On the Establishment of the USSR¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter reproduces Lenin’s letter of 26 September 1922 to Kamenev, written in direct opposition to Stalin’s draft resolution on the formal relationship between the RSFSR and the independent Soviet republics. The core argument is a decisive rejection of Stalin’s proposal for “autonomisation”—the formal entry of the Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, and Armenian Soviet republics into the RSFSR as subordinate units. Lenin insists instead on a union of formally equal republics, to be called the “Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia,” deliberately omitting the word “Russian” from the name to signal a break with Great Russian chauvinism.
The chapter provides the full text of Stalin’s commission resolution, approved on 23-24 September 1922, which stipulated that the independent republics would enter the RSFSR, that decisions of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee would be binding on them, and that key commissariats—foreign affairs, foreign trade, military, communications, and post—would be merged with those of the RSFSR. Stalin’s draft also subjected the republics’ finance, food, labour, and economy commissariats to RSFSR directives, while leaving justice, education, internal affairs, agriculture, and others nominally independent but with counter-revolution agencies under the RSFSR GPU. The Georgian Communist Party had already voted against this approach on 15 September, calling it “premature” and demanding preservation of all attributes of independence. The Byelorussian party similarly favoured retaining treaty relations.
Lenin’s counter-proposal is precise and tactical. He accepts Stalin’s concession to replace “entry” with “formal unification,” but fundamentally reorients the structure: a new federal All-Union Central Executive Committee is to be created above the existing RSFSR bodies, with the republics joining as equals. The RSFSR itself would enter this new union on the same footing as the others. Lenin’s amendments to each clause—substituting “amalgamate in federal People’s Commissariats” for outright merger, requiring agreement of Central Executive Committees for appointments, and introducing consultative conferences—are designed to preserve the formal independence of the republics while securing centralised coordination. The key polemical thrust is against Stalin’s administrative impatience and Great Russian chauvinism, which Lenin warns will “supply fuel to the ‘pro-independence’ people.” Stalin’s dismissive memo, accusing Lenin of “hurriedness” that would “supply fuel to the advocates of independence” and “national liberalism,” is reproduced to show the depth of the conflict. The chapter thus documents a fundamental dispute over the national question in the early Soviet state: whether the USSR would be a genuine federation of equals or a centralised empire in new form.