Reply to Amendments to the Resolution at the XII Congress of the RCP(b), April 25, 1923

Although Rakovsky has tripled and cut by a quarter the resolution he proposed in the section, I am resolutely against his amendment, and here is why. Our theses on the national question are structured in such a way that we, as it were, turn our face to the East, having in mind the heavy reserves that are dormant there. We have posed the entire national question in connection with Ilyich's article, who seems not to say a single word about the West, because the center of the national question is not there but in the colonies and semi-colonies of the East. Rakovsky wants us, having turned to the East, to also turn to the West at the same time. But this is impossible, comrades, and unnatural, for people generally turn their face either in one direction or the other -- to turn in both directions at the same time is impossible. We cannot and should not break the general tone of the theses, their Eastern tone. That is why I think Rakovsky's amendment should be rejected.

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I consider this amendment cardinal in its significance. If the congress adopts it, then I must say the theses will be turned upside down. Rakovsky proposes to construct the second chamber so as to include in it representatives of state formations. He considers Ukraine to be a state formation, but Bashkiria not. Why? After all, we are not abolishing the councils of people's commissars in the republics. Is not the Bashkir CEC a state institution?! And why is Bashkiria not a state? Will Ukraine cease to be a state after it enters the Union? State fetishism has confused Rakovsky. If the nationalities are equal in their rights, if they have their own language, customs, way of life, and traditions, if these nationalities have created their own state institutions -- a CEC, a Council of People's Commissars -- then is it not clear that all these national formations are state formations? I think we cannot depart from the principle of equality of republics and nationalities in the second chamber, especially with regard to the Eastern nationalities.

Rakovsky has apparently been carried away by the Prussian system of constructing a federation. The German federation is built in such a way that there is absolutely no equality among the states. I propose that we set things up so that alongside class representation -- this is the first chamber, elected at the all-Union Congress of Soviets -- we have representation of nationalities on the principle of equality. The Eastern peoples, organically linked with China, with India, linked with them by language, religion, customs, and so forth, are important for the revolution above all else. The specific weight of these small nationalities stands far above the specific weight of Ukraine.

If we commit a small error in Ukraine it will not be so keenly felt in the East. But commit one small error in a small country like Adzharia (population of 120,000), and it will reverberate in Turkey and throughout the East, for Turkey is most closely linked with the East. Commit a small error in relation to the small Kalmyk region, which is linked with Tibet and China, and the repercussions for our work will be far worse than an error in relation to Ukraine. We stand before the prospect of a powerful movement in the East and must direct our work first and foremost along the line of the awakening of the East, and must undertake nothing that could, even remotely, even indirectly, diminish the importance of each individual, even the smallest, nationality on the Eastern borderlands. That is why I believe it would be fairer, more expedient, and more advantageous from a revolutionary standpoint for governing such a large country as the Union of Republics, with its 140 million population -- it would be better to arrange things so that there, in the second chamber, there is equal representation of all republics and national regions. We have 8 autonomous republics, 8 independent ones as well; Russia will enter as a republic; we have 14 regions -- and that will be the very second chamber which will reflect all the requirements and needs of the nationalities and will facilitate the governance of such a large country. That is why I think Rakovsky's amendment should be rejected.

Twelfth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Stenographic Report. Moscow, 1923.