spring of 1918 the Soviet government in Moscow, having re­
ceived disquieting reports from Turkestan on the general unpopularity
of the Bolshevik regime there and on its inability to deal with the Bas­
machis, decided to intervene. Paramount, in Moscow's eyes, was the ques­
tion of autonomy. Moscow saw in the persistent refusal of the Tashkent
Bolsheviks to grant the natives self-rule the principal reason for the dis­
mal situation. In April 1918 a special emissary was dispatched from Mos­
cow to Tashkent with instructions to proclaim Turkestan an autonomous
republic. Shortly afterwards, Stalin, in a confidential report to the Tash­
kent Communists, confirmed these instructions. Obedient to orders, the
Tashkent regime convened at the end of April the Fifth Congress of
Soviets - the first at which Moslems and Russians sat together - and
reversed the resolutions of the preceding congresses by decreeing the
establishment of an Autonomous Republic of Turkestan. To maintain the
impression that this resolution was spontaneous and voluntary, the Tash­
kent government sent a formal note to the Council of People's Commis­
sars in Moscow informing it of the decision. Moscow replied several days
later with an acknowledgment and a pledge of full support. 80
The resolutions of this 1918 Tashkent Congress of Soviets, however,
having been imposed from above against the real wishes of the local
Communists, remained a dead letter. It was not until two years later that
the natives were given the right to participate in the government of
Turkestan, or treated on equal footing with the Europeans. 8 1
In January 1 9 1 9 the prestige of the Tashkent government was further
weakened by an attempt of its Commissar of War, Osipov, to overthrow
Soviet authority in Turkestan. Osipov captured most of the members of
the government, whom he speedily shot. He tried to establish contact
180 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
with the Basmachis and the British, but the Communist officials who had
eluded arrest rallied the pro-Soviet forces in Tashkent and suppressed tne
rebellion before he could carry out these intentions. In reprisal for the
plot, the Cheka reportedly executed several thousand persons suspected
of hostility to the Communist regime in Turkestan.82
At this point a few words may be said about British intervention in
Turkestan and the Caucasus. The British expended during World War I
considerable effort fighting German and Turkish attempts to penetrate·
their Middle Eastern possessions and to sever the routes to India. While
Russia had been actively engaged in fighting the Central Powers, that is,
until the end of 1917, the northwestern approaches to India, leading
through the Caucasus and the Transcaspian provinces of Russian Central
Asia, were protected by Russian armies. The sudden collapse of the
Russian front, however, changed the situation radically to the disadvan­
tage of England, for it opened to the Turks and Germans the roads to
the Caspian region and Persia, and thence to Central Asia and Afghani­
stan. To fill the gap the British were compelled to organize special mili­
tary missions.
There were two main and several smaller expeditions of this sort.
General Dunsterville was sent from India into northwestern Persia, with
orders to reach Baku and to prevent the Central Powers from obtaining
the Caucasian oil deposits. General Malleson, operating from northeastern
Persia, was to keep the Transcaspian province from falling into enemy
hands. Colonel Bailey was to make his way to Tashkent. The forces at
the disposal of these British officers were quite inadequate for the tasks
assigned them. Dunsterville had goo men, Malleson 2, 100 ( largely natives
recruited for the purpose ) , while Bailey commanded a mere handful of
Indian guards. sa The British effort was also handicapped by a poor under­
standing on the part of the commanders of the situation in the territories
where they operated. They were in general unclear about the nature of
the Civil War in Russia; they tended to treat the Bolsheviks as young
hotheads and the non-Russian groups as passive colonial peoples, con­
sistently underestimating the political acumen of the former and the
nationalist fervor of the latter.
Considering that the intervention in Russia took place in the border­
land areas where most of the population was non-Russian, the British
might have been expected to appeal to the national sentiments of the
minorities and to collaborate with the national governments which had
formed themselves in those areas following the disintegration of the old
Empire. This, however, they did not do. For all their importance to India
and Britain•s Middle Eastern position, the Caucasus and Turkestan were
secondary fronts; the World War was being decided in Europe. Britain
was not prepared to alienate the Russian Allies - represented during
1918 and 1919 by the Whites - whose assistance in fighting the Central
THE . M O S LEM B ORDERLANDS
Powers and in reestablishing a balance of power in Eastern Europe was
important, by supporting minority nationalism and separatism. For better
or worse, Great Britain backed the White movement and shared its nega­
tive attitude toward the national aspirations of the minorities. Only in
1920, after the White cause had suffered irreparable damage and finally
collapsed, did they change their stand and throw their :mpport behind
the minorities, but not for long. In 1921 England reconciled itself to
the fact that Soviet Russia had established a viable political organism,
and began to make approaches to Moscow, abandoning the borderland
peoples to their fate.
General Malleson's troops moved into Transcaspia in August 1918
at the request of the Socialist Revolutionary Transcaspian Provisional
Government established in Ashkhabad. In August and September they
fought, in alliance with Russian White troops and Turkmen detachments,
under the leadership of a native nationalist leader, Oraz Serdar, against
Red troops trying to penetrate from Tashkent. Malleson had connections
with some of the Basmachi chieftains, but, according to Soviet sources,
there is no evidence that he supplied them either with money or with
arms.84 In February 1919 British troops received orders from London to
evacuate the Transcaspian region, and by early April they were entirely
out. In July the Red troops approached Ashkhabad, which was defended
by Oraz S�rdar and his Turkmen units. After the city had been taken,
Oraz Serdar fled to the desert and joined the Bas_machi units in the Khiva
district. 85 British intervention in Turkestan was thus of brief duration and
had no important effect on the course of the Civil War there; at best it
delayed somewhat the extension of Soviet rule to the southeastern shore
of the Caspian Sea.
In January 1919 Soviet armies captured Orenburg. In the expectation
that they would march at once on Tashkent, the Soviet government ap­
pointed a special commission for Turkestan ( Kommissia V1)IK po delam
Turkestana) composed of five Communists : Sh. Z. Eliava (chairman),
M. V. Frunze { commander of the Fourth Army), V. V. Kuibyshev (po­
litical commissar in the Fourth Army), F. I. Goloshchekin, and Ia. E.
Rudzutak. It was to replace the Tashkent Communist government and to
assume political authority in Turkestan as soon as that area was reunited
with Soviet Russia. The five-man commission arrived in Samara in early
spring, but because the military authorities considered it more urgent to
deal with Kolchak and Dutov than to march on Tashkent, its departure
for Turkestan was delayed for more than six months.86 Finally in the fall
the White armies were defeated, and in November 1919 the Turkestan
Commission left for Tashkent, to assume there the powers delegated to
it by the central authorities.
The first task of the commission after its arrival in Tashkent was to
prepare a detailed report on the general situation in that area for the
182 THE FORM ATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
benefit of the central Soviet authorities. Their report painted a most dis­
couraging picture. On the basis of this report, the Central Committee
of the Russian Communist Party drew up a «Circular Letter to All
Organizations of the Communist Party of Turkestan," a part of which
read as follows :

Separated by bands of White Guardists from Soviet Russia al­


most from the first days of the Revolution, Turkestan had to rely
on its own resources. The thin layer of a Russian working class, which
was lacking in strong revolutionary traditions and the experience of
stubborn class warfare, had naturally enough fallen, in its majority,
under the influence of colonially nationalistic hanger-on elements,
and had unconsciously conducted a policy hostile to the international
interests of the proletarian revolution.
Stimulated by their class and group interests, elements which had
nothing in common with the task of liberating toilers, organized
themselves under [the Soviet] banner. Old servants of the tsarist
regime, adventurers and kulaks, operating under the camouflage of
the class struggle, began to persecute the native population in a most
brutal manner. Such partial continuation of the old policy under the
auspices of Soviet rule could not but repel the poor class of natives
from the revolution and push them into the arms of the native mag­
nates. This in fact happened : Soviet rule transformed itself in many
parts of Turkestan into a weapon for the national struggle.
The unification of Turkestan with Soviet Russia partly cleared the
local atmosphere, which was filled with national hatreds and an­
tagonisms, but nevertheless it could not at once liquidate all the
survivals of the past. The colonizing policy had led directly and
immediately to the enslavement of the poor class of natives. It was
natural that with the termination of that policy the poor class of
natives could not at once rise to power and stand up in defense of
its interests. Side by side with the colonizing elements, power was
acquired also by the exploiting upper classes of the native popula­
tion, who, instead of helping the toiling masses in the cause of their
national-cultural and class self-determination, began to exploit them
with ever greater intensity, transferring all the traditional feudal
methods of oppression, such as bribery, looting and personal terror,
under the "Soviet roof."
So far the Soviet system in Turkestan had not yet been placed on
sound foundations. Taking advantage of the decentralized and dis­
organized conditions of the government, suspicious gangs of hang­
ers-on continue to operate with impunity in the localities. Party or­
ganizations are besmirched to an exceptional degree. The toiling
masses of the Kirghiz, Sarts, Uzbeks, Turkmens do not as yet know
what real Soviet rule and the Communist Party are : the defender of
all oppressed and exploited. 87
THE M O S L E M B O RDERLANDS
Lenin viewed the situation in Turkestan with great anxiety. He feared
that Soviet misrule there might have an adverse effect on Communist
efforts in the Middle and Far East and alienate those Moslem nationalists
whom his regime had won over in the course of the Revolution and Civil
War. As soon as he had studied the report, Lenin instructed the Turke­
stan Commission to take measures to restore order and to gain the sym­
pathies of the local population. "The establishment of correct relations
with the peoples of Turkestan," he wrote to Tashkent, ''has for the Rus­
sian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic at the present time an im­
portance which may be said without exaggeration to be gigantic, all­
historical." 88
On Lenin's instructions the commission adopted policies diametrically
opposed to those which had been in force the preceding two years. The
native population was permitted to reopen its bazaars, to engage in petty
trade and in other commercial activities forbidden to the Russian in­
habitants of the area; food distribution, previously favorable to the Euro­
pean urban population, was equalized; natives were urged to join the
Communist Party and to participate in the Soviet institutions. 89 All those
measures had, as their immediate purpose, the elimination of the dissat­
isfaction which had engendered and given strength to Basmachestvo.
Frunze, arriving in Tashkent in February 1920, admitted publicly that
in the past grievous mistakes had been committed as regarded the
natives, and promised that henceforth things would be different. 90 He
organized "Soviet Basmachi" detachments, and made attempts to liqui­
date the rebellion by causing mass defections.
This new, "soft" policy had a moderate success and to some extent
stopped the further spread of Basmachestvo, but it did not accomplish
everything the government had hoped. Some Basmachi chieftains went
over to the Reds in the spring of 1920 and helped to build a "Soviet
Basmachi" force, only to revolt in September 1920, and take once more
to the hills. 91 In Ferghana there were active at the beginning of 1921
nearly six thousand Basmachis, and Soviet authority there, to quote a
Soviet observer, "maintained itself only in the f01m of a few oases in the
turbulent sea of Basmachestvo." 92 Morepver, by attacking the Khanate
of Khiva and by renewing its offensive against Bukhara, the Soviet gov­
ernment rapidly undid most of the good which its concessions had accom­
plished, and caused the Turkestan revolt to extend to new regions.
Khiva was seized without great difficulty in February 1920. This state
had been torn since 1918 by internal struggles between the Turkmens
and Uzbeks over water sources, as well as by a conflict between the con­
servative orthodox elements, and the liberal jadidist Young Khivans. The
military operations against Khiva were brief and, once the city was seized,
the Communists recognized the Young Khivans as the legitimate govern­
ment, signing with them an agreement by virtue of which Khiva, in
184 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION

recognition of its previous status as a semi-independent protectorate of


Russia, became the People's Republic of Khorezm ( Khorezm being the
ancient name for the Khivan Principality ) .93
This conquest opened the northwestern approaches to Bukhara. In
May 1920 Frunze began preparations for the conquest of that Emirate
by ordering the mobilization of natives in Turkestan, and concentrating
his troops on its border. Frunze's plans called for an uprising of the
Young Bukharans somewhere within the domain of the Emir, and for a
coordinated attack by battle-tried Red Armies from Khiva and Tashkent.
A conference of Young Bukharans was called in August 1920 in the town
of Chardzhou, seventy miles southwest of Bukhara. Most of the Young
Bukharans were not satisfied with the way in which Frunze and the
Turkestan Commission were directing the operation, because they them­
selves had little to say in the planning. But within the Young Bukharan
organization there had developed earlier in the year a left-wing faction
of Young Bukharan Communists, which, with the support of Moscow,
overcame the resistance of the dissatisfied majority. At the Chardzhou
conference the Young Bukharans pledged themselves to adopt the Com­
munist platform and to dissolve their organizations in the event of a
successful coup against the Emir.94
When the conference was finished, the Young Bukharans staged the
planned uprising in Chardzhou and requested the Red Army for help.
Soviet troops marched in at once, and converged on Bukhara. The battle
for the city was bitter. It lasted five days, and for a while it appeared
that the Emir might repeat his triumph of 1918. Frunze's troops suffered
heavy losses and lacked reserves, 9 5 but finally, on September 2, 1920,
they captured the city. The Emir and his entourage escaped to the
eastern, mountainous section of the state, and thence, in 1921, to Afghani­
stan. Many of his followers, however, stayed behind and under the
leadership of Ibrahim Bek organized Basmachi detachments, which soon
gave the Soviet authorities as much trouble as those active in the
Ferghana region. Thus, the seizure of Bukhara, though it rounded out
Soviet possessions in Turkestan, confronted the Communist authorities
with added difficulties and new expressions of popular discontent.
The Crimea
In late December 1917 political strength in the Crimea was divided
between Sebastopol and Simferopol. The former was :firmly in the hands
of the Bolsheviks; the latter in the hands of the Tatar nationalists. The
majority of the population of the peninsula, which took neither side, had
no forces at its disposal and was compelled to watch helplessly the grow­
ing conflict between these two groups.
The Sebastopol sailors were greatly displeased with the activities of
the Kurultai. They interpreted the appointment of the Tatar govern-
THE M O S LE M B O RDERLANDS

ment as an indication that the Moslems intended to take over the Crimea
and to impose their rule on the Russian inhabitants. The Bolshevik Exe­
cutive Committee in the port town exploited the anti-Tatar sentiments
of the sailors by spreading propaganda that the peninsula was threatened
with "Tatar dictatorship." 96 In the early days of January 1918 small de­
tachments of sailors directed by the Sebastopol Revkom occupied most
of the northern half of the Crimea by means of sea-borne landings.
Among the Tatars, the threat of a clash with the Bolsheviks led to
a split between the left-wing nationalists, headed by Chelibiev, who
wanted a rapprochement with the Communists, and the right-wing na­
tionalists, hea9ed by Seidamet, who opposed it. On January 9/22, 1918,
the Kurultai held a special meeting at which both viewpoints were dis­
cussed. Finally, the decision was taken to approach the Sebastopol Com­
munists with an offer of participation in the All-Crimean government.
The Bolsheviks agreed to the proposition, but on the condition that the
Kurultai recognize the Soviet government in Petrograd. By a vote of
forty-three to twelve the Kurultai turned down this condition, thus elimi­
nating the possibility of a peaceful solution of the conflict. Chelibiev,
dissatisfied with the decision, resigned from the Executive Committee,
and Seidamet took over his functions.97
The direct cause of the armed conflict between Sebastopol and Sim­
feropol which broke out in January 1918 was an agreement between the
Tatar nationalists and the Ukrainian Central Rada made in late 1917,
which had stipulated that the Tatars would not allow military units
hostile to the Rada to move across their territory. 98 When, at the be­
ginning of January, the Bolsheviks in Sebastopol dispatched troops to
aid Antonov-Ovseenko in his march on Kiev and the Don, the Tatars
tried to disarm them. ;Sebastopol retaliated by sending a force of 3,000
sailors in the direction of Simferopol with orders to put an end to the
"Tatar counterrevolution." On January 13/26 Tatar and Soviet units en­
gaged in battle near the railroad station of Siuren. The Red troops easily
dispersed the defenders and entered Simferopol the following day. The
Kurultai and other nationalist organizations were at once dissolved.
Seidamet, who had commanded the native troops in the ill-fated battle,
fled and eventually reached Turkey. Most of the other members of the
Milli Firka went into hiding in the Tatar villages. Chelibiev, although
he had reason to count on Red sympathy, was arrested and placed in a
Sebastopol prison. There, in February 1918, Soviet sailors - very likely
without the knowledge of their superiors - shot him and threw his body
into the sea. 99
The first Communist regime in the Crimea lasted for three months,
from the end of January until the end of April 1918. It was ineffective,
disorganized, and, like the first Soviet government in the neighboring
Ukraine, vanished without a trace as soon as German troops had set foot
186 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
on its territory. The sailors, whom the Sebastopol Bolsheviks had suc­
ceeded in winning over by appeals to their war-weariness and national­
ism, quickly grew tired of the new order. Before long, they got out of
hand and began to loot and attack the local population. At the end of
February 1918 they killed 250 citizens in Sebastopol and 170 in Simfero­
pol. 100 Many of the sailors were of Ukrainian origin and refused to fight
in the Bolshevik ranks after learning of the Soviet attack on the Ukraine.
By March 1918 the fleet - the ba ckbone of Soviet power in the Crimea
- was entirely demoralized. Some sailors were deserting for home, others
were going over to the White forces. Thus ended the short-lived coopera­
tion between the Sebastopol fleet and the Communists.
At the beginning of March the Communists convened in Simferopol
the First Regional Congress of Soviets in order to form a Soviet govern­
ment for the Crimea. Attending, among others, were ninety-one Tatar
deputies, mostly members of the left wing of the disbanded Kurultai.
The Tatars demanded that they be given seats in the Executive Com­
mittee, which was to be the government of the peninsula, but the chair­
man of the congress informed them that before they had a right to ask
for places in the Executive Committee it was incumbent upon them to
join the Communist Party. When the Tatars moved to open a discussion
on the entire national question they again lost, because the non-Moslem
majority voted to refrain from injecting this question into the debates. 101
The government formed by _the congress consisted of twelve Bolsheviks
apd eight Left SR's. As a concession to the Tatars a Commissariat of
Crimean Moslem Affairs was created: in this way a lone Tatar received
a post in the Soviet government. 102
The government had scarcely assumed its duties when the German
armies began to advance ip.to the Ukraine and the Crimea. In an effort
to save the Black Sea fleet from falling into German hands, Moscow
ordered the Crimean Communists to proclaim the independence of the
peninsula, hoping that the Germans might respect the sovereignty of
such a state. 103 In accordance with these directives the Crimean govern­
ment proclaimed in late March 1918 the Republic of Taurida. ( Taurida
is the name of the province of which the Crimean peninsula was a
part. ) 104
This measure, however, failed to preserve the tottering Soviet au­
thority. Not only was it menaced from the outside, but internally it had
also lost all strength. In the elections to the Sebastopol Soviet, held in
the middle of April, the Bolsheviks were heavily outvoted by the SR's
and Mensheviks; in other towns they failed completely. 105 Soon the
Tatars began to raise their heads again. Virtually excluded from the
Soviet government and subjected to the excesses of the sailors, they
awaited with much impatience the arrival of German troop;;. In the
middle of April some Tatar villages revolted and threw out Communist
THE MOSLEM BORDERLANDS
officjals; here and there Tatar detachments began to reappear. Soon the
Sovnarkom left Simferopol secretly, hoping to escape from the Crimea
before the arrival of German troops, but it was intercepted by Russian
and Tatar units. Four days after the· attempted escape, all members of
the Soviet government of the Crimea were executed in the vicinity of
Yalta. 106 In early May German troops entered Sebastopol unopposed.
The German occupation did not prove itself as beneficial as the
Tatars had hoped. As in the Ukraine and Belorussia the Germans vacil­
lated between the desire to support native nationalism in the struggle
against the Russians and the will to impose their discipline upon the
occupied territories. In May the members of the Kurultai who had
emerged from hiding formed a Provisional Crimean Government, with
Seidamet as Prime Minister, 107 but the Germans refused to recognize it
and instead placed the civil administration in the hands of General
Sulkevich, a Lithuanian Moslem who had once served in the Russian
armies and during the war had commanded a special Moslem Corps
which the Germans had formed in Rumania. Sulkevich's regime, like
Skoropadski's in the Ukraine, was a puppet government, serving the
interests of the German occupation armies, and out of touch with the
Tatar and Russian population. The fact that it assisted the occupants to
ship food from the Crimea to Germany, and that it passed legislation
returning to the previous owners the land confiscated in the course of
1917 and early 1918, did not increase its popular following. All the efforts
of Tatar political figures to use their Turkish connections as a means of
exercising pressure on the Germans, proved unsuccessful. The Germans
refused to surrender any authority in the Crimea to the Tatars. As soon
as the German armies evacuated the peninsula in November 1918,
Sulkevich resigned.
After the resignation of Sulkevich, authority over the Crimea was
assumed by a Russian government, headed by Solomon S. K rym, a mem­
ber of the Jewish Karaite sect of the Crimea and a Kadet Deputy in the
First Duma. His government drew its principal support from the Russian
official and landowning groups, which were strong in the Crimea. Its
political and economic orientation was that of the Kadet Party.
In the fall of 1918 three distinct political tendencies emerged among
the Tatars. The extreme right wing, composed largely of the clergy and
wealthy Moslem landowners, which in 1917 had already had conHicts
with the Tatar nationalists over the questions of land and religious ad­
ministration, supported the Krym government. The Tatar nationalists of
the Milli Firka would not cooperate with the Russian liberals. The major­
ity of the Milli Firka preferred to pursue an independent course, hoping
sooner or later to secure recognition from both sides engaged in the Civil
War, and to regain the authority which the party had enjoyed before
being suppressed by the Sebastopol :Heet. 10 8 A minority in the party con-
188 THE F ORMATION O F THE S O VIET UNION
sidered such a course impracticable, and sought conciliation with the
Communists. This was the left wing of the Milli Firka, headed by Veli
Ibragimov ( Ibrahim ) , which in the winter of 1918-19 established con­
tact with the Communist underground operating in the major cities of
the peninsula, and began to work hand in hand with the Communist
cells. 109
When Soviet troops reoccupied the Crimea in April 1919, overthrow­
ing the Krym government, the relations between the Tatar nationalists
and the Communists were considerably better than they had been a year
earlier, in the days of the Republic of Taurida. With the Soviet armies
there arrived numerous Moslem Communists, including the chairman
of the Central Bureau of the Communist Organizations of the Peoples of
the East, Mustafa Subkhi. Immediately propaganda was started among
the Moslem masses, a Crimean Moslem Bureau was opene� to handle
Moslem affairs, and a considerable effort was made to attract Tatar in­
tellectuals to the Soviet side. In May 1919 the Communists' established
a Crimean regime, and appointed a government in which several im­
portant posts, including the chairmanship of the Commissariat of Foreign
Affairs, were given to members of the left wing of the Milli Firka. 110
The Central Committee of the Milli Firka, which had not collaborated
actively with the Communist underground, dispatched to the Soviet au­
thorities, shortly after the formation of the republic, a conciliatory note
in which it offered to adopt the Communist platform and to support
the Soviet regime in return for a share in the administration and the
right to function legally on Crimean territory, but this proposition was
apparently rejected. 1 11
Active collaboration of the Central Committee of the Milli Firka with
the Communists dates only from the autumn of 1919. In June 1919 barely
one month after it was formed, the government of the Soviet Crimean
Republic had to flee before the White armies of General Denikin which
had occupied the peninsula. The regime which Denikin had established
in the second half of 1919 was perhaps the most reactionary of all to
which the Crimea had been subjected since the outbreak of the Revolu­
tion; it was also the most hostile to the Tatar nationalist movement.
Denikin not only made clear his opposition to Tatar nationalism by dis­
solving Tatar political organizations which had managed to lead an open,
if tenuous, existence from the time of the German occupation, but also
alienated the Tatar intellectuals by undoing some of the most important
reforms introduced in the Crimea in the spring of 1917. Specifically, he
restored the old Vakuf Commission and returned to his post the tsar­
appointed Mufti of the Crimea, removed by the March 1911 Crimean
conference. Driven underground, the Milli Firka had no choice but to
cooperate with the only powerful, well-organized anti-Denikin force ­
the Communists. The Milli Firka endeavored to reach an agreement with
THE MO SLEM B ORDERLANDS 189
the illegal Communist organizations in the Crimea, but since these or­
ganizations were constantly suppressed by the White authorities, its
efforts produced no results. 112 Only in the autumn of 1919, when the
center of Communist activity was transferred from the Crimean peninsula
to Odessa, was it possible for the Milli Firka and the Communist Party
to establish regular relations. The two sides agreed at that time to
coordinate their anti-White activity in the Crimea,11 3
Baron Wrangel, who succeeded Denikin as leader of the White forces
after Denikin resigned in early 1920, attempted to correct the mistakes of
his predecessors by making generous promises to the Tatars, including
the pledge of autonomy and religious self-rule, 114 but this evidence of
good will came too late to bring practical results. In the fall of 1920 the
Communists organized a Crimean Revolutionary Committee ( Krymrev­
kom) in Melitopol ( Ukraine) ; in October, they penetrated the White
defenses of the Crimea and occupied the peninsula for the third time.
As soon as Soviet rule had been established, the Milli Firka tried to
place its relations with the Communists on a more permanent basis. In
a formal declaration submitted to the Regional Committee of the Russian
Communist Party in the Crimea, the chairman of the Central Committee
of the Milli Firka called attention to the fundamental similarities be­
tween Communist and Moslem ideals. The Milli Firka, he stated, differed
from the Communist party "not in principle, but only in the timing, place,
and means of realization [of socialism]"; the Milli Firka believed that,
before the socialism for which both parties were striving could be at­
tained, certain reactionary factors, rooted deeply in Moslem life, had to
be destroyed. It was ready to cooperate wit� the Soviet authorities in
their fight against international imperialism, religious conservatism, and
economic exploitation, provided it was granted the status of a legal party
with a right to publish a newspaper and to administer Crimean Moslem
religious and educational institutions, including the vakuf properties. 11 5
The Crimean Communists turned down this offer, and branded the Milli
Firka an illegal, counterrevolutionary organization. 116
If the refusal of. the Soviet authorities in the Crimea to accept the
cooperation offered by the Milli Firka signified their rejection of a large
proportion of the- Tatar intelligentsia, certainly their agricultural policies
incurred the enmity of the Crimean Tatar peasantry. Owing to the fact
that Catherine II had distributed very large areas of land in the Crimea
to her favorites and other noblemen, the ownership of land there was
concentrated in a comparatively few hands. In the second half of the
nineteenth century ( 1877) 1,000 noblemen owned over one-half of all
the land in the Crimea. 11 7 And though this concentration lessened ap­
preciably during the last decades of the ancien regime, as small peasant
holdings increased, the properties which came within the categories con­
sidered subject to confiscation by the Soviet authorities ( large estates,
190 THE F O R MATION O F THE S OVIET U N I O N

church and government lands) still amounted to no less than 50 per cent
of all the acreage of the Crimea. 1 1 8 Instead of distributing this confiscated
property to the peasantry and the landless agricultural laborers, the au­
thorities transferred most of it to gigantic state farms, or sovkhozy, which
mushroomed throughout the peninsula in 1920 and 1921. In the spring of
1921, there were in the Crimea 987 sovkhozy, owning 25 per cent of all
the arable land, and 45 per cent of all the orchards and vineyards.1 19
In the setting up of the state farms many irregularities were committed.
In fact, the heaviest losers in the new system were the Tatars, because
they formed the bulk of the landless peasantry in the Crimea.
Early in 1921 Sultan-Galiev was dispatched by Moscow to the Crimea
to report on conditions there, and if necessary, to prepare recommenda­
tions for their improvement. Sultan-Galiev's report, published in May
1921 was very critical of Soviet rule in the Crimea. Communist Party
work there, he reported, was entirely disorganized and out of touch with
the Moslem population; the state farms, run by ex-tsarist and colonial
officials directly subordinate to Moscow, ignored the needs of the local
population; Tatar education was neglected. He suggested that a Crimean
Soviet Socialist Republic be created, that Tatars be admitted in large
numbers in Communist organizations, and that the sovkhozy be dras­
tically curtailed. 120 Despite objections from local Communists, and the
acceptance of a resolution by the Crimean Regional Communist Party
Congress against the creation of a republic, 121 the Bolshevik authorities
in Moscow carried out Sultan-Galiev's recommendation and established
in November 1921 the Autonomous Crimean Socialist Soviet Republic.
The chairmanship of the new government was given to Iurii Gaven, a
Bolshevik whose views on the nature of autonomy left no doubt that he
would follow closely · the directives of Moscow. 122

The Revolution in the eastern borderlands of the Russian Empire,


and particularly in the steppe and desert regions inhabited by Turkic
tribes, had a distinct character. Politically and economically, these
regions were colonial dependencies of Russia. The cleavage between the
native and the immigrant Russian population at the outbreak of the Rev­
olution remained broad, despite progressive Westernization under Rus­
sian rule. The overthrow of the tsarist regime loosened the ties connecting
the borderlands with the metropolis and removed the mollifying, regu­
lating force which the imperial administration was wont to exercise.
Before long the Russian urban inhabitants and colonists entered into a
head-on conflict with the natives, which combined all the horrors of class
struggle with those of a national war. The natives sought to assert their
rights and to correct the injustices of the past by organizing national
councils and national political parties, which at first cooperated with
the Russian liberal and moderate socialist institutions, and after the
THE MOSLEM BORDERLANDS
Bolshevik coup, endeavored to establish autonomy. The Russian settlers,
anxious to preserve their privileges, found a natural ally in the new
Soviet regime. In the Communist ideology, which called for the suprem­
acy of the industrial proletariat, peasantry, and soldiers, the settlers saw
the excuse they sought to destroy the political institutions of the natives.
Lacking military experience, short of money and personnel, and ham­
pered by the Civil War from securing assistance of their co-religionists
in other parts of ;Russia, the Moslem nationalists were quite powerless
against the hostile forces. One by one, the various Kurultais, Madzhilis,
and their executive organs were dispersed by Communist-controlled
groups.
After the political apparatus of the tsarist regime, the Provisional Gov­
ernment, and the indigenous national organizations had been destroyed,
power in most Moslem borderlands passed into the hands of the well-to­
do Russian peasantry, the skilled urban proletariat ( above all, the rail­
road workers ) , the Russian garrisons, and the lower echelons of the old
tsarist colonial bureaucracy. Those groups utilized the Soviet government
and party machines to intensify the economic and political exploitation
of the native population. The Revolution, therefore, brought to the
Moslem areas not the abolition of colonialism, but colonialism in a new
and much more oppressive form; it established a regime which, for the
lack of a more conventional term, may be called "proletarian colonial­
ism." The classes which in Russia proper constituted the lower orders
of society formed in the eastern borderlands a privileged order, which
itself was engaged in exploitation and oppression. This discrepancy be­
tween the effects of the Communist victory in Russia and its effects in
the Moslem borderlands was of the utmost importance for the whole
history of the national problem in the Soviet Union.
The Russian Revolution and Civil War greatly accelerated the devel­
opment of nationalism among Russian Moslems. If before 1917 the sense
of national consciousness had been in evidence only among a relatively
small Moslem middle class and intelligentsia, which had had the advan­
tage of Russian or jadidist schooling, by 1920 it had percolated down to
the lowest strata of the population. The nomad or peasant who prior
to the revolution had considered himself above all a Moslem now began to
think of himself for the first time as a member of a nation, be it Azer­
baijani, Kazakh-Kirghiz, Volga Tatar, Bashkir, Crimean Tatar, Uzbek, or
some other. The revolutionary upheaval had telescoped into a period of
three or four years an ideological and social evolution which under more
normal circumstances might have taken an entire generation. The emer­
gence of numerous and diversified political parties among the Moslem
minorities, the experience of voting in national elections, the establish­
ment of local territorial governments, and the conduct of military opera­
tions under native banners - all these developments advanced the growth
1 92 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
of the national movement to a point far beyond that which it had at­
tained in prerevolutionary Russia.
The Soviet regime recognized this fact at once and spared no effort
to turn it to its own advantage. In 1917 and 1918, when the Moslem
borderlands were largely cut off from Moscow, there was little opportu­
nity to accomplish anything in the regions themselves, but Moscow lost
no time in the effort to win over the All-Russian Moslem organizations,
and after this move had failed, to pursue the aims of the All-Russian
Moslem movement under Communist auspices. In 1919 and 1920, when
the borderland areas had been conquered, Moscow made an attempt to
reestablish the equilibrium between the Russians and the natives which
the disintegration of the Empire had upset, by exercising pressure upon
Soviet organs in these regions to curtail their oppressive policies, and if
necessary, to grant the natives concessions. Moscow's alliance with the
nationalists defecting from the White side, and its insistence on the es­
tablishment of autonomous national states, were in line with this policy.
Toward the Moslems, the Communists therefore pursued a dual
course : on the one hand, seizure of power, overthrow of all native
institutions which challenged or refused to recognize Soviet authority,
and centralization of political power; on the other, a bid for the sympa­
thies of all strata of Moslem society by economic or cultural concessions
and an alliance with Moslem nationalists.
V
SOVIET CONQUEST OF THE CAUCASUS

The Transcaucasian Federation

The separation of Transcaucasia from Russia was an act of despera­


tion, undertaken by the local political organizations only after it had
become quite apparent that there was no other way of saving this
territory from anarchy and enemy occupation. As a remedy it proved to
be only of brief effectiveness. Within a few weeks after its formation, the
new republic fell apart, and Transcaucasia, torn by internal dissentions,
was overrun by Turkish and German troops.
The government of the new state, officially known as the Trans­
caucasian Federative Republic ( Zakavkazskaia Federativnaia Respu­
blika), consisted of a coalition of the three principal national parties,
presided over by the Georgian Menshevik, Akaki Chkhenkeli. What once
had been remarked of the Holy Roman Empire was mutatis mutandis
applicable here: it was neither Transcaucasian, nor Federative, nor a
Republic. Inasmuch as the Turks had occupied portions of the southwest
and the Bolsheviks soon seized Baku and the entire eastern haH of
Transcaucasia, the government controlled no more than the central re­
gions adjoining Tillis. During its brief existence neither the federal
relations nor the republican state institutions had been worked out, and
the administration was largely in the hands of the Georgian Menshevik
party.
As soon as Transcaucasia had proclaimed its independence, it dis­
patched a delegation to Batum to reopen negotiations with the Central
Powers. Declaring that they needed control over the transportation lines
into Northern Persia to expel the British units there, the Turkish nego­
tiators now demanded the railroad line running from Aleksandropol
( Leninakan) to Dzhulfa, deep in Armenian territory and beyond the
border designated by the Brest Litovsk Treaty. The Transcaucasians pro­
tested against this demand and charged that it was a violation of their
sovereignty, but disregarding their objections, Turkish troops marched
on May .2/15 into undefended Aleksandropol.1
194 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
While they were fighting a losing battle at the diplomatic table and
trying to create an impression of Transcaucasian unity, the Georgians
had an uneasy feeling that the' Azerbaijanis were not only unwilling to
support their efforts, but were actually conniving in secret with the
enemy. Indeed, the behavior of the Mussavat since the collapse of
the Provisional Government gave reason for suspicion. During all the
debates which had taken place in the Transcaucasian Seim prior to
the proclamation of independence, the Mussavatists had emphasized the
futility of continuing military resistance, and, when pressed for a clear
statement of their intentions, admitted that the ties of religion and racial
sympathy would prevent them from taking arms against the Turks.2 At
the peace negotiations in Trebizond and Batum, the Mussavat maintained
separate delegations which were in close liaison with a mission sent by
the North Caucasian nationalists, and seemed much more interested in
securing the Porte's assistance in the establishment of an Azerbaijani­
North Caucasian state than in stemming the Turkish advance.3 The
negotiations between the Ottoman deputies, and the separate Azerbaijani
and North Caucasian missions seemed to indicate the making of a Pan­
turanian state.
The Georgians and Armenians were in difficult straits. Every advance
of the Turkish armies sent fresh droves of Armenian refugees into the
overcrowded cities of Transcaucasia. The. prospect of a Turkish state
embracing Anatolia, Azerbaijan, and the Northern Caucasus, encircling
and cutting off their territories from the remainder of the world, was
frightening alike to the Georgian socialists and to the Armenian victims
of Moslem violence.
At this critical juncture the Georgians received unexpected assistance
from Turkey's ally, Germany. The German Foreign Office, and even more
so, the German General Staff wanted to preserve the Brest Litovsk line
in the Caucasus and to direct the advance of the Ottoman armies in the
general direction of India. The Germans wanted to keep for themselves
the Caucasus with its rich mineral resources, which were necessary for
their own war effort.4 For this reason, General von Lossow, the German
representative at the Batum negotiations, tended to support the Trans­
caucasian delegates, defending them against the seemingly endless terri­
torial demands of the Turks. When the Ottoman delegation requested
the Aleksandropol-Dzhulfa railroad, von Lossow sided openly with the
Transcaucasians.5
In confidential conversations, von Lossow urged the Georgians to
secede from the Federation and to proclaim their independence; by so
doing they could conclude a separate treaty and place themselves under
German protection. Presented with this alternative to certain Turkish
occupation, the Georgians accepted the German suggestion. On May 26
they convened the Georgian National Council, which had been estab-
THE CAUCASUS 1 95
lished in November 1917 but had not been operative since then, and
proclaimed the independence of Georgia.i'I The Azerbaijanis and the Ar­
menians followed suit two days later. 7
It would be fruitless to take sides in the acrimonious debates of
Georgian, Azerbaijani, and Armenian publicists concerning the responsi­
bility for the disintegration of the Transcaucasian Federation. Tseretelli,
speaking in the Seim on the day when Georgian independence was pro­
claimed, placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Mussavat,
which he accused of conspiring with the Turks against the Federation; 8
the Mussavatists, on the other hand, insisted that it was the Georgians
who were at fault in maintaining secret relations with the Germans and
"seceding" from Transcaucasia; 9 the Armenians, for once agreeing with
the Azerbaijanis, also accused the Georgians, although for different rea­
sons: they charged that the Georgians had made agreements with Turkey
before the war. 10 Actually, the Transcaucasian Federation had no raison
d'etre save as a makeshift arrangement to permit the resumption of
negotiations with the Turks. The national interests and aspirations of the
peoples making up th� Federation were too divergent to permit co­
existence in one state in a period of violent external pressures. Once
Transcaucasia had been separated from Russia, its further disintegration
along national lines was almost inevitable.

Soviet Rule in the North Caucasus and Eastern


Transcaucasia (1918)
The Terek Region
The Bolsheviks first came into power in the Terek Region and then
in Baku by exploiting the national animosities prevalent in those areas.
They held power from the spring of 1918 until the early autumn of that
year.
The outbreak of the Civil War in December 1917 and the subsequent
demise of the so-called Terek-Daghestan state, left the Terek region
without a government. A new attempt to create one was made by the
Bolshevik organizations of Vladikavkaz and Groznyi, acting in close
liaison with the Soviet government in Russia. The Bolsheviks intended
their government to rest on a coalition of the inogorodnye and Cossacks
- a united Russian front against the Moslem natives, which the attacks
of the Chechen and Ingush on the inhabitant of the plains had made
imperative.
The Bolshevik rise to power in the Northern Caucasus, as in Trans­
caucasia, was closely connected with the influx of deserting soldiers, who,
in transit from the front to their homes in the north, passed through Baku
and the railroad towns of the North Caucasus. The Bolsheviks enlisted
196 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
some of these soldiers, and with their aid, obtained control over the
principal soviets in the Terek Region. 11 In the midst of the war, when
the towns and Cossack settlements alike were expecting from hour to hour
renewed Chechen and Ingush attacks, the Bolshevik organizations with
their troops were in a good position to assume leadership. In January
1918 they invited Russian political parties and Cossack representatives
to a meeting in the town of Mozdok, for the purpose of combining forces

Kalmyk A.R.
The Caucasus
(1922)

Black Sea

Iran
tJ

against the invaders from the mountains. At this congress all the Russian
political parties of the Terek Region- Mensheviks, SR's, Bolsheviks, as
well as some radical Ossetin parties - formed a ..socialist bloc'' and
joined the Cossacks in a new administration: the Terek People's Soviet
(Terskii Na-rodnyi Sovet) . 12
The Terek People's Soviet moved in March to Vladikavkaz, where it
founded the Terek People's Soviet Socialist Republic (Terskaia Narod­
naia Sovetskaia Sotsialisticheskaia Respublika). The government of the
new republic included representatives of Russian, Cossack, and some na-
THE CAUCASUS 197
tive parties ( but without the Chechen and Ingush) and was headed by
the Georgian Bolshevik, Noi Buachidze. In April the Republic adopted a
constitution, which acknowledged the sovereignty of the Russian Soviet
Republic and granted Moscow very extensive rights over the Terek
Region in matters of finance, foreign affairs, the entry of Russian troops,
posts and telegraphs. At the same time, the Terek Region retained broad
autonomy in other internal matters, including full legislative, administra­
tive, and judiciary power, on the condition that it did not enact legisla­
tion violating the constitution of the RSFSR. 13
The Terek state represented perhaps the first instance of a "People's
Republic," a type of government the Communists were in time to use
in other conquered territories where their position was weak. In those
areas they satisfied themselves with control of the central organs of
political power and with the application of general democratic and social­
ist measures, postponing the realization of their full Communist program
until a more opportune moment. Another characteristic feature of this
type of rule was Communist cooperation with socialist and liberal groups.
In May 1918 some deputies of the dissolved Terek-Daghestan ad­
ministration, who in January had fled Vladikavkaz and had sought refuge
in Transcaucasia, proclaimed in Batum the independence of the Northern
Caucasus. This step was without practical significance, since the North­
ern Caucasus was then firmly under the control of the Bolshevik-domi­
nated Terek Republic, but it did open the way for possible Turkish
intervention on behalf of the North Caucasian Moslems. The German
delegation at the Batum Conference considered the self-styled republic
a fiction and refused to grant it recognition. 14
The Communist-sponsored Terek Republic exercised effective political
authority for a brief time only. In the summer of 1918, the traditional
animosity between the Cossacks and the inogorodnye led again to an
open conflict. Despite specific directives from Lenin to retain an alliance
with other socialist parties and to refrain from copying Communist poH"
cies in Russia proper, the Terek Bolsheviks, pressed by the land-starved
inogorodnye, began to socialize land. 15 The Cossacks would not acqui­
esce, and quit the government. Moreover, before long the war between
the Ingush and the Cossacks, halted in the spring, Hared up once more,
and the entire region was thrown into complete anarchy. In June violent
anti-Soviet demonstrations of Russians dissatisfied with Soviet rule took
place in Vladikavkaz, in the course of which Buachidze, the Bolshevik
chairman of the republic's government, was killed. 16
The Georgian Bolsheviks, who had fled to Vladikavkaz at the end of
May 1918, after Georgia had proclaimed its independence, found the
North Caucasus completely disorganized. "Soviet rule existed only in
name, having among the population neither weight nor authority. Either
198 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
there were no organs of government whatsoever, or else they had no idea
what to do." 11
Early in August the Cossacks attacked and seized Vladikavkaz. The
Bolshevik leaders, including Ordzhonikidze, who had been dispatched
there in July by the Soviet government from Tsaritsyn ( Stalingrad), hid
in the mountains, among the Chechen and Ingush. Assuming leadership
over the Terek Bolsheviks, Ordzhonikidze made an alliance with the
mountain natives and promised them the assistance of the Soviet govern­
ment in regaining the lands which they had lost to the Cossacks under
the tsars. On August 17, Ingush warriors, incited by the Bolshevik exiles,
attacked and seized Vladikavkaz. A few days later, the Bolsheviks fol­
lowed their new allies into the city and reorganized the Terek govern­
ment. Soviet power now was less popular than it had been at the be­
ginning of the year, when it had enjoyed the support of the Cossacks and
non-Communist Russians. Ordzhonikidze admitted that in the fall of
1918 Bolshevik authority in the Terek Region rested exclusively on the
assistance of the mountain Moslem groups, especially the Ingush: "I re­
call the moment before the end of the Fourth Congress [ of the Terek
Region, held in August 1918] when our fate hung on a hair; this was a
moment . . . when we had no following . . . when we were looked
upon with timidity . . . when only the Ingush people followed us with­
out hesitation." 18
The time for the "People's Republic" type of government was past,
and Ordzhonikidze, possibly under directives from Stalin ( then in Tsarit­
syn) , with whom he was associated, undertook instead a policy of terror
and repression. He organized a secret police, or Cheka, and proceeded to
arrest or execute Mensheviks, SR's, and other elements who had ex­
pressed dissatisfaction with Communism. "Only then did the population
learn the meaning of the Cheka," writes a Communist historian. 19 For
the £rst time the North Caucasus experienced the full horrors of Soviet
rule.
The Chechen and Ingush, on the other hand, were handsomely re­
warded at the expense of the Cossacks for having saved Soviet rule in
the Terek Region. Whole Cossack settlements were expelled, and their
land, livestock and household belongings turned over to the Chechen
and Ingush. 20 The persecution of the Terek Cossacks and the alliance
with the Chechen and Ingush became the cornerstone of Bolshevik policy
in the North Caucasus for many years to come. It accounted for the
loyalty shown by the Chechen and Ingush toward the Communists
during the Civil War. The new regime which the Bolsheviks had estab­
lished upon their return to Vladikavkaz in August was entirely in their
hands and subordinated directly to Moscow. The constitution of April
1918 was altered to eliminate all divergencies from the constitution of
THE CAUCASUS 199
Soviet Russia, and the internal autonomy which the Terek People's Re­
public had been promised was abolished. 21

Baku
Until the middle of March 1918 life in Baku proceeded much as
before, despite Communist determination to seize power. Bolshevik in­
activity was due primarily to the weakness of the party and its following.
The soldiers on whom the Communists had depended at the end of 1917�
and who accounted for at least one-third of their following in the city,
had dispersed and were gone. The workers, especially the laborers in
the oil industry, voted for the SR's if they were Russian, and for their
respective national parties if they were not. In such circumstances it was
impossible to accomplish an armed seizure of power. The Baku Bolshe­
viks were compelled to give up their plans for a coup and to concentrate
instead or�)he penetration of the labor unions and other organizations by
means of strikes, propaganda, and agitation.22
If, despite their numerical weakness, the Communists succeeded in
retaining control over the executive organ of the Baku Soviet, the reason
must be sought in their effective exploitation of the national animosities
which played an important part in local politics. The Baku Soviet re­
flected in miniature the ethnic and political structure of Transcaucasia:
it was composed of Russian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani parties and was
torn by the same dissensions which eventually destroyed the Transcau­
casian Federation. Throughout 1917 the Bolsheviks and the Mussavatists
in the Baku Soviet maintained friendly relations, which aided consider­
ably the weak Bolshevik faction.
In January 1918 Communist-Mussavat relations underwent a change.
The city began to suffer from a food shortage, caused by the severance
of the railroad connecting Baku with the North Caucasus and by the
refusal of the Moslem peasants in Eastern Transcaucasia to deliver prod­
uce to the city. The outbreaks of Moslem violence in various parts of
Transcaucasia, such as in Shamkhor, which were directed against Russian
soldiers and the Russian inhabitants in general, and perhaps above all
the threat of a Turkish invasion of the Caucasus, caused the Bolsheviks
to turn against the Mussavat, and like their comrades in the Terek
Region, to assume the championship of the Russian national cause. 23
The incident which led to the Bolshevik coup in Baku came unex­
pectedly, before the Communists were quite prepared to assume power.24
On March 17/30, 1918 - on the day when the North Caucasian Com­
munists were proclaiming the Terek People's Soviet Socialist Republic in
Vladikavkaz- the Executive Committee ( Ispolkom) of the Baku Soviet,
controlled by the Communists, received reports that a ship of repatriated
troops of the so-called Savage Division ( Dikaia Diviziia), composed of
ZOO T H E F O RMATION O F T H E S O VIET UNION

Moslem volunteers in the tsarist service, had entered the Baku harbor.
The Russians and Armenians in the soviet, fearing the disembarkation of
armed Moslem units would precipitate a national conflict, ordered the
troops of the Savage Division to disarm before entering Baku. The troops
complied, and were allowed to leave the boat. The action of the Ispolkom
soon became known in the Moslem quarter of the city, where it aroused
great discontent. Meetings were held and protests voiced against the
high-handed methods used by the Russians and Armenians. The Moslem
population was enraged that the Russians and Armenians, who had their
own armed detachments, had prevented the Azerbaijanis from also ac­
quiring a military force. The next afternoon ( March 18/31) , a delegation
of Baku Moslems appeared at the soviet to demand the return of the
confiscated arms; simultaneously shooting broke out in the Moslem
quarter. In several sections of the city Russian soldiers were accosted and
disarmed by Moslem mobs.
The soviet was convinced that it faced a Moslem "counterrevolution."
In any struggle in which the Turkish population was involved, the Ar­
menians were certain to be on the other side of the battle line, and thus
on March 18/31 or the following day a coalition was formed between
the Communists, Russian SR's, and Armenian Dashnaks. The alliance
with the Dashnaks became very embarrassing for the Bolsheviks, partly
because of the bad reputation of the Dashnaks among both the Rus­
sian socialists and the .,Moslems, and partly because it was certain to
transform any struggle for control of the city into a Moslem-Armenian
slaughter.
On March 20/April z, Dashnak units, directed by the Ispolkom,
attacked and disarmed Moslem mobs responsible for the outbreak of
violence two days earlier. They met with resistance, but on the morning
of the following day the Baku Soviet was in full command of the city.
The defenseless Moslem population was now at the mercy of the
Dashnaks and the pro-Communist Russian deserters. For three full days
- from March zo to 23 - the Dashnaks and the deserters massacred
Moslems in the city and its industrial suburbs, and then moved into the
neighboring countryside to continue the attack on the rural inhabitants.
All in all, some three thousand persons, mostly Moslems, lost their lives
in the March fighting. 26
"The March [1918] struggle," wrote a Soviet historian of the Trans­
caucasian revolution, "consisted without any doubt of the exploitation
of two national tendencies against a third national tendency." 26 "The
counterrevolution expressed itself through the Turkish national group,
whereas the Armenian and Russian national groups actively supported
the side of the revolution." 27 The fact that they had come into power in
the wake of a purely national clash and with the assistance of the Dash­
naks was not easy f or the Bolsheviks to justify. Shaumian wrote to Lenin
THE CAUCASUS 20 1
explaining that without the aid of Armenian nationalists Baku with its
priceless oil would have been lost;28 Bolshevik speakers tried to defend
the action to the Baku Soviet on the same grounds; 29 and Communist
historians ever since have either minimized the role of the Dashnaks in
the March events or else ignored it altogether.
In mid-April, the Bolsheviks formed a Soviet government in Baku,
composed entirely of Bolsheviks and left-wing Mensheviks ( International­
ist ), notwithstanding the fact that in the election to the Baku Soviet
( April 1918 ) these parties and their sympathizers had obtained only
sixty-seven of a total of 308 seats.30 The SR's and Dashnaks, who had
played a prominent role in the March events and between them had more
deputies than the Communists, were excluded from the administration.81
The new government appointed Shaumian as its chairman and declared
as its goal "to be most intimately connected with the All-Russian cen­
tral government and to execute, in accordance with local conditions,
all decrees and directives of the Worker and Peasant Government of
Russia." 32
One of the first measures of the new authority was the suppression
of all the Moslem and Menshevik newspapers and societies. An order was
also issued to the Dashnaks to disband their separate military detach­
ments and their National Soviet, but the Armenians disregarded it. 88
During their rule in Baku, the Communists devoted most of their
attention to the oil problem. They began at once to dispatch shipments
of oil to Russia via the Caspian Sea and Astrakhan, and thence along the
Volga northward. During the four months of Soviet control in Baku
( March-June 1918 ) eighty million puds ( 1,440,000 short tons ) of oil
were shipped to Russia. 3 4 Having run into difficulties with the oil firms
about prices and deliveries, Shaumian decided to seek Moscow's permis­
sion to nationalize the industry. His communications with the capital
passed through Tsaritsyn, where Stalin acted as intermediary: Soon a
reply arrived from Stalin saying that the Council of People's Commissars
approved of the request. A few days later, however, a countermanding
communication from Lenin and the Commissariat of Fuels informed
Shaumian that Stalin's report was not correct, that the decision of the
Council was not to nationalize.3 5 The Commissariat of Fuels ordered
Shaumian to leave the oil industry in private hands in order not to dis­
rupt production; but it was too late to retract the previous directive, and
in June the oil industry was nationalized.
The nationalization of the oil industry was one of the prime reasons
for the loss of Bolshevik strength in Baku. As the Commissariat of Fuels
had anticipated, the production of oil declined considerably after nation­
alization·, and it also resulted in a lowering of workers' wages.86
Soviet historians agree that sometime in May the laboring population,
traditionally SR and Menshevik in its leanings, had already begun to
202 T H E FORMATION O F THE S OVIET U N I O N

turn against the Soviet regime, which it had supported for a brief time
out of fear of the Turks.:n Shaumian and his colleagues, so deeply under
the spell of the Paris revolution of 1870 that they had called their gov­
ernment the "Baku Commune" and had continually lectured the workers
about its Parisian counterpart, tried to stem the unfavorable tide by ex­
horting the laborers to make ever greater sacrifices and to restrain the
appetites for more money which the Communists themselves, while
striving for power, had whetted :

In the struggle with the bourgeoisie the working class had worked
out special methods of fighting; it had become used to demanding.
This method was once very useful and revolutionary. Now the situa­
tion is different. In power is not the bourgeoisie but an organ created
by the workers, and for that reason the attitude towards the govern­
ment should be different. Unfortunately the old psychology has be­
come ingrained, and the workers defend their private interests.
Against whom? against the common mass.38
In June 1918 the position of the Baku Commune became precarious.
The Transcaucasian republics had proclaimed their independence, and
the Azerbaijanis were preparing to march with the Turks on Baku, to
reclaim the city, and to extort revenge for the massacres of March. From
Moscow and Tsaritsyn where Shaumian had sent for help, however, the
directives were calm. Stalin relayed the following message on June 25/­
July 8 :

[ 1 ] Our general policy in the Transcaucasian question is to compel


the Germans to acknowledge officially that the Georgian, Armenian,
and Azerbaijani questions are internal Russian questions, in the solu­
tions of which they should not participate. It is for this reason that we
do not recognize Georgian independence recognized by Germany.
( 2 ) It is possible that we might have to yield to the Germans on the
Georgian question, but such a concession we shall finally make only
on the condition that the Germans pledge non-intervention in the
affairs of Armenia and Azerbaijan. ( 3 ) The Germans, agreeing to
leave us Baku, ask in return to be allotted a certain amount of oil. Of
course, we can satisfy this "wish."
Stalin also cautioned Shaumian to avoid a conflict with the Germans by
keeping his forces outside of Georgian territory. 39
Moscow obviously was counting on German-Turkish rivalry to retain
a foothold in Transcaucasia and to keep Baku and its oil in Communist
hands. As early as February 1918 Lenin had written Shaumian that the
salvation of the Soviet regime lay in exploiting internal conflicts among
the "imperialist" powers and urged him to play one opponent against the
other.40 But to the non-Moslem population of Baku, faced with the pros­
pect of Turkish occupation, the British units of General Dunsterville,
THE CAUCASU S 203
stationed in Northwestern Persia and trying t9 make their way to the
Caucasus, seemed a more attractive ally than the Red .Army. Shaumian,
realizing the mood of the city, trie_d to get immediate help from Soviet
Russia, but instead of help he received another boastful telegram from
Stalin:
Inform by radio Shaumian in Baku that I Stalin am in the South
and will soon be in the Northern Caucasus. The line Khasaviurt­
Petrovsk will be straightened out no matter what. Everything has
been and will continue to be regularly sent for the help of Baku. To­
day a courier is leaving Tsaritsyn with a letter for Shaumian. We
shall send bread no matter what. Please straighten out the front at
Adzhikabul. Do not lose heart.4 1
Since Stalin was unable to make good his boast, Shaumian established
contact with the British, and invited to Baku the troops of the Cossack
Colonel G. Bicherakov, a tsarist officer who had commanded Russian
military forces in Iran and after the Revolution had joined the British.
Bicherakov reached Baku at the beginning of July and was appointed
Commander in Chief of the Soviet armies defending the city from the
Turks and the Azerbaijanis.
Two weeks after Bicherakov's arrival, the Baku Soviet, in a closed
session, voted to ask General Dunsterville also to come to the defense of
the city.4 2 The Bolsheviks opposed this resolution, arguing that it af­
fected the realm of foreign policy, where Moscow alone was competent
to decide. In deference to the wish of the Bolshevik group the soviet
postponed action until Moscow had given its advice. On July 7/20 a
message arrived from Tsaritsyn, signed by Stalin:
According to the latest information the populist faction of the
Baku Soviet demands the calling of the Varangian-British,° allegedly
against Turkish conquest . . . In the name of the All-Russian Cen­
tral Executive Committee I demand of the entire Baku Soviet, of the
army and fleet, complete subordination to the organized will of the
workers and peasants of all Russia. 48
The message also ordered the arrest of all the representatives of foreign
firms and military missions. When the Bolshevik faction presented a reso­
lution drawn up in this spirit to the Soviet, it was voted down by an
overwhelming majority of the deputies. The Soviet decided instead to
proceed with its original plan of inviting General Dunsterville. 44 The
Communists, too weak to impose their wishes by force, resigned from
the Soviet. Charging that the Baku proletariat was "deluded and pre­
ferred the forces of England to those of Soviet Russia," Shaumian and
0
"Varangian" is the Russian equivalent of the term "Norman"; the reference
here is to the Norman . princes, who, according to Russian Primary Chronicle, were
invited by the medieval Kievan state to become the ruling class.
204 T H E F O RMATlON O F T ll E S O VIET UNION
the other Baku Commissars departed at night on a boat for Astrakhan.
They were intercepted on the way by war vessels of the Socialist Revo­
lutionary government of Transcaspia, brought ashore, and later exe­
cuted.45
After the departure of the Communists, power in Baku was assumed
by the so-called "Centrocaspian Dictatorship," a government dominated
by Russian SR's, who had played a large part in swaying public opinion
in favor of Great Britain and who had been in contact with General Dun­
sterville throughout the Soviet regime in Baku.46 Dunsterville, arriving
with his small detachment at the beginning of August, tried to organize
the defenses of the city against the besieging Turkish troops, but with
little success. The SR's and the Baku Soviet were sorely disappointed
with the size of the British detachment, which, thinking wishfully, they
had pictured as a substantial army. Dunsterville, on his part, f01,md that
the Dashnak units who had to shoulder the main responsibility for the
defense of Baku were unreliable. Soon after his arrival Dunsterville had
disagreements with the Centrocaspian Dictatorship, and convinced that
the city was indefensible, decided to evacuate. British troops embarked
on their boats under the cover of night, and barely escaped being shelled
by the coast guard of the city which so recently they had come to save.47
Bicherakov had abandoned Baku some time before.
On September 2/15, 1918, Turkish troops broke through the weak­
ened defenses and captured Baku.

The Independent Republics ( 1918-19)


Azerbai;an
Shortly after the Transcaucasian Federation had been dissolved
( May 1918 ) , the Azerbaijani National Council moved from Tillis to
Gandzha (known before the Revolution as Elisavetpol), which had been
occupied in the first half of June 1918 by Turkish troops under Nuri
Pasha, the half-brother of Enver. From there the Azerbaijanis hoped,
with Turkish help, to reach Baku.
Relations between the Azerbaijanis and their Turkish allies were at
first friendly and promised well for the future. Early in June a treaty
was signed between the government of the new republic and the Otto­
man Empire, which provided, among other things, for Turkish military
and economic assistance. 48 The period of harmony was brief. The Azer­
baijani National Council ( headed by Resul-zade of the Mussavat) and
the eight-man government (headed by Fathali Khan-Khoiskii, a one-time
liberal Duma deputy and a member of the Neutral Democratic Group)
were staffed largely with people associated with parties that espoused
socially radical programs. In the Council the socialists had eleven seats,
the Mussavat and its affiliate, the NDG, thirty, while the right-wing
THE CAUCASUS 205
Union had only three; in the government all the offices were in the hands
of the Mussavat and the socialists.49 Such a situation did not please the
Ottoman commanders, whose own views were conservative. The fact
that the Azerbaijani national institutions were committed to the sociali­
zation of land in Transcaucasia ( the decree passed by the Transcauca­
sian Seim in December 1917) , together with the fact that the program
of the Mussavat called for the expropriation of state and church lands
and the purchase of large landed estates for distribution among the
peasantry, was very unpopular with the Turks. As one of its first acts
upon arrival in Gandzha the Azerbaijani National Council postponed the
execution of the land nationalization law until the convocation of a
national parliament. This, if perhaps not done at the insistence of the
Turks, was certainly done for their benefit. 50 Still, in mid-June 1918, Nuri
Pasha ordered the dissolution of the Azerbaijani National Council and
the resignation of the Azerbaijani government. The new government,
appointed with his approval, excluded all socialists, reduced the propor­
tion of the seats held by the Mussavat, and assigned the leading role to
the Union. The Mussavatists were despondent over the new tum of
events, which shattered their hopes of genuine self-rule under Turkish
protection. 51
The Azerbaijanis had played an insignificant part in the military cam­
paign leading to the capture of the oil city. In the summer the Turks
ordered the mobilization of Caucasian Moslems, and the Azerbaijanis
themselves began to form an army, but the practical results of attempts
to utilize the manpower of Azerbaijan were negligible : the local popula­
tion had no military traditions and could not be used for combat without
having undergone a lengthy period of training. The r. - ·�·ire of Baku
was accomplished by the Turks with the aid of units especially brought
for that purpose from the Rumanian front, across the Black Sea. Once
the Turks were inside the city, the Moslems took revenge on the Arme­
nians for the massacres of March. In pogroms which lasted for several
days an estimated four thousand Armenians perished. 52 Immediately
after the capture of the city, the Turkish army proceeded northwest
along the Caspian shore toward Daghestan. The ultimate goal of the
Turks was the occupation of the Northern Caucasus, but they had got
only so far as Derbent, 140 miles from Baku, when the armistice between
the Central Powers and the Allies put a stop to their advance.
During their brief stay in Eastern Transcaucasia, the Turks did not
make themselves popular. At first they were well received and the masses
of the Moslem population, urban as well as rural, greeted them with
certain affection. But the enthusiasm waned when the Ottoman command
called a halt to the land reform, closed labor unions, suppressed socialist
organizations, and in general enforced a policy which deprived the popu­
lation of the social and political gains which it had made since 1917. 53
206 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
The Armistice of Mudros ( November 1918) between the Ottoman
Empire and the Allies provided for Turkish evacuation of the Caucasus
within one month. On November 17/30, in the wake of the retreating
Turks, British troops under General Thomson landed in Baku, and took
over the administration. General Thomson permitted the reestablish­
ment of the labor unions and the socialist parties suppressed by the
Turks, but he assumed a hostile attitude to the Azerbaijani nationalists.
He informed a delegation which conferred with him shortly after his
arrival that the Azerbaijani government was a Turkish product, unrepre­
sentative of the local population, and that his main task in Baku was to
make certain that the city was returned to the Russians and contributed
to the war effort of General Denikin, the White commander. 5 4
To overcome the principal British objection, namely that the govern­
ment did not reflect the desires of the population of Eastern Trans­
caucasia, the Azerbaijani National Council, which reassembled after the
departure of the Turks, invited not only Moslems but also representatives
of other ethnic groups of Eastern Transcaucasia to attend the forthcoming
Azerbaijani Parliament. The membership of the Parliament at its open­
ing in December 1918 was: 55
Mussavat
NDG
Unity 13
Socialists ( including one Communist) 12
Dashnaks 7
Other Armenians 4
Other parties 15
The Mussavat and its affiliate, the NDG, thus held something less than
one-half of all seats, as contrasted with the three-fom'ths they had held
in the Azerbaijani National Council, which had appointed the first
government ( May 1918) . The new government, created in December,
consisted therefore of a coalition of various parties represented in the
Parliament, with the exception of the Union. Khan Khoiskii resumed
the presidency. General Thomson, apparently convinced that the new
government reflected more accurately the wishes of the population,
granted it recognition. The Azerbaijani organs created in December 1918
served, except for occasional cabinet changes, for a period of one and a
half years.
As long as Baku was occupied by British troops - that is, until
August 1919 - political authority in Eastern Transcaucasia was divided
between the English command and the Azerbaijani government. The
division of authority was apparently never precisely defined, but there
can be little doubt that the political power rested ultimately in the hands
of the Br�tish. The Azerbaijani government concerned itself mostly with
THE CAUCASUS 207
internal affairs and administrative matters and the approval of the
British command was required for all measures before they could become
effectiv'(;l, 56 In the administration, both civil and military, the govern­
ment had to rely largely on Russians, Georgians, Ottoman Turks, and
other non-Azerbaijani residents of the area.
In the winter of 1918-19, a General Staff was formed under the
command of General Sulkevich, who had recently escaped from the Cri­
mea, but it was only in the spring of 1919 that an armed force began
to take shape. In June, Azerbaijan signed an agreement with Georgia, by
virtue of which the latter was to supply it with arms and military instruc­
tion. 5 7 The first units, formed in the summer, were commanded mainly
by Russian and Georgian officers, and in some instances by Turks who
had remained behind when their armies had evacuated the Caucasus.
By the beginning of 1920 Azerbaijan possessed its own armed force, al­
though the goal of an army of 17,000 men, which the government desired,
was never realized.
The main problems confronting the republic of Azerbaijan, as well
as the other two Transcaucasian states, were a result of the fact that
Transcaucasia had developed for over a century as an economic and
administrative whole; hence its dismemberment into three parts resulted
in a dislocation of its economy and an unsettling of its entire internal
life.
Before the Revolution, Eastern Transcaucasia had depended for its
food on the North Caucasus and other provinces of Russia. In 1919
those areas were entirely cut off. At the same time the local production of
foodstuffs decreased disastrously: in 1919 the cultivated acreage in East­
ern Transcaucasia dropped to less than one-fourth of what it had been
- in 1914. 58 Baku and its adjoining regions suffered, as a consequence,
a grave food crisis, which became worse as time went on, although it
never reached famine proportions.
The principal source of wealth with which Azerbaijan could augment
its food supplies and pay for other functions of government, was oil. The
production of oil continued throughout the period of Revolution and
Civil War, although at a reduced rate. Unfortunately for Azerbaijan, it
could not be marketed. Before 1917 most of the Baku oil had been piped
to Batum, on the Black Sea, there refined and then dispatched to Russia;
or else shipped to Russia via Astrakhan. In 1919 Batum and its refining
facilities were outside the borders of the republic; the transportation
facilities for shipping the refined product from Batum and Astrakhan
were unavailable as a result of the war; and Russian industry, the nearest
and previously principal purchaser, was separated from Transcaucasia by
the Civil War. Thus, in early 1920 a full year's production, or four and a
half million short tons of crude oil, were lying useless in Baku's storage
tanks. 59 Beginning in September 1918 the Baku oil firms and the Azerbai-
208 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
jani government conducted sporadic negotiations with Soviet Russia for
a trade agreement, and in early 1920 some shipments of oil did leave for
Russia by way of Astrakhan. 60 The bulk of the oil, however, remained
unsalable.
The drawing of boundaries was another source of difficulty for the
government and a constant cause of friction among the three republics.
The population of Transcaucasia was intermingled to such an extent that
it was impossible to divide the area along ethnic lines without doing
violence to one or another of the groups inhabiting it. The Azerbaijani­
Armenian frontier was especially troublesome, not only because the
relations between those two peoples were at their worst following the
mutual massacres of 1918, but also because the districts which they in­
habited could be least successfully separated: Moslem and Armenian
villages, located side by side, often used the same regions for cattle and
sheep grazing. Since districts inhabited by a mixed Armenian and Azer­
baijani population were generally claimed by both sides as their own,
throughout 1919 and 1920 there were quarrels and occasional wars be­
tween the two states. They seriously weakened the internal stability of
the republics and injured their prestige abroad. The main bone of con­
tention were the Zangezur, Nakhichevan, and Karabakh districts.
The territorial aspirations of the Azerbaijani government were of con­
siderable magnitude. In an official petition presented to the Paris Peace
Conference in 1919, it claimed not only all of Eastern Transcaucasia, but
also Daghestan, Kars, and Batum - an area comprising 60 per cent of
Transcaucasia and a portion of the North Caucasus as well. 61 Since
neither Georgia nor Armenia were willing to concede these claims, the
relations between Azerbaijan and its neighbors remained constantly
tense.

