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previous: Chapter 2 This webpage reproduces a chapter of The Nationality Problem of the Soviet Union by Roman Smal-Stocki published by The Bruce Publishing Company Milwaukee, 1952 The text is in the public domain. This page has not been proofread. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 4

 p41  Chapter III

Russian Communism's Conflict with the National Idea

Thus, the refusal of the Western European and American democracies to recognize and to support the young democratic national republics helped the Russian Communist dictator­ship to gain a victory. How could it happen?

This ill will in the West and in America was created by twoº factors:

a) Big business: The leaders of international capital having invested billions of gold francs in Imperial Russia, were fully persuaded by the Russian capitalists in exile that only an undivided Russia could pay back the investments and guarantee for the future again large commercial transactions. Thus the "vested interest" plus the greed for future profits turned in the U. S. A. and Western Europe against the new national democratic republics all the "liberal" public opinion in the press and parliaments. This, in spite of the promises of the governments of these republics to pay their respective share of the old Russian debts.

b) The Socialist parties in Western Europe contributed their share to this attitude toward the Communist dictator­ship in Russia proper. Their thought was that dispute the "antidemocratic" Communist coup d'état by the dispersion of a lawfully elected constitutional assembly, the Communists were "Socialists" and had established a "government of workers and peasants." This Socialist opportunism and Machiavellianism over­looked the fact that, in all national republics invaded by the Russian Communists, Socialist governments had been in power, and that these Socialists were everywhere immediately "liquidated" as "social traitors" by the Russian Communists.

c) Both groups were handicapped by the conviction, based on the course of the French Revolution that the "tendency to the right" soon would come and that the revolution in Russia would end as in France with a bourgeois democratic republic. This opinion was several times expressed to the author even by such an extraordinary thinker as Walter Rathenau. This hostile attitude toward the rights of nationalities, prevalent in the West, doomed in advance the intervention of the Allies against the Russian Communists, and compelled the non‑Russian nationalities to a two‑front fight, one against the Russian Communists and the other against the Allies, who supported the idea of restoration of an indivisible "Russia."

d) The final victory of Russian Communist dictator­ship was the treaty of Rapallo (1922), in which defeated Germany broke the common front of civilized European nations and recognized the Russian dictator­ship as a lawful government. By this diplomatic master stroke Soviet Moscow provoked rivalry among the European powers, who wished to  p42 secure immediately "big business" all "possibilities in the economical reconstruction of the ruined territories." The Nep policy fostered all the illusions and a race started among all the capitalist powers for the favors of the Russian Communist dictator­ship. Lenin was right when he said: the stupid of Western democracy and the greed of Western capitalism are boundless; they will deliver even their own coffins, the nails included, if only they are tempted in the right way by big profits from Russian Communism.

Thus, Western Europe and America are coresponsible for the victory of the commute tyranny over the champions of democracy and freedom. These shortsighted statesmen committed political crimes against Europe, democracy, and freedom. Also political crimes do not pay — this is the moral of the history of the last decades.

The Soviet Union did not evolve all at once after the victorious aggressive wars of the Russian Communists against the Democratic Republics of the non‑Russian nationalities of former Tsarist Russia in the years 1919‑1921. There is a complete parallel with the present "independent States" of Poland, Czecho­slovakia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, China, North Korea, East Germany, which also are not yet formally incorporated into the Soviet Union in order not to provoke international "indignation." In the same way Soviet Moscow recognized as "independent States" the territories occupied by the Red Army of the Ukraine, Byelo-Ruthenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, of the Korezm and Far Eastern Republics, concluding with them only "treaties of friendship and commerce." Only as Communist Moscow became sure that the West and the League of Nations had lost interest in the fate of these nationalities did the Communist dictator­ship take the next step: the establishment of the Soviet Union, finally ratified by the Second Assembly, January 31, 1924. Formally the U. S. S. R. is, according to the constitution, a "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" but nether this federalist façade, erected to deceive the nations outside the Soviet Union, is the dictatorial power of the Russian Communists who as "Russians" have the exclusive right by a complete totalitarian dictator­ship to direct the affairs of the State and of all nations.​1

In this way the Moscow Communist dictator­ship managed to liquidate the "national ideas" with the "national sovereignty and the human rights" of all non‑Russian nationalities of the former Tsarist Empire (as it did similarly in nearly the whole Balkan region and Central Europe after World War II).

This liquidation of the national ideas and freedom inside the Soviet Union the Soviet propaganda (in all languages) continuously represents  p43 to the credulous public opinion outside the Soviet Union as the greatest achievement of "progressive democracy." The Soviet State is a "paradise of nationalities," in which there is no national persecution or oppression. All left-wing babbitts among the American university professors praise the Communist Soviet Union as "the only State which success­fully solved the national problems, having given to the nationalities full freedom for the development of their culture and languages. . . ."

Only now, when the Communistic dictator­ship is standing with its armies from the Elbe River to Vienna has the Western World become interested in the events behind the Iron Curtain. About the events in Eastern Europe after 1920 and the fate of the nationalities, their languages and cultures, there exists in the United States, in the heads even of the "specialists," a kind of blackout, systematically created by the Soviet propaganda.

Therefore we should like to throw some light on this decade's long struggle of the oppressed nationalities against the Moscow dictator­ship, because this struggle was and is of world-wide importance for the fate of our Western dizziness, for the very life of nations and their languages.

The Russian Communist party which established dits dictator­ship as a new tyranny over the non‑Russian nationalities of the former Russian Tsarist Empire has its history in which the "national problem" was ever present in the discussion. In order to understand the fate of the non‑Russian nationalities of the former Russian Empire we must present the gradual development of the national program of the bolshevik Communists and its historical background.

