Lenin on the National Question

Vladimir Lenin, Speech at the All-Russian Navy Congress. December 5, 1917

 

Original Source: Sochineniia (Moscow, 1926-1935), Vol. XXII, pp. 100-101.

Turning our attention to the national question we must note particularly the motley national composition of Russia, where the Great Russians form only 40 per cent of the population while the remaining majority consists of other nationalities. During the tsarist regime the oppression of these nationalities, unprecedented in its cruelty and absurdity, succeeded in accumulating a tremendous hatred for the monarchs among the oppressed peoples. It is not surprising, therefore, that the hatred against those who prohibited even the usage of the native tongue, thus condemning the masses of population to illiteracy, was transferred against all Great Russians. It was thought that the Great Russians, as the privileged nation, wished to retain the privileges which both Nicholas and Kerenskii faithfully guarded for them.

We are told that Russia will be divided, will split into separate republics. We should not be afraid of this. No matter how many separate republics are created we shall not be frightened by it. It is not the state frontiers that count with us but a union of toilers of all nations ready to fight the bourgeoisie of any nation.

If the Finnish bourgeoisie brings arms from Germany to use them against their workers, we offer to the latter a union with the Russian toilers. Let the bourgeoisie carry on a contemptible and petty brawl and bargain over the question of frontiers; the workers of all countries will not quarrel on that score. We are now–I am using a bad word “conquering Finland,” but not in the way in which the international plunderers-capitalists do it. We are conquering Finland by the fact that while letting her live in a union with us or others we at the same time support the toilers of all nationalities against the international bourgeoisie. This union is based not on treaties but on the solidarity of the exploited against their exploiters. We are witnessing at present a national movement in the Ukraine and we say: We are unquestionably for a complete and absolute freedom of the Ukrainian people. We must break the old bloody and dirty past, when Russia was dominated by capitalist-oppressors and played the role of executioner to other peoples. We shall wipe out this past and we shall not leave a stone of this past untouched. We shall say to the Ukrainians: As Ukrainians you may organize your life as you wish, but we shall stretch our brotherly hand to the Ukrainian workers saying: Let us fight together against our common enemy the bourgeoisie. Only a Socialist union of the toilers of all countries will clear away the ground of the national quarrels and enmities.

Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), p. 284.

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