Armenia
The Armenian Republic was an anomalous political organism : two­
thirds of its territory was under enemy occupation and nearly one-half
of its population consisted of war refugees. It lacked money and food;
its administration consisted of people who had devoted the major part
of their life to revolutionary or terrorist activity, and were entirely devoid
of experience in affairs of government. No territory of the old Russian
Empire had suffered greater losses from the First World War, and none
was placed in a more desperate situation by the empire's disintegration.
The collapse of the Transcaucasian Federation caused Armenia to
be diplomatically isolated. The Azerbaijanis had the Turks; the Geor­
gians, the Germans; the Armenians alone had no one to whom to turn
for assistance. All Armenian military resources had been committed to
the defense of the central Armenian territories· located along the Araks
River, and only the fact that the Turks were more interested in seizing
THE CAUCASUS 209
Baku and advancing o n th e North Caucasus than in turning against the
Armenians had saved Erivan from certain capture. In the summer of 1918
the Armenians had dispatched a delegation to Germany, hoping to obtain
there help similar to that which had been promised to Georgia, but Berlin
was not interested. Armenia had nothing to offer either strategically or
economically, and a protectorate over that war-ravaged country was
likely to represent a considerable financial liability.62
The internal situation of independent Armenia was almost hopeless.
Before 1917 the region which became Armenia had imported about one­
third of its food requirements from Russia. Not only was supply from this
source unavailable, but the population of the republic was, as a result
of the refugee influx, twice as large as it was before the war. Armenia
was constantly on the brink of famine, which was avoided only because
of the assistance extended to that country by the American Relief Mission
in 1919 and 1920. 63 The Armenian treasury was empty, and the local
currency suffered a catastrophic inflationary decline : from March 1 920
to November 1920, alone, the ruble circulating in Armenia declined from
56o to 28,000 for one United States dollar. 64 There was no regular taxa­
tion system to pay for the costs of running the government, and the state
provided for its needs either by occasional requisitions or by contribu­
tions from Armenian colonies abroad. The total expenditures of the state
between September 1918 and January 1920 exceeded its income ten
times. 6 5
At the end of 1919 an American delegation, headed by General James
G. Harbord, arrived in Armenia. It was dispatched by the United States
government to report on the advisability of establishing an American
mandate over Armenia - an idea which was sponsored by the Armenians
themselves and which had aroused the sympathy of President Wilson.
The Harbord Mission painted in its account a very discouraging picture
of internal conditions prevailing in the republic and stated that the ma­
jority of the inhabitants desired the reestablishment of ties with Russia
as the only way of attaining economic stability and external security. 66
The legislative authority in the Armenian Democratic Republic was
technically vested in an eighty-man Parliament, but in fact it was firmly
in the hands of one party, the Dashnaktsutiun, which controlled the
armed forces and__ possessed the only effective political apparatus on
Armenian territory. There is no record of any extensive legislative activity
on the part of the government. It limited itself to the founding of Arme­
nian schools and other cultural institutions. 67 The land reform initiated
by the Transcaucasian Seim in 1917 was not enforced.
After the German and Turkish evacuation from the Caucasus, Arme­
nia established contact with the staff of General Denikin and until the
end of the Civil War collaborated closely with the White forces. In re­
turn for Armenian support and certain concessions ( such as the Arme-
210 THE F ORMATION O F THE S O VIET UNION
nian pledge to receive evacuating White armies, given formally in March
1920) , Denikin transmitted to Armenia arms and ammunition, and helped
the republic :6.nancially. 68 In consequence of their pro-Denikin orienta­
tion, the Armenians did not participate in the Georgian-Azerbaijani mili­
tary agreement of June 1919, which was primarily designed to prevent
White intervention in Transcaucasia.
The relations between Armenia and the other two Transcaucasian
republics were hostile, not only because of Armenia's pro-White policy
but also because of its territorial aspirations. As soon as the Turks had
left Transcaucasia, Armenia and Georgia engaged in an armed struggle
over the Borchalo region ( December 1918). The Armenian claim to this
territory rested on the fact that the majority of its population was Arme­
nian; the Georgians, on the other hand, asserted that Borchalo was theirs
as a part of the pre-1917 TiHis gubernia, which they claimed in its en­
tirety. The clash was stopped by the intervention of the British occupa­
tion authorities in the Caucasus. Both sides agreed to settle the question
by plebiscite. 69 In 1919 and 1920 Armenia also fought with Azerbaijan
over the Karabakh and Zangezur regions.
Perhaps the worst political mistake of the Armenian republic was
to engage in a conflict with a reinvigorated Turkey. Disregarding political
realities, and motivated by a desire for revenge, the Armenians undertook
to detach from Turkey the provinces which had been populated by their
people before the 1915 massacres. In the winter of 1918-19, with British
approval, they occupied parts of Eastern Anatolia, and before long Ar­
menian refugees began to trickle back to their ravaged homeland. In
May 1919 the Armenian Republic officially proclaimed the annexation
of Turkish Armenia. 70 Unfortunately for the Armenians, they overesti­
mated the extent to which Turkish power had been destroyed in World
War I and occupied Eastern Anatolia just as a new republican Turkish
movement under Kemal Pasha was forming itself in adjacent territories.
In July 1919 the followers of Kemal held a conference in Erzerum ( on
territory claimed by Armenia ) and there signed a National Pact, one of
the provisions of which called for the return to Turkey of all its old
eastern regions, including those annexed by Armenia.7 1 Unless one of the
sides was willing to give way a clash was inevitable. It finally broke out
in 1920 with dire results to the Armenian republic.

Georgia
Of all the republics which had been separated from Russia and then
reconquered by the Communists, Georgia came closest to attaining politi­
cal stability. Like the other two Transcaucasian republics, it enjoyed cer­
tain geographic advantages: the Caucasian mountains permitted it to
isolate itself from the Russian Civil War and to weather the first phase
of independence, during which many of the other republics formed on
THE CAUCASUS 211
the territory of the Russian Empire had been destroyed. But in addition,
Georgia also h,ad at its disposal a relatively numerous native intelligentsia
with experience in governmental _service and grass-roots party_ work.
Georgia's economic situation, although far from sound, was also better
than that prevailing in Azerbaijan and Armenia, partly because its com­
munication problems were less serious ( Georgia had contact with the
outside world through the Black Sea ports, and control of the pivot of
the Transcaucasian railroad system in Tiflis ) , and partly because its inter­
nal policies were better planned and more energetically enforced.
Shortly after the independence of Georgia had been proclaimed, Ger­
man units landed in Batum (June 1918 ) , occupying strategic points along
Georgia's border and some towns in the interior of the country. The
Germans asked the Georgians not to surrender to the Turks control over
the railroad lines, as they were bound to do by the terms of a Georgian­
Turkish treaty, signed in Batum at the beginning of June. 72 Instead, the
Germans themselves took over the Georgian railroad network. During
their stay on Georgian territory the Germans behaved quite correctly,
in contrast to their behavior in the Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Crimea.
They interfered little with the internal affairs of the republic, respected
the authority of the government, and abstained from the brutal methods
of food-collecting which they were applying in other parts of old Russia.
The Germans undertook to secure Soviet Russia's recognition of Georgian
independence, ·and some progress in that direction was made; but the
Communists delayed taking an official stand as long as possible and were
still uncommitted in November 1918, when the war was over and the
Germans had to evacuate the Caucasus. Certainly, if only by comparing
their life under the Germans with the lot of the Azerbaijanis under the
Turks, the Georgians had no reason to regret their decision.
Following German and Turkish evacuation, Batum and other points
within Georgia were occupied by British troops. The presence of the
British, embarrassing as it was to the Georgian government from the
point of view of its national prestige, was not unwelcome as protection
against the encroachments of neighboring powers, especially the White
armies and the Communists. As in Azerbaijan, the British command left
the local government some self-rule in internal matters. The original atti­
tude of the British toward the Georgian Social Democrats was as hostile
as it was toward the Azerbaijanis; the Georgian Republic, after all, had
actively collaborated with the Germans, and, in a sense, had come into
being on German initiative. But before long Georgian relations with the
British changed for the better. In 19i9 London sent as its envoy to
Tiflis, Oliver Wardrop, a specialist in Georgian literature and a warm
friend of the Georgian cause, who established amicable relations with
the local political l_eaders, and pleaded for a pro-Georgian policy with
his superiors in the Foreign Office.73
212 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
Georgia was governed by a group of Social Democrats who for nearly
a quarter of a century had been connected with the Russian and Western
European socialist movements. For two and a half years at the helm of
the Georgian state they endeavored to realize democratic and socialist
ideals. Their efforts, if not always successful, provided a remarkable
demonstration of the receptivity of Georgia to Western ideas.
The first Georgian government, headed by Chkhenkeli, and identified
with a pro-German policy, relinquished its authority in the fall of 1918.
A new cabinet was formed under Gegechkori. In February 1919 elections
were held for the Georgian National Assembly, and after the elections a
new cabinet was appointed. The elections gave the Social Democrats 105
of a total of 130 seats, · the remainder being distributed among the Geor­
gian Socialists-Federalists ( nine seats) , Georgian National Democrats
( eight sea�s) , Socialists Revolutionaries ( five seats) , and Dashnaks ( three
seats) . 7 4 Noi Zhordaniia, one of the founders of Georgian Social Democ­
racy, and the chairman of the Tiflis Soviet during the preceding two
years, was elected by the National Assembly the President of the Re­
public. As in Switzerland, whose political system was imitated, the
cabinet served directly under the President, and both were responsible
to the Assembly. The Georgian government could maintain more than
nominal authority over the republic because it had at its disposal a net­
work of provincial party organizations, on whom it could depend to
provide administrative personnel and to execute its directives. The Geor­
gian leaders also intended to introduce into Georgia certain other features
of the Swiss political system, such as cantonal self-rule. 75 The Georgian
constitution, drawn up in 1920 but not ratified until the Soviet armies
were approaching the gates of Tiflis a year later, was modeled after
Western European democratic constitutions. 76
The rapid growth of nationalist emotions in Georgia during the period
of independence was demonstrated both by repeated border incidents
with Armenia and Azerbaijan, and by the manner in which the govern­
ment met the minority problem within its domain. The Georgian Re­
public covered a territory corresponding to the two prerevolutionary
Russian provinces of Kutais and Tiflis, inhabited by several minority
groups: in the north, the Ossetins ( an Iranian people) ; in the west, the
Abkhazians ( a group of Cherkess origin) and Adzhars ( Moslems of Geor­
gian stock) ; in the south, Armenians. In its endeavor to create a homoge­
neous national state, the Tillis government showed little sympathy for the
attempts of those minority groups to secure political and cultural auton­
omy. In early 1919 the Georgian government forcibly closed an Abkhaz
National Council which had been convened for the purpose of discussing
local grievances and appointing organs of self-rule. 7 7 The growth of
nationalism in Georgia had its parallels in other borderland areas, but
its emergence in Georgia was the more remarkable because before the
THE CAUCASUS 213
Revolution Georgia had been among the regions least inclined in that
direction.
Of all three Transcaucasian republics Georgia alone tackled the land
problem. Because of the mountainous character of the country, only
13.2 per cent of its total surface of approximately ££teen million acres
was arable; the peasantry, which formed three-fourths of the republic's
entire population owned only a small part ( 6.2 per cent ) of that land,
in most cases not enough for sustenance. 78 To alleviate the shortage of
land, the government confiscated all the private holdings in excess of
forty acres. The confiscated assets were transferred to a special state au­
thority, which at first leased the land to the peasants, and after January
1919 sold it to them for a nominal sum. This reform, which was com­
pleted in 1920, gave the state control of nearly one and a half million
acres. In addition, the state owned the properties of the tsarist family,
of the treasury of the defunct Russian government, and of the church
- all of which had been confiscated in December 1917 by the Trans­
caucasian Seim. The total land at the disposal of the state thus amounted
to nine and a half million acres, comprising all the forests, nearly all
the pastures and meadows, and one-fourth of all the arable land in
Georgia. 79 This reform encountered serious difficulties, such as commonly
occur when large agricultural units are divided into small holdings, but
it did produce a greater equalization of land distribution. By creating a
more numerous class of peasant proprietors who owed their land to the
state, the reform strengthened the republic's popular support.
In addition to land, the Georgian government also nationalized the
principal industries and the means of communication. In 1920, about go
per cent of all workers in Geotgia were employed in state or cooperative
enterprises, and only 10 per cent in privately owned establishments.80
The financial situation of the Georgian Republic was precarious. It
lacked money in its treasury, a firm currency, and a regular taxation sys­
tem. At the beginning of 1919 its expenses exceeded its income three and
a half fold.81 One of the main considerations which had induced the gov­
ernment to sell the confiscated land to the peasantry, instead of leasing
or distributing it, as would have be(:ln more consistent with its socialist
doctrine, was the sorry condition of the treasury. It was hoped that with
the two hundred million rubles which the sale of the land was expected
to bring the state deficit could be liquidated. 82 In the long run, Georgia
hoped to improve its economic situation by exploiting the considerable
natural wealth of the country ( manganese, lumber, coal) and by attract­
ing foreign capital. It planned to exchange its raw materials for food and
manufactured goods, and to provide for the needs of the government out
of income from the nationalized land and industries, as well as from
prospective foreign concessions.
About one-third of Georgia's expenditures was devoted to the upkeep
214 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
of the republic's armed force. Its nucleus was the Red Guard, which had
been formed in Tiflis in November 1917 to suppress the pro-Bolshevik
Tillis Arsenal. The · Red Guard, afterwards renamed the Popular Guard,
was an all-volunteer reserve unit, run on a democratic basis by elected
officers and soldier congresses, and directly subordinated to the President
of the Republic. It was an elite militia, composed largely of industrial
workers and other urban elements, strongly imbued with the spirit of
socialism and nationalism. 83 In addition to the Guard, Georgia also had
a regular army, which consisted of draftees and was subordinate to the
Minister of War. In the event of mobilization, Georgia could put into
the field about fifty thousand men, organized into twenty-three battalions
of the Popular Guard, thirty-six battalions of the Regular Army, and
some cavalry and artillery units. This army was not large in comparison
with those taking part in the Russian Civil War, nor was it well equipped,
but as future events were to show, its spirit was good, and by Transcau­
casian standards, its combat efficiency high.
The Prelude to the Conquest
The Soviet republic which the Communists had established in the
Terek Region in August 1918 rested primarily on the military support
provided by the Eleventh and Twelfth Red Armies, operating in the
so-called Caspian-Caucasian Sector of the Southern Front, under the
command of A. G. Shliapnikov. Shliapnikov's main assignment was to
complete the occupation of the North Caucasus and to spread Soviet
power to Azerbaijan by expelling from there the Azerbaijani nationalist
authorities and the British military units.st At the height of its strength,
in December 1918 the Eleventh Army numbered 150,000 men. Political
power in the Terek Region during the autumn and winter of 1918-19
was for all practical purposes in the hands of the Revolutionary Com­
mittee of this army, in which Ordzhonikidze played a prominent part.
The formal government, with its headquarters in Piatigorsk, had little
authority. 85
When in the early months of 1919 the Eleventh and Twelfth Armies
melted away, partly as a result of typhus epidemics and partly from mass
desertions, Soviet rule in the Terek Region also collapsed. In May and
June of that year the White regiments of General Denikin began to move
into the North Caucasian regions, occupying first Daghestan and then
the Terek. Ordzhonikidze and other local Soviet leaders sought refuge
once more in the mountains of Chechnia and Ingushetiia.
Upon his entry into North Caucasian territory, Denikin was for the
first time confronted with the national problem, for his armies now oper­
ated in a region which was heavily populated by non-Russian groups
and which touched directly upon the borders of independent Azerbaijan
and Georgia. His handling of this question was likely to determine to a
THE CAUCASU S 215
large extent this area's support for the White cause. By his unwillingness
to recognize the growth of nationalist sentiments in the borderlands since
the outbreak of the Revolution, and by his high-handed treatment of the
national republics, Denikin not only failed to win the local sympathies,
but actually drove most minority groups into the arms of the Communists.
He and his entourage were fundamentally opposed to the existence of
independent republics on the territory of what had been the Russian
Empire. Whatever other disagreements divided the leaders of the Volun­
teer Army, Denikin recalled in his Memoirs, the idea of " 'Great Russia,
One and Indivisible' sounded clear and distinct to the mind and heart
of one and all." 86 Shortly after his troops had reached the borders of the
Transcaucasian republics Denikin declared that he would not recognize
their independence; and after a number of border incidents with Azer­
baijan and Georgia had taken place, he proclaimed, in November 1919,
an economic blockade of the two republics: "I cannot permit," he said,
"those self-made entities, Georgia and Azerbaijan, which are openly
hostile to Russian statehood and have arisen contrary to Russian state
interests, to receive food at the cost of Russian territories liberated from
the Bolsheviks." 87 General Lukomskii, a high officer connected with the
Volunteer Army, stated bluntly that the Whites were tolerating the sep­
aration of Transcaucasia only because they were fully occupied fighting
the Communists. 88
In view of Denikin's attitude it is not surprising that the victories of
the Volunteer Army in the fall of 1919 created consternation among
Georgian and Azerbaijani national leaders. It was obvious to them that
regardless of the outcome of the Civil War in Russia, the Transcaucasian
republics would be put to a severe test to defend their independence
against their northern neighbor once the fighting had ceased.
Denikin placed the administration of the Northern Caucasus in the
hands of officers of native origin who were serving in his army, and at
first made no effort to interfere with local life or even to extend his
dominion into the mountainous backcountry. In August 1919, however,
while making the supreme effort to capture Moscow, he issued an order
mobilizing the native population of the Northern Caucasus for military
service. The natives, traditionally exempt from such duty, refused to
obey the order, and in some areas fled to the mountains. Denikin dis­
patched punitive detachments to deal with these recalcitrants. The na­
tives then organized partisan units which attacked White troops ven­
turing close to their hideouts. By October-November 1919 the White
forces were engaged in a full-scale war with the natives of the Northern
Caucasus, which, occurring at a decisive moment of the Civil War when
the fate of Moscow itself hung in the balance, was without doubt a
factor contributing to their ultimate defeat. 89
The center of anti·Denikin resistance was located in the most inac-
216 THE F O R M ATION O F THE S OVIET UNION

cessible districts of the Northern Caucasus. It was directed by a Council


of Defense ( Sovet Oborony) , in which were allied the diverse elements
opposing Denikin, including religious leaders ( Ali Khadzhi Akushinskii,
and later on, Uzun Khadzi) , the North Caucasian nationalists ( Kante­
mir) , and the socialists ( Tsalikov) . The Council of Defense had at its
disposal an armed force, composed largely of extremely fanatical religious
groups, organized in so-called "Shariat regiments" ( Shariatskie polki ) ,
under the over-all command of Nuri Pasha, the one-time commander of
the Ottoman armies invading the Caucasus.90 Sometime in the fall of
1919 the Bolsheviks, eager to take a part in the direction of the partisan
warfare against the White forces, also joined the Council of Defense.91
At the height of its resistance to Denikin, the Council received some mili­
tary assistance from Azerbaijan and Georgia. This . assistance, small in
absolute terms, was significant as an expression of the attitude of the two
Transcaucasian republics to the White movement.92
The intransigence of the White leaders toward the Caucasian na­
tionalist movements underscored the diplomatic isolation of the two
Transcaucasian republics and the vital necessity of obtaining the support
of Western powers. In 1919 two delegations arrived in Paris: one from
Georgia, composed of Chkheidze and Tseretelli, and one from Azerbaijan,
headed by Ali Merdan Bey Topchibashev ( Topchibashy) , the president
of the Azerbaijani National Parliament. The Armenians, too, sent a
mission to Paris, consisting of A. Aharonian and Nubar Pasha, the
former representing the Armenian Republic, the latter Armenian colonies
abroad; the Armenians were not interested in securing Western backing
against either the Whites or the Communists, but against the Turks.
Those diplomatic missions did not succeed in attaining their ends. The
Allies were backing the White movement and did not want to introduce
dissension into the anti-Soviet bloc by raising the controversial national
question as long as the Whites were holding their own in the Civil War.
The Azerbaijani delegation learned from President Wilson that the Paris
Peace Confyrence did not desire to fragme�tize the world into small
national states: although the Peace Conference was in principle not hos­
tile to the idea of a Caucasian Federation under a mandate of the League
of Nations, the ultimate decision on the fate of Azerbaijan had to await
the solution of the entire Russian problem.93 Lord Curzon, the British
Foreign Secretary, advised Wardrop in Tiflis that as long as the repub­
lics persisted in their animosity toward Denikin and fought among
themselves, there was little possibility of greater British effort on their
behalf. 94
After the virtual collapse of the Volunteer Army ( winter 1919-20),
the Allied Supreme Council in Paris recognized the de facto independ­
ence of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia, and prevailed on the defeated
Denikin to do likewise ( January 1920 ) .95 But the Western powers were
THE CAUCA S U S 217
unwilling to commit themselves further, so that the recognition had little,
if any, practical significance.
At the end of 1919 the three republics requested the Allied Supreme
Council to place them under a League of Nations mandate : Armenia
wanted the United States to assume the mandatory power, Georgia and
Azerbaijan desired the protection of Great Britain. 9 6 This idea, however,
came to nought; for the United States Senate voted down President Wil­
son's bill for an American mandate over Armenia, and the British Foreign
Office remained cool to the pleas of Tillis and Baku. The notion of an
Italian mandate over Transcaucasia, which was current for a brief time
in 1920, also fell through.9 7
Toward the latter part of 1919, the British began to evacuate Trans­
caucasia. Baku was abandoned in August and Batum in the summer of
the following year. The British carried out their decision to withdraw,
despite pleas on the part of Georgia and Azerbaijan that they remain in
order to reduce the danger of a Communist invasion, which now con­
fronted Transcaucasia in all its magnitude. 98
Moscow had never given up its claim to Transcaucasia, and on a
number of occasions had made it clear that it regarded the separation of
that area only as temporary. The importance of the Caucasus for Russia
was, in the first place, economic. A book published by the Soviet State
Publishing House in 1921 on "The Caucasus and Its Significance for Soviet
Russia" pointed out that this region had provided prerevolutionary Russia
with two-thirds of its oil, three-fourths of its manganese, one-fourth of
its copper, and much of its lead. 99 The separation of the Caucasus had
very serious consequences for Soviet industry and transport, which de­
pended heavily on that region for fuel and other mineral resources. The
Caucasus was also important as a strategic outpost in the Near East,
where the Communists were conducting an active policy at that time.
The fact that the Communist Central Committee had issued directives
to Sovietize Eastern Transcaucasia to Shaumian ( 1917 ) and to Shliapni­
kov ( 1918 ) , indicated its continuous interest in that area. Baku, with its
oil, was first on the list; the conquest of Georgia and Armenia was some­
what less urgent.
The Soviet offensive against the three Transcaucasian republics
( 1920-192 1 ) was carried out by methods of internal and external pres­
sure which had been brought to a high degree of perfection in the course
of the Civil War. Internally, pressure was brought upon them by the
local branches of the Communist Party; externally, by the Red Army
and the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.
To understand the role performed by the Communist Party in the
conquest of the Caucasus it is necessary to revert to the year 1918. The
arrival of German and Turkish occupation armies on Transcaucasian ter­
ritory completed the destruction of the Communist Party network, whose
218 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
disintegration had begun with the outlawing of the party by the Georgian
government ( February 1918 ) and the collapse of the Bolshevik-domi­
nated Baku Commune ( July 1918 ) . The Regional Committee of the
party, located in Tillis, had departed from Georgia on the eve of the
German occupation ( May 1918 ) , and had hidden in the Terek Region,
which at that time was in Communist hands. From there it had en­
deavored to weaken the Georgian government by organizing peasant
uprisings in the mountainous north and northwestern districts of the
republic, inciting the peasantry against the policies of Tillis, and playing
on the national feelings of the non-Georgian peoples. In late 1918 the
Regional Committee had succeeded in stimulating among the Ossetins
and other borderland peoples of the state a number of local revolts,
which they had supplied liberally with money and arms. Those sporadic
disorders, however, failed to attain their objective. Disorganization, the
absence of good communications, and misunderstandings between the
rebellious peasants and the would-be leaders had considerably limited
their effectiveness. Georgian punitive expeditions had done the rest. The
Tiflis Bolsheviks soon realized the senselessness of their tactics and in
early 1919 gave up attempts to come to power by means of peasant re­
bellions. But by then, as a result of Menshevik arrests and repressions, to
quote the leader of the Georgian Communists of that period, "the party
work in the cities, and above all, in the villages, had not only subsided,
but had come to a virtual standstill." 100 Georgian Communism, and the
Regional Committee in command of it, had suffered a defeat.
In Eastern Transcaucasia, the situation was somewhat different. The
most influential Communist leaders of Baku, who had proven more suc­
cessful in their struggle for power than their comrades in Tillis, had been
executed by the Socialist Revolutionaries in Transcaspia after the fall of
the Commune. Some of the less important figures had hidden in Northern
Persia. At the end of November 19 18, following the British evacuation,
the latter began to trickle back to the city. Before the month was over,
a small group of Baku Communists, largely of Armenian descent ( among
them Anastas Mikoyan, the future Soviet Minister of Foreign Trade ) ,
held a conference which reestablished the Baku Committee. 10 1 The Baku
Communists concentrated their attention on the industrial proletariat,
organizing mass strikes, participating in the struggle for collective bar­
gaining in the denationalized oil industry, and in general exploiting the
difficult economic situation in the city. They also tried to gain a foothold
among the Moslem workers, who constituted approximately one-half of
Baku's labor force, largely in the unskilled categories. For that purpose
the Baku Committee used the left wing of the Moslem socialist party, the
Gummet - which since the summer of 1919 had for all practical pur­
poses been run by the Communists - and the Persian Communist party,
Adalet.102
THE CAUCASUS 219
As soon as the Whites had occupied the Northern Caucasus, the Tillis
Regional Committee, still nominally in control of the entire Transcau­
casian party work, slipped back to the Georgian capital, and started to
reestablish its shattered apparatus. At that time the Georgian govern­
ment, which previously had persecuted the Communists relentlessly,
allowed them considerable freedom of activity, since it saw in them an
ally against Denikin. In the fall of 1919, Communists began to agitate
openly in the streets of Tillis and to attend meetings of the Social Demo­
cratic Party in Georgia. 103
When the Tillis Regional Committee, headed by Filipp Makharadze,
tried to extend its authority over the Baku Communists, the latter
resisted. The Baku organization was numerically stronger and better or­
ganized than the Regional Committee, and while the Regional Commit­
tee had been located in the Terek Region out of touch with Transcau­
casia ( June 1918-June 1919 ) , it had enjoyed one year of independent
activity. It was accustomed to dealing directly with Moscow and saw no
reason to subordinate itself to the Regional Committee whose own record
was one of blunders and failures. The two centers engaged in bitter
quarrels over a number of issues such as the creation of an Azerbaijani
Communist Party and the slogan of a Soviet Azerbaijan Republic, both
of which were advocated by Baku and vetoed by Ti:His. 104 The Baku
Committee, in turn, objected to the efforts of the Ti:His Communists to
instigate internal revolts _in Georgia as futile and as leading to further
repressive policies on the part of the Georgian government. Finally, at
the end of 1919 the Baku Committee requested Moscow to grant it
autonomy and independence from Ti:His. 1 0 5
The struggle between the two Communist centers was more than a
mere squabble of factions for power. It represented a conflict between
two trends within the Communist movement, not unlike that which was
taking place at the same time in the Ukraine between the left and the
right. In Tillis were the old Bolsheviks, persons who had been intimately
connected with the movement since the early years of the century, who,
like the Ukrainian leftists, were inclined to stress the mass character and
the democratic aspects of Communism. In Baku, on the other hand, were
young, aggressive Bolsheviks ( corresponding to the Ukrainian rightists )
who had received most of their party experience after the outbreak of
the Revolution, and who emphasized the conspiratorial facets of the
movement. Ti:His looked for support to the local population, Baku to
Moscow. 0
In January 1920 the Baku Committee's subordinate and affiliated
organizations had three thousand members. The unwieldy loose organ-
0 Sergei Kirov, with contempt characteristic of the Baku group, referred to the
leaders of the Re�ional Committee as "our Caucasian orthodox ones, or better yet,
old men ( stariki )' ( Stat'l, I, 201 ) .
220 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
ization of the Communist forces made them inefficient for purposes of
conspiratorial and para-military action, and for this reason the persons
in charge of the committee began in August 1919 to make preparations
for reorganization which would tighten the party ranks by unifying all
its groups in a single Azerbaijani Communist Party. The Tiflis Regional
Committee objected to the idea of an Azerbaijani party on two grounds:
it would introduce the national principle into the Communist apparatus
in Transcaucasia and thus split the forces which had heretofore acted
as a single party; and it would, in effect, remove the Baku cells from
the jurisdiction of the Regional Committee. Baku, on the other hand,
maintained that the growth of Azerbaijani nationalism made it impera­
tive to organize the party in such a manner. 106 The discussion between
the two centers lasted until January 1920, when it was finally settled in
favor of Baku, probably with the backing of Moscow.
When Baku began to unite the local cells preparatory to the creation
of the Azerbaijani Communist Party, it encountered new difficulties, this
time from the Cummet and Adalet, which consented to the amalgamation
only on the condition that the Turks and Persians retain their distinct
Communist organizations, separate from the Russians. 107 The Baku Com­
mittee overcame this difficulty by starting the merger between the Rus­
sian Communist Party and the two Moslem parties not at the top, where
the Moslems were in a position to resist, but on the lower levels in the
factories and local branches. The RKP-dominated Communist cells easily
swallowed up the less- numerous and poorly coordinated Adalet and
Gummet rank and file, presenting the leadership of these two parties with
a fait accompli. 1 08
In February 1920 the Azerbaijani Communist Party was formally
established. Nominally, the new party was subordinate to the Regional
Committee, but in fact it was independent of TiHis. It numbered four
thousand members and possessed a widespread network of organizations
among trade unions, workers' clubs, and cooperatives. Its money and
arms came from Soviet-held Astrakhan, located 525 miles north of Baku,
on the Caspian shore.
The Tiflis Communists had less success. In September 1919, when
General Denikin was approaching Moscow, the Regional Committee de­
cided to attempt a seizure of power in the hope of diverting his attention.
The Georgian government, however, discovered the Communist plan in
time, and arrested virtually the entire Regional Committee with nearly
two thousand of its followers on the eve of the intended coup. 109 Thus,
while the Baku Committee was forging ahead with its organizational
work, and patiently waiting for orders from Moscow, the Tillis Regional
Committee had hurried matters, with the result that when the critical
moment finally arrived almost its entire leadership was languishing in
jail.
THE CAUCASUS .2 2 1
In early 1920, when the Red Armies swept to the borders of Azerbai­
jan, on the heels of the retreating Whites, the Baku organization was
poised and ready to strike.
The Conquest
The Communist coup in Russia and the defeat of the Central Powers
in World War I resulted, among other things, in a revolutionary trans­
formation of Near East diplomacy, which altered the traditional pattern
of relations between Russia and Turkey, and precipitated the destruction
of the independent states of Transcaucasia by the Soviet regime.
One of the more constant factors in European diplomacy of the nine­
teenth century had been Russo-British rivalry, caused largely by Eng­
land's sensitivity to Russian expansion in Asia. In its effort to prevent
Russia from penetrating the regions close to the imperial life-line con­
necting London with India, the Foreign Office traditionally made com­
mon cause with the Ottoman Empire, whose long frontier with Russia
presented it with similar problems. From the 183o's until the end of the
nineteenth century, England generally sided with the Sultan in his dis­
putes with the northern neighbor. This Turco-British friendship, one of
the mainstays of Near Eastern diplomacy, broke down at the beginning
of the twentieth century. Fearful lest a rapidly industrializing and arm­
ing Germany upset the balance of power on the European continent, and
wishing to bring in Russian military might as a counterweight to the
German army, Britain, like France before her, mended her disagreements
with St. Petersburg. A few years before the outbreak of the First World
War, England, France, and Russia connected themselves by a system of
alliances. After the war broke out, Turkey, on the other hand, joined the
Central Powers and fought against Russia, not as a friend, but as an
enemy of Great Britain.
Russo-British amity lasted only for one decade. Once the Communists
had seized power in Petrograd and taken Russia out of the war, the
alliances established by the tsarist government with the Western powers
lost their raison cfetre. The revolutionary character of the new Russian
regime, its virulent, aggressive hostility toward the economic and political
systems of the Allies, as well as its conciliatory policy toward Germany
and Austria-Hungary, ended the period of cooperation with the West. By
1918, Britain had lost the ally for whose sake she had abandoned her
traditional Near Eastern policy.
After the collapse of the Central Powers and the British occupation
of Constantinople, the Kemalist forces, formed in 1919 in the eastern
regions of Anatolia in opposition to the England-dominated Sultanate,
assumed as their primary task the defense of the Turkish mainland, Asia
Minor, against the Western Allies, who had signed among themselves
agreements calling for the dismemberment of the entire Ottoman Em-
222 TB:E F O R M A TION O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
pire. The Turkish nationalist movement possessed much spirit, intelli­
gent leadership, and a small armed force capable of holding its own on
the battlefield. But it was cut off from the remainder of the world and
was compelled to draw its strength from a poor, war-ravaged area, which
could provide neither armaments nor money.
Force of circumstance impelled Soviet Russia and Kemalist Turkey
to arrive at a rapprochement. The two were drawn together by mutual
hostility toward the Western powers, as well as by need of each other's
services : the Kemalists required money and arms, which the Communists
alone were in a position to offer, while the Communists desired an ally
to secure a beachhead in the Near East. Thus the Russo-Turkish alliance
- an unprecedented event in modern diplomatic history - came into
being in the winter of 1919-20.
The initiative for the rapprochement with Soviet Russia seems to
have come from Kemal, whose agents in November 1919 got in touch
with the Communist underground in Baku. 110 According to one promi­
nent Baku Communist, the newly formed Azerbaijani Communist Party
acted as an intermediary between Kemal and Moscow. 1 1 1 Kemal and
his emissaries assured the government of Soviet Russia that they shared
none of the Panturanian ambitions of the Young Turks who had ruled
the Ottoman Empire during the war, and had .given up all claim to the
North Caucasus and Azerbaijan. As the principal condition for coopera­
tion with the Communist regime, Kemal demanded that the Communists
refrain from conducting conspiratorial and propaganda activities on Ana­
tolian territory. 1 1 2 Moscow, which as late as September 19 19, had issued
revolutionary appeals to the Turkish population, readily accepted the
offer of friendship extended by the new Turkish leader. 11 3 In the early
months of 1920, Turks and Communists began openly to cooperate in
Transcaucasia. Kemalists attended clandestine meetings of the Azerbai­
jani Communist Party, and assisted in Communist preparations for a coup
against the national government of Azerbaijan. 11 4 Among those most
active on behalf of Turco-Soviet amity in the Caucasus were persons who
had been prominent in the deposed Young Turk government: Halil
Pasha, the uncle of Enver, who had commanded a Turkish army during
the war and had escaped from prison in Constantinople in August 1919;
Kaz1m Karabekir, another high officer, who had led the Fifteenth Army
Corps in Turkey at the same time; Nuri Pasha; and athers.°'
The Russo-Turkish rapprochement was for the three Transcaucasian
0
The cooperation of the Young Turk emigres with the Kemalists in Soviet Russia
indicates that the conflict between the old and the new Turkish regimes was perhaps
not as intense as some authorities hold; see, for example, L. Fischer, The Soviets in
World Affairs, I ( London, 1930 ) , 382-94, where the differences between the two
regimes are heavily emphasized.
THE CAUCASUS
republics nothing short of a calamity. As long as these two great powers
were at odds, the republics could stay alive either by playing one power
against the other, or else by serving both as a buffer. But the moment
Russia and Turkey joined hands, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia were
doomed. Transcaucasia became an obstacle, hindering the exchange of
war materials between Ankara and Moscow, and Kemal, who had before­
hand renounced all interest in that area, had every reason to welcome
its conquest by the Communists.
While initiating relations with Kemal, the Communists reoccupied the
North Caucasus. The command of the armies taking over this region was
in the hands of General Tukhachevskii, who was put in charge of the
entire Caucasian front. Political authority was vested in the North Cau­
casian Revolutionary Committee, presided over by Ordzhonikidze, an old
hand in North Caucasian politics. 0 Ordzhonikidze continued to pursue
the previous Communist policy based on an appeal to the religious and
nationalist sentiments prevailing among the natives of the mountains.
"Bear in mind, you Dagestantsy," a manifesto issued over the signa­
tures of Ordzhonikidze, Tukhachevskii, and Kirov proclaimed upon So­
viet entry into the1 North Caucasus, "that the Soviet government and its
Red Army have only one goal : to free oppressed nations from enslave­
ment, whatever the state which causes it. The Soviet government leaves
religion, customs, your traditions, the internal way of life of the gortsy
completely intact." 115
Ordzhonikidze placed local authority in the Terek Region and Dag­
hestan in the hands of partisan leaders and other Communists or quasi­
Communists, who had cooperated with the Soviet regime in the course
of 1919 : D. Korkmasov in Daghestan, Gikalo ( a Russian ) in Chechnia,
I. Ziazikov in Ingushetiia, S. Takoev in Ossetiia, B. Kalmykov in Ka­
barda, and Katkhanov ( a Moslem clergyman ) in Balkariia. Although
some of these persons had wholeheartedly embraced Communism, most
of them were nationalists of radical views who had gone over to the
Communists in 1919 largely because the Communists alone had given
them promises of national freedom. Initially, both the Terek Region and
Daghestan were administratively united in a single Mountain Republic
( Gorskaia Respublika). This republic soon was split up, mainly as a
result of the intense rivalries among the various local leaders, each of
whom wanted to have as much authority in his district as possible. First
Daghestan was detached to form a separate republic ( November 1920 ) ,
0
Ordzhonikidze had left the North Caucasus in the spring of 1919, taking refuge
in Georgia. In August 1919 he had made his way to Baku from where he returned
by the underground to Soviet Russia. He spent the remainder of the year attached
to the Fourteenth Soviet Army operating in the Ukraine. In early 1920 he was sent
back to the North Caucasus. Cf. EntsikwpedicheskU s""1xzr • • • Granat, XLI, Part
.Z. PP· 88-8g.
224 THE F ORMATION OF THE S OVIET UNION
and later the remainder of the Mountain Republic was divided into its
component parts. The ethnic dismemberment of the area was completed
only in 1924.
The decision to conquer Transcaucasia was taken in Moscow no later
than March 17, 1 920. It was on that day that Lenin wired Ordzhonikidze
to organize the invasion:
It is highly, highly necessary for us to take Baku. Exert all efforts
in this direction, but at that same time in your announcements do not
fail to show yourself doubly diplomatic, and make as sure as possible
that firm local Soviet authority has been prepared. The same applies
to Georgia, although in regard to her I advise even greater circum­
spection. Settle the matter of [troop] transfers with the Commander
in Chief. 11 6
On March 30, 1920, Ordzhonikidze met in Vladikavkaz with General
Tukhachevskii and S. M. Kirov. 11 7 It was probably intended that the
operations against Azerbaijan be directed by Tukhachevskii, but he was
recalled to Moscow to participate in the operations against the Poles;
and command over the Red Armies in the Caucasus was assigned instead
to General A. M. Gekker, a one-time tsarist officer. 1 1 8
Over-all direction of the military and political offensive against the
Transcaucasian republics was entrusted to a special Caucasian Bureau
( Kavkazskoe Biuro, or Kavbiuro ) formed on April 8, 1920, by the Central
Committee of the Russian Communist Party. Its principal tasks were to
establish Soviet rule throughout the Caucasus, to accomplish the eco­
nomic unification of that area, and to proffer assistance to revolutionary
movements in the Near East ( which meant, i11, the first place, the Nation­
alist Turks ) .11 9 The Kavbiuro was attached to the staff of the Eleventh
Red Army operating in the North Caucasus. Its chairman was Ordzho­
nikidze, its vice-chairman Kirov; the Georgian Communists, Budu Mdivani
and Aleksandr Stopani completed the staff. 0 The Kavbiuro was conceived
as the central organ for the direction of the conquest of Transcaucasia
and its incorporation into Soviet Russia. As such, it performed a crucial
role in Communist operations in that area.
. Theoretically, at any rate, most of the functions assigned to the Kav­
. biuro devolved upon the Regional Committee of the Russian Communist
Party in Tiff.is, which had tried for over two years to seize power in
Transcaucasia and to unite that area with Soviet Russia. The establish-
'° S. M. Kirov ( Kostrikov ) was a Russian Communist born in the Viatka province.
After a period of residence in Siberia he had settled in Vladikavkaz where he worked
in printing establishments and participated in Social Democratic activity. He played
a minor role in the Terek People's Republic of 1918, and spent most of 1919 in
Astrakhan as a Political Commissar in the Eleventh Army ( S. M. Kirov, Stat'i, rechi,
dokumenty, I ( [Leningrad] , 1936 ) , pp. vii-xlix ) . Budu Mdivani was an old Bolshevik,
who had spent part of the World War in Persia, and after returning in 1917 had
worked as a party functionary in various regions of Russia.
THE CAUCA S U S 225
ment of a new organ, in competition with the Regional Committae, indi­
cated that Moscow had lost hope that the local Communist organizations
were sufficiently strong or skillful to overthrow the republican govern­
ments. Moscow had found it necessary to engineer the conquest from the
outside, from Soviet territory, where it could synchronize it closely with
the activities of the Red Army and of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.
The functions of the Regional Committee and of other Communist Party
organizations within Transcaucasia were to be limited to fifth column
activity, and to such other actions as were necessary to lend the conquest
the appearance of an internal revolution. They were not to direct the
coup, but to be directed. Significant also was the fact that the command
of the instruments of conquest was entrusted to Communists who, al­
though connected with the Caucasus by birth or residence, had made
their party careers outside of that region, in various parts of Soviet Russia,
where they had had opportunities of making contact with the highest offi­
cials of the Communist Party. Ordzhonikidze, in particular, was friendly
with Stalin, and there is reason to suppose ( though there is no direct
evidence) that he owed to Stalin his appointment as chief of the Kavbiuro.
To allay the natural suspicions which the Soviet preparations in the
North Caucasus were causing among the Transcaucasian republics, the
Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs established with them correct and
even friendly diplomatic relations. In January 1920, Grigorii Chicherin
addressed to the Azerbaijani and Georgian governments notes which,
while pleading for cooperation in the war against the White Army, im­
plied Soviet recognition qf their independence. 120 When the Azerbaijani
government replied that it welcomed friendly relations with Soviet Russia,
but would not commit itself on the proposal of an alliance against Deni­
kin, Chicherin sent another note at the end of January 1920, in which he
inquired:
Can [Prime] Minister Khan Khoiskii, in refusing to fight Denikin,
be unaware that Denikin is an enemy of independent Azerbaijan?
Does he not realize that a victory for Denikin would signify the end
of Azerbaijani independence? And, conversely, can the Azerbaijani
government fail to realize that the Soviet government has recognized
the independence of Finland, Poland, and other borderland states?
The Soviet government will also apply to Azerbaijan its general prin­
ciples of recognition of the independence of peoples. 12 1
The Fall of Azerbai;an
The machinery for the conquest of Azerbaijan was ready at the begin­
ning of April 1 920. In the vicinity of Derbent, along the narrow strip of
level land separating the mountains of Daghestan from the shores of the
Caspian Sea, stood assembled the veteran Eleventh Red Army, with its
infantry and armored trains; inside Baku, the Communist under ground
226 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
had control of a well-armed force of four thousand men, Russian, Arme­
nian, and Moslem. At the same time the Azerbaijani army had been
shifted by the Azerbaijani government to the southwestern region of the
republic to fight the Armenians, leaving the border with Daghestan en­
tirely unprotected. As early as April 17, 1920, Lenin issued a confidential
order appointing Aleksandr Serebrovskii, an official of the Soviet Russian
government, director of the future Sovietized Baku oil industries. 1 22
The Azerbaijani government, in the final days of its existence, tried to
save itself by lodging protests with the Soviet government and negotiating
with Ordzhonikidze and the Communist underground, as well as by dis­
cussing with Persia plans for a union. 1 23 The threat of a coup precipitated
a split within the Mussavat between a faction headed by M. Hasan Had­
zhinskii and Resul-zade, which urged a conciliatory policy toward the
Communists, and another, led by Khan Khoiskii, which wanted no con­
cessions whatsoever. The conservative Union, the party of rich landown­
ers and clergymen, was most pro-Communist of all; in part because it
was attracted by the Pan-Islamist and Pan-Turanian slogans propagated
by the Reds, and in part because its traditional conflict with the Mus­
savat inclined it to befriend any group which was fighting its rival. At
one point in early 1920 the Union even considered a merger with the
Azerbaijani Communist Party. 124
The Mussavatists entered into negotiations with the Red underground,
offering the Communists various positions in the government and express­
ing willingness to make other concessions to preserve the independence
of the republic. In these negotiations the Turks, particularly Halil Pasha,
played a role as intermediaries. Halil Pasha, who early in 1920 had re­
placed Nuri Pasha as commander of the Red partisan units in Daghestan,
assured the Azerbaijani authorities that the Reds had no evil designs
against Azerbaijan and desired merely to facilitate the transmission of
military aid to the nationalist forces of Turkey. As evidence of Soviet
good will, Halil Pasha cited the fact that the Communist organization
had promised him the command of the Eleventh Red Army on its march
across Azerbaijan to Turkey. 1 25
The lack of radio contact between the Baku underground and the
Kavbiuro made it necessary for the Baku Communists to dispatch a
special emissary to Ordzhonikidze to receive orders concerning the coup.
Early in April the Azerbaijani Communist Party sent the Georgian Com­
munist Kvantaliani for that purpose to Petrovsk. During his absence,
plans were laid for great public demonstrations against the government
on May 1. But Kvantaliani, returning on April 22, brought word that the
Kavbiuro wanted the coup to take place on April 27, so that preparations
for the demonstration had to be canceled. According to Kavbiuro direc­
tives, the Baku Communists were to present the Azerbaijani government
with an ultimatum, and simultaneously to request armed assistance from
THE CAUCASUS 227
Soviet Russia; while the Eleventh Army was marching on Baku, a Revo­
lutionary Committee was to take over Baku. 1 26
The Communist campaign developed according to plan. At noon on
April 27, 1920, the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist
Party, the Baku Bureau of the Regional Committee of the Russian Com­
munist Party, and the Central Workers' Conference of Baku, handed the
Azerbaijani government a joint ultimatum demanding that it surrender
authority within twelve hours. The government called an extraordinary
session of the Parliament to discuss this demand, but before the twelve
hours had elapsed news arrived that the Eleventh Red Army had crossed
the border the previous night, and was marching on Baku. 127 The govern­
ment of the republic then capitulated, voicing the hope that the Com­
munist authorities would honor their promises to maintain the independ­
ence of Azerbaijan. 1 28 On April 28, an armored train bearing Ordzho­
nikidze and Kirov arrived in Baku, and shortly afterwards the troops of the
Eleventh Army, having crossed the entire distance from the border vir­
tually without firing a shot, entered the city. ( Halil Pasha, who had gone
forward to meet the Red forces to claim the military command which
he had been promised by the Baku Communists, was told that the Elev­
enth Army had received no instructions to this effect and was advised to
go to Moscow to clear up his claim, which he did. ) 1 29
Having established himself in Baku, Ordzhonikidze was eager to
move on to Georgia and Armenia. His pretext was the desire to come to
the assistance of the Georgian Communists who on May 2 staged ( pos­
sibly at his instigation ) an abortive rebellion in Tiflis. On May 3 he
wired to Moscow that he expected to be in TiHis by the middle of the
month; at the same time he issued orders to his troops to advance west­
ward along the Kura River. But hi s request was not approved. At the
very time when the Red Army was occupying Baku the anticipated war
with Poland had broken out; the Polish-Ukrainian armies struck hard
and early in May were approaching Kiev. The prospect of a second front
against the relatively well-organized and patriotically inspired Georgians
was the last thing the Soviet government desired. In an emergency meet­
ing the Politburo, the Central Committee's Political Bureau, voted against
offensive actions in the Caucasus, and passed a resolution which read :
"Immediately to send Ordzhonikidze a telegram in the name of Lenin
and Stalin forbidding him to 'self-determine' Georgia, and instructing
him to continue negotiations with the Georgian government."1 3 0 The situa­
tion now called for a "soft" policy toward the two remaining Transcau­
casian republics. The Commissariat of Foreign Affairs immediately opened
negotiations with Georgia and Armenia. On May 7, 1 920, the Sov iet
Union signed in Moscow a treaty with a representative of the Georgian
Republic, which contained in its opening articles an unqualified recogni­
tion of Georgian: independence :
228 THE F ORMATI ON OF THE S O VIET U N I O N
Art. 1. On the basis of the right of all peoples freely to dispose of
themselves up to and including complete separation from the state
of which they constitute a part - a right proclaimed by the Socialist
Federative Republic of Soviet Russia - Russia recognizes without res­
ervations the independence and sovereignty of the Georgian state and
renounces of its own will all the sovereign rights which had apper­
tained to Russia with regard to the people and territory of Georgia.
Art. 2. On the basis of the principle proclaimed in the first article
of the present treaty, Russia obliges itself to desist from all interference
in the internal affairs of Georgia.
In a secret clause incorporated into the treaty, Georgia promised to
legalize the Communist Party and to permit it free activity in its terri­
tory.1a1
The Russo-Polish war had saved Georgia and Armenia from certain
Soviet occupation. But their doom was not averted; it was merely post­
poned. On May 29, Moscow appointed Kirov, the vice-chairman of the
Kavbiuro, as its envoy to Tiflis, emphasizing by this appointment its
continued interest in the conquest of the remainder of Transcaucasia.
Negotiations with Armenia were less fruitful, whether conducted in
Moscow or transferred to Erivan. 1 32
Although the capture of Baku had been bloodless, the spread of Soviet
rule to the remaining regions of Azerbaijan was not completed without
a struggle. On the night of May 25/26, 1920, a major rebellion against
the Soviet regime broke out in Gandzha; carried out by Azerbaijani sol­
diers and peasants, with the probable participation of Azerbaijani nation­
alists, it soon spread to the adjoining areas of Karabakh and Zakataly.
Soon most of western Azerbaijan rose in arms against the conqueror. The
Red Army units, dispatched with an armored train from Baku to suppress
the uprising, captured Gandzha following three days of bitter fighting.
Afterwards they looted and pillaged the city for an entire week ( May 31
to June 6 ) . Next, the Red detachments fanned out into the countryside to
deal with the rebels in the mountainous districts. Not before the end of
June did they quell the uprisings and establish Soviet rule firmly through­
out Azerbaijan.1 33
The introduction of Soviet rule into Baku was accompanied by severe
repressive measures. Ordzhonikidze arrested and executed many persons
connected with the Azerbaijani national movement, among them the
former Prime Minister Khan Khoiskii and General Sulkevich, who had
served in 1919 as Chief of Staff of the Azerbaijani Army. Resul-zade, one
of the leaders of the Mussava( was spared a similar fate by having ad­
vocated a pro-Communist course in the final days of independence, and
by his personal acquaintance with Stalin and other Caucasian Commu­
nists, dating back to the 1905 Revolution when he had belonged to the
Bolshevik Party in Baku. Later in the year, Resul-zade was brought to
THE CAUCASUS 229
Moscow by Stalin, who wanted him to join the Soviet government in
Azerbaijan; after a year and a half in t�e Soviet capital, he escaped
abroad. 134 The executions carried out by ,the Communists in Azerbaijan
were in sharp contrast to their customary lenient attitude toward national­
ist leaders in other conquered borderlands, and served as a prelude to
the policy of terror and repression which was to characterize the whole
period of Ordzhonikidze's rule in Transcaucasia.
The first Communist government in Azerbaijan consisted almost
entirely of Moslems from the left-wing factions of the Gummet and
Adalet. Its chairmanship was entrusted to Dr. Nariman Narimanov, an old
Social Democrat, who in 1919 and 1920 had served as a Soviet official in
Moscow, first as Director of the Eastern Division of the Commissariat
of Foreign Affairs and then as one of the heads of the Commissariat of
Nationalities. 135 Narimanov had resided in Moscow at the time of the
Baku coup and had arrived in Azerbaijan only after it had fallen to the
Red Army. The government of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic
had in fact little voice in the internal affairs of the republic, since its
personnel controlled neither the Communist organization of Baku nor the
omnipotent Kavbiuro with its army. Once, when Ordzhonikidze had run
into difficulties with the Azerbaijani Soviet government and protested to
Moscow, Lenin assured him that he had full authority to "direct the entire
external and internal policy of Azerbaijan." 136 The appointment of an all­
Moslem administration was a purely tactical maneuver, designed to create
the impression that the overthrow of the Azerbaijani republic had been
brought about by natives. Actual power in Azerbaijan was wielded by
the Kavbiuro and by the local Communist party organs run by Ordzhoni­
kidze and his appointees.
The Fall of Armenia
In August 1 920, while the Communist leaders of the Caucasus area
were attending the Soviet-sponsored Congress of the Peoples of the East
in Baku, a major native revolt broke out in Daghestan. Led by Nazh­
mudin Gotsinskii and some other local chiefs, the uprising was a reaction
against Soviet misrule and against the failure of the Communists to
fulfill the promises which they had made upon their entry into North
Caucasian territory. 137 The departure of the Soviet army from Daghestan
for the Azerbaijani campaign facilitated the spread of the rebellion. As
soon as the news from Daghestan reached Baku, Ordzhonikidze relayed it
to the Central Bureau of the Communist Party and departed in haste for
the North Caucasus. 138
The outbreak of the rebellion provided Stalin with an opportunity to
leave Moscow for a one-month inspection tour of the Caucasus. He ar­
rived in Vladikavkaz on October 21, 1920, and after conferences with
party and military officials responsible for the suppression of Gotsinskii's
230 THE F O R M A T I O N O F T H E S O V I E T U N I O N
forces, proceeded to Baku. The extent to which Ordzhonikidze had been
able to obtain control of the Azerbaijani Communist Party during the
half year of his rule in Baku is all too evident in the tone of the official
Directive of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party,
dated November 4, 1920, and published at the time in the Baku Kommu­
nist:
Our town is host to Comrade Stalin, the worker's leader of ex­
ceptional selflessness, energy, and stalwartness, the only experienced
and universally recognized expert of revolutionary tactics and the
leader of the proletarian revolution in the Caucasus and the East.
The Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party ( Bol­
shevik ) , realizing the modesty of Comrade Stalin, and his dislike for
triumphal official welcomes, had to renounce special meetings in con­
nection with his arrival. The Central Committee of the Azerbaijani
Communist Party ( Bolshevik ) believes that the best welcome, the best
greeting which our party, the proletariat of Baku, and the toilers of
Azerbaijan can give our beloved leader and teacher, is a new and
ever renewed concentration of all efforts for the general strengthening
of party and Soviet work. All together for coordinated, militant work,
worthy of the hardened proletarian fighter, Comrade Stalin - the
first organizer and leader of the Baku proletariat. 139
Such sycophancy, uncommon at the time even in regard to Lenin, indi­
cated beyond doubt that the Communist apparatus in Azerbaijan was
in the hands of people loyal to Stalin.�
Stalin spent nearly two weeks in Baku. On his way back to Moscow
he again stopped in Daghestan and the Terek Region, where he partici­
pated in conferences connected with the establishment of a separate
Daghestan Republic and the revamping of the Communist apparatus in
the North Caucasus. t Upon his return to the capital, at the end of
November 1920, Stalin published an article in Pravda on the situation in
the Caucasus, in which he indicated in no uncertain terms that the end of
Armenian and Georgian independence was at hand:
Dashknak Armenia has fallen, without doubt the victim of a provo­
cation of the Entente, which had set it against Turkey and then in­
famously left it to be harrowed by the Turks. There can be little
doubt that Armenia has only one chance of saving itself : a union with
Soviet Russia . . .
� According to a prominent Communist from Daghestan, the Baku organization in
the second half of 1920, was controlled by A. Mikoyan ( N. Samurskii, "Krasnyi
Dagestan," in V. Stavskii, ed., Dagestan [Moscow, 1936] , 15 ) .
f Samurskii, 20-2 1; Stalin, IV, 394-407. The revolt in Daghestan continued until
May 1921, complicated by the appearance of Said Shamil, a grandson of the famous
leader of native resistance to Russian conquest in the mid-nineteenth century. It cost
the Red Army five thousand casualties. A. Todorskii, Krasnaia armiia v gorakh
( Moscow, 1924 ) , is a history of the campaign against the insurgents.
THE CAUCA S US
Georgia, which had entangled itself in the snares of the Entente
and consequently lost access to Baku oil and Kuban bread; Georgia,
which had transformed itself into a principal base of imperialist oper­
ations of England and France and for this reason had entered into
hostile relations with Soviet Russia - this Georgia completes now
the last days of her life . . . There can be little doubt that in a diffi­
cult moment Georgia will be abandoned by the Entente, just as was
Armenia. 14 0
One of the obstacles in planning the campaign against Armenia was
the virtual nonexistence there of a Communist Party apparatus. The Com­
munist Party of Armenia, organized formally in Tiflis in 1919, had struck
no roots in Armenian soil, largely because the active pro-Turkish policy
pursued by the Communists since the end of that year had made it im­
possible for them to appeal to Armenian sentiments. In early 1920, the
Armenian party in Tiflis had conducted a poll among its members to
determine whether or not to prepare a coup in the Armenian republic;
the majority of the members were of the opinion that such action was
premature and at any rate impossible to accomplish without external
assistance. 1 4 1 An agent dispatched to Erivan to investigate the strength
of Communism confirmed the pessimistic outcome of the poll. 14 2 The
Communist Party of Armenia preferred, as a consequence, to bide its
time, awaiting the natural collapse of the republic which would in­
evitably follow the Soviet conquest of Azerbaijan and Georgia.
In May 1920, when the Red Army was marching on Erivan, this hope
of the Armenian Communists seemed near realization. The Communist
cause secured at that time some following in the western sectors of Ar­
menia, notably among the proletariat of Aleksandropol ( most of them
unemployed Russian railroad workers who had migrated from Baku after
the collapse of the Commune in 1918 ) and the officers of the Armenian
army . On May 10, 1 920, a Communist-dominated Revolutionary Com­
mittee in Aleksandropol proclaimed the Sovietization of Armenia. But
when the Soviet offensive came to a halt and the Red troops withdrew,
the Dashnaks quickly regained the upper hand and suppressed the
would-be government. 1 4 3 During those disorders, the Russian Armenians
showed themselves more pro-Soviet, whereas the refugees from Turkish
Armenia supported the Dashnaktsutiun.
The actual Sovietization of Armenia, which occurred in December
1920, came as the result of a conflict between the Armenians and the
Turks. In late September 1 920, the dispute over the Eastern provinces of
Anatolia which had kept the two governments at odds ever since the
summer of 1919, led to the outbreak of a full-scale war. The tide of battle
turned immediately in favor of the Turks, who were more numerous and
better armed and who had the support of the Communists. The Armenian
Army, according to the then President of the Armenian Republic, Simon
232 THE F ORMATI O N OF THE S O VIET UNI O N
Vratsian, was weakened by Bolshevik propaganda; 144 the rapid advance
of Kemalist troops engendered defeatism among the Armenians and
made it easy for Communist agitators to spread anti-Dashnak slogans. On
October 30, 1920, Turkish troops seized Kars, and a short time later
negotiations were opened in Aleksandropol. The Turks posed stiff condi­
tions: the surrender of two thirds of the territory in Eastern Anatolia
claimed by the Armenian Republic, the reduction of the Armenian army
to 1,500 men, and the renunciation of the Treaty of Sevres. 0
While the Armenian regime was negotiating with the Turks, the
Kavbiuro prepared to take advantage of the hopeless situation in which
Armenia was placed as a consequence of its defeats. On November 27,
1920, Stalin,' who had just arrived in Moscow from his Caucasian trip,
telephoned Ordzhonikidze in Baku and instructed him to commence
operations against Armenia. Lenin also conferred with Ordzhonikidze on
the same day. 145 Two days later, Legran, the Soviet diplomat represent­
ing Moscow in Erivan at the Armenian-Russian treaty_ negotiations,
handed the Armenian government an ultimatum in which he demanded
that it give up its authority to a "Revolutionary Committee of the Soviet
Socialist Republic of Armenia," which was located in the Kazakh region
of Soviet Azerbaijan. 14 6 It is likely that this Revolutionary Committee
had been formed in Baku in the course of the Congress of the Peoples of
the East. Very possibly, too, the plans for the intervention were laid dur­
ing Stalin's visit to Baku and were held in abeyance until he was able to
discuss them with Lenin and the Politburo.
While Legran was dealing with the Armenian government, units of
the Eleventh Army crossed the Armenian border from Azerbaijan, oc­
cupied Dilizhan, and proceeded along the mountainous road skirting the
western s.hore of Lake Sevan toward the capital of Armenia. 1 4 7 There are
many indications that the Soviet entry was motivated by a desire to fore­
stall the complete collapse of the Armenian Republic, and to prevent a
Turkish occupation of Erivan. The Russian move was directed primarily
against Kemal, whose victories had threatened to bring Turkish troops
into the heart of Transcaucasia. The readiness with which the Dashnaks
consented to the Soviet ultimatum, the establishment of a joint Commu­
nist-Dashnak government in the newly Sovietized Armenia, and the
silence with which the Armenian diplomatic mission abroad treated the
Soviet conquest while loudly protesting Turkish aggrandizement - all
" The Treaty of Sevres, between the Entente and Turkey, signed in August 1920
but never ratified, called in Articles 88 and 89 for Turkish recognition of Armenian
independence, and the arbitration of the President of the United States in the matter
of the Armenian-Turkish frontier. President Wilson's decision, rendered in December
1920, favored the Am1enian claims, granting them much of Eastern Anatolia, in­
cluding Erzerum, Van, Bitlis, and Trebizond. Cf. Mandelstam, La Societe des Nations,
72, ggff; Delegation de la Republique armenienne, L'Armenie et la question arme­
nienne ( Paris, 1922 ) .
THE CA UCAS.US 2 33
these facts indicate that the Armenian government did not consider the
Soviet invasion an unfriendly gesture.
On December 2, 1920, Ministers Dro and Terterian of the Armenian
Republic and Legran, representing Soviet Russia, signed a treaty in
Erivan which provided liberal terms for the defeated Dashnaks :
Article 1. Armenia is proclaimed an independent socialist republic.
Article 2. Until the convocation of the Congress of Soviets of Ar­
menia, all power in Armenia is transferred to a Provisional Military
Revolutionary Committee.
Article 3. The Russian Soviet government recognizes [ the follow­
ing areas] as entering undisputably into the territory of the Socialist
Soviet Republic of Armenia : the Erivan province with all its counties;
a part of the Kars region, which will secure it military control of the
railroad line Dzhadzhur-Araks; the Zangezur county of the Elisavetpol
province; a part of the Kazakh county of the same province - within
the limits of the agreement of August 10 - and those parts of the
Tiflis province which had been in Armenian possession until October
23, 1920.
Article 4. The Command of the Armenian army is not subject to
any responsibility for actions committed by the army previous to the
establishment of Soviet rule in Armenia.
Article 5. Members of the Dashnaktsutiun party and of other
socialist parties in Armenia will not be subjected to any repressive
measures for their membership in [those] parties.
Article 6. The Military Revolutionary Committee will consist of
five members appointed by the Communist Party, and two members
appointed by left Dashnak groups with the approval of the Com­
munist Party.
Article 7. The Russian Soviet government shall take measures for
the immediate concentration of military forces necessary to the defense
of the independence of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia.
Article 8. Affer the present agreement is signed, the government
of the Republic of Armenia is removed from authority; until the
arrival of the Revolutionary Committee, power is temporarily trans­
ferred to the Military Command, at whose head is placed Comrade
Dro. Comrade Silyn is appointed the Commissar of the RSFSR ( Jlus­
sian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic ) for the Military Command
of Armenia. 14 8

After the signature of the treaty, the Armenian army was renamed the
Red Army of Armenia, but it was left under the command of Dro, its
previous chief and a leading member of the Dashnaktsutiun.
The Revolutionary Committee arrived in Erivan on December 6, 1920,
one week after its departure from Azerbaijan. Upon assuming authority,
it entirely disregarded the treaty which Legran had signed with the de­
posed regime. On December 2 1 , 1920, it decreed all laws of the Soviet
234 THE F OR M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
Russian government to be in force in Soviet Armenia; 149 no attempt was
made to regain for Armenia the territories occupied by the Turks since
October 1920, and in March 1921 they were formally ceded to Turkey
in the Treaty of Kars; contrary to Articles 5 and 6 of the agreement, the
Dashnaks were arrested and before long ejected from the government.1 5 0