1. Marxism and the National Idea

The old Russian imperialistic expansion and its national program: "the permanent pogrom of the conquered non‑Russian nationalities until their complete Russification and Orthodoxization," created in the Tsarist Russian Empire in course of time many revolutionary uprisings among these victims of Russian tyranny, and a deep hatred of the Russian oppressors. This national tension in the Russian Empire was intensified by the economic and social aspects of this oppression by the Russian bourgeoisie, against which also in Russian ethnic territory there existed a profound dissatisfaction and opposition. In course of etym there developed in Russia a Socialist and revolutionary under­ground, acting partly by terror, with the usual consequence: the emerging of political émigrés centers in Western Europe.

Thus, two forces opposed Russian Tsarism in old Russia — that Russian Socialists with their revolutionary under­ground, and the national under­ground of the non‑Russian oppressed nationalities. In the last analysis these two groups pursued the same ultimate goal. They conducted a common campaign against the Tsarist regime. This must be borne in mind as important for a deeper understanding of the later and present period.

Of decisive importance in the development of events in Russia were the Russian Socialist émigré center, and the Russian Socialist Party  p44 (under the leader­ship of G. V. Plekhanov), which in 1898 held its first Congress at Minsk. This émigré center in Geneva was later joined by Lenin, who in the year 1903 at the second Congress (Brussels and London) created the factional split in the Russian Socialist party into the mensheviks and bolsheviks. This was followed by a complete party split in 1912.

Lenin was the ideological leader of the bolsheviks whom Stalin also joined. Naturally, Lenin at that time carefully followed all events on the "national battle front" in the Russian Empire and he was well aware of all the ramifications of the national problem. Under the immediate influence of the Western European Socialists and liberal trends these non‑Russian nationalities confronted the ruling Russian nation, including the Russian Socialists and Democrats in Russia, with the demand for "freedom of national development" in three spheres:

a) In the cultural sphere. This included full national-cultural autonomy, with unlimited freedom in the use of their languages in public life, church, and schools.

b) In the economic sphere. This meant the abolition of colonial exploitation of the non‑Russian territories by the Russians.

c) In the political sphere. This called for the "self-determination" of every nation (independence, confederation, federation).

All these problems, since they were actual problems in the old Tsarist Empire, included also a basic problem of political and cultural orientation, usually summed up in the words "East" or "West" in European Russia, but "Pan‑Turanism," "Pan‑Mongolism," or "Pan‑Islamism" for the nationalities of the Asiatic Islam-cultural sphere of Asiatic Russia. All the non‑Russian nationalities, pointing to the example of Switzerland and the freedom enjoyed by all languages of all émigrés in the U. S. A. became thus in the Russian Empire the dynamic counterforce against the program of Russian Tsarism: "One God, one Tsar, one State — one nation."

With these facts and problems Russian Socialism had to cope. Lenin soon had to turn ship special attention to the nationality problem, ancient it began to play a vital role in the whole Socialist movement in Russia and in Europe. Lenin, as the leading personality of the bolsheviks, made use of Stalin for collecting materials on the nationality problems, sending him to Vienna in 1913, and of another Georgian bolshevik, S. G. Shaumyan, using them both as his mouthpiece for propagating his own tenets regarding the national problem. B. D. Wolfe has performed a fine scholar­ly achievement in the bringing to light the real role of Stalin in the development of the Communist policy regarding the non‑Russian nationalities,​2 and in exposing the falsifications of present Communist historiography about Stalin's part. Lenin not Stalin therefore is the man who formulated the Communist nationality program, Stalin later executed it. Lenin's influence on the fate of the non‑Russian nationalities cannot be over­estimated.

 p45  As a scholar of Marxism, Lenin, of course, was acquainted with the opinions of the founding fathers, Marx and Engels, about the nationality problem. What did they teach about the "nationality problem," with which, naturally, the question of national languages is inseparably connected?

Marx's and Engels idea of nationality can be properly understood by keeping in mind that:

They were patriotic Germans, aiming at the creation of a national-united German Republic; Germany's power in their wishful thinking had to become the driving force of Marxism, the more power­ful Germany grows the more power­ful Germany will become. German intolerant nationalism was in Marx linked with a foggy internationalism.

b) As to nationalities the Socialist prophets apparently believed they had discovered a new "iron law," dividing them into two classes: those gifted and talented for "progress," and those unfit for Portuguese. The corollary is that only the "progressive" nationalities have rights to independent statehood and separate existence, but nationalities, permitted by the infallible Marx as "unfit" for progress are predestined agents of reaction; therefore, they have no rights, no historical future whatever, they have to remain under the rule of the "progressive" nations. As nations are divided into classes so also the whole human race is divided into classes of nationalities. As there are classes which are, according to Marx, doomed, similarly there are also doomed nationalities. The deciding principle of classification is their "contribution to progress."

Let us formulate the opinion of Marx about "progress" which lies at the basis of his classification. The only "progressive class," predestined to rule, is the proletariat; in addition to the capitalist class, the peasant class is also doomed. The peasants, even in France and Germany, are for Engels​3 "the barbarians of civilization," for Marx​4 they are "troglodytes," and "agricultural property shit." In the Communist Manifesto war to the death is proclaimed not only on the bourgeoisie but also on the peasant class. Consequently, nationalities which have not developed a rising proletarian class but whose overwhelming majority consisted of peasants are unprogressive, reactionary, doomed — of course along with their language and culture. They are mere material for assimilation. Even the Danes are inferior to the Germans, and Marx demanded the annexation of Schleswig as an "expression of the right of civilization over barbarism, of progress over stagnation." Also the national aspirations of the Scandinavian nations are thus judged by Marx: "Scandinavianism is nothing but enthusiasm for a brutal, dirty, piratical, Old Norse nationalism. . . ." Thus, Marxism includes also the nucleus of the Socialist "Herrenvolk" idea and the future fanatical hostility of Russian Communism to the non‑Russian peasant population.

c) The opinions of Marx and Engels have to be always evaluated against the background of the international situation of their times.

 p46  d) We must always distinguish between their program for immediate realization and their long-range program for the Socialist paradise (promised by these Socialist prophets). They did not grasp the fact that Central Europe is approximately half a century behind Western Europe in the maturing and ripening of the national processes, but Eastern Europe and Russia are at least a century behind, and Asia a century and a half! This lack of right perspective from the West to the East is responsible for Marx's rather inaccurate "idea of nationality," which was expressed by him also in the terms: "country," "state," even "society."

