On the Establishment of the USSR
Letter to LB Kamenev for Members of the Politbureau
Written 26 September 1922
Editor’s note: On 10 August 1922, the Politbureau set up a commission to go into the question of relations between the RSFSR and the independent national Soviet Republics in preparation for the next plenary meeting of the party’s Central Committee Stalin had drafted a resolution entitled ‘On the Relations Between the RSFSR and the Independent Republics’, which discussed:
… treaties [to] be concluded between the Soviet Republics of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and the RSFSR for their formal entry into the RSFSR.
The CC of the Georgian Communist Party was against the draft resolution. At its meeting on 15 September 1922, it passed the following decision by a majority vote:
The union in the form of autonomisation of the independent republics proposed on the basis of Stalin’s theses is premature. A union of economic efforts and a common policy are necessary, but all attributes of independence should be preserved.
The CC of the Byelorussian Communist Party went on record for the preservation of treaty relations between the independent republics. The commission met 23-24 September 1922, and approved Stalin’s draft (with one abstention – the representative from Georgia). In a special point the commission rejected the resolution of the CC of the Georgian Communist Party. Stalin’s draft was gone over point by point and approved by a majority with certain minor amendments and addenda. The final wording of the commission’s resolution, which Lenin deals with in his letter to the members of the Politbureau, was as follows:
1. It is considered advisable that treaties be concluded between the Soviet Republics of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and the RSFSR for their formal entry into the RSFSR, the question of Bokhara, Kharezm and the Far-Eastern Republic being left open and confined to agreements with them on customs arrangements, foreign trade, foreign and military affairs, and so on.
Note: Corresponding changes in the constitutions of the Republics mentioned in Point 1 and of the RSFSR to be made after enactment by Soviet procedure.
2. In accordance with this the decisions of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR shall be considered binding upon the central bodies of the republics mentioned in Point 1, while the decisions of the Council of People’s Commissars and the Council of Labour and Defence of the RSFSR shall be binding upon the unified commissariats of these republics.
Note: These republics are to be represented on the Presidium of the All-Russia CEC of the RSFSR
3. External affairs (foreign affairs and foreign trade), military affairs, ways of communication (with the exception of local transport) and Potel (the People’s Commissariat for Post and Telegraph – Ed.) of the republics mentioned in Point 1 shall be merged with those of the RSFSR, the corresponding commissariats of the RSFSR having their agents and a small staff in the republics.
The agents are appointed by the People’s Commissars of the RSFSR by arrangement with the Central Executive Committees of the republics.
It is considered advisable that the republics concerned be represented on the corresponding foreign agencies of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade.
4. The Commissariats for Finance, Food, Labour and National Economy of the republics shall be formally subject to the directives of the corresponding RSFSR commissariats.
5. The remaining commissariats of the republics mentioned in Point 1, namely, the Commissariats for Justice, Education, Internal Affairs, Agriculture, Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, Public Health and Social Security, shall be considered independent.
Note 1: The agencies fighting counter-revolution in the aforementioned republics shall be subject to the directives of the GPU of the RSFSR.
Note 2: The Central Executive Committees of the republics shall be granted the right of amnesty only in civil cases.
6. This decision, if approved by the CC of the RCP, shall not be published, but shall be passed on to the national Central Committees as a circular directive to be enacted through the Central Executive Committee or the Congress of Soviets of the aforementioned republics pending the convocation of an All Russia Congress of Soviets, at which it is to be declared as the desire of these republics. (Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC, CPSU).
Lenin found out about this proposal from Rakovsky, who was against it. Lenin also came out in opposition and insisted that there should be a formal union of equals, leading to the formation of a ‘Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and the East’ (note that the word Russian is not even part of the name). This was not a mere amendment, but two completely different and opposite approaches. Stalin was dismissive of and hurt by Lenin’s corrections and in a memo to the Politburo he made the following comment:
There is hardly a doubt that this ‘hurriedness’ [Lenin’s], will ‘supply fuel to the advocates of independence,’ to the detriment of the national liberalism of comrade Lenin.
