Declaration of the Rights of the People of Russia¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter presents the full text of the Declaration of the Rights of the People of Russia, issued by the Soviet government on 2 November 1917. Its core argument is that the October Revolution, having already emancipated peasants, soldiers, and workers from the power of landowners, autocratic generals, and capitalists, must now complete the process by liberating the oppressed nationalities of the former Tsarist Empire. The Declaration frames national emancipation as the final, necessary stage of the revolutionary project, asserting that “everything living and capable of life is being emancipated” except the peoples themselves.
The document makes several key claims. It argues that Tsarism pursued a deliberate policy of inciting peoples against one another, producing “massacres and pogroms” alongside national slavery. It then contends that the Provisional Government, controlled by the Cadet bourgeoisie after the February Revolution, merely replaced open incitement with a policy of “cowardly distrust,” fault-finding, and provocation, which only deepened national enmity. Against both these approaches, the Declaration counterposes a new policy of “voluntary and honest union” based on complete mutual trust, which alone can cement the workers and peasants of all nationalities into a single revolutionary force capable of resisting the imperialist bourgeoisie.
The historical context is the immediate aftermath of the Bolshevik seizure of power. The Declaration draws authority from the First Congress of Soviets (June 1917), which had already proclaimed the right to self-determination, and the Second Congress of Soviets (October 1917), which reaffirmed it “more decisively and definitely.” It presents the Council of People’s Commissars as executing the united will of these Congresses.
The chapter’s substantive content is the Declaration’s four founding principles: the equality and sovereignty of all peoples; the right to free self-determination, “even to the point of separation and the formation of an independent state”; the abolition of all national and religious privileges and disabilities; and the free development of national minorities and ethnographic groups. The document is signed by Lenin as Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and by Stalin as People’s Commissar on Nationality Affairs.
The polemical thrust is directed against two enemies: Tsarist autocracy, for its policy of systematic incitement, and the Cadet bourgeoisie, for its hypocritical “freedom and equality” that masked continued distrust and provocation. The Declaration positions itself as a clean break with both, establishing a new framework for multinational unity under Soviet power.