In the Communist Manifesto (1847) we have in this regard contradictory ideas: "The workers have no country," on the one hand, but on the other the aim of the proletariat is "to establish itself as the nation." On one page Marx proclaimed that ("the national idea") nationalism was on the way out, but on the next page he demanded unconditionally the "independence of Poland." . . .​5

Summing up the ideas of Marx and Engels about the nationality problem, scattered up and down in their publications, the following points are important:

I. The ideas of nationalism in Western Europe have fulfilled a progressive task, having created unified nation States, nationwide markets, self-governing national economic, political, and cultural units, each with a (homogeneous) people and language.

a) This progressive right to national unification and independence they recognized for the Italians, the Irish, the Hungarians, and the Poles. As Poland has to be reconstituted according to their views within the frontiers of 1772, as the old Commonwealth, consequently also the Lithuanians, Byelo-Ruthenians, and the Ukrainians are here included, because we suppose, Marx and Engels were not ignorant of the national composition of the old Polish Commonwealth. But it is doubtful whether they were granted the same rights of self-determination as the Poles.

b) But all other Slavic nations: Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croatians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Ruthenians (Western Ukrainians) were regarded as ethnographic masses and "historyless peoples." They had to be "assimilated" by their "progressive and advanced" neighbors, the Germans, the Hungarians, and the Poles. But the Poles were granted "progressive rights" only temporarily by Engels; they were to "contribute to the overthrow of the Tsar by a national uprising." After the downfall of Tsarism "there is absolutely no more reason for Poland to exist." Consequently, Engels proposed then to take "from the western part of Poland anything that can be taken, to let Germany occupy their fortresses under the pretext of 'protection,' " use the people for "cannon fodder and devour their country.​6 (As we see this is a purely imperialistic master-race program, which in our times Hitler tried to realize. These  p47 opinions of Marx and Engels about the necessity of assimilation of the "historyless peoples" were widely in Nazi propaganda.)

c) What were the real sources of these conceptions? Partly the hatred of all "peasant nations," partly the fear of Russia. Marx and Engels thought that the Poles, the Germans, and the Hungarians, only after swallowing their Slavic neighbors, would be able to act as a cordon sanitaire against Russia's imperialistic march into Europe. But if the above-mentioned Slavic "historyless" nations would get the right of self-determination they would be the steppingstones for Russian expansion to the West and would be swallowed by Russia. We assume that in the background of these conceptions is hidden a reaction to the first Pan‑Slav Congress in Prague (1848). Marx and Engels clearly saw behind Pan‑Slavism the shadow of Russia, and apparently understood the ill‑fated role for all of Europe which some Russophile Czechs had then started to play under Bakunin's command.

d) As we see, Marx subordinated the principle of the self-determination of nations in Europe to the chief problem: how to save Europe from Russia; he did not understand that Europe could be saved from Russia only by the application, according to letter and spirit, of this very principle toward Russia.

Consequently, regarding the national problem Marx applied two standards. On the one hand, Marx attempted to convince the English working class that "the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or human sympathy, but the first condition of their own emancipation"; Marx and Engels openly sympathized with the revolutionary struggle of the Poles for independence and hoped an independent Poland would "free Europe from Russia," but on the other hand they advanced for the remaining Slavic nations a program of assimilation by Germany and its constant ally Austria-Hungary with a "Drang nach Osten und Sueden" program.

e) The reason for this program was that the founding fathers were aware that Russia could not be included in Europe and that Russia and Europe represented cultural and political antitheses. The following quotation may explain Marx's views on Russia (and they have not lost their value for judging also current affairs):

There can be no doubt that Marx condemned Russia's imperialistic expansion over the non‑Russian nationalities and was well aware of the future danger (at present fully realized):

Marx does not preach any "Eurasiatic" missions for the Russian State, which Russian Socialism could later claim as its "special Socialist task" after coming to power. Nor any "cultural mission" as Marx well understood the essence of Russian culture.

The phrase "spirit of independence" is virtual a national self-determination program against Russia. We can infer from this quotation that the thinking of Marx was in a process of evolution, which would have brought him to the application of the right of self-determination also to Russian-oppressed nationalities. Marx certainly saw the nationality problem in Russia by fighting her imperialism.

He saw also the only remedy against Russian imperialism:

And Marx saw clearly the reasons for the Russian successes. Even today, his remarks retain their force, they are even a prophetic vision:

Taking Marx's attitudes into consideration regarding Ireland, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, then his plan to oppose Russian imperialism in the Balkans by the introduction of "liberty and the spirit of independence," we can conclude:

(1) That he regarded Russia's imperialism and Byzantinism as the chief obstacle to peace and progress of humanity and a danger to Europe.

(2) That he evolved in the direction of the partition of the self-determination right against Russia and in the Balkans.

(3) That Marx's hate of the peasant-peoples made him unable to grasp the nationality problem either in Poland or in old Russia, despite his interest in the nationalities subdued by Russia. In this connection Marx's letter to Engels, March 24, 1870, is very interesting:

Engels in a letter to Marx (December 19, 1882) quotes the Ukrainian Socialist, Serhiy Podolynsky, but we have no traces of their attitude toward the Ukrainian problem of that time.

(4) We can only guess what Engels would have said about Russia by capering what he said on "colonial policy" in his letter to Kautsky  p50 (September 12, 1882): "In my opinion the colonies proper, i.e., the countries occupied by a European population, Canada, the Cape, Australia, will all become independent; on the other hand the countries inhabited by a native population, which are simply subjugated, India, Algiers, the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish possessions, must be taken over by the proletariat and led as rapidly as possible towards independence."

(5) Essentially Marx subordinated the application of emancipation rights of nations to the paramount interest of the international proletariat according to the international situation, considering the self-determination rights as a weapon against the reaction.