The Fall of Georgia


In accordance with the secret clause of the treaty of May 1920, the
Georgian government immediately released from prisons the Communists
whom it had detained since the abortive coup of the previous November.
Nearly one thousand Communists benefited from this amnesty. Their
own reaction to the sudden liberation was not, as might have been ex­
pected, one of gratitude to Moscow for its intercession, but rather one
of resentment and anger. Makharadze, who had escaped from a Georgian
jail in February 1920 and had assumed leadership of the underground
Regional Committee, stated in his memoirs that neither he nor his col­
leagues had the slightest inkling of the Soviet government's intention to
make peace with the Menshevik republic. 1 5 1 At the time the treaty was
negotiated, the Communist underground apparatus in TiHis was prepar­
ing a new uprising, coincident with the anticipated entry of the Red
Army. The May treaty, in which Soviet Russia had recognized the sov­
ereignty of Menshevik Georgia, appeared to the local Communists as an
indication that the Party's Central Committee had little regard for their
efforts and was prepared to betray the struggle which they had been wag­
ing against the Menshevik government for nearly three years. 1 52
Their dissatisfaction was only partly softened when Moscow bestowed
upon them organizational authority. The secret clause in the Russo­
Georgian treaty legalizing the Communist Party on Georgian territory of­
fered opportunities of which the Russian Communist Party intended to
take full advantage. In May and June, 1920, the Central Committee of
the Russian Communist Party passed a series of · resolutions which,
among other things, dissolved the old Regional Committee and in its
place established a Communist Party of Georgia, charging it with full
responsibility for party work on the territory of the Georgian Republic. 1 53
At the same time it appointed as Soviet ambassador to TiHis Sergei Kirov,
Ordzhonikidze's second in command. Kirov brought with him an enor­
mous staff and tackled the task of assembling the forces with which to
undermine and destroy the authority of the republic to which he was
accredited. To keep the Georgian government in a state of perpetual
tension, he bombarded it with diplomatic protests, in which he charged
that the Georgians were violating their treaty with Soviet Russia by
arresting Communists, helping the White movement, and intriguing with
THE CAUCASUS 23 5
the Allies. In October 1920, Kirov left his post to attend the Polish-Soviet
peace talks and was replaced by A. L. Sheinman.
The Communists made no secret of their intentions. "Our party here,"
the Tillis Kommunist wrote on June 7, 1920, "must utilize all opportunities
and concentrate all efforts on closing its ranks, so that, when the decisive
moment comes, we shall be ready and able to achieve the goal which
history has placed on the shoulders of the proletariat." 1 54 "It was a secret
to no one," wrote Makharadze a few years later, "that the work of the
Communist Party, under the circumstances then [ 1920] prevailing in
Georgia, consisted entirely of the preparation of armed uprisings against
the existing government." 1 55
After the occupation of Armenia, Georgia was hemmed in on three
sides by Soviet Russia. The Red Army, having terminated the war with
Poland, was now in position to resume the offensive on the Transcau­
casian front.
In preparation for the attack, Ordzhonikidze instructed General
Gekker to submit an estimate of the situation. A copy of Gekker's report
came into Georgian possession in December, and from it it is possible to
reconstruct Soviet military intentions. Gekker stated that from the military
point of view the conquest of Georgia could be achieved in six weeks,
provided Soviet Russia had the assurance of the friendly neutrality of
the Turkish armies stationed along the Georgian and Armenian borders.
Without such assurance, the invasion would be at best a precarious ad­
venture, and at worst a disaster, insofar as Soviet troops would be ex­
posed to an attack from the rear. Gekker also suggested that the major
offensive aim at southeastern Georgia, where the Azerbaijani border came
closest to TiRis, and that it be supported by diversionary offensives from
the North Caucasus. 1 56 On December 15, 1920, Ordzhonikidze convened
a meeting of the Caucasian Bureau to discuss invasion plans, and having
secured its approval for an attack on Georgia, wired to Lenin for permis­
sion to proceed. 157
There is considerable evidence that Lenin at first hesitated to approve
of the invasion of Georgia advocated by some! of his colleagues, especially
Ordzhonikidze and Stalin. Much as he wished to establish Soviet rule
over Tillis, whose independence seriously endangered the Communist
hold on the Caucasus, he feared adverse effects of the invasion on Soviet
Russia's whole international situation. In early 1921 the Civil War had
come to an end, and Lenin was anxious to improve Russia's relations with
the "capitalist" West, whose help he needed for the reconstruction of the
war-ravaged country and the successful launching of the New Economic
Policy. A Soviet trade mission, headed by Leonid Krasin, had gone to
London and had opened negotiations with the British government : it
was a possible prelude to British recognition of the Communist regime
236 THE F ORMATION O F THE SOVIET UNION
and the establishment of regular diplomatic relations between the two
countries. Under those circumstances, anything which endangered the
good will of the West and frightened it with the specter of further
Soviet aggrandizement was harmful to the Soviet cause. The sympathy
which the Georgian Mensheviks enjoyed in European socialist circles
was an additional reason for circumspection.
From Lenin's point of view, there were also other arguments against
an invasion. The Communist movement in Georgia was under close
surveillance by the Menshevik police and, after repeated repressions, had
lost the power to render the invader effective assistance. The Georgian
government was popular and able to defend itself. Then, there was also
the uncertainty about Turkey's reaction, the importance of which had
been emphasized in Gekker's report. The relations between Soviet Russia
and the Kemalists had actually deteriorated in the second half of 1920.
A Turkish mission sent to Moscow in June 1920 spent several months in
negotiations without coming to an agreement with Russia. 158 The last­
minute intervention of the Reds in Armenia also had not contributed to
Russo-Turkish amity. In January 192 1 the Turks arrested the most im­
portant Communist agents operating on their territory and expelled them
to Russia; Mustafa Subkhi, who had led the Communist apparatus in
Anatolia and tried to return there after being expelled, they executed. 159
In the winter of 1920-2 1 the Russo-Turkish marriage of convenience
showed definite signs of strain, which could have led to catastrophic
results if the Kemalists should have decided to intervene on behalf of
Georgia.
Finally- and perhaps most importantly - there were military con­
siderations. The Red Army was exhausted from over two years of con­
tinuous fighting, and transport facilities were so short that no trains could
be spared to ship men and supplies to the Caucasian front. General S.
Kamenev, the commander in chief of the Soviet armed forces, was con­
vinced that an attack on Georgia would result in a prolonged war beyond
the capacities of the Caucasian army. In three successive reports to Lenin
he expressed his opposition to an invasion of Georgia. 160
Lenin thus had every reason to believe that the limited benefits which
he could derive from the acquisition of Georgia would be more than
offset by the dangers which forceful expansion at this point held for
Soviet Russia's whole internal and external position. He turned down,
therefore, Ordzhonikidze's request for permission to invade Georgia; and
he remained adamant when, at the beginning of January 192 1, Ordzhoni­
kidze repeated his request. 1 6 1
Nevertheless, Lenin was under great pressure and he gradually re­
lented. His resolution may have been somewhat weakened by a memoran­
dum submitted by Chicherin, the Commissar of Foreign Affairs, on
January 20, 192 1 , which painted a very gloomy ( from the Menshevik
THE CAUCASUS 237
point of view ) picture of internal conditions in the Georgian Republic. 1 62
At the same time Krasin reported a statement made to him by Lloyd
George to the effect that Great Britain considered the entire Caucasus
within the Soviet sphere of influence and contemplated no intervention
there.163 On the basis of this and other evidence, Lenin presented to the
Politburo on January 26, 1921, a policy statement of the Georgian ques­
tion. This statement, known to us only from incomplete Soviet r,esumes,
seems to have been something of a compromise. On the one hand, it
called for the maintenance of regular diplomatic relations with the
Georgian Republic. On the other, it made provisions for an eventual rup­
ture of these relations and the overthrow of the Georgian government.
Instructions were issued to the Communist Party of Georgia to organize
an uprising, and directives were given to the Red Army to come to the
assistance of the rebels. 164 Lenin apparently wanted to make very certain
before giving his approval to an invasion that the overthrow of the
Menshevik government bore all the appearances of an internal uprising.
Much of his subsequent displeasure with Ordzhonikidze was caused by
the latter's impatience and lack of respect for political decorum.
Preparations for the Communist uprising went ahead at a rapid pace.
It broke out on the night of February 1 1/12. Ordzhonikidze located it in
the Borchalo district, which had been contested between Georgia and
Armenia over the past three years, and where Georgian authority ap­
parently was not quite established. Direction of the uprising was en­
trusted to Marnia Orakhelashvili, a Georgian Communist who had been
released from Menshevik prison in the May amnesty.
Ordzhonikidze was now very eager to commence military operations
and bombarded Moscow with telegrams. Lenin still hesitated to act
against the advice of his commander in chief, but finally he yielded. On
February 14, the Central Committee agreed to the invasion, and on that
day - under conditions of extraordinary security - Lenin dispatched to
the Revolutionary-Military Committee of the Eleventh Army and ( through
Stalin ) to Ordzhonikidze the long-awaited but qualified permission:

The Central Committee is inclined to permit the Eleventh Army


to give active support to the uprising in Georgia and to occupy TiHis
provided international norms are maintained and on the condition
that· all the members of the Revolutionary-Military Committee of the
Eleventh Army, after serious appraisal of all the facts, guarantee
success. We warn you that we are without bread because of the
transport situation, and for this reason we shall not let you have a
single train or a single railroad car. We are compelled to limit our
shipments from the Caucasus to bread and oil. We demand an imme­
diate reply by direct wire over the signature of all the members of the
Revolutionary-Military Committee of the Eleventh Army, as well as
Smilga, Gittis, Trifonov, and Frumkin. Until you have our reply to
238 THE F O R MATI O N O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
the wire from all these persons you absolutely must refrain from
undertaking anything decisive. 165
The message ended with the admonition: "Thus, double and redoubled
caution, on your responsibility." Instructions were given that General
Kamenev, the commander in chief of the Soviet armed forces, be told of
the contents of this telegram, but not be shown the text. So secret was
the order that Trotsky, then Commissar of War, and absent on the
Eastern front, knew nothing of it. 1 66
Whether the Revolutionary-Military Committee ever satisfied Lenin's
conditions and awaited his definitive word cannot be determined. In any
event, having at last secured Lenin{iLpermission in principle, Ordzhoni­
kidze launched his invasion. On February 16, the Eleventh Army crossed
the Georgian frontier, ostensibly in order to help the Georgian Revolu­
tionary-Military Committee which Orakhelashvili had set up in the village
of Shulaveri two days before, but actually in order to proceed by the
shortest route toward Tillis. When news of the invasion reached Moscow,
General Kamenev sent a bitter letter to Lenin accusing the Eleventh
Army of having taken the initiative in att�cking Georgia despite his warn­
ings, but urging all-out help to the invading units. 167 On February 18,
Makharadze, who had been in Moscow all this time, left for the Caucasus
to assume chairmanship of the Revolutionary Committee. 168
Military developments soon vindicated Ordzhonikidze. Following the
recommendation of Gekker, he threw his main forces, consisting of in­
fantry regiments of the Eleventh Red Army supported by armored cars
and tanks, against the southeastern region of Georgia. On February 17,
an armored Red force crossed the border at Poili and made directly for
TiHis. Other Red forces, consisting of cavalry units of the Thirteenth
Red Army, under the command of General Budenny, invaded Georgia a
few days later from the east. 169
The Georgians counterattacked in vain. Despite the interception of
the Gekker report, which revealed the Soviet campaign plans, Tiflis had
failed to work out a sound defensive arrangement. Determined to protect
every inch of Georgian soil, it had scattered its forces along the lengthy
frontier, too thinly for effective use.# A few days after the start of the
invasion, Red tanks reached the gates of Tillis. Georgian troops, incapable
of holding the exposed frontier, retreated from all sides toward the
capital. On the night of February 18/19 the Red Army attacked TiHis and
seized Mt. Kodzhori, overlooking the city. At this moment the Georgians
rallied and succeeded in temporarily turning the tide of battle in their
favor. An attack by a detachment of military cadets recaptured Mt.
Kodzhori. Then, for an entire week the Georgians held Tillis with less
0 Soviet troops have been estimated in excess of 100,000, whereas the Georgian
armies contained no more than one half that number. The Georgians had none of the
heavy weapons of the Red Army.
THE CAUCASUS 23 9
than ten thousand men against Russian forces three times their number,
bringing the Soviet offensive to a standstill.
The defenders were aided by a rebellion which broke out behind their
enemy's lines in Soviet Armenia on February 19, as a reaction to Soviet
misrule. The Armenian anti-Soviet rebels, ,led by the Dashnaks, seized
Erivan and acquired control over considerable areas of Armenia. In effect,
they overthrew the Soviet regime in Armenia and reestablished the gev­
ernment which had been in power before the Communist invasion. The
Communists reconquered Armenia only after the Georgian campaign was
over, in April 1921 . 170
While the battle for Tillis was in progress, the Georgian government
vainly endeavored to establish contact with Moscow. Moscow denied
knowledge of any Soviet attack, while Sheinman, the Soviet representa­
tive in Tillis, asserted that, as far as he was concerned, the war was a
conflict between Georgia and Armenia over Borchalo. He could neither
interfere nor stop the fighting, but he offered his services as mediator.
The Supreme Allied Council in Paris, which on the eve of the invasion
had recognized Georgia d e jure, did not move in Georgia's defense.
With fresh replacements and new supplies reaching the Red Armies
from Baku, Tiflis could not hold out much longer. Georgian troops were
shifted by automobiles from one end of the town to another to protect
menaced points. The defenders were exhausted from two weeks of con­
stant fighting, and their supplies were running low. On February 24, the
Red Army resumed its offensive and nearly closed a ring around the
city. The Georgians decided to evacuate Tiflis. During a temporary lull
in the battle, Georgian troops disengaged the enemy and pulled out; the
government followed shortly afterwards. The long convoys of the retreat­
ing Georgians moved in the direction of Kutais and Batum. On February
25, the Red Army entered the capital, and Ordzhonikidze at once sent
triumphant telegrams to his superiors, Lenin and Stalin: "The proletarian
flag flies over Tiflisl" 1 71
While the Georgians were seeking refuge in western Georgia, small
detachments of the Ninth Red Army under the command of General
Levandovskii ( who was in charge of the forces suppressing the rebellion
in Daghestan ) attacked from the North, after having crossed the icebound
Darial and Mamison passes. Other Red units moved toward Batum
along the Black Sea coast. These diversionary actions, suggested by
Gekker's report, were under the political supervision of Kirov who, upon
his return from Riga, had been dispatched to the Northern Caucasus.
When the Georgian government and the remnants of its army had
reached Kutais, · an ultimatum arrived from the Turks, demanding the
surrender of Batum. The Turkish nationalists apparently had no inten­
tion of sitting by idly while the Russian Communist conquered all of
Georgia. On March 5, without waiting for a reply, Turkish armies oc-
240 THE FORMATION O F THE SOVIET UNION
cupied the suburbs of Batum and, six days later, the city proper. When,
however, on March 17, they attempted to enter the Batum fortress and to
disarm the troops garrisoned there, the Georgians resisted. On March
18, the Turkish Parliament in Ankara proclaimed the annexation of
Batum. All during that day there was fighting in the city between the
Georgian garrison and the Turks. 1 72
Turkish intervention ended Georgian hopes of continuing resistance
in the western half of the republic. On March 18, the government capit­
ulated to the Russians. The cease-fire agreement which it signed with
the Communist Revkom provided for a termination of hostilities, the dis­
solution of the Georgian army, and full amnesty for all persons connected
with the Georgian regime. One of its clauses provided for the advance of
Soviet armies across western Georgia to the defense of Batum against the
Turks. 173 Having signed the agreement, the Georgian government boarded
an Italian steamer and departed for Constantinople. Units of the Red
Army, speeding to defend Batum, reached the beleaguered fortress on
March 19. Together with the Georgians they threw back the Turkish
troops and expelled them from the city. ( In the Treaty of Kars Turkey
abandoned its claims to Batum. )
Lenin followed the events in Georgia with misgivings. He was con­
vinced that if Ordzhonikidze were to apply in Georgia the methods of
administration which he had used in conquered Azerbaijan and Armenia,
Georgia would be swept by a wave of popular resistaP..ce. Therefore, as
soon as Ordzhonikidze had set foot in Tillis, Lenin sent him a series of
directives urging him to adopt a policy of utmost concession to the gov­
ernment and the population of the subjugated country. Lenin wrote him
on March 2, 192 1 :
Please convey to the Georgian Communists and especially to all
members of the Georgian Revkom my warm greeting to Soviet Geor­
gia. I would particularly like them to inform me whether there is
between them and us complete agreement on three issues:
First: it is necessary to arm at once the workers and the poorest
peasants, forming a solid Georgian Red Army.
Second : it is imperative to enforce a special policy of concessions
toward Georgian intellectuals and petty traders. It must be understood
that it is not only unwise to subject these classes to nationalization,
but that it may be necessary to make certain sacrifices to improve
their situation and to give them an opportunity to conduct petty trade.
Third: it is of gigantic importance to seek an acceptable com­
promise for a block with Zhordaniia and the other Georgian Menshe­
viks like him, who even before the uprising were not absolutely hostile
to the idea of a Soviet government in Georgia on certain conditions .
I ask you to keep in mind that the internal and external situation
of Georgia demands of the Georgian Communists not the application
of the Russian pattern, but a skillful and flexible elaboration of a
THE CAUCASUS

special original tactic, based on a large-scale concession to all kinds


of petty-bourgeois elements.
Please reply. Lenin. 174
As is apparent from this letter, Lenin's primary concern was with the
reaction of the Georgian population to Soviet conquest. He was anxious
to minimize the impression that the Soviet Georgian government was a
foreign agency ( hence his stress on an alliance with Zhordaniia and on
the authority of the Georgian Revkom ) and fearful that the policies of
War Communism might alienate the groups without whose support Soviet
rule was possible only on the basis of military occupation ( hence his
insistence on "concessions" ) . Lenin reemphasized these points in two
additional messages to Ordzhonikidze and the Caucasian Communists.
His telegram to the Revolutionary-Military Soviet of the Eleventh Army
( printed March 17, 1921 ) follows:
In view of the fact that units of the N [Eleventh] Army are located
on Georgian territory, you are requested to establish full contact with
the Revkom of Georgia and to conform strictly to the directives of
the Revkom, not to undertake any measures which might touch upon
the interests of the population without agreement of the Revkom of
Georgia, to be particularly respectful toward the sovereign organs of
Georgia, to show especial attention and caution in respect to the
Georgian population. Give immediately corresponding directives to
all organs of the army, including the special section [Secret Police] .
Hold responsible all persons violating those directives. Inform [me] of
every instance of violation, or even the slightest friction or disagree­
ment with the local population. 175
In another message to the Caucasian Communists, Lenin elaborated
on the differences between the situation in the Caucasus in 1921 and that
which had prevailed in Soviet Russia during the period of the Civil War,
"A slower, more cautious, more systematic transition to socialism- this
is what is possible and necessary for the republics of the Caucasus in
contrast to the RSFSR." 11o
How well grounded were Lenin's fears of Ordzhonikidze's ability to
rule Georgia became evident in the course of the two years which fol­
lowed the establishment of Soviet regime there. Ordzhonikidze's failure
to follow Lenin's directives led to a complete rupture between the Kav­
biuro and the Georgian Communists and brought about one of the most
violent internal crises in the early history of the Party.
The seizure of Georgia completed the process of reconquest of the
separated borderlands and initiated the last phase in the formation of
the Soviet Union: the integration of the conquered territories into a
single state.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNION OF
SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

The Consolidation of the Party and State Apparatus

The belief that the socialist state required a centralized administration


was common to both wings of the Russian Social Democratic Labor
Party, as indeed it was to European Marxism in general. The Marxists
viewed the government as an instrument of class warfare and a weapon
by means of which the class in power asserted its will, destroyed its op­
ponents, and enacted socio-economic and political legislation which best
served its interests. Only a government which had at its disposal com­
plete political and economic authority could accomplish these tasks. The
pre-1917 opposition of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks to federalism, as
well as the specific interpretation given by Lenin to the right of national
self-determination, were largely inspired by a desire to avoid the evils of
a system which permitted hostile elements to find escape from the socialist
regime by utilizing the privileges inherent in states' rights.
The Bolsheviks' adoption of the principle of federalism upon their
accession to power in' no way signified an abandonment of the traditional
Marxist hostility to the decentralized state. In the first place, under the
circumstances in which it had been adopted, federalism was a step in
the direction of centralization, since it gave an opportunity of bringing
together once more borderland areas which during the Revolution had
acquired the status of independent republics. In the second place, the
existence of the Communist Party, with its unique internal organization
and extraordinary rights with regard to the institutions of the state, made
it possible for the rulers of the Soviet republic to retain all the important
features of a unitary state in a state which was formally decentralized.
In Communist political theory the supreme legislative authority be­
longed to the soviets. "Russia is declared a republic of Soviets of work­
ers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies," stated the Declaration of Rights of
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE u SSR 243
the Toiling and Exploited People, issued in January 1918; "All power in
the center and locally belongs to these Soviets." 1 According to the Rus­
sian Soviet constitution, local soviets delegated their representatives to
the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which in turn appointed an All­
Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK). The Council of People's
Commissars, the supreme executive organ of the state, was in theory
responsible to the VTsIK and to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. In
practice, however, the Council of People's Commissars early in the Revo­
lution made itself independent of the VTsIK, which did little more than
give formal approval to measures promulgated by the Council of People's
Commissars. 0
Side by side with the soviets, the Communists recognized another
sovereign institution, the Russian Communist Party. The Bolshevik leaders
conceived of the Communist Party as the vanguard of the proletarian
revolution and as an organization which provided the soviets with intel­
lectual and political leadership. They drew no clear-cut division of au­
thority between the soviets and the party, on the assumption that the
interests of the two were in full harmony, but they admitted openly that
the chain of command descended from the party to the soviets, ind not
vice versa. In March 1919, when they drew up their first party program
( superseding the general Russian Social Democratic program of 1903),
the Bolsheviks stated the relationship between these two institutions in
the following words:
The Communist Party assigns itself the task of winning decisive
influence and complete leadership in all organizations of the laboring
class: the trade unions, the cooperatives, the village communes, etc.
The Communist Party strives particularly for the realization of its
program and for the full mastery of contemporary political organiza­
tions such as the Soviets . . .
The Russian Communist Party must win for itself undivided polit­
ical mastery in the Soviets and de facto control of all their work,
through practical, daily, dedicated work in the Soviets, [and] the
advancement of its most stalwart and devoted members to all Soviet
positions.2
The sovereign legislative powers, theoretically vested in the soviets, were,
therefore, absorbed not only by the Council of People's Commissars,
which operated on the highest level, but also by the Communist Party,
which operated on all levels, down to the smallest town soviets.
The leaders of both the Council of People's Commissars and the Com­
munist Party were in fact the same persons. The intert)Vining of the
personnel and activities of the state and party institutions was so intimate
that the process of the integration of the Soviet territory occurred not
0 The process whereby this condition was brought about is described in E. H.
Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, I (New York, 1951), 147ff.
244 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
on one, but on two levels. The evolution of Soviet federalism, therefore,
cannot be studied merely from the point of view of the changing rela­
tions between the central and provincial institutions of the state; it must
be approached, first of all, from the point of view of the relations be­
tween the central and provincial institutions of the Communist Party.
One of the characteristic features of the Bolshevik party organization,
the feature which perhaps most distinguished it from the other political
organizations of twentieth-century Russia, was its internal discipline. In
contrast to the Mensheviks, who thought of the party in terms of a loose
association of persons holding similar views, Lenin felt that only an
organization which was highly centralized and uncompromising on all
matters of party activity, practical as well as theoretical, could perform
effective political work. Indeed, the issue of party discipline had been
the main cause of the split of Russian Social Democracy into two factions,
Menshevik and Bolshevik, at the 1903 Congress. After the Bolsheviks had
come to power and assumed the responsibilities of government, their
views on this matter were asserted with ever greater emphasis. They
were thus enunciated in the program in 1919:
The party finds itself in a situation in which the strictest centralism
and the severest discipline are absolute necessities. All decisions of
the higher instance are absolutely binding on the lower ones. Every
decision must first of all be carried out, and only later can it be
appealed to the proper party organ. In this sense, the party must dis­
play in the present epoch virtually a military discipline . , ,3
The highest organ of the party was its Central Committee; after March
1919, this position was assumed by the Central Committee's Political
Bureau (Politburo).
The power which the Communist Party enjoyed in regard to state
institutions accounted for the fact that the decisive battles for political
control in Soviet-held territories took place within the party organizations.
The question of how much authority was to be in the hands of the cen­
tral organs and how much in the provincial ones was in fact determined
by the settlement of relations between the Central Committee and the
regional organizations of the Communist Party.
Now, Lenin was firm in insisting that the principles of nationalism and
federalism, introduced on his own initiative in the state apparatus, did
not apply to the Communist Party. Throughout his life, he remained
opposed to the ideas which the Jewish Bund had advocated at the be­
ginning of the twentieth century. During all of 1918 Lenin suppressed
repeated efforts of Communists in the republics to win some autonomy
from the Central Committee of the RKP, even when such efforts did not
go beyond the demand for the right to join the Third International.
His task was facilitated by the fact that nearly all the republican Com-
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 245
munist parties were not indigenous, national political organizations, but
merely regional branches of the Russian Communist Party. Thus, the
Communist Party of the Ukraine was the product of a merger of the
Southwestern and Donets-Krivoi Rog Regional Committees of the RKP;
the Belorussian Communist Party was the old Northwestern Committee
of the RKP under a new name; the Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani
Communist parties emerged from the organizational breakup of the
Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the RKP; the Turkestan Com­
munist Party came into being through the renaming of the Turkestan
Committee of the RKP. Lenin, therefore, did not so much have to cen­
tralize the party organization as keep it from falling apart.
In the spring of 1918 the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of the Ukraine was compelled to acknowledge the authority of the Cen­
tral Committee of the RKP and to give up its claims of membership in
the Communist International. Late in 1919 it was altogether dissolved.
The plan of the Belorussians to institute a separate national Communist
Party was vetoed by Lenin. The Moslem Communist Party was first
subordinated to the Russian Communist Party and then done away with
altogether. Similar steps were taken in the other borderland areas. Lenin
had thus made it clear that if he had requested the various regional com­
mittees of the RKP to change their designations to correspond to the
names of the republics in which they were operating, it was largely a
concession to mass psychology; he had no intention of splitting party
authority or even of introducing the ideas of nationality and federalism
into the party organization. As the Communist Party program of 1919
stated:
The Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belorussia exist at this time
as separate Soviet republics. Thus is solved for the present the ques­
tion of state structure.
But this does not in the least mean that the Russian Communist
Party should, in turn, reorganize itself as a federation of independent
Communist parties.
The Eighth Congress of the RKP resolves: there must exist a
single centralized Communist Party with a single Central Committee
leading all the party work in all sections of the RSFSR. All decisions
of the RKP and its directing organs are unconditionally binding on
all branches of the party, regardless of their national composition.
The Central Committees of the Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian Com­
munists enjoy the rights of the regional committees of the party, and
are entirely subordinated to the Central Committee of the RKP.4
If the soviets were to be the supreme legislative organs of the new
state; if they, in turn, were to be subjected to de facto control by the
Communist Party; and if, finally, the Communist Party itself in Russia
as well as in the non-Russian Soviet republics, was to be completely sub-
246 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
ordinated to the Central Committee, then clearly actual sovereignty in
all Soviet areas belonged to the Central Committee of the Russian Com­
munist Party. Soviet federalism did not involve a distribution of power
between the center and the province; only a corresponding decentraliza­
tion of the Communist Party would have made the establishment of
genuine federal relations possible. If, in 1917, Lenin had accepted state
federalism so readily, it was because he knew that the existence of a
unified, centralized Communist Party with authority over political in­
stitutions throughout the , Soviet territories made possible the retention
of unalloyed centralized political power.
The Communist leaders, however, were concerned not only with
unifying in their own hands the ultimate political authority over the
entire Soviet domain, but also with extending the scope of this authority
as widely and as deeply as possible. Partly for reasons of dogma ( the con­
viction that in the period of revolution the total resources of society must
be brought to bear on the class-enemy), partly for reasons of practical
statesmanship ( greater efficiency in governing the country and the oppor-)
tunity for economic planning), they undertook to augment the ultimate
policy-making authority- assured them by the party- by assuming con­
trol over the entire administrative apparatus of the state.
The integration into a single state of the borderlands conquered in
the course of the Civil War began in 1918 and terminated in 1923 with
the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It
was a complex process. Before the Revolution, the Bolsheviks had given
little thought to the problems of federalism, and now had to proceed en­
tirely by trial and error. The fundamental incompatibility between the
division of powers inherent in federalism and the striving toward the cen­
tralization of authority inherent in Communism lent the evolution of the
Soviet state a peculiar character. Most of the time it is impossible to tell
whether an act involving the transfer of authority from one of the re­
publics to the government of Soviet Russia represented a genuine shift
in political power, or only a formal expression of a fact which had been
accomplished quietly some time earlier by order of the Party or the
Council of People's Commissars. The Communist adherence to demo­
cratic terminology in a social order which was authoritarian in the fullest
sense of the word also does not contribute to a greater understanding of
the growth of Soviet state structure.
For purposes of historical analysis, the territories of the Soviet state
which were involved in the process of political consolidation may be
divided into three categories: the autonomous regions and republics, the
Union Republics, and the People's Republics. It must be borne in mind,
however, that such a division is artificial. The centralization occurred in
all those areas simultaneously and, even before the formal establishment
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 2 47
of the USSR, they were ( with the exception of the People's Republics)
reduced to a status which was, for all practical purposes, identical.

The RSFSR
The first Constitution of Soviet Russia ( 1918), while accepting the
general principle of federalism, had made no provisions for the settle­
ment of relations between the federal government and the individual
states. Indeed, as one historian points out, the very word "federation" was
not even mentioned in the body of the Constitution. 5 During 1918, it was
not clear what, if any, difference' in status there was between the
autonomous regions, the autonomous republics, and the Soviet republics,
and all those terms were used interchangeably. Wherever the Communists
came into power they simply proclaimed the laws issued by the govern­
ment of the RSFSR valid on their territory and announced the establish­
ment of a "uni9n" with the Russian Soviet republic.
The first attempt to put into practice the principles enunciated in the
Constitution was made in the spring of 1918, when the government of
the RSFSR ( or, more precisely, its All-Russian Central Executive Com­
mittee) ordered the formation of the Tatar-Bashkir and Turkestan re­
publics. As we have seen, these attempts were not successful. The Tatar­
Bashkir state never came into being because the Russians evacuated the
Volga-Ural region in the summer of 1918; while Turkestan, cut off from
Moscow by the enemy, had, until the end of the Civil War, no adminis­
trative connection with the RSFSR.
It was only in February 1919, with the signing of the Soviet-Bashkir
agreement, that the decentralization of the administrative appar�tus along
national lines began in earnest. Between 1920 and 1923, the government
of the RSFSR established on its territory seventeen autonomous regions
and republics. 0 The autonomous regions ( sometimes called "Toilers'
Communes") had no distinguishing juridical features even in terms of
l(j, They were ( in addition to the Bashkir and Turkestan republics) : the Auton­
omous Tatar Socialist Soviet Republic ( May 27, 1920); the Autonomous Chuvash
Region (June 24, 1920); the Karelian Toilers' Commune ( August 6, 1920); the
Autonomous Kirghiz Socialist Soviet Republic (August 26, 1920); the Autonomous
Region of the Mari People ( November 25, 1920); the Autonomous Region of the
Kalmyk People (November 25, 1920); the. Autonomous Region of the Votiak People
(January 5, 1921); the Autonomous Daghestan Socialist Soviet Republic (January
20, 1921); the Autonomous Gorskaia Socialist Soviet Republic (January 20, 1921);
the Autonomous Region of Komi (Zyrians) {August 22, 1921); the Autonomous
Crimean Socialist Soviet Republic ( October 18, 1921); the Autonomous Mongol­
Buriat Region (January 9, 1922); the United Karachaev-Cherkess Autonomous Region
(January 12, 1922); the United Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Region (January 16,
1922); the Autonomous Iakut Socialist Soviet Republic (April 20, 1922); the Auton­
omous Region of the Oirat People (June 1, 1922); the Cherkess (Adyghei) Auton­
omous Region (July 27, 1922). For this, see D. A. Magerovskii, Soiuz Sovetskikh
Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik [Moscow, 1923], 16n.
24 8 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
Soviet law and were described by one Soviet authority as "national
guberni,i." 6 The autonomous republics, on the other hand, were re­
garded as endowed with a certain degree of political competence, al­
though what the limits of this competence were posed a question that
troubled the best legal minds of the time. 7
The common feature of . these autonomous units - regions and re­
publics alike- was the fact that they came into being by decree of the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee acting alone or in conjunction
with the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. The only excep­
tion to this rule was the Bashkir Republic founded, as we saw, in
February 1919, by agreement between the government of the RSFSR
and a group of Bashkir nationalists; but since the 1919 agreement was
unilaterally abrogated fifteen months later with the introduction of the
new Bashkir constitution on the orders of the Russian Soviet government,
this exception cannot be said to have affected the general practice.
The origin of the autonomous states provided additional assurance
that they would not infringe in any manner upon the centralized struc­
ture of Soviet political authority. "Autonomy means not separation,"
Stalin told the North Caucasians in 1920, "but a union of the self-ruling
mountain peoples with the peoples of Russia." 8 Indeed, the main stress
in the Communist interpretation of autonomy was on closer ties between
the borderlands and Russia and on the enhancement of the authority
and prestige of the Soviet regime in areas where nationalistic tendencies
were deeply rooted. As Stalin's statement emphasized, autonomy was
considered as an instrument of consolidation, not of decentralization.
As indicated in the sections dealing with the history of the border­
lands during the Revolution and Civil War, the government of the
RSFSR retained in the reconquered territories full control over the mili­
tary, economic, financial, and foreign affairs of its autonomous states.
These were granted competence only in such spheres of government ac­
tivity as education, justice, public health, and social security; and even
in these realms they were subject to the surveillance of the appropriate
commissariats of the RSFSR as well as the local bureaus of the Russian
Communist Party. The governments of the autonomous regions and re­
publics, as one Soviet jurist correctly remarked, had more in common,
from the point of view of authority and function, with the prerevolution­
ary Russian organs of self-rule, the so-called Provincial zemstva, than
with the governments of genuine federal states.9 There can be little
doubt that the tradition of those institutions, introduced during the Great
Reforms of the 186o's, had much to do with the evolution of Soviet con­
cepts of autonomy.
The first attempt to consolidate the state apparatus of all the auton­
omous regions and republics was made in the early 192o's by the Com­
missariat of Nationality Affairs (Narkomnats or NKN). This commis-
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE US SR 24 9
sariat, originally established to serve as an intermediary between the
central Soviet organs and the minorities and to assist the government
in dealing with problems of a purely "national" nature ( which could not
be too numerous, in view of the Communist attitude toward the entire
problem of nationality and nationalism ) , had displayed little activity in
1919 and the first half of 1920. Stalin, its chairman, was absent; its vice­
chairmen and higher functionaries·were called in by the Soviet authori­
ties to fill various posts in the reconquered borderlands; and the remain­
ing borderland areas were largely in the zone of combat or under enemy
occupation. As a result, the commissariat led only a nominal existence,
publishing a weekly newspaper and occasionally engaging in propaganda
activity.
In the spring of 1920 Stalin resumed the active chairmanship of the
Commissariat of Nationality Affairs and began to transform it into a
miniature federal government of the RSFSR. A decree issued on May 10,
1920, instructed all the national minority groups on the territory of the
RSFSR to elect deputies to the Narkomnats. 1 0 This was intended to give
the Commissariat a representative character and, in a sense, was the first
step in the abandonment of the purely executive aspect of the Commis­
sariat. On November 6, 1920, the Narkomnats decreed that it would
assume jurisdiction over the agencies of the autonomous regions and re­
publics which had been attached to the Central Executive Committee of
the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. 1 1 In December 1920 the government
of the RSFSR decreed that the Narkomnats was to open provincial
branches and attach them to the Central Executive Committees of the
autonomous regions and republics of the RSFSR. 1 2
In April 1921 the executive officers of the N arkomnats, and the chair­
men of the delegations from the autonomous regions and republics, were
constituted into a new body, called the Council of Nationalities ( Sovet
NatsionaI'nostei ) .13
While undergoing all those important structural changes, the Com­
missariat of Nationality Affairs claimed for itself ever broader and greater
powers. The November 1920 decree stated that no economic and political
measures of the Soviet government applicable to the borderlands could
become law unless approved by the Narkomnats, and that all the political
organizations of the minorities were to deal with the central Soviet gov­
ernment only through their agencies at Narkomnats. 14 When, a month
later, the Commissariat established its branch offices in the autonomous
states, it gave them authority to participate in the activities of the Central
Executive Committees of the autonomous regions and republics.1 5 In the
summer of 1922, the Narkomnats claimed that it had the right to super­
vise the other commissariats of the Soviet Russian government insofar as
their activities affected the national minorities, that it represented the
autonomous republics in all budgetary matters, and that it alone directed
250 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S OVIET U N I O N
the education of the non-Russian party and state cadres. 16 In 1923, the
forthcoming dissolution of the Narkomnats was justified by the fact that
"it had completed its fundamental task of preparing the formation of
the national republics and regions, and uniting them into a union of re­
publics." 17
Through such measures the Narkomnats was transformed from one
of the minor ministries of the RSFSR into a federal government of the
autonomous regions and republics of the RSFSR. 1 8 At least, so it was in
theory. In reality, the role of the Narkomnats in the integration of the
Soviet state was considerably smaller than its claims implied. The auton­
omous regions and republics had so little self-rule left that their formal
merger in a federal institution had virtually no practical consequences.
It was a measure of primarily bureaucratic significance. In 1924 the
Commissariat was dissolved and its Council of Nationalities became,
through the addition of representatives of the full-fledged Soviet repub­
lics, the second chamber of the legislative branch of the government of
the USSR.

Relations between the RSFSR and the Other Soviet Republics


One of the main reasons why the Communists found it necessary to
differentiate constitutionally between the various conquered borderlands,
forming some into autonomous regions or republics and others into Soviet
or Union republics, was the fact that some of the borderlands which had
separated themselves from Russia in 1917 and 1918 had entered during
the period of their independence into diplomatic or military relations
with foreign powers. Thus, the Ukraine had participated in ,.the Brest
Litovsk negotiations; Belorussia had dealt with Germany and with Po­
land; the Transcaucasian republics had signed treaties with Turkey, had
maintained diplomatic missions abroad, and had been recognized de
facto and de jure by the most important Western powers. In order to
replace the diplomatic representatives of the overthrown borderland
republics and to take over their foreign commitments, it was necessary
to create the impression that the subjugated lands retained their inde­
pendence even after Soviet conquest. Hence, a certafo distinction was
made in Soviet political theory and constitutional law between the non­
Russian areas situated inland, out of contact with foreign powers, and
those located on the fringes. The inland areas were formed into auton­
omous regions and republics, while the outlying ones were made into
so-called Union republics. Constitutionally, the cardinal difference be­
tween the two types of political organization lay in the fact that the Union
republics were recognized as sovereign and independent states, with a
right to separate from the RSFSR, whereas the autonomous regions and
republics were not. But inasmuch as the right to separation was acknowl­
edged by Soviet leaders to apply primarily to nations living in the "capi-
THE E S TA B L I S H M E N T O F THE USSR 25 1
talist" part of the world, and the mere mention of this right in connection
with areas under Soviet control was regarded as prima facie evidence of
counterrevolutionary activity, this constitutional distinction had no prac­
tical consequences whatsoever, although it did have some psychological
ones.
Having been conquered from without, the borderland areas in the
Union category presented specific problems of integration. In the first
:Bush of the Revolution ( 1917-18 ) , the Communist regimes which had
arisen in the borderland areas such as the Ukraine, Belorussia, and th�
Baltic states, had assumed all the prerogatives of the governments which
they had overthrown. The first Communist government of the Ukraine,
for example, had had a Council of People's Commissars composed of
thirteen members, including the Commissars of War, Labor, Means of
Communication, and Finance. 19 A similar situation had prevailed in the
other borderland areas occupied by the Communists at this time. These
governments had, . therefore, to be absorbed gradually. The spread of
authority of the RSFSR over the republics in this category began in the
autumn of 1918 and continued virtually without interruption until 1923.
The first move to integrate the administration of the Soviet republics
lying outside the RSFSR with that of the RSFSR was taken in connection
with the centralization of the Soviet military apparatus. On September
30, 1918, the VTsIK created a Revolutionary-Military Committee ( Rev­
voensovet) of the Republic, under the chairmanship of Trotsky, to direct
and coordinate the entire Soviet war effort against the White forces. The
Rewoensovet was granted extraordinary authority in the combat zones
and was empowered, somewhat ambiguously, to utilize all the resources
of the Soviet state for the defense of the regime. 20 Its headquarters were
in the railroad train which Trotsky used on his rapid inspections of·the
various sectors of the front endangered by the enemy. From· tliere; Trotsky
made requests for manpower and supplies to the vice-chairman of the
Rewoensovet, who resided in Moscow and served as a liaison between
him and the pertinent government agencies. 21
To overcome the delays and other difficulties which such an informal
arrangement between the - military and civil authorities entailed, the
Soviet government established on November 30, 1918, an organ which
united all the agencies directly concerned with the prosecution of the
war : the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense ( Sovet Rahochei i
Krest'ianskoi Oborony) . This supreme administering body of war mobiliza­
tion consisted of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and representatives of the Com­
missariats of Communication (Commissar V. I. Nevskii), Provisions (Dep­
uty Commissar N. P. Briukhanov ) , and the Extraordinary Commission
for the Supply of the Red Army ( Chairman L. B. Krasin ) . The decree
establishing the Council instructed all the provincial Soviet institutions
to pbey the Council's directives. 22 From the point of view of the integra-
252 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE S O VI E T UNI O N
tion of the Soviet state, the importance of the Council lay in the fact
that it exercised authority not only in the RSFSR, but also in Lithuania,
Latvia, Belorussia, and the Ukraine; that is, in all those borderland areas
where the Communists were in power at that time. The authority of the
Council grew rapidly, especially in the Ukraine, which was for the major
part of the Civil War an arena of military operations.
The question of formal relations between the government of the
Soviet Ukraine and that of the RSFSR was raised in the early part of
1919, shortly after the Communists had dispersed the Directory at the
Third Congress of the KP (b)U, held in March 1919 in Kharkov, The
majority of the delegates agreed that the Ukraine and Russia should
establish as close economic and administrative ties as possible. They also
agreed that the Constitution of Soviet Ukraine should in all essential
respects resemble that of Soviet Russia ( adopted in 1918), with minor
alterations to suit local conditions. However, Sverdlov, the representative
of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party at the Con­
gress, refused to approve even such a moderate view, insisting that the
Constitution of the RSFSR was not merely a Russian one, but an interna­
tional one, and therefore should be adopted by the Ukrainian Soviet Re­
public without any changes whatsoever.23
The relationships between the two governments were actually settled
by a decree of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party,
which was conveyed to the Ukrainian Communists by a directive dated
April 24, 1919. According to this directive, the Ukrainian Commissariats
of War and of the Means of Communication were to subordinate them­
selves fully to the correspm;iding ministries of the RSFSR; the Ukrainian
Commissariats of National Economy and Food Supply were to be trans­
ferred from Kiev to l\harkov, where they could work under the direct
supervision of Moscow and receive necessary funds directly, without
requiring the services of the Ukrainian Soviet government; the Commis­
sariat of State Control of the RSFSR was to extend its authority through­
out the entire Ukraine; and finally, the Ukrainian railroads were to be
directed by the Commissariat of Roads in Moscow.24
In May 1919 Trotsky arrived in the Ukraine and took over the govern­
ment. He did away with the separate Ukrainian Red regiments, merging
them with units of the Russian Red Army, and liquidated altogether the
Ukrainian Commissariats of National Economy, Finance, and Means of
Communications, transferring their functions to the local bureaus of the
corresponding Russian commissariats. 25 In place of the Ukrainian Council
of People's Commissars, which was, in effect, q.eprived of its raison d'etre
by the removal of its principal organs, Trotsky formed a local branch of
the Russian Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense. The Ukrainian
Council had as chairman Rakovskii, and as deputy chairmen G. I. Petrov­
skii and A. A. Joffe - persons unconnected with the Ukrainian Com-
T HE E S TA B L I S H M E N T O F THE USSR 253
munist movement. 26 The measures put into practice in the Ukraine in the
spring of 1919 were given broader validity in a decree of the Central
Committee of the RKP of May 1919, which ordered the unification of all
the Red Armies and railroad networks on the territories of the Ukraine,
Latvia, Lithuania, Belorussia, and the RSFSR under the Council of Work­
ers' and Peasants' Defense.27
A further step in the amalgamation of the RSFSR with the conquered
borderlands was a decree of the VTsIK of June 1, 1919, called "On the
Unification of the Soviet Republics of Russia, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithu­
ania, and Belorussia for the Struggle against World Imperialism." This
decree deprived the enumerated non-Russian republics of their commis­
sariats of War, National Economy, Railroads, Finance, and Labor, in
favor of the corresponding commissariats �of the RSFSR.28 The decree
broadened the authority which the RSFSR had enjoyed through the
Council of Defense and embodied in the Soviet constitution legislation
originally introduced as wartime emergency measures. The foundations
of the state which eventually became the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub­
lics were thus laid not by agreement between the RSFSR and the in­
dividual, theoretically independent republics, but by decree of the Rus­
sian government. In this respect, therefore, there was little difference in
the origins of the RSFSR and the USSR.
Another important similarity between the position of the autonomous
states and the Soviet republics vis-a-vis the RSFSR was that in both
instances the functions of federal government were vested not in a third
power, separate and superior to the federating units, but in one of the
states which itself was involved in the act of federation. The government
of �e RSFSR served as the highest state authority not only on its own
territory, but also on the territories of the Ukraine, Belorussia, the Baltic
states, Transcaucasia, and whatever other lands were conquered by Soviet
troops. 29
When, in 1920, the Communists conquered Azerbaijan, an area which,
save for a brief period in the spring of 1918, had not been previously
under their control, they found it desirable to establish interrepublican
relations in a more formal manner. The discussions which ultimately led
to the signing of a treaty between RSFSR and Azerbaijan were carried
on between Lenin, Chicherin, and N. N. Krestinskii on the one side, and
M. D. Guseinov and B. Shakhtakhtinskii on the other. 3 0 The treaty, signed
on September 30, 1920, provided for the government of the RSFSR tak­
ing over the commissariats of War, Supply, Finance, Means of Transpor­
tation,. and Communications, as well as all the organs regulating foreign
trade and the internal economy. Significantly, it left Azerbaijan the right
to retain its own commissariat of Foreigri Affairs. 31 The treaty with Azer­
baijan thus followed the pattern set by the decree of June 1, 1919.
On December 28, 1920, and January 16, 1921, the government of the
2-5 4 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
RSFSR signed identical treaties with the governments of Soviet Ukraine
and Belorussia. The divisions of authority between the government of the
RSFSR and the republican governments was substantially the same as
that provided for by the treaty with Azerbaijan. In addition, it stipulated
that the two republics would appoint representatives to the commissariats
taken over by the RSFSR, and that the exact relationships between the
government agencies of the contracting parties would be determined by
separate agreements. The two republics were allowed to retain their com­
missariats of Foreign Affairs and were declared in the preamble to be
"independent and sovereign" states. The signatory for the Ukrainian side
was Khristian Rakovskii, who two years earlier had served as a represen­
tative of the Russian Soviet government in its negotiations with the
Ukrainian Rada.82
In 1921 and 1922 the republics certainly did not treat the right to the
maintenance of diplomatic relations as a formality. Azerbaijan, to mention
one example, established full relations with six foreign countries, dis­
patched its representatives to Turkey and ·Persia, and accredited diplo­
matic representatives of Germany and Finland. 83 The �ther republics also
maintained at that time actJ.ve diplomatic relations and participated in
international negotiations either jointly with Soviet Russia or, on occasion,
separately.
Such was the situation on the eve of the Soviet conquest of Georgia,
which rounded out Communist possessions in Transcaucasia. The integra­
tio:p. of Georgia, however, proved a much more difficult task than had
been the case with the other borderland areas. The patriotic fervor of
the Georgians, as well as the existence in Georgia of a relatively strong
and rooted Bolshevik organization, precluded a simple incorporation of
that area into Soviet Russia. The Soviet government preferred to accom­
plish the integration of Georgia and the other Transcaucasian republics
in two phases: first, it made them surrender political power to a newly
created Transcaucasian Federation and then it made the Federation cede
these powers to Moscow. This procedure was in part dictated by eco­
nomic considerations ( Transcaucasia having traditionally functioned as
an economic unit) and in part by political ones, namely, the desire to
neutralize potential national opposition to "Russification."
In fact, the device of incorporating the republics by means of a fed­
eration engendered such bitter resistance, especially in Georgia, that
the story of the relations between the Transcaucasian republics and the
RSFSR after February 1921 belongs more properly in that part of our
narrative which deals with the opposition to centralization.

The People's Republics


The only political formations under Communist control which, for a
time at least, enjoyed self-rule in practice as well as in theory were the
THE E S TA B L I S H M E N T O F THE USSR 255
so-called People's Republics, of which there were three in 1922: Bukhara,
Khorezm ( Khiva), and the Far East. The agreement between Soviet
Russia and the Khorezmian Soviet People's Republic- which was signed
on September 13, 1920, and established the pattern for this type of rela­
tionship- granted the RSFSR on the territory of Khorezm certain eco­
nomic privileges, such as the right to exploit natural resources, to import
and export without the payment of tariffs, and to use Russian currency. 34
In all other respects, Khorezm remained an independent republic. A
similar agreement was signed on March 4, 1921, with the Bukharan Peo­
ple's Soviet Republic,35 and on February 17, 1922, with the Far Eastern
Republic. 36 In all three of these states the rights of the RSFSR were
limited to economic matters.
The self-rule acquired by the Khorezmian, Bukharan, and Far Eastern
Republics by virtue of treaties with the RSFSR was not left intact for
long. In the case of Khorezm and Bukhara, their autonomy under the
Communists was not intended as a permanent deviation from the pattern
established in other parts of the country, but rather as a temporary de
facto recognition of the unique status which these principalities had
enjoyed under tsarist rule. The Far Eastern Republic, on the other hand,
was quite frankly established as a buffer state intended to keep out the
Japanese. Its government was not formally Communistic, but represented
an alliance of various "democratic" groups under Communist control. As
soon as the Red Army entered Vladivostok in the wake of the evacuating
Japanese, the Far Eastern Republic was abolished and its territory in­
corporated into that of the RSFSR ( October-November, 1922).37 In
Khorezm and Bukhara, the Communists gradually increased their author­
ity throughout 1922 and 1923. In 1924, the Soviet government abol­
ished these two People's Republics and later distributed their land among
the five new republics created in place of those of Turkestan and ,Kirghiz:
Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik, Kazakh, and Kirghiz.
The Opposition to Centralization
The process of integration of the state apparatus encountered serious
opposition in the borderlands from groups both inside and outside the
Communist Party. This "nationalist deviation" of the early 192o's consti­
tuted a stormy chapter in the history of the formation of the Soviet Union.
The opposition can be divided into two principal types. There was the
resistance of groups which, having collaborated with the Communists for
the sake of essentially nationalistic aims, became eventually disillusioned
with Communism and turned against it. There was also the opposition of
those who had taken seriously the slogans of national self-determination
and federalism and, seeing them violated by Stalin and his associates,
became defenders of decentralization and states' rights. The former fought
for nationalism, the latter for Communism. No collaboration between
256 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
these two groups was possible, and hence opposition to centralization
proved in the end ineffectual.

Nationalist Opposition: Enver Pasha and the Basmachis


The Soviet conquest of Bukhara ( September 1920 ) reinvigorated the
Basmachi movement, which had begun to subside somewhat with the
introduction by the Communists of a policy of economic and religious
concessions in the first half of 1920. At first the Red--Armies had little
difficulty in conquering the mountainous sectors of the Bukharan prin­
cipality, where the population, dissatisfied with the regime of the deposed
Emir, was willing to accept a change in rule. But as soon as the Reds
began to evacuate Eastern Bukhara, entrusting authority to native militias�
�arious Basmachi chieftains appeared and took those territories back from
lhe Communists. In the fall of 1921 most of Eastern Bukhara was in the
hands of rebels. They were supplied with arms anrd personnel by the
deposed Emir, who had fled to Afghanistan to continue from there the
struggle for his throne.
Before long the Soviet regime also suffered setbacks in Western Bu­
khara. The two groups with whose assistance the Communists had come
to power · and to whom they entrusted the reins of government in the
republic- the Young Bukharans and Young Bukharan Communists -
disagreed sharply over the relations of the Bukharan Republic with Soviet
Russia. The Young Bukharans, composed largely of liberals associated
with pre-1917 jadidism, resented Communist penetration into Bukharan
institutions and their meddling in local affairs. They complained that the
new regime had brought "seven emirs" in the place of one- a reference
to the seven commissars ( nazirs ) who comprised the all-powerful govern­
ment of the Bukharan Republic. 38 The Young Bukharan Communists, on
the other hand, among whom the younger, more radical elements pre­
dominated, cooperated fully with the Communists and strove for a closer
integration of Bukhara with the Soviet system.
In the fall of 1921, when such internal difficulties threatened to upset
Soviet authority in the Bukharan Republic, Enver Pasha, one of the lead­
ers of the defunct Young Turkish government of Turkey, appeared in
Turkestan.
Enver, who had acquired great fame throughout the Moslem world
for his victories over the Italians in the African War of 1911-12, escaped
at the end of World War I from Turkey to Germany. An ambitious man,
endowed with a vivid imagination and undaunted personal courage
( though quarrelsome and politically unskilled ) , Enver had little taste for
the life of an .emigre which the Turkish defeat had imposed on him.
After a brief stay in Berlin, he decided to join his one-time associates
Nuri Pasha, Dzhemal Pasha, and Halil Pasha, who had gone into the
Soviet service. Hostile to England, he found in the anti-British policy
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 257
pursued by the Soviet regime in 1920 an opportunity to play once more
an active part in Middle Eastern politics. Enver arrived in Moscow
in the fall of 1920, following a forced plane landing and brief detention
in Riga. In September he attended the Baku Congress of Eastern Peoples
sponsored by the Third International, where he presented a memorandum,
denouncing his own role in the First World War and pledging the Com­
munists his support in the struggle against "Western imperialism." 39
Enver spent most of 1921 in Transcaucasia, first in Baku and then,
after the Communists had conquered Georgia, in Batum. Apparently he
desired to reside as near the Turkish frontier as possible, to be in a
position to assume leadership in Turkey. In the fall of that year the Soviet
government decided to exploit his popularity among Moslems and to
send him to Central Asia to help fight the Basmachis. Experience had
shown that much success could be achieved by employing one-time Turk­
ish officers to win the sympathies of natives for the Soviet cause.40 At
the same time, Dzhemal Pasha, who had resided in Tashkent since August
1920, was sent on a diplomatic mission to Afghanistan, probably to pre­
vail on the Afghan authorities to stop the Emir of Bukhara and other
Turkestani refugees from using that country as a supply base for the
Ba.smachis. �
· Enver arrived· i)1 Bukhara at the beginning of November 1921. It did
not take him long to perceive that he could achieve greater glory by
joining the native dissidents than by continuing his ambivalent and
uncertain role as a Communist agent. The Basmachi movement was as
divided as ever after the failure of an attempt made earlier in the year
to unite all the rebel groups under one leader.4 1 The Khivan Basmachis
were led by Dzhunaid Khan; those of the Samarkand district by Akhil
Bek, Karakul Bek, and several other kurbachis; a chieftain named Ham­
dan ruled the district around Khodzhent; the Ferghana Basmachis were
quarreling with each other, and so bitter were the rivalries there that, in
some cases, partisan leaders resorted to assassination or went over to the
Communists to help destroy their opponents. Even in Eastern Bukhara,
where the Emir and his chief lieutenant, Ibrahim Bek, claimed full
authority, there were numerous independent partisan leaders, who looked
with disfavor upon the deposed monarch.42 Another source of weakness
of the Basmachi rebellion, in addition to the rivalry of individual chief­
tains, was tribal feuding. Basmachi units of different ethnic origin were
at times as busy warring with each other as they were fighting the Com­
munists. Especially bitter was the hostility between the Kirghiz and the
Uzbeks, and between the Turkmens and Uzbeks. 43
It seemed to Enver that all that was needed to transform the genuine
4
Der Neue Orient, VI ( 1922 ) , 1-4. Dzhemal never reached Afghanistan, having
been assassinated in Tillis by an Armenian who sought revenge for the massacres of
lQl!)-16.
25 8 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UN ION
and deep-seated dissatisfaction, evident in all parfs of Central Asia, into
a vast and successful movement for the liberation of all of Turkestan, was
the appearance of a personality able to overcome the disunity of Bas­
machestvo. Enver apparently counted on his personal popularity with
the Moslem population and on the appeal of his Pan-Turanian ideology,
of which he had long been an avid exponent, to unite the rebel leaders
and to stop the intertribal rivalries. With the boldness characteristic of
his entire career, he decided, shortly after his arrival in Turkestan, to
desert the Communist regime and to defect to the Basmachis. Sometime
in November 192 1, he left Bukhara with a small retinue, ostensibly to
take part in a hunt. In reality he made straight for the headquarters of
Ibrahim Bek. With him deserted some of the most �prominent members
of the Bukharan government, including its chairman, Osman Khodzha,
and the Commissars of Interior and of War.44
The Basmachis at first received Enver coolly, fearing a Communist
snare and suspicious of the jadidist group which accompanied him. But
the Emir of Bukhara, with whom Enver had entered into a correspond­
ence, instructed Ibrahim Bek to utilize Enver's military skills and to place
him in command of the rebel armies fighting in Eastern Bukhara.45 Estab­
lishing his headquarters in the mountains of Bukhara, Enver began to
gather around himself some of the independent chieftains operating in
that area. His greatest success occurred early in 1922 when he captured
Diushambe. From there he was able to impose his authority on the
adjoining towns and villages. In the spring, having built up his force to
an army of several thousand men, he began to attack Baisun, which
obstructed the road to Western Bukhara and prevented him from spread­
ing to the plains of Turkestan, but despite numerous charges he could not
capture it.
Notwithstanding his initial triumphs, Enver failed to rally the bulk
of the Basmachi forces to his leadership. He was merely another war
lord, ruling a small territory and engaging in fights with neighboring
chiefs. Of the sixteen thousand rebels active in Eastern Bukhara no more
than three thousand owed him allegiance. 4 6 Great damage to Enver's
cause resulted from his disagreements with the Emir and Ibrahim Bek.
Enver was too ambitious to be content with mere partisan warfare, and
so he interfered as well with the political life of non-Communist Bukhara.
He tried to establish control over all the Basmachi units operating in
Eastern Bukhara and incited the native population to expel all the
Europeans from Central Asia.47 In May 1922, he sent an "ultimatum" to
the government of Soviet Russia ( through Nariman Narimanov, chairman
of the government of Soviet Azerbaijan), in which he demanded the
immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops from Turkestan, offering in
return to assist . the Communists in their Middle Eastern activities.48
Before long he completely lost all political judgment and, when issuing
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 25 9
decrees affecting the civil life of Eastern Bukhara without the consent of
the Emir, he signed himself "Commander in Chief of all the Islamic
troops, son-in-law of the Caliph, and representative of the Prophet." �
Such behavior aroused the suspicions of the Emir, who was altogether
none too pleased with the association between the Turkish general and
the jadidist defectors from- Soviet rule, such as Osman Khodzha, who
only recently had been his worst enemies. In the summer of 1922, rela­
tions between the headquarters of Enver, located near Diushambe, and
those of Ibrahim Bek, situated among the Lakai ( a Turkic group, settled
among the Iranian Tajiks), came near the breaking point. Soon, the Emir
began to withhold support from Enver. On at least one occasion when
Enver was hard pressed in combat, Ibrahim Bek refused to come to his
assistance. 49 Later in the summer of 1922, the Afghan tribesmen who
had been sent to his aid were ordered back to their homeland. Without
the wholehearted support of the Emir, Enver was doomed. It is difficult
to determine which played a larger part in his failure : his unwise han­
dling of the Emir, or the struggle between the conservatives, represented
by the Emir, and the progressive jadidists, of which he had become an
unwitting victim. In August 1922, Enver was killed in combat with Red
troops, who had surprised him and his small detachment in the moun­
tains. His death ended all hope of a consolidation of the Basmachi forces.
To the Communist authorities the defection of Enver and the spread
of the Basmachi revolt to Bukhara demonstrated conclusively that neither
the policy of mere military suppression, tried between 1917 and 1920
and in 1921-22, nor the palliative measures tried in 1920-21 were suffi­
cient. to bring order to Central Asia. It was necessary to reverse com­
pletely the basic economic and political policies of the regime. Con­
sequently, while undertaking a general military offensive against the
Basmachis in Bukhara and other parts of Central Asia, the Turkbiuro of
the Central Committee of the RKP and the Turkomissia introduced, in
1922, a series of far-reaching reforms. The most unpopular legislation of
the previous rule was abrogated : the vakuf lands, previously confiscated
for the benefit of the state, were returned to the Moslems; the religious
schools, medresse and mektebe, were reopened; the shariat courts were
brought back. 50 After these religious concessions, economic concessions
were also granted. The New Economic Policy permitted the return of
private trade and put an end to the forcible requisitions of food and
cotton which had played a considerable part in arousing popular ire
against the Communists. 51
All these concessions had a pacifying effect on Central Asia. The
natives, having suffered from the Civil War longer than the other inhabit-
0 Soloveichik, "Revoliutsionnaia Bukhara," 284 . Enver actually �as a son-in-law
of the Caliph, having married, prior to World War I, the daughter of the Sultan, who
was recognized as the Caliph by the Sunni Moslems.
260 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET UNI O N
ants of the Soviet state, were eager for peace. As soon as the Communist
regime had made it possible for them to return to their traditional ways
of life, the Central Asian Moslems gave up the struggle. The entire re­
sistance movement known as Basmachestvo had been not so much an
embodiment of a positive political or social philosophy as a desperate
reaction to ill-treatment and abuse of authority, and it collapsed as soon
as these irritants were removed.
The economic and religious concessions . of the Communists deprived
the Basmachi movement of its popular support and permitted the authori­
ties first to localize and then to suppress it entirely. In the fall of 1922
the Ferghana rebels were wiped out. Although Ibrahim Bek continued
to resist until 1926, when he fled to Afghanistan, the backbone of resist­
ance in Bukhara was also broken by 1 923. In Samarkand, however, the
Red Army had to fight regular campaigns, supported by airplanes and
tanks, as late as 1924, 52 Cut off from the population, the Basmachis re­
verted once more to brigandage, losing entirely the socio-economic and
political character which they had acquired temporarily in the course of
the Civil War. l't

Nationalist-Communist Opposition: Sultan-Galiev


Another form of nationalistic opposition occurred within the ranks
of the Communist Party itself. Prominent in it were non-Russians of
radical views who had joined the Communist movement in the course
of the Revolution because of their conviction that the establishment of a
socialist economy would more or less automatically lead to the destruc­
tion of all national oppression. Their nationalism, though tempered and
molded by social radicalism, was not entirely dominated by it. When their
faith in the ability of the new order to eliminate national inequalities had
been shattered by the experiences of the Civil War period, Communists
of this type sought redress in nationalism and independence from Mos­
cow. The most important exponent of this tendency was the Tatar Com­
munist, Sultan-Galiev. His quarrel with the party in 1 922-23 became a
cause celebre, a test case which opened a heated discussion of the entire
national question in the Soviet Union.
Sultan-Galiev had had much opportunity in his capacity as a high
official in the Commissariat of Nationality Affairs to observe the effects
of Soviet rule on the Moslem population. He was in contact with the
Tatar Republic, where, as the leader of the right-wing Communist fac­
tion, he enjoyed considerable personal following; he had been sent to
l'lc Basmachestvo flared up again in the early 193o's, when it became a rallying
point for native opposition to Soviet collectivization. Cf. Ryskulov, Kirgizstan, 66--67.
Ibrahim Bek, who at that time returned from Afghanistan to lead rebel detachments,
was finally captured and executed by the Communists in June 1931; cf. Observer
[Jeyhoun Bey Hajibeyli], "Soviet Press Comments on the Capture of Ibrahim Bey,"
The Asiatic Review (London � , XXVII, no. 92 ( 1931 ) , 682-92.
THE E S TAB L I S H M E NT O F T H E USSR 261
inspect and report on the situation of the Moslem population in the
Crimea; and he had, had many opportunities to meet and confer with
important Moslem Communists and nationalists from Central Asia and
other borderland areas. The total impression was so , discouraging that
Sultan-Galiev began to doubt whether the assumptions which had orig­
inally led him to embrace Communism had been sound. As early as 1919,
in conversation with his Volga Tatar colleagues, he had expressed doubt
whether the world-wide class struggle which the Russian Revolution had
unleashed would really improve the lot of the colonial and semi-colonial
peoples of the East. The industrial proletariat, he now suspected, was
interested less in liberating the exploited colonial peoples from imperial­
ism, than in taking over for its own benefit the entire colonial system.
From the point of view of the nonindustrial, colonfal peoples, the prole­
tariat's seizure of power would signify a mere change of masters. The
English or French proletariats would find it advantageous to retain their
country's colonial possessions and to continue the previous exploitation. 53
Sultan-Galiev did not at first apply those ideas to -Sovi�t Russia and
cooperated with the Communist regime for at least two rio �� years after
he had first begun to question the inherent ability of the proletariat to
solve the national question in the East. It was apparently under the
impact of the New Economic Policy that he finally lost all hope in Com­
munism. The NEP, which improved the material situation of the native
population, also returned to positions of power the classes which he and
other Moslem Communists had identified with the old colonial regime :
Russian merchants and officials, as well as Moslem tradesmen and clergy­
men. Sultan-Galiev viewed the establishment of the NEP as the first
formal step in a return to pre-1917 conditions and as the beginning of
the liquidation of the socialist revolution in Russia; it increased his skep­
ticism concerning the industrial proletariat's ability to liberate the world's
oppressed nations.
He now began to draw broader theoretical conclusions from the evi­
dence provided by four years of Communist rule. The economic inequali­
ties of the world, he argued, could be eradicated not by a victory of the
proletariat over the bourgeoisie but by the establishment of the hegemony
of the backward areas over the industrialized ones. The war against the
imperialism of industrialized societies, not the war against the bourgeoisie :
this was the real conflict for universal liberation.
We maintain that the formula which offers the replacement of the
world-wide dictatorship of one class of European society ( the bour­
geoisie) by its antipode ( the proletariat), i.e., by another of its classes,
will not bring about a major change in the social life of the oppressed
segment of humanity. At any rate, such a change, even if it were to
occur, would be not for the better but for the worse . . . In contra­
distinction to this we advance another thesis : the idea that the mate-
262 THE F O R M A T I O N OF THE S O V I E T UNION
rial premises for a social transformation of humanity can be created
only through the establishment of the dictatorship of the colonies and
semi-colonies over the metropolitan areas. 54
Such views struck at the very heart of the Marxist doctrine, ·but as
long as Sultan-Galiev spread them only among bis close associates, the
Central Committee, which could not have been unaware of the trend of
his thought, did not interfere. In the summer of 192!-, as a matter of fact,
the left-wing faction that had controlled the Volga Tatar Communist party
and state apparatus was ousted, and the rightists took over. The chairman­
ship of the Tatar Council of People's Commissars was assumed by Kesh­
shaf Mukhtarov, a friend and follower of Sultan-Galiev. 55 Soon, however,
Sultan-Galiev began to make political demands as well. He advocated the
creation of a Colonial International which would unite all the victims of
colonial exploitation and would counterbalance the Third International,
dominated by Western elements. He also desired the establishment of a
Soviet Moslem ( or Turkic) republic and the revival of the Moslem Com­
munist Party, destroyed in 1918 by the Central Committee of the RKP.56
At this point the heavy hand of party discipline fell on his shoulder.�
Sultan-Galiev was arrested in April or May 1923 on the order of Stalin,
his immediate superior and former protector. 57 His case was discussed at
a special conference of representatives of minorities which gathered in
Moscow in June 1923. The charges against him were presented by Stalin,
who stated that whereas the shortage of adequate party cadres had com­
pelled:..the Communists to cooperate with Moslem nationalists in the bor­
derlands, the Soviet regime would not tolerate treason. Stalin specifically
accused Sultan-Galiev of collaboration with the Basmachis, with Validov,
and with other Moslem nationalists fighting against the Soviet regime.
Sultan-Galiev, according to Stalin, "confessed his guilt fully, without con-
cealment, and having confessed, repented." 58 t
Despite his repentance, Sultan-Galiev was expelled from the Com­
munist Party. According to Lev Kamenev, be was the first prominent
party member purged on orders from Stalin. t
0
It is impossible to determine from Soviet sources whether Sultan-Galiev had
held all of the views here presented before 1923; most of the materials pertaining to
his case date from the time of his re-arrest in 1929-30 and fail to indicate the date
of his various pronouncements and writings. Nevertheless, the data of the pre- 1923
period indicates that at the time of his first arrest he had already held most of the
views with which he was charged in 1930. See A. Bennigsen and Ch. Quelquejay, Les
Mouvements nationaux chez les Musulmans de Russie - le "sultan-galievisme" au
Tatarstan ( Paris-The Hague, 1960 ) , 126-71.
f In 1934 he was accused of having founded in 1920 with the help of Validov,
Baitursunov, and others, an illegal party dedicated to the seizure of political and
educational institutions on the territory of Moslem republics, the overthrow of the
Soviet government, and the establishment of a "bourgeois pan-Turkic state." Pravda
Vostoka ( Tashkent ) , 16 and 18 December, 1934, cited in Bennigsen, Les Mouve-
ments, 167-68. .
f Trotsky, Stalin, 417. Sultan-Galiev was re-arrested and imprisoned in November
THE E S T A B L I S H M E N T O F THE U S SR 263

