Concluding Word at the IV Conference of the CC of the RCP(b) with Responsible Workers of National Republics and Regions, June 12, 1923

First of all, I wanted to say a few words about the reports of the comrades and in general about the character of the conference from the standpoint of the reports presented. Although this conference is the fourth since the establishment of Soviet power, it is nonetheless the only complete one of all previous conferences, with more or less full and substantiated reports from the republics and regions. From the reports it is evident that the Communist cadres in the regions and republics have grown and are learning to work independently. I believe that the rich material the comrades have presented here, the experience of work in the regions and republics that the comrades have revealed here, must without fail become the possession of our entire party in the form of the minutes of this conference. People have grown and are moving forward, they are learning to govern -- that is the first conclusion, the first impression from the reports.

If we turn to the content of the reports, the materials presented could be divided into two groups: reports from socialist republics and reports from people's, non-socialist republics (Bukhara, Khorezm).

Let us proceed to examine the first group of reports. From the reports it is evident that the most developed and advanced republic in terms of bringing the party and, especially, the state apparatus closer to the language and way of life of the people should be considered Georgia. After Georgia comes Armenia. After them, the remaining republics and regions. Such, in my view, is the incontestable conclusion. This phenomenon is explained by the greater cultural level of Georgia and Armenia. In Georgia, the literacy rate is quite high, reaching 80 percent; in Armenia, it is not less than 40 percent. Therein lies the secret of why these two countries found themselves ahead of the other republics. From this it follows that the more literate and cultured a country, republic, or region, the closer to the people, to their language, to their way of life the party and Soviet apparatus will be. All this other conditions being equal, of course. This is clear, and there is nothing new in this conclusion, and precisely because there is nothing new here, this conclusion is often forgotten, and not infrequently people try to attribute cultural backwardness, and consequently also governmental backwardness, to "errors" in party policy, to conflicts, and so forth, when the root of everything lies in the shortage of literacy, in the lack of culture. You want to make your country advanced in terms of raising its statehood -- raise the literacy of the population, raise the culture of your country, and the rest will follow.

If we approach the matter from this side and evaluate the situation in the individual republics from the standpoint of the reports presented, we must acknowledge that the situation in Turkestan, the present state of affairs there, is the most unsatisfactory, the most alarming. Cultural backwardness, a devastatingly minimal literacy rate, the remoteness of the state apparatus from the language and way of life of the peoples of Turkestan, a devastatingly slow rate of development -- such is the picture. Yet it is clear that of all Soviet republics, Turkestan represents the most important republic from the standpoint of revolutionizing the East, not only because Turkestan represents a combination of nationalities most closely linked with the East, but also because, by its geographical position, it penetrates to the very heart of that East which is most exploited and which has accumulated the most gunpowder for the struggle against imperialism. That is why present-day Turkestan is the weakest point of Soviet power. The task consists of transforming Turkestan into a model republic, into an advance post for revolutionizing the East. Precisely for this reason, it is necessary to concentrate attention on Turkestan in terms of raising the cultural level of the masses, nationalizing the state apparatus, and so forth. This task we must carry through at all costs, sparing no effort, stopping at no sacrifices.

The second weak point of Soviet power must be considered Ukraine. The state of affairs in terms of culture, literacy, and so forth is here the same, or almost the same, as in Turkestan. The state apparatus is just as far from the language and way of life of the people as in Turkestan. At the same time, Ukraine has the same significance for the peoples of the West as Turkestan has for the peoples of the East. The situation in Ukraine is further complicated by certain peculiarities of the country's industrial development. The fact is that the basic branches of industry, coal and metallurgy, appeared in Ukraine not from below, not in the natural course of the development of the national economy, but from above, by way of introduction, of artificial implantation from outside. Because of this, the composition of the proletariat in these branches is not local, not Ukrainian in language. And this circumstance leads to the fact that the cultural influence of the city upon the village and the alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry are considerably impeded by these differences in the national composition of the proletariat and the peasantry. All these circumstances must be taken into account in the work of transforming Ukraine into a model republic. And to transform it into a model republic, in view of its enormous significance for the peoples of the West, is absolutely necessary.