II. Therefore, one has to keep in mind that the above-mentioned conceptions were maintained by Marx for the current international politics of the capitalistic era. The program for the future of mankind which the proletariat had in view was supernationalism or internationalism in which patriotism of nationalities could have its corresponding place, but no narrow-minded chauvinism. The Socialist era would demand unification of the world economy, as Engels wrote, in "the form of the one and indivisible republic!"​7 (But nothing is said about a "unification of languages"!) Consequently, Marx and Engels opposed the idea of federalism as a hindrance to economic and cultural development, regarding it only in special circumstances as a "step forward" toward full integration and centralization.

In spite of the contradictions in Marxism we can derive from these tenets the following corollaries and confront them with the facts in old Russia:

a) There existed in the pre‑World War I period in a national an exploited class and an exploiting class, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

b) There existed among nationalities exploited nationalities, as the non‑Russian nationalities in Russia, and exploiting nationalities (as the Russians in Russia); there existed consequently also ruling and oppressed "classes" among nationalities, on the one hand Russians, English, French, on the other the non‑Russian, non‑English, non‑French nationalities in the respective Empires.

c) There was a difference in the plight of the proletariat of the ruling Russian and the oppressed non‑Russian nationalities. The exploited class of an oppressed nationality suffers in comparison with the exploited class of a ruling nationality a triple oppression and exploitation: economic, national, and political.

d) There was a difference between the interest of the proletariat of the ruling Russian nationality and of the oppressed non‑Russian nationalities. The proletariat of the ruling Russian nationality attempted "to establish itself as the nation" (Marx) and to inherit all the profits from the exploitation of the oppressed nationalities for the economic betterment of the Russian proletarian class. Thus they desired to continue exploiting and oppressing the victimized nationalities of their  p51 Russian ruling bourgeoisie. But the oppressed proletariat of the non‑Russian nationalities attempted to rid themselves of the triple exploitations: on the one hand, of the exploitation in their own territory by bourgeoisie which was Russian and belonged to the ruling Russian nationality and which was regarded as foreign in the oppressed non‑Russian countries, and on the other hand of the political exploitation of the nationality as a whole and of its economic resources. Parallel with this political and economic difference of interests is also a deep cultural difference of interests. The proletariat of the ruling Russian nationality, after its victory would regard the cultural Russian supremacy of their inherited (former) bourgeois Russian culture and language over the oppressed non‑Russian nationalities with their culture and languages as "part of their proletarian victory." But the proletariat of the oppressed non‑Russian nationalities sought to put an end, not only to the Russian political and economic exploitation of their nations as a whole, but also to the cultural and linguistic oppression by the Russian culture and language of the former Russian ruling bourgeoisie. They aim at the extinction of all Russian traces of their oppression by the Russian bourgeoisie in their ethnographic territories.

e) Consequently, the triple political, economic, and national-cultural oppression of the proletariats of the non‑Russian oppressed nationalities constrains these proletariats, in the first place, to be loyal to their own nationalities as a whole, and second, it demands common front of all classes in the struggle against the exploiting Russian nation and its Russian bourgeoisie. National freedom and self-determination are the conditions for a victory of the proletariat of the non‑Russian oppressed nationalities and they demand the unity of all classes, especially the unity of the workers with the peasantry. Therefore, in the Socialist ideology of the proletariats of the non‑Russian oppressed nationalities the idea of social justice and national freedom were merged into one, and loyalty to one's own nation included loyalty to the working class for all the proletarians of the non‑Russian peoples.

But the interest of the proletariats of the Russian ruling nation, later establishing itself (after the revolution) as "the Russian nation," inheriting all the Russian "cultural investments" of their Russian bourgeoisie in the oppressed non‑Russian countries and nationalities, regards the former Russian ruling position of their former Russian bourgeoisie in these non‑Russian countries also as an "inheritance of the Russian proletariat," claiming as their "Russian proletarian I have come" the dominance of the Russian culture and language of their former Russian bourgeoisie. These Russian "proletarian" claims are "supported" by the demand of "loyalty" from the proletariats of the non‑Russian oppressed nationalities to "Socialism," which continue victorious Russian proletariat of the former ruling Russian nation now "represents." Consequently, the Socialism of the ruling Russian nationality becomes merged with the Russian Imperialism of the old Russian bourgeoisie into one whole, and, of course, it will be fully backed by all the remnants of aggressive chauvinism of the dethroned Russian bourgeoisie in the future.

 p52  f) Thus, from the beginning of Socialism the dynamism of the national ideas of the oppressed nationalities challenges Marx's statement that they are "bourgeois: ideas and proves their deeper roots which embrace all classes of a nationality. This dynamism challenges also the authority of Marx to sentence to a death of assimilation the oppressed "peasant" nationalities, blaming this conception as a kind of cannibalism of modern times. As a matter of fact these ideas of Marx are precursors of modern genocide and linguocide. The problem of loyalty to the class — or loyalty to the nationality — to this day remains a chief problem in Socialism and is closely connected with the practical interpretation of the content of the long-range program of "internationalism" regarding its future form of State, culture, and language.

2. Lenin and Stalin and the National Idea

We have presented here the basic "theoretical foundations" of Marx and Engels on the nationality problem — the right of "emancipation" of nationalities and liberation from oppression in the capitalistic era — and have confronted them with Russian realities on the one hand, and the long-range program of internationalism on the other, which Lenin found in the "scriptures of Socialism."

In the succeeding period of the Socialist month by month, in which Lenin participated, the nationality problem became one of the most pressing and important topics of discussion. Virtually it never did disappear from the Socialist press, Socialist congresses, or party programs. This problem was closely associated with Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, and Turkey in European politics, and with the colonialism of the powers in Asia and Africa.

We must limit ourselves here to the bolshevik tenets elaborated in national matters by Lenin, because in reality he determined their practical application to the non‑Russian nationalities after the breakdown of the Russian Tsarist regime. He did not work out his tenets in an abstract form, but always had in mind the practical background of real life and the struggle of the non‑Russian nationalities inside Russia against the ruling Russians.