Communist Opposition: the Ukraine


The characteristic quality of the opposition to centralization in the
Ukraine as well as in Georgia derived from the fact that nationalism-in
both these areas was not so much a cause as a consequence. The leaders
of the opposition here were old and tried Bolsheviks, often with a record
of outspoken hostility to nationalism in any form. If in 1922 and 1923
they became identified with the ideals of states' rights, it is largely be­
cause they perceived behind the process of centralization the growth of
a new Russian bureaucracy and the personal ascendancy of Stalin and
his coterie. The tenuous guarantees secured by the republics by decree
and treaty became for them now bulwarks against the encroachments of
a new breed of official whom the Revolution was supposed to have de­
stroyed once and for all. While an Enver Pasha or even a Sultan-Galiev
collaborated with Communism because Communism seemed best to
further their national goals, men like Mykola Skrypnik, Rakovskii, Mdi­
vani, or Makharadze turned nationalist in order to safeguard Communism.
The "nationalist deviation" in the Ukraine arose principally because
of the failure of Moscow tQ adhere to the terms of the treaty of December
28, 1920 . That treaty, it will be recalled, established an economic and
military union between the RSFSR and the Soviet Ukraine. The Ukraine
surrendered to the RSFSR certain commissariats ( Army and Navy, For­
eign Trade, Finance, Labor, Means of Communication, Post and Tele­
graphs, and the Higher Economic Council ) , but was recognized, in re­
turn, as a sovereign and independent republic. The commissariats of the
RSFSR had no right to issue directives to their Ukrainian counterparts
without the sanction of the Ukrainian Sovnarkom ( So vet Narodnylch
Komissarov or Council of People's Commissars ) ; nor could they interfere
at all with the r::ommissariats left within the competence of the republic.
The Ukrainian republic also retained the right to maintain its own com­
missariat of Foreign Affairs and to enter into diplomatic relatfons with
foreign powers. 59
It takes no expertise in the theory of federalism to realize that such
an arrangement colfld not work. A country formally recognized as sov­
ereign and independent, and engaged in foreign relations, could hardly
allow another power to direct its internal affairs. Conversely, the officials
of the government of the RSFSR, accustomed to treating all the territories
of the old empire as one, had neither the experience nor the mental
habits required to show respect for the intricacies of federal relations.
As a result, the elaborate provisions of the 1920 treaty - which at least
some'officials in the Ukraine interpreted in good faith - remained a dead
letter.
1929; after that date he vanished. Cf. Pravda, November/December 1929, passim;
Izvestiia, 5 November 1929.
26 4 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET UNI O N
The clauses of the treaty, calling for mixed commissions to work out in
detail the relations between the Russian and Ukrainian commissariats,
were never actually carried out. 60 Throughout 192 1 and the first half of
1922, the Sovnarkom and VTsIK of the RSFSR treated the Ukraine as if
it were an intrinsic part of the RSFSR. It neither admitted Ukrainian
representatives to the commissariats, as provided by the treaty, nor sub­
mitted to the Ukrainian Sovnarkom for approval directives to the Ukrai­
nian commissariats. 61 Indeed, in most cases the Russian commissariats did
not even trouble to consult their Ukrainian counterparts. The Ukrainians,
naturally, protested against such violations of the treaty, but without
effect. Their anger increased on occasions when Moscow issued directives
to organs which the treaty left fully within the competence of the repub- ·
lie, such as the commissariats of agriculture and justice.62 And when in
May 1922 the Russian Commissariat of Foreign Affairs ( probably in
connection with the conferences at Genoa or Rapallo ) infringed on the
international status of the Ukrainian republic, the Ukrainian government
sent to Moscow a formal protest, in which it objected to the presumption
of the Russian government to speak in its name. 63
In response to this note, the Central Committee of the Russian Com­
munist Party appointed on May 11, 1922, a mixed commission, headed
by Frunze, to investigate the Ukrainian complaint. The commission held
two meetings in the course of the month. The main result of its delibera­
tions was a resolution whose lengthy title conveys its contents : "On the
inadmissibility of any measures which would lead in practice to the
liquidation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and to the reduc­
tion of the powers of its Central Committee, Council of People's . Com­
missars, and central organs." 64 The commission condemned the Russian
Commissariat of Foreign Affairs for having violated Ukrainian sovereignty
and drafted several agreements between the commissariats of the two
republics. 65 But it did not solve the more fundamental problems affecting
Russo-Ukrainian relations. Violations of Ukrainian constitutional rights
continued. In September 1922, for example, the Commissariat of Educa­
tion of the RSFSR issued an order applicable to the Ukraine, even though
education was entirely within the competence of the latter.66
The chief spokesman of the Ukrainian grievances was M. Skrypnik.
Little in his background pointed to his becoming the leader of the nation­
alist opposition in the Ukrainian Communist movement. Although born
in the Ukraine, he had moved in 1900, at the age of 28, to St. Petersburg
to attend the Technological Institute, and from then until 1917 he had
resided in Russia or Siberia. He was an old Marxist, having joined the
movement in 1897. After the split in the party in 1903 he had associated
himself with the Bolsheviks and had worked for Lenin on various im­
portant assignments, including for a time as editor of Pravda. In October
1917, he had served on the Revolutionary Committee which directed the
THE E S TABLI S H M E N T O F THE USSR 26 5
Bolshevik coup cietat in St. Petersburg. During 1918 and 1919, as a high
Soviet official in the Ukraine, he had taken a "centrist" position between
the pro-Ukrainian and pro-Moscow factions. The fact that in 1919 he had
been appointed head of the department of the Cheka charged with fight­
ing "counter-revolutionary movements," and in 1920 had been made Com­
missar of the Interior of the Ukraine, testifies to Lenin's having complete
confidence in him. 67
Skrypnik watched with apprehension and anger the utter disrespect
which the Russian party and state apparatus showed for the Ukrainian
republic. The violations of the 1920 treaty, related above, convinced him
that a powerful faction in the Russian apparatus actually wanted to
liquidate his republic and, being an outspoken man, he did not hesitate
to make his views known. During the discussion of the nationality ques­
tion at the Eleventh Party Congress, which met in March 1922, he deliv­
ered a brief but very pointed criticism of the party's Ukrainian policy.
Referring to Lenin's statement that the Communists would emancipate
the oppressed peoples of the whole world, Skrypnik said that they would
achieve this aim only if they began to do so at home. The Communist
party apparatus, in his opinion, was infiltrated with adherents of Smena
vekh, °' ready to violate the party's solemn pledge proclaiming the Ukraine
independent. "The one and indivisible Russia is not our slogan," he ex­
claimed - at which point a voice from the audience, however, shouted
back ominously : "The one and indivisible Communist Party !" 68
Skrypnik had occasion to make his views heard both at the Twelfth
Party Congress ( of which later ) and at the special party conference
which discussed the case of Sultan-Galiev. At this latter meeting, he took
issue with Stalin's analysis of what came to be known as "sultangaliev­
shchina." Sultan-Galiev's actions, he said, were a symptom of a grave
disease affecting Communism, a disease caused by the failure of the
Communists to carry out their national program, and particularly by their
inability or unwillingness to check the growth of Great Russian chauvin­
ism in the party and state apparatus. Sultan-Galiev was merely a scape­
goat for the failures of others. The proper way to prevent the emergence
of nationalist deviations, according to Skrypnik, was to destroy the na­
tional inequalities and injustices present in the Soviet system. f
It is not possible to discover in Skrypnik's speeches or writings any­
thing like a concrete ideology. His opposition was that of a convinced
Communist who saw nationalism as a legacy of capitalism, and, dis-
# Smena vekh was a book published in 1921 in Prague by a group of emigres.
It praised the Communist regime for having fulfilled Russia's great national mission.
t M. Skrypnyk, Stati i promovi ( Khar1:ov, 1931 ) , II, pt. 2, 15-21. The full
stenographic records of this conference, Chetvertoe soveshchanie TsK RKP s otvet­
stvennymi rabotnikami natsional'nykh respublik i oblastei - Stenograficheskii otchet
( Moscow, 1923 ) , in which the speeches of Stalin
· · and Skrypnik originally appeared,
were unfortunately not available to me.
266 T HE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S OVIET UNI O N
mayed by its persistence under Communism, fought as best he could
for Ukrainian autonomy. His uncompromising po!iition made him many
enemies in Moscow. In 1933, threatened with expulsion from the party,
he committed suicide.69
Communist Opp osition: Georg ia
The bitter conflict which broke out in Georgia almost immediately
upon the establishment of Soviet rule there, and which lasted until the
death of Lenin three years later, involyed questions of both policy and
personality. On the level of policy the main issue was one of authority:
What was the power of the Kavbiuro, as an agency of the Russian Central
Committee, over the Central Committees of the republican Communist
parties? The leaders of these parties, especially those of the most power­
ful of them, the Communist Party of Georgia, were quite prepared to
subordinate themselves to the directives of Moscow; but they were not
willing to do the bidding of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Com­
mittee, headed by the high-handed Ordz.honikidze. Their differences with
the Kavbiuro came to a head over the establishment of a Transcaucasian
federation, conceived in Moscow and executed by Ordzhonikidze, which
threatened to deprive the three Transcaucasian republics of their inde­
pendence and to 'transform them into something like the autonomous
republics of the RSFSR. It was not long before a dispute over matters of
policy transformed itself into a vicious personal feud between two groups
of Georgian Communists: the Moscow group, represented by Ordzhoni­
kidze and his supporter, Stalin, and the local, Tiflis group, headed by
Mdivani. Lenin at first backed the former, but with time, as we shall
see, changed his mind and became so angered by Stalin's and Ordzho­
nikidze's Caucasian activities that he contemplated taking disciplinary
action against them.
On May 21, 1921, the RSFSR and the Georgian Soviet Republic signed
a formal treaty modeled on the treaty with Azerbaijan, which recognized
Georgia's "sovereignty and independence." The treaty established a mili­
tary and economic union (but not a political one ) between the two repub­
lics and provided that the exact arrangements on the merger of commis­
sariats would be worked out by separate agreements. Implicitly, Georgia
was allowed to retain its foreign representations, armed forces, and cur­
rency.70
Yet even before the treaty had been signed, the authorities in Moscow
indicated that they were not prepared to respect the sovereignty of the
Transcaucasian republics, so solemnly proclaimed on various occasions.
Lenin was anxious to achieve quickly the economic unification of Trans­
caucasia and particularly to integrate tpe Georgian transport facilities
with those of Azerbaijan and Armenia with which they had been tradi­
tionally linked. He accordingly instructed Ordzhonikidze on April 9, 192 1,
THE E S TA B L I S H M E N T O F THE USSR 26 7
to establish a single economic organization for all of Transcaucasia. 71
Ordzhonikidze began by merging the railroad network, the postal and
telegraphic services, and the organs of foreign trade. In so doing, he did
not consult the Central Committees of the republican parties, causing the
Georgian Communists to protest to Moscow. 72
In the summer of 1921, having concluded that economic integration
was not possible without a political one, the Kavbiuro proceeded to lay
the foundations for a Transcaucasian federation. To prepare the ground
for what promised to be a delicate undertaking, Stalin was dispatched in
early July to Tillis. He was present at the meeting of the Kavbiuro which
passed a resolution approving the federation. He also delivered a rather
mild, reasonably worded speech in which he pointed out all the reasons
for establishing a "certain degree of unity" between the RSFSR and
Transcaucasia, but at the same time hastened to assure his audience that
there was no intention of depriving the republics of their independence.
In his talk he did say a few words, clearly directed at the Georgians,
about the dangers of nationalism, but even they were quite conciliatory
in tenor; and when some Communists from Baku accused Mdivani and
Kote Tsintsadze, members of the Georgian Central Committee, of "na­
tionalist deviationism" Stalin denied that this was the case. 73
The Georgian Communists were unimpressed by the conciliatory tone
of Stalin's words. Convinced that Stalin and Ordzhonikidze, with the
support of some Armenian and Azerbaijani Communists, were in fact
encroaching upon Georgian sovereignty, they openly disregarded the
various measures which the Kavbiuro took to int�grate their republic
with the rest of the country. On at least one occasion Mdivani and his
group sent a personal protest to the TsK ( Central Committee) in Mos­
cow.74
In view of this situation, it is not surprising that when on November
3, 1921, on instructions from Moscow, the Kavbiuro passed a formal reso­
lution proclaiming the necessity of establishing a Transcaucasian federa­
tion, the Georgians protested most violently. The Kavbiuro took its deci­
sion without prior consultation of the republican Central Committees -
a procedure which was improper as well as tactless. For the federation
envisaged by the Kavbiuro was not only a military and economic one,
but also a political one. It meant that the three republics surrendered
the "independence and sovereignty" guaranteed them by their treaties
with the RSFSR, and became in effect transformed into autonomous
republics of a federation whose own relations with the RSFSR were not
spelled out.75
The response was swift. Mdivani, speaking for a growing faction of
the Georgian Communists, sent Lenin a personal message in which he
predicted that if Ordzhonikidze persisted in forcing through the federa­
tion, Transcaucasia would rise in rebellion. 76 This time the opposition
268 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
was not confined to the Georgians, however. Two young members of the
Azerbaijani party, R. Akhundov and M. D. Guseinov, also advised Lenin
against carrying out the federation at that time;77 0 and so did M. Frunze,
who could not be accused of any local interests. 78 The strength of the
opposition was such that Lenin decided to reverse himself. On November
28, 1921, he issued a directive stating that while the Transcaucasian fed­
eration was necessary, it seemed premature; and that before being put.
into effect, it ought to be widely popularized in the Caucasus. 79
The failure of the projected federation, on which Ordzhonikidze had
pinned his hopes of smothering his Georgian opponents, certainly did not
improve relations between the Georgian Central Committee and the
Kavbiuro. The numerous_ political intrigues in which the two bodies en­
gaged in their bitter rivalry need not detain us. Suffice it to say that the
Kavbiuro, enjoying the support of Moscow, always had the upper hand,
and the Georgians had to confine themselves to dilatory tactics.
In line with Lenin's instructions the Kavbiuro undertook in the winter
of 1921-22 a propaganda campaign to persuade the population of the
advantages of the projected federation. At the very same time, the Geor­
gian government and Central Committee did everything in their power to
keep the Kavbiuro from interfering in internal Georgian affairs. Early in
January 1922, the Revolutionary-Military Committee of the Georgian Re­
public issued a decree proclaiming that, until the convocation of the
First Congress of Soviets of the Republic, it claimed full and exclusive
authority on the territory of the republic. 80 And the First Congress of
Soviets of Georgia, meeting toward the end of February, approved a
constitution of the republic which stated that "the Socialist Soviet Re­
public of Georgia was a sovereign state which did not permit any foreign
power whatever to exercise equal authority on its territory." On the
subject of the relations between Georgia and the other Soviet republics
it was pointedly ambiguous. The constitution stated that when the "con­
ditions for its creation came about" Georgia would join the International
Socialist Soviet Republic; until then it expected to maintain "close" polit­
ical .and economic relations with the existing Soviet republics. 8 1
Notwithstanding Georgian opposition, the Kavbiuro ( renamed in Feb­
ruary the Transcaucasian Regional Committee, or Zakraikom) proclaimed
on March 12, 1922, the establishment of the Federal Union of the Soviet
Socialist Republics of Transcaucasia ( Federativnyi Soiuz Sovetskikh So­
tsialisticheskikh Respublik Zakavkaz'ia, or FSSSRZ) . The constitution of
the federation provided that a Plenipotentiary Conference of representa­
tives of the three federating republics elect as its supreme executive or­
gan a Union Council ( Soiuznyi Sovet) . The Union Council had compe­
tence over the following spheres of governmental activity : military, finan-
0 Both were executed in 1938.
THE E S TA B L I S H ME N T O F THE USSR 26 9
cial, foreign affairs, foreign trade, transport, communications, organized
combat against the counterrevolution ( i.e., Cheka) , and direction of the
economy. Absolute control of the economy rested in a Higher Economic
Council ( Vysshyi Ekonomicheskii S ovet ) , which was to function as a
permanent committee of the Union Council. The republics were allowed
to retain their foreign legations and certain privileges in matters of tariffs
and currency. They also were recognized as remaining legally inde­
pendent and sovereign. The important matter of relations between the
new federation and the RSFSR was to be left to be regulated by a separate
agreement.82
The proclamation of the Transcaucasian union _left little doubt in
anyone's mind that the days of Georgian "independence and sovereignty"
were numbered. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of
Georgia commissioned, in December 1921, its most respected member,
Makharadze, to address a memorandum to the Central Committee of the
RKP expressing its principal grievances. In it Makharadze charged that
the Georgian Communists had not been informed of the intention of
Moscow to invade Georgia in February 192 1, and for that reason had
not been able to stage an internal uprising which would have prevented
the entire coup against the Mensheviks from acquiring the character of
a foreign invasion. Furthermore he alleged that the Kavbiuro had ignored
the Georgian Central Committee and Revkom and thus had failed to win
the sympathies of the Georgian population for the Soviet cause; that
Ordzhonikidze had disobeyed Lenin's directives concerning the gentle
treatment of the population, the creation of a Georgian Red Army, and
a moderate economic policy; and that he had refused to take the Georgian
Central Committee into his confidence in the matter of the proposed
federation. Makharadze urged in conclusion that the process of federating
the three Transcaucasian republics be considerably slowed down. �

Formulation of Constitutional Princip les of the Union


The opposition in the Communist apparatus of the Ukraine and
Georgia, particularly intense in the spring of 1922, induced the Central
Committee to review the system of relations between the RSFSR and
the other Soviet republics. This system had so far evolved haphazardly,
by means of bilateral treaties. It not only failed to define with the neces­
sary precision the division of authority between the Russian and repub­
lican governments, but confused matters by assigning to the government
of the RSFSR functions involving at one and the same time the RSFSR
0
I secured a copy of this report from the Archive of the deposed government
of the Georgian Republic. Its authenticity cannot be doubted; charges made in it
were repeated by Makharadze at the Twelfth Party Congress of the RKP and also
can be verified from other sources.
270 THE FORMATION O F THE SOVIET UNION
and the federation as a whole. Soviet Russia's entrance on the inter­
national diplomatic scene in the spring of 1922 made the need for normal­
izing relations between the center and the borderlands more urgent than
ever. Clearly, Moscow's international position was not strengthened by
its recognition of Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Transcaucasian independ­
ence. The time had come to supplement the economic and military
unions of 1920-2 1 with a tighter political one.
Which precise event caused the Central Committee on August 10,
1922, to appoint a constitutional commission is a matter of controversy.
Frunze hinted that it was the dispute with the Ukraine over foreign
policy.83 Ordzhonikidze, on the other hand, claimed that the commission
was convened on the · initiative of Stalin and himself in connection with
the Georgian affair. 84 Georgian matters seem to have had something to
do with initiating the procedures which eventually led to the formation
of the union, for the commission was appointed immediately after the
Central Committee had heard a report on Georgia. 85 The commission,
whose assignment it was to draft for the Plenum a statement defining the
relations between the RSFSR and the republics, was headed by Stalin,
and included representatives of both the RKP and the republican parties;
but the final report was drafted by a four-man subcommittee consisting
of Stalin, Ordzhonikidze, Molotov, and A. F. Miasnikov- all reputed
"centralists." 86
Stalin had never been much impressed either by Lenin's fine distinc­
tion between "autonomous republics" and "Soviet republics," or by his
high regard for diplomatic niceties in the matter of independence of the
republics. This much he had made clear in 1920 in a private letter to
Lenin. Commenting on the theses on the national and colonial questions
which Lenin had drafted for the Second Congress of the Comintern,
Stalin denied that there was a meaningful difference between "autono­
mous" and "Soviet" republics. "In your theses," he wrote, "you draw a
distinction between Bashkir and Ukrainian types of federal union, but
in fact there is no such difference, or it is so small as to equal zero." 87
Since by 192 1 the position of the Soviet republics had declined as com­
pared to 1920, Stalin had no reason to change his mind; and in drafting
his project he proceeded from the same assumption.
In the project Stalin strove to give a straightforward and realistic ex­
pression to the constitutional practice that had evolved in the preceding
five years under Lenin's personal tutelage. That is to say, he treated the
Soviet domain as a unified, centralized state and the government of the
RSFSR as the de facto government of all the six Soviet republics. In this
manner he hoped to eliminate all those difficulties which the legal fiction
of "independence" of the republics had made for those who were running
the country.
His draft, called "Project of a Resolution Concerning the Relations be-
THE E S TABL I S H M E N T O F THE USSR 271

tween the RSFSR and the Independent Republics," first revealed in 1956,
has not yet been published in its entirety, but its main points can be
readily reconstructed. The key clause was the first one, calling for the
entrance of the five border republics into the RSFSR on the basis of
autonomy.BB If carried out, this clause would have transformed the
Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia into autonomous
republics of the RSFSR, on a par with the Iakut or the Crimean republics,
and would have swept aside the whole elaborate system of relations es­
tablished by the treaties. The second article provided for the organs of
the RSFSR - its Central Executive Committee, Council of People's Com­
missars, and Council of Labor and Defence - to assume the functions of
the federal government for all the six republics. The remaining three
articles specified which commissariats were to be taken over by the Rus­
sian government, which were to be left to the republics but to function
under the control of the corresponding agencies of the RSFSR, and
which were to be entrusted entirely to the autonomous republics. 89
Stalin completed his project at the end of August and dispatched it to
the Central Committees of the republics for discussion and approval. It is
important to note, however, that even before the republics had reacted,
Stalin, on August 29, 1922, sent a wire to Mdivani announcing the ex­
tension of the authority of the Russian government: the Sovnarkom,
VTsIK, and STO ( Sovet Truda i Oborony, or Council of Labor and De­
fence ) , over the governments of all the republics.90 The Georgians were
so enraged by this unilateral abrogation of the 192 1 treaty that they dis­
patched to Moscow a three-man delegation, which was later joined by
Mdivani. 91
As may be expected, Stalin's draft had no difficulty securing the ap­
proval of the Azerbaijani Communist Party, which was under Ordzhoni­
kidze's firm control. 92 But no other republican Central Committee ( with
the possible exception of the Armenian ) followed suit. 0 The first vocal
opposition came from the Georgians. On September 15, 1922, the Georgian
Central Committee flatly turned down Stalin's theses, voting unanimously,
with one dissent ( Eliava ) "to consider premature the unification of the
independent republics on the basis of autonomization, proposed by
Comrade Stalin's theses. We regard the unification of economic endeavor
and of general policy indispensable, but with the retention of all the
attributes of independence." 93 Ordzhonikidze, who with Kirov attended
these proceedings, then decided to overrule the Georgians. On the fol­
lowing day he convened the Presidium of the Zakraikom, which he
headed, and had it pass a resolution approving Stalin's project. The
Presidium also ordered the Georgian Central Committee, on its personal
0
It cannot be established definitely whether the Armenian Central Committee
approved of Stalin's project. Iakubovskaia ( Stroitel'stvo, 145 and 149 ) says that it
did, but S. Gililov in his Lenin passes over the subject in silence.
272 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
responsibility, not to inform the rank and file of its negative decision and
to carry out faithfully Stalin's instructions. 94
The Belorussians responded ( on September 16) evasively. First, they
asked for territory to be added to their republic; then they stated that as
far as relations with the RSFSR were concerned, they would be satisfied
with the same arrangement as that made by the Ukraine.95 The Ukrai­
nians, having procrastinated until October 3, finally passed a resolution
which categorically demanded the preservation of Ukrainian independ­
ence and the establishment of relations with the RSFSR on the basis of
principles formulated by Frunze's commission the previous May. 9 6
Stalin's commission reconvened on September 23. It had little to show
by way of republican approval, but the lack of enthusiasm in the border­
lands apparently did not much trouble either Stalin or his colleagues.
There was more discussion of the draft, during which some clauses were
criticized and possibly even changed. No one, however, challenged the
fundamental premise of "autonomization." 97 Having secured the approval
of the commission, Stalin forwarded to Lenin the minutes of its meetings,
as well as the favorable resolutions of the Azerbaijani Communist Party
and the Zakraikom. 98
Lenin apparently had not been kept well informed of the commis­
sion's work, for the data which Stalin supplied dismayed and angered him.
From Lenin's point of view, the project undid the pseudofederal edifice
which he had so carefully constructed over the past five years. Worst of
all, it threatened to upset the whole fiction of national equality which
Lenin counted on to mollify and neutralize the nationalist sentiments
of the minorities. He saw no practical advantages to be derived from
incorporation of the five independent republics into the RSFSR. Its only
consequence would have been to reveal, with brutal frankness, the de­
pendence of all the Communist republics on Russia and to make it very
difficult in the future to win nationalist movements for Bolshevism in
the so-called colonial and semi-colonial areas.
As soon as he had become acquainted with the commission's materials,
Lenin summoned Stalin. He severely criticized his project and exerted
on him strong pressure to modify all those points which formalized the
hegemony of the RSFSR over the other republics. He wished for an
arrangement whereby all the republics, the RSFSR included, constituted a
new federation, with a separate government, called the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics of Europe and Asia. Stalin yielded to Lenin on this
and agreed to abandon the idea of "autonomization" advocated in the
first article of his project in favor of a federal union of equal states. But
he refused to concede on the second article. Lenin's demand for the
creation of new federal central organs- an All-Union Central Executive
Committee, Sovnarkom, and Council of Labor and Defence- to super­
sede those of the RSFSR seemed to him administratively cumbersome
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 2 73
and superfluous. Stalin thought that Lenin's purpose could be achieved as
well by the simpler device of renaming the organs of the RSFSR as all­
Union ones. But Lenin disagreed and criticized Stalin for being im­
patient and excessively addicted to administrative procedures. On the
conclusion of their interview, both men put down their views in a mem­
orandum which they forwarded to Lev Kamenev, then acting chairman of
the Sovnarkom. 99 Stalin's note was surprisingly insolent in tone.
In the end, Stalin had to yield all along the line and, on the basis of
Lenin's criticism, to revise his entire project. The project was discussed
at a meeting of the Plenum on October 6, 1922. Lenin, suffering from a
severe toothache, had to absent himself from this session, but he made
his views unmistakably clear in a note which he sent to his colleagues on
that day: "I declare war on Great Russian chauvinism; a wa! not for
life but for death. As soon as I get rid of that accursed tooth of mine, I
shall devour it with all my healthy ones." 100 He also repeated his in­
sistence that Stalin modify article two of his project. The Plenum ac­
cepted Lenin's suggestions, and voted in favor of a new draft calling for
the establishment of a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics governed by
a newly created Union Central Executive Committee of representatives
of the republican Central Executive Committees. The Plenum also ap­
pointed a commission of eleven members to translate these principles into
a constitutional project. 1 01 0 It may be noted that Mdivani participated as
a guest in these deliberations and, however reluctantly, gave his approval
in the name of the Georgian party, but only after having insisted that the
Georgian republic enter the Union directly, as a full-fledged member. 102
After its approval by the Plenum, the new draft of constitutional prin­
ciples was sent to the Central Committees of the non-Russian republics.
In Transcaucasia, the Azerbaijani and Armenian parties gave their ap­
proval promptly, but the Georgians once more made difficulties. From
one point of view, the new statement was preferable to the previous one,
which they had so unceremoniously rejected on September 15: the feder­
ating republics now entered the Union as formally independent states,
equal to the RSFSR. But the new project also had one very serious draw­
back. Whereas Stalin's old project envisaged the three Transcaucasian
republics as entering the RSFSR directly, the new one provided for their
joining the Union through the intermediacy of the Transcaucasian Fed­
eration. To the Georgian Communists this provision seemed ludicrous
and insulting. Why, for instance, should Belorussia have the right to
become a full-Hedged member of the Union, and not Georgia? And
what was the point of creating a federation if the proposed Union would'
absorb most of the republican commissariats anyway? A double political
0
The commission consisted of Stalin, Lev Kamenev, Piatakov, A. I. Rykov,
Chicherin, M. I. Kalinin, and rep resentatives of the five non-Russian republics { Bor'ba
za uprochenie, 118).
2 74 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
union- once with the Transcaucasian Federation, and then, through
the Federation, with the Union - simply made no sense to them. The
Georgians, therefore, protested to Moscow, demanding the abandon­
ment of the projected federation. 103 To this request Stalin replied on
October 16 in the name of the Central Committee, stating that it was
unanimously rejected. 1 04
Tempers in Georgia now reached the point of explosion. Dissident
Communist leaders held secret meetings at which they complained of the
violation of their rights and criticized the policies of Moscow. 105 They
secured at this time the support of the most distinguished Georgian
Communist, Makharadze, who on October 19 made a speech in Tillis
pleading for Georgia's direct entrance into the Union. 106 Makharadze
was not only the oldest Georgian Bolshevik ( like Zhordania he had be­
come a Marxist while attending the university in Warsaw in 1891-92),
but he had a well-earned reputation of being an irreconcilable enemy of
nationalism. Before the Revolution he had opposed Lenin's slogan of
national self-determination from a position which Lenin called "nihilistic";
during the Revolution ( at the . April 1917 Bolshevik Congress) he had
led the faction which demanded the removal of that slogan from the
party's program; and in 1921-222, despite some misgivings, he had col­
laborated with Ordzhonikidze's centralistic measures. That a Communist
of such background should have joined the opposition provides evidence
of the near unanimity which existed in Georgia at this time.
On October 20, the three members of the Georgian delegation returned
from the mission to Moscow on which they had been dispatched at the
end of Augu�t and reported to the Central Committee. Having heard
them, the Committee voted ( twelve to three) to appeal to Moscow once
more for reconsideration. Accepting now as binding the dycision to
establish a Transcaucasian federation, it nevertheless requested the aboli­
tion of the Union Council and Georgia's direct entrance into the Union,
on the same terms as the Ukraine. 107 Simultaneously, Makharadze and
Tsintsadze sent strong personal letters to Kamenev and Bukharin com­
plaining about Ordzhonikidze. 1 0 8
Lenin by this time had had his fill of the Georgians. He interpreted
their actions as a breach of party discipline as well as a failure to adhere
to a decision taken with the concurrence of their representative. On
October 21 he dispatched to Tiflis a sharply worded wire in which he
rejected their request and stated that he was turning the whole matter
over to the Secretariat, that is, to Stalin. 109 Kamenev and Bukharin sent
separate wires to Makharadze and Mdivani accusing them of nationalism
and insisting that they coaperate in the establishment of the federation. 11 0
Upon receipt of these dispatches the Central Committee of the Georgian
Communist Party on October 22 took the unprecedented step of tender­
ing the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party its resigna-
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 275
tion. 1 1 1 The resignation was accepted, and a new Georgian Central Com­
mittee was promptly appointed by the Zakraikom. It consisted mostly of
young converts to Communism who lacked both experience and reputa­
tion, and whom Mdivani contemptuously dismissed as "Komsomoltsy." 1 1 2
With their support, Ordzhonikidze had no difficulty · securing full co­
ope!ation and approval of the new constitutional project. 1 1 3
The Georgian affair delayed by several weeks the drafting of the
Union agreement. The constitutional committee reassembled again only
on November 21, without having accomplished anything in the interval.
It now appointed a subcommittee, chaired by the Commissar of Foreign
Affairs, G. V. Chicherin, to prepare the draft of a constitution. 1 1 4 Chi­
cherin had his draft ready within a week's time. 1 1 5 It was at once ap­
proved by the. constitutional committee and by the Central Committee
(Lenin included) and, in the course of December, by the Congresses of
Soviets of the four federating republics ( Transcaucasia being treated
now as a single federal republic). 11 6 On December 29, 1922, representa­
tives of the republics attended a conference in the Kremlin at which
Stalin read the articles of the Union. After some protests, most likely from
some Georgians, the majority of those present voted in favor of the act. 1 1 7
Next day a joint session of the Tenth Congress of Soviets of the RSFSR
and the deputies of the congresses of soviets of the Ukraine, Belorussia,
and Transcaucasia took place in Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre. This joint
session called itself the First Congress of Soviets of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics. 1 1 8 Its main order of business was to ratify the agree­
ment establishing the Soviet Union- a task which it was con�dently ex­
pected to fulfill, since 95 per cent of all the deputies were members of
the Communist Party and as such were required by party discipline to
vote for resolutions passed by the Central Committee. 119 The Congress did
not disappoint those expectations.
The agreement stipulated that the supreme legislative organ of the
new state was the Congress of Soviets of the USSR and that during in­
tervals between its sessions, the role passed to _the Central Executive
Committee of the Congress of Soviets. The sessions of the Congress of
Soviets were to be held by rotation in the capitals of each of the four
republics. The highest executive organ of the Union was to be the Coun­
cil of People's Commissars of the USSR ( Sovnarkom Soiuza), elected
by the Central Executive Committee and composed of the following
officials: a chairman, a deputy chairman; the Commissars of Foreign Af­
fairs, War and Navy, Foreign Trade, Means ,of Communications, Post and
Telegraphs, Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, Labor, Supply, Finance;
the Chairman of the Higher Council of National Economy; and in an
advisory capacity, the head of the Secret Police ( OGPU ) . The Union
republics were to have their own councils of people's commissars com­
posed of the Commissars for Agriculture, Supply, Finance, Labor, In-
276 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
terior, Justice, Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, Education, Health,
Social Security; the Chairman of the Higher Council of National Econ­
omy; and as consultants, representatives of the federal commissariats.
The Commissariats of Supply, Finance, Labor, Workers' and Peasants'
Inspection, and the· Higher Council of National Economy of each of the
republican governments were to be directly subordinated to the cor­
responding agencies of the federal government. The agreement thus dis­
tinguished three types of commissariats : federal, republican, and joint.
Strictly within the competence of the republican governments were only
the Commissariats of Agriculture, Interior, Justice, Education, Health,
and Social Security. The final article of the agreement guaranteed every
republic the right of secession from the Union, despite the fact that,
according to the preceding article, only the federal government could
effect changes in the Union Agreement- such as, presumably, matters
of entering and leaving the Union. 120
The Presidium of the Central Executive Committee, appointed by the
First Congress of Soviets of the USSR, formed on January 10, 1923,
six separate commissions to prepare the draft of a constitution based on
the articles of the Union Agreement. 1 2 1
Lenin's Change of Mind
The Georgian opposition, whose history since early 1921 we have
traced, was of importance not only for its role in shaping the constitution,
but also for its impact on Lenin's attitude toward the nationality question.
It provided overwhelming evidence against the basic premise of Lenin's
nationality policy : that nationalism was a transitional, historical phe­
nomenon associated with the era of capitalism and bound to dissolve in
the heat of intense class struggle. Lenin observed with obvious dismay a
new kind of nationalism emerging in the Russian as well as in the
minority Communist apparatus- that very apparatus on which he de­
pended to eradicate national animosities. As this evidence accumulated
in the winter of 1922-23, Lenin went through a reappraisal of Soviet
nationality policy which bore all the marks of a true intellectual crisis. It
is likely that had he not suffered a nearly fatal stroke in March 1923 the
final structure of the Soviet Union would have been quite different from
that which Stalin ultimately gave it.
To understand Lenin's change of mind one must bear in mind the
effect which both internal and external events since 1917 had had on his
nationality policy. Self-determination interpreted as the right to secession
was in fact a dead letter. So was federalism, since the military and
economic exigencies of the Soviet state, requiring the merger of the
conquered borderlands with the RSFSR, had vitiated the very essence
of the federal system which Lenin had been forced to adopt as a sub­
stitute for self-determination. The minorities were thus left without any
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF T HE USSR 277
effective guarantees against the encroachments of the central authorities;,
and yet they needed these more than ever in view of the unlimited
authority enjoyed by the Communist party over the citizenry. In the
end, Lenin's national program reduced itself to a matter of personal be­
havior: it depended for the solution of the complex problems of a multina­
tional empire upon the tact and good will of Communist officials. To
Lenin such a solution seemed perfectly feasible, in part because he him­
self was a stranger to national prejudices, and in part because he be­
lieved that the establishment of Communism destroyed the soil in which
nationalism could flourish.
In fact, however, Lenin's expectations were quite unfounded. Like
every staunch realist, he mistook that segment of reality of which he
happ ened to be aware for reality as a whole, and in the end displayed no
little na1vete. Nationalism may well have been rooted in psychology, in
the memory of wrongs done or in sensitivity to slights; but surely it was
more than that. It reflected also specific interests and striving that could
not be satisfied merely by tact but required real political and other con­
cessions. Nor could the groups on which Lenin counted to carry out what
was left of his nationality program display that reasonableness this pro­
gram demanded. Before as well as after 1917 even the closest of his fol­
lowers had rejected his concessions to the nationalities as impractical and
incompatible with the Bolshevik ideology. If the Soviet Constitution of
1918 and the Communist program of 1919 had included his formulae call­
ing for a federation based on the national principle and the retention of
the slogan of national self-determination ( although in a highly qualified
form), it was only because of Lenin's tremendous prestige with the Party.
The majority of the Bolshevik leaders remained unconvinced, and the
numerous new rank and file who had joined the Communists since the
Revolution ( in 1922 they constituted 97.3 per cent of the active party
membership) 122 were even less prepared to assimilate the subtle reason­
ing which lay behind his national program. To the overwhelming majority
of Communists and Communist sympathizers, the goals of the movement
- the "dictatorship of the proletariat," the "unity of the anticapitalist
front," or the "destruction of counterrevolutionary forces" - were syn­
onymous with the establishment of Great Russian hegemony. The Soviet
Russian republic alone'-had the industrial and military might necessary
to accomplish these ends. After the failure of the Communist revolutions
in Central Europe, it became the arsenal and fortress of world Com­
munism. The Communist movements in the Russian borderlands had
proved themselves weak and incapable of survival without the military
assistance of Soviet Russia. The bulk of the membership of the Com­
munist Party came from the urban and industrial centers of the country
and hence was predominantly Russian ethnically and culturally. In 1922,
72 per cent of all the members of the Communist Party ( including its
278 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
N AT I O N A L O R I G I N O F COM M U N 1 S T PA RTY M E M B E R S, 1 9 2 2
Per 1000 of popu­
lation of given
nationality within
Absolute Per cent the borders of the
Nationality number of RKP Soviet state

Great Russians 270,409 72.00 3.80


Ukrainians 22,078 5.88 0.94
Jews 19,564 5.20 7.20
Latvians 9,512 2.53 78.00
Georgians 7,378 1.96 4.52
Tatars 6,534 1 .72 1.19
Poles 5,649 1.50 1 0.80
Belorussians 5,534 1.47 1 .67
Kirghiz 4,g64 1.32 0.89
Armenians 3,828 1.02 2.9 1
Germans 2,217 0,59 1.98
Uzbeks 2,043 0,54 0.76
Estonians 1,964 0,53 16.30
Ossetins 1,699 0.45 8.oo
Others 12,528 3.29
375,90 1 100,00 2.90
( average for USSR )

Statistics, based on the 1922 Party Census, from I. P. Trainin, SSSR i natsional'naia
problema ( Moscow, 1924 ), 26.

regional organizations in the Ukraine, Transcaucasia, and the other bor­


derlands ) were Russian by origin, and at least another 10 per cent were
Rµssian by language ( see the accompanying table). The administrative
personnel of Soviet republics, drawn largely from the bureaucracy of the
ancien regime, was probably even more heavily dominated by Russian
and Russified elements. 0
The preponderance of Great Russians in the political apparatus was
not in any sense due to a peculiar affinity of members of that nationality
for the Communist movement, since, as statistics indicate, the proportion
0
A large proportion of the non-Russian Communists were culturally Russified.
The Communist Party of the Ukraine - the largest regional subdivision of the
RKP - in 1922 had 51,236 members, of whom 53.6 per cent were Russian by na­
tionality, but 79.4 per cent considered Russian their native tongue. The Ukrainian
and Jewish members of the KP ( b ) U formed 23.3 per cent and 13.6 per cent by
nationality, and 1 1.3 per cent and 3.5 per cent by language, respectively. Cf. KP ( b ) U,
ltogi partperepisi 1. 922 goda, I ( Kharkov, 1922 ) , p. xii. The Ukrainian data indicates
that approximately one half of the Ukrainian and two thirds of the Jewish members
were Russian in the cultural sense of the word. A similar situation probably prevailed
in neighboring Belorussia. If one applies to the total Ukrainian, Jewish, and Belorus­
sian membership of the RKP the ratios of the KP ( b ) U, an additional 27,000 members,
or 6 per cent of the RKP, will emerge as Russified. The remaining figure of 4 per cent
is a low estimate of the proportion of Russified elements among the other national
groups.
THE E S TA B L I S H M E N T O F THE USSR 2 79
of Communists among the entire Russian population was only slightly
higher than the country-wide average, and there were several national
groups whose ratio of Communists was considerably larger. It was rather
due to the fact that the industrial and urban population in the country
was predominantly of Russian stock, and that a large proportion of the
non-Russians likely to engage in political activity were assimilated. In
a democratic state such a one-sided ethnic composition of a party would
not necessarily have had great practical consequences; it was different in
a totalitarian country, where the party was in full control. Already in
the course of the Revolution the equation Communism = Russia had been
made in many of the borderlands by both Russians and non-Russians,
especially in the eastern regions. As I indicated in the discussion of the
1917-20 period, many elements that had nothing in common with Com­
munist ideology had sided with the Communists because they felt that
the regime was essentially devot�d to Great Russian interests. This iden­
tification of the Communist movement with the Russian cause had in­
spired much of the opposition in the borderla�ds to the Soviet govern­
ment. But it was only after 1920, after the end of the Civil War, that the
growth of Great Russian nationalism in the Communist movement be­
came unmistakably evident. At the Tenth Party Congress, held in 192 1,
a number of speakers called attention to it :
The fact that Russia had first entered on the road of the revolution,
that Russia had transformed itself from a colony- an actual colony
of Western Europe- into the center of the world movement, this
fact has filled with pride the hearts of those who had been connected
with the Russian Revolution and engendered a peculiar Red Russian
patriotism. And we now see how our comrades consider themselves
with pride, and not without reason, as Russians, and at times even
look upon themselves above all as Russians. 123
Communist writers acquainted with the Soviet Moslem regions
pointed to the prevalence of Great Russian nationalism in the eastern
borderlands :
It is necessary to acknowledge the fact that not only the official­
dom in the borderlands, which consists largely of officials of the old
regime, but also the proletariat inhabiting those areas which actively
supports the revolution, consists in its majority of persons of Russian
nationality. In Turkestan, for example, Russian workers thought that
once the dictatorship of the proletariat had been established, it
should work only for their benefit, as workers, and that they could
fully ignore the interests of the backward agricultural and nomadic
population, which had not yet reached their "proletarian" level of
consciousness. The same thing had occurred in Azerbaijan, Bash­
kiriia, and elsewhere. This situation had caused the broad masses
280 THE F O RMATI O N O F THE S O VIET U N I O N
of the native population to think that, when you come right down to
it, nothing has changed, and that the Russian official has been re­
placed by a Russian proletarian, who, although he talks of equality,·,
in reality, like the previous Russian official, takes care only of him­
s elf, ignoring the interests of the local population. 1 24
I
The Tenth Congress was the first to take cognizance of the emergence
of Great Russian nationalism in the Communist apparatus by includ­
ing in its resolutions a strongly worded condemnation of what it called
"the danger of Great Russian chauvinism." 125
In view of this development, was Lenin realistic in entrusting the
ultimate authority in the controversial matter of relations between the
Great Russian majority of the population and its non-Russian minority
to t4e Communist Party? It was psychologically as well as administratively
contradictory to strive for the supremacy of the proletariat, and at the
same time to demand that this proletariat, which was largely Russian,
place itself in a morally defensive position regarding the minorities; to
have an all-powerful party, a fully centralized state, and also genuine self­
rule in the borderlands; to have the political apparatus suppress ruthlessly
all opposition to the regime in Russian proper and adopt a conciliatory
attitude toward dissident nationalism in the_republics.
Yet if, despite all these factors, Lenin stood fast by his solution of the
nationality question, it is because of its bearing on the long-range pros­
pects of Communism. The failure of the revolution in Germany, which he
had regarded as essential for the eventual triumph of the Communist
Revolution, made Lenin pay even greater attention to the so-called
colonial peoples of the East. Here the possibilities of a successful revolu­
tion seemed much greater than in Europe. And even though such a
revolution would not immediately bring down the capitalist powers, it
was expected so to weaken their economic position as to make an ultimate
collapse inevitable. But a revolution in Asia and Africa required the use
of nationalist slogans, which the Communists could employ only if they
proved to be effective champions of national independence. It is for this
reason that Lenin considered it of vital importance to dissociate Com­
munism from Great Russian nationalism, with which it had tended to fuse
since the end of the Civil War.
Of the three outstanding Communist leaders in the early 192o's, Stalin
seems to have realized most clearly the contradictions inherent in the
Communist ,nationality program. The nationalist opposition was divided
and ineffective; Lenin approved all the measures giving priority to the
Russian apparatus, though he winced at their inevitable consequences;
while Trotsky showed little interest in the whole national question. Stalin,
however, placed himself squarely on the side of the central apparatus and
identified himself with the Great Russian core of the party and state
THE E STABLI SHME NT OF THE USSR 28 1
bureaucracy. He thus stood in the center of Communism's last, and
perhaps bitterest, struggle over the national question.
The demoted Georgian Communists kept on sending Lenin telegrams
and letters in which they complained of their treatment at the hands of
Ordzhonikidze, and requested an impartial inquiry. One such letter par­
ticularly attracted Lenin's attention. Written by a prominent figure of
the opposition, M. Okudzhava, it accused Ordzhonikidze of personally in­
sulting and threatening Georgian Communists. 126 Lenin turned this letter
and other documents over to the Secretariat of the Central Committee,
which on November 24 appointed a three-man commission to investigate
on the spot the whole Georgian party crisis and in particular the cir­
cumstances surrounding the resignation of the old Central Committee.
The commission was headed by Dzerzhinskii, and included V. S. Mitske­
vich-Kapsukas and Manuilskii. 127 Although technically all three were non­
Russians, they could hardly have been regarded as representatives of
the minority point of view. Manuilskii in particular was known as an
outspoken centralist; only three months before he had welcomed en­
thusiastically Stalin's plan of "autonomization." 128 Dzerzhinskii's close
ties with Stalin also did not augur well for the opposition. Lenin must
have had some misgivings of this kind, for a few days after the departure
of the Dzerzhinskii commission, he asked Rykov to follow it to Tiflis to
make an independent inquiry. 129 According to the log of Lenin's secretary,
he awaited the return of the emissaries :with great impatience. 130
Rykov came back first and reported to Lenin at Gorki on December
. 131 What he said we do not know. But how anxious Lenin was to learn
g
all he could is seen from the fact that the instant Dzerzhinskii returned to
Moscow ( December 12) he departed in haste from Gorki, where he was
convalescing, for the Kremlin, and there met with Dzerzhinskii the very
same day. 132 Although Dzerzhinskii completely exonerated Ordzhonikidze
and Stalin in their dealing with the Georgians, 133 some of the evidence
he brought back greatly disturbed Lenin - so much so that from then
on he could hardly get the Georgian affair out of his mind. He was
troubled most of all by a rather minor incident, to which, for some reason,
he attached great importance. It involved a quarrel between Ordzhoni­
kidze and a Georgian Communist named A. Kabakhidze, which ended
with Ordzhonikidze giving his opponent a beating.134 Lenin was in­
furiated both by Ordzhonikidze's use of physical violence and by
Dzerzhinskii's casual treatment of it. He instructed Dzerzhinskii to return
to Tiflis to gather more information on this incident, and in the mean­
time called in Stalin, with whom he had an interview lasting for over
two hours. 13 5 The facts which began to come in from Georgia con-
0 It deserves note that in one dispatch, sent to Tiflis in February 1922, Stalin

called himself a Moskvich, i.e. "Muscovite," ( Bor'ba za uprochenie, 4 1 ) ,


282 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
firmed his worst suspicions, and he became acutely depressed. 136 Having
returned to Gorki, he intended the following day (December 15) to
write Kamenev a substantial letter on the nationality question,137 but
before he had a chance to do so he suffered another stroke.
While Lenin lay incapacitated, Ordzhonikidze, with Stalin's support,
proceeded further to whittle down the powers left the Transcaucasian
Federation. The new federation, established in December 1922, as the
Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic ( Zakavkazskaia
Sovetskaia Federativnaia Sotsialisticheskaia Respublika, or ZSFSR) was
much more centralist than that envisaged in the constitution of the
previous March. It also said nothing about the independence of the
constituent republics. 1 38 To reduce anticipated Georgian resistance, the
Central Committee of the RKP on December 21 ordered the leaders of
the opposition, Mdivani, Makharadze, Tsintsadze, and Kavtaradze, to
·leave Georgia, justifying its decision by the information which it said
Dzerzhinskii's commission had supplied. 139 How powerful Ordzhonikidze's
hold on his area was by now may be gleaned from the fact that in
December 1 922, at the First Congress of Soviets of Transcaucasia, he was
hailed by someone as "the leader of the toiling masses of Transcau­
casia." 140
Lenin, having toward the end of December recovered from his stroke,
tried at all costs to resume work. He had difficulty with the doctors who
would not permit him to do so, until, by threatening to ignore medical
advice altogether, he won from them the right to dictate every day, for
ten or fifteen minutes, a personal diary. 1 41 He immediately took ad­
vantage of this right to dictate several important memoranda, including
one on the nationality question which deserves quotation in full. This
memorandum, Lenin's last theoretical contribution on the subject of
the national problem, was originally not intended for publication, inas­
much as it contained derogatory remarks about three members of the
Central Committee. It became known only because of its involvement in
the rivalry between Trotsky and Stalin.
°'
LENIN'S MEMORANDUM ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION

I. The Continuation of Notes, December 30, 1922


Concerning the Question of Nationalities or About "Autonomiza­
tion":
I am, it appears, much at fault before the workers of Russia for
not having intervened with sufficient energy and incisiveness in the
0
Originally published in Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, December 1923, pp. 13-15.
In the Soviet Union this document was first read at the Twentieth Party Congress,
then printed in Kommunist, no. g ( 1956 ), 22-26. The present translation is based on
the version in the fourth edition of Lenin·s Works, V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia, XXXIII
( Moscow, 1957 ) , 553-59.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 28 3
notorious question of "autonomization," which is officially called, it
seems, the question of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In the summer, when this question arose, I was ill, and then, in
the fall, I had too great hopes that I would recuperate and have an
opportunity of intervening in this question at the October and Decem­
ber Plenums. But, as it turned out, I could attend neither the October
Plenum ( dealing with this question) nor the December one, and for
this reason it had bypassed me almost entirely.
I only managed to exchange a few words with Comrade Zinoviev
to whom I conveyed my fears concerning this question. That which
I have learned from Dzerzhinskii, who had headed the commission
sent by the Central Committee to "investigate" the Georgian incident,
only increased my very great fears. If matters have reached the point
where Ordzhonikidze could blow up and resort to physical force,
as I was informed by Comrade Dzerzhinskii, then one can imagine
the rut we have gotten into. Apparently this entire undertaking of.
"autonomization" was fundamentally incorrect and inopportune.
It is said that we needed a single apparatus. From where come
such assertions? Is it not from the same Russian apparatus, which,
as I have pointed out in one of the previous numbers of my diary,
was borrowed from Tsarism and only barely anointed with the Soviet
chrism?
Undoubtedly, we should have waited with taking this measure
until we could guarantee for the apparatus as being our own. And
we must now, in all conscience, state the opposite : what we call ours
is an apparatus still thoroughly alien to us and representing a bour­
geois-Tsarist mixture which we had no opportunity of conquering dur­
ing the five years, in the absence of help from other countries and in
view of the pressures of the "business" of war and the fight against
hunger.
In such circumstances, it is quite natural that the "freedom of exit
from the Union," with which we justify ourselves, will prove to be
nothing but a scrap of paper, incapable of defending the minorities
in Russia from the inroads of that hundred per cent Russian chauvin­
ist, in reality- the scoundrel and violator, which the typical Russian
bureaucrat is. There can be no doubt, that the insignificant per cent
of workers who are Soviet or Sovietized will drown in this sea of
chauvinism of the Great Russian riffraff like a fly in milk.
It is said in defense of this measure that the Commissariats which
concern directly national psychology, national education, are sepa­
rated. But here arises the question whether it is possible fully to
separate those Commissariats, and a second question, whether meas­
ures really to protect the minorities from the truly Russian Derzhi­
morda O have been taken with sufficient care. I think we have not
taken those measures, although we could have and should have taken
them.
0 Derzhimorda is a character in Gogol's Ins ector General. He symbolizes brutal
p
police mentality and methods.
28 4 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O V I E T U N I O N
I think that here a fatal role was played by the hastiness and
administrative passions of Stalin, and also by his anger at the notorious
"social nationalism." Anger in general plays in politics the worst pos­
sible role.
I also fear that Comrade Dzerzhinskii, who journeyed to the Cau­
casus to "investigate" the "crimes of these social-nationals," distin­
guished himself in this matter only by his truly Russian attitude ( it is
known that assimilated non-Russians always overdo in the matter of
hundred per cent Russian attitudes) and that the objectivity of his
whole commission is sufficiently characterized by the "beating" meted
out by Ordzhonikidze. I think that no provocation, not even any
offense can excuse such a Russian "beating" and that Comrade Dzer­
zhinskii is irreparably guilty of having taken a lighthearted view of
this beating.
Ordzhonikidze represented the government authority to the re­
maining citizens in the Caucasus. Ordzhonikidze had no right to this
irritability to which he and Dzerzhinskii referred. On the contrary,
Ordzhonikidze should have displayed that self-control which is not
incumbent upon any average citizen, the more so upon one who is
accused of a "political" crime. For, after all, the "social-nationals"
were citizens accused of a political crime, and all the circumstances
of this accusation could only have qualified it in this manner.
Here arises the principal question: how to understand interna­
tionalism.
II. Continuation of Notes, December 31, 1922
I have already written in my works on the national question, that
an . abstract formulation of the question of the nationalities in general
is worthless. It is necessary to distinguish between the nationalism of
the oppressing nation and the nationalism of the oppressed nation,
the nationalism of a great nation and the nationalism of a small nation.
In regard to the second nationalism we, the nationals of a great
;nation, almost always prove in historical practice guilty of an endless
amount of coercion and, even more than that, unnoticed to ourselves
commit an endless amount of coercions and insults. It is only necessary
to bring back my Volga recollections how we slight the minorities.
How a Pole is never called anything but a "Poliachishka," how a Tartar
is never ridiculed otherwise than as a "Prince," a Ukrainian as a
"khokhol," the Georgians and the Caucasian minorities as "Capcasian
persons."
For this reason, the internationalism of the oppressing side, or the
so-called great nation ( though it is great only in its violations, great
only as is Derzhimorda), [such an internationalism] must consist not
only of the observance of the formal equality of nations but also of
that inequality which removes on the part of the oppressing, great
nation that inequality which accumulates in actual life. He who does
not understand this decidedly does not understand the proletarian
attitude toward the national question; he clings essentially to the petty
'
THE E S TA B LI S H M E N T O F THE USSR 28 5
bourgeois viewpoint, and for that reason cannot avoid sliding every
minute toward the bourgeois point of view.
What is important for the proletariat? For the proletariat it is not
only important but essentially indispensable to win for itself the
maximum of confidence of the minorities in the proletarian class
struggle. What is necessary for that? For that there is necessary not
only formal equality. For that there is necessary the indemnification,
in one way or another, by means of behavior or concessions in regard
to the minorities, of that mistrust, of that suspicion, of those insults,
which the ruling "great" nation had in the historical past brought
them.
I think that for Bolsheviks, for Communists, it is unnecessary to
elucidate this further. And I think that in this instance, in regard to
the Georgian nation, we have a typical example where a genuine
proletarian attitude demands from us extraordinary caution, courtesy,
and complaisance. That Georgian who treats contemptuously this side
of the matter and accuses others of "social-nationalism" ( while himself
being not only a genuine and veritable "social-nationalist" but also a
crude Great Russian Derzhimorda)- that Georgian in reality violates
the interests of the proletarian class solidarity, because nothing delays
so much the development and consolidation of the proletarian class
solidarity as does national injustice, and offended members of minority
groups are of all things most sensitive to the emotion of equality and
to the violation of that equality by their proletarian comrades, even
through carelessness, even in the form of a joke. For this reason, in
this case it is better to stretch too far in the direction of concessions
and gentleness toward the national minorities, than too little. For
this reason the fundamental interest of proletarian solidarity and,
consequently, also of the proletarian class struggle, demand that in
this case we should never treat the national question formally but
should always without fail take into account the difference in the
relationship of the oppressed or small nation toward the oppressing
or large nation.
III. Continuation of Notes, December 3 1 , 1922
What practical measures can then be taken in the present situation?
In the first place, the union of socialist republics must be retained
and strengthened. About this measure there can be no doubt. We
need it, as the world-wide Communist proletariat needs it, for the
struggle against the world-wide bourgeoisie and for the defense from
its intrigues.
In the second place, it is necessary to retain the union of socialist
republics in respect to the diplomatic apparatus. It may be relevant
to point out that this apparatus is unique in the body of our state
apparatus. We did not allow in it a single influential person from the
old Tsarist apparatus. Its entire apparatus, possessed of the slightest
authority, consists of Communists. For that reason this whole appara­
tus (it may be said firmly) has already won for itself the reputation
286 THE F OR M A T I O N O F THE S OV I E T UNI O N
of a proven Communist apparatus, incomparably, immeasurably more
purged of the old apparatus, Tsarist, bourgeois and petty bourgeois,
than that with which we have had to get along in the other Commis­
sariats.
In the third place, it is necessary to mete out exemplary punish­
ment to Comrade Ordzhonikidze (I say this with that much the greater
regret that I personally belong to the circle of his friends, and have
worked withJ him abroad, in emigration), and also to complete the
inquiry and to reexamine all the materials of Dzerzhinskii's commis­
sion for the purpose of correcting that enormous number of incorrect
and prejudiced judgments which undoubtedly are contained in it.
Of course, Stalin and Dzerzhinskii must be held politically respon­
sible for this truly Great Russian nationalistic campaign.
In the fourth place, it is necessary to set the strictest rules con­
cerning the use of the national language [s] in the national republics
which enter into our union, and to abide by those rules with especial
carefulness. Then� is no doubt that, under the pretext of the unity
of the railroad service, under the pretext of fiscal unity, and so forth,
with our present apparatus a mass of abuses of genuinely Russian
character shall take place. The struggle with such abuses requires
exceptional resourcefulness, not to mention exceptional sincerity from
those who shall undertake it. Here will be needed a detailed code,
which only the nationals living in the given republic can compile in
any successful manner: And we must in no way renounce beforehand
having to turn back at the next Congress of Soviets, as a result of all
this work, that is, of having to retain the Union of Socialist Soviet
Republics only in the military and diplomatic spheres, and in all other
respects restoring the full independence of the separate commissariats.
It must be kept in mind that the dispersion of the commissariats
and the lack of coordination between them and Moscow and the other
centers can be sufficiently paralyzed by party authority, if the latter
is applied with the minimum of circumspection and impartiality. The
harm which can befall our government from the absence of unification
between the national apparatus and the Russian apparatus will be
incomparably smaller, infinitely smaller, than that harm which can
befall not only us but also the whole International, the hundreds of
millions of the peoples of Asia who in the near future are to enter
the stage of history in our wake. It would be unforgivable opportun­
ism if, on the eve of this emergence of the East and at the beginning
of its awakening, we should undermine our prestige there with even
the slightest rudeness or injustice to our own minorities. The necessity
for solidarity against the international West which defends the capi­
talist world is one thing. Here there can be no doubt, and I need
not say that I unconditionally approve all thos.e measures. It is another
thing when we ourselves fall- even if in trivial matters - into some­
thing like imperialistic relations toward the oppressed nationalities,
in this manner undermining completely our whole sincerity in matters
of principle, our whole principle of defending the struggle against
THE E S T ABL I S H M E N T O F THE - USSR 28 7
imperialism. And the coming day in world history will be precisely
that day, when the peoples, oppressed by imperialism, will have their
:final awakening, and when the decisive, prolonged and difficult battle
for their liberation will get under way.
LENIN

Lenin's analysis of the Geo:i;gian incident suffered from all the limita­
tions imposed upon him by the Communist dogma. He was unable to
perceive that the failures of the Soviet national policy were due to a
fundamental misinterpretation of the entire national problem and fol­
lowed naturally fr.om the dictatorial system of government which he had
established. His mind operated only in terms of class-enemies. Seeking
scapegoats, he ):>lamed all national friction on the "bourgeois" elements
in the state apparatus, disregarding the fact that in the Georgian crisis
the guilty ones, by his own admission, were top members of the Com­
muni.st Party. His remedies consisted only of reversion to party control
of th'e political apparatus, linguistic measures, and the introduction of
"codes ·of behavior" for Communist officials working in the borderlands -
methods which had proved themselves unequal to the task in the previous
years of Soviet rule. Nothing illustrated better the confusion which by
now pervaded his thoughts on the subject than his contradictory recom­
mendation that the union of republics be both "retained and strength­
ened" and in effect weakened by restoring to the republics full inde­
pend�nce in all but military and diplomatic affairs. 142
Lenin, hoping to recover from his illness, kept the memorandum to
himself, with the intention of b,asing on it a major policy statement at
the forthcoming Twelfth Party Congress. In the meantime he busily
gathered evidence against Stalin and Ordzhonikidze. He probably did
;not realize, however, how quicklY, power was slipping from his hands.
When on January 27, 1923, Dzerzhinskii had returned from his second
Caucasian mission and Lenin, through his secretary, demanded to see the
materials he had brought back, Dzerzhinskii replied that he had turned
all materials over to Stalin. A search for Stalin revealed that he was out
of town and unreachable. Upon his return two days later, Stalin flatly
refused to surrender the materials and did so only when Lenin threatened
to put up a fight for them. 1 43 There can be little doubt that, although
Stalin pretended to be concerned with Lenin's health, in fact he was
personally interested in keeping Lenin as much as possible out of the
Georgian feud.
Lenin by now could rely only on a few devoted women from his
private secretariat. He turned over to them all the materials brought back
by Dzerzhinskii and prepared a questionnaire which they were to use
in analyzing them. The questionnaire contained the following seven
questions: What was the deviation with which the Georgian Central
Committee was charged? In what respect did it violate party discipline?
288 THE F O R M A T I O N O F THE S O VIE T UNIO N
In what ways was it oppressed by the Zakraikom? What instances were
there of physical violence used against the Georgians? What was the
policy of the Central Committee of the RKP when Lenin was present
compared to that when he was absent? Did Dzerzhinskii on his second
trip also investigate the charges against Ordzhonikidze? What was the
present situation in Georgia? 144 While the secretaries were busy at work
preparing the report, Lenin constantly inquired ab9ut their progress.
According to the diary of his personal secretary, in "February 1923 the
Georgian question was then uppermost in his mind. 1 4 5
In the meantime, the formation of the Soviet Union was forging ahead.
In February 1923 the Plenum of the Central Committee (from which
Lenin was also absent) decided to add a second chamber to the Union
legislature to represent the national groups. Originally, the Communists
had been hostile to the idea of a bicameral legislature, considering it a
feature of a "class society" and unnecessary in the "proletarian" state. In
November 1922 Stalin had stated that, although some Communists were
advocating the creation of a second, upper chamber to provide represen­
tation for the nationalities as such, he felt that this view "will undoubt­
edly find no sympathy in the national republics, if only because the
two-chamber system, with the existence of an upper chamber, is not com­
patible with the Soviet government, at any rate, at the present stage of
its development." 1 4 6 By February, however, Stalin changed his mind in
favor of a bicameral legislature, largely, in all likelihood, because it
enabled him to increase his personal control over the Soviet legislature.
The Council of Nationalities ( Sovet natsional'nostei ) , which was approved
by the party and incorporated into the Constitution, was the same Coun­
cil of Nationalities that Stalin had formed as part of the Commissariat
of Nationality Affairs in April 1921, with the addition of deputies from
the three Union republics. The second chamber was, therefore, staffed
with people who had Stalin's personal approval. 147 0
Lenin finally received the report on March 3. It must have infuriated
him, because he now switched his support completely to the side of the
Georgian opposition. His first impulse was to form a new and impartial
investigating commission; 148 the second, to entrust the handling of the
whole Georgian affair to Trotsky. On March 5, he addressed to Trotsky
the following letter: 1 4 9
Respected Comrade Trotsky! I would very much like to ask you
to take upon yourself the defence of the Georgian case in the Central
Committee of the Party. The matter is now being "prosecuted" by
Stalin and Dzerzhinskii, on whose objectivity I cannot rely. Quite on
<11 It must be noted, however, that the idea of a bicameral legislature was at this
time also much advocated by Rakovskii as a means of reducing the preponderance
in the government of Great Russians. See his Soiuz Sotsialisticheskikh Sovetskikh
Respublik - Novyi etap v Sovetskom soiuznom stroitel'stve (Kharkov, 1923 ) , 4-6.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 289
the contrary. If you agree to assume responsibility for the defence,
I shall be at ease. If for some reason you do not agree to do so, please
return the materials to me. I shall consider this a sign of your refusal.
With best comradely greetings,
Lenin ft
With this letter, Lenin forwarded to Trotsky his memorandum on the
nationality question. 15 0
The following day Lenin sent a brief but significant message to the
leaders of the Georgian opposition : 1 5 1
To Comrades Mdivani, Makharadze, and others : copies to Com­
rades Trotsky and Kamenev. Respected Comrades! I follow your case
with all my heart. I am appalled by the coarseness of Ordzhonikidze,
and the connivances of Stalin and Dzerzhinskii. I am preparing for
you notes and a speech.
Respectfully,
Lenin
Simultaneously, Lenin dispatched to Georgia a new investigating com­
mission, consisting of Kamenev and Kuibyshev.
Decidedly, events were taking a dangerous course for Stalin and
Ordzhonikidze. They were saved from a public chastisement by Lenin
by sheer good fortune. On the day when he had dictated his letter to
Mdivani and Makharadze, Lenin suffered his third stroke, which para­
lyzed him completely and removed him for good from all political
activity. f

The Last Discussion of the Nationality Question


Lenin's third attack deprived the Georgian opposition, and all those
who for one reason or another wanted to slow down the inexorable ad­
vance of centralization, of their main means of support. It soon became
evident that Trotsky neither could nor would assume the task which
Lenin had entrusted to him. Instead of taking the issue to the party
leadership, he tried first to obtain permission from the entire Central
Committee to make public Lenin's memorandum on the nationality ques­
tion. 1 52 Whether he failed to secure it, or whether courage deserted him,
is not certain. At any rate, Trotsky did not take charge of the anti-Stalinist
opposition among the minorities; and thus he failed to take advantage of
an excellent opportunity to embarrass his principal rival at a critical
phase in their struggle for power. Lenin's note, having passed through
0
In addition to being angry with Stalin for his handling of the Georgian ques­
tion, Lenin was on the verge of breaking off personal relations with him because
he had insulted Krupskaia.
f Kamenev and Kuibyshev apparently decided in favor of the Georgian opposi­
tion, but they did not complete the investigation, being compelled to return to
Moscow when Lenin fell ill again. Cf. Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 151, 157.
290 T H E F OR M A T I O N O F THE S OV I E T U N I O N
the hands of the entire Central Committee, became widely known to
the deputies to the Twelfth Party Congress which assembled in Moscow
in April 1923. It was behind all the acrimonious debates on the nationality
question which took place there.
The nationality question broke into the open at one of the early ses­
sions of the Congress, during the discussions of the report on the party's
Central Committee. Mdivani, unable to control his anger, launched
a bitter tirade against the policies pursued by the Central Committee
and its Caucasian Bureau in Georgia. Makharadze supported him, charg­
ing that much of the responsibility for the interparty quarrels in Georgia
rested on Ordzhonikidze, who had ignored the old Georgian Bolsheviks
in favor of newcomers. He emphatically denied the charge that the
Georgian Communists had hindered the unification of Transcaucasia,
asserting that they had objected only to the methods and the tempo with
which this unification was being accomplished. Ordzhonikidze and
Orakhelashvili, speaking for the Stalinist faction, pointed to numerous
examples of "nationalist deviations" on the part of the Georgian Central
Committee and Georgian government. They also taunted Makharadze
with his record as a "nihilist'' in the national question and as an opponent
of Lenin's national program. 153 Stalin took no pains to conceal his utter
contempt for the Georgian oppositions. "I think that some of the comrades,
working on a certain piece of Soviet territory, called Georgia," he said,
"have apparently something wrong with their marbles." 154
The discussion on the national question, temporarily shelved after this
premature explosion, was resumed at a later session. The principal report
was delivered by Stalin. In his report, Stalin skillfully maneuvered be­
tween the two extreme views on the problem, stressing simultaneously
the danger of Great Russian nationalism under the New Economic
Policy and the need for the unification of the Soviet state. 155 But in the
course of the discussions, in which he answered criticism leveled at the
Soviet treatment of the minorities, Stalin made it unmistakably plain
that he was not prepared to go along with Lenin's thesis on the relation­
ship of the Russians toward the minorities :
For us, as Communists, it is clear that the basis of all our work
is the work for the strengthening of the rule of the workers, and only
after this comes the second question-- an important question, but
subordinated to the first- the national question. We are told that
one should not offend the nationalities. This is entirely correct, I agree
with this - they should not be offe'nded. But to create from this [idea]
a new theory, that it is necessary to place the Great Russian proletariat
in a position of inferiority in regard to the once oppressed nations, is
an absurdity. That which Comrade Lenin uses as a metaphor in his
well-known article, Bukharin transforms into a whole slogan. It is
clear, however, that the political basis of the proletarian dictatorship
I
THE E S TA B L I S H M E N T O F THE USSR 29 1

is in the first place and above all in the central, industrial regions,
and not in the borderlands, which represent peasant countries. If we
should lean too far in the direction of the peasant borderlands at the
expense of the proletarian region, then a crack may develop in the
system of proletarian dictatorship . This, comrades, is dangerous. In
politics it is not good to stretch too far, just as it is not good to stretch
too little. 15 6
Next, Stalin proceeded to quote from Lenin's previously published works
to the effect that the class principle had priority over the national one,
and that the Communists from the minority areas were obliged to strive
for a close union with the Communists of the nation which had oppressed
them. It did not take great subtlety to realize that "the proletarian region,"
whose hegemony Stalin advocated, meant Russia, and that his references
to Lenin's works were inspired by a desire to offset the damage which
Lenin's memorandum had done to Stalin's prestige, by indicating the in­
consistencies inherent in Lenin's national theory. To Lenin's statement
that "it is better to stretch too far in the direction of complaisance and
softness toward the national minorities, than too little," Stalin replied that
it was not advisable to stretch too far, either. (1'

