Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions for the Second Congress of The Communist International¶
Core Argument¶
Lenin’s draft theses, submitted for the Second Congress of the Communist International in June 1920, establish the Marxist-Leninist approach to the national and colonial questions as an integral component of the global revolutionary struggle. The core argument is that the abstract, formal equality proclaimed by bourgeois democracy is a deception that masks the real relations of exploitation; genuine equality can only mean the abolition of classes. Consequently, communist policy on nationalities must not rest on abstract principles but on a precise appraisal of the specific historical and economic situation, a clear distinction between the interests of the oppressed classes and those of the ruling class, and an equally clear distinction between oppressor and oppressed nations.
Lenin argues that the imperialist war of 1914-18 and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles exposed the hypocrisy of bourgeois-democratic phrases, demonstrating that the ‘Western democracies’ perpetrated a more brutal violence against weak nations than the German Junkers had at Brest-Litovsk. The League of Nations and Entente policy only intensify the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat in advanced countries and the toiling masses in colonies. From this, the entire policy of the Communist International must rest on a closer union of proletarians and working masses of all nations for a joint revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie, without which national oppression cannot be abolished.
The theses argue that world political developments are concentrated on a single focus: the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against Soviet Russia, around which are grouped both the Soviet movements of advanced workers and all national liberation movements. Consequently, a policy must be pursued that achieves the closest alliance of all national and colonial liberation movements with Soviet Russia. Federation is identified as a transitional form to complete unity, demonstrated by the relations between the RSFSR and other Soviet republics, and within the RSFSR itself regarding nationalities like the Bashkir and Tatar autonomous republics.
Lenin polemicises sharply against the parties of the Second International, which he accuses of replacing internationalism in deed with petty-bourgeois nationalism and pacifism. Petty-bourgeois nationalism merely recognises the equality of nations verbally while preserving national self-interest intact, whereas proletarian internationalism demands the subordination of the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country to the world-wide struggle, and the willingness of a victorious nation to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital.
For backward countries with feudal or patriarchal relations, Lenin insists that communist parties must assist bourgeois-democratic liberation movements, but only on condition that they do not merge with them and uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even in its most embryonic form. He calls for a struggle against the clergy, Pan-Islamism, and similar trends that combine liberation movements with attempts to strengthen the positions of khans and landowners. Special support must be given to the peasant movement against feudalism, and every effort made to apply the basic principles of the Soviet system in pre-capitalist conditions by setting up ‘working people’s Soviets’. The theses conclude by stressing that the age-old oppression of colonies has bred distrust among the oppressed masses even towards the proletariat of oppressor nations, a distrust exacerbated by the social-chauvinist betrayal of 1914-19. Overcoming this requires particular caution and concessions from the class-conscious communist proletariat, for complete victory over capitalism cannot be won without the voluntary striving for alliance and unity of the mass of working people in all nations.