But first it is necessary to say a few words about the man Lenin, because the evaluation and appreciation of published principles depend on the political honesty and moral integrity of the responsible person. We must ascertain clearly whether this personality in real honesty believed in what he proclaimed. As the problem here involved is the nationality problem, with which every person is also personally confronted, the first question must be: Could Lenin approach the problem of the non‑Russian nationalities objectively, i.e., as a man who stood as a real internationalist above the conflict of interests between the Russian and the non‑Russian nationalities? Or was Lenin in this conflict only a party, the Russian party, a Russian "public prosecutor" of the non‑Russian nationalism, and a Russian infallible judge in one person dressed in the toga of "internationalism"?

I refuse to follow the line of professional Lenin worshipers and fellow travelers, who have managed to make of Lenin a kind of a "superman "  p53 of the future era of internationalism. On the contrary, Lenin is to me an ardent Russian patriot, the more so as his real knowledge of languages and cultures was in reality limited to Russian. He never mastered German, English, or French in such a ways that we can say he was bilingual; Russian was the only language which he really spoke and thought. During his exile he was always surrounded by "Russia," his Russian wife, his Russian exiles, and he never attempted to assimilate the national cultures of the lands he lived in; for him they were "bourgeois cultures." A deep homesickness engrossed his national feelings, nostalgia intensified and beautified all the meanings and sentiments of the words of his native Russian. In reality, where he was Russia was.

In the memoirs of his wife Krupskaya there is a real mine of material for evaluating the real Lenin: "Exile in Cracow was only semi-exile. . . . Ilyich liked Cracow so much, it reminded him of Russia. . . . Each of us secretly thought about Russia, each had a strong desire to go. . . . We avoided speaking about it but all of us secretly thought about it. . . ." Krupskaya wrote to Lenin's mother that he was "starved for Russian novels," had "learned by heart the works of Nadson and Nekrasov," had "read and re‑read a hundred times until it was in pieces, Anna Karenina." Then Krupskaya actually writes: "Volodya is a terrible nationalist."​8 He would not go to see the works of Polish painters for anything; but one day he got hold of a catalogue of the Tretyakov Galleries . . . and he frequently becomes absorbed in it. . . ."​9 Lenin's nationalism merged later with the old Russian messianism, which only deepened his national emotions, putting his nation on the very top of mankind, as a kind of "chosen people by the grace of Marx:

These quotations may suffice to prove the assertion that Lenin was an ardent Russian nationalist, impatiently waiting for the bourgeois Russian inheritance in the firm conviction that he could advance the Russian nationalist interest far better than the bourgeoisie. What methods are to be employed? That is the second question with which any political leader is confronted in practical politics. Were his methods determined by moral principles?

Lenin as a politician is in this persist characterized by the full acceptance  p54 of Marx's tenets. Consequently, he believed that "Law, morality, religion, are to him [the proletarian] so many bourgeois prejudices behind which lurk in ambush so many bourgeois interests" (Communist Manifesto). Lenin himself declared at the third all‑Russian Congress of the Young Communist League: "For us morality is subordinated to the interests of the plane roll on class struggle." To Lenin's closest friend, E. Preobrazhensky, we are indebted in the ABC of Communism for the following enlightening line:

These principles of Lenin and Lenin's pupils compel all conscientious scholars to keep these methods in mind, and to use all their "energy for discovering the truth." And in their search for scientific truth all scholars must also keep in mind Lenin's tactical methods, which supplement the following tenets:

Here Lenin speaks after having victoriously applied all these methods to the nationality problems of all the non‑Russian nationalities of old Russia. Here must be sought his real aim, the "capture of political power by the Russian Communists," an aim which was hidden behind all his proclaimed theoretical tenets.

Besides Marx, Von Clausewitz also had a decisive influence on Lenin in matters of strategy and tactics, also seem to have written out his classic work On War,  p55 V. Surin, in No. III of Pravda (1923) reported that Lenin made the following remark about Clausewitz: "Political tactics and military tactics are what is called in German Grenzgebiet [border­land, i.e., its tenets are valid for both spheres] and Party workers might profitably study the works of Clausewitz, the great German military theoretician."

Communist ethics and Leninist strategy with all their astuteness, ingenuity and trickery form one whole, and only in the light of both can we understand the real value and real purposes of all the "nationality principles and programs" formulated by Lenin. Beneath this type of ethics and strategy there is hidden, disguised by a "progressive-democratic-socialist" preparing phraseology, a bottomless amorality, sanctioning as morally good every lie, falsehood, crime against any non‑Communist person, especially against any non‑Communist nationality or State. From this ideology later flowed the changes in the meanings of political terminology, this "upside-down language" with the famous "Soviet semantics" in which democracy meant "dictator­ship," dictator­ship means "the real democracy," aggression means "defense," defense means "aggression" (cf. at present Greece, Korea), fascist means "every non‑Communist," peace means "communist aggressive war," etc. — all used as ideological booby traps for gullible Western intellectuals.

Also in this semantic field Lenin as a pupil surpassed his teacher Marx, whose version of the revolution in 1848 in Paris is an insurpassable masterpiece of misrepresentation and "upside-down language." The 40,000 rebels are termed by Marx "the people" of France, the 9,000,000 voters are called "the bourgeoisie." Thus, the defenders became in Marx's publication "aggressors," the rebelling aggressors became "defenders"; a rebellion aiming at the suppression of democracy Marx transformed into a movement for "preservation of democracy"; finally the worker's battalions of Paris, which liquidated the revolution, are termed by Marx "beggars, tramps, swindlers, street urchins, thieves, bribed vagabonds, hired to butcher their brothers for 30 sous a day."​12 Here we see also the origin of Lenin's conception of the word "nationality," which for him became synonymous with the "Communist Party" in every nationality. The Communist Party, in spite of its small minority, represents in every nation "the nation." Thus, we shall see how Lenin transformed the "nationality problems" from problems of the nationalities themselves into "internal problems of the Communist Party." Marx's and Engels' works are the beginning of this semantic anarchy. In this respect their contemptible pamphlet against Bakunin is especially significant. Otto Ruehle​13 calls it: "a malicious pamphlet, in which almost every line is a distortion, almost every allegation an injustice, almost every argument a falsification, and almost every word an untruth."