The case for the opposition was hopeless. Not only was the Congress
packed with Stalinists, 157 but the opposition was also severely handi­
capped in its choice of arguments. The basic Communist assumptions
worked to the advantage of Stalin. The unity, centralization, and om­
nipotence of the Communist Party, the hegemony of the industrial
proletariat over the peasantry, the subordination of the national principle
to the class principle - all those Communist doctrines which were in
fact responsible for the plight of the minorities - were axiomatic and
beyond dispute. By challenging them, the opposition would have placed
itself outside the party. The opposition, therefore, had to limit itself to
criticism of the practical execution of the Communist national program.
One speaker after another of the opposition pointed out the injustices
and failures of the Communist regime in the borderlands : the discrimina­
tion against non-Russians in the Red Army ( "The army still remains a
weapon of Russification of the Ukrainian population and of all the minor­
ity peoples," Skrypnik stated ) , 158 in schools, and in the treatment of the
natives by officials. But such charges, damning as they were, did not
affect the fundamental premises of Stalin's case and were easily brushed
aside as exaggerations or minor infractions.
1/

The only attempt to analyze the deeper causes of the crisis in the
national policy was made by Rakovskii, who rested his argument on
Lenin's thesis of the defective apparatus :
0
Both Lenin and Stalin used in the juxtaposed phrases the Russian colloquialisms
"peresolit' " and "nedosolit'," here translated as "stretch too far" and "too little." The
allusion thus is obvious.
292 THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET UNION
Comrades, this [national question] is one of those questions which
is pregnant with very serious complications for Soviet Russia and the
Party. This is one of those questions which - this must be said openly
and honestly at a Party Congress - threaten civil war, if we fail to
show the necessary sensitivity, the necessary understanding with re­
gard to it. It is the question of the bond of the revolutionary Russian
proletariat with the sixty million non-Russian peasants, who under
the national banner raise their demands for a share in the economic
and political life of the Soviet Union. 1 59
Stalin, Rakovskii continued, was oversimplifying the danger of Great
Russian nationalism in the party and state apparatus when he called it,
in the course of his report, a mere by-product of the New Economic
Policy. The real cause of the crisis lay deeper: " [It is ] the fundamental
divergence which occurs from day to day and becomes ever greater and
greater: [ the divergence] between our Party, our program on the one
hand, and our political apparatus on the other." The state apparatus was,
as Lenin said in his memorandum, an aristocratic and bourgeois remnant,
"anointed with the Communist chrism." Rakovskii cited a number of
instances of the organs of the RSFSR having issued decrees and laws
for the other three Soviet republics even before the Union had been
formally ratified and the authority of the federal government constitu­
tionally ascertained, and he charged that since December 1922 the
Union commissariats had actually governed the entire country, leaving
the republics no self-rule whatsoever. To implement Stalin's suggestions
on the means for combating the mounting wave of Russian nationalism,
Rakovskii concluded, it was necessary to strip the government of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of nine tenths of its commissariats. 160
How weak the opposition really was became painfully evident when
Rakovskii placed before the Congress formal resolutions to reduce the
preponderance of the Russian republic in the Union government. He had
occupied himself much during the previous several months with con­
stitutional questions and even had drafted a constitutional project which
vested much more authority in the republics than did the one formulated
in Moscow. 1 61 That Rakovskii should hav.e become a defender of states'
rights seemed rather strange in view of his whole record as a "nihilist"
on the nationality question. But he was a close and loyal friend of
Trotsky and, armed with Lenin's memorandum, he must have felt on
solid ground. He now pointed out that, under the existing system, the
RSFSR had three times as many representatives in the Soviet of Nation­
alities as the remaining three republics put together, and suggested a
constitutional arrangement which would prevent any one republic from
having more than two fifths of the total representation. Stalin, however,
brushed aside this motion as "administrative fetishism." It was subse­
quently voted down. 1 62 The inability of the opposition to secure ac-
'fHE E S T A B L I S H M E N T O F THE U.SSR 293
ceptance of even such a watered down version of Rakovskii's project ( his
original idea of granting the republics nine tenths of the commissariats
which the articles of Union had given the federal government was
whittled down in committee during the discussion of the constitutional
question) indicated the extent to which Stalin and the central party ap­
paratus had gained mastery of the situation.
The Twelfth Congress thus rejected all the suggestions which Lenin
had made in his article in the hope of healing the breach in the party
caused by the national question : it refused to diminish the centralization
of the state apparatus of the USSR by granting the republics more organs
of self-rule; it vindicated Stalin and Ordzhonikidze; and most important of
all, it turned down, through Stalin, the fundamental principle of Lenin's
approach, namely the necessity of having the Russians place themselves
in a morally defensive position in regard to the minorities. The Twelfth
Congress, the last at which the national question was discussed in an
atmosphere of relatively free expression, ended in the complete triumph
of Stalin. The issue of self-rule versus centralism on the administrative
level was decided in favor of the latter. Henceforth nothing could prevent
the process of amalgamation of the state apparatus from being brought
to its conclusion- the more so, since Lenin, the only person capable
of altering its course, was entirely eliminated from active participation in
politics.
On July 6, 1923, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR
formally approved the Constitution of the USSR, and on January 31, 1924
- ten days after Lenin's death- the Second All-Union Congress of
. • Soviets ratified it. °' The process of formation of the Soviet Union was
thus brought to an end.
0
Genkina, Obrazovanie SSSR, 122-62, and Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 217-24,
233-71, describe in detail the steps leading to the ratification of the 1923 Constitu­
tion, and analyze the differences between the Constitution and the 1922 agreement
establishing the Union.
CONCLUSION

Although the roots of the national movements which emerged in


the course of the Russian Revolution have to be sought in the tsarist
period, their anti-Russian and separatist aspects were a direct result of
the political and social upheaval which followed the breakdown of the
ancien regime. Before 1917 the political activities of the minorities were
closely integrated with the socialist and liberal tendencies of Russian
society itself and represented regional variants of developments which
were occurring at the same time on an all-Russian scale. These activities
were limited to relatively small groups of intellectuals, who sought to
secure for the minorities a- greater degree of participation in the govern­
ment of the Empire through democratization and autonomy. After 1917
the national movements assumed a somewhat different character. The
disintegration of political authority and the eruption of violent agrarian
revolutions throughout the Russian Empire had severed the bonds be­
tween the borderlands and the center and had left the responsibility for
the solution of the most urgent social and political problems to the popu­
lation itself. These groups came to power which were most capable of
adjusting themselves to the rapid vacillations of public opinion. In Rus­
sia proper and in other areas inhabited by Great Russians, it was the
Bolshevik Party which, with its slogans of peace, division of land, and all
power to the soviets, temporarily won considerable public support. In
most of the borderlands, power was won by the nationalist intelligentsia,
which pledged an independent solution of the agrarian problem, the re­
dress of injustices committed by the tsarist regime, and neutrality in the
Russian Civil War. In Russia as well as in some of the borderlands, po­
litical authority was seized by extremists who had attained mass follow­
ing only after the outbreak of the Revolution, when the spread of
anarchy, confusion, and fear favored groups advocating radical solutions.
But whereas the Bolsheviks had long prepared for a revolution and
knew what to do with power once they had attained it, the national­
ists did not. They had lacked the opportunities to evolve an ideology,
or to secure disciplined party cadres. The nationalist movements after
1917 suffered from profound cleavages among conservative, liberal,
and radical tendencies, which prevented them from attaining the unity
necessary for effective action. In critical moments, the national govern­
ments which had sprung up in the borderlands were weakened from
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 29 5
within, tom by dissensions among the divergent groups combined under
the banners of nationalism. Another weakness of the nationalists was their
inability, and, in some instances, their unwillingness, to win over the
predominantly Russian and Russified urban population of the border­
lands. They were also far too dependent on the politically immature
and ineffective rural population. When in the winter of 1917-18 the
Bolsheviks and their followers in the armed forces struck for power in
the borderland territories, most of the national gove:rnments collapsed
without offering serious resistance. The only notable exception was Trans­
caucasia, where the existence of strong indigenous parties, especially the
Georgian Social Democrats, and the fear of foreign invasion which united
the Russian and most of the non-Russian population, gave the local gov­
ernments a certain degree of cohesion and strength. The circumstances
under which the national republics of what became the Soviet Union
emerged were too exceptional and their life span too short for the record
to be used as evidence either for or against their viability.
The conflict between the Bolsheviks and the nationalists which broke
out in all the borderland areas after the October Revolution, as a result
of the Bolshevik suppression of nationalist political institutions, would
probably have led to a lasting rupture between them, had it not been
for the leaders of the White movement who virtually drove the national­
ists into the arms of the Bolsheviks. The White generals proved incapable
of grasping either the significance of the national movements or the
assistance which they could offer in :fighting the Communists. They
rejected outright the political claims of the minorities and postponed
the solution of the national question to the time when the Bolshevik
usurpers should be overthrown and a legitimate Russian government
established. In some instances, the White leaders antagonized the minor­
ities inhabiting the theater of combat or their own rear lines to the point
where armed conflicts broke out.
The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, made determined efforts, through­
out the Civil War, to exploit minority nationalism. The entire Bolshevik
national program was designed to win nationalist sympathies through
generous offers of national self-determination. Whenever expedient,
they made alliances with even the most reactionary groups among the
minorities, who, fearful of losing the freedom which the collapse of all
government authority had given them, lent a willing ear to Bolshevik
promises. Though there were some exceptions - notably in Central Asia
- the Communists generally succeeded in winning nationalist support
at a time when the struggle for power in Russia was at critical stages. In
the campaigns against Kolchak in the Urals and against Denikin in the
Northern Caucasus, the alliance between the Reds and the nationalists
helped tip the scales in favor of the Soviet regime.
The Bolshevik approach, however, although it had brought imme-
296 THE F ORMATI ON OF THE SOVIET UNION
diate advantages, also had its shortcomings. It was more useful as a
means of fighting for power, than as a program for a party which had
acquired power. It was one thing to exploit the mistakes of the opponent
by means of promises, and another to make those promises good after
the enemy · had been overcome. Their entire approach to the national
idea, moreover, made the Bolsheviks perhaps the least qualified of all the
Russian parties ( save for those of the extreme right) to solve the national
problem. Not only .,was their political system based on the dictatorship
of a single party, on strict centralism, and on the superiority of the urban,
industrial elements over the remainder of the population - doctrines
which in themselves precluded an equitable solution of the minority
problem - but they also underestimated the viability of nationalism.
They were inclined to view it as a mere relic of the bourgeois era,
which was bound to disappear once the proletarian class struggle
and the world revolution got under way, and they ignored the fact that
nationalist movements represented in many cases genuine social, eco­
nomic, and cultural aspirations. All manifestations of nationalism appear­
ing after the establishment of Soviet power Lenin considered to be due
either, to the aftereffects of the old regime, or to the alleged influence
of functionaries of the tsarist bureaucracy on the Soviet political appara­
tus. To destroy it once and for all, in Lenin's opinion, it was necessary
only to adopt a friendly, conciliatory attitude toward the non-Russian
subjects. That nationalism itself represented an aspect of the economic
struggle, the Bolsheviks neither could nor would admit. Lenin, the chief
architect of Soviet national policy, thus fell victim to his own doctrinair­
ism. The crisis which shook the Communist Party over the national ques­
tion in the early 192o's,_ and th� Communist confusion over the persistence
of national antagonisms in the Soviet Union and even in the party itself,
were due largely to the inability of the Communists to recognize the flaw
in their monistic class interpretation of world events.
The Soviet Union, as it emerged in 1923, was a compromise between
doctrine and reality: an attempt to reconcile the Bolshevik strivings for
absolute unity and centralization of all power in the hands of the party,
with the recognition of the empirical fact that nationalism did survive
the collapse of the old order. It was viewed as a temporary solution only,
as a transitional stage to a completely centralized and supra-national
world-wide soviet state. From the point of view of self-rule the Com­
munist government was even less generous to the minorities than its
tsarist predecessor·had been: it destroyed independent parties, tribal self­
rule, religious and cultural institutions. It was a unitary, centralized, to­
talitarian state such as the tsarist state had never been. On the other
hand, by granting the minorities extensive linguistic autonomy and by
placing the national-territorial principle at the base of the state's political
administration, the Communists gave constitutional recognition to the
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE USSR 297
multinational structure of the Soviet population. In view of the impor­
tance which language and territory have for the development of national
consciousness - particularly for people who, like the Russian minorities
during the Revolution, have had some experience of self-rule - this
purely formal feature of the Soviet Constitution may well prove to have
been historically one of the most consequential aspects of the formation
of the Soviet Union.
CHRONOLOGY OF PRINCIPAL EVENTS
(All dates are Gregorian, or New Style)

1917
March 12-15: Russian Revolution; estabHshment of Provisional Government;
abolition of all legal disabilities of national minorities. 17: Formatioa of
the Ukrainian Central Rada in Kiev.
April Various Moslem congresses held throughout the Empire.
May 14: Opening of the First All-Russian Moslem Congress in Moscow.
June 23: The Ukrainian Central Rada issues its First Universal.
August 17: The Instruction of the Provisional Government to the Ukrainian
Central Rada.
November 7: Bolshevik coup in Petrograd. 8-12: Bolshevik-Rada coup in Kiev.
7-14: Bolshevik-Left SR coup in Tashkent. 24: Establishment of the
Transcaucasian Commissariat.
December 6: Finland proclaims its independence. 11: Lithuania proclaims its
independence; opening of the Regional Moslem Congress in Kokand,
17: Communist ultimatum to the Ukrainian Central Rada. 19:· Opening
of the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Kiev. 27: Opening of
the Belorussian National Congress in Minsk. 30: First Soviet Govern­
ment of the Ukraine formed in Kharkov.
1918
January 12: Latvia proclaims its independence. 18: Beginning of the Red
Anny offensive against Kiev. 22: Fourth Universal of the Ukrainian
Central Rada proclaiming Ukrainian independence.
February 8: Red Army takes Kiev. 11: Beginning of Moslem-Communist conflict
in Kokand. 24: Estonia proclaims its independence.
March 3: German armies march into Kiev.
April 1: Bolshevik-Dashnak coup in Baku. 22: The Transcaucasian Federative
Republic proclaims its independence. 29: Germans disband the Ukrain­
ian Central Rada.
May 26: Georgia proclaims its independence. 28: Azerbaijan and Armenia
proclaim their independence.
July 10: Ratification of the first Constitution of the RSFSR by the Fifth
All-Russian Congress of Soviets.
August 5: Beginning of the abortive Communist uprising in the Ukraine.
September 15: Turkish armies capture Baku.
November 11: End of World War I. 30: Establishment in Moscow of the Council
of Workers' and Peasants' Defense.
December 14: Troops of the Directory march into Kiev.
1919
January Armed conflict between Red Army and Directory.
February 6: Red Army captures Kiev.
March 18-23: Eighth Congress of RKP(b) and adoption of new party program.
CHRONOLOGY 2 99
October 2: Dissolution of the Central Committee of the KP(b)U. 14: Denikin
occupies Orel; high point of his advance on Moscow. 20: Red Army
retakes Orel.
1920
February 20: Red Army captures Khiva.
April 8: Creation of Caucasian Bureau of RKP ( b) ( Kavbiuro). 25: Outbreak
of Soviet-Polish war. 27: Communists invade Azerbaijan and seize Baku.
May 6: Polish armies enter Kiev. 7: Signing of Soviet-Georgian Treaty. 22:
New edict on Bashkir autonomy and outbreak of Bashkir rebellion. 25:
Outbreak of Azerbaijani rebellion in Gandzha.
August Outbreak of rebellion in Daghestan.
September 2: Red Anny captures Bukhara. 30: Treaty with Soviet Azerbaijan.
November 29: Communist ultimatum to Armenia, followed by Turkish-Soviet parti­
tion of that country.
1921
February 11: Beginning of Red Anny operations against the Georgian Republic.
16: Outbreak of rebellion in Soviet Armenia. 25: Red Anny captures
Tiflis.
November Enver Pasha deserts Communists and joins Basmachis.
1922
March 12: Formation of first Soviet Transcaucasian federation (FSSSRZ).
August 4: Death of Enver Pasha. 10: Central Committee appoints committee to
formulate principles of union; Stalin's "autonomization" project.
September 27: Lenin intervenes and forces Stalin to abandon "autonomization."
October 6: Plenum of Central Committee approves revised draft of principles
establishing the Union. 22: Resignation of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Georgia.
November 21: G. V. Chicherin heads subcommittee drafting Union constitution.
December 30: First Congress of Soviets of the USSR meets in the Kremlin. 30-31:
Lenin writes memorandum on the national question.
1923

April 17-25: TweHth Congress of the RKP(b).


Spring Arrest of Sultan-Galiev.
July 6: The Central Executive Committee of the USSR approves project of
Constitution of the USSR.
1924

January 21: Death of Lenin. 31: Ratification of the Constitution of the USSR
by the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets.
ETHNIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
AND THE SOVIET UNION ACCORDING TO THE CENSUSES OF 1897 AND
1926 ( in round figures)

1897 1926
Total within
1897 borders Total within
of Russian 1926 borders
Empire of USSR
Nationality or language (by (by By By
group language) language) nationality language

Great Russians 55,667,500 54,563,700 77,732,200 84,129,200


Ukrainians 22,380,600 26;232,500 31,189,500 27,569,200
Belorussians 5,885,500 ;3;570,600 4,738,200 3,466,900
Poles 7,931,300 531,900 781,700 362,400
Czechs, Slovaks 50,400 20,800 27,100 25,100
Serbians, Bulgarians 174,500 70,000 113,800 109,200

Lithuanians, Zmud, Latgals 1,658,500 22,200 51,100 29,800


Latvians 1,435,900 67,900 141,400 115,800

Iranian group 31,700 31,100 51,300 66,600


Tajik groupt 350,400 350,400 376,400 390,100
Talyshes 35,300 35,300 77,300 80,600
Tats 95,100 95,000 28,700 87,000
Kurds, Yezidis 99,goo 38,400 69,100 34,100
Ossetins 171,700 171,200 272,000 2.66,800
�oldavians, Rumanians 1,121,700 195,100 283,500 267,600
Germans 1,790,500 1,029,800 1,2.37,900 1,192,700
Greeks 186,900 151,500 213,700 202,600
Gypsies 44,600 31,500 59,300 40,goo
Other Inda-Europeans 44,000 31,800 12.,500 11,000

Jews 5,063,200 2,430,400 2,663,400 1,883,000


Arabs, Aisors 7,000 6,500 15,700 16,900

Georgians 1,352,500 1,32.9,300 1,820,900 1,908,500


Armenians 1,173,100 1,065,300 1,565,800 1,472,900
Kabardians 98,600 98,600 139,900} 219,300
Cherkesses 46,300 46,200 79,100
Abkhazians 72.,100 72,100 57,000 48,100
Chechens 226,500 226,400 318,500} 396,300
Ingushes 47,800 47,700 74,100
Daghestan Mountain groups 600,500 600,100 574,500 595,400

Finnish groupt 143,100 138,700 135,400 153,400


Votiaks 421,000 420,100 514,200 508,700

(continued)
ETHNIC DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 301

1897 1926

Total within
1897 borders Total within
of Russian 1926 borders
Empire of USSR
Nationality or language ( l:iy ( by By By
group language) language) nationality language

Karels 208,100 207,700 248,100 239,600


Izhoras 13,800 13,300 16,100
Chude ( Vepsas) 25,800 25,700 32,800 31,100
Estonians 1,002,700 103,600 154,600 139,500
Komi ( Zyrians) 153,600 153,200 226,300 220,400
Permiaks 104,700 104,700 149,400 143,800
Mordvinians 1,023,800 1,020,700 1,339,900 1,266,600
Maril ( Cheremis) 375,400 374,700 428,200 425,700
Voguls 7,600 7,600 5,700 5,200
Ostiaks 19,700 19,700 22,200 18,600

Turco-Tatar group0 3,767,500 3,679,000 4 ,898,800 5,444,300


Bashkirs 1,493,000 1,491,900 983,100 392,800
Karachaevs, Kumyks,
Nogais 174,700 174,700 186,000 173,400
Other Turks 440,400 440,400
Uzbeks, Sarts, Kuramast 1,702,800 1,702,800 2,440,900 2,497,200
Taranchi, Kashgars,
Uighurs 71,400 71,400 108,200 67,500
Kara-Kalpaks 104,300 104,300 126,000 114,900
Kazakhs, Kirghiz 4,285,800 4,285,700 4 ,578,600 4,673,300
Turkmens ( Turkomans) f 281,400 272,800 427,600 426,700
Chuvashes 843,800 840,300 1,117,300 1,104,400
lakuts, Dolgans 227,400 227,400 214,800 220,400
Kalmyks 190,600 190,500 133,500 131,100
Buriats, Mongols 289,500 289,500 238,100 236,800

Chukchi 11,800 11,800 11,100 11,300

Chinese, Dungans 57,400 57,300 24,800 100,700


Koreans 26,000 25,900 87,000 170,600

Others and unknown 355,800 185,000 326,400 421,700


Foreign citizens 387,000

Total population f 125,666,500 103,803,700 144,32 7,700

Based on: Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie SSSR, Otdel perepisi, Vsesoiuz­


naia perepis' naseleniia 17 Dekabria 1926 g., Kratkie svodki, Vypusk IV, Narodnost'
i rodnoi iazyk naseleniia SSSR ( Moscow, 1928), Table I, pp. xxiv-xxvii.
0
Includes Volga Tatars, Azerbaijanis, and Crimean Tatars.
f Exclusive of the principalities of Khiva and Bukhara, and Finland. The total
population of the territories of Khiva and Bukhara in 1926 was 2,677,700, among
them 1,547,200 Uzbeks, 603,700 Tajiks, and 338,500 Turkmens ( by nationality).
THE SYSTEM OF TRANSLITERATION
The Library of Congress system of transliteration is used throughout this book, but
without diacritical marks and ligatures.

Russian Ukrainian Belorussian


A a a A a a A a a
B 6 b B 6 b B 6 b
D B V B B V B B V

r r g r r h r r h
r r g r r g
,n; p; d .zi: p; d ,n; p; d
E e e E e e E e e
6 e ie
E e e E 0 io
m m zh m at zh Jit m zh
3 8 z 3 8 z 3 8 z
H II i H II y
I i i I i i I i i
I i i
n ii i rr ii. i n ii i
It It k K It k It K k
JI JI I .1I ,'I I .JI JI I
M 11[ m l\1 AI m 1\1 M m
II n n II II n II Il n
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

II n p II II p II n p
p p r p p r p p r
C C s C C s C C s
T T t T T t T T t
y y u y y u y y u
y y u
<I> qi f q> (p f qi Ip f
X X kh X X kh X X kh
u n; ts u n; ts u n; ts
q 'l ch q 'l ch q 'l ch
III III sh III III sh III III sh
THE SYSTEM OF TRANSLITERATION 3o3
m lit sheh m lit sheh
'I, ... "
LI H y LI :LI y
L :r. , L :r. I, :r.
ii i e
a 8 e a 8 e
IO IO iu IO IO iu IO IO iu
8. .a: ia 8. .a: ia 8. a ia
BIBLIOGRAPHY

For the abbreviations used in the Bibliography see the list facing
the first page of Chapter 1. To enhance the usefulness of the
Bibliography, the institution where each item can be located is
indicated in abbreviated form. The absence of a symbol following
the place and date of publication signifies that the source can be
found in the Harvard College Library. A book listed as located
in a given library, may, of course, in many instances be found in
other libraries as well. Periodical publications may be located
through the Union List of Serials.
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA

I, GENERAL INFORMATION

a. The National Minorities


The general literature concerning the minorities in Russia is voluminous. Bibli­
ographies can be found in G. K. Ul'ianov, Obzor literatury po voprosam kul'tury i
prosveshcheniia narodov SSSR (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), and G. Teich and H.
Ruebel, Voelker, Volksgruppen und Volkstaemme auf dem ehemaligen Gebiet der
UdSSR (Leipzig, 1942). The latter, however, is replete with errors. D. K. Zelenin,
Bibliograficheskii ukazatel' russkoi etnograficheskoi literatury, 1700-1910 (St. Peters­
burg, 1913) can be highly recommended as an ethnographic bibliography.

b. The National Question in General


The journals Okrainy Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1906; CSt-H) and Narody i
oblasti (Moscow, 1914; CSt-H), the former expressing the views of the rightist
parties, the latter of the liberal and moderate socialist elements, were devoted
exclusively to the discussion of the national problem in Russia. Other sources are:
K. Fortunatov, Natsional'nyia oblasti Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1906; Doc. Int.).
E. Haumant, Le Probleme de l'unite russe (Paris, 192.2; NN).
lnorodetz, La Russie et les peuples allogenes (Berne, 1917).
M. Langhans, "Die staatsrechtliche Entwicklung der au£ Russischen Boden lebenden
kleineren Nationalitaeten," Archiv fuer oeffentliches Recht, Neue Folge, IX
(1925), 173-210 ( NN).
C. Lamont, The Peoples of the Soviet Union (New York, 1944). Accepts uncritically
Communist views.
G. von Mende, Die Voelker der Sow;etunion (Reichenau, 1939; NNC), National-
Socialist viewpoint.
P. N. Miliukov, Natsional'nyi vopros (Prague; 1925).
P. P. Semenov, ed.: Okrainy Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1900; CSt-H).

c. The National Question during the 1917 Revolution


V. B. Stankevich, Sud'by narodov Rossii (Berlin, 1921; NN), and E. H. Carr,
The Bolshevik Revolution, I (New York, 1951), deal at length with the fate of the
national minorities during the Revolution and Civil War. G. Semenoff, "Die nationale
Frage in der russischen Revolution," Zeitschrift fuer Politik, XIV (1924-.25), .247-75,
contains a reliable historic account. See also:
X. Eudin, "Soviet National Minority Policies, 1918-.21," The Slavonic and East
European Review, XXI ( 1943), pt. 2, 31-55.
N. N. Popov, Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia i natsional'nyi vopros (Moscow, 1927;
CSt-H).

d. Soviet National Policy-General Studies


The most thor�ugh and most recent work on this subject � by W. Kolarz, Russia
and Her Colonies (London, 1952), Other works are:
S. Akopov, Oktiabr' i uspekhi natsional'nogo stroitel'stva (Moscow, [1932]; CSt-H).
W. Biehahn, "Marxismus und nationale Idee in Russland," Osteuropa, IX (1933-34).
461-76. An early statement of the theory that Marxism is merely a "cover"
for Russian nationalism.
306 BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Marxismus und Russentum im Bolschewismus," Osteuropa, X ( 1934-
35), 492-507, Same view as in previ9us article,
G. I. Broida, Natsionarnyi i kolonial'nyi vopros (Moscow, 1924),
--- "Osnovnye voprosy natsional'noi politiki," ZhN, nos. 3-4 (1923), 3-g. An
important semi-official statement.
W. H. Chamberlin, "Soviet Race and Nationality Policies," Russian Review, V, no, 1
( 1945), 3-g.
[S. M. Dimanshtein, ed.], Natsional'naia politika VKP(b) v tsifrakh (Moscow,
1930; CSt-H).
W. von Harpe, Die Grundsaetze der Nationalitaetenpolitik Lenins (Berlin. 1941)
E. Kantor, Chto dala sovetskaia vlast' narodam Rossii (Moscow, 1923; CSt-H).
H. Kohn, Nationalism in the Soviet Union (New York, 1933).
L. Mainardi, USSR-prigione di popoli (Rome, 1941; DLC).
N. Nunnakov, ed., Natsionainoe stroitel'stvo v RSFSR k XV godovshchine Oktiabr'ia
(Moscow, 1933; CSt-H).
L. Perchik, Kak sovetskaia vlast' razreshaet natsional'nyi vopros ([Moscow]. 1932;
CSt-H).
R. E. Pipes, "The Genesis of Soviet National Policy" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard
University, 1950).
N. N. Popov, Natsional'naia politika sovetskoi vlasti (Moscow-Leningrad, 1927),
M. Ravich-Cherkasskii, ed. Marksizm i natsional'nyi vopros ([Kharkov], 1923; NN).
Sources,
P. M. Rysakov, The National Policy of the CPSU (Moscow, 1932; NN),
G. Safarov, "Revoliutsionnyi marksizm i natsional'nyi vopros," in Ravich-Cherkasskii,
ed., Marksizm i natsionalnyi vopros, 305-68.
S. M. Schwarz, The Jews in the Soviet Union (Syracuse, 1951).
M. Tougouchi-Gai'.annee, URSS-Face au probleme des nationalites (Liege, [1948];
private).
I. P. Trainin, SSSR i natsionarnaia problema (Moscow, 1924; NN). Important for
numerous statistics,
--- Velikoe sodruzhestvo narodov SSSR (Moscow, 1945; DLC),
A. Yannolinsky, The Jews and Other Minor Nationalities under the Soviets (New
York, 1928).
e. The Historical Growth of the Soviet Union
E. B. Genkina, Obrazovanie SSSR-Sbomik dokumentov, 1.917-1.924 (Moscow­
Leningrad, 1949), is a coilection of documents dealing with this topic; careful
selection and frequent mutilation of sources demand that it be used with utmost
caution. This author's Obrazovanie SSSR ( [Moscow], 1947), and S. I. Iakubovskaia,
Ob"edinitel'noe dvizhenie za obrazovanie SSSR, ( 1.917-1922), ([Moscow], 1947),
require the same attitude. Other works are:
W. R. Batsell, Soviet Rule in Russia (New York, 1929). Important for its docu­
mentation.
S. I. Iakubovskaia, "K voprosu ob obrazovanii SSSR," Voprosy istorii, no. 1 (1947),
3-24.
P. A. Miliukov, Rossiia na perelome I (Paris, 1927), chapter iv, 202-57,
V. N. L'vov, Sovetskaia vlast' v borbe za russkuiu gosudarstvennost' (Berlin, 1922;
CSt-H).
f. Primary Sources and Periodical Publications
The following works contain important collections of documentary material
pertaining to the national problem in Russia: V. N. Durdenevskii, Ravnopravis
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA
lazykov v sovetskom stroe (Moscow, 1927; NN); G. K. Klinger, ed., Sovetskaia
politika za 10 let po natsionarnomu voprosu v RSFSR (Moscow-Leningrad, 1928;
NN).
The most important periodical dealing with the problem is the newspaper (later
journal) Zhizn' natsional'nostei (Moscow, 1918-24; CSt-H), published by the Com­
missariat of Nationalities. The magazine Revoliutsiia i natsionarnosti ( 1933-37) is
somewhat less useful. Much information can be obtained from the journals Prole­
tarskaia reooliutsiia, Vlast' sooetoo, and Kommunisticheskii Internatsional ( CSt-H).

II, THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE BEFORE 1917


There is unfortunately no systematic study of the historical development and
administrative structure of the Russian Empire. A very useful bibliography of per­
tinent materials can be found in E. Drabkina, Natslonal'nyi t kolonial'nyi vopros v
tsarskol Rossii (Moscow, 1930), with separate lists for each region. The following
surveys can be recommended:
W. Gribowski, Das Staatsrecht des Russischen Reiches (Tuebingen, 1912).
V. Ivanovskii, "Administrativnoe ustroistvo nashikh okrain," Uchenyia zapiski Im­
peratorskago Kazanskago Universiteta, LVIII ( 1891), no. 6, 27-70.
S. V. Iushkov, Istoriia gosudarstva i prava SSSR, I (Moscow, 1940).
N. M. Korkunov, Russkoe gosudarstvennoe pravo, I (St. Petersburg, 1899; NN) and
II (St. Petersburg, 1897; NN).
N. I. Lazarevskii, Russkoe gosudarstvennoe pravo, I (Petrograd, 1917) and II (St.
Petersburg, 1910}.
B. E. Nol'de, Ocherkl russkago gosudarstvennago prava (St. Petersburg, 1911),
Part ID.
G. B. Sliozberg, Dorevoliutsionnyl strol Rossii (Paris, 1933), 28-g6.
Information concerning the national question in the Dumas can be found in
the following:
A. R. Lednitskii, "Natsional'nyi vopros v Gosudarstvennoi Dume," Pervaia Gosu­
d,arstvennaia Duma, Sbornik Statel, I (St. Petersburg, 1907), 154-67.
E. L. Minsky, ed., The National Question ln the Russian Duma (London, 1915; NN).
N. A. Gredeskul, "Natsional'nyi vopros v Pervoi Dume," K zo-letliu Pervol Gosu­
darstvennoi Dumy, Sbornik (Petrograd, 1916), 76-88.

m, THE NATIONAL MOVEMENTS IN RUSSIA IN MODERN TIMES


A. I. Kastelianskii, ed., Formy natslonal'nago dvizheniia v sovremennykh gosu­
darstvakh (St. Petersburg, 1910; DLC) is an unique and absol��ely indispensable
survey, written by a number of authoritie__!l_�ith liberal or socialistleanings; it deals
with the national movements among various minority groups in Russia and abroad.
Z. Lenskii, "Natsional'noe dvizhenie," Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Rossii v nachale
XX-go veka · (St. Petersburg, 1909), I, 349-71, and K. Zalevskii, "Natsional'nyia
dvizheniia," ibid., IV, pt. 2 ( 1911), 149-243, approach the topic from the Social
Democratic (Menshevik) point of view. Komn,mnisticheskaia Akademiia, Pervafo
russkaia revoliutsiia (Moscow, 1930 ), contains an excellent bibliography of the
literature on the national question which appeared during the revolution of 1905.
Bibliographic information concerning each national group will be found in the
bibliography dealing with that group.

IV, SOCIALISM AND THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN WESTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE
a. General
S. F. Bloom, The World of Nations-A Study of the National Implications of the
Work of Karl Man (New York. 1941),
BIBLIOGRAPHY
H. Cunow, ..Marx und das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen," NZ, XXXVI, pt.
1 (1917-18), 577-84; 607-17.
--- Die Marxsche Geschichts- Gesellschafts- und Staatstheorie, II (Berlin, 19z3).
'.f. G. Masaryk, Die philosophischen_ und soziologischen Grundlagen des Marxismus
(Vienna, 1899);-chapferviii, "Nationalitaet und lntemationalitaet."
b. The Second International and Some of Its Leaders
Some idea about the national theories of the leaders of the Second International
may be gained from the results of a questionnaire sent out by La Vie Socialiste and
published in nos. 15-19 (5 June-zo August 1905), which contain replies from
seventeen leading European and American socialists. The stenographic reports of
the Stuttgart Congress, Internationaler Sozialisten-Kongress (Stuttgart, 1907), are
also informative. See also:
M. Anim, "Das Nationalitaetsprinzip in der sozialistischen Internationale," Sozial­
istische Monatshefte (Berlin), II (1910), 885-90.
J. Lenz, Die II Internationale und 1hr Erbe, 1889-1929 (Hamburg, n.d.).
K. Kautsky, one of the chief theoreticians of the Second International wrote much
and influenced socialist thinking in Austria and Russia. See:
K. Kautsky, "Die moderne Nationalitaet," NZ, V ( 1887), 392-405; 442-51.
--- Das Erfurter Programm (Stuttgart, 1892).
--- "Finis Poloniae?" NZ, XIV, pt. 2 ( 1895-96), 484-91.
--- "Der Kampf der Nationalitaeten und das Staatsrecht in Oesterreich," NZ,
XVI, pt. 1 (1897-98), 516-24; 557-64; 723-26.
--- "Die Krisis in Oesterreich," NZ, XXII, pt. 1 ( 1903-04), 39-46; 72-79.
--- Patriotismus und Sozialdemokratie (Leipzig, 1907).
--- "Nationalitaet und Internationalitaet," NZ, Ergaenzungsheft No. 1 (Stuttgart,
1908). Kautsky's main work on the subject.
--- Nationalstaat, Imperialistischer Staat und Staatenbund (Nuernberg, 1915).
--- "Zwei Schriften zum umlernen," NZ, XXXIII, pt. 2 ( 1915), 71-81.
--- "Nochmals unsere Illusionen," NZ, XXXIII, pt. 2 (1915), 230-41.
--- "Noch einige Bemerkungen ueber nationale Triebkraefte," NZ, XXXIV, pt. z
(1916), 705-13.
Bernstein's ideas can be found scattered through the following works:
E. Bernstein, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemo­
kratie (Stuttgart, 1899).
--- Zur Gesc}iichte und Theorie des Sozialismus (Berlin-Bern, 1901).
--- "Vom geschichtlichen Recht der Kleinen," NZ, XXXIII, pt. 2 ( 1915), 753-
59.
--- Sozialdemokratische Voelkerpolitik (Leipzig, 1917).
Of interest also are the following essays:
H. Cunow, "Illusionen-Kultus," NZ, XXXIII, pt. 2 (1915), 172-81,
L. H. Hartmann, "Die Nationalitaetenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie," Die Neue
Gesellschaft ( 1907), 263-72.
H. Heller, Sozialismus und Nation (Berlin, 19z5).
L. Martin, "Die Nationalisierung der Deutschen Sozialdemokratie," Gegenwart, II,
no. 37 ( 1907).
M. Schippel, "Nationalitaets- und sonstiger Revisionismus," Sozialistische Monatshefte,
II (1907), 712-19.
J. Strasser, Der Arbeiter und die Nation (Reichenberg, 1912; DLC). Strasser influ­
enced Lenin.
For the "Austrian theory" the most important works are: Otto Bauer, Die
Nationalitaetenfrage und die Sozialdemokratle, in Marx-Studien, II (Vienna, 1907);
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN R U S S I A 309
Karl Renner, D as Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen; Erster Teil: Nation und
Staat (Leipzig-Vienna, 1918). Bauer's work is particularly to be recommended.
F. Austerlitz, "Die Nationalen Triebkraefte," NZ, XXXIV, pt. 1 ( 1915-16), 641-48.
0. Bauer, "Bemerkungen zur Nationalitaetenfrage," NZ, XXVI, pt. 1 (1908), 800-
802.
--- "Die Bedingungen der nationalen Assimilation," Der Kampf, V, no. 6 (March
1912), 246-63. A brief restatement of his views.
A. Kogan, "Socialism in the Multi-National State" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard
University, 1946).
Verhandlungen des Gesamtparteitages der Sozialdemokratie in Oesterreich (Bruenn )
(Vienna, 1899),
V. RUSSIAN. POLITICAL PARTIBS AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION

The material concerning the national programs and theories of Russian political
parties is mainly of a primary nature.
a. The Right-Wing Parties
G. lurskii, Pravye v Tret'ei Gosudarstvennoi Dume (Kharkov, 1912).
Natsionalisty v Tret'ei Gosudarstvennoi Dume (St. Petersburg, 1912).

b. The Kadets
P. D. Dolgorukov, Natsional'naia politika i Partiia Narodnoi Svobody (Rostov on
Don, 1919; CSt-H).
F. F. Kokoshkin, Avtonomiia i federatsiia (Petrograd, 1917; NN).
NN).
Partiia 'Narodnoi Svobody,' Progrnmma (Moscow, n.d.; NN).
Programma Partii Narodnoi Svobody (K-D) priniataia na s"ezde v Petrograde 28
Marta 1917 goda (Odessa, 1917; NN).
Zakonodatel'nyia proekty i predpolozheniia Partii Narodnoi Svobody, 1905-1907 gg.
( St. Petersburg, 1907; NN).
c. The Socialist Revolutionary Party
M. Borisov, "Sotsializm i problema natsional'noi avtonomii," SR, No. 2 ( 1910), 227-
64.
N. V. Briullova-Shaskol'skaia, Partiia Sotsialistov-Revoliutsionerov i natsional'nyi
vopros (Petrograd, 1917; CSt-H).
V. Chernov, "Edinoobrazie ili shablon?" SR, no. 3 ( 1911 ), 147-60.
Le Parti Socialiste-Revolutionaire et le probleme des nationalites en Russie ( [Paris,
1919]; CSt-H).
Protokoly pervago s"ezda Partii Sotsialistov-Revoliutsionerov (n.p., 1906; NN).
Protokoly tret'iego s"ezda Partii Sotsialistov-Revoliutsionerov (Petrograd, 1917; NN).
Protokoly konferentsii rossiiskikh natsional'no-sotsialisticheskikh partii ( St. Peters-
burg, 1908; NN).
A. Savin, "Natsional'nyi vopros i partiia S-R," SR, no. 3 ( 1911 ), 95-146.
Stat'i po natsional'nomu voprosu (Warsaw, 1921; NNC) - B. Savinkov and others.

d. The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party ( General )


"Iz partii,'' Iskra, no. 7 (August 1901).
V. Leder, "Natsional'nyi vopros v pol'skoi i russkoi sotsial-demokratii," PR, nos. 2-3
( 1927), 148-208.
RS-DRP, Vtoroi ocherednoi s"ezd Ross. sots.-dem. rabochei partii-polnyi tekst pro­
tokolov (Geneva, [1903]; NN).
310 BIBLIOGRAPHY
VKP (b) v resoliutsiakh i resheniakh s"ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK ( 1890-
1932), I (1898-1924) (Moscow, 1932; NN ) .
M . Velikovskii and I . Levin, eds., Natsional'nyi vopros ([Moscow], 1931; NN).
Important sources.
e. The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Mensheviks )
G. Geilikman, "Natsionalnyi vopros i proletariat," Itogi i perspekUvy - Sbomik
statei (Moscow, 1906; DLC), 1 15-39.
D. Markovich, Avtonomiia i federatsiia (Petrograd, 1917; NN).
[L. Martov], "Revoliutsionnyi natsionalizm i sotsial-demokratiia," Iskra, no. 66 (May
1904).
[L. Martov], "Byt' Ii sotsializmu natsional'nym?" Iskra, no. 72 (August 1904).
G. V. Plekhanov, "Kommentarii k proektu programmy R.S.-D.R.P.," Sochineniia
(Moscow, [1923]-1927), XII, 205-39.
--- "Otvet nashim neposledovatel'nym sionistam," Sochineniia, XIII, 165-68.
--- "Patriotizm i sotsializm," Sochineniia, XIII, 263-72.
--- "Eshche odna raskol'nich'ia konferentsiia," Sochineniia, XIX, 424-35,
--- "Pis'ma k soznatel'nym rabochim," Sochineniia, XIX, 519-29.
h. The Bund and Other Jewish Socialist Parties
A. Perelman, "Avtonomizm," Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia (St. Petersburg, [1906-
1913] ) , I, 358-67.
V. B-", "Antisemitizm, assimilatsiia i proletarskaia bor'ba," Iskra, no. 55 (December,
1903).
[V. Kossovskii], K voprosu o natsional'noi avtonomii i preobrazovanii Ros. sots.­
demokr. rabochei partii na federativnykh nachalakh (London, 1902).
V. Medem, "K postanovke natsional'nogo voprosa v Rossii," VE, XLVII, no. 8
(August 1912 ), 149-63; no. 9 (September 1912), 14g-65.
--- Sotsialdemokratiia i natsional'nyi vopros (St. Petersburg, 1906; NN).
"Natsional'noe dvizhenie i natsional'nyia sotsialisticheskiia partii v Rossii,"
in Kastelianskii, Formy, 747--98.
M. B. Ratner, Introduction to Debaty po natsional'nomu voprosu na briunskom
parteitage (Kiev-St. Petersburg, 1906; DLC).
M. Rafes, Ocherki po istorii "Bunda" ([Moscow], 1923),
Kh. Zhitlovskii, Sotsializm i natsional'nyi vopros (Kiev, 1906; NN).
VI, LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIKS

a. Lenin
Lenin's works on the national question are too numerous to be mentioned indi­
vidually. The principal essays can be found assembled in V. I. Lenin, Sobranie
sochinenii ( 1st ed.; Moscow, 1922-27), XIX, and V. I. Lenin, Izbrannye stat'i po
natsional'nomu voprosu (Moscow-Leningrad, 1925). Some key sentences from Lenin's
writings are selected in P. I. Stuchka, Leninizm i natsional'nyi vopros (Moscow,
1926). The most complete and best annotated edition of Lenin's works is the
third. V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia (30 vols.; Moscow, 1935), which is arranged chrono­
logically, rather than topically. The last volume contains a subject index. Very
useful too are Lenin's notes and drafts (many of them not included in the third
edition of the Sochineniia ) found in Leninskii sbornik, especially vol. III ( 1925),
455-87; XVII (1931), 207-318; and XXX (1937).
Among secondary works on Lenin's national theory, many of which are listed
in the numbers of Leniniana ( Moscow, 1926£E.) are :
D. Baevskii, "Bol'sheviki v bor'be za III Internatsional," IM, XI ( 1929), 12-48.
THE D I S I N T E G R A T I O N O F THE RUS S I A N E M P IR E 311

A. Begeulov, ed., Leninizm i natsionarnyl vopros ( [Rostov on Don, 1931] ; CSt-H).


M. Pavlovich, "Lenin i natsional'nyi vopros," Pod znamenem Marksizma, I (1924),
164-88 (CSt-H).
N. N. Popov, Lenin o natsionarnom voprose (Moscow, 1924),
M. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Lenin i natsional'nyi vopros ( Kharkov, 1924; NN).
B. D. Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution (New York, 1948 ) .

b. Other Bolshevik and Social Democratic Writers


V. Insarov, "Natsional'nyi vopros i marksizm," Obrazovanie, XVI, no. 1 (1907),
153-84; no. 2a ( 1907), 24-51 (NN).
R. Luxemburg, "Der Sozialpatriotismus in Polen," NZ, XIV, pt. 2 (1895-96).
--- Articles on the national question, from the Przeglqd Social-demokratyczny,
in M. Velikovskii and I. Levin, Natsional'nyi vopros (Moscow, 1931; NN),
.215-41.
K. Radek, "Annexionen und Sozialdemokratie," Berner Tagwacht, .28-29 October
1915, quoted extensively in LS > XVII (1931), 280-83.
I. V. Stalin, "Marksizm i natsional'nyi vopros," Sochineniia (Moscow, 1946ff), II,
.290-367.
--- Marxism and the National Question (New York, 1942).
L. Trotsky, "Natsional'naia bor'ba i edinstvo proletariata," Sochineniia ( Moscow,
19.24ff), IV, 370-73.
--- "lmperializm i natsional'naia ideia," Sachineniia, IX, .207-09.
--- "Natsiia i khoziaistvo," Sochineniia, IX, 209-16.
G. Zinov'iev, "O tom, kak bundovtsy razoblachili likvidatorov," Sochineniia, ( Mos­
cow, 1923ff ) , II, .261-66.
--- "K natsional'nomu voprosu," Sochineniia, IV, 248-57.
--- "Rodnoi iazyk v shkole i natsional'nye uchrezhdeniia," Sochineniia, IV, 461-
66,

II

T H E D I S I N T E G RAT I O N O F T H E R U S S I A N EM P I R E
I. GENERAL

The most important sourcebook for the history of the national problem in 1917
is S. M. Dimanshtein, ed., Revoliutsiia i natsional'nyi vopros, III (Moscow, 1930;
NN); it contains virtually all the pertinent documents arranged by parties and
nationalities, Unfortunately, the other volumes in this series were never published.
Other works pertaining to the national problem in 1917 can be found in the
bibliographies for Chapter I and those chapters dealing with the respective regions.

II, STALIN AND THE COMMISSARIAT OF NATIONALITIES

E. I. Pesikina, Narodnyi komissariat po delam natsional'nostei i ego deiatel'nost'


o 1917-1918 gg. ( Moscow, 1950; NNC) is a recent attempt to magnify the role
of the Commissariat by distorting sources and misrepresenting facts which the
Soviet reader has no means of verifying; but being the first work to deal with the
subject, it has some value. The recollections of Stalin's assistant, S. Pestkovskii,
"Kak sozdavalsia Narkomnats," ZhN, I (1923), 272-73, and "Vospominaniia o rabote
v Narkomnatse," PR, no. 6 ( 1930), 124-31, though very brief, are revealing and
trustworthy.
3 12 BIBLIO GRAPHY
The official publications of the Commissariat of Nationalities bear the character
of propaganda material, and contain little information that cannot be obtained
elsewhere:
Narodnyi komissariat po delam natsional'nostei, Politika sovetskoi vlasti po natsionar­
. nym delam za tri goda, 191 7-XI-1920.. ( [Moscow], 1920; NN ) .
--- Na'tsionarnyi vopros i sovetskaia Rossiia ( Moscow, 1921; DLC ) .
--- Otchet narodnogo komissariata po delam natsionarnostei za 1921 god ( Mos-
cow, 1921; Brit. Mus. )
The periodical Zhizn' natsional'nostci ( Moscow, 1918-1924; CSt-H } , th� official
publication of the Commissariat, contains a wealth of interesting information about
its activities in the form of news reports, announcements, etc.

Ill

T H E . U K RAI N E A N D B E LO R U S S I A
I. GENERAL lllSTORIES OF THE REVOLUTION IN THE UKBAINE

The most recent scholarly account of the Revolution in the Ukraine is J. S.


Reshetar, Jr., The Ukranian Revolution, 1917-1920 (Princeton, 1952 ). Of the parti­
san histories, the best was written by a professional historian and a member of
the Socialist Federalist Party, D. Doroshenko, lstoriia Ukralny 1917-1923 rr. ( 2 vols.;
Uzhgorod, 1930--32; NNC ) . Also very useful are the accounts of the leaders of
the USD Party, V. Vinnichenko, Vidrodzhennia natsii ( 3 vols.; Kiev-Vienna, 1920;
NNC ), and the USR Party, P. Khristiuk, Zamitky i materialy do istorii ukrainskoi
revoliutsii, 1917-20 (4 vols.; Vienna, 1921-22; NNC ) . Both works are highly
emotional but contain valuable documents and eyewitness reports. Of the Bolshevik
accounts, the best are the following: E. G. Bosh, God bor'by ( 1917) ( Moscow,
1925; NN ) ; M. G. Rafes, Dva goda revoliutsii na Ukraine ( Moscow, 1920; CSt-H ) ;
and M . Skrypnyk, "Istoriia proletarskoi revoliutsii na Ukraini," Statti i promovy, I
( Kharkov, 1930; NN ), 132-235,
The journal Letopis' ( later Litopis ) revoliutsii ( Kharkov ) was the official publi­
cation of the Institute of Party History in the Ukraine, and contains a wealth of
primary and secondary information.
S. Rozen, ed., "Opyt bibliografii po istorii revoliutsii na Ukraine," LR, no.
3-4/18-19 ( 1926 ) , pp. 236-6 5; no. 5/20 ( 1926 ), pp. 198-208; no. 6/2 1 ( 1926 ) ,
pp. 190-203; is a bibliographical survey. of Soviet literature on the history of the
Revolution in the Ukraine.
II, SOME MEMOIR LITERATURE

S. A. Alekseev, ed., Revoliutsiia na Ukraine po memuaram Belykh ( Moscow­


Leningrad, · 1930 ) , is an anthology of eyewitness accounts of a non-Communist
character. V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski o grazhdanskoi voine, I ( Moscow, 1924;
NNC ) is the story of the Commander in Chief of Red Armies invading the Ukraine
in early 191 8 . V. Petriv, Spomyny z chasiv ukrainskoi revoliutsii ( 1917-1921 ) ( 3
vols.; ( Lwow, 1927-30; NNC ) , contains recollections of a military officer. See also:
I. Aleksieev, Iz vospomlnanii levogo esera ( Moscow, 1922; CSt-H ) .
V. Andrievskii, Z mynuloho ( z vols.; Berlin, 1921; NN ) .
M. Barthel, Vom roten Moskau bis zum Schwarzen Meer ( Berlin, [1921]; CSt-H ) .
D. Doroshenko, Moi spomyny pro nedavne-mynule ( 1914-1 8 ) ( z vols.; Lwow, 1923;
NN}.
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUS SIA
C. Dubreuil, Deux annees en Ukraine ( 1917-1919) ( Paris, 1919; CSt-H),
A. A. Gol'denveizer, "Iz kievskikh vospominanii," in Alekseev, Revoliutsiia, 1-63.
G, N, Leikhtenbergskii, Vospominaniia ob 'Ukrainie,' 1917-18 ( Berlin, 1921; CSt-H),
0, Nazaruk, Rik na velikii Ukraini { Vienna, 1920; CSt-H).
F. Wertheimer, Durch Ukraine tmd Krim ( Stuttgart, 1918; CSt-H }.
Ill. THE YEAR 1917 IN THE UKRAINE
V. Manilov, ed., 1917 god na Kievshchine ( [Kiev], 1928; NN), is a daily chroni­
cle of events from contemporary sources and an invaluable work for the study of
that period in the Kiev province, Other works are:
W, Dushnyck, "The Russian Provisional Government and the Ukrainian Central
Rada,'' Ukrainian Quarterly> Ill ( 1946), 66-79.
I. Kulik, Ohliad revoliutsii na Ukraini, I (Kharkov, 1921; NNC).
V. Lipshits, "Khersonshchina v 1917 godu,.. LR, no. 2/17 ( 1926), 109--16.
M. Ravich-Cherkasskii, "Fevral'-dekabr' 1917 goda v EkaterinosJ.ave," LR, no. 1
( 1922), 74-80.
I. Sorokin, "Fevral'skaia revoliutsiia v Khersone," PR, no. 2/49 ( 1926), 101-13.
0. Shulgin, L'Ukraine contre Moscou, 1917 ( Paris, 1935; CSt-H }.
A. Zolotarev, Iz istorii Tsentral'noi Ukrainskoi Rady ( [Kharkov], 1922; NN).
IV, THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION IN THE UKRAINE

An interesting survey is V. Leikina, "Oktiabr' po Rossii - 2. Ukraina," PR, no.


12/59 ( 1926), 238-54; also N. Popov, Oktiabr' na Ukraine ( Kiev, 1934; CSt-H).
M. Rubach, "K istorii konflikta mezhdu Sovnarkomom i Tsentral'noi Radoi," LR,
no. 2/u, ( 1925), 53-85 contains very interesting documents. S. M, Korolivskii,
Pobeda velikoi oktiabr'skoi sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii i ustanovlenie sovetskoi v'lasti
na Ukraine ( Kiev, 1951), is a collection of documents of little value. Very im­
portant, on the other hand, is a collection of memoirs and eyewitness accounts of
Communist leaders of the October revolution in the Ukraine, Perooe piatiletie,
( Kharkov, 1922; NN). Most instructive are the local histories of the October revo­
lution in the Ukraine:
a. Kiev and Vicinity
E. Bosh, "Oktiabr'skie dni v Kievskoi oblasti," PR, no. 11/23 ( 1923), 52-67,
I. Florovskii, "Vospominanie ob Oktiabr'skom vosstanii v Kieve," PR, no. 1.0 ( 1922),
520-25.
"K istorii 'Trekhugol'nogo boia' v Kieve," LR, no. 4/ 9 ( 1924 ), 1.86-94,
S. Mishchenko, "Ianvarskoe vosstanie v Kieve," LR, no. 3/8 ( 1924), 20-43.
Patlakh, ''Kiev v Ianvare 1918 goda," LR, no. 3 ( 1923), 18-24.
S. Sh[reiber], "Iz istorii Sovvlasti na Ukraine," LR, no. 4/9 ( 1924), 16�5.
b. Chernlgov
Z. Tabakov, "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia v Chernigovshchine," LR, no. 1 ( 1922), 143-
70,
c. Ekaterlnoslav
V. Averin, "Ot kornilovskikh dnei do nemetskoi okkupatsii na Ekaterinoslavshchine,"
PR, no. 11/70 ( 1927), 140-70.
E. Kviring, "Ekaterinoslavskii Sovet i oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia," LR, no. 1 ( 1922),
63--73.
V. Miroshevskii, "Vofnyi Ekaterinoslav;' PR, no. 9 ( 1922), 197-208.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. Ravich-Cherkasskii, "Fevral'-Dekabr' 1 9 1 7 g. v Ekaterinoslave," LR, no. 1 { 1922 ) ,


74-80.
I. Zhukovskii, "Podgotovka Oktiabria v Ekaterinoslave," LR, no. 1/16 ( 1926 ) , 7-40,

d. Kharkov and Donbasa


S. Buzdalin, "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia v Khar'kove," LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) , 35-38.
"Khar'kovskaia Krasnaia Gvardiia," LR, no. 3 ( 1923 ) , 70-72.
E. Kholmskaia, "Iz istorii bor'by v Donbasse v oktiabr'skie dni," LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) ,
55-58.
E. Medne, "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia v Donbasse," LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) , 49-54.
G. Petrovskii, "Ocherk iz Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii v Donbasse," LR> no. 1 ( 1922 ) ,
5g-62.
S. Pokko, "Organizatsiia i bor'ba Krasnoi Gvardii v Khar'kove," LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) ,
44-48 .
N. Popov, "Ocherki revoliutsionnykh sobytii v Khar'kove ot iiunia 1917 g. do
dekabria 1918 g.," LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) , 16-34.

e. Nikolaeo
I.Kagan, "Partorganizatsiia i oktiabr'skii perevorot v g. Nikolaeve," LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) ,
104-06.
Ia. Riappo, "Boroa sil v oktiabr'skuiu revoliutsiiu v Nikolaeve," LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) ,
8 1-103.

f. Odessa
Khristev [Kb. A. Rakovskii], "Rumcherod v podgotovke Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii,"
LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) , 171-83.

g. Poltava
S. Mazlakh, "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia na Poltavshchine," LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) , 126-42.
Smetanich, "Poltava pered 'Oktiabrem,' " LR, no. 3/8 ( 1924 ) , 62-70,

h. Volhynla
M. Gendler, "O revoliutsionnykh sobytiiakh v Volynskoi gub. ( m . Berezna ) 1917-
19 gg.," LR, no. 1 ( 1922 ) , 202-0 5.

V. GERMAN OCCUPATION AND THE HETMANATE

Die deutsche Okkupation der Ukraine-Geheimdokumente ( Strassbourg, [c.


1937]; CSt-H ) is a German translation of a Soviet work containing important docu­
ments. V. Manilov, ed., Pid hnitom nimetskoho imperiializmu, ( 19 18 r. na Kyio­
shchyni ) , ( [Kiev], 1927; NNC ) has much information on Bolshevik tactics in the
Ukraine during the German occupation. Other works are:
F. Balkun, "Interventsiia v Odesse ( 1918-1919 gg. ) , PR, no. 6-7/ 18-19, ( 1923 ) ,
196-221.
E. Borschak, "La Paix ukrainienne de Brest-Litovsk," Le Monde Slave, VI ( 1929 ) ,
no. 4, 33-62; no. 7, 63-84; no. 8, 199-225.
A. Bubnov, "Gebnanshchina, direktoriia i nasha taktika ( 1918-1919 gg.)" PR, no.
7/66 ( 1927 ) , ·58-77.
S. Dnistrianskyj, Ukraina and the Peace Conference, ( [Berlin], 1919 ) .
S. Dolenga, Skoropadshchyna, ( Warsaw, 1.934; NNC).
X. Eudin, "The German Occupation of the Ukraine in 1918," Russian Rt>view, no. 1
( 1941 ) , 90-105.
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUS SIA
E. Evain, Le Probleme de finclependence de fUkraine et la France, (Paris, 1931;
NN ) .
E . Heifetz, The Slaughter of the Jews in the Ukraine in 1919 ( New York, 1921 ) .
W. Kutschabsky, Die Westukraine im Kampfe mit Polen und dem Bolshewismus in
den Jahren 1918-1923 ( Berlin, 1934; NN ) .
B. Magidov, "Organizatsiia Donetsko-Krivorozhskoi Respubliki i otstuplenie iz
Khar'kova," KP ( b ) U, Piat' let, ( [Kharkov], 1922 ) ; ( CSt-H ) , 65-67.
A. D. Margolin, Ukraina i politika Antanty ( Berlin, [1921] ) .

VI, THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UKRAINE

The most important sourcebook for the history of the KP ( b ) U is KP ( b ) U,


Institut Istorii Partii, Istorlia KP ( b ) U ( 2 vols. ; Kiev, 1933; NN ) . There are also
two good histories : M. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia Kommunisticheskoi Partii Ukrainy
( [Kharkov] , 1923; NN ) and N. N. Popov, Ocherk istorii Kommunisticheskoi Partil
( bofshevikov ) Ukrainy ( Simferopol, 1929; NN ) . See also :
E. Bosh, "Oblastnoi partiinyi komitet s-d { b-kov ) Iugo-Zapadnogo kraia ( 1917 g. ) ,"
PR, no. 5/28 ( 1924 ) , 128-49.
I. Kapulovskii, "Organizatsiia vosstaniia protiv Getmana," LR, no. 4 ( 1923 ) , 95-102.
T. Khait, "Do protokoliv Kyivskoho Komitetu RSDRP ( b ) 1917 r.," LR, no. 4/49
( 1931 ) , 113-38.
M. Kirichenko, ed., Rezoliutsii vseukrainskykh z'izdio rad ( [Kharkov] , 1932; CSt-H ) .
K.P. ( b ) Ukrainy, Pervyl s"ezd K.P. ( b ) U. ( Kharkov, 1923; CSt-H ) . Stenographic
reports of the congress.
--- Piat' let ( [Kharkov] , 1922; CSt-H ) . Memoirs of Communists active in the
Ukraine.
--- Itogi Partpereplsi 192.2 goda, 2 pts. ( Kharkov, 1922; NN ) . Statistical data.
I. Iu. Kulik, "Kievskaia organizatsiia ot Fevralia do Oktiabria 1917 goda," LR, no.
1/6 ( 1924 ) , 189-2 04.
V. I. Lenin, Stat'i i rechi ob Ukraine ( [Kiev] , 1936 ) .
M. Maiorov, Z istoryi reooliutsiinoi borotby n a Ukraini, 1914-1919 ( Kharkov, 1928;
NNC ) .
"Protokoly Kyivskoi Orhanizatsii RCDRP (bilshovykiv ) 1917 roku," LR, no. 4/ 49
( 1931 ) , 139-93.
M. Rubach, "K istorii grazhdanskoi bor'by na Ukraine," LR, no. 4/9 ( 1924 ) , 151-
65.
V. Zatonskii, "K voprosu ob organizatsii Vremennogo Raboche-Krest'ianskogo Pra­
vitel'stva Ukrainy," LR, no. 1/10 ( 1925 ) , 139-49.

VII, BELORUSSIA

Among the historical accounts of the history of the Revolution in Belorussia the
following deserve particular mention: V. G. Knorin, 1917 god o Belorussil i na
Zapadnom fronte ( Minsk, 1925; NN ) , and V. K. Shcharbakou, Kastrychnitskala
revoliutsyia na Belarus£ i belaporskaia okupatsyia ( Minsk, 1930; in Belorussian; NN ) .
A collective volume published by the Tsentral'ny Vykanauchy Komitet, BSSR,
Belarus" ( Minsk, 1924; in Belorussian; NN ) , contains important essays written by
Communist participants. Other works are :
S. Agurskii, Ocherkl po istorii revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia o Belorussii ( .1863-1917)
{ Minsk, 1928; NN ) . Historical background.
A. Charviakou, Za savetskuiu Belarus' ( Minsk, 1927; NN ) .
Ia. Dyla, "Sotsyialistychny rukh na Belarusi," in Ts. V. K., BSSR, Belarus', 124-40.
U. Ihnatouski, "Vialiki Kastrychnik na Belarusi," Belarus', 195-214.
BIBLIO GRAPHY
--- "Komunistychnaia partyia Belarusi i belaruskae pytan'ne," Belarus', 229-42.
--- [V. M. Ignatovskii], Belorussiia (Minsk, 1925; NN ) .
le. Kancher, Belorusskl vopros (Petrograd, 1919; DLC ).
A. Kirzhnits, "Sto dnei sovetskoi vlasti v Belorussii," PR, no. 3/74 (1928 ), 61-131,
V. G. Knorin, Zametki k istorii diktatury proletariata v Belorussii (Minsk, 1934;
NN ).
--- [V. Knoryn], "Komunistychnaia partyia na Belarusi," Belarus', 215-.21.
V. Mitskevich-Kapsukas, "Bor'ba za sovetskuiu vlast' v Litve i Zap[adnoi] Belo­
russii," PR, no. 1h08 ( 1931) , 65-107.
V. F. Sharangovich, 15 let KP (b ) B i BSSR (Minsk, 1934; NN ) .
Z. Zhylunovich, "Liuty-Kastrychnik u belaruskim natsyianal'nym rukhu," Belarus',
182--94.

IV

T H E M O S L E M B O R D E R LAN D S
I, GENERAL

As yet, there is no authoritative study of all of Russian Islam. For the Moslem
problem in tsarist Russia the best sources are L. Klimovich, Islam v tsarskoi Rossli
( Moscow, 1936 ) , which is tendentious but has interesting data and a good bibli­
ography, and the scholarly journal Mir Islama (Petrograd, 1912-13 ).
II, SOVIET POLICY TOWARD THE MOSLEM MINORITIES ( GENERAL )

The only work which attempts to deal with the national movements of all
Moslem peoples is G. von Mende, Der nationale Kampf der Russlandtuerken (Berlin,
1936 ); it is biased and disorganized but in parts very useful. J. Castagne, "Le
Bolchevisme et l'Islam," Revue du Monde Musulman (Paris ), LI ( 19zz ) , consists
mainly of documents. F. de Romainville, L'Islam et l'U.R.S.S. (Paris, 1947; CSt-H ) ,
is a popular account, base� on Western sources, dealing mainly with post-1940
developments. B. P. L. Bedi, Muslims in the U.S.S.R. (Lahore, [1947] ) , follows
Communist propaganda. A. Arsharuni and Kh. Gabidullin, Ocherki panlslamlzma i
pantiurkizma v Rossii ([Moscow], 1931 ), is an invaluable source for the study of
Pan-Islamic and Pan-Turanian tendencies among Russian Moslems.
III. RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND THE PAN-TURANIAN MOVEMENT

G. Aleksinsky, "Bolshevism and the Turks," Quarterly Review (London ) , vol. 239
(1923 ) , 183-97.
H. Jansky, "Die 'Tuerkische Revolution' und der russische Islam," Der Islam
(Berlin and Leipzig), XVIII ( 1929), 158-67.
G. Jaeschke, "Der Turanismus der Jungtuerken," Die Welt des Islams, XX.III (1941) ,
no. 1-2, pp. 1-54 (NN ).
--- "Der Weg zur russisch-tuerkischen Freundschaft," Die Welt des Islams,
XVI (1934), 23-38.
J. Lewin, "Die panturanische !dee," Preusslsche ]ahrbuecher (Berlin ) , vol 231
( 1933 ) , 58-69.
"Panislamizm i pantiurkizm," Mir Islama, II ( 1913), 556-71; 596-619, Deals with
the influence of both these ideas on Russian Moslems.
THE M O S L E M B O RDERLAND S 3 17
"Pantiurkizm v Rossii," Mir Islama, II ( 1913 ) , 13-30.
"W," "Les Relations russo-turques depuis l'avenement du bolchevisme," Revue du
Monde Musulman, LII ( 1922 ) , 181--211.
Zarevant, Turtsiia i Panturanizm (Paris, 1930; NN ) .