I turn to the reports on Khorezm and Bukhara. On Khorezm I will not speak, in view of the absence of a representative of Khorezm: it would be improper, on the basis merely of materials at the CC's disposal, to criticize the work of the Khorezm Communist Party and the government of Khorezm. What Broido said here about Khorezm concerns the past. It has little relation to the present situation in Khorezm. Regarding the party, he said that 50 percent of its members are merchants and so forth. Perhaps this was so in the past, but at present a purge is underway there; not a single "unified party card" has yet been issued in Khorezm; there is, properly speaking, no party there; one can speak of a party only after the purge. They say several thousand party members are counted there. I think that after the purge of the party, no more than a few hundred members will remain. The same situation obtained in Bukhara last year, when 16,000 party members were counted there, and after the purge no more than one thousand remained.

I turn to the report on Bukhara. Speaking about Bukhara, I must say a preliminary two words about the general tone and character of the reports presented. I consider that the reports on the republics and regions were on the whole truthful; they on the whole did not diverge from reality. Only one report diverged fundamentally from reality -- the report on Bukhara. It was not even a report, but sheer diplomacy, for everything negative in Bukhara was glossed over, plastered over, while everything superficially glittering and eye-catching was pushed to the foreground, put on display. The conclusion: everything in Bukhara is in order. I think we have come to this conference not in order to practice diplomacy on one another, to make eyes at each other while leading each other by the nose behind each other's backs, but in order to tell the whole truth, to expose all the sores in a Communist manner, to open them up, and to work out means of improvement. Only under this condition can we move forward. From this standpoint, the report on Bukhara differs from all other reports in its untruthfulness. It was not by accident that I posed the question here to the reporter about the composition of the Council of Nazirs in Bukhara. The Council of Nazirs is the Council of People's Commissars. Are there any dehkans there, that is, peasants? The reporter did not answer. But I have information on this, and it turns out that in the composition of the Bukharan government there is not a single peasant. Of 9 or 11 members of the government, there is the son of a rich merchant, a trader, an intellectual, a mullah, a trader, an intellectual, another trader, but not a single dehkan. And yet Bukhara, as is known, is an exclusively peasant country.

This question has a direct bearing on the question of the policy of the government of Bukhara. What is the policy of this government, headed by Communists -- does it reckon with the interests of the peasantry, its own peasantry? I would like to cite only two facts illustrating the policy of the Bukharan government, headed by Communists. From a document signed by the most responsible comrades, old party members, it is evident, for example, that during its existence, the state bank of Bukhara extended 75 percent of its credits to private merchants and 2 percent to peasant cooperatives. In absolute figures this is expressed as follows: 7 million rubles in gold to merchants and 220,000 rubles in gold to peasants. Further: in Bukhara, no confiscation of lands has been carried out. But a confiscation of the emir's cattle was carried out... in favor of the peasants. And what happened? According to the same document, it turns out that about two thousand head of cattle were confiscated for the peasants, and of these only about 200 head actually passed into the hands of the peasants; the rest was sold -- sold, of course, to well-to-do citizens.

And this government calls itself Soviet, people's! It hardly needs to be demonstrated that in the described activities of the Bukharan government there is nothing either people's or Soviet.

The reporter painted a very rosy picture of the question of the relations of the Bukharan people to the RSFSR and to the Union of Republics. Here, too, everything is in order with him. The Bukharan Republic, it turns out, wishes to enter the Union. The reporter apparently thinks it is sufficient to want to enter the Union of Republics for the gates to swing open. No, comrades, the matter is not so simple. One must also ask whether they will be let into the Union of Republics. In order to have the opportunity of entering the Union, one must first earn in the eyes of the peoples of the Union the right of admission to the Union; one must win this right. I must remind the Bukharan comrades that the Union of Republics cannot be regarded as a dumping ground.