Together with the dialectical method, not only of thinking but of acting — all these ethics, strategies, and semantics were first used by Lenin  p56 for the "solution of nationality problems" in the discussions during the exile and they were practically applied in his current politics toward the non‑Russian nationalities, the victims of Russian Tsarism.

From the very beginning Lenin thinks and acts as a Russian nationalist, demand for his Russian nationality a messianistic leader­ship over all the nationalities in the coming Communist world revolution. His materialism is in reality Russian mysticism. Leninism is double-faced. Behind the "international" face is the castles of Russian chauvinism and messianism. With the following aspects of the nationality problem Lenin was faced during his exile:

a) The non‑Russian nationalities, constituting the Jesus of the population of old Russia, could bring about the disintegration of Russia into independent national democratic State. The Russian bourgeoisie would be unable to keep them inside "Russia" and to stop this tendency toward disintegration.

2) Against this idea Lenin very strongly reacted, above all as a Russian nationalist, and also as a Socialist, believing in the future "one and indivisible republic" of the proletariat.

3) Consequently, "one and indivisible Russia," of the Russian bourgeoisie as a vast economic unified territory, was for Lenin a step forward toward the future "one and indivisible proletarian republic."

4) Lenins Russian nationalism and internationalism were merged together and he deemed it necessary from both points of view to destroy, by all means, all the tendencies toward self-determination of the non‑Russian nationalities.

5) These non‑Russian nationalities had only to be fully tactically used for the struggle against Tsarism and for the ascendance of the Russian proletariat to dominant power in a new Communist edition of Russia.

6) After coming to power, the dictator­ship of the Russian proletariat would have to "eliminate" the nationality problems in domestic politics, and use these peoples as a weapon in foreign politics against colonial empires for the final victory of the proletariat under Russian leader­ship the world over.

Pondering the nationality problem of Russia in exile Lenin had to take notice also of the solutions of the nationality problem proposed by the Socialists of eastern European countries. Here two groups opposed each other: one, with Roza Luxemburg (Polish-Jewish), Gorter, Pannekoek (Dutch), held: (a) that the Socialist recognition of the right to self-determination would support the bourgeois nationalism; (b) that in the era of imperialism this problem could not be solved, as the development of the large capitalist powers made a solution impossible. But a second school of thought enjoyed large popularity and even gained the mi at the Second International. This group advanced the idea of "national-cultural autonomy." Especially in Austria (Bauer, Springer, Renner) this view was popular. It promised equal national-cultural and administrative rights for all nationalities, aiming at the democratization and federalization of Austria-Hungary. This idea of the transformation of Austria-Hungary into a monarchical Switzerland was supported  p57 even by T. G. Masaryk. Of course, this conception of "the national-cultural autonomy" included a limitation of the right of self-determination of nationalities, but the existence of Tsarist Russian and its imperialism made full self-determination practically impossible for the Socialist Pole, Ukrainians, cashes, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, etc. They preferred this idea of "national-cultural autonomy," which guaranteed them member­ship in the Western European cultural sphere. They looked for their full right of self-determination after the future revolution and dissolution of Russia, because at that time Russia, like the old Turkish Empire, would be on the way to full disintegration into its national components.

These ideas also confronted Lenin in exile, and the more urgently, because they soon found supporters among the non‑Russian Socialists in Russia.

Let us now present the views of Lenin on the national problem in old Russia. We are interested not only in his purely theoretical propositions, but in their practical application to current nationality problems and in the results of his peculiar method: to put the final decisions in all national matters of the non‑Russian nationalities always one‑sidedly into the hands of the Russians. Any theoretical "concession" for the non‑Russian nationalities is practically always annulled by a counter-measure, by the establishment of ne with forms of centralism with a new Russian dictator­ship, not a Tsarist bourgeois, but a proletarian Russian one.

We can see Lenin in full action at the Second Congress at Brussels and London (1903) during which he practically managed to establish his personal dictator­ship in the party by constituting the bolshevik faction and gaining by special tricks a two‑vote majority.

The nationality problem in Russia was then represented by the Jewish Problem backed bayou the Jewish Socialist Bund Party during a full-dress debate. This Jewish Socialist Party, then numerically the largest best organized party in Russia, refused to regard the Jewish proletariat in Russia merely as material for Russification-assimilation, and demanded "national-cultural autonomy for the Jews in Russia." Lenin immediately saw the danger of the motion for Russia: (a) such a "Jewish national-cultural autonomy" would have immediate practical consequences for all the non‑Russian nationalities, since it placed the Jews in a position of leader­ship in a common political—revolutionary front of the non‑Russian oppressed nationalities against the ruling Russian nationality; (b) such a "national-cultural autonomy" would also have practical consequences for the party program regarding the party structure. The Socialist Party of the Russian Empire would have to be constructed as a federation and not as a centralized party. The Russian Socialist Party would then be limited in its actions to the Russian ethnic territory and excluded from the non‑Russian ethnic areas. A further consequence in the future (after a revolution) would be a federated and not a centralized State.

Lenin used all his strategical tricks instead, as his wife Krupskaya wrote, to bring the Jews "to their knees," who were provoked by  p58 Lenin​14 to make the tactical mistake of walking out from the Congress, which enabled him later to create his "majority."