IV. THE ALL-RUSSIAN MOSLEM MOVEMENT IN 1917


The most important source are the stenographic reports of the All-Russian Mos­
lem Congress of May 1917, Biltlln Rusya Musulilmanlann 1917ncl yilda 1-1 1 mayda
Meskevde bulgan Umumt isyezdinin Protokollan ( Petrograd, 1917; Tarih Kurumu
Library, Ankara, available to me only in part ) . The reports of H. Altdorffer, in Def'
Neue Orient ( Berlin) for 1917 and early 1918, are useful but not always reliable.

V. THE CRIMEA
E. Kirimal, Der Nationale Kampf der Krimtuerken, mit besonderer Berueck­
sichtigung der Jahre 1917-1918 ( Emsdetten, 1952 ), and M. F. Bunegin, Revo­
liutsiia i grazhdanskala volna v Krymu ( [Simferopol] , 1927; CSt-H ) , are the best
works from the viewpoints of the Crimean Turkish nationalists and the contempo­
rary Communists respectively. A good source is the historical journal, Revoliutsiia v
Krymu ( Simferopol, 1924; CSt-H., no. 3 only ) . See also:
M. L. Atlas, Bor'ba za sovety ( Simferopol, 1933, CSt-H ) .
N . Babakhan, "Iz istorii krymskogo podpol'ia," Revoliutsiia v Krymu, no. 3 ( 1924 ),
3-37.
A. K. Bochagov, Milli Firka { Simferopol, 1930; CSt-H ) .
T. Boiadzhev, Krymsko-tatarskaia molodezh v revoliutsii ( Simferopol, 1930; CSt-H ) .
A. Buiskii, Bor'ba za Krym i razgrom Vrangelia ( Moscow, 1928; NN ) .
V. Elagin, "Natsionalisticheskie illiuzii krymskikh Tatar v revoliutsionnye gody,"
NV, no. 5 ( 1924 ), 190-2 16; no. 6 ( 1924 )., 205--2 5.
Iu. Gaven, "Krymskie Tatary i revoliutsiia," ZhN, no. 48/56, 21 December 1919,
and no, 49/ 57, 28 December 1919.
Grigor'ev [Genker], "Tatarskii vopros v Krymu," Antanta i Vrangel', Sbomik statei
( Moscow, 1923; CSt-H ), 232-38.
A. Gukovskii, "Krym v 1918-19 gg," KA, XXVIII ( 1928 ) , 142-81; XXIX ( 1928 ),
55-85.
S. Ingulov, "Krymskoe podpol'e," in Antanta i Vrangel', 138--71.
S. Liadov, "Zhizn' i usloviia raboty RKP v Krymu vo vremia vladychestva Vrangelia,"
PR, no. 4 ( 1922 ), 143-47.
D. S. Pasmanik, Revoliutsionnye gody v Krymu (Paris, 1926 ) .
S. Se£, "Partiinye organizatsii Kryma v bor'be s Denikinym i Vrangelem," PR, no.
10/57 ( 1926 ) , 1 14-55.
D. Seidamet, La Crimee ( Lausanne, 1921 ) .
--- [J. Seyidamet], Krym -przeszlos6, terazniejszos6 i dqzenia niepodleglosciowe
Tatarow krymskich ( Warsaw, 1930; in Polish; private ) .
V. Sovetov, Sotsial-Demokratiia v Krymu ( 1898-19o8 ) ( Simferopol, 1933; CSt-H ) .
V. Sovetov and M. Atlas, Rasstrel sovetskogo pravitel'stva Krymskoi Respubliki
Tavridy ( Simferopol, 1933; CSt-H ) .
S . A . Usov, lstoriko-ekonomicheskie ocherki Kryma ( Simferopol, 1925; CSt-H ) .
V. Utz, Die Besitzverhaeltnisse der Tatarenbauem i m Kreise Simferopol (Tuebingen,
1911; NNC ) .
A . Vasil'ev, "Pervaia sovetskaia vlast' v Krymu i e e padenie," PR, no. 7 ( 1922 ) , 3-58.
I. Verner, "Nasha politika v Krymu," ZhN, 10 October 1921,
Ves' Krym, 1920-1925 ( Simferopol, 1926; CSt-H ) .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
VI. THE VOLGA TATARS

B. Spuler, "Die Wolga-Tataren und Baschkiren unter russischer Herrschaft,"


Der Islam (Berlin), XX.IX, no. 2 ( 1949), 142-216, has a good historical account
and a rich bibliography. E. Grachev, Kazanskii Oktiabr', I (Kazan, 1926; NN} is a
detailed chronicle of the year 1917. The following are important histories of the
Revolution and Civil War in the Volga Tatar area: A. I. Bochkov, Tri goda
sovetskoi vlasti o Kazani (Kazan, 1921; NN); M. Vol'fovich, ed., Kazanskaia
bofsheoistskaia organizatsiia o 1917 godu (Kazan, 1933; CSt-H), and L. Rubin­
shtein, V bor'be za leninskuiu natsionafnuiu politiku (Kazan, 1930; CSt-H }. A
useful list of publications is contained in Tatarskii Nauchno-Issledovatel'nyi Institut,
Obshchestvo izucheniia Tatarstana, Bibliografiia Tatarstana, Vypusk I, 1917;-27
(Kazan, 1930; DLC). The journal Puti revoliutsii (Kazan) nos. 1-3 ( 1922-23)
(NN), is devoted to the history of the Revolution in the Kazan region. See also :
Abdullah Battal, Kazan Tiirkleri [The Turks of Kazan] (Istanbul, 1341/ 1925;
private), chapter xiii.
I. Borozdin, "Sovremennyi Tatarstan," NV, no. 10-11 ( 1925), 116-37.
N. N. Firsov, Proshloe Tatarii (Kazan, 1926; NN).
--- Chteniia 'J)O istorii Srednego i Nizhnego Povolzh'ia (Kazan, 1920),
Kh. Gabidullin, Tatarstan za sem' let (1920-27) (Kazan, 1927; NN).
G. S. Gubaidullin, "Iz proshlogo Tatar," in Materialy po izucheniiu Tatarstana, II
(Kazan, 1925; NN), 71-111,
S. I. Gusev, "Sviiazhskie dni ( 1918 g. }," PR� no. 2/25 ( 1924), 100-109.
G. G. Ibragimov, Tatary o reooliutsii 1905 goda (Kazan, 1926; NN).
G. G. Ibragimov and N. I. Vorob'ev, eds., Materialy po izucheniiu Tatarstana, II
(Kazan, 1925).
Istpart; Otdel Oblastnogo Komiteta RKP (b) Tatrespubliki, Borba za Kazan', I
(Kazan, 1924; NN }.
I. I. Khodorovskii, Chto takoe Tatarskaia Sovetskaia Respublika (Kazan, 1920;
CSt-H).
D. P. Petrov, Chuvashiia (Moscow, 1926).
I. Rakhmatullin, "Mulla-Nur-Vakhitov;' Puti revoliutsii (Kazan), no. 3 (1923),
35-6.
A. Saadi, "Galimdzhan Ibragimov i ego, literaturnoe tvorchestvo," Vestnik nauchnogo
obshchestva tatarovedeniia (Kaimi), no. 8 ( 1928), 25-50 (DLC).
S. Said-Galiev, "Tatrespublika i t. Lenin," PR, no. 9 ( 1925), 107-17.
M. Sultan-Galiev, Metody antireligioznoi propogandy sredi Musul'man (Moscow,
1922; CSt-H).
--- "Sotsial'naia revoliutsiia i Vostok," ZhN, nos. 38/46-39/47; 42/50 (1919).
--- "Tatarskaia Avtonomnaia Respublika," ZhN, I ( 1923), 25-39.
B. Spuler, Idel-Ural (Berlin, 1942; CSt-H } .
A. Tarasov, "Kontrrevoliutsionnaia avantiura tatarskoi burzhuazii ( 1918 god),"
IM, no. 7 ( 1 940 ), 93- 1 00.
Tatarskaia Sotsialisticheskaia Sovetskaia Respublika, Za piat' let, 1.920-25/VI-1.925
(Kazan, 1925; NN).
D. Validov, Ocherki istoril obrazovannosti i literatury Tatar ( do revoliutsii 1917 g.)
(Moscow, 1923; NNC).
VKP (b) Tatarskii Oblastnoi Komitet, Stenograficheskii otchet IX oblastnoi kon­
ferentsii tatarskoi organizatsii RKP ( b ) ( Kazan, 1924; NN).
--- 1.0-letie Sovetskogo Tatarstana (Kazan, 1930; CSt-H).
VII, THE BASHKIRS

A. Adigamov, "Pravda o Bashkirakh," ZhN, no. 26/34, 13 July 1919.


THE MOSLEM BORDERLAND S
S. Atnagulov, Bashkiriia (Moscow, 1925; NN).
S. Dimanshtein, "Bashkiriia v 1918-20 gg.," PR, no. 5/76 ( 1928), 138-57.
Kh. Iumagulov, "Ob odnom neudachnom opyte izucheniia natsional'noi politiki v
Bashkirii v 1918-19 gg.," PR, no. 3 /74 (1928), 170-95.
Sh. Manatov, "Bashkirskaia Avtonomnaia Respublika," ZhN, no. 1 ( 1923), 40-45.
P. Mostovenko, "O bol'shikh oshibkakh v 'Maloi' Bashkirii," PR, no. 5/76 ( 1928 ),
103-37.
M. L. Murtazin, Bashkiriia i bashkirskie voiska v grazhdanskuiu voinu ( [Leningrad].
19.27; CSt-H ) ,
R. E. Pipes, "The First Experiment inSoviet National Policy: The Bashkir Republic,
1917-1920," The Russian Review, IX, no. 4 ( 1950), 303-19.
R. Raimov, "K istorii obrazovaniia Bashkirskoi avtonomnoi sotsialisticheskoi sovet­
skoi respubliki," Voprosy istorii, no. 4 ( 1948), 23-42.
F. Samoilov, "Malaia Bashkiriia v 1918-1920 gg.," PR, no. 11/58 ( 1926), 196-223;
no. 12/59 (1926), 185-207 .
--- Malaia Bashkiriia v 1 9 1 8-1920 gg. (Moscow, 1933).
F. Syromolotov, "Lenin i Stalin v sozdanii Tataro-Bashkirskoi Respubliki," RN, no.
8/66 ( 1935), 15-24.
Sh. Tipeev, K istorii natsional'nogo dvizheniia i sovetskoi Bashkirii ( Ufa, 1929;
cst:.H ).

VIII, THE STEPPE REGIONS

S. Brainin and Sh. Shaflro, Pervye shagi sovetov v Semirech'i ( Alma-Ata­


Moscow, 1934; Doc. Int.). G. N. Mel'nikov, Oktiabr' v Kazakstane ( [Alma-Ata],
1930; CSt-H), and Kazakskaia SSR, S"ezd Sovetov, Uchreditel'nyi s"ezd sovetov
Kirgizskoi (Kazakskoi) ASSR, Protokoly (Ahna-Ata-Moscow, 1936; CSt-H) are
among the most important sources for the history of the Revolution in the steppe
regions of Central Asia. Other works are :
I. G. Akulinin, Orenburgskoe Kazach'e voisko v bor'be s bol'shevikami ( Shanghai,
1937; CSt-H).
D. Furmanov, Miatezh ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1925; Brit. Mus.).
F. I. Goloshchekin, Partiinoe stroitel'stvo v Kazakstane (Moscow, 1930; CSt-H).
I. Kuramysov, Za leninskuiu natsional'nuiu politiku v Kazakstane (Alma-Ata-
Moscow, 1932; CSt-H).
L. Papernyi, "Bluzhdaiushchie oblasti," VS, no. 2 ( 1924), 131-33.
F. Popov, Dutovshchina (Moscow-Samara, 1934; CSt-H).
T. R. Ryskulov, Kazakstan (Moscow, 1927; NN).
--- "Sovremennyi Kazakstan," NV, no. 12 ( 1926), 105-20.
VKP (b), Kazakhskii Kraevoi Komitet, Iz istorii partiinogo stroitel'stva v Kazakhstane,
(Alma-Ata, 1936; CSt-H). An important source.

IX, TURKESTAN, KHIVA, BUKHARA

a. The Revolution in Turkestan


The best account of the early period of the Revolution in Turkestan (until the
beginning of 1918), despite its extreme anti-Russian bias, is Baymirza Hayit, Die
Nationalen Regierungen van Kokand ( Choqand } und der Alasch Orda ( Muenster,
1950; mimeographed; private). J. Castagne, Le Turkestan depuis la Revolution russe
( 1 9 1 7-2 1 ) (Paris, 1922; CSt-H), is mainly valuable for its documentation. Among
anti-Soviet works, the following may be mentioned as useful : Mustafa Chokaev
[Chokai-ogly], Turkestan pod vlast'iu sovetov (Paris, 1935); P. Olberg, "Russian
Policy in' Turkestan," Contemporary Review (London), vol. 122, pt. 1 ( 1922),
320 BIBLIO GRAPHY
342-47; and R. Olzscha and G. Cleinow, Turkestan (Leipzig, [1942]). Of the
Communist accounts, the most illuminating is G. Safarov, Koloniarnaia revoliutsiia
( Opyt Turkestana) ([Moscow], 1921; NN). The daily newspaper Svobodnyi ( later
Novyi ) Turkestan (Tashkent, 1918; CSt-H), an organ of Russian Socialist Inter­
nationalists, has much data for the early period of the Revolution. P. Antropov, Chto
i kak chitat' po istorii revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia i partii v Srednei Azii (Samar­
kand-Tashkent, 1929; NN) is a descriptive bibliography of over one hundred titles.
See also the following:
P. Alekseenkov, "Natsional'naia politika Vremennogo Pravitel'stva v Turkestane v
1917 g.," PR, no. 8/79 (1928), 104-32.
J. Benzing, Turkestan (Berlin, 1943; CSt-H).
S. Bolotov, "lz istorii osipovskogo miatezha v Turkestane," PR, no. 6/53 ( 1926),
110-37.
F. Bozhko, Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia v Srednei Azii (Tashkent, 1932; CSt-H).
M. Chokaev [Mustafa Tchokaieff] , "Fifteen Years of Bolshevik Rule in Turkestan,"
Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, XX, pt. 3 ( 1933), 351-59.
[M. Chokayev], "Turkestan and the Soviet Regime," ibid., XVIII, pt. 3
( 1931), 403-20.
P. G. Galuzo, Turkestan-koloniia (Tashkent, 1935; CSt-H).
F. Gnesin, ''Turkestan v dni revoliutsii i Bol'shevizma," Belyi arkhiv (Paris), no. 1
( 1926). 81-94.
A. Gumanenko, Shamsi (Tashkent, 1932; CSt-H). Samarkand in 1917-18.
V. I. Masai'skii, Turkestanskil krai ( St. Petersburg, 1913). Still the best general
description of Turkestan.
Z. Mindlin, "Kirgizy i revoliutsiia," NV, no. 5 ( 1924), 217-29.
S. Muraveiskii [V. Lopukhin], "Sentiabr'skie sobytiia v Tashkente v 1917 godu," PR,
no. 10/33 ( 1924), 138-61.
F. Novitskii, "M. V. Frunze na Turkestanskom fronte," KA, no. 3/100 { 1940),
36-78.
K. Ramzin, Revoliutsiia v Srednei Azii (Moscow, 1928; NN); valuable photographic
records.
T. R. Ryskulov, Kirgizstan (Moscow, 1935; NN).
T. R. Rysktilov and others, Ocherki revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Srednei Azii
(Moscow, 1926; NN).
G. Safarov, "Revoliutsiia i nalsional'nyi vopros v Turkestane," Pravda, no. 162, 24
July 1920.
E. L. Shteinberg, Ocherkl istorii Turkmenii (Moscow-Leningrad, 1934; CSt-H).
G. Skalov, "Khivinskaia revoliutsiia 1920 goda," NV, no. 3 ( 1923), 241-57.
Maria Tchokay, ed., lash Turkestan (Paris, 1949-50; CSt-H).
VKP (b)-Istpart Sredazbiuro, Revoliutsiia v Srednei Azii, I (Tashkent, 1928; CSt-H).
A. N. Zorin, Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie v Kirgizii ( Severnaia chast' ) (Frunze, 1931;
CSt-H).
b. Bukhara
0. Glovatskii, Revoliutsiia pobezhdaet ( [Tashkent, 1930] ; CSt-H).
F. Khodzhaev, "O mladobukhartsakh," IM, no. 1 ( 1926), 123-41 (NN).
Said Alim Khan ( Emir of Bukhara), La Voix de la Boukharie oppri�e (Paris,
1929; CSt-H).
D. Soloveichik, "Revoliutsionnaia Bukhara," NV, No. 2 (1922 ), 272-88.
c. The Basmachi Movement
The history of the Basmachis remains to be written. The following are some of
the principal sources :
THE CAUCA S U S 321
J. Castagne, Les Basmatchis (Paris, 1925; NN).
Mustafa Chokaev, "The Basmaji Movement in Turkestan," The Asiatic Review
(London), XXIV, no. 78 ( 1928), 273-88.
S. B. Ginsburg, "Basmachestvo v Fergane," NV� no. 10-11 ( 1925), 175-202.
V. K[uibyshev], "Basmacheskii front," ZhN, no. 16/73, .2 June 19.20.
I. Kutiakov, Krasnaia konnitsa i vozdushnyi -flot v pustyniakh - 1924 god (Moscow­
Leningrad, 1930; CSt-H).
A. Maier, ed., Boevye epizody- Basmachestvo v Bukhare (Moscow-Tashkent, 1934;
CSt-H).
K. Okay (pseud.) Enver Pascha, der grosse Freund Deutschlands (Berlin, [ 1935];
NN). A fictionalized but well-informed account.
G. Skalov, "Sotsial'naia priroda basmachestva v Turkestane," ZhN, no. 3-4 ( 1923),
51-6.2.
[K.] Vasilevskii, "Fazy basmacheskogo dvizheniia v Srednei Azii," NV, no. .29,
( 1930), 1.26-41.
d. The British in Turkestan
F. M. Bailey, Mission to Tashkent (London, 1946).
L. V. S. Blacker, On Secret Patrol in High Asia (London, 1922).
V. A. Gurko-Kriazhin, "Angliiskaia interventsiia v 1918-1919 gg. v Zakaspii i
Zakavkaz'e," IM, no. .2 ( 1926), 115-40.
W. Malleson, "The British Military Mission to Turkestan, 1918-.20," The Journal
of the Royal Central Asian Society, IX, pt. .2 ( 1922), 96-110.
F. WilHort, Turkestanisches Tagebuch (Vienna, 1930).
J. K. Tod, "The Malleson Mission to Transcaspia in 1918," The Journal of the
Royal Central Asian Society, XXVII, pt. 1 ( 1940), 45-67.

V
T H E CA U CAS U S
I, GENERAL

Among studies dealing with the Revolution on the territory of Transcaucasia, the
most recent and most complete is F. Kazemzadeh, The Struggle for Transcaucasia
(1917-1921) (New York, 1951). S. T. Arkomed, Materialy po istorii otpadeniia
Zakavkaz'ia ot Rossil (Tillis, 1923; CSt-H); A. P. Stavrovskii, Zakavkaz'e posle
Oktiabria (Moscow-Leningrad, 1925; CSt-H), and S. E. Sef, Revoliutsiia 1917
goda v Zakavkaz'i ( [Tillis], 1927; DLC), contain documents and other primary
materials. Two French secondary works are useful: J. Loris-Melikov, La Revolution
russe et les nouvelles republiques transcaucasiennes (Paris, 1920), and E. Hippeau,
Les Republiques du Caucase (Paris, 1920; Brit. Mus.). The journal Promethee and
La Revue de Promethee (Paris; CSt-H and NN) deal largely with the national
problem in Soviet Caucasus. See also the following sources:
R. Arskii, Kavkaz i ego znachenie dlia Sovetskoi Rossii (Peterburg, 1921; DLC).
0, Baldwin, Six Prisons and Two Revolutions ( Garden City, 1925 ) .
L. Beria, On the History of the Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia (London,
1939).
J. Buchan, ed., The Baltic and Caucasian States (London, 1923).
P. G. La Chesnais, Les Peuples de la Transcaucasie pendant la guerre et devant la
paix (Paris, 19.21; DLC).
322 BIBLI O GRAPHY

B. Iskhanian, Narodnosti Kavkaza ( Petrograd, 1916; CSt-H ) .


P. Kentmann, Der Kaukasus - 150 Jahre russischer Herrschaft ( Leipzig (1943],
CSt-H ) .
S. M. Kirov, Stat'i, rechi, dokumenty, I ( (Leningrad], 1936 ) .
F. S . Krasifnikov, Kavkaz i ego obitateli ( Moscow, 1919; CSt-H ) .
M . D . Orakhelashvili, Zakavkazskie bol'shevistskie organizatsii v 1917 godu ( (Tillis],
1927; CSt-H ) .
G. K . Ordzhonikidze, Izbrannye stat'i i rechi, 1911-1937 ( [Moscow], 1939 ) .
M . E. Rasul-Zade, 0 Panturanizme - V sviazi s kavkazskoi problemoi ( Paris, 1930;
CSt-H ) .
A . Sanders [A. Nikuradze], Kaukasien, Nordkaukasien, Aserbeidschan, Georgien,
Armenien - geschichtlicher Umriss ( Munich, 1944; CSt-H ) .
S . E. Sef, Bor'ba za Oktiabr' v Zakavkaz'i ( [Tillis], 1932; NNC ) .
N. P . Stel'mashchuk, ed., Kavkazskii kalendar' na 1917 god ( Tiflis, 1916 ) .
K . Zetkin, Im befreiten Kaukasus ( Berlin, [ 1926] ; NN ) .
M . Zhakov, S . Sef, and G. Khachapuridze, Istoriia klassovoi bor'by v Zakavkaz'i,
I ( Tiflis, 1930; Doc. Int. ) .

II. THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS AND DAGHESTAN

a. For the Northern Caucasus the most important works, both containing nu­
merous documents, are : I. Borisenko, Sovetskie respubliki na Severnom Kavkaze v
1918 godu (2 vols.; Rostov on Don, 1930; DLC ) , and N. L. Ianchevskii, Grazhdan­
skaia bor'ba na Severnom Kavkaze, I ( Rostov on Don, 1927; NN ) . Other works are :
A. Avtorkhanov, K osnovnym voprosam istorii Chechni ( [Groznyi], 1930; CSt-H ) .
--- Revoliutsiia i kontrrevoliutsiia v Chechne ( Croznyi, 1933; Doc. Int. ) .
H . Bammate, The Caucasus Problem ( Berne, 1919; CSt-H ) .
N. F. Iakovlev, Ingushi ( Moscow, 1925; CSt-H ) .
V. P. Pozhidaev, Gortsy Severnogo Kavkaza ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1926; NN ) .
M . Svechnikov, Bor'ba krasnoi armii n a Severnom Kavkaze - Sentiabr' 1918-Apref
1919 ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1926; Doc. Int. ) .
b . For Daghestan an essential work is A. A. Takho-Godi, Revoliutsiia i kontr­
revoliutsiia v Dagestane ( Makhach-Kala, 1927; DLC ) . N. Emirov, Ustanovlenie
sovetskoi vlasti v Dagestane i bor'ba s germano-turetskimi interventami, 1917-19 gg.
( Moscow, 1949; DLC ) , is a recent official history. See also :
N. Samurskii [Efendiev], Dagestan ( Moscow, 1925 ) .
--- "Grazhdanskaia voina v Dagestane," NV, III ( 1923 ) , 230-40.
--- Itogo i perspektivy sovetskol vlasti v Dagestane ( Makhach-Kala, 1927;
DLC ) .
"Krasnyi Dagestan," in V. Stavskii, ed., Dagestan ( Moscow, 1936; NN ) ,
5-32.
--- ..Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia i dal'neishie etapy ee razvitiia v Dagestane," PR,
no. 10/33 ( 1924 ) , 83-104.
TsIK, Dagestanskaia ASSR, Desiat' let avtonomii DASSR ( Makhach-Kala� 1931;
NN ) .
A. Todorskii, Krasnaia armiia v gorakh ( Moscow, 1924; Doc. Int. ) .

m. AZERBAIJAN
a. Official
Claims of the Peace Delegation of the Republic of Caucasian Azerbatd;an Pre­
sented to the Peace Conference in Paris ( Paris, 1919; NNC ) and [The] Economic
and Financial Situation of Caucasian Azerbaid;an ( Paris, 1919; NNC ) are of value.
THE CAUCA SUS 323
The journal of the Historical Section of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, Istpart
AzKP ( b ) , Iz proshlogo ( Baku; Doc. Int., incomplete ) , contains many pertinent
articles and memoirs.

b. Bibliographies
A. V. Bagrii, Materialy dlia Bibliografii Azerbaidzhana ( Baku, 1.924-26; NN ) .
c. Secondary Sources
The literature on Azerbaijan during the 1.91.7-1.923 period is voluminous. S.
Belen'kii and A. Manvelov, Revoliutsiia 1917 g. v Azerbaidzhane - ( khronika
sobytii) ( Baku, 1.927; NN ) , is a detailed chronicle. Ia. A. Ratgauzer, Revoliutsiia i
grazhdanskaia voina v Baku, I ( Baku, 1.927; CSt-H ) , is the most complete history
of the subject from the Bolshevik point of view. M. E. Resul-Zade, Azerbajdzan w
walce o niepodleglos6 ( Warsaw, 1938; in Polish; private ) , and M. Z. Mirza-Bala,
Milli Azerbaycan Hareketi ( [Berlin], 1938; in Turkish; private ) , represent the anti­
Soviet viewpoint. The latter is a valuable history of the Mussavat Party. Other
works are:
M. D. Bagirov, Iz istorii bol'shevistskoi organizatsii Baku i Azerbaidzhana ( Moscow,
' 1946 ).
A. Dubner, "Bakinskii proletariat v bor'be za vlast' ( 1918-20 gg. ) ," PR, no. 9
( 1930) , 1.9-45.
--- Bakinskii proletariat v gody revoliutsii ( 191 7-1920 ) ( Baku, 1931; CSt-H ) .
L. C . Dunsterville, The Adventures of Dunsterforce ( London, 1.920 ) .
G. Gasanov and N . Sarkisov, "Sovetskaia vlast' v Baku v 1.918 godu," IM, no. 5/69
( l. 938 ) , 32-70.
M.-D. Guseinov Tiurkskaia demokraticheskaia partiia federalistov 'Musavat' v
proshlom i nastoiashchem, pt. 1 ( [Tillis], 1927; CSt-H ) .
T. Guseinov Oktiabr' v Azerbaidzhane ( Baku 1927; NN } .
M . S . Iskenderov, Iz istorii bor'by Kommunisticheskoi partii Azerbaidzhana za pobedu
sovetskoi vlasti ( Moscow, 1958 ) .
B. Iskhanian Kontr-revoliutsiia v Zakavkaz'e ( Baku 1919; CSt-H ) .
--- Velikie uzhasy v gorode Baku ( Tillis 1920; CSt-H ) .
G. Jaeschke, "Die Republik Aserbeidschan," Die Welt des Islams, XXIII, no. 1-2
( 1941 ) , 55-69 ( NN ) .
A. G. Karaev, Iz nedavnego proshlogo ( [Baku, 1926] ; NN ).
A. Karinian, Shaumian i natsionalisticheskie techeniia na Kavkaze ( Baku, 1928;
CSt-H ) .
V. N. Khudadov, "Sovremennyi Azerbaidzhan," NV, no. 3 ( 1923 ) , 167-89.
M. Kuliev, Vragi Oktiabria v Azerbaidzhane ( Baku, 1927; NN ) .
H. Munschi, Die Republik Aserbeidschan ( Berlin, 1930; NN ) .
N. Narimanov, Stat'i i pis'ma ( [Moscow, 1925] ; NN ) .
N. Pchelin, Krest'ianskii vopros pri Musavate ( 1918-1920 ) ( Baku, 1931; Doc. Int. ) .
A. L. Popov, "Revoliutsiia v Baku," Byloe, XXII ( 1923 ) , 278-312.
"Iz istorii revoliutsii v Vostochnom Zakavkaz'e ( 1917-18 gg. )," PR,
no. 5/28 ( 1924 ) , pp. 13-35; no 7/30 ( 1924 ), pp. 110-43; no. 8-9/31-32
( 1924 ) , pp. 99-116; no. 11 /34 ( 1924 ), pp. 137-61.
A. Raevskii, Partiia M usavat i ee kontr-revoliutsionnaia rabota ( Baku, 1929; NN ) .
--- Angliiskie 'druz'ia' i musavatskie 'patrioty' ( Baku, 1.927; NN ) .
--- Bol'shevizm i men'shevizm v Baku v 1 904-05 gg. ( Baku, 1930; NN ) .
--- Angliiskaia interventsiia i musavatskoe pravitel'stvo ( Baku, 1927 ) , An im-
tant source.
Ia. A. Ratgauzer, Bor'ba za Sovetskii Azerbaidzhan ( Baku, 1928; NN ) .
Sarkis [N. Sarkisov], Bor'ba z a vlast' ( [Baku], 1930; Brit. Mus. ) .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
S. E. Sef, Kak bol'sheviki prishli k vlasti v 1917-18 gg. v bakinskom raione ( Baku,
1927; NN ) .
--- "Bakinskii Oktiabr'," PR, no. 11/106 (1930 ) , 67-89.
--- "Iz istorii bor'by za natsionalizatsiiu neftianoi promyshlennosti," IM, no.
18/19 ( 1930 ) , 29-62 (NN ).
J. Schafir, Die Ermordung der 26 Kommunare in Baku [sic!] und die Partei der
Sozialrevolutionaere ( Hamburg, 1922; NN ) .
M. Shakhbazov, "Gandzha do i pri sovetvlasti," Iz proshlogo ( Baku ) , no. z
(1924 ), 101-07 (Doc. Int. ) .
S[tepan] G. Shaumian, Stat'i i rechi ( [Baku], 1924; CSt-H ) .
S[uren] Shaumian, "Bakinskaia kommuna 1918 goda," PR, no. 12/59 ( 1926 ) , 70-
112.
--- Bakinskaia kommuna ( Baku, 1927; CSt-H ) .
A. Steklov, Armiia musavatskogo Azerbaidzhana (Baku, 1928; Doc. Int. ) .
--- Krasnaia armiia Azerbaidzhana ( Baku, 1928; NN ) .
E . A. Tokarzhevskii, Ocherki istorii sovetskogo Azerbaidzhana v period perekhoda na
mirnuiu rabotu po vosstanovleniiu narodnogo khoziaistva ( 1921-1925 gg.)
(Baku, 1956 ) .
IV. ARMENIA
S. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetouthiun [The Republic of Armenia], (Paris,
1928; private; in Armenian ) , is the most thorough account of Armenian his­
tory, 1917-1921, from the Dashnak point of view. A. N. Mandelstam, La So­
ciete des Nations et les puissances devant le probleme armenien ( Paris, 1926 ) ,
deals with the foreign relations of the Armenian Republic. B. A. Bor'ian, Armeniia,
mezhdunarodnaia diplomatiia i SSSR ( 2 vols.; Moscow-Leningrad, 1928-29 ) , is a
badly written but very useful early Soviet account. J. G. Harbord, "American Military
Mission to Armenia," International Conciliation ( New York ) , no. 151 ( June 1920 ) ,
275-312, is a non-partisan view of internal conditions in the Armenian Republic
written by the head of the American mission there. See also:
A. N., "Kommunizm v Armenii," Kommunisticheskii Internatsional, II, no. 13 ( 1920 ) ,
2543-50.
Bakinskii Armianskii Natsional'nyi Sovet, Armiano-gruzinskii vooruzhennyi konflikt
( Baku, 1919; NN ).
H. Barby, La Debacle russe (Paris, [1918]; NN ) .
--- Les Extravagances bolcheviques et l'epopee armenienne ( Paris, n.d.; CSt-H ) .
E. Bremond, La Cilicie en 1919-1920 ( Paris, 1921; private ) .
Comite Central du Parti 'Daschnaktzoutioun,' L'Action du Parti S.R. Armenien dit
'Daschnaktzoutioun,' 191 4-1923 (Paris, 1923; Brit. Mus. ) .
Delegation de la Republique armenienne, L'Armenie et la question armenienne
( Paris, 1922; private ) .
A. Gukovskii, "Pobeda sovetskoi vlasti v Armenii v 1920 godu," IM, no. 1 1 ( 1940 ) ,
8-17.
A. P. Hacobian, Armenia and the War (New York, [1917] ) .
L. R. Hartill, Men Are Like That ( Indianapolis, 1928 ) .
G. Jaeschke, "Urkunden zum Frieden von Giimrii (Alexandropol ) ," Mitteilungen
des Seminars fuer orientalische Sprachen (Berlin ) , XXXVII, pt. z (1934 ) ,
133-42.
a
G. Korganoff, La Participation des Armeniens la Guerre Mondiale sur le Front
du Caucase ( 1914-1918 ) (Paris, 1927 ) .
J. G. Mandalian, Who Are the DashnagsP ( Boston, 1944; NNC ) .
A. F. Miasnikov, Armianskie politicheskie partii za rubezhom ( Tiflis, 1925; NN ) .
F. Nansen, Armenia and the Near East (London, 1928 ) .
THE CAUCA S U S 325
A. Poidebard, ed., L e Transcaucase et la republique d'Armenie ( Paris, 1924; DLC ) .
Programma armianskoi revoliutsionnoi i sotsialisticheskoi partii Dashnakstutiun
( Geneva, 1908; NNC ) .
V. Totomiantz, L'Armenie economique (Paris, 1920 ) .
M. Varandian, Le Confl,it armeno-georgien et la guerre du Caucase ( Paris, 1919 ;
DLC ) .
S. Vratzian, "How Armenia Was Sovietized," The Armenian Review, I-II, nos. 1-5
(1948-49 ) , pp. 74-84 ; 79-91; 59-75; 87-103; 118-27.
V, GEORGIA

a. Official Publications of the Georgian Democratic Republic


The most important publication of the Menshevik-dominated government is
Georgia, Ministerstvo Vneshnikh Del, Dokumenty i materialy po vneshnei politike
Zakavkaz'ia i Gruzii (Tillis, 1919; CSt-H ) , which contains a wealth of primary
material concerning the foreign relations and domestic policies of the state. Other
publications bearing the official seal of the government or the Social Democratic
Party both before and after the Bolshevik invasion of 1921 contain, along with
much propaganda, some valuable information. Among them are:
a
Delegation georgienne a la Conference de la Paix, Memoire presente la Conference
de la Paix ( Paris, 1919; private ).
Assemblee Constituante de la Republique georgienne, La Georgie sous la domination
des armees bolchevistes (Paris, 1921; NN ) .
Com. Central du Parti S-D de Georgie, L'Internationale socialiste et la Georgie
(Paris, 1921; Brit. Mus. ) .
Bureau de Presse georgien, L e Proletariat georgien contre l'imperialisme bolcheviste
(Constantinople, 1921; Brit. Mus. ) .
Assemblee Constituante de l a Republique georgienne, Le Peuple georgien contre
l'occupation bolcheviste russe ( [Paris, 1922]; CSt-H ) .
Foreign Bureau, S-D Labour Party of Georgia, Documents of the Social-Democratic
Labour Party of Georgia ( London, 1925; Brit. Mus. ) .
a
Republique d e Georgie, Documents relatifs la question de la Georgie devant la
Societe des Nations (Paris, 1925 ) .
Traite conclu le 7 Mai 1920 entre la Republique democratique de Georgie et la
Republique Socialiste Federative Sovietiste Russe . . . (Paris, 1922 ) .
The daily newspaper Borba (Tiflis, 1917-1921; private and CSt-H ) which
served as the organ of the Central Committee of the Georgian Social-Democratic
Party is an extremely useful source.
b. Non-Communist Secondary Sources
The most comprehensive study of independent Georgia is W. S. Woytinsky,
La Democratie georgienne (Paris, 1921 ). Very sympathetic and optimistic accounts
are : Karl Kautsky, Georgia - A Social Democratic Peasant Republic (London, 1921 ) ,
and E . Kuhne, L a Georgie libre (Geneva, 1920; Brit. Mus. ) . Z. Avalishvili, The
Independence of Georgia in International Politics ( 1918-1921 ) (London, [1940] ) ,
contains a critical account of Georgia's foreign policy. Other general accounts are:
P. Gentizon, La Resurrection georgienne (Paris, 1921 ) .
A. Ibels, Liberons la Georgie/ ( Paris, 19 1 9 ) .
J. Kawtaradze, Gruzja w zarysie historycznym (Warsaw, 1929; NNC ) .
J. Martin, Lettres de Georgie (Geneva, 1920; Brit. Mus. ) .
I. Tseretelli, Separation de la Transcaucasie et de la Russie et l'independance de la
Georgie (Paris, 19 19 ) .
Economic problems and policies are treated in:
B I BLIOGRAPHY
V. Babet, Les Richesses naturelles de la Georgie - Richesses minieres ( Paris, 1920;
Brit. Mus. ) .
D. Ghambashidze, Mineral Resources of Georgia and Caucasia (London [ 19 19];
Boston Public Library ).
A. Hatschidze, Georgien ( Innsbruck, 1926; Brit. Mus.).
M. Khomeriki, La Reforme agraire et l'economie rurale en Georgie ( Paris, 1921;
CSt-H ) .
V. Serwy, La Georgie cooperative sous le regime bolcheviste ( Brussels, 1922; CSt-H).
Relations with Soviet Russia and other powers are treated in:
[G. Bessedowski], "L'occupation de la Georgie par la Russie Sovietique," Promethee,
V ( 1930), 12-14.
J. Braunthal, Vom Kommunismus zum Imperialismus (Wien, 1922).
K. Chavichvily, "Trotski et la Georgie," Promethee (Paris), IV, no. 29 ( 1929 ) ,
16-19.
L. Coquet, Les Heritiers de la 'toison d'or' ( Chaumont, 1 930).
R. Duguet, Moscou et la Georgie martyre ( Paris, [ 1927]; CSt-H ) .
Karibi, Krasnaia kniga ( Tillis, 1920; CSt-H).
A. Palmieri, "La Georgia e i Soviety," Politica (Rome ) , XXII ( 1925), 128-59.
c. Communist Publications
The most important account of the events transpiring in Georgia between 1917
and 1921 from the Georgian Bolshevik viewpoint is F. Makharadze, Sovety i bor'ba
za sovetskuiu vlast' v Gruzii, 1 9 1 7-21 (Tiflis, 1928; CSt-H } . The Stalinist history by
G. V. Khachapuridze, Bol'sheviki Gruzii v boiakh za pobedu sovetskoi vlasti ( Moscow,
1951), is of very limited value. The early numbers of the paper of the Central
Committee, Communist Party of Georgia, Zaria vostoka ( Tillis, 1921; DLC, incom­
plete ) are of much use.
Among works published since 1957 the most informative is a collection of docu­
ments on the period following Soviet occupation : Akademiia Nauk Gruzinskoi SSR,
Bor'ba za uprochenie Sovetskoi vlasti v Gruzii ( Tiflis, 1959). G. Zhvaniia, "V. I. Lenin
i partiinaia organizatsiia Gruzii v period bor'by za sovetskuiu vlast'," Zariia Vostoka
( Tillis ), no. 54, 2 1 April 1961, deals with the invasion of Georgia in 1921. See also:
M. Amia, Put' gruzinskoi zhirondy (Tiflis, 1926; CSt-H ).
V. E. Bibineishvili, Za chetvert' veka ( Moscow, 1931; CSt-H).
"Demokraticheskoe pravitel'stvo Gruzii i angliiskoe komandovanie," KA, XXI ( 1927),
122-73.
G. Devdariani, Dni gospodstva men'shevikov v Gruzii ( [Tillis], 1931; CSt-H ) .
E . Dra bkina, Gruzinskaia kontr-revo'liutsiia . ( Leningrad, 1928 }.
F. Z. Glonti, Men'shevistskaia i sovetskaia Gruziia ( Moscow, 1923; NN ) .
V. S . Kirillov and A. Ia. Sverdlov, Grigorii Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze ( Sergo ) -
Biografiia ( Moscow, 1962 ) .
A. Kopadze, Desiaf let bor'by i pobed ( Tillis, 1931; NN ) .
Kommunisticheskaia Partiia ( b } Gruzii, Otchet ti-flisskogo komiteta - Mart 1923
goda-Mart 1924 goda ( Tillis, 1924 ; Doc. Int. } .
[F.] Makharadze, Diktatura men'shevistskoi partii v Gruzii ( [Moscow], 1921).
N. Meshcheriakov, V men'shevistskom raiu - iz vpechatlenii poezdki v Gruziiu
( Moscow, 1921 ) .
G. K. Ordzhonikidze, Stat'i i rechi, I (Moscow, 1956 ) .
A. Popov, "lz epokhi angliiskoi interventsii v Zakavkaz'e," PR, no. 6-7 ( 1923), pp.
22 2-74 ; no. 8 ( 1923 ), pp. 95- 132; no. g ( 1923 ), pp. 185-217.
RSFSR-Narkomindel, RSFSR i Gruzinskaia Demokraticheskaia Respublika - ikh
vzaimootnosheniia ( Moscow, 1921 ) .
Ruben, "V tiskakh men'shevistskoi 'demokratii,' " PR, no. 8 ( 1923 ) , 133-55.
T H E E S T A B L I S H M E N T O F THE U S S R
S . E . Sef, "Demokraticheskoe pravitel'stvo" Gruzii i angliiskoe komandovanie
( [Tillis], 1928; DLC ).
Ia. M. Shaflr, Grazhdanskaia voina v Rossii i men'shevistskaia Gruziia (Moscow,
1921; NN ) .
--- Ocherki gruzinskoi zhirondy ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1925; CSt-H ) .
L. Trotsky, Mezhdu imperializmom i revoliutsiei ( Berlin, 1922 ) .
I . P . Vardin, "Smert' gruzinskogo men'shevizma," Krasnaia nov' ( Moscow ) , no. 6/16
( 1923 ) , 229-5 1 ( NN ) .
VKP ( b ) Zakavkazskii Kraevoi Komitet, Chetvert' veka bor'by za sotsializm ( Tiflis,
1923; NN ) .

VI

THE ESTABLISHM ENT O F THE USSR

I. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUM:ENTS
Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii Rabochego i Krest'ianskogo Pravitel'stva,
Sistematicheskii sbornik vazhneishikh dekretov, 1 9 1 7-1920 ( Moscow, 192 1 ) , con­
tains texts of decrees, some of which bear upon the subject of the consolidation of
the state aparatus. RSFSR, Narodnyi komissariat po inostrannym delam, Sbornik
deistvuiushchikh dogovorov, soglashenii i konventsii, zakliuchennykh RSFSR s inos­
trannymi stranami ( 2nd ed.; 3 vols.; Moscow-Peterburg 1921-22 ) , and lu. V.
Kliuchnikov and A. Sabanin, Mezhdunarodnaia politika noveishego vremeni v
dogovorakh, notakh i deklaratsiiakh ( 3 vols.; Moscow, 1925-29 ) cite texts of the
agreements between the RSFSR and the republics.
The most important publications to have appeared since 1957 bear on the role of
Lenin in the formation of the Soviet Union, and his disagreements with Stalin over this
matter. The key documents have been published in the fourth edition of Lenin's
Works, V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia, XXXVI ( Moscow, 1957 ) and Leninskii Sbornik,
XXXVI ( 1959 ) . Some of these have appeared earlier outside Soviet Russia.
II. STENOGRAPHIC REPORTS OF PARTY AND SOVIET CONGRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS
VKP ( b ) , Desiatyi s"ezd RKP ( b ) ( Moscow, 1933 ) .
IML, Odinadtsatyi s "ezd RKP ( b ) - stenograficheskii otchet ( Moscow, 196 1 ) .
RKP ( b ) , Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd - stenograficheskii otchet ( Moscow, 1923; NN ) .
TsK, RKP ( b ) , Rossiiskaia Kommunisticheskaia Partiia ( bol'shevikov ) v rezoliutsiiakh
ee s"ezdov i konferentsii ( 1 898-1922 gg. ) ( Moscow-Petrograd, 1923 ) .
Desiatyi vserossiiskii s"ezd sovetov ( Moscow, 1923 ) .
TsIK, SSSR, I s"ezd sovetov Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik ­
stenograficheskii otchet ( Moscow, [ 1923] ) .
III, STUDIES OF SOVIET FEDERALISM IN THE 192o's
Of secondary works, the most important by far is S. I. Iakubovskaia's Stroitel'stvo
soiuznogo Sovetskogo sotsialisticheskogo gosudarstva, 1 922-1925 gg. ( Moscow, 1960 ) ;
based on a rich selection of archival materials, it is quite jndispensable despite its
faithful adherence to the current official interpretation of historical events. S. S. Gililov,
in V. I. Lenin - organizator Sovetskogo mnogonatsional'nogo gosudarstva ( Moscow,
1960 ) also uses archival sources. Vital information on Lenin's activities in late 1922
is recorded in the log of his secretary, "Novyi dokument o zhizni i deiatel'nosti
BIBLIOGRAPHY

V. I . Lenina," Voprosy istorii KPSS, no. 2 ( 1963 ) , 67-91 ; cf. L . A . Fotieva, "Iz
vospominanii o V. I. Lenine," Ibid. no. 4 ( 1957 ) , 147-67.
I. N. Ananov, Ocherki federal'nogo upravleniia SSSR ( Leningrad, 1925 ) .
N. N. Alekseev, "Sovetskii federalizm," Evraziiskii vremennik ( Paris ) , v ( 1927 ) ,
240-61.
K. Arkhippov, "Tipy sovetskoi avtonomii," VS, nos. 8-9 ( 1923 ) , pp. 28-44; no. 10
( 1923 ) , pp. 35-56.
S. N. Dranitsyn, Konstitutsiia SSSR i RSFSR v otvetakh na voprosy ( Leningrad,
1924 ) .
V. Durdenevskii, "Na putiakh k russkomu federal'nomu pravu," Sovetskoe pravo, no.
1/4 ( 1923 ) , 20-35.
Z. B. Genkina, Lenin - predsetadel' Sovnarkoma i STO, ( Moscow, 1960 ) .
G. S. Gurvich, "Avtonomizm i federalizm v sovetskoi sisteme," VS, no. 1 ( 1924 ) ,
24-29.
--- Istoriia sovetskoi konstitutsii ( Moscow, 1923 ) .
--- "Printsipy avtonomizma i federalizma v sovetskoi sisteme," Sovetskoe pravo,
no. 3/9 ( 1934 ) , 3-39.
--- Osnovy sovetskoi konstitutsii ( Moscow, 1926 ) .
S. N. Harper, The Government of the Soviet Union ( New York, [1938] ) .
V. I . I gnat' ev, Sovetskii stroi ( Moscow, 1928 ) .
--- Sovet Natsional'nostei TsK SSSR ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1926 ) .
S. A . Korf, "Vozmozhna-li v Rossii federatsiia?" Sovremennyia zapiski ( Paris ) , III
( 192 1 ) , 173-g o.
S. B. Krylov, "Istoricheskii protsess razvitiia sovetskogo federalizma," Sovetskoe
pravo, no. 5/ 11 ( 1924 ) , 36-66. A well-documented account.
D. A. Magerovskii, Soiuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik - ( obzor i ma­
terialy ) ( Moscow, 1923 ) . One of the most valuable studies, important for
its source materials.
V. V. Pentkovskaia, "Rol' V. I. Lenina v obrazovanii SSSR," VI, no. 3 ( 1956 ) , 13-24.
B. D. Pletnev, "Gosudarstvennaia struktura RSFSR," Pravo i zhizn', no. 1 ( 1922 ) ,
26-30.
Kh. Rakovskii, "Rossiia i Ukraina," Kommunisticheskii Internatsional, no. 12 ( 1920 ) ,
pp. 2 197-2202.
M. 0. Reikhel, ed., Sovetskii federalizm ( Moscow, 1930; NN ) .
M . Reisner, "Soiuz Sotsialisticheskikh Sovetskikh Respublik," VS, nos. 1-2 ( 1923 ) ,
9-24.
P. I. Stuchka, Uchenie o gosudarstve i o konstitutsii RSFSR ( Moscow, 1922 ) .
N. S . Timashev, "Problema natsional'nago prava v Sovetskoi Rossii," Sovremennyia
zapiski, XXIX ( 1926 ) , 379-99.
B. D. Wolfe, "The Influence of Early Military Decisions upon the National Struc­
ture of the Soviet Union," The American Slavic and East European Review,
IX ( 1950 ) , 169-79.
NOTES

THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN RUSSIA

1. N. A. Troinitskii, ed., Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis' naseleniia Rossiiskoi Imperil,


1897 g., Obshchii svod, II (St. Petersburg, 1905), 1-19.
2. Slavinskii, in Formy natsional'nago dvizheniia, 284.
3, Cf. B. E. Nol'de, "Edinstvo i nerazdel'nost' Rossii," Ocherki russkago gowdar­
stvennago prava (St. Petersburg, 1911), 223-554, which contains an excellent
historical survey of this problem.
4. Nol'de, "Edinstvo," 468-554; N. M. Korkunov, Russkoe gosudarstvennoe pravo,
I (St. Petersburg, 1899), 340-50; S. V. lushkov, Istoriia gosudarstva i prava
SSSR, I (Moscow, 1940), 478-79,
5. V. Ivanovskii, "Administrativnoe ustroistvo nashikh okrain," Uchenyia zapiski
Imperatorskago Kazanskago Universiteta, LVIII (1891), no. 6, 31-37.
6. G. B. Sliozberg, Dorevoliutsionnyi stroi Rossii (Paris, 1933), 78-79.
7. Samostiina Ukraina-RUP (Wetzlar, 1917).
8. Protokoly konferentsii rossiiskikh natsional'no-sotsialisticheskikh partli (St.
Petersburg, 1908), 94-95.
9. Kastelianskii, Fonny, 383-95; V. B. Stankevich, Sud'by narodov Rossii (Berlin,
1921), 20-37.
10, L. Rubinshtein, V bor'be za leninsk-uiu natsional'nuiu politiku {Kazan, 1930),
30-32.
11. V. Utz, Die Besitzverhaeltnisse der Tatarenbauern im Kreise Simferopol (Tue­
bingen, 1911), 146.
12. S. A. Usov, Istoriko-ekonomicheskie ocherki Kryma (Simferopol, 1925), 53.
13. This and all other population statistics for 1897 are from the official Russian
census of that year: Troinitskii, Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis'.
14. See E. Kirimal, Der nationale Kampf der Krimtuerken, mit besonderer Berueck­
sichtigung der Jahre 1917-1918 (Emsdetten, 1952), g-12; D. Validov, Ocherki
istorii obrazovannosti i literatury Tatar (do revoliutsii 1917 g.) (Moscow, 1923),
15. S. Rybakov, "Statistika Musuhnan v Rossii," Mir Islama, II, no. 11 (1913),
762-63; see also Mir Islama, II (1913), 193-94.
16. N. Ostroumov, "K istorii musul'manskogo obrazovatel'nogo dvizheniia v Rossii
v XIX v XX stoletiiakh," Mir Islama, II, no. 5 (1913), 312.
17. See stenographic reports of the Third Congress, Umum R-usya Musiilmanlarimn
3ncii Resmt Nedvesi (Kazan, 19o6; Tarih Kurumu Libra:..-y, Ankara), Resolu­
tion V, Articles 28-30.
18, G. G. Ibragimov, Tatary v revoliutsii 1905 goda (Kazan, 1926).
19. M. Z. Mirza-Bala, Milli Azerbaycan Hareketi ([Berlin], 1938}, and M.-D.
Guseinov, Ti-urkskaia demokraticheskaia partiia federalistov 'Musavat' v proshlom
i nastoiashchem, pt. 1 ( [Tillis], 1927), 71-78.
20. N. P. Stel'mashchuk, ed., Kavkazskii Kalendar' na 1917 god (Tillis, 1916),
234-37.
21. Z. Avalov, in Kastelianskii, Formy, 482-85.
22. K. Zalevskii, "Natsional'nyia dvizheniia," Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Rossii
o nachale XX oe� IV, pt. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1911), 227.
330 NOTES TO CHAPTER I
23. S. F. Tigranian in Kastelianskii, Formy, 505-06.
24. Protokoly konferentsii rossiiskikh natsional'no-sotsiallsticheskikh partii, passim.
25. Programma armlanskoi revoliutsionnol i sotsialisticheskoi partii Dashnaktsutiun
(Geneva, 1908; NNC).
26. Ibid.
27. Cf. I. Borisenlco, Sovetskie respublikl na Severnom Kavkaze o 1918 godu, II
(Rostov on Don, 1930), 23; also V. P. Pozhidaev, Gortsy Severnogo Kaokaza
(Moscow, 1926).
28. F. Engels, Po und Rhein (Stuttgart, 1915), 51.
29. F, Engels, "Gewalt und Oekonomie," NZ, XIV, no, 1 ( 1895-96), 679,
30, F. Engels, in 1852; quoted by H. Cunow, Die Marxsche Geschichts- Gesell­
schafts- und Staatstheorie, II (Berlin, 1923), 13; see also K. Marx, Revolution
and Counter-revolution; or Germany in 1848 (London-New York, 1896),
62-64.
31. Articles in Przeglqd Socfaldemokratyczny, partly printed in M. Velikovskii
and I. Levin, eds., Natsional'nyl oopros ([Moscow], 1931). Paul Froelich,
Rosa Luxemburg (London, 1940), 45.
32. Verhandlungen des Gesamtparteitages der Sozialdemokratie in Oesterreich
(Bruenn) (Vienna, 1899), 74-75.
33. Ibid., 85ff.
34. Ibid., 104.
35, K. Renner, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen, I (Leipzig-Vienna,
1918), 23-24.
36. Bauer, Die Nationalitaetenfrage, 105.
37. Ibid., 353.
38. L. [or lu.] Martov, Nooaia epokha v evreiskom rabochem doizhenii ( 1895),
quoted in M. Rafes, Ocherki po istorii "Bunda" ([Moscow], 1923), 32, 35.
39. Encyclopaedia ]udaica (Berlin, 1928ff), IV, 1208.
40. Ibid.
41, V. Medem, Sotsialdemok-ratiia i natsional'nyi vopros ( St. Petersburg, 1906),
and "Natsional'noe dvizhel]ie i natsional'nyia sotsialisticheskiia partii v Rossii,"
in Kastelianskii, Formy, 747-98; [V. Kossovskii], K voprosu o natsional'noi ao­
tonornii i preobrazovanii Ros. sots.-demokr. rabochei partii na federativnykh
nachalakh ( London, 1902).
42. Protokoly konferentsii rossiiskikh natsional'no-sotsialisticheskikh partii.
43. Zakonodatel'nyia proekty i predpolozheniia Partii Narodnoi Svobody, 1905-
1907 gg. (St. Petersburg, 1907), pp. xi-xix.
44. F. F. Kokoshkin, Avtonomiia i federatsiia (Petrograd, 1917), 7.
45. A. R. Lednitskii, in Pervaia Gosundarstoennaia Duma, 154-67.
46. Cf. P. Struve's articles: "Chto zhe takoe Rossiia?" in Russkala mysl', XX.XII
(January 1911), 184-87; "Obshcherusskaia kul'tura i ukrainskii partikularizm,"
ibid., XXXIII (January 1912) pt. 2, 65-86; "Neskol'ko slov po ukrainskomu
voprosu," ibid., XXXIV (January 1913), pt. 2, 10-11.
47. On the views of the founders of Russian non-Marxist socialism, see M. Borisov,
"Sotsializm i problema natsional'noi avtonomii," SR, no. z ( 1910), 227-64.
48. Protokoly pervago s"ezda Partii Sotsialistov-Revoliutsionerov (n.p., 1906),
361-62.
49. Ibid., 169-73.
50. Protokoly konferentsii rossiiskikh natsional'no-sotsiallsticheskikh partii, 58.
51. Borisov, "Sotsializm"; A. Savin, "Natsional'nyi vopros i partiia, S-R," SR, no. 3
(1911), 95-146.
52. V. Chernov, "Edinoobrazie ili shablon?" SR, no. 3 (1911), 147-60.
53. Borisov, "Sotsializm," 227; Savin, "Natsional'nyi vopros," 126.
54. G. V. Plekhanov, Sochineniia (Moscow, 1923ff), II, 360, 403; henceforth
referred to as Plekhanoo.
55. [L. Martov], "lz partii,'' Iskra, no. 7 (August 1901).
56. L. Trotsky, Sochineniia (Moscow, 1924ff ), IV, 126.
THE NATIONAL PROBLEM I N RUSSIA 331
57. V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia (ard ed.; Moscow, 1935), IV, 21; henceforth referred
to as Lenin.
58. Iskra, no. 51 (22 October 1903).
59. Programma i ustav RS-DRP {Paris, 1914; NN), 6-7.
60. Cf. discussions at the April 1917 Bolshevik Party Conference in S. M. Diman-
shtein, ed., Reooliutsiia i natsionarnyi vopros, III (Moscow, 1930), 21.
61. Cf. D. Markovich, Aotonomiia i federatsiia (Petrograd, 1917).
62. Plekhanoo, XIII, 264, 268.
63. Ibid., XIX, 525.
64. Kastellanskii, Formy, 783.
65. Lenin, XVI, 709.
66. V. I. Lenin, Izbrannye stat'i po natsionarnomu ooprosu (Moscow-Leningrad,
1925), 201,
67. Plekhanov, XIX,· 434-35.
68. Dimanshtein, Reooliutsiia, III, 96-g7.
69. Lenin, V, 341.
70. Ibid., II, 176.
71. Ibid., V, 98-g9.
72. Ibid., 338-39.
73. Ibid., 337,
74. Ibid., 243.
75. B. D. Wolle, Three Who Made a Revolution (New York, 1948), 580.
76. For details see LS, XXX (1937), where Lenin's reading notes are reproduced.
77. Lenin, XVI, 720-21, 729.
78. Ibid., 729ff.
79. A. Karinian, Shaumian i natsionalistlcheskie techeniia na Kaokaze (Baku, 1928),
7; Shaumian's book (not available to me) bore the title Natsional'nyi oopros
i Sotsial-Demokratiia (Tiflis, 1906). Cf. Wolle, The Three, 584-86.
80. LS, XXX, 7-93.
81. Lenin, XVI, 328.
82. Originally published in Prosveshchenie, it is reprinted in I. V. Stalln, Sochineniia
(Moscow, 1946), II, 290-367, henceforth referred to as Stalin, and in numer­
ous other editions,
83. Stalin, II, 296.
84. Ibid., 301.
85. Bauer, Die Nationalitaetenfrage, 125, 127.
86. Stalin, II, 301; Bauer, ibid., 138.
87. See above, pp. 24-25.
88. Stalin, II, 338.
89. L. Trotsky, Stalin (New York [1941]), 157££; Wolle, Three, 582; B.
Souvarine, Stalin (New York, 1939), 133ff.
go. Souvarine, Stalin, 133.
91. Lenin, XVI, 618.
92. Ibid., XVII, 117.
93. Stalin, II, 300.
94. Lenin, XVII, 427ff.
95. Ibid., XVI, 618.
96. Ibid., XVII, 136ff.
97. Ibid., XVI, 510; also XVII, 65-66.
98. Ibid., XVII, go, 154; XVIII, 82.
99. Ibid., XVI, 507.
100. The foregoing account is based on a number of articles written by Lenin
between the summer of 1913 and the outbreak of the World War; they are
conveniently assembled in Lenin, Izbrannye stat'i.
101. LS, XXX, 128.
102. Lenin, XVIII, 328.
103. Ibid., XVII, go.
332 NOTES TO CHAPTER I

104. Ibid., XVIII, 80-83.


105. LS, XVII, z13-24.
106. L. Martov, "Chto sleduet iz 'prava na natsional'noe samoopredelenie,' " Nash
golos, no. 17-18 (January 1916), in LS, XVII, 251-52.
107. N. Bukharin to Lenin, November 1915, quoted in D. Baevskii, "Bol'sheviki v
bor'be za III Internatsional," IM, XI (1929), 37.
108. K. Radek in Berner Tagwacht, 28-29 October 1915, cited in Lenin, XVIII,
. 323.
109. Lenin, XVII, 17g-81.
110. Ibid., 699-701.
111. LS, XXX, 102.
112. The foregoing account of Lenin's ideas on the national question in the age of
imperialism is based on his articles written during the years of the First World
War, chiefly: "Pod chuzhim flagom," Lenin, XVIII, 101-16; "Revoliutsionnyi
proletariat i pravo natsii na samoopredelenie," ibid., 321-28; "Sotsialisticheskaia
revoliutsiia i pravo natsii na samoopredelenie," ibid., XIX, 37-48; "Itogi dis­
kussii o samoopredelenii," ibid., 239-72; "O karikature na Marksizm i ob
'imperialisticheskom ekonomizme,'" ibid., 191-235.
113. Lenin, XIX, 182.
114. Cf. LS, XVII, 251-52; 3ooff.
115. Baevskii, "Bolsheviki," 39ff; Lenin, XIX, 271.
116. "Statistika i sotsiologiia," LS, XXX, .296-308.