I would like, finally, in concluding the first part of my concluding word on the reports, to touch upon one characteristic feature of these reports. No one, not a single reporter, answered the question posed on the conference agenda, namely: the presence of unutilized free reserves of local workers. No one gave an answer to this question, and no one touched upon it, except Grinko, who is not, however, a reporter. And yet this question is of paramount importance. Are there free, unutilized workers from local people in the republics or regions; if there are, why have they not been utilized; and if there are no such reserves, yet a shortage of workers is felt, what national elements are filling the vacant positions on the party or Soviet line -- all these are questions of the utmost importance for the party. I know that in the republics and regions there is one part of the leading workers, mainly Russian, who sometimes do not let workers from among local people advance, who impede their promotion to certain posts, who push them aside. Such cases occur and this constitutes one of the causes of dissatisfaction in the republics and regions. But the biggest and most fundamental cause of dissatisfaction lies in the fact that the free reserve of local people fit for work turns out to be terribly small or, most likely, does not exist at all. That is the crux of the matter. If there are not enough local workers, it is obviously necessary to put non-local workers to work, people of other nationalities, for time does not wait; building and governing are necessary, while cadres from local people grow slowly. I think that the workers from the regions and republics resorted to a certain ruse here, keeping silent about this circumstance. And yet it is clear that nine-tenths of the misunderstandings are explained by the shortage of workers from local people. There is one conclusion from this: to set before the party as a fighting task the accelerated formation of cadres of Soviet and party workers from local people.

From reports I turn to speeches. I must note, comrades, that no one, not a single speaker, criticized the principled part of the draft platform proposed by the Politburo. (A voice: "It is beyond criticism.") I take this as agreement by the conference, as the solidarity of the conference with those propositions set forth in the principled part of the platform. (Voices: "That's right.")

Trotsky's addition, which he spoke about, or insertion (it concerns the principled part), must be accepted, for it absolutely changes nothing in the character of the principled part of the resolution; moreover, it naturally follows from it. Especially since in its essence, Trotsky's addition represents a repetition of a well-known point of the resolution of the X Congress on the national question, which speaks of the inadmissibility of mechanically transplanting Petrograd and Moscow models to the regions and republics. There is repetition here, of course, but I consider that to repeat certain things from time to time is not harmful. In view of this, I do not intend to elaborate on the principled part of the resolution. Skrypnik's speech gives some grounds for the conclusion that he interprets this principled part in his own way, trying, in the face of the main task -- the struggle against Great Russian chauvinism, which represents the main danger -- to overshadow the other danger, the danger of local nationalism. But such an interpretation is profoundly erroneous.

The second part of the Politburo's platform concerns questions about the character of the Union of Republics and about certain amendments to the Constitution of the Union of Republics from the standpoint of establishing the so-called second chamber. I must say that here the Politburo has certain disagreements with the Ukrainian comrades. What is set forth in the Politburo's draft platform was adopted by the Politburo unanimously. But certain points are disputed by Rakovsky. This was reflected, incidentally, in the commission of the CC plenum. Perhaps one should not speak about this, because this is not where the question is to be decided. I have already reported on this part of the platform, saying that the question is being worked out in the commission of the CC plenum and in the commission of the Presidium of the CEC of the Union. But since this question has been touched upon, I cannot avoid it.

It is untrue that the question of confederation versus federation is a trivial question. Is it an accident that the Ukrainian comrades, reviewing the well-known draft Constitution adopted at the Congress of the Union of Republics, struck out of it the phrase about the republics "uniting into one union state"? Is this an accident, and did they not do this? Why did they strike out this phrase? Is it an accident that the Ukrainian comrades in their counter-draft proposed not to merge the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade and the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs but to transfer them to the category of directive commissariats? Where is the single union state here, if each republic retains its own commissariats of foreign affairs and foreign trade? Is it an accident that the Ukrainians in their counter-draft reduced the power of the Presidium of the CEC to zero, dividing it between two presidiums of two chambers? All these amendments of Rakovsky were recorded and examined by the commission of the CC plenum and rejected. Then why repeat them here again? I discern in this insistence of certain Ukrainian comrades a desire to achieve, in terms of defining the character of the Union, something intermediate between a confederation and a federation, with the balance tipping toward confederation. And yet it is clear that we are creating not a confederation but a federation of republics, one union state, uniting military, foreign, foreign-trade, and other affairs, a state whose existence does not diminish the sovereignty of the individual republics.