At this congress the national problem had as a background the discussion of the whole party program. The immediate program, "the bourgeois democratic revolution for democracy" was the overthrowing of Tsarism and the establishing of a democratic republic; the long-range program, "the proletarian Socialist revolution for Socialism," was the future organization of Socialism. The strategy of Lenin was to eliminate the Jewish leader­ship of the Bund in the nationality problem in Russia by granting simultaneously Russified Jewish Socialists opportunities (Martov a former Bundist) to become Russian Socialist leaders; (c) to kill the practical demand for a "national-cultural autonomy" by a purely theoretical recognition (included in §9 of the party program) of the right of self-determination for all nationalities which form part of the State, securing hereby for the Russian Socialists the confidence of the non‑Russian nationalities and their help in the struggle against Tsarism; (d) to annul all the practical political value of this "recognition" by eliminating the nationality principle in the party structure and establishing a full centralized Socialist Party for all of Russia, with a dictator­ship of his own Russian group. This openly demanded the subordination of democratic principles to the needs of the revolution. The national subdivisions of the non‑Russian nationalities of the party had the function of mere "bureaus" for translating the slogans, programs, and decisions of the all‑powerful Russian Central Committee into the respective non‑Russian languages and of special agencies of the Russian center for fighting the "bourgeois nationalism" of all the non‑Russian nationalities; (e) the strictly centralized party also guaranteed Lenin in the post-revolution period a strictly centralized State, dominated by the Russian "democracy" or his Russian proletariat.

The chief ideological weapon to fight the national ideas of the non‑Russian nationalities was Lenin's tenet of the "non‑national (supernational) unity of the oppressed proletarian class in their fight against capitalism." Lenin used this theoretical high-sounding principle to fight every possibility of practical action in favor of the oppressed non‑Russian nationalities and their working classes, not only in Russia but also in Austria (because the practical solutions of the nationality problems in Austria could create a precedent for Russia). Consequently, Lenin condemned the separation of the cash Socialists from the common  p59 party with the Germans, and the creation of a separate Czech Socialist Party, as a negative fact.​15

Lenin condemned also the "cultural autonomy" in Tsarist Russia, aiming at the organization of national-cultural polities of the non‑Russian nationalities, independent of administrative borders. He strongly condemned the proposed separation and nationalization of the Jewish schools in the school district of Odessa:

As we see, Lenin's Russian mentality could not grasp the point of the non‑Russian nationalities about the language teaching in the schools; he could not grasp the idea of the "inalienable rights" of nationalities in this matter. Lenin proposed the theoretical "unity of workers of all nationalities in Russia in the fight against nationalism," but the practical results of it would be, for the non‑Russian nationalities, the complete Russification of their younger generations. He had no respect for the national language rights of non‑Russian nationalities, whatsoever, and he was only preoccupied with the problem of speeding up the construction of future Russian Socialism — even by Russification of the children of the non‑Russian nationalities. Consequently, Lenin also supported the "uniformity of school education" in Russian territory. After a penetrating analysis of the national composition of schools in the St. Petersburg district, Lenin wrote:

We see here again how a Russian Socialist with marvelous cleverness contrives to promote his own Russian national interest; the Russification of the children of the non‑Russian nationalities he camouflaged as the "interest of democracy and the working class. . . ."

 p60  Lenin's internationalism was, in my opinion, only a theoretical came off for his deep Russian national feelings, which welcomed the Russification of the non‑Russian nationalities. Lenin regarded the Russification of non‑Russian nationalities in Russia as part of a world-historical tendency "to assimilate nations" (Lenin, XIX, pp40, 245); he even calls "this process of assimilation of nations by capitalism the greatest historical proceeds" and "one of the greatest propellers transforming capitalism into socialism"; therefore the proletariat "welcomes every assimilation of nations" (Lenin, XVII, pp140‑146). He could not say it openly, but surely he believed the Russian bourgeoisie with its Russification program worked for Russian Socialism. Consequently, his attitude toward the national idea of the non‑Russian nation was brutally hostile:

These "superstitions," the national idea, are for Lenin now the only main obstacles in the organization of the unity of the laboring class, for the realization of his ideal of internationalism on a world scale — but these "reactionary" ideas were also the main obstacles for the "organization of a Russified labor unity" under Russian command in old Russia.

That was really a dark period for all the non‑Russian nationalities in the Tsarist Empire. The Tsarist bureaucracy imposed on them a brutal Russification and systematic persecution of their languages and cultures. And at the same time Lenin contributed to the Russian liberals and Socialists the finest "progressive and democratic" excuse for the Russification of non‑Russian nationalities as in the interests of "progress" and even "proletarian unity." But what caused Lenin later to change his views, and during the beginning of the Bolshevik Revolution to proclaim his famous slogan"self-determination for all non‑Russian nations, including the right of full separation and the creation of their own independent states"?

Behind this complete reversal of Lenin's attitude toward the national idea were the events of the period 1905‑1914. On the one hand, as a matter of fact, the Socialist movement in Russia disintegrated along national lines. There were in the political field, besides the Russian  p61 Social Revolutionaries, bolshevik and menshevik Social Democrats, the Polish Socialist Party, the Jewish Socialist Bund, the Armenian Social Democracy, the Armenian Revolutionary Federalists (Dashnakists), the Byelo-Ruthenian Socialist Hromada, the Latvian Social Democratic Party, the Finnish Labor Party, the Finnish Activist-Resistance Party, the Georgian Socialist Federal Revolutionaries, the Ukrainian Socialist Party, the Ukrainian Revolutionary Party, the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party. On the other hand, the events in international politics influenced Lenin. By these Lenin was led to see the vital political importance of the national idea, not only in Russia but also in Central Europe and Asia, for the whole future "world revolution."