II
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE

1. Sbomik ukazov i postanovlenii Vremennago: Pravitel'stva, I (Petrograd, 1917


CSt-H). Decree of March 20, 1917, 46-49 .
.z. See above, pp. 59ff.
3 . S. M. Dimanshtein, ed., Reooliutsiia i natsionafnyi vopros, III ( Moscow,
1930), 132.
4. D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy 1917-1923 "·• I (Uzhgorod, 1932), 44-45,
5. Dimanshtein, Revoliutsiia, III, 136-37.
6. V. Manilov, ed., 1917 god na KJevihchine, ([Kiev], 1928), 16, 24.
7, Visnik Ukrainskoho Heneralnoho Komitetu 1.917 r., no. 1, (May 1917),
in Manilov, 1917 god, 70,
8. A good description of the mood prevalent among Ukrainian soldiers at that
time can be found in V. Petriv, Spomyny z chasio ukrainskoi reooliutsii (1917-
.1921) (Lw6w, 1927-30), I, 8-30.
9. P. Khristiuk, Zamitky i materialy do istorii ukrainskoi revoliutsii, 1.9.17-20, I
(Vienna, 1921), 44-45. On peasant attitudes toward autonomy, see A. A.
Gol'denveizer, "Iz kievskikh vospominanii," in S. A. Alekseev, ed., Revoliutsiia
na Ukraine po memuaram Belykh (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930), 11.
10. Contemporary newspaper accounts quoted in Manilov, 1917 god.
11. Ibid., 475-79.
12. On Kerensky's speeches in favor of Ukrainian autonomy in the Duma (1913),
see V. Doroshenko, Ukrainstoo o Rosii (Vienna, 1917), 107-08.
13. Dimanshtein, Revoliutsiia, III, 132.
14. Manilov, 1917 god, 481-82; KA, XXX (1928), 49-55, has an account of dis­
cussions of the Ukrainian question in Petrograd.
15. Manilov, 1917 god, 103ff.
16. Nova Rada (Kiev), no. 55 (1917) and Kievskaia mysl', no. 137 (1917), in
Manilov, 1.9.17 god, 102.
17. Manilov, 1917 god, 117.
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE RUS S IAN EMPIRE 333
18. Kievskaia mysr, 6 June 1917, in Khristiuk, Zamitky, I, 130-31.
19. Khristiuk, Zamitky, I, 86.
:w. Kleoskaia mysr, no. 162 (1917), in Manilov, 1917 god, 491.
21. Based on figures reported in Kiev�kaia mysr, no. 180 ( 1917), in Manilov,
1917 god, 179.
22. Based on figures reported in Doroshenko, Istoriia, I, 144.
23. The text of the Rada constitution is in Khristiuk, Zamitky, I, 96-g7.
24. Klevskala mysr, no. 1go ( 1917) in Manilov, 1917 god, 502-03; Ukrainian text
in Doroshenko, Istoriia, I, 128-29.
25. Khristiuk, Zamitky, II, 115-16.
26. Manilov, 1917 god, 151-52.
27. Nova Rada, no. 108 ( 1917 } , in Manilov, 1917 god, 194; Khristiuk, Zamitky,
I, 146-47.
28. Doroshenko, Istoriia, I, 151-52.
29. Ibid., 140,
30, Rabochaia gazeta (Kiev), nos. 84-85 (1917); Kievskaia mysl', no. 169 ( 1917);
Nasha Rada ( Kiev), no. 86 ( 1917); all in Manilov, 1917 god, 166-68.
31. Nova Rada ( Kiev), no. 108 ( 1917), in Manilov, 1917 god, 239.
32. Cf. debates-;on the national question in "Protokoly Kyivskoi Orhanizatsii
RSDRP ( bilshovykiv) 1917 roku," in LR, no. 4/49 ( 1931), 157-58, 167-68.
33, Dimanshtein, Revoliutsiia, III, p. xxxix.
34. K.P. ( b)U., Institut Istorii Partii, Istoriia KP ( b)U, II ( Klev, 1933), 126.
35. Kievskaia mysl', no. 143 ( 1917), and Golos sotsial-demokrata, ( Kiev), no,._ 51
( 1917), in Manilov, 1917 god, 113-14, 125.
36. V. I. Lenin, Stat'i i rechi ob Ukraine, ( [Kiev], 1936), 266-74.
37. Kievskaia mysr, no. 163 (1917), in Manilov, 1917 god, 152.
38. Rabochaia gazeta ( Kiev), nos. 84-85 ( 1917); Kievskaia mysi, no. 169 ( 1917 };
Nova Rada, no. 86 ( 1917), in Manilov, 1917 god, 166.
39. Golos sotsial-demokrata ( Kiev), no. go ( 1917), in Manilov, 1917 god, 504.
40. E. G. Bosh, God bor'by (1917) ( Moscow, 1925); also E. Bosh, "Oblastnoi
partiin ' komitet s-d (b-kov) Iugo-Zapadnogo kraia ( 1917 g.)," PR, no. 5/28
( 1924 r., 131.
41. A. Zolotarev, Iz istorii Tsentrainoi Ukrainskoi Rady ( [Kharkov], 1922), 20-
21.
42. V. Vinnichenko, Vidrodzhennia natsii, II ( Kiev-Vienna, 1920), 5g-60.
43. Manilov, 1917 god, 520-21.
44. Ibid., 518-21.
45. V. Zatonskii, "Oktiabr'skii perevorot v Kieve," Kommunist ( Kiev), 7 November
1924, quoted in LR, no. 2/11 ( 1925), 55-56. Other reports on the agreement:
Zolotarev, Iz istorii 21-25; I. Kulik, Ohliad revoliutsii na Ukraini, I ( Kharkov,
1921), 23; I. Kulik, in LR, no. 1 (1922), 39; M. G. Rafes, Dva goda revo­
liutsii na Ukraine ( Moscow, 1920), 47.
46. Quoted from contemporary newspaper accounts in Manilov, 1917 god, 320.
47. Speech of Piatakov in the Soviet, October 27; Kievskaia mysl', no, 260 ( 1917 },
in Manilov, 1917 god, 324-25.
48. Rabochaia gazeta ( Kiev), no. 172 ( 1917), in Manilov, 1917 god, 344.
49. "K istorii 'trekhugol'nogo boia' v Kieve," LR, no. 4'9 ( 1924), 186-g4.
50. Manilov, 1917 god, 346-47, 349 ·
51. E. Bosh, "Oktiabr'skie dni v Kievskoi oblasti," PR, no. 11/23 ( 1923), 52-67.
52. V. Lipshits, "Khersonshchina v 1917 godu," LR, no. 2/17 ( 1926), 109-16;
Khristev, "Rumcherod v podgotovke Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii," LR, no. 1 ( 1922),
171-83.
53. M. Ravich-Cherkasskii, "Fevral'-Dekabr' 1917 g. v Ekaterinoslave," LR,. no. 1
( 1922), 74-80.
54. Z. Tabakov, "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia v Chernigovshchine," LR, no. 1 ( 1922),
143-70.
55. Istoriia KP ( b ) U, II, 181.
334 N OTE S TO CHAP T E R II
56. S. Mazlakh, "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia na Poltavshchine," LR, no. 1 (1922 ),
128-29, 136,
57. E. Kviring, "Ekaterinoslavskii Sovet i oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia," ibid., 67.
58. Z. Zhylunovich, "Liuty-Kastrychnik," Belarus' (Minsk, 1924 ), 186.
59. A. Kirzhnits, "Sto dnei sovetskoi vlasti v Belorussii," PR, no. 3/74 (1928 ),
101-02.
60. V. K. Shcharbakou, Kastrychnitskaia revoliutsyia na Belarusi i belapol'skaia
,, okupatsyia (Minsk, 1930 ) , 53.
61. V. G. Knorin, 1917 god v Belorussii i na zapadnom fronte (Minsk, 1925 ), 24.
62. V. Knoryn, "Komunistychnaia partyia na Belorusi," Belarus', 215-22; Knorin,
1917 god, 10.
63. Knoryn, in Belarus', 216-17.
64, Ibid., 217.
65. E. I. Pesikina, Narodnyi komi.ssariat po delam natsional'nostei (Moscow, 1950 ) ,
55; Sovetskoe pravo, no. 1/5 (1924 ), 96.
66. Kirzhnits, "Sto dnei," 88; V. B. Stankevich, Sud'by narodov Rossii (Berlin,
1921 ), 39.
67. Shcharbakou, Kastrychnitskaia revoliutsyia, 50.
68. Dimanshtein, Revoliutsiia, III, 294-95; cf. Blltiin Rusya Miisuliimanlarm 1917nci
yilda 1-11 mayda Meskevde bulgan Umumt isyezdinin Protokollari (Petrograd,
1917 ), 250. I am indebted for many of the details concerning the May 1917
Congress to the kindness of Mr. Ayas Iskhaki Idilli.
69. Second-hand accounts of the May 1917 Congress may be found in the articles
of H. Altdorffer in Der Neue Orient (Berlin ), for 1918, passim, and B. Hayit,
Die Nationalen Regierungen von Kokand ( Choqand) und der Alasch Drda
(mimeographed, Muenster, 1950 ), 25ff.
70. E. Grachev, Kazanskii Oktiabr', I (Kazan, 1926 ) , 129-31.
71, Kazanskoe slovo, no. 85 ( 1917 ), in Grachev, Kazanskii Oktiabr, I, 131.
72. R. E. Pipes, "The First Experiment in Soviet National Policy - The Bashkir
Republic, 1917-1920," Russian Review, IX, no. 4, (1950 ) , 306.
73. V. Elagin, "Natsionalisticheskie illiuzii krymskikh Tatar v revoliutsionnye gody,"
NV, no. 5 (1924 ) , 194.
74. E. Kirimal, Der Nationale Kampf der Krimtuerken, mit besonderer Berueck­
sichtigung der Jahre 1917-1918, (Emsdetten, 1952 ) , 103.
75. A. K. Bochagov, Milli Firka, (Simferopol, 1930 ), 36.
76. M. F. Bunegin, Revoliutsiia i grazhdanskaia voina ti Krymu (Simferopol, 1927 ) ,
89-90; Kirimal, Der Nationale Kampf, 69-70.
77. Elagin, "Natsionalisticheskie illiuzii," 196-98.
78. M. L. Atlas, Bor'ba za sovety ( Simferopol, 1933 ) , 43.
79. Bunegin, Revoliutsiia, 53.
Bo. Ibid., 54, 77; data for June-July 1917.
81, Ibid., 77--78.
82. Ibid., 81--82.
83. Atlas, Bor'ba, 56.
84. Ibid., 5g-60.
85. Texts in Kirimal, Der Nationale Kampf, 106-14 (Turkish and German ) ; D.
Seidamet, La Crimee, (Lausanne, 1921 ) (French ) .
86. G. Safarov, Koloniarnaia revoliutsiia ( Opyt Turkestana ) ([Moscow], 1921 ) ,
87. Slavinskii, i n Kastelianskii, ed., Formy natsional'nago dvizheniia, 283--84.
88. P. G. Galuzo, Turkestan - kolonia, (Moscow, 1935 ), 139.
89. A. N. Zarin, Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie Kirgizii ( Severnaia chast') (Frunze,
1931 ) , 15.
go. Galuzo, Turkestan, 209,
91. Bol'shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1926.ff), XXX, 595.
92. Zorin, Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie, 27.
93. Hayit, Die Nationalen Regierungen, 89-90.
94. G. N. Mel'nikov, Oktiabr v Kazak.stane (Alma-Ata, 1930 ) , 25; Hayit, Die
Nationalen Regierungen, 87-88.
THE DIS INTE GRATION OF THE RUSS IAN E M PIRE 33 5
95. Hayit, 1-�; program taken from S. Brainin and Sh. Shafiro, Ocherkl po
istorii Alash-Ordy (Alma-Ata-Moscow, 1935), quoted by Hayit, 88-89.
96. Dimanshtein, Revoliutsiia, Ill, 363-65.
97. Pipes, "The First Soviet Experiment," 306.
g8. Hayit, Die Nationalen Regierungen, 91.
99. Zorin, Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie, 25.
100. VKP (b), Kazakhskii Kraevoi Komitet, Iz istorii partiinogo stroitefstva v Kazakh­
stane (Alma-Ata, 1936 ), 237-39; Zorin, Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie, 25; T. R.
Ryskulov, Kirgizstan (Moscow, 1935), 61-63.
101. Dimanshtein, Revoliutsiia, III, 321.
102. VKP ( b), Iz istorii, 239-40.
103. Pipes, "The First Soviet Experiment," 307.
104. VKP ( b), Iz istorii, 208.
105. Mel'nikov, Oktiabr', 27-29.
106. F. Popov, Dutovshchina (Moscow-Samara, 1934), 27-28.
107, Zorin, Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie, 24.
108. V. I. Masal'skii, Turkestanskii Kral ( St. Petersburg, 1913), 317.
109. VKP (b), lstpart Sredazbiuro, Revoliutsiia v Srednei Azii, I (Tashkent, 1928),
16.
110. A. Vambery, Western culture in Eastern lands ( New York, 1906), 1 17.
1 1 1. The population statistics are from Aziatskaia Rossiia (n.p., 1914), Atlas,
Table 35; data for Russians includes Cossacks.
1 12. Hayit, Die Nationalen Reglerungen, 46-48.
1 13. P. Alekseenkov, "Natsional'naia politika Vremennogo Pravitel'stva v Turkestane
v 1917 g.," PR, no. 8/79 ( 1928), 128-3 2.
1 14. Hayit, Die Nationalen Regierungen, 23-24.
1 15. S. Muraveiskii, "Sentiabr'skie sobytiia v Tashkente v 1917 godu," PR, no.
10/33 ( 1924), 139; lstpart, Revoliutsiia v Srednei Azii, I, 11, 237.
1 16. lstpart, Revoliutsiia v Srednei Azii, I, 1 1-13.
1 17. Hayit, Die Nationalen Regierungen, 33,
1 18. R. Olzscha and G. Cleinow, Turkestan, (Leipzig, (1942]), 371 .
1 19. Hayit, Die Nationalen Regierungen, 34.
120. Muraveiskii, "Sentiabr'skie sobytiia."
121. Yag Turkestan, no. 89 (April 1937), 17, quoted in Hayit, 36.
122. Mel'nikov, Oktiabr, 32££.
123. VKP ( b ), Iz lstorii, 240-41,
124. Safarov, Koloniafnala revoliutsiia, 70.
125. Hayit, Die Nationalen Regierungen, 56.
126. Nasha gazeta (Tashkent), 23 November 19 17, quoted in Safarov, Kolonial'naia
revoliutsiia, 70; cf. Istpart, Revoliutsiia v Srednel Azii, 26-27.
127. Hayit, Die Nationalen Regierungen, 57,
128. Ibid., 57.
129. Yag Turkestan, no. 1 1 1 ( February 1939), 11, in Hayit, 57.
130. Svobodnyi Turkestan, 31 January-1 February 1918 contains stenographic re­
ports of some of the debates.
131. Ibid.
132. J. Castagne, Le Turkestan depuis la Revolution russe ( 1917-1921) (Paris,
1922), 23.
133. Hayit, Die Nationalen Regiemngen, 64.
134. Istpart, Revoliutsiia v Srednei Azii, 38.
135. Alekseenkov, in lstpart, 25.
136. Safarov, Kolonial'naia revoliutsiia, 7 1 .
137. N . L . Ianchevskii, Grazhdanskaia borba na Severnom Kavkaze, I (Rostov on
Don, 1927), 53, and I. Borisenko, Sovetskie respubliki na Severnom Kavkaze
v .19.18 godu, II (Rostov on Don, 1930), 21.
138. Ianchevskii, Grazhdanskaia borba, I, 56.
139. Borisenko, Sovetskie respublikl, II, 23.
NOTE S T O CHAP TER II
140. Ibid., 23. Cf. V. P. Pozhidaev, Gortsy Seoemogo Kavkaza (Moscow-Leningrad,
1926).
141. Dimanshtein, Revoliutsiia, III, 374--7'6.
142. Ibid., 376--79.
143, A. A. Takho-Godi, Revoliutslia i kontr-revoliutslia v Dagestane ( Makhach-
Kala, 1927), 28; there also biographical information concerning Gotsinskii.
144, Dimanshtein, Revoliutsiia,. III, 379.
145. S. E. Sef, Bor'ba za Oktiabr' v Zakavkazi ( [Tillis], 1932), 29--30.
146. W. S. Woytinsky, La Democratie georgienne (Paris, 1921), 86.
147. Sebiliilrefad { Constantinople ) , 38--320, p. 226, Year 1328 ( 1912), quoted
in Mehmed-zade Mirza-Bala, Milli Azerbaycan Hareketi, ( [Berlin], 1938),
66--67.
148. Mirza-Bala, 77--78.
149. Ibid.
150, S. Belen'kii and A. Manvelov, Revoliutslla 1917 g. v Azerbaidzhane (Baku,
1927), 35--36.
151. M.-D. Guseinov, Tiurkskaia demokraticheskaia partiia federalistov 'Musavat' v
proshlom l nastoiashchem, pt. 1 ( [TiflisJ, 1927), 26--30.
152. Belen'kii and Manvelov, Revoliutsiia, 174, 214.
153. Woytinsky, La Democratie, 113.
154. Ia. A. Ratgauzer, Revoliutsiia i grazhdanskaia voina v Baku, I ( Baku, 1927),
94.
155. B. A. Bor'ian, Armenila, mezhdunarodnaia diplomatila i SSSR, I ( Moscow­
Leningrad, 1928), 359.
156. Ibid., 346--83.
157. J.
Lepsius, ed., Deutschland und Annenien, 1914--1918 (Potsdam, 1919) p.
lxv.
158. Dimanshtein, Revoliutsiia, III, 399--400,
159. Ibid., 403-04.
160. Ibid.• 404-05.
161. For a history of the Armenian units during and after the war, cf. G. Korganoff,
La Participation des Armeniens a la Gue"e Mondiale sur le Front du Caucase,
(1914--191 8 ) (Paris, 1927).
162. Woytinsky, La Democratie, 113.
163. S. Sef, "Pravda o Shamkhore," in Bor'ba za Oktiabr' v Zakavkaz'i, 67--91.
164. F. Makharadze, Sovety i bor'ba za sovetskuiu vlast' v Gruzii, 1917--1921 ( Tillis,
1928), 88, 97; the Baku :figure is from A. Dubner, Bakinskil proletariat v gody
revoliutsli ( 1917--1920) (Baku, 1931), 13.
165. Belen'kii and Manvelov, Revoliutsiia, 47, 50.
166. Ibid.• 68--69; Sef, Bor'ba, 53.
167. Sef, Ibid., 53--54.
168. Woytinsky, La Democratie, 113.
169. Belen'kii and Manvelov, Revoliutsiia, 214.
170. Makharadze, Sovety, 97--98; Belen'kii and Manvelov, Revoliutslia, 148.
171. For Makharadze, see Entslklopedicheskii sloval • • , 'Granat,' XLI, pt. 2, 2off,
which contains an autobiographical sketch.
172. M. Orakhelashvili, Zakavkazskie bofshevistskie organizatsii v i917 godu
( [Tillis], 1927 ), 83; Belen'kii and Manvelov, Revoliutslia, 156--62.
173. Makharadze, Sovety, 114--15,
174. Sef, Borba, 59.
175. Makharadze, Sovety, 114--15.
176. Orakhelashvili, Zakavkazskie, 52 ; Sef, Bor'ba, 61--62.
177. Orakhelashvili, ibid.
178. Ibid.
179. Georgia, Ministerstvo Vneshnikh Del, Dokumenty i materialy po vneshnei
politike Zakavkaz'ia i Gmzii ( Tiflis, 1919 ) , 83-86.
180. A. Stavrovskii, Zakavkaz'e posle Oktiabria ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1925 ), 16-.21.
181. Georgia, Dokumenty, 159--61.
THE UKRAINE AND BELORUSSIA 337
182, Ibid., 162-65,
183. Ibid.
184. Oniashvili, speaking in the Seim on April g-22, 1918, in Stavrovskii, Zakavkaz'e,
38.
185. Stalin, IV, 8.
186. Ibid., 31-32.
187. LS, III (1925), 482ff.
188. Vsesoiuznaia Kommunisticheskaia Partiia (bol'shevikov ) , Vos'moi s" ezd RKP ( b )
(Moscow, 1933), 8o-81.
189. Lenin, XXIV, 155.
1go. TsK RKP ( b), Rossiiskala Kommunisticheskaia Partiia ( borshevikov ) v rezo­
liutsiiakh ee s"ezdov i konferentsii (1898-1922 gg. ) (Moscow-Petrograd, 1923),
.235-36.
191. LS, XI ( 1929), 24.
192. S"ezdy Sovetov RSFSR v postanovleniakh . i rezoliutsiiakh, (Moscow, 1939),
44-45.
193. The following account is based primarily on G. S. Gurvich, Istoriia sovetskoi
konstitutsii ( Moscow, 1923).
194. Izvestiia (Moscow), 22 May 1920.
195. S. Pestkovskii, "Vospominaniia o rabote v Narkomnatse 1917-1919 gg." PR,
no. 6 (1930), 124-31.

Ill

THE U K RAINE AND BE LORUSSIA

1. I. Kulik, Ohliad revoliutsii na Ukraini, I (Kharkov, 1921), 16 •


.2. Resolutions of the Kievan Soviet of Workers' Deputies and the Kievan Soviet of
Soldiers' Deputies, in Kievskaia mysr, ·nos . .263 and 265, (1917), and Nova
rada, no. 177 ( 1917 ) , in V. Manilov, ed., 1917 god na Kievshchine ([Kiev],
1928 ) , 356.
3. Kievskaia mysr, no. .265 (1917), in Manilov, 1917 god, 525.
4. D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 1917-1923 rr., I ( Uzhgorod, 1932 ) , 179-81.
5. E. G. Bosh, God bor'by ( 1917) (Moscow, 1925), 46-48.
6. Pravda (Petrograd), .24 November/7 December 1917, This article is not
reprinted in Stalin's Collected Works.
7, P. Khristiuk, Zamitky i materialy do istorii ukrainskoi revoliutsii, 1917-20, II
(Vienna, 1921-.22), 6o.
8. The General Secretariat' s resolutions of November 10, in Doroshenko, Istoriia,
I, 204-05.
9. S. A. Alekseev, ed., Revoliutsiia na Ukraine po memuaram Belykh ( Moscow-
Leningrad, 1930), 397-403 .
10. Pravda, 26 November/9 December 1917.
11. Khristiuk, Zamltky, II, 55; Doroshenko, Istoriia, I, 209-10,
12. About Bolshevik plans for an uprising at that time in Kiev, see M. Maiorov,
Z istoryi revoliutsiinoi borotby na Ukraini, 191 4-19 (Kharkov, 1928 ), 48-50.
13. V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski o grazhdanskoi voine, I (Moscow, 1924),
22ff; Doroshenko, Istoriia, I, 224-25.
14. Doroshenko, Istoriia, I, 215.
15. Ibid., 206-o9.
16, Pravda (Petrograd), 13/26 December, 1917.
17. Ibid., 8/.21 December 1917,
18. Doroshenko, Istoriia, I, 220.
19. Khristiuk, Zamitky, II, 7<>-71.
20. Ibid., 72-73.
NOTE S TO CHAPTER III
:u . The partial results of elections to the Constituent Assembly in the Ukraine can
be found in: KP ( b ) U, Institut lstorii Partii, lstoriia KP (b ) U, II ( Kiev,
1933 ), 256-57; Doroshenko, lstoriia, I, 210-11; Pravda, November-December
1917, passim.
22. Bosh, God bor'by, 88-92; Kulik, Ohliad, 30.
23. M. Rubach, "K istorii konflikta • • • • ," LR, no. 2/11 (1925 ), 8:]-85,
24. Ibid., 7g-81.
25. Bosh, God bor'by, 127.
26. Ibid.
27. Z. Tabakov, "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia v Chernigovshchine," LR, no. 1 ( 1922),
143-70.
28. S. Mazlakh, "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia na Poltavshchine," LR, no, 1 ( 1922 ),
139,
29. Ibid., 138; Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski, 139.
30. See Alekseev, Revoliutsiia na Ukraine, passim.
31. Tabakov, "Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiia," 160.
32. Ibid., 159-60; Doroshenko, Istoriia I, 225.
33. Khristiuk, Zamitky, II, 1ooff.
34. Bosh, God bor'by, 51-52.
35. S. Mishchenko, "Ianvarskoe vosstanie v Kieve," LR, no. 3 / 8 (1924 ) , 20-43.
36. Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski, I, 157.
37. Ibid., 85-86.
38. Ibid., 154.
39. Ibid., 53-62.
40. Ibid., 132-33.
41. M. Skrypnyk, "lstoriia proletarskoi revoliutsii na Ukraini," Statti i promovy, I
( Kharkov, 1930 ), 177-79.
42. Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski, 182.
43. Ibid., 182.
44. Skrypnyk, "Istoriia," 144. All figures are for September 1917.
45. E. Bosh, "Oblastnoi partiinyi komitet s-d ( b-kov ) Iugo-Zapadnogo kraia ( 1917
g) ," PR, no. 5/28 ( 1924), 128-49.
46. Bosh, God bor'by, 99.
47. Ibid., 91.
48. Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski, 184; Bosh, God bor'by, 103.
49. B. Magidov, "Organizatsiia Donetsko-Krivorozhskoi Respubliki i otstuplenie iz
Khar'kova," in KP(b )U, Piat' let ([Kharkov], 1922 ), 65-67; also Bosh, God
bor'by, 86, 108.
50. Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski, 158-59.
51. Izvestiia Iuga (Kharkov ) , quoted in N. N. Popov, Ocherk istorii Kommunisti­
cheskoi Partli ( bol'shevikov ) Ukrainy (Simferopol, 1929 ) , 154-550.
52. Analyses of the two factions of the Ukrainian Communist Party can be found
in Popov, Ocherk, and M. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia Kommunisticheskoi
Partii Ukrainy ( [Kharkov], 1923 ) , passim.
53. Maiorov, Z istoryi, p. vi.
54. Kulik, Ohliad, 38-39.
55. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 56-57; Popov, Ocherk, 162.
56. Popov, Ocherk, 176, claims Lenin supported the rights; Maiorov, Z istoryi, p.
x, says the opposite.
57. Maiorov, Z istoryi, p. xi.
58. Ibid., p. xvi.
59. I. Stalin, Stat'i i rechi ob Ukraine ([Kiev] , 1936 ) , 40-41.
60. Maiorov, Z istoryi, p. xi.
61. Ibid.
62. Die Deutsche Okkupation der Ukraine - Geheimdokumente (Strassburg, c.
1937 ), 22-23.
63. Ibid., 22.
THE UKRAINE A N D BELORUSSIA 339
64. Khristiuk, Zamitky, II, 156-63; V. Vinnichenko, Vidrodzhennia natsii, II (Kiev­
Vienna, 1920 ) , 297-326; see also German reports in Die Deutsche Okkupation,
38-39, 42, where the Rada was called a "pseudo-government."
65. Doroshenko, Istoriia, II, 38; Vinnichenko, Vidrodzhennia, II, 325.
66. Die Deutsche Okkupation, 24.
67. Ibid., 48ff.
68. KP ( b ) U, Istoriia KP (b ) U, II, 279.
69. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 79-82.
70. The resolutions of the First Congress of the KP ( b ) U can be found in Ravich­
Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 197-21 1.
71. A. Bubnov, "Hetmanshchyna, Dyrektoriia ta nasha taktyka," in V. Manilov, ed.,
Pid hnitom nimetskoho imperiializmu ( 1918 r. na Kyivshchyni ) , ([Kiev], 1927 ) ,
g-25; P . Dikhtiarenko, " V pidpilli za Hetmana t a Dyrektorii," i n Manilov, Pid
hnitom, 26-47; Maiorov, Z istoryi, pp. xii-xvi.
72. V. Cherniavskii, "Zi spohadiv pro robotu Oblasnoho Komitetu K.P. (b ) U.," in
Manilov, Pid hnitom, 48.
73. Text in Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 212.
74. Popov, Ocherk, 178.
75. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 95.
76. Ibid., 96.
77. Ibid., 217-19; Popov, Ocherk, 180.
78. Kh. Rakovskii, "Il'ich i Ukraina," LR, no. 2/1 1 ( 1925 ) , 7-8.
79. Vinnichenko, Vidrodzhennia, III, 158; Khristiuk, Zamitky, IV, 29.
80. John S. Reshetar, Jr., The Ukrainian Revolution, 1 9 1 7-1920 (Princeton, 1952 ) ,
197-98.
81. Vinnichenko, in Alekseev, Revoliutsiia, 279.
82. Popov, Ocherk, 190.
83. Alekseev, Revoliutsiia, 409.
84. "Dopovid Kyivskoho Oblasnoho Komitetu Miskiy Konferentsii Kyivskoi Orhani­
zatsii K.P. ( b ) U., z 19-ho sichnia 1919 roku," Pid hnitom, 216.
85. V. Zatonskii, "K voprosu ob organizatsii Vremennogo Raboche-Krest'ianskogo
Pravitel'stva Ukrainy," · LR, no. 1 /10 ( 1925 ) , 141.
86. M. Rubach, "K istorii grazhdanskoi bor'by na Ukraine," LR, no. 4/9 ( 1924 ) ,
151-65.
87. Ibid., 164.
88. Zatonskii, "K voprosu," 142.
89. Ibid., 148.
go. Rubach, "K istorii," 161-64.
91. Vinnichenko, Vidrodzhennia, III, 160.
92. Rabocha gazeta ( Kiev ) , January 7, 1919,.. in Khristiuk, Zamitky, IV, 32-33.
93. Ibid., IV, 33; Rakovskii, "Il'ich," 8.
94. V. Vinnichenko, Rozlad i pahodzhennia ( [Regensburg, 1949] ; private), 1 1 .
95. For Rakovskii's views o n the Ukraine, cf. Izvestiia VTsIK, no. 2/554 January
3, 1919.
96. Rakovskii, "Il'ich," 5-10.
97. Popov, Ocherk, 191.
98. A. D. Margolin, Ukraina l politika Antanty ( Berlin, [1921] ), 325, exonerates
the Directory of direct participation in pogroms, though he condemns its
indifference to them. E. Heifetz, The Slaughter of the Jews in the Ukraine in
1919 ( New York, 1921 ) , 21-:56, is more critical of the Directory.
99. Vinnichenko, in Alekseev, Revoliutsiia, 282-85.
100. Popov, Ocherk, 196-98.
101. Alekseev, Revoliutsiia, 1 1 4.
102. G. Lapchinskii, "Gomel'skoe soveshchanie," LR, no. 6/2 1 ( 1926 ), 40-41,
103. Ibid., 44.
104. Ibid., 44-45, 47-48.
105. Reshetar, The Ukrainian Revolution, 307.
N O T E S TO CHAPTER Ill
106, Malaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, II, 47.
107. KP( b ) U, Istoriia KP (b ) U. II. 459.
108. Ibid., 45g-60.
109. Ibid.• 460.
110. Lapchinskii, "Gomel'skoe soveshchanie," 42.
111, Ibid.6 47.
112. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 138.
113. Lenin. XXIV, 818-19.
114. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 139.
115. Kommunistischeskli Intematsional, no. 10 ( 1920 ) , 1655-56. Cf. KP ( b ) U Istoriia
KP ( b ) U, II, 640-45.
116. Reshetar, Tlie Ukrainian Revolution, 307.
117. V. K. Shcharbakou, Kastrychnitskaia revoliutsyia na Belarusi i belaporskaia
okupatsyia ( Minsk, 1930 ), 59.
118. Ibid., 59.
119. Ibid., 66-73.
120. U. lhnatouski, "Komunistychnaia partyia Belarusi i belaruskae pytan'ne," in
Tsentral'ny Vykanauchy Komitet, BSSR, Belarus' ( Minsk, 1924 ) , 229.
121. V. Knoryn, "Komunistychnaia_ partyia na Belarusi," ibid., 219-20.
122. Ihnatouski, "Komunistychnaia partyia," 230.
123. V. G. Knorin, Zametki k istorii diktatury proletariata v Belorussii ( Minsk,
1934 ), 29-34; V. Mitskevich-Kapsukas, "Bor'ba za sovetskuiu vlast' v Litve i
Zap[adnoi] Belorussii," PR. no. 1h08 ( 1931 ) . 65-107.
1.24, Shcharbakou, Kastrychnitskaia revoliutsyia, 101-02.
1.25. Ibid., 100-101.
126. Lenin, XXV, 58.

IV

TH E MOS LEM B O R D E RLAN DS

1. Revue du Monde M usulman, LI ( 1922 ) , pt. 1. pp. 7-g.


2. On Lenin's initiative in this policy. see L. Rubinshtein, V bor'be za leninskuiu
natsional'nuiu politiku ( Kazan, 1930 ), 48.
3. A. Saadi, "Galimdzhan Ibragimov i ego literatumoe tvorchestvo," Vestnik
nauchnogo obshchestva tatarovedeniia ( Kazan ), no. 8 ( 1928 ) , 25-50.
4. I. S. Mal'chevskii, ed., Vserossiiskoe Uchrediternoe Sobranie ( Moscow, 1930 ) ,
57-58.
5. I. Rakhmatullin, "Mulla-Nur-Vakhitov," Puti revoliutsii ( Kazan ) , no. 3 ( 1923 ) ,
35-36; see also Izvestiia Vsetatarskogo VTsIK ( Kazan ), 12 March 1922 ( CSt­
H ).
6. On Ibragimov, see Saadi, "Galimdzhan Ibragimov." On Manatov, Die Welt
des Islams, XVI ( 1934 ), 30 ( NN ).
7. Ul'ianitskii, "Cherez god," ZhN, 27 April-4 May 1919; "Tatarskii (musul'man­
skii ) otdel Narkomnatsa za tri goda ego sushchestvovaniia," ibid., 24 and 31
December 1920.
8. Abdullah Batta}, Kazan Tiirkleri [The Turks of Kazan] ( Istanbul, 1341/1925 ) ,
chapter xiii.
9. Ibid.
10. Istpart, Otdel Oblastnogo Komiteta RKP ( b ) Tatrespubliki, Borba za Kazan',
I (Kazan, 1924 ) , 65.
11. A. I. Bochkov. Tri goda sovetskoi vlasti v Kazani ( Kazan, 1921 ) , 19-21.
12. Narodnyi komissariat po delam natsional'nostei, Politika sovetskoi vlasti po
natslonarnym delam za tri goda, 1. 9 1.7-XI-1.920 ( [Moscow], 1920 ), So-81.
13. Pravda, 5/18 May-11/24 May 1918.
THE M O S L E M B ORDERLANDS 34 1
14. Rakhmatullin, "Mulla-Nur-Vakhitov," 39-40; Rubinshtein, V bor'be, 51.
15. This speech, not reprinted in Stalin's Collected Works, can be found in ZhN,
24 November 1918.
16. ZhN, 24 November 1918; 22 December 1918.
17. Ibid., 9 March 1919.
18. M. L. Murtazin, Bashkiriia i bashkirskie voiska v grazhdanskuiu voinu (Lenin­
grad, 1927 ) , 202-03,
19. I. G. Akulinin, Orenburgskoe Kazach'e voisko v bor'be s borshevikami (Shang­
hai, 1937 ), 101-03.
20. Sobranie Uzakonenii - sbornik dekretov 1919 goda (Petrograd, 1920 ) , no,
295/8.
21. Akulinin, Orenburgskoe Kazach'e voisko, 103.
22. F. Samoilov, "Malaia Bashkiriia v 1918-1920 gg.," PR, no. 11/58 (1926 ),
2oiff.
23. ZhN, 21 September 1919; cf. Sobranie Uzakonenii, no. 293.
24. A. Adigamov, "Pravda o Bashkirakh," ZhN, no. 26/34, 13 July 1919.
25. S. Dimanshtein, "Bashkiriia v 1918-1920 gg.," PR,. no. 5/76 ( 1928 ), 153.
26. P. Mostovenko, "O bol'shikh oshibkakh v 'Maloi' Bashkirii," PR, no. 5/76 (1928 ),
124.
27. Kh. Iumagulov, "Ob odnom neudachnom opyte," PR, no. 3/74 ( 1928 ) , 173;
Mostovenko, "O bol'shikh oshibkakh," 107; Adigamov, "Pravda"; F. Syromolo­
tov, "Lenin i Stalin v sozdanii Tataro-Bashkirskoi Respubliki," RN, no. 8
(1935 ), 16-17.
28. Iumagulov, "Ob odnom neudachnom opyte," 172.
29. Ibid., 186.
30. F. Samoilov, Malaia Bashkiriia v 1918--1920 gg. (Moscow, 1933 }, 21ff.
31, A. Daugel-Dauge, "Opyt 'Bashkiropomoshchi,' " ZhN, 8 December 1920; "lz
Bashkirii," ZhN, 26 January 1921; Samoilov, Malaia Bashkiriia, 35:ff.
32. ZhN, 26 January 1921.
33. Sh. Tipeev, K istorii natsional'nogo dvizheniia i sovetskoi Bashkirii ( Ufa, 1929 ),
59.
34. Samoilov, Malaia Bashkiriia, 6.ff.
35. Ibid., 91; Mostovenko, "O bol'shikh obshibkakh," passim.
36. Sobranie Uzakonenii 1920 goda, no. 45/203.
37. Murtazin, Bashkiriia, 187.
38. PR, no. 12/59 (1926 } , 205-07.
39. Mostovenko, "O bol'shikh oshibkakb," 117; Murtazin, Bashkiriia, 188If.
40. Samoilov, Malaia Bashkirila, 61, 84, 86ff.
41. Mostovenko, "O bol'shikh oshibkakh," 109.
42. Ibid., 117.
43, Rubinshtein, V bor'be, passim; G. von Mende, Der nationale Kampf der Russ­
landtuerken (Berlin, 1936 ) , 156ff.
44. Sultan-Galiev, "Sotsial'naia revoliutsiia i Vostok," ZhN, 5 October, 12 October,
.2 November 1919; the concluding article to this series was not printed. M.
Sultan-Galiev, Metody antireligioznoi propagandy sredi Musul'man ( Moscow,
1922 ) .
45. Rubinshtein, V bor'be, 56-59.
46. Ibid., 59.
47. VKP ( b ), Tatarskii Oblastnoi Komitet, Stenograficheskii otchet IX Oblastnoi
konferentsii Tatarskoi Organizatsii RKP ( b ) ( Kazan, 1924 ) , 129.
48. I. Khodorovskii, "Iz vospominanii ob Il'iche," Izvestiia, 22 April 1930; Kh.
Gabidullin, Tatarstan za sem' let ( 1 920-2 7 ) (Kazan, 1927 ), 18.
49. Khodorovskii, "Iz vcispominanii,"
50. Gabidullin, Tatarstan, 16.
51. Ibid.
52. Rubinshtein, V bor'be, 67.
53. Tatarskaia Sotsialisticheskaia Sovetskaia Respublika, Za piat' let, 1920-25/VI-
1925 (Kazan, 1925), 18.
342 N O T E S T O CHAPTER IV
54. D. P. Petrov, Chuvashiia { Moscow, 1926 ) , 90-92.
55. E. G. Fedorov, "Uchreditel'nyi s" ezd sovetov Kirgizskoi ( Kazakhskoi) ASSR,"
in VKP ( b ) , Kazakhskii Kraevoi Komitet, Iz istorii partiinogo stroiltel'stva v
Kazakhstane ( Alma-Ata, 1936 ) , 220.
56. Izvestiia, 4 April 1919.
57. "Vremennoe polozhenie o revoliutsionnom komitete po upravleniiu kirgizskim
kraem," Izvestiia, 17 J uly 1919.
58. Fedorov, "Uchreditel'nyi s"ezd," 219.
59. Ibid., 218.
60. Ibid., 224.
61. N. Timofeev, "K istorii obrazovaniia Kazakhstanskoi Kraevoi Organizatsii
VKP ( b ) ," in VKP ( b ) , lz istorii, 102-71, cites numerous facts to support this
contention.
62. Ibid., 151ff.
63. Izvestiia, 1 September 1920; Kazakskaia SSR, S"ezd Sovetov, Uchreditel'nyi
s"ezd sovetov Kirgizskoi (Kazakskoi ) ASSR, Protokoly ( Alma-Ata-Moscow,
1936 ).
64. G. N. Mel'nikov, Oktiabr' v Kazakstane, (Alma-Ata, 1930 ) , 1 1ff.
65. J. Castagne, Le Turkestan depuis la Revolution russe, ( 1917-21 ) ( Paris, 1922 ) ,
24.
66. Svobodnyi Turkestan ( Tashkent), no. 9, 25 January 1918.
67. Baymirza Hayit, Die Nationalen Regierungen von Kokand ! Choqand ) und der
Alasch Orda ( Muenster, 1950 ) , 70-72.
68. Ibid., 77-78.
69. The following account is based on a report from Kokand by B. Ol'ginskii, dated
1 1. February 1918, in Svobodnyi Turkestan, 4/l.9 March 1918.
70. Ibid.
71. Svohodnyi Turkestan, 17 February/2 l\farch 1918.
72. Ibid., 18/31 March 1918.
73. 0, Glovatskii, Revoliutsiia pobezhdaet ( Tashkent, 1930 ) , 24.
74. Castagne, Le Turkestan, 28ff.
75. G. Safarov, Kolonial'naia revoliutsiia, ( Opyt Turkestana ) , ( [Moscow], 1921),
86; on Soviet treatment of the natives, cf. V. K[uibyshev] , "Basmacheskii front,"
ZhN, no. 16/73, 2 June 1920.
76. [K.] Vasilevskii, "Fazy basmacheskogo dvizheniia v Srednei Azii," NV, no, 29
( 1930 ) , 126-28.
77. S. B. Ginsburg, "Basmachestvo v Fcrganc," NV, no. 10-1 1 ( 1925 ) , 183; J.
Castagne, Les Basmatchis ( Paris, 1925 ) , 14-15.
78. F. Novitskii, "M, V. Frunze na Turkestanskom fronte," KA, no. 3/100 ( 1940),
41.
79. Castagne, Les Basmatchis, 28-33; Ginsburg, "Basmachestvo," 185-89.
So. E. I. Pesikina, Narodnyi komissariat po delam natsional'nostei i ego deiater
nost' v 1.917-191.8 gg. ( Moscow, 1950 ), 124-25.
81. Safarov, Kolonial'naia revoliutsiia, 85.
82. S. Bolotov, "Iz istorii osipovskogo miatczha v Turkestane," PR, no. 6/ 53 ( 1926 ),
1 10-37; Castagne, Le Turkestan, 34; Mel'nikov, Oktiabr', 121.
83. L. C. Dunsterville, The Adventures of Dunsterforce ( London, 1920), 230; J.
K. Tod, "The Malleson Mission to Transcaspia in 1918," The Journal of the
Royal Central Asian Society, XXVII, pt. 1 ( 1940 ) , 53; F. M. Bailey, Mission to
Tashkent ( London, 1946 ).
84. V. K [uibyshev], in ZhN, 2 June 1920.
85. Hayit, Die Nationalen Regierungen, 104.
86. Novitskii, "M. V. Frunze," 36-37.
87. Safarov, Kolonial'naia revoliutsiia, 133.
88. Lenin, XXIV, 531.
89. Castagne, Le Turkestan, 36.
go. KA, no. 3/100, 63-65.
91. Vasilevskii, "Fazy," 132-33; cf. also M. Shkliar in ZhN, 17 October 1 920.
THE CAUCASUS 34 3
92. Vasilevskii, "Fazy," 133.
93. G. Skalov, "Khivinskaia revoliutsiia 1920 goda," NV, no. 3 (1923), 241-57.
94. Glovatskii, Revoliutsiia, 28-29.
95. KA, no. 3/100, 74--75.
96. V. Elagin, "Natsionalisticheskie illiuzii krymskikh Tatar v revoliutsionnye godyt
NV, no. 6 (1924 ), 212.
97. M. F. Bunegin, Revoliutsiia i grazhdanskaia voina o Krymu (Simferopol, 1927 ),
112; E. Kirimal, Der Nationale Kampf der Krimtuerken (Emsdetten, 1952 ) ,
151; Elagin, "Natsionalisticheskie illiuzii," NV, no. 6 (1924 ) , 214.
98. Kirimal, ibid., 152.
99. Cf. report of the Soviet commander, Iu. Gaven, in ZhN, 21 December 1919.
100. Bunegin, Revoliutsiia, 126.
101. Ibid., 140; cf. M. L. Atlas, Borba za sovety (Simferopol, 1933), 50.
102. Bunegin, Revoliutsiia, 122-23, 144.
103. Ibid., 145; A. Vasil'ev, "Pervaia sovetskaia vlast' v Krymu i ee padenie," PR,
no. 7 (1922 ) , 3-58.
104. Bunegin, Revoliutsiia, 145.
105. Vasil'ev, "Pervaia sovetskaia vlast'," 28.
106. V. Sovetov and M. Atlas, Rasstrel sovetskogo praviterstva Krymskoi Respubllki
Tavridy (Simferopol, 1933).
107. Elagin, "Natsionalisticheskie illiuzii," no. 6, 220.
108. Bunegin, Revoliutsiia, 224ff.
109. Iu. Gaven, "Krymskie Tatary i revoliutsiia," ZhN, no. 49/57, 28 December
1919; I. Verner, "Nasha politika v Krymu," ZhN, 10 October 1921.
110. Verner, "Nasha politika."
111. Ibid.
112. T. Boiadzhev, Krymsko-tatarskaia molodezh o revoliutsU (Siroferopol, 1930), 9.
113. Verner, "Nasha politika."
114. Grigor'ev (Genker ) , "Tatarskii vopros v Krymu," in Antanta i Vrangel' (Mos-
cow, 1923 ) , 236-38.
115. A. K. Bochagov, Milll Firka (Simferopol, 1930), 64; 115-17.
116. Verner, "Nasha politika."
117. S. A. Usov, Istoriko-ekonomicheskle ocherkl Kryma (Simferopol, 1925), 69.
118. Ves' Krym, 1920-1925 ( Simferopol, 1926 ) , 65ff.
119. Verner, "Nasha r,olitika."
120. M. P[avlovi]ch, 'V Krymu," ZhN, 28 May 1921.
121. I. T[rainin], "Dolzhen Ii byt' Krym Respublikoi?", ZhN, 30 July 1921.
122. Cf. Iu. Gaven, "Zadacha sovetskoi vlasti v Krymu," ZhN, 1 February 1920.

T H E C A U CAS U S
1. Georgia, Ministerstvo Vneshnikh Del, Dokumenty i materlaly po oneshnei poli­
tike Zakavkaz'ia i Gruzii (Tillis, 1919, 269ff; henceforth referred to as Georgia,
Dokumenty.
2. A. P. Stavrovskii, Zakaokaz'e posle Oktlabria (Moscow-Leningrad, 1925), 15;
M. Z. Mirza-Bala, Milli Azerbaycan Hareketi ( [Berlin], 1938), 121.
3. Mirza-Bala, Milli, 121-23; I. Tseretelli, Separation de la Transcaucasie et de la
Russie et l'independance de la Georgie (Paris, 1919 ) .
4, F. Kazemzadeh, The Struggle for Transcaucasia (1917-1921) (London-New
York, 1951), 147.
5. Georgia, Dokumenty, 278.
6. The text of the Georgian declaration of independence is to be found in Delega­
a
tion georgienne a la Conference de la Paix, Memoire presente la Conference
de la Paix (Paris, 1919), 21-22,
344 NOTES TO CHAPTER V
7. The text of the Azerbaijani declaration of independence is in Mirza-Bala,
Milli, 135.
8. Tseretelli, Separation.
9. Mirza-Bala, Milli, 124.
10. M. Varandian, Le Confiit armeno-georgien et la guerre du Caucase (Paris,
1919), 37-52; this source cites the text of an alleged Georgian-Turkish agree­
ment of 1914.
11. N. L. Ianchevskii, Grazhdanskaia bor'ba na Severnom Kavkaze, I (Rostov on
Don, 1927 }, 134-36, 189.
12. Ibid., 197-99.
13. I. Borisenko, Sovetskie respubliki na Severnom Kavkaze v 1918 godu, II (Ros­
tov on Don, 1930), 231-36, contains the text of this constitution.
14. A. A. Takho-Godi, Revoliutsiia i kontr-revoliutsiia v Dagestane (Makhach-
Kala, 1927), 61-65.
15. Ianchevskii, Grazhdanskaia bor'ba, II, 201-02.
16. Borisenko, Sovetskie respubliki, II, 69.
17. F. Makharadze, Sovety i bor'ba za sovetskuiu vlast' v Gruzii, 1917-1921
(Tiflis, 1928 ), 175.
18, Speech by Ordzhonikidze in December 1918, quoted by Borisenko, Sovetskie
respubliki, II, 72-73.
19. Takho-Godi, Revoliutsiia, 88-89.
20. Ibid., 89.
21, Borisenko, Sovetskie respubliki, II, 7g-80.
22. S. E. Se£, Bor'ba za Oktiabr' v Zakavkaz'i, ( [TiflisJ, 1932), 64; see also Suren
Shaumian, "Bakinskaia Kommuna 1918 goda," PR, no. 12/59 (1926 ) , 77-78.
23. S. E . Sef, Kak Bol'sheviki prishli k vlasti v Bakinskom raione (Baku, 1927 }, 15.
24. Ia. A. Ratgauzer, Revoliutsiia i grazhdanskaia voina v Baku, I (Baku, 1927),
144.
25. S. Se£, "Bakinskii Oktiabr'," PR, no. 11/106 (1930), 73.
26. S. Se£, Kak Bol'sheviki prishli k vlasti v Bakinskom raione (Baku, 1927), 26,
quoted in A. Dubner, Bakinskii proletariat v gody revoliutsii ( 1917-1920 )
( Baku, 1931), p. v.
27. Sef, quoted by Dubner, 25; for other accounts of the March events, see Se£,
"Bakinskii Oktiabr'," 70-78; Ratgauzer, Revoliutsiia, 147-48.
28. Sef, "Bakinskii Oktiabr'," 79.
29. Ratgauzer, Revoliutsiia, 146.
30. Ibid., 168.
31, Ibid., 165.
32. Ibid., 168.
33. Se£, "Bakinskii Oktiabr'," 82.
34. Ratgauzer, Revoliutsiia, 174.
35. Stepan Shaumian, Stat'i i rechi ( 1908-1918 ) (Baku, 1924), 188-90; Sef, Kak
Bol'sheviki, 33-34; LS, XXXV (1945), 24.
36. S. A. Vyshetravskii, Nefrlanoe khoziaistvo Rossii za poslednee desiatiletie (Mos-
cow, 1924 ) , 148-49; Dubner, Bakinskii proletariat, 93.
37. Dubner, Bakinskii proletariat, 92.
38. Shaumian, speaking on May 16, 1918, in Dubner, 67.
39. Shaumian, Stat'i, 224-25.
40. Ibid., 224.
41, Ratgauzer, Revoliutsiia, 199.
42. Ibid., 207.
43, Ibid., 212-13; the omissions are in the text.
44. Ibid., 213-15,
45. J. Schafir, Die Ermordung der 26 Kommunare in Baku und die Partei dP·
Sozialrevolutionaere ( Hamburg, 1922).
46. L. C. Dunsterville, The Adventures of Dunsterforce (London, 1920 ) , 182-86.
47. Ibid., 305ff.
48. Mirza-Bala, MaU, 13sf(.
THE CAUCASUS 345
49. Ibid., 14off.
50. N. Pchelin, Krest'ianskii vopros pri Musavate (1918-1920 ) (Baku, 1931 ), 21;
Ratgauzer, Borba, 3.
51. Mirza-Bala, Milli, 141-47; A. Stel<lov, Armiia musavatskogo Azerbaidzhana
(Balm, 1928 ), 7.
52. Maj. Gen. J. G. Harbord, "American Military Mission to Armenia," Inter­
national Conciliation, no. 151 (June 1920 ), 296.
53. Ratgauzer, Bor'ba, 14-15; Dubner, Bakinskii proletariat, 101.
54. Mirza-Bala, Milli, 149; B. A. Bor'ian, Armeniia, mezhdunarodnaia diplomatiia
i SSSR (Moscow-Leningrad, 1928-29 ) , II, 73-74.
55. M. Kuliev, Vragi Oktiabria v Azerbaidzhane (Baku, 1927 ), 13.
56. A. Raevskii, Angliiskaia interventsiia i musavatskoe pravitel'stvo (Baku, 1927 ) ,
48-49.
57. Steklov, Armiia, 33.
58. Dubner, Bakinskii proletariat, 135n.
59. Raevskii, Angliiskaia interventsiia, 82.
60. Ibid., 159; R. Arskii, Kavkaz i ego znachenie dlia Sovetskoi Rossii (Peterburg,
1921 ), 45.
61. Claims of the Peace Delegation of the Republic of Caucasian Azerbaidjan
Presented to the Peace Conference in Paris (Paris, 1919 ), 28-31.
62. Bor'ian, Armeniia, II, 62, go.
63. S. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetouthiun (Paris, 1928 ) , 214ff.
64. Bor'ian, Armeniia, II, 83.
65. Ibid., 83.
66. Harbord, "American Military Mission to Armenia," 275-312.
67. Vratsian, Hayastani, 320-25.
68. Ibid., 330, on agreement; Bor'ian, Armeniia, II, 83, on assistance.
69. Raevskii, Angliiskaia interventsiia, 108-09.
70. A. N. Mandelstam, La Societe des Nations et les puissances devant le prob­
leme armenien ( Paris, 1926 ), 57.
71. Ibid., 55.
72. M. Varandian, Le Conflit armeno-georgien et la guerre du Caucase (Paris,
1919 ).
73. E. L. Woodward, ed., Documents o n British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, 1st
Series, III (London, 1949 ), passim.
74. Makharadze, Sovety, 156. W. S. Woytinsky, La Democratie georgienne (Paris,
1921 ) , 194, and J. Kawtaradze, Gruzja w zarysie historycznym ( Warsaw,
1929 ), give slightly different figures.
75. E. Kuhne, La Georgie libre ( Geneva, 1920 ), 57-58.
76. Republique de Georgie, Constitution de la Republique de Georgie (Paris,
1922; private ) ,
77. [F] Makharadze, Diktatura men'shevistskoi partii v Gruzii ( [Moscow] , 1921 ),
71; S. Danilov, "Tragediia abkhazskogo naroda," Vestnik Instituta p o lzucheniiu
Istorii i Kultury SSSR (Munich ), I ( 1951 ), 124££.
78. G. Devdariani, Dni gospodstva men'shevikov v Gruzii ( Tiflis, 1931 ), 310-311.
79. M. Khomeriki, La Reforme agraire et l'economie rurale en Georgie ( Paris, 1921 ),
17; Woytinsky, La Democratie georgienne, 210-11.
80. Devdariani, Dni gospodstva, 302.
81. Makharadze, Sovety, 156-57.
82. Ibid.
83. Woytinsky, La Democratie georgienne, 89££.
84. M. Svechnikov, Borba krasnoi armii na Severnom Kavkaze ( Moscow-Leningrad,
1926 ), 45.
85. Ibid., 102-03.
86. A. Denikine, The White Army (London, 1930 ), 156.
87. Order no. 171, dated 19 November 1919, in Azerbaidzhan (Baku ) , no. 267,
quoted in Dubner, Bakinskii proletariat, 137.
88. Raevskii, Angliiskaia interventsiia, 112.
NOTES TO CHAPTER V
89. Takho-Godi, Revoliutsiia, n8-.21.
90. Ibid., 128-29.
91. A. Avtorkhanov, K osnovnym voprosam istorii Chechni ( [Groznyi], 1930),
57-75.
92. Takho-Godi, Revoliutsiia, 114, 127-28; N. Samurskii, "Krasnyi Dagestan," in
V. Stavskii, ed., Dagestan (Moscow, 1936 ), 16.
93, Quoted from documents found in the Azerbaijani Historical Archive by
Raevskii, Angliiskaia interventsiia, 53.
94. Lord Curzon to Wardrop, 4 October 1919, in Woodward, Documents, 1st
Series, Ill, 577,
95. Denikine, The White Army, 340.
96. Raevskii, Angliiskaia interventsiia, 61, on Azerbaijan; Woodward, Documents,
1st Series, III, 595, on Georgia; Harbord, "American Military Mission to
Armenia," on Armenia.
97. Raevskii, 55-58.
98. Ibid., 58.
99. Arskii, Kavkaz.
100. Makharadze, Sovety, 193.
101. Sarkis, Borba za vlast' ( [Baku], 1930 ) , 15; Ratgauzer, Borba, 45.
102. A. G. Karaev, Iz nedavnego proshlogo {Baku, 1926], 13.
103. Makharadze, Sovety, 193-96.
104. Sarkis, Bor'ba, 48.
105. Ibid., 93.
106. Ibid., 99-100.
107. Ibid., 97; Karaev, Iz nedavnego, 54-55.
108. Dubner, Bakinskii proletariat, 145-46; Ratgauzer, Bor'ba, 53, 63.
109. E. Drabkina, Gruzinskaia kontr-revoliutsiia ( Leningrad, 1928 ) , 172; Makh­
aradze, Sovety, 197-206.
110. The fullest account of Turco-Soviet relations in this period is by G. Jaeschke,
"Der Weg zur russisch-tuerkischen Freundschaft," Die Welt des Islams, XVI
(1934 ), 23-38.
111. Karaev, Iz nedavnego, 59.
112. Jaeschke, "Der Weg," 27.
113. Iu. V. Kliuchnikov and A. Sabanin, Mezhdunarodnaia politika noveishego
vremeni v dogovorakh, notakh i deklaratsiiakh, II ( Moscow, 1925-29 ), 384-87.
114. Karaev, Iz nedavnego, 88, 121; see also Mirza-Bala. Milli, 188ff.
115. Takho-Godi, Revoliutsiia, 223.
l l 6. rLS, XXXIV ( 1942 ) , 279.
1 17. S. M. Kirov, Stat'i, rechi, dokumenty, I ( {Leningrad], 1936 ) , 331.
1 18. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' . . . 'Granat', XLI, pt. 3, 160-63; Pravda Gruz.ii
( Tiflis ) , 10 March 1922.
1 19. G. K. Ordzhonikidze, Izbrannye stat'i i rechi, 19u -1937 ( [Moscow], 1939 ) .
1 13. "Ordzhonikidze, G. K.," Bol'shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, XLIII ( 1939 ) .
G . Zhvaniia, "V. I . Lenin i partiinaia organizatsiia Gruzii v period bor'by z a
sovetskuiu vlast'," Zaria Vostoka ( Tiflis ), 2 1 April 1961.
120. Raevskii, Angliiskaia interventsiia, 17g-80, on Azerbaijan; Kazemzadeh, The
Struggle, 295, on Georgia.
121. The Azerbaijani State Archive, Deposit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
quoted in Raevskii, Angliiskaia interventsiia, 185.
122. Steklov, Armiia, 66-67; Izvestiia, 21 January 1937.
123. Raevskii, Angliiskaia interventsiia, 61-64, 185ff; Kazemzadeh, The Struggle,
276ff, 283.
124. Karaev, Iz nedavnego, 127; Kuliev, Vragi, 40.
125. Mirza-Bala, Milli, 188-90; Kirov, Stat'i, I, 205.
126. Sarkis, Borba, 140-41; Karaev, Iz nedavnego, 123-34.
127. Raevskji, Angliiskaia interventsiia, 190; E. A. Tokarzhevskii, Iz istorii inostrannoi
interventsii i grazhdanskoi voiny v Azerbaidzhane ( Baku, 1957 ) , 268-70.
THE CAUCA S U S 347
128. Kazemzadeh, The Struggle, 284.
129. Mirza-Bala, Milli, 192££.
130. Zhvaniia, "V. I. Lenin"; cf. LS, XXIV, 295-96.
131. · Traite conclu le 7 mai 1920 entre la Republique
democratique de Georgie et
la Republique Socialiste Federative Sovietiste Russe . • . ( Paris, 1922 ) ;
RSFSR, Narodnyi komissariat po inostrannym delam, Sbornik deistvuiushchikh
dogovorov, soglashenii i konventsii zakliuchennykh RSFSR s inostrannymi
gosudarstvami, III ( Moscow, 1922), 295.
132. Vratsian, Hayastani, 410ff.
133. M. Shakhbazov, "Gandzha do i pri sovetvlasti," Iz proshlogo ( Baku ) , no. 2
( 1924), 101-07.
134. Zarevant, Turtsiia i Panturanizm ( Paris, 1930 ) ; H. Munschi, Die Republik
Aserbeidschan ( Berlin, 1930 ) , 41-46.
135. N. Narimanov, Stat'i i pis'ma ( Moscow, 1925 ), pp. x-xiv.
136. LS, XXXV ( 1945 ) , 236. Telegram of Lenin of July 1921.
137. Takho-Godi, Revoliutsiia, 142, on Soviet activities in the North Caucasus.
138. On the rebellion, cf. Samurskii, "Krasnyi Dagestan," 18-20.
139. Kommunist ( Baku ) , 4 November 1920, quoted in IM, no. 11 ( 1940). 12.
140. Stalin, IV, 410-11.
141. Bor'ian, Armeniia, II, 96.
142. Ibid., 95.
143. A. N., "Kommunizm v Armenii," pp. 2543-50.
144. Vratsian, Hayastani, 417-41.
145. S. I. Iakubovskaia, Ob"edinitel'noe dvizhenie za obrazovanie SSSR ( 191 7-
1922 ) ( [Moscow], 1947 ) , 99.
146. Bor'ian, Armeniia, II, 122.
147. See telegram of Stalin to Ordzhonikidze in V. S. Kirillov and A. Ia. Sverdlov,
Grigorii Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze ( Sergo ) - Biografiia ( Moscow, 1962 ) ,
140.
148. RSFSR, Narodnyi komissariat po inostrannym delam, Sbornik deistvuiushchikh
dogovorov, III, 14-15.
149. Vratsian, Hayastani.
150. Bor'ian, Armeniia, II, 126, 135-36; Vratsian, Hayastani, 435ff.
151. Makharadze, Sovety, 213.
152. Ruben, '"V tiskakh men'shevistskoi 'demokratii'," PR, no. 8 ( 1923 ) , 146.
153. Zhvaniia, "V. I. Lenin."
154. Quoted in Drabkina, Gruzinskaia kontr-revoliutsiia, 175,
155. Makharadze, Sovety, 223.
156. The text of the Gekker report can be found in Republique de Georgie, Docu­
ments relatifs a la question de la Georgie devant la Societe des Nations ( Paris,
1925 ) , 67-68.
157, Zhvaniia, "V. I. Lenin."
158. Jaeschke, "Der Weg ," 29-30.
159. M. Pavlovich, V. Gurko-Kriazhin, and F. Raskol'nikov, Turtsiia v bor'be za
nezavisimost' ( Moscow, 1925 ) , 59-106.
160. Note dated 17 February 1921, Trotsky Archive, Harvard College Library, T-635.
161. Zhvaniia, "V. I. Lenin"; Kirillov and Sverdlov, Ordzhonikidze, 143.
162. Zhvaniia, ibid.
163. Lloyd George's assurance to Krasin was reported by Chicherin in a speech de­
livered on 4 March 1925 and cited by I. Tseretelli in Promethee ( June, 1928 ) ,
p. 11 from Zaria Vostoka ( Tillis ) , 5 March 1925.
164. Zhvaniia, "V. I. Lenin."
165. Dispatch by Lenin dated 14 February 1921, Trotsky Archive, T-632.
166. Dispatch by Trotsky from Ekaterinburg ( Sverdlovsk ) , dated 21 February
1921, Trotsky Archive, T-637.
167. Trotsky Archive, T-635.
168. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' . . . 'Granat', XLI, pt. 2, supplement, 20-27.
169. The account of the invasion of Georgia is derived principally from the following
N O T E S TO CHAPTER V
sources: R. Duguet, Moscou et la Georgie martyre ( Paris, 1927); Republique
de Georgie, Documents; L. Coquet, Les Heritiers de la 'toison d'or', ( Chaumont,
1.930 ) ; and from contemporary newspaper accounts in Pravda, The Times
( London), and New York Times.
170. Bor'ian, Armeniia, II, 125ff.
171. Pravda, 2 March 1921.
172, An account of the fight for Batum is given in the report of the commander of
the Batum fortress, in Ia. M. Shafir, Ocherki gruzinskoi zhirondy ( Moscow­
Leningrad, 1925), 187-92.
173. Text in Devdariani, Dni gospodstva, 226-28.
174. Lenin, XXVI, 187-88.
175. Ibid. 188.
176. Ibid., 192.