However, Stalin formally accepted the changes.
* * *
Comrade Kamenev,[1]
Stalin has probably already sent you the resolution of his commission on the entry of the independent republics into the RSFSR.
If he has not, please take it from the secretary at once, and read it. I spoke about it with Sokolnikov[2] yesterday, and with Stalin today. Tomorrow I shall see Mdivani (the Georgian communist suspected of ‘independent’ sentiments).[3]
In my opinion the matter is of utmost importance. Stalin tends to be somewhat hasty. Give the matter good thought (you once intended to deal with it, and even had a bit to do with it); Zinoviev too. Stalin has already consented to make one concession: in Clause 1, instead of ‘entry’ into the RSFSR, to put:
Formal unification with the RSFSR in a Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia.
I hope the purport of this concession is clear: we consider ourselves, the Ukrainian SSR and others, equal, and enter with them, on an equal basis, into a new union, a new federation, the Union of the Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia.
Clause 2 needs to be amended as well. What is needed besides the sessions of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR is a: “Federal All-Union Central Executive Committee of the Union of the Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia”.
If the former should hold sessions once a week, and the latter once a week (or once a fortnight even), this may be easily arranged.
The important thing is not to provide material for the ‘pro-independence’ people, not to destroy their independence, but to create another new storey, a federation of equal republics.
The second part of Clause 2 could stand: the dissatisfied will appeal (against decisions of the Council of Labour and Defence, and the Council of People’s Commissars)[4] to the Federal All-Union Central Executive Committee, without thereby suspending implementation (just as in the RSFSR).
Clause 3 could stand, but its wording should be:
… amalgamate in federal People’s Commissariats whose seat shall be in Moscow, with the proviso that the respective People’s Commissariats of the RSFSR have their authorised representatives with a small staff in all the Republics that have joined the Union of Republics of Europe and Asia.
Part 2 of Clause 3 remains; perhaps it could be said to emphasise equality:
… by agreement of the Central Executive Committees of the member republics of the Union of the Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia.
Let’s think about Part 3: perhaps we had better substitute “mandatory” for ‘desirable’? Or perhaps insert conditionally mandatory at least in the form of a request for instructions and the authority to decide without such instructions solely in cases of ‘specially urgent importance’?
Clause 4 could perhaps also be “amalgamate by agreement of the Central Executive Committees”?
Perhaps add to Clause 5:
… with the establishment of joint (or general) conferences and congresses of a purely consultative nature (or perhaps of a solely consultative nature)?
Appropriate alterations in the first and second comments.
Stalin has agreed to delay submission of the resolution to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee until my return. I shall arrive on Monday, 2 October. I should like to see you and Rykov[5] for about two hours in the morning, say 12 noon to 2 pm, and, if necessary, in the evening, say 5-7 or 6-8.
That is my tentative draft. I shall add or amend on the strength of talks with Mdivani and other comrades. I beg you to do the same, and to reply to me.
Endnotes
[1] Lev Kamenev was a leading ‘old Bolshevik’ and CC member.
[2] Grigorii Sokolnikov was a Bolshevik who joined in 1905. He was a leading figure in Moscow in 1917 and a member of the CC as well as Commissar for Finance.
[3] Polikarp Mdivani was a Georgian Bolshevik, leading the opposition against Stalin and Ordzhonikidze during the ‘Georgian Affair’.
[4] The Council of People’s Commissars was the legislative body of the Soviet government, elected immediately on the day of the October Revolution, with Lenin as Chairman. The Council of Labour and Defence was set up under it’s oversight near the end of the civil war, serving as the leading body on economic matters in the Soviet Union.
[5] Alexei Rykov joined the RSDLP at the age of eighteen in 1899 and the Bolsheviks in 1903. He was Commissar of the Interior and later Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars after Lenin’s death.