Declaration before the Third Congress of Soviets of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the Formation of the Uzbek Socialist Soviet Republic (UzSSR). May 13, 1925

Original Source: Tretii s"ezd sovetov SSSR: stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow: TsIK SSSR, 1925), pp. 14-16.

The entire capitalistic world is divided into two hostile camps: the camp of the subjugating minority (the capitalists, landowners, and merchants), and the camp of the subjugated majority (the workers, peasants, and small producers).

The attempts made by the capitalistic world during tens of years to settle the question of nationalities by way of combining the free development of peoples with the system of exploitation of man by man have proved fruitless. On the contrary, the labyrinth of national contradictions became more and more entangled, menacing even the existence of capitalism.

The bourgeoisie considers laboring humanity as slaves destined for it. It devours the forces of the proletarians, destroys peasant economy; it rouses hostility among peoples, thus furthering national oppression. The only fighter whom the bourgeoisie fears is the proletariat forged into a revolutionary force under the banner of communism.

The bourgeoisie has proved powerless to establish a collaboration of peoples. Moreover, world capitalism is imminently drawn, year by year, in a greater and greater degree, into the fatal whirlpool of absolutely insoluble imperialistic contradictions threatening with destructive wars, with destruction of tens of millions of human lives and great wealth.

Only by means of universal socialist revolution, by means of the dictatorship of the proletariat, can humanity find a way out of this historical blind alley. History shows that imperialism, being the supreme form of capitalism, is the last stage in its development. Imperialism is the eve of socialism.

That is the reason horror of death and madness overcomes the capitalistic world when its rulers see that along with the workers, and under their direct guidance, the peasantry are increasing and striving for land and freedom, for national independence and liberation from the power of imperialism.

The great October 1917 is the first stage of the socialist reconstruction of the world; it is the beginning of a new era--the era of proletarian revolution throughout the whole world. It is October 1917 which, after having liberated the laboring masses from the class oppression of capitalism and landowners, has liberated subject peoples of the former Tsarist Empire by granting them the right of self-determination including the right of separation from the state. Only in the camp of Soviets, only under conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat which has grouped around itself the majority of the population, has it proved possible to destroy at the roots national oppression, to create an atmosphere of mutual confidence, and to lay the bases of fraternal collaboration of peoples.

That is the reason the capitalists, the rulers of the world, with the British imperialists at their head, are using and will continue to use all political, economic, and military forces against the soviet order. The malice and rage of the exploiters, the fury of their hirelings are turned against the laboring people who dared to replace the power of capital and who knew how to build a new life without bourgeoisie.

The peoples of Central Asia, who for centuries suffered from the unrestrainable subjugation of the tsarist regime, the power of the Khans and the Emirate, being in complete economic and spiritual servitude for the bais, priests, and functionaries, were deprived of the most elementary of human rights.

From the first days of its existence in the "declaration of the rights of the people of Russia" of November 2, 1917, the great October revolution solemnly proclaimed the equality and sovereignty of all peoples dwelling in the former empire.

The laboring masses of the kishlaqs and auls of the Uzbek territories solemnly and firmly declare through their first congress of Soviets of the territory of the former Turkestan, Bukhara, and Khorezm republics that for the realization of national self-determination in the outpost of soviet power in the Orient.

In Central Asia-after the liquidation of all obstacles in the way of full realization of the fundamental ideas of national self-determination are henceforth established on the territory of the Uzbek people, which includes the regions of Tashkent, Samarkand, Fergana, Kashka-Darya, Zeravshan, Surkhan-Darya, and Khorezm, for the first time in the history of this people, the Union Uzbek Socialist Soviet Republic of workers and peasants, into which enters the Autonomous Tadzhik Socialist Soviet Republic.

The first all-Uzbek congress of Soviets of workers', dekkans, and red army deputies, on the basis of the expression of the will of the laboring masses of the former TSSR, BSSR, and KhSSR, in accordance with the decrees of the third extraordinary session of the Turkestan central executive committee of September 16, 1924, of the all-Bukhara kurultai, and Khorezm kurultai of September and October 1924, respectively, on the delimitation, in accordance with national characteristics, of the soviet republic-lies of Central Asia, and on the entering into the USSR of the UzSSR-decrees that:

All central and local authority within the boundaries of the UzSSR belongs to the entire population of workers and laboring dekkans of the country, united in the person of town and kishlaq Soviets.

The laboring masses of Uzbek people-for the purpose of universal solidarity of workers and peasants, directed to the protection of their socialist fatherland from external and internal dangers, for the purpose of uniting all efforts of the peoples of the USSR for a quick recovery and full development of economy, and for the purpose of increasing the productive forces of the country on the basis of fraternal collaboration of peoples-declare before the whole world their inviolable decision voluntarily to enter into the USSR with the rights of an equal member and on the basis of the declaration of the first congress of the USSR which guarantees the safety of the united republics, as well as complete internal economic growth and freedom of national development of the peoples.

Long live the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics!

Long live the World Federation of Socialist Soviet Republics!

Source: Walter Russell Batsell, Soviet Rule in Russia (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929), Chapter VI.