VI
THE ESTABLI SHMENT OF THE U SSR
1. Quoted in E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, I ( New York,
1951), 1 17.
2. Program of the Russian Communist Party ( 1919), in TsK, RKP ( b), Rossiiskaia
Kommunisticheskaia Partiia ( bol'shevikov ) v rezoliutsiiakh ee s"ezdov i kon­
ferentsii ( 1898-1922 gg.) ( Moscow-Petrograd, 1923), 255-56.
3. Ibid., 254.
4. Ibid., 253-54.
5. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, I, 139.
6. D. Magerovskii, "Soiuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik," SP, no. 1/4
( 1923), g.
7, Ibid., 10; V. Durdenevskii, "Na putiakh k russkomu federal'nomu pravu," SP,
no. 1/4 ( 1923), 30-33.
B. Stalin, IV, 402.
9, B. D. Pletnev, "Gosudarstvennaia struktura RSFSR," Pravo i zhizn' ( Moscow),
no. 1 ( 1.922), 29-30. See also the opinions of D. A. Magerovskii, Soiuz Sovet­
skikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik ( obzor i materialy ) ( Moscow, 1923), 20;
G. S. Gurvich, Osnovy sovetskoi konstitutsii ( Moscow, 1926 ), 149ff; N. N.
Alekseev, "Sovetskii federalizm," Evraziiskii vremennik ( Paris), V ( 1927), 255,
and M. Langhans, "Die staatsrechtlichc Entwicklung der auf Russischen Boden
lebenden kleineren Nationalitaeten," Archiv fuer Oeffentliches Recht, Neue
Falge, IX ( 1925), 195.
10. lzvestiia, 22 May 1920.
11. Ibid., 6 November 1920.
12. Ibid., 21 December 1920.
13. Ibid., 27 April 1921.
14. Ibid., 6 November 1920.
15. Ibid., 21 December 1920.
16. Revue du Monde Musulman, LI ( 1922), 26-33.
17. G. K. Klinger, ed., Sovetskaia politika za 1.0 let po natsional'nomu voprosu v
RSFSR ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1928 ), 24; cf. I. Trainin, "K likvidatsii Narkom­
natsa," ZhN, no. 1/6 ( 1924 ), 19-30.
18. P. Miliukov, Rossiia na perelome, II ( Paris, 1927), 249.
19. KP( b)U, Institut Istorii Partii, Istoriia KP ( b ) U ( Kiev, 1933), II, 264-65.
20. Sistematicheskii sbornik vazhneishikh dekretov, 191.7-1.920 ( Moscow, 1921), 63.
21. L. Trotsky, My Life ( New York, 193 1), 4 1 1-22.
22, LS, XVIII ( 1931 ), 243; Lenin, XXVI, 619-20.
THE E S TA B L I S H M E N T O F THE U S S R 349
23. M. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia Kommunisticheskoi Partii Ukrainy ( [Kharkov],
1923 ) , 1 1 1.
24. E. G. Bosh, God bor'by ( 1917) ( Moscow, 1925 ), 92.
25. B. D. Wolfe, "The Influence of Early Military Decisions upon the National
Structure of the Soviet Union," The American Slavic and East European Review,
IX ( 1950 ), 16g-79; Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 131.
26. Ravich-Cherkasskii, Istoriia, 131-32.
27. LS, XXXIV ( 1942 ) , 120-21.
28. Magerovskii, Soiuz, 68-69.
29. S. I. Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo Soiuznogo Sovetskogo Sotsialisticheskogo gosu­
darstva, 1 922-1925 gg. ( Moscow, 1960 ) , 123.
30. The background of the Russian-Azerbaijani treaty is discussed by M. S.
Iskenderov, Iz istorii bor'by Kommunisticheskoi partii Azerbaidzhana za pobedu
Sovetskoi vlasti ( Baku, 1958 ), 515-17, and E. A. Tokarzhevskii, Ocherki
istorii Sovetskogo Azerbaidzhana v period perekhoda na mirnuiu rabotu po
vosstanovleniiu narodnogo khoziaistva ( 1 92 1-1 925 gg. ) ( Baku, 1956 ) , 88-go.
31. RSFSR, Narodnyi komissariat po inostrannym delam, Sbornik deistvuiushchikh
dogovorov, soglashenii i konventsii, zakliuchennykh RSFSR s inostrannymi
stranami ( Moscow-Peterburg, 1921-22 ), I, 1-9; henceforth referred to as
NKID, Sbornik.
32. Ibid., 15-17 and 13-15; cf. above, 137-38.
33, Tokarzhevskii, Ocherki, 89.
34. NKID, Sbornik, I, 17-27.
35. Ibid. II, 7ff.
36. Iu. V. Kliuchnikov and A. Sabanin, Mezhdunarodnaia politika noveishego vre­
meni v dogovorakh, notakh i deklaratsiiakh ( Moscow, 1925-29 ) , III, 167ff.
37. "Dalnevostochnaia Respublika ( DVR )," Bol'shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, 1st
ed., XX ( Moscow, 1930 ), 216-21.
38. Revue du Monde Musulman, LI, 224-25.
39. Kommunisticheskii lnternatsional i osvobozhdenie Vostoka, Pervyi s"ezd narodov
Vostoka - stenograficheskie otchety ( Petrograd, 1920 ), 108-12 ( NN ) .
40. D. Soloveichik, "Revoliutsionnaia Bukhara," NV, no. 2 ( 1922 ), 277.
41. M. Chokaev, "The Basmaji Movement in Turkestan," The Asiatic Review
( London ) , XXIV, no. 78 ( 1928 ), 284-85.
42. K. Okay, Enver Pascha, der grosse Freund Deutschlands ( Berlin, [ 1935] ) ,
387-88.
43. Soloveichik, "Revoliutsionnaia Bukhara," passim.
44. Ibid.; Revue du Monde Musulman, LI, 229.
45. Soloveichik, "Revoliutsionnaia Bukhara," 283; SaYd Alim Khan ( Emir of Buk­
hara ), La Voix de la Boukharie opprimee ( Paris, 1929 ) , 37.
46. [K.] Vasilevskii, "Fazy basmacheskogo dvizheniia v Srednei Azii," NV, no. 29
( 1930 ), 134 .
47. Soloveichik, "Revoliutsionnaia Bukhara," 283.
48. Revue du Monde Musulman, LI, 229-30, cites text of the ultimatum.
49. Soloveichik, "Revoliutsionnaia Bukhara," 284, has Enver's letter to the Emir;
cf. Vasilevskii, "Fazy," 134.
50. Vasilevskii, "Fazy," 135; Chokaev, "The Basmaji Movement," 282; J. Castagne,
Les Basmatchis ( Paris, 1925 ), 34.
51. Vasilevskii, "Fazy," 135.
52. I. Kutiakov, Krasnaia konnitsa i vozdushynyi fiat v pustyniakh - 1 924 god
( Moscow-Leningrad, 1930 ) .
53. VKP ( b ) , Tatarskii Oblastnoi Komitet, Stenograficheskii otchet IX oblastnoi kon­
ferentsii tatarskoi organizatsii R.K.P. ( b) ( Kazan, 1924 ) , 130.
54. Sultan-Galiev, quoted in A. Arsharuni and Kh. Gabidullin, Ocherki panislamizma
i pantiurkizma v Rossii ( [Moscow], 1931 ) , 78-79; see also A. Arsharuni, "Ideo­
logiia Sultangalievshchiny," Antireligioznik ( Moscow ) , no. 5 ( 1930 ), 22-29,
and M. Kobetskii, "Sultan-Galievshchina kak apologiia Islama," Antireligioznik,
no. 1 ( 1930 ), 12-16, ( NN ) .
35 0 N O T E S T O CHAPTER VI
55, L. Rubinshtein, V bor'be za leninskuiu natsional'nuiu politiku ( Kazan, 1930 ) ,
75ff.
56. Arsharuni and Gabidullin, Ocherki, 78-86; G. von Mende, Der nationale Kampf
der Russlandtuerken ( Berlin, 1936 ), 158.
57, L. Trotsky, Stalin ( New York, [ 1941] ) , 4 17.
58. Stalin, V, 305.
59. NKID, Sbornik, I, 15-16.
60. Magerovskii, Soiuz, 24.
61. Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 130.
62. V. M. Kuritsyn, Gosudarstvennoe sotrudnichestvo mezhdu Ukrainskoi SSR i
RSFSR v 1917-1922 gg. ( Moscow, 1957 ) , 141, 144.
63. S. Gililov, V. I. Lenin - Organizator Sovetskogo mnogonatsional'nogo gosu.
darstva ( Moscow, 1960 ) , 145-46.
64. V. V. Pentkovskaia, "Rol' V. I. Lenina v obrazovanii SSSR," VI, no. 3 ( 1956 ) ,
14-15; Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 139-40.
65. Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 140-4 1; Pentkovskaia, "Rol' V. I. Lenina," 15; V.
Chirko, Ob"iednavchyi rukh na Ukraini za stvorennia Soiuzu RSR ( Kiev, 1954 ) ,
120,
66. Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 130, 14 1-42.
67. See his autobiographical sketch in Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' . . . 'Granat',
XLI, pt. 3, supplement, 47-59.
68. Institut Marksizma-Leninizma pri TsK KPSS, Odinadtsatyi s"ezd RKP ( b } -
stenograficheskii otchet ( Moscow, 1961 ) , 72-75.
69. R. S. Sullivant, Soviet Politics and the Ukraine, 1917-1957 ( New York, 1962 ) ,
passim.
70. NKID, Sbornik, III, 18- 19.
71. Lenin, XXVI, 191; LS, XX ( 1932 ) , 178.
72. NKID, Sbornik, III, g-13; Akademiia Nauk Gruzinskoi SSR, Bor'ba za upro­
chenie S ovetskoi vlasti v Gruzii ( Tillis, 1959 ) , 34 7-48; Gililov, V. I. Lenin,
157-58; RKP ( b ) , Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd - stenograficheskii otchet ( Moscow,
1923 ), 152.
73. Bor'ba za uprochenie, 5g-61; Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 151; Iakubovskaia, Stroi­
tel'stvo, 131; Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 558; Stalin, V, 48.
74. Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 159; V. S. Kirillov and A. Ia. Sverdlov, Grigorii Kon­
stantinovich Ordzhonikidze ( Sergo ) - Biografiia ( Moscow, 1962 ) , 158-59;
henceforth referred to as Ordzhonikidze.
75. Bor'ba za uprochenie, 65; Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 161.
76. lakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 48-49; Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 160; Ordzhonikidze,
162-63.
77. Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 160.
78. Ibid., 161.
79. Lenin, Sochineniia, 4th ed., XXXIII ( 1953 ) , 103; Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 161.
Bo. Bor'ha za uprochenie, 38.
8 1. Ibid., 89.
82. Text, ibid., 108- 10.
83. Kommunist ( Kharkov } , no. 238 ( 17 October 1923 ) in M. V, Frunze, Sobranie
sochinenii ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1926 ) , I, 476-78.
84. Speech cited in Zaria vostoka, no. 228, 21 March 1923, reported by E. B.
Genkina, Obrazovanie SSSR, 2nd ed. [Moscow], 1947 ) , 101; Gililov, V. I.
Lenin, 151.
85. Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 151-52.
86. Ordzhonikidze, 171; Bor'ba za uprochenie, 1 17.
87. Lenin, XXV, 624; this letter is not reproduced in Stalin's Collected Works.
88. Pentkovskaia, "Rol' V. I. Lenina," 17.
89. My reconstruction rests partly on Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 144, 148, and
Pentkovskaia, "Rol' V. I. Lenina," 17, and partly on Lenin's and Stalin's letters
of 27 September 1922, referred to below ( see note 99 ) .
go. S. S . Gililov, "Razrabotka V . I . Leninym printsipov stroitel'stva mnogonatsio-
THE E S TA B L I S HM E N T O F THE U S S R 35 1
nal'nogo Sovetskogo gosudarstva," Akademiia Obshchestvennykh Nauk pri TsK
KPSS, 0 deiatel'nosti V. I. Lenina v 1 9 1 7-1922 gody - Sbornik Statei ( Mos­
cow, 1958 ), 76; Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 165-66; Ordzhonikidze, 171.
91. Borba za uprochenie, 1 17.
92. lakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 145.
93. First published in Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, no. 2/48 ( 17 January 1923 ) , 19;
reprinted, with a record of the vote, in Borba za uprochenie, 1 16-17.
94. Pentkovskaia, "Roi' V. I. Lenina," 17; Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 145-46.
95. Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 167; Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 146.
96. Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 151-52.
97. Pentkovskaia, "Rol' V. I. Lenina," 17; Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 148-49;
Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 169.
98. lakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 149.
99. Lenin's memorandum is reproduced in LS, XXXVI ( 1959 ) , 496-g8; Stalin's has
not been published in full, but can be found in the Trotsky Archive, T-755.
Both documents are dated 27 September 1922.
100. Lenin, Sochineniia, 4th ed., XXXIII, 335.
101. The revised project, accepted by the Plenum on 6 October, is reproduced in
Bor'ba za uprochenie, 117-18.
102. Ordzhonikidze, 172; Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 175.
103. Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 536; Stalin, V, 433.
104. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, 17 January 1923; cf. L. Beriia, K voprosu ob istorii
Bol'shevistskikh organizatsii v Zakavkaz'e, 7th ed. ( [Moscow], 1948 ) , 245.
105. Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 464.
106. Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 175-76.
107. Beriia, K voprosu, 243-44; Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 174-76; Iakubovskaia, Stroi­
tel'stvo, 154; Ordzhonikidze, 172-73.
108. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, 17 January 1923, 19; Gililov, V. I. Lenin, 176.
109. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, 17 January 1923, 19; Beriia, K voprosu, 245-46. L.
Schapiro observes ( The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, London, 1960,
227 ) that this letter is not reprinted in Lenin's Collected Works; but it should
be noted that it is listed in the complete catalogue of Lenin's published writings,
Institut Marksizma-Leninizma, Khronologicheskii ukazatel' proizvedenii V. I.
Lenina ( Moscow, 1959-62 ) , II, no. 10,276. See also L. Trotsky, Stalin ( New
York, [ 194 1] ) , 357.
1 10. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, 17 January 1923, 19.
1 1 1. Ibid.; Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 156-57; Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 154-55; Gililov,
V. I. Lenin, 177,
1 12. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, 17 January 1923, 19; Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 158; Gi1ilov,
V. I. Lenin, 178-79.
1 13. Bor'ba za uprochenie, 1 18-20.
1 14. Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 160.
1 15. Ibid.
1 16. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, I, 397.
1 17. Pravda, 30 December 1922; S. I. Iakubovskaia, Ob"edinitel'noe dvizhenie za
obrazovanie SSSR ( [Moscow] , 1947 ), 194.
1 18. TsIK, SSSR, I s"ezd sovetov Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Republik -
stenograficheskii otchet ( Moscow, 1923 ) .
1 19. Ibid., 19.
120. Ibid., 8-1 1.
121. Genkina, Obrazovanie SSSR, 123; Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 193,
122. Based on figures supplied in RKP ( b ) , TsK, Statisticheskii otdel, RKP ( b ) v
tsifrakh ( Moscow, 1924ff ) , Vypusk I, table 6, p. 5 ( NN ) .
123. VKP ( b ) , Desiatyi s"ezd RKP( b ) ( Moscow, 1933 ), 206-07; speech of Zatonskii.
124. I. P. Trainin, "K postanovke natsional'nogo voprosa," VS, no. 5 ( 1923 ) , 29.
125. TsK, RKP ( b ) , Rossiiskaia Kommunisticheskaia Partiia ( bol'shevikov ) , 330-3 1;
Stalin, V, 40.
126. Ordzhonikidze, 174-77.
35 2 NOTE S TO CHAPTER VI
127. Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 157; L. A. Fotieva, "Iz vospominanii o V. I. Lenine,"
Voprosy istorii KPSS, no. 4 ( 1957 ), 159;· "Novyi dokument o zhizni i deiatel'­
nosti V. I. Lenina," ibid., no. 2 ( 1963 ), 71.
128. lzvestiia, 17 November 1922; Fotieva, "Iz vospominanii," 158-59; "Novyi doku-
ment," 71.
129. "Novyi dokument," 69.
130. Ibid., 74.
131. Ibid., 76.
132. Ibid., 77; Fotieva, "Iz vospominanii," 150.
133. Ordzhonikidze, 177-78.
134. The incident is described in Ordzhonikidze, 175-76.
135. "Novyi dokument," 77.
136. Fotieva, "Iz vospominanii," 159.
137. "Novyi dokument," 69, 77.
138. Magerovskii, Soiuz, 56-57.
139. Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 150, 1 59; Bor'ba za uprochenie, 146.
140. G. K. Ordzhonikidze, Stat'i i rechi ( Moscow, 1956-57 ), I, 266.
141. Fotieva, "Iz vospominanii," 156, 158.
142. See this book, pp. 285-86.
143. Fotieva, "Iz vospominanii," 161-62.
144. "Novyi dokument," 90-91.
145. Ibid., 84, 91; Fotieva, "Iz vospominanii," 162-63.
146. Stalin, V, 143. Cf. Genkina, Obrazovanie SSSR, 125ff and V. I. Ignat'ev,
Sovet National'nostei TsIK SSSR ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1926 ) .
147. Cf. J. Stalin, Marxism and the National Question (New York, 1942 ) , 134, 142;
Iakubovskaia, Stroitel'stvo, 198-99.
148. "Novyi dokument," 91.
149. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, no. 23/24 { 69/70 ) , 17 March 1923, 15. Copy in Trotsky
Archive, T-787. Trotsky's reply is in Stalin School of Falsification ( New York,
1937 ), 71.
150. Trotsky Archive, T-794.
151. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, no. 23/24 ( 69/70 ) , 17 March 1923, 15. Trotsky
Archive, T-788.
152. See his circular to the members of .the Central Committee of 16 April 1923 in
the Trotsky Archive, T-794.
153. Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 150-59.
154. Ibid., 185-86.
155. Stalin, Marxism, 137-57.
156. Stalin, V, 264-65.
157. Trotsky, Stalin, 357.
158. Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 523; cf. ibid., 548.
159. Ibid., 529.
160. Ibid., 53 1-32.
161. See his constitutional project in V. I. Ignat'ev, Sovetskii stroi, Vyp. I ( Moscow­
Leningrad, 1928 ) , 115-19, and his theoretical analysis in Soiuz Sotsialisticheskikh
Sovetskikh Respublik - Novyi etap v Sovetskom soiuznom stroitel'stve ( Kharkov,
1923 ) . The latter contains a critique of the Union constitution.
162. Dvenadtsatyi s"ezd, 532-34.
INDEX
Abkhazians,212 Austria, 2, 23, 24, 36; national question,
Adalet Party (Persian Communist), 218, 24-28
220,229 "Autonomisation," 270-271, 272, 281,
Adzhars,212 282-283
Aharonian,Avetis ( c. 1864-1948),216 Autonomous Regions and Republics, see
Akhil Bek,257 Russia,Soviet
Akhundov,R.,268 Autonomy, cultural, 24, 25, 31, 33, 34,
Akmolinsk,172 37,40,42,77,78
Akselrod, Pavel Borisovich ( 1850-1928), Avar people,16
34 Azerbaijan, 79, 194, 204-208, 210, 212,
Aktiubinsk,173 214, 216, 217, 221, 223, 224, 253,
Akushinskii,Ali Khadzi,216 254, 266, 279; establishment of Soviet
Alash-Orda Party (Kazakh-Kirghiz), .84, rule, 224, 225-229; foreign relations,
85,86,89,108,162,172,173-175 254; integration into USSR, 253, 271;
Aleksandropol,193,231,232 National Council, 204-206; national
Alexander I,4,8 movement, 20, 99, 100, 104-105, 202;
Alexander II,2,7 Parliament ( December 1918), 206;
American Relief Mission ( Armenia), 209 political parties, 15, 99-100, 106, 204-
Anatolia,12, 101,221, 231, 236; Eastern, 205
18,101,210,231 Azerbaijani people, 8, 12-13, 16, 96, 99-
Andi,96 101, 194, 195, 199, 200, 202, 203, 205
Ankara,240 Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic,see
Antonov-Ovseenko, Vladimir Aleksan­ Azerbaijan
drovich ( 1884-purged, died in exile,
1939), 120, 124, 126, 127, 128, 130, Bai1ev, Frederick Marshman, Lieut�nant
140,184 Colonel ( 1882-1967),-180
Araks River,16,208 Baisun,258
Ardahan,106,107 Baitursunov, Akhmed ( 1872-?), 84, 173,
Armenia, 7, 8, 17, 156, 208-210, 212, 174,262
217, 223, 230, 239, 240, 271; estab­ Bakhchisarai,13, 79,81
lishment of Soviet rule, 227, 230-234; Baku, 14, 15, 98, 100, 101, 104, 105,
National Conference, 102; National 106, 156, 19,3, 195, lQg-204, 217, 218,
Council ( Tulis), 102; national move­ 225, 230, 231. 2f:7; British occupation,
ment, 18-19, 101, 202; political par­ 206-207; establishment of Communist­
ties, 19, 101, 102, 106; Provisional Mil­ led Baku Commune ( 1918), 199-204;
itary Revolutionary Committee, 232, Executive Committee of Soviet ( Ispol­
233 kom), 199, 200; Moslems, 200, 205;
Armenian Corps,102 oil industries, 13, 201, 202, 207-208,
Armenians, 2, 8, 16-17, 20, 47, 99, 101, 226; political parties, 199-200, 206;
107, 176, 194, 195, 199-20 0, 201, 205, Turkish occupation of, 204, 205, 206;
206,208,209,216 Communist coup ( 1920), 224, 225-
Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, see 229
Armenia Balkariia,223
Artem, Fedor Andreevich ( 1883-1921), Barudi, Alimdzhan,77
127,136,140,144,165 Bashkiriia, 86, 108, 161-168, 170, 247-
Ashkhabad,181 248, 270, 279; Congress, First ( Oren­
Astrakhan, 1, 158, 172, 201, 207-208, burg, July 1917), 86; Congress of
220 Soviets, First ( 1920), 168; national
354 INDEX
movement, 85, 163-164, 166-167; Ob­ Buachidze, Noi (Samuil) (1882-killed
kom, role of (Regional Committee of 1918), 197
Communist Party), 164-168; political Bubnov, Andrei Sergeevich (1883-
parties, 85, 161; Revolutionary Com­ purged, perished 1940), 139, 148
mittee (Bashrevkom), 162, 164, 165, Budenny, Semen Mikhailovich ( 1883-
166, 167, 168, 170; Society for Aid to, ), 238
165; uprising of 1920, 166-168 Bukeikhanov, Alikhan Nurmagometovich
Bashkir Republic, Autonomous (Soviet), (1869-?), 84
see Bashkiriia Bukhara, 4, 13, 177, 183-184, 255-260;
Bashkirs, 1, 13, 51, 77, 79, 82, 85, 86, integration into USSR, 255
164,166 Bukhara, Emir of, 175, 176-177, 184,
Basmachi Movement ( Basmachestvo), 256, 258-259
176-180, 256-260; see also Turkestan Bukharan People's Soviet Republic, see
Basmachis, 178, 180, 181, 183, 184, 262 Bukhara
Batum, 15, 106, 107, 194, 197, 207, 208, Bukharin, Nikolai lvanovich (1888-exe­
211, 217, 239, 240, 257 cuted by Soviet regime 1938),47, 109,
Bauer, Otto (1881-1938 ), 25-27, 28, 36, 110, 274, 290
38-39, 40, 41, 42, 46 Bund (Jewish), 14, 27-28, 34, 37, 75,
Belaia Tserkov, 138 142,244
Belorussia, 245, 250, 251, 252, 253-254,
271, 272, 273; Belorussian national Catherine the Great,2,190
congress (December 14, 1917), 75, Catholicos (Armenian), 19
150, 151; Belorussian National Re­ Caucasian Bureau, see Communist Party,
public, proclamation of (March 1918), Russia (RKP(b))
151; Council of Commissars, Western Caucasian Mountain peoples (Gortsy), 2,
Region, 74; early history, 59; German 16, 94, 155, 195-196, 197; Gortsy con­
occupation (1918), 151-152; Great gress,first (May 1917), 96-97
Rada, 24, 74; integration into the Caucasian Mountains,15,94,210
RSFSR, 253-254, 271, 272; Military Caucasus, 5, 7, 17, 211, 217; British in­
Council, 74; National Committee, 73- tervention in, 180; Council of Defense,
74, 152; national movement, 11-12, 216; demography, 15-17, 94-96; es­
73, 75, 150-154; political parties, 11- tablishment of Soviet rule, 217-241;
12, 73, 75, 150-152; provisional gov­ national movements, 20-21, 37, 96-98,
ernment (February 1918), 151; Rada, 214-216; Northern, 2, 15-16, 20, 51,
52, 74, 108, 151; see also Belorussians; 76, 79, 93, 95, 105-106, 108, 198, 199,
Lithuanian-Belorussian Soviet Repub­ 207, 208, 214, 215-216, 225, 295; oc­
lic; specific political parties by name cupation by Whites, 214-216; political
Belorussians, 2, 9 parties, 34, 38, 99, 194, 216; revolu­
Belorussian Socialist (or Revolutionary) tionary committee of Northern, 223;
Hromada, 11, 28, 73, 74, 75 see also Transcaucasia
Bicherakov, Grigorii, Colonel (d. 1952), The Caucasus and Its Significance for
203-204 Soviet Russia, 217
Bobruisk, 151 Central Asia, 13, 51, 79, 81, 85, 86, 87,
Bolshevik Party, see Communist Party, 91, 168, 172, 179, 180, 257, 258, 259,
Russia (RKP(b)) 260, 295; Congress of Soviets, Fourth
Bolshevism, see Communism; Lenin; So­ Regional, 175; see also Turkestan
cial Democratic Labor Party (Russia); Centralism, 242, 296; see also Lenin;
Stalin Russia, Soviet; Stalin
Borchalo, 210, 237, 239 Central Moslem Military College,169
Borotbisty, see Socialist Revolutionary Central Powers, 46, 106, 118, 130, 132,
Fighters Party Ukraine; Communist 142,180-181,193,205,221
Party, Ukraine ( Borotbist) Chardzhou,184
Brest-Litovsk Treaty, 106, 107, 108, 118, Chechen people, 51, 94, 95-96, 97, 98,
130, 132, 193, 194 155,195,198
Briukhanov, Nikolai Pavlovich ( 1878-?), Chechnia, 96,214,223
251 Cheka, 180,198,265,269
Broido, Grigorii Isaakovich (1885-?), 89 Chelibiev, Chelibidzhan (1885-executed
Bruenn Congress (1899), see Social by Communists 1918),79,80,81,185
Democratic Labor Party, Austria Cherkess people, 95, 212
INDEX 355
Chernigov, 64, 73, 119, 124, 136 160-161; Central Committee, 80, 81,
Chernomore, 15 106, 130, 135, 136, 140, 141, 144, 145,
Chernov, Viktor Mikhailovich ( 1873- 147,160,181,217, 224,234,244,245-
1952 ), 31 246, 252, 264, 266, 267, 269, 270, 274,
Chicherin, Grigorii Vasilevich ( 1872- 275,281,288-289,290; "Circular letter
1936), 140, 141, 225, 236, 253, 273, to All Organizations of the Communist
275 Party of Turkestan," 182; Conference,
Chkalov province,81-82 Eighth (December 1919), 147-148;
Chkheidze, Nikolai Semenovich ( 1864- Congress (April 1917), 274; Congress,
1926),99,216 Eighth (March 1919), 109, 110, 245;
Chkhenkeli, Akaki Ivanovich ( c. 1879- Congress, Ninth (April 1920), 171;
1959), 37, 106, 193, 212 Congress,Tenth (1921),279-280; Con­
Chokaev, Mustafa (1890-1941), 88, 92, gress, Eleventh (March 1922), 265;
93,176 Congress, Twelfth (April 1923), 265,
Chuvash Autonomous Region,171-172 287, 290-293; Crimean Regional Com­
Chuvash people,1,159,171 mittee, 189, Donets-Krivoi Rog Re­
Civil War, Russian, 81-82, 89, 107, 108, gional Committee, 245; federalism in,
113, 125, 158, 163, 166, 179, 181, 183, 244, 245; Great Russian Nationalism,
187, 191, 195, 198, 207, 214, 215,217, 277-280; nationalist communism, 260-
235, 246, 247,248, 251, 259, 260, 279, 262; national origin of membership,
294,295 277-278; and the national question,33,
Communism, 51, 53,72,86, 92, 148, 164, 36-38, 41, 47, 49, 52, 108-111, 145,
246, 265; see also Lenin; Socialism; 149-150, 242, 295, 296; Northwestern
Stalin Regional Committee, 74, 152, 245;
Communist Party, Armenia, 231, 233, Party Program ( 1919), 243, 245, 277;
245,271,273 Southwestern Regional Committee,
Communist Party, Azerbaijan, 219-221, 245; Transcaucasian Regional Commit­
222,227,230,245,253, 271- 272, 273; tee, 105-106, 218, 219, 220, 224, 225,
see also Baku 234, 245, 268, 271-272, 275, 288;
Communist Party, Bashkiriia, 163-164, Turkestan Committee, 245; Turkbiuro,
165, 169; regional conference, :first 259; see also Adalet Party; Communist
( November 1919), 164-165 Parties of specific states and provinces;
Communist Party, Belorussia ( KP ( b)B), Gummet Party; Moslem Socialist Com­
74, 150, 151, 152 mittee; Social Democratic Labor Par­
Communist Party, Caucasus, 96, 98, 216, ties
219-220, 224-225; see also Communist Communist Party, Tatar, 168, 169, 260,
Party,Armenia; Communist Party,Az­ 262; in Kazan, 170-172; Second Con­
erbaijan; Communist Party, Georgia; ference of Eastern Communists ( No­
Communist Party, Terek vember 1919), 170
Communist Party, Crimea, 80-81, 185, Communist Party, Terek, 196, 197, 198
186; Executive Committee, 185-186; Communist Party, Transcaucasia, 100,
First All-Crimean Party Conference 103-104, 105-106, 193, 278; Congress,
( November 17, 1917), 81; Regional First ( October 1917), 105
Party Congress ( 1921), 190 Communist Party, Turkestan, 88, 89, 92,
Communist Party, Georgia, 104, 197-198, 93, 184, 245, 256
211,218, 219, 228, 234, 245, 266, 273; Communist Party, Ukraine ( KP ( b)U),
Central Committee, 267-269, 271, 273, 63, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 108, 114, 115-
274-275, 281, 287, 290 116, ll7, 118, 119, 126-136, 138-139,
Communist Party, Latvia, 245 140, 143, 144-147, 148, 245, 252, 278;
Communist Party, Lithuania, 245 Central Committee, 128, 133, 134, 136,
Communist Party, Russia (RKP{b) ), 30, 141,144,147,245; Central Revolution­
40, 46, go, 98, 104-105, 132, 137, 140, ary Committee, 133, 134-135, 139;
142, 144, 149, 151, 1 54, 156, 161, 163, Congress, First (June 1918), 132, 134-
166, 174, 184, 221, 242, 243-245, 247, 135, 144; Congress, Second ( October
248, 253, 260, 288-289, 294; Baku Bu­ 1918), 136, 139; Federalist group in,
reau of Regional Committee, 227; Cau­ 146, 147; Gomel Conference ( Novem­
casian Bureau ( Kavbiuro), 224-225, ber 1919), 145, 147; Kharkov, 123,
226,229,232, 235, 26 6-269, 290; Cen­ 124,125,127,128,129,130,131; Kiev,
tral Bureau of Moslem Organizations, 69-72, 114-115, 121, 123, 127, 128,
INDEX
129, 131, 139; Taganrog Conference Denikin, Anton Ivanovich, General
(Ukrainian) (April 1918), 132, 134 ( 1872-1947), 138, 143, 144, 153, 188,
Communist Party, Ukraine ( Borotbist) 189, 206, 209, 214, 215, 216, 219, 220,
(UKP), 134, 146, 148, 152 295
Congress of Peoples of the East ( Baku, Derbent, 205,225
1920)' 229, 232, 256--257 Dilizhan,232
Congress of Soviets,All-Russian, 52, 155; Diushambe,258,259
Central Executive Committee (VTsIK), Dnieper River region,2,9,114, 129, 149,
243,247,249,250,252,253, 264,271- 153
273, 276; Third (January 1918), 111, Donets-Krivoi Rog Soviet Republic, 130,
243; Tenth ( December 1922), 275 131; Congress of Soviets,123
Congress of Soviets,Union of Soviet So­ Donets River region,129,130,131
cialist Republics: First ( December Don River region, 11, 15, 94, 119, 120,
1922), 275-276; Second (January 127,136,140
1924),293 Doroshenko, Dmytro I. ( 1882-?), 66--67
Congress of Ukrainian Workers, 59, 62, Dro,233
67 Duma, 14, 30, 58, 76; first, 7, 14-15, 17,
Constituent Assembly, All-Russian, 52, 84; second,14-15,84; third,17-18
56, 61, 63, 75, 78, 89, go, 100, 102, Dunsterville, Lionel Charles, Major Gen­
103, 104, 109, 122, 157, 158, 169, 172 eral ( 1865-1946), 180, 2'cfa-203, 204
Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets), Dutov, Ataman Aleksandr Ilich ( 1864-
11, 15, 29, 61, 63, 76, 77, Bo, 84, 89, 1922),86,162,172,175,181
107 Dzerzhinskii,Feliks Edmuntovich ( 1877-
Cossacks, 2, g, 20, 51, 66, 83, 86, 106, 1926),48,281, 283-284, 286,287,288
108, 143, 148; Don, 97, 118, 170; Dzhemal Pasha (1872-assassinated 1922),
Kuban, 97; Southeastern Union of, 93, 256,257
97, 108; Terek, 94, 95-96, 97, 195, Dzhulfa,193
197; see also Ukrainians Dzhunaid Khan,257
Crimea, 2, 12, 13, 79-81, 108, 132, 184-
192; Communist regime in, 185-186, Ekaterinoslav, 63, 73, 115, 116, 119,123,
188-192, 261, 271; Congress of So­ 129, 130, 131, 132, 134
viets, First Regional ( Simferopol, Eliava, Shalva Zurabovich ( 1855-purged,
March 1918 ), 79, 186, 187; German executed 1937), 181, 271
occupation of, 187-188; Mufti of, 188; Elisavetpol, 15, 100, 204, 205, 228
national movement, 186, 187, 188; po­ Engels, Friedrich ( 1820-1895), 21; see
litical parties, 80-81, 185-191; Revolu­ also Marx, Karl
tionary Committee ( Revkom), 185, Enver Pasha ( 1881-1922), 256--260, 263
Vakuf Commission, 188; see also Erivan, 15, 209, 231, 232, 233, 239;
Tatars, Crimean Treaty of ( 1920), 233
Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic, see Erzerum,106,210
Crimea Erzinjan,106
Crimean Tatar National Party ( Milli Estonia, 3,107-108
Firka), 79, 80, 185, 187, 188, 189;
Central Committee, 188
Curzon, George Nathaniel, Lord ( 1859- Far Eastern People's Republic,255
1925),216 Federalism, 30, 34, 65, 77, 78, 100, 105,
Cyril and Methodius Society,10 111, 242, 246, 247, 263, 276
Czech people,24,160,170 Feodosiia,81
Ferghana Valley,175,177,178,179,183,
Daghestan, 15, 16, 93, 95, 96, 205, 208, 184,257,260
214,223,225,229,230,239 Finland, 2, 3, 4, 5, 29, 43, 56, 108, 254;
Dashnaks,see Dashnaktsutiun Party Seim ( Diet, Tsarist), 3, 7; Senate
Dashnaktsutiun ( Fede_ration) Party, 1g- (Tsarist), 3
20, 28, 98, 101, 102, 200, 201, 204, Finns, 1, 2, 7; see also Chuvash people;
206, 209, 212, 230,231, 232, 233, 234, Mordva
239; regional conference (April 1917), Frumkin,M. I. (1878-purged,died 1939),
102 237
Declaration of Rights of the Toiling and Frunze, Mikhail Vasilevich ( 1885-1925),
Exploited People ( 1918),242-243 165, 172, 183, 184, 264, 268, 270, 272
INDEX 357
Galicia, 8, 10, 138, 142, 153 Hromady, 10
Galpem, Aleksandr Iakovlevich ( 1879- Hrushevskii, Mikhail Sergeevich ( 1866-
1956), 64 1934), 54, 55, 59
Gandzha, see Elisavetpol Hryhoryiv, Ataman ( killed 1919), 142,
Gasprinskii, Ismail Bey ( 1851-1914), 13, 143
79
Gegechkori, Evgenii Petrovich ( 1879- Ibragimov, Galimdzhan ( 1887-1927?),
1954)' 103, 212 158
Gekker, Anatolii Markovich, General, Ibragimov, Veli ( executed by Soviet re­
224, 235, 236, 238, 239 gime 1928), 188
Georgia, 17, 95, 106, 207, 208, 210-214, Ibrahim-Bek ( executed by Soviet regime
216, 218, 219, 220, 223, 254, 270, 281- 1931), 184, 257, 258, 259, 260
282, 283-285, 287, 288-290; Commu­ Ingushetia, 214, 223
nist opposition, 263, 266-269, 270, 271, Ingush people, 51, 94, 95-96, 97, 98, 195,
273-274, 281-282, 287-290, 291; So­ 197-198
viet conquest, 224, 227, 230, 234-241, Inogorodnye, 94, 96, 97, 98
254, 257, 269; Congress of Soviets, Inorodtsy, 5; see also specific ethnic
First ( February 1922), 268; National groups and peoples
Assembly, 212; National Council, 194- Ioffe, Adolf Abramovich ( 1883-1927),
195; national movement, 17-18, 99, 252
202, 212-213; political parties, 18, 194, Irgach, 178
212; Revolutionary Committee ( Rev­ Irkutsk ( province), 5
kom), 238, 240-241, 245, 268, 269 Iskhakov, Gaijaz ( 1878-1954 ), 15
Georgians, 2, 16-17, 20, 34, 94, 99, 107, Istanbul ( Constantinople), 221
194, 195, 207 Ittifak Party, 15, 76, 77
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, see Ittihad, 88, 91
Georgia Iumagulov, Kh., 165
German Army, 73, 132, 133-134, 180, Ivan IV ( The Terrible), 1, 12
211
Gikalo ( purged, disappeared 1937), 223 Jadidist movement, 14, 77, 88, 177, 183-
Gittis, 237 184, 191, 256, 258
Goloshchekin, Filipp Isaevich ( 1876- Jewish Socialist Labor Party ( SERP), 28,
purged, disappeared in the 193o's), 31
181 Jews, 2, 5, 6, 7, 16, 29, 34, 36, 38, 58,
Gomel, 145, 147 74, 92, 143, 152; see also Bund
Gorskaia Respublika ( Mountain Repub-
lic), 223-234 Kabakhidze, A., 281
Gorter, Hermann ( 1864-1927), 49 Kabarda, 223
Gortsy, see Caucasian Mountain peoples Kabardians, 94, 95
Gotsinskii, Nazhmudin ( c. 1865-?), 97, Kadets, see Constitutional Democratic
229 Party
Grazis, Karl, 170 Kaledin, Ataman Aleksei Maksimovich
Grebenka, 125 ( 1861-suicide 1918), 118, 127
Grodno, 5 Kalinin, Mikhail Ivanovich ( 1875-1946),
Groznyi, 95, 97, 195 273
Gubemie, see· Russia, Tsarist Kalmykov, B., 223
Gummet Party ( Moslem Socialist), 218, Kalmyks, 94
220, 229 Kama River, 82
Guseinov, M. D., 253, 268 Kamenev, Lev Borisovich (1883-executed
by Soviet regime 1936), 136, 166, 262,
Hadzhinskii, M. Hasan, 226 273, 274, 282, 289
Halil Pasha ( c. 1881-?), 222, 226-227, Kamenev, Sergei Sergeevich, General
256 ( 1881-1936), 236, 238
Hamdan, 257 Kantemir, 216
Harbord, James Guthrie, Major General Karabakh, 208, 210, 228
( 1866-1947), 209 Karaites ( Crimean), 187 __
Hilferding, Rudolf ( 1877-killed by Ger­ Karakul Bek, 257
mans 1941), 49 Kars, 15, 106, 107, 208, 232, 233; Treaty
Hnchak ( Clarion) Party, 19 of, 234, 240
INDEX
Katkhanov, 223 ecuted by Communists 1920 ) , 161,
Kautsky, Karl ( 1854-1938 ) , 35-36, 47 162, 172, 181, 295
Kavbiuro, see Communist Party, Russia, Kolesov, 91, 177
Caucasian Bureau Kollontai, Aleksandra Mikhailovna (1872-
Kavtaradze, 282 1 952 ) , 48
Kazak, 84 Kommunist, 47
Kazakh-Kirghiz, 13, 5 1, 8 1-82, 83, 155, Kommunist ( Baku ) , 230
171-174, 182, 255, 257; conference Kommunist ( Tillis ) , 235
( Aktiubinsk, January 1920 ) , 173; Con­ Korkmasov, D., 223
ference, All-Kazakh ( Orenburg, April Korovnichenko, General ( executed by
1917 ) , 84, 85, 172; Congress of So­ Communists in 1917 or 1918 ) , go, 175
viets, First, 173-174; Kirghiz Congress Kossior ( Kosior ) , Stanislav Vikentevich
( Orenburg ) , 172; Kirghiz Revolution­ ( 1889-executed by Communist regime
ary Committee ( Kirrevkom ) , 172-173; 1939 ) , u8
national movements in, 85, 86, 172- Kossovskii, Vladimir ( 1870-? ) , 28
174 ; political parties, 172, 173, 174; Kotsiubinskii, lurii M., 140
revolt ( 1916 ) , 83-84, 85 Kovalevskii, Mykola, 55
Kazakh-Kirghiz Autonomous Republic, Kovno, 5
see Kazakh-Kirghiz Krasin, Leonid Borisovich ( 1870-1926 ) ,
Kazakh region ( Azerbaijan ) , 232, 233 235, 237, 25 1
Kazakh, see Kazakh-Kirghiz Krestinskii, Nikolai Nikolaevich ( 1883-
Kazan, 1, 14, 156, 158, 159, 169, 170, executed 1938 ), 253
171; Gubispolkom, 171; Moslem Com­ Krivoi Rog region, 129
missariat, 59; Revolutionary Staff, 159, Krylenko, Nikolai Vasilevich ( 1885-
169; Shura, 159, 169 purged, disappeared 19:18 ) , 1 19
Kazim Karabekir Pasha ( 1882-? ) , 222 Krym, Solomon S. ( 1867-? ) , 187
Kemal Pasha ( Atatiirk ) ( 188 1-1938 ) , Kuban, 15, 94, 1 19, 120
2 10, 232 Kuibyshev, Valerian Vladimirovich ( 1888-
Kerensky, Alexander Fedorovich ( 188 1- 1935 ) , 18 1, 289
) , 58, 60, 63, 65, 68 Kumyks, 94
Khan-Khoiskii, Fathali ( 1876-executed Kura River, 12, 16, 227
1 920 ) , 204, 206, 225, 226, 228 Kuropatkin, Aleksei Nikolaevich, General
Kharkov, 10, 63, 73, 1 15, 1 16, 1 19, 120, ( 1848-1921 ) , 89
122, 123, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, Kursk, 139, 140
142, 252; Revolutionary Committee Kurultai, see Tatars, Crimean
( Revkom ) , 127, 129 Kutais, 15, 212, 239
Kherson, 73, 1 1 5, 123, 129 Kvantaliani, 226
Khiva, 4, 13, 86, 177, 178, 181, 255, 257 Kviring, Emmanuil Ionovich ( 1888-
Khmelnitskii, Bohdan ( c. 1593-1657 ) , 56 purged, perished 1939 ) , 136, 144
Khodorovskii, Iosif Isaevich ( 1885-? ) ,
170, 171 Lakai, 259
Khodzhent, 257 Lapchinskii, G. F., 145-146
Khorezm People's Republic, see Khiva Latvia, 108, 251, 252, 253
Khristiuk, Pavel, 55, 67 Latvians, 2
Kiev, 4-5, 1 1, 53 -54, 56, 59, 63, 64, 66, Legran, 232, 233
1 14, 1 19, 122-123, 125, 129, 130, 137, Lemberg, 1 1
138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 227, 252; So­ Lenin, Vladimir Ilich ( 1870-1924 ) , 32,
viet, 57, 58, 68, 70, 72, 1 14, 1 16, 117, 51, 69, 106, 108, 1 18, 1 19, 121, 123,
1 19 127, 128, 132, 133, 1 3 5, 140, 143, 144,
Kirghiz, see Kazakh-Kirghiz 147, 148, 153, 156, 164, 166, 170, 173,
Kirghiz Republic ( Autonomous ) , see Ka­ 174, 183, 197, 201, 202, 224, 226, 227,
zakh-Kirghiz 229, 230, 23 2, 23 5-238, 23 9, 240-241,
Kirov, Sergei Mironovich ( 1888-assas­ 245, 251, 253, 264-265, 266, 267, 268-
sinated 1934 ), 223, 224, 227, 228, 234- 269, 270, 272, 274, 275, 287, 288-290,
235, 239, 271 29 1-293; on centralism, 244; on fed­
Kobzar ( Taras Shevchenko ) , 10 eralism, 36, 43, 1 12, 1 13, 246, 276;
Kokand, 86, 92, 174-176; conquest by on Great Russian nationalism, 273, 283;
Soviets, 108 on Imperialism, 47, 48-49; Memoran­
Kolchak, Aleksandr Vasilevich ( 1874-ex- dum on the National Question ( 1922 ) ,
INDEX 359
282-287, 289-290, 291, 292; on na­ Mensheviks, 30, 71, 75, 80, 81, 88, 89,
tionalism, 68, 244, 2g6; on the national 98, 99, 104, 105, 124, 156, 186, 193,
question, 34-42, 49, 109, 272-273, 196, 198, 201-202, 218, 236, 242, 244,
276-289; on self-determination, 41-49, 269; Liquidators, August 1912 Confer­
108-111,155, 242, 283; on separatism, ence of, 34; national question, 33, 34,
44,45,68 36,47,111
Levandovskii, General ( purged, disap­ Mglinskii (county),64
peared 1937),224,239 Miasnikov,A. F. ( 1886-1925),270
Liberation of Labor, 32 Mikoyan,Anastas Ivanovich (1895- ),
Life of the Nationalities (Zhizn' Natsional'­ 218,230
nostei),169 Miller,Zhan,80
Lithuania, 5, 74, 107-108, 153-154, 245, Milli Firka, see Crin1ean Tatar National
251,252,253 Party
Lithuanian-Belorussian Soviet Republic Minsk,151
(Litbel),153 Mitskevich-Kapsukas, Vikenti Semeno­
Lithuanians,2 vich ( 1880-1935), 153, 281
Livonia,3 Molotov,Viacheslav Mikhailovich
Lloyd George, David ( 1863-1945), 237 ( 1890- ), 270
Lossow,General van,194 Mongolians,2
Lukomskii, Aleksandr Sergeevich, Gen­ Mordva,1
eral ( 1868-1939), 215 Moslem Bureaus ( Musbiuro ), 158, 160;
Lunacharskii, Anatoli Vasilevich ( 1877- Crimean,188
1933),48 Moslem Congress, All-Russian, 1905-
"Luxemburgism," 23,42,46 1906, 14; First ( May 1, 1917), 76-78,
Luxemburg, Rosa ( 1870-assassinated 81, 85, 100, 162; Second ( Kazan, July
1919) ' 22, 41, 46 21, 1917), 78; Executive Council
Lvov, Prince Georgii Evgenevich ( 1861- ( Shura), 78; Religious Administration,
1925), 54 77
Moslem Democratic Party Mussavat ( or
Maiorov,M.,132 Musavat), 15, 98, 99-101, 104, 107,
Makharadze, Filipp Ieseevich ( 1868- 194,195,199,205,206,226
1941)' 105, 219, 234, 235, 238, 263, Moslem Movement, All-Russian ( 1917),
269, 274, 282, 289, 290 14-15, 20, 75-79, 155-161, 168, 169,
Makhno, Nestor Ivanovich ( 1889-1934), 192; Constituent Assembly (Medzhilis),
142, 143 78-79, 156, 158, 159, 191; and the
Maksudov,Saadri Nizaip.utdinovich Czech rebellion, 160; Executive Coun­
( 1879-19 57), 14-15 cil ( Shura), 156-157; factions in Med­
Malleson, Sir Wilfred, Major General zhilis, 158; and the national question,
( 1866-1946),180,181 75-76, 77, 78-79, 85, 91, 176, 191;
Manatov,Shrif,158 political parties, 76, 99-100, 158; sup­
Manuilskii, Dmitrii Zakharovich ( 1883- pression by Soviets ( April 1918), 177-
1959), 138, 139, 141, 145, 146, 147, 178
148,281 Moslem peoples, 6 ,12, 14,17,20,76, 87,
Mari people,159 98, 99-100, 102, 103, 168, 184, 212,
Mari Autonomous Region,172 218, 259, 27 9-280; intelligentsia, 14,
Martov, Iulii Osipovich ( 1873-1923), 27, 177
32,34,47 Moslem Socialist Committee,158,169
Martynov,Alexander Samoilovich ( 1865- Moslem Union ( Azerbaijan), 14, 99-100,
1935),34 206,226
Marx, Karl ( 1818-1883), 46, 47; on the Mount Kodzhori,238
national question,21-23,38 Mozdok,196
Marxism,see Socialism Mudros, Annistice of ( November 1918),
Marxism and the National Question (Iosif 206
Stalin),37-40 Mufti of Orenburg, 77
Mdivani, Budu ( purged, executed 1937), Mukhtarov, Keshshav,262
224, 263, 266-267, 270, 273, 275, 282, Munnever Kari, 88
289,290 Muraviev, M. A., Lieutenant Colonel
Medem, Vladimir Davidovich ( 1879- ( killed by Communist soldiers, 1918),
1923),28 124,125,126,127,128
INDEX
Muridism,96 Peasant Congress, All-Russian ( Petro-
Mussavat, see Moslem Democratic Party grad ) ,120
Mussavat People's Republics,see Russia, Soviet
Perfilev,,176
Nakhichevan,208 Perovsk,91
Nalivkin, Vladimir Petrovich ( 1862- Persia,8,180,254
1917), 89, go Pestkovskii,S. S., 113,173
Narimanov, Nariman ( 1871-1925), 229, Peter the Great,2
258 Petliura,Simon (187g-assassinated 1926),
Nasha Niva (Our Land), 11 55, 56-57, 118-119, 1 25, 139, 1 40,
National Democratic Party, Georgia, 212 146,153
Nationalism, 8, 27, 47; see also under Petrograd,see St. Petersburg
specific states, provinces, and move­ Petrovskii, Grigorii Ivanovich ( 1878-
ments 1958),148,252
National Ukrainian Party ( NUP), 1 1 Piatakov, Grigorii Leonidovich ( 1890-
Neutral Democratic Group ( NDG ), 99- executed by Soviet regime 1937), 47,
100, 206 68, 110, 136, 139, 140, 141, 144, 273n
Nevskii Vladimir Ivanovich ( 1876- Piatigorsk, 214
purg;d, perished 1937), 25 1 Pilsudski, Josef, Marshal ( 1867-1935),
Nicholas II ( 1868-killed 1918), 167 153
Nikolaev, 1 16 Pishpek,91
Nikolai Nikolaevich, Grand Duke ( 1856-- Plekhanov, Georgii Valentinovich ( 1857-
1929),98 1918),32-34,36
Nogai,94 Podolia,5,64,119
Nolde, Boris E., Baron ( 1876-1948), 64 Poili,238
Nomadic peoples, 5, 51, 82, 83, 86, 191; Pokrovskii, Mikhail Nikolaevich ( 1868-
see also Inorodtsy 1932),48
Northern Caucasus,see Caucasus Poland, 2, 3, 9, 22, 23, 43, 56, 108, 235,
Novozybkovskii ( county),64 250; national movement, 10, 23, 30,
Nubar Pasha, 216 36; Sejm ( Diet), 153
Nuri Pasha,204, 205, 216, 222,226, 256 Poles,2,7,24,29
Polish Army (Pilsudski), 73, 151,153
Polish Legion, 151
Odessa, 63,73, 116, 123, 132, 1 43, 189 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,2
Okudzhava, M. ( executed 1937), 281 Polish Socialist Party (PPS), 11, 34
Orakhelashvili, Mamia Dmitrevich (1883- Poltava, 63, 64, 73, 116, 123, 124, 125,
executed by Soviet regime 1937), 237, 136
238,290 Populism,8,10, 11,17,20,30
Oraz Serdar,181 PPS,see Polish Socialist Party
Ordzhonikidze, Grigorii Konstantinovich Porsh,M.,55,62,69
( 1886-suicide 1937), 130, 198, 214, Pravda, 230-231, 264
223,224,225,226,227,228,229,230, Priamursk ( province),5
232,234,235,236,237,238,239, 240- Prussia,2
241, 266-269, 270,271,274,275, 281- Pugachev, Emelian lvanovich ( c. 1742-
282, 283-286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 293 executed 1775); rebellion, 82
Orenburg, 86, 158, 161, 164, 165, 170,
172, 173, 181
Osipov ( killed by Communists 1919 ) , Radek, Karl Bemardovich ( 1885-purged,
179-180 executed 1939),47
Osman Khodzha,258,259 Rakovskii, Khristian Georgievich ( 1873-
Ossetia,223 purged, died 1941 ), 138, 139, 141,
Ossetins,94,95,196,212,218 142, 1 48,252,254,263,291-293
Ottoman Empire, 8, 9, 12, 17, 18, 20, 23, Red Army,see Soviet Army
76, 80, 99, 105, 106, 107, 205, 206, "Red Cossacks," 124
221-222 Red Guard,124,125,214
Reisner, Mikhail Andreevich ( 1868-
Pale of Settlement,6,32 1928),111
Peasant Congress, All-Ukrainian: First Renner, Karl ( 1870-1950), 25-27, 28,
( Kiev 1918 ),57,59; Third, 67 38-39,40,41,42, 46
INDEX
Resul-zade, Mehmed Emin ( 1884-1955), 259, 261, 290, 292; People's Commis­
15,77,204,226,228-229 sariat of the Ukraine, 128; People's
Revolutionary Ukrainian Party ( RUP), Republics,254-255; relations with Tur­
10-11,55 key, 221-222, 236, 239-240; Soviet of
Revolution of 1905, 6, 7, 14, 15, 84, 103- Nationalities, 288, 292-293; Tatar­
104,228 Bashkir Commissariat, 161; trade mis­
Revolution of 1917, 50, 73, 82, 89, 96, sion to London ( 1921 ) , 235; Trans­
98-99, 150, 155, 183, 190, 191, 207, caucasian Commissariat, 103, 105, 106,
221, 242, 248, 250, 260, 261, 294, 297; 107, 161; Turkestan Commissariat, 161;
February : 49, 51, 56, 58, 76, 97, 102; Turkestan Commission, 181-183, 184;
October: 52-53, 61, 69, go, 108, 114, Union Republics, 250-254; see also
276-277, 295 Congress of Soviets, All-Russian; So­
Revue Socialiste, 33 viet Army; Russian Soviet Federative
Riga, Treaty of, 154 Socialist Republic
Rion River Valley,16 Russia, Tsarist, 4, 23, 108, 114, 191;
Rudzutak, Ian Ernestovich (1887-purged, autocratic government, 2-3, 6-7; Brit­
died or executed 1938 ) , 181 ain, relations with, 221; demography,
Russia, Provisional Government of 1917, 2, 5, 8, 12-13, 82; Mongol invasion, 9;
101, 107, 128, 191; Moslems in, 78, policies on minorities, 6-7, 10, 14, 20-
84, 88-89; policy on minorities, 50-51, 21, 29, 30-31, 294; Polish-Lithuanian
56, 58, 102, 108, 148, 294; Resolution pressures (13th-14th centuries), 9; po­
on the Ukrainian Question (July 3, litical parties, 8; provincial govern­
1917), 60-61; "Temporary Instruction ment, structure of, 4-5, 83; territorial
to the General Secretariat of the development, 1, 17, 20, 86-87; Turkey,
Ukrainian Central Rada," 64-66, 68, relations with, 101; see also Duma;
69, 114, Turkestan Committee, 84, 89; and under specific states and provinces
Ukraine, overthrow in,72,114,115 Russian Army (Tsarist), 102, 106, 108,
Russia, Soviet: autonomous regions and 118
republics, 246-250; Bashkir autonomy, Russian Empire,see Russia, Tsarist
decree on (May 22, 1920), 166-167; Russian Party of Moslem Communists
centralization, military, 251-253; cen­ (Bolshevik ) , 160, 169, 245, 260, 261,
tralization of power in, 242-255; Com­ 262; dissolution (Moscow Congress,
missariat of Communications, 251; 1918 ) ,160-161
Commissariat of Crimean Moslem Af­ Russian people, 2, 16, 51, 58, 77, Bo, 82,
fairs, 186; Commissariat of Education, 83, 87, 94, 99, 101, 107, 152, 166, 168,
264; Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, 176, 199-200, 207, 271, 295
188, 217, 224, 225, 227, 264; Commis­ Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Re­
sariat of National Economy, 162; Com­ public (RSFSR), 106, 241, 245, 247-
missariat of Nationality Affairs ( Nar­ 250, 252,253-255, 263, 264, 266,271-
komnats ) , 112-113, 116, 158,159, 169, 272, 273; relations with other Soviet re­
248-250, 260, 288; Commissariat of publics, 250-255, 269-273, 292; see
Provisions, 251; Commissariat of War, also Congress of Soviets, All-Russian;
162, 169; Constitutional Commission Russia, Soviet
{ 1918 ) , 111; Constitution of 1918, Russification, 7
112, 247, 250, 252, 253; Council of Rykov, Aleksei lvanovich (1881-executed
Nationalities,249-250,288,292; Coun­ 1938 ) ,273,281
cil of People's Commissars (Sovnar­
kom ) , 109, 114, 116, 120, 121-122, Safarov, Georgii lvanovich (1891-purged,
123, 141, 158, 172, 187, 201, 243, 246, died 1942 ) ,93
247, 264, 271-272, 273, 275; Council Said Alim Khan, see Bukhara, Emir of
of \Vorkers' and Peasants' Defense, Said Galiev, Sakhibgarei, (1894-purged,
251, 252, 253, 271-272; Extraordinary executed 1939 ) , 170, 171
Commission for the Supply of the Red St. Petersburg, 1 1 , 53, 99, 104, 156
Anny, 25 1; governmental structure, Sakartvelo (Georgia ) , see Socialist-Fed-
242-244, 247-248, 250; Moslem Com­ eralist Party, Georgia
missariat, 158, 160, 161; and the na­ Samara, 16 1, 181
tional question, 39-40, 44, 51, 52, 53, Samarkand, 88, 177,260
82, 166-167, 179, 192, 202, 294, 296; San River, 1 1
New Economic Policy { NEP ) , 235, Sarts (Turkestan ) ,155,182
INDEX
Sebastopol, 80; Communist conquest of, Social Democratic Labor Party, Russia
81,184 (RSDRP ) , 11, 17, 18, 32, 35, 37-38,
Second International, 23, 33, 34; and 39, 43, 55, 69, 77, 99, 242; First Con­
World War I,46,48 gress (1898 ) , 32; Second Congress
Seidamet,Dzhafer (1889-1960 ) ,81, 185, (1903 ) , 28, 32-33, 40, 244; and the
187 national question, 34, 36, 41, 47; Pro­
Semipalatinsk,172,173 gram of 1903, 32-33, 43; see also Men­
Semireche,see Semirechensk province sheviks; Communist Party (RKP(b ) )
Semirechensk province,83,85, 86 Social Democratic Labor Party, Ukraine
Separatism,11,92,105,115,119 (USDRP ) , 11, 55-56, 60, 61, 63, 68,
Ser Ali Lapin,88,93 69, 73, 116, 122, 133, 134, 146-148;
Serebrovskii, Aleksandr Pavlovich (1884- nationalism,145
executed 1937 ), 226 Socialism, 8, 1 1 , 27, 41, 44, 76, 122, 156,
Serfs,liberation of, 82-83,94 242; and the national question, 17-18,
SERP,see Jewish Socialist Labor Party 20, 23, 28, 36; Revisionist, 23, see
Sevan, Lake, 232 also Communism; Communist Parties;
Sevres, Treaty of,232 Lenin; Luxemburg; Marx; Second In­
Shakhtakhtinskii, Bekhbud (1881-1924 ) , ternational; Socfal Democratic I abor
253 Parties; Stalin; Third International
Shamil (c. 1798-1871) ,96 Socialist-Federalist Party, Georgia, 18,
Shamkhor, 103, 199 28,212
Shaumian, Stepan G, (1878-executed Socialist-Federalist Party, Ukraine, 53-
1918 ) ,37,48,104, 106,200-202, 203- 54, 55, 58
204,217 Socialist-Revolutionaries Communists Bo­
Sheinman,A. L.,235,239 rotbists, Ukrainian Party of, see So­
Shevchenko, Taras Grigorevich (1814- cialist Revolutionary Fighters Party
1861 ), 10 (Ukraine )
Shliapnikov, Aleksandr Gavrilovich Socialist Revolutionary Fighters Party,
(1883-purged, died 1937 ) , 214, 217 Ukraine (Borotbisty ) , 134, 142, 143,
Shulaveri, 238 145, 146-147; see also Communist
Siberia,2, 5,13,108 Party,Ukraine
Silyn,233 Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR ) , 15,
Simferopol, 184-185 18, 19, 43, 52, 71, 88, 89, go, 92, 111,
Siuren, 185 123,132,156, 161, 200, 204, 218; First
Skirmunt, Roman Aleksandrovich (1868- Congress (1905 ) , 30-31; and the na­
? ) ,151 tional question, 30-31; in Belorussia,
Skobelev,176 75; in the Caucasus, 196, 198, 199,
Skoropadski, Hetman Pavlo Petrovich 200-202; in the Crimea, 80, 81, 186;
(1873-1945 ), 134, 135, 137, 138 in Georgia, 212; in Transcaucasia, 98,
Skrypnik, Mykola A. (1872-suicide 1933 ), 104,107,108; in the Ukraine ( UPSR ) ,
143-144,263-266,291 55-56, 57, 60, 61, 63, 67, 73, 116, 121,
Slavs, 2; see also Belorussians; Poles; 122, 123, 133, 134, 142, 146-147
Russian people; Ukrainians Soviet Army, 122, 126, 127, 140, 142,
Smena Vekh, 265 145, 148, 150, 152, 153, 158, 160, 162,
Smilga, Ivan Tenisovich (1892-purged, 163, 164, 168, 172, 178, 181, 184, 185,
perished 1938 ) , 237 214,217, 220, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228,
Smolensk, 152 231,232,235,236,237,238,239,240,
Social Democratic Labor Party, Armenia, 252, 256, 259, 260, 291; Khiva, 184;
36 Military Soviet ( Ukraine ) , 140; Revo­
Social Democratic Labor Party, Austria : lutionary Military Committee of the
Bruenn Congress ( 1899 ) , 24-25, 28, Republic, 251; Tashkent, 184; Turke­
39, 40; project on the national ques­ stan, 165, 167; Ukraine, 146, 252; see
tion, 27-28, 37-39, 41, 42, 44 also "Red Cossacks"; Red Guard
Social Democratic Labor Party, Georgia, Speranskii, Mikhail Mikhailovich (1772-
101, 211, 212, 219, 295 1839 ) , 6
Social Democratic Labor Party, Latvia, Stalin, Iosif Vissarionovich (1879-1953 ) ,
34 11, 112, 113, 116, 132, 136, 139, 140,
Social Democratic Labor Party,Lithuania, 141, 147, 155, 156-157, 158, 159, 160-
34 161, 166, 167, 169, 171, 179, 198, 201,
INDEX
202, 203, 225, 227, 228-229, 230-231, Terek River, 94
235, 237, 239, 251, 255, 262, 263, 265, Tereshchenko, Mikhail Ivanovich ( 1888-
267, 270-271, 272-274, 275, 281, 282, 1956), 60
284, 287, 288-293; and the national Terterian, 233
question, 37-40, 109-110, 270-272, Third International, 132, 134-135, 245,
280-281 257, 262
Starodubskii (county), 64 Thomson, Sir William Montgomerie,
Steppe region, 5, 86; see also Kazakh­ Major General ( 1877- ), 206-207
Kirghiz Tiflis,15,95,98, 102, 103,104, 105, 106,
Sterlitamak, 164, 165 193, 204, 211, 212, 217, 219, 224, 234,
Stolypin, Petr Arkadevich ( 1863-assas­ 238-240, 274
sinated 1911), 167; reforms, 83, 86 Toilers' Soviets, 143
Stopani, Alexandr Mitrofanovich ( 1871- Topchibashev, Ali Merdan Bey ( 1865-
1933), 224 1934), 216
Subkhi, Mustafa ( executed by Turks, Transcaspian region, 86, 181, 218
1920 or 1921), 161, 188, 236 Transcaucasia, 2, 12, 15-16, 18, 19, 98-
Sufism, 96 107, 108, 180, 197, 202, 205, 208, 217,
Sulkevich, General Suleiman ( 1865-exe­ 221, 222-223,224-225, 250, 253, 295;
cuted by Communists 1920), 187, 207 Congress of Soviets First ( 1922), 282;
Sultan-Galiev, Mirza ( b. 1880's-arrested, Eastern, 199, 205, 206, 207, 208, 217,
disappeared 1930), 168-170, 190,260- 218; Federation, 193-1 95, 199, 254,
263, 265 266-269, 273-275, 282, 290; Moslems
Sunzha River, 97 in, 199, 208; national movements in,
Surazhskii (county), 64 37, 50, 98, 105, 201; political parties,
Sverdlov, Iakov Mikhailovich ( 1885- 99,103,104; Regional Center, 98, 106;
1919), 111 Seim ( Diet), 103, 105, 106, 107, 194,
Syr-Daria, 117 205, 213; Special Transcaucasian Com­
mittee ( Ozakom), 98; Union Council,
Tajiks, 255, 259 268-269, 274; see also Armenia; Azer­
Takoev, S., 223 baijan; Caucasus; Georgia
Tang ( Dawn), 15 Transcaucasian Federative Republic, see
Tangche1ar Party, 15 Transcaucasia
Tashkent, 87, 89, go, 92, 93, 174, 175, Trebizond, 106, 107, 194
176, 184, 257; Council of People's Trifonov, 237
Commissars, 92, 176-177, 179 Trotsky ( Trotskii), Leon Davidovich
Tatar Republic ( Autonomous Soviet So­ ( 1877-assassinated 1940), 32, 34, 43,
cialist Republic), 168-172, 260; Coun­ 118, 132-133, 166, 169, 238, 251, 280,
cil of People's Commissars, 171, 262; 282, 288-289, 292
Revolutionary Committee ( Revkom), Tsalikov, Akhmed T. ( 1881-?), 78, 156,
171, 189 157-158, 169, 216
Tatars, Crimean, 12, 51, 77, 79-80, 81, Tsaritsyn, 198, 201
155, 184-186, 187-189; Volga, 1, 12, Tseretelli, Irakly Georgevich ( 1882-
14, 15, 51, 77, 79, 85, 100, 155, 165, 1960), 60, 99, 195, 216
166, 168 , 170, 261; Constituent As­ Tsintsadze, Kate, 267 , 274, 282
sembly ( Kuru1tai), 81, 184-185, 187, Tugan-Baranovskii, Mikhail lvanovich
191 ( 1865-1919)' 66
Taurida, 115, 129, 186, 188; see also Tukhachevskii, Mikhail Nikolaevich,
Crimea General ( 1893-executed by the Soviet
Tenichbaev, Muhammedzhan, 93 regime 1937), 223, 224
Terdzhiman (Interpreter), 13 Tuktarov, Fuad, 15
Terek-Daghestan government, 97, 195, TUP ( Society of Ukrainian Progressives),
197 see Socialist-Federalist Party, Ukraine
Terek People's Soviet Socialist Republic, Turgai, 172
see Terek region Turkestan, 2, 5, 7, 13, 14, 75, 76, 86-93,
Terek region, 15, 16, 93-95, 96, 98, 104, 155, 174-184, 247, 257, 258, 279; Brit­
195-199, 218, 219, 223, 230; Military ish intervention in, 180-181; Congress
Government, 9 7, 214; political parties, of Soviets, Third Regional ( November
196-198; Soviet rule established, 195- 1917), 91; Congress of Soviets, Fifth
198, 214 ( April 1918 ), 179; conquest by So-
INDEX
viets, 90-91, 175-178; Constituent As­ (January 9/22, 19 18). 125; General
sembly, 93; Council of People's Com­ Secretariat, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67,
missars, 91, 92; Executive Committee, 68-69, 72-73, 114, 1 15, 116, 1 19, 120,
93; Moslems in, 87-89, 91, 92, 175- 123, 125, 148; German occupation
176, 178, 179, 188; national move­ (World War I), 132, 133-134, 135-
ment, 50, 85, 88-93, 174-175; Peo­ 136, 137, 139, 148; IKSOO, 53, 58,60;
ple's Council, 93; political parties, 88, integration into USSR, 251-253, 254,
174-175; popular resistance movement 263-264,270, 27 1,272; national move­
(Basmachestvo), 176-180, 256-260; ment, 9-10,55-57,61,63,68, 70, 1 14-
Revolutionary Committee, 91; rival 115, 118-1 19, 123, 127, 138, 148-150;
governments ( 1917), 174-175; see also National Union, 137; political parties,
Central Asia 10-11, 53-56, 61-62, 63, 67, 68, 69,
Turkestani-Moslem Congress: First (April 73, 122, 132-133, 137, 138-140, 141-
1917), 88; Third (November 1917), 144, 148-150; revolt of August 19 18,
91; Fourth (December 1917), 92-93; 135-136; Revolutionary Committee of
Turkestan Moslem Central Council, Rada, 71, 73, 1 14-1 15; Seim (Diet),
88, 89-90, 91, 92 1 1, 57; Small Rada, 59-60, 63, 66, 67,
Turkey, 2, 18, 106-107, 156, 210, 221- 68-69, 70, 71, 72; Soviet of Workers'
223,224,230, 231-234,235, 236, 239- Deputies, 53, 72, 1 14; Special Com­
240, 250, 254, 257; see also Ottoman mission for Defense of, 124; Third
Empire Universal, 1 15-116
Turkic peoples, 1, 12-15, 18, 20, 52, 76, Ukraine, First Military Congress ( 1918),
79, 82, 83, 87, 96, 100, 190; culture, 56-57
14; nationalism, 13-14, 85, 89, 158; Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party
political parties, 15; in Transcaucasia, (UDRP), 1 1, 53-54
155; see also Moslem peoples; names Ukrainian General Military Committee
of nationalities (UGVK), 57, 59
Turkish Federalist Party, 100 Ukrainian Land Fund, 56, 57
Turkmen people, 13, 182, 183, 255 Ukrainian National Congress, 55
Turks (Turkey), 101, 106, 180, 193, 205, Ukrainians, 2, 8, 9-10, 24, 36, 51, 80;
207,209,224; see also Turkey see also Ukraine
"Ukrainophiles," 10
Ulema Dzhemieti (Association of Clergy­
Ufa, 78, 158, 159, 164, 165, 166, 170; men, Turkestan), 88, go
Executive Committee, 164 Union of Mountain Peoples (Caucasus),
Ukraine, 4-5, 50, 64, 65, 250-252, 253, 97
270, 271, 272, 274; agricultural ques­ "Union of Toiling Moslem�/' 88, 91
tion in, 51, 56, 57-58, 61, 69; Bol­ Union Republics, see Russia, Soviet
shevik Revolutionary Committee, 72, Unity Party (Azerbaijani }, 206
73; Central Executive Committee, 108, Ural region, 13, 51, 81,82, 108, 160, 161,
123, 129, 145; Central Rada (Ukrain­ 162, 163, 170, !71, 247, 295
ian Central Council), 52, 53-61, 62, Uralsk, 172
63, 64-65, 67, 69, 70, 71-73, 1 14-126, Ussubekov, Nasib bey, 100
128, 129, 130-131, 133, 137, 138, 148, Uzbeks, 13, 182, 255, 257
185; Civil War in, 108,252,254; Com­ Uzun Khadzi,97,216
munist conquest,69,71, 1 14-126, 137-
150; Communist opposition, 263-266;
Congress of Soviets, All-Ukrainian, Vaisov { killed 1918), 159
1 16, 120, 121, 122, 123, 127, 134; Vakhitov, Mulla Nur ( 1885-executed by
Congress of Soviets, All-Ukrainian, Czechs 1918 ), 157, 158, 159, 160, 161,
Second (March 1918 ) , 131-132, 134; 169
Congress of Soviets, All-Ukrainian, Validov (Ahmed) Zeki (Togan) ( 1890-
Third (March 19 19), 251-252; Coun­ )' 85, 93, 161, 162, 165, 167, 168,
cil of Defense, 144; Council of Peo­ 262
ple's Commissars, 50, 252, 263; cul­ Vambery, Armin (c. 1832-1913), 87
tural nationalism, 7, 10; Directory Vernyi, 85
(National Union), 137, 138, 139, 140- Viborg Manifesto, 84
142, 148, 251; First Universal of Rada Vilna (Wilno), 5, 151, 153; see also
( 19 17), 59, 65; Fourth Universal Belorussia; Lithuania
INDEX
Vinnichenko, Volodimir Kirillovich (1880- Wrangel, Petr Nikolaevich, Baron ( 1878-
1952), 55, 56, 60 , 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 1928), 189
68, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 146, 148
Vitebsk, 151 Young Bukharans, see J adidist movement
Vladikavkaz, 94, 95, 96, 97, 156, 195, Young Khivans, see Jadidist movement
196, 197, 198, 199, 224, 229 Young Turks, 222
Volga River region, 1, 14, 15, 160, 161, Yudenich, Nikolai Nikolaevich, General
163, 170, 171, 201 ( 1862-1933), 98
Volhynia, 5, 64
Voroshilov, Kliment Efremovich ( 1881- Zakataly, 228
) , 140 Zangezur, 208, 210, 233
Votiak Autonomous Region, 172 Zarudnyi, A. S. ( 1864-?), 65
Vpered (Forward), 48 Zatonskii, Vladimir Petrovich ( 1888-
Vratsian, Simon (c, 1883- ), 231-232 purged, executed 1937), 70, 71, 72,
140, 148
Zelenyi, 142
Wardrop (John) Oliver, Sir (1864-1948), Zhordaniia, Noi Nikolaevich (1870-1952),
211, 216 18, 212, 240-241, 274
Warsaw, 4, 153 Zhylunovich, Z., 153
White Armies, 96, 113, 125, 136, 137, Ziazikov,I., 223
138, 143,144,145,146, 147-148,161- Zimmerwald Group, see Second Interna­
162, 170, 172, 173, 180-182, 188, 209, tional
211, 214-216, 295 Zinoviev, Grigorii Evseevich (1883-exe­
Wilson, Woodrow ( 1856-1924), 209, cuted by Soviet regime 1936), 120,
216, 217 148, 283
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N. \l $ 1 7.95
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ere is the history of the disin tbg�ation of the Russian Empire,


H and the emergence, on its rui�t of a multinational Communist
state. In this revealing account,! Richard Pipes tells how the
Communi�ts exploited the new JJ 4�i,onalism of the peoples of the
Ukraine, Belorussia, the Caucasus; : �entral Asia, and the Volga-Ural
area-first to seize power an dth:e�f t7 )x pand into the borderlands.
- ,... it - •

The Formation of the Sovie(Uniorl' acqui�es; special relevance in the


pp st-Soviet era, when tbe �thnic \ group�1 described in the book
once again reclaimed their indep,endence,
i ·. ' ' .• . this
. time aP,parently
.
for good. . · . : ,
.· . . . } .
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. •· ·
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cln a 1 997 Preface, · .� sqgests; � o� matedftl ff'�entlyt released
�rom the Russian ar«Dlva5, might S ffJlJleme&t. biS\ accoun� -'

,Reviews nr 111 r. Firs! &tttttm:j . · , _ . . \ .


>L�mply to chronicle the.hTghlJ coti1 pUcated se'q ueme of events 'i!l ·
t!he '� thnic borderlands �f Russi� i,d1;1riri9 the tomultuo,us year�
batw�en 1 91 7 and 1 923 . is ·a diffi f ul� � r, bl.em , by ftselfc. Richard
Pip es pas not only a � compllsh.ed t� is, task ;� . • bl he has given t�·
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. mmplex story mean ing and ·parspefct,ve." , . .· .
· . ·. , , . '. · . i .· . . ·. , . . .
: . ... I .
�P(l/Jlla:tl 5*JmB Qua»(6rly
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#'The·. mbst lucid d � scrlptfOR 'of J the n. a.tfmm:ll&t·. revofttt1op a ,y
�is: following tfte October. re�ofutlon ." � '
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t1onalJourngJ

. � mt5 �ucceeded r,e�kably ,�11 .� � . elnde!fnu a.mo�mm�


. . ' 1 i•' ." ':

plq�IUIJlect and i n gMng a systema.t;c, w6It.doWII18ntect, mul!


- a,cwunt af th.e �tormy �,ears, 1911-1!119."i
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. . ' .. '
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. · ,' f· · · . .. . It :. . . t ·' :.....:Rillmm �
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is Frank B. •Bafrd� Jr.\ 1>rofes$dr of History, �erituB�
.
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P R Es
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ISBN 0-674-30951-D

londnn., En,Dli11td!
90000

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9 780674 3095 1 7

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