If we have within the Union a People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, a People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, and so forth, and at the same time all these commissariats exist in the republics that are part of the Union, then the appearance of the entire Union as a single state before the outside world obviously disappears, for it is one or the other: either we merge these apparatuses and appear before the external enemy as a single Union, or we do not merge these apparatuses, create not a union state but a conglomerate of republics, and then each republic must have its own parallel apparatus. I think that the truth here is on the side of Comrade Manuilsky, and not on the side of Rakovsky and Skrypnik.

From state questions I turn to questions of a purely concrete, practical character, connected partly with the Politburo's practical proposal, partly with those amendments that may be introduced here by comrades who are practitioners. I, as reporter for the Politburo, did not say and could not say that the Politburo's concrete practical proposals are exhaustive. On the contrary, I stipulated from the very beginning that there may be omissions here and that additions are inevitable. One such addition is put forward by Skrypnik concerning the trade unions. This addition is acceptable. Certain additions from Comrade Mikoyan I also accept. On the question of a fund for publishing and in general for the press in certain backward republics and regions, an amendment is indeed necessary. This question was omitted. Also omitted was the question of schools in certain regions and even republics. Primary schools have not been included in the state budget. This is indeed an omission, and there may be a whole pile of such omissions. Therefore, I propose that comrade practitioners, who spoke more about the state of their organizations and made less effort to offer something concrete, think about this and submit the corresponding concrete additions, amendments, and so forth to the CC, which, having gathered them together, will introduce them into the corresponding points and circulate them to the organizations.

I cannot pass over in silence one of Grinko's proposals, which states that it is necessary to create certain preferential conditions facilitating party admission and promotion to its leading organs for local people of less cultured and perhaps less proletarian nationalities. This proposal is correct and, in my view, should be adopted.

I conclude my concluding word with the following proposal: to adopt the Politburo's draft platform on the national question in its fundamentals, taking into account also Trotsky's amendment. To propose that the CC classify the existing and forthcoming amendments of a practical character and reflect them in the corresponding points of the platform. To propose that the CC print and distribute to the organizations within a week the draft platform, the minutes, the resolution, and the most important documents left by the reporters. To adopt the draft platform without creating a special commission.

I have not touched upon the question of creating a commission on the national question at the CC. Comrades, I have some doubts about the expediency of creating such a body -- first, because the republics and regions will undoubtedly not give us major workers for this purpose. I am certain of this. Second, I think that the regional committees and national CCs will not agree to transfer a portion of their rights in the distribution of workers to a commission at the CC. At present, when distributing forces, we usually consult the regional committees and national CCs. With a commission in existence, the center of gravity would naturally shift to the commission. There is no analogy between a commission on the national question and commissions on cooperatives or on work among the peasants. The commission on work in the village and on cooperatives usually formulates general guidelines. On the national question, however, what is needed is not general guidelines but the marking out of concrete steps for individual republics and regions, which a general commission is unable to do. It is doubtful that any commission can formulate and adopt any decisions, for example, for the Ukrainian Republic: two or three people from Ukraine cannot replace the CC of the CP(b)U. That is why I think the commission would yield nothing substantial. The step proposed here -- the introduction of nationals into the main departments of the CC -- is, I think, for the time being entirely sufficient. If in half a year there are no particular successes, then the question of creating a special commission can be raised.

Fourth Conference of the CC of the RCP with Responsible Workers of National Republics and Regions. Stenographic Report. Moscow, 1923.