Attempt to Unite Slavic and Baltic Republics

Appointing a Commission to Formulate the Terms of an Alliance between the Soviet Republics of Russia, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and White Russia for the Fight against World Imperialism. June 1, 1919.

Original Source: Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii raboche-krestian’skogo pravitel’stva, 1919, No. 21, Art. 264.

The socialist Soviet republics created by the laboring masses on the territories of Russia, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and White Russia have repeatedly proclaimed to the world their readiness to enter into peace negotiations in order to terminate the war which was imposed upon them. The forces of international imperialism, entertaining the insane hope of conquering the whole world, striving for an unlimited exploitation of the wealth of these countries, and united against the universal movement of the laboring masses, have rejected the peaceful proposals of the laboring masses of Russia, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and White Russia, and now exert all their efforts in order to suppress the soviet power in all places where it was created by the unified revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants. World capital, having mobilized against soviet power all the forces of the monarchist and capitalistic counter-revolution, strives to strangle the power of the workers and peasants by a common aggression on all frontiers. The suppression of this attempt to plunge again into slavery tens of millions of Russian, Ukrainian, Lettish, Lithuanian, Belorussian, and Crimean workers and peasants, requires of them a most close union of all military forces, their centralization and control in the difficult struggle for life or death. A military union of all the above-mentioned socialist soviet republics must be the first reply to the aggression of the common foes. Therefore, the all-Russian central executive committee (VTsIK), standing firmly for the principle of recognizing the independence, liberty, and self’-determination of the laboring masses of the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, White-Russia, and Crimea, and adopting of the Ukrainian central executive committee approved by the assembly of May 18, 1918, and responding to the proposals of the soviet governments of Latvia, Lithuania, and White Russia, acknowledges the necessity of forming a close union of the: (1) military organizations and military command, (2) soviets of people’s economy, (3) railroad administration and economic structure, (4) finances, (5) commissariats for labor of the RSFSR, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, White-Russia, and Crimea, whereby the supervision of the above-mentioned branches of national life shall be concentrated in the hands of separate collegiums.

The union must be effected in the form of an agreement with the central executive committee and soviet of people’s commissars of each of the above-mentioned republics.

For the realization of the said measures, the VTsIK elects a commission charged with immediate entrance into negotiations with the representatives of the corresponding central executive committee in order to elaborate, together with them, concrete standards of union, and to formulate immediately, until the elaboration of a definitive union, regulations relating to the practical application of the same.

Signed: President of the VTsIK: M. KALININ
Secretary of the VTsIK: L. SEREBRIAKOV

Source: Walter Russell Batsell, Soviet Rule in Russia (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929), pp. 243-245.

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