Only a blind man could fail to see that one of the chief factors of Russia's chief catastrophic defeat in the war with Japan (1905) was the "national under­ground" of the non‑Russian nationalities, which then exploded in the Rev. of 1905. Finland, Poland, Ukraine, Byelo-Ruthenia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Tatars — all revolted, and even the Buryats and Jakuts demanded national rights. At the same time, all over the world, the national problem started on its victorious march: Austria-Hungary became the battlefield of the oppressed nationalities against the ruling German-Hungarian-Polish nations; the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire drew nearer; national independence movements embraced China, Indonesia, India, Persia, and the Israelite diaspora (Zionism). These facts convinced Lenin; he says:

Very characteristic of his deeply "Russian way of thinking" is Lenin's reaction to these facts and his logical conclusion. First, he advises:

Second, he demands:

As we see, the moral side of the question that the Russian bourgeois has committed a crime against the brother nationalities and neighbors by its policy of Russification, has no place in Lenin's mind; there is only one problem for him: "How can I by tactical concessions deceive  p62 the non‑Russian nationalities, until I establish my Russian Socialist dictator­ship, of course in the interest of the "world-proletariat"? Lenin's plan of "caution and concession" toward the non‑Russian nationalities did not pretend to recognize their national rights and honestly to promise no further interference in the internal and cultural affairs of the non‑Russian nationalities. On the contrary, Lenin's plan was based on the confidence‑man technique and conceived as the best possible way to undermine the foundations of these national rights and feelings as the driving force of the separatist movements of the non‑Russian nationalities, and thus to open wider the doors for Russian interference. Consequently, Lenin's only purpose was to hasten the decline of national feelings of the non‑Russian nationalities, which he considered a "disease," in order that this "disease" might not obstruct the victorious and unopposed spread of the Russian "disease," that is, of Russification and assimilation:

They were in his opinion not only a disease but a danger, because, as we mentioned before, the Russians in Russia represented only a minority of 43 per cent of the total population:

Only the immediate danger for the Russian State forced Lenin to all these far‑reaching promises, which he of course never intended to keep:

Lenin had in mind here the Poles and Ukrainians in Austria, the Lithuanians in Germany, the Azerbaijanians and Tatars in Turkey, the Roumanians in Roumania.) As we see, Lenin's second argument was again dictated not by moral principles, but solely by the interests of the Russian State. Some parts of its oppressed peoples (Poles, Ukrainians) had created, in the liberal neighbor States (which were liberal compared  p63 with the Tsarist regime), national Piedmonts outside Russia, which could be used by the neighbors against Russia as an attraction for the more liberal regimes of Central Europe. Thus, the preservation of the Russian State — according to Marx this gigantic swollen power — was for Lenin "in the interest of the masses and of progress." There can be no doubt that Lenin's change of policy toward the non‑Russian nationalities was not dictated by political honesty and respect for the national rights of the non‑Russian nationalities. His "self-determination" is only expediency term and a tactical propaganda trick to fool these nationalities and to bring about the "speedy extinction of their national feelings." Like a cunning legal adviser of fake companies, who drafts contracts, which from the very beginning are not intended to be kept by the proposing party because of "special stipulations added," Lenin immediately surrounded his "self-determination" propaganda trick with special "stipulations," in which the right is reserved for the Russians arbitrarily to dictate the limits of the development of the idea of self-determination and of the right of separation. Lenin says:

An amazing statement. As we then lived in pre‑World War I times in the capitalist era, as a matter of fact, nearly 99 per cent of all Russian writers who created Russian literature and developed the Russian literary language, which became the medium of Russification of the non‑Russian languages, were, according to Lenin's terminology, bourgeois. If the non‑Russian nationalities would develop a national bourgeoisie which would, like the Russians, develop language, literature, culture, and fight the Russian bourgeoisie — that would not harm Russian interest but the "interest of democracy and progress." Consequently, Lenin denies the non‑Russian bourgeoisie the same privileges that he regards as normal for the Russian bourgeoisie. Therefore, in reality, Lenin by this position attempted only to weaken the resistance of the non‑Russian nationalities against Russification, and what is more, he even contributed to the dirty Russification job of the Russian bourgeoisie by fighting the "nationalism" of the non‑Russian nationalities from the Socialist side. Lenin's position appears even more contemptible in the light of the fact that the Ukrainians, Byelo-Ruthenians, Lithuanians, Letts, Esthonians, Azerbaijanians, Tatars, etc., had at that time no classes which could really be called bourgeoisie (only the Poles had such a class), and the "national idea" was fighting its way up from the very bottom of the masses of peasants and workers. Lenin virtually strengthened the North Atlantic tendencies of the Russian bourgeoisie and its Russification of the non‑Russian nationalities in progress, by systematically fighting the legitimate nationalism of the non‑Russian peasant and the masses of workers then under Socialist leader­ship. Thus, Lenin wrote:

Even more clearly Lenin formulated the real meaning of his "right to self-determination":

Thus, the situation remained practically the same, the Russians (Socialists, but Russians), as the infallible leaders in progress and Socialism, reserved for themselves arbitrarily the right to decide whether "in each individual case self-determination or separation is expedient." An old Russian tale: the wolf magnanimously granted self-determination to the sheep in order to struggle for "progress," but reserved for itself the arbitrary right to decided in each case individually whether it is expedient and in the "proletarian interest" to let a sheep live and, let us say, not to "amalgamate or digest" it. That real aim of "amalgamation" Lenin states quite clearly and it cannot be disputed that the concession of "self-determination" to the non‑Russian nationalities has as its real aim their national annihilation, their amalgamation, their Russification. The universal conception of the future amalgamation of nations and languages the Russian Lenin never tried, even theoretically, to apply to the English, German, French, or Italian languages; besides, we are sure that Lenin would denounce a similar formula for the languages and peoples of the British Empire as "brutal imperialism of the British bourgeoisie and of the crazy diehards." Lenin kept this conception especially for the "internal Russian market," and its "universal formulation" aimed only to prevent criticism of this Russian progress by Western Socialists. No orthodox Marxist would have risked being accused by Lenin of putting critical of bodies before the "Russian internationalists" and sabotaging this "great advance towards internationalism inside Russia." Thus he attempted to shut the mouths of the English, French, German, and Italian Socialists in this matter. We can see in Lenin's articles all the"dialectical acrobatics and upside-down semantics, in which "the right of self-determination of the non‑Russian nations" is in the next sentence changed into the very opposite of this right, and it even imposes on them the duty of "amalgamation," i.e., of national suicide and practical Russification, of course in the interests of "progress and humanity." Compare the following quotation:

Lenin's close and distinguished collaborator Tomsky revealed rather brutally Lenin's real views on the nationality problem at the Eighth Conference of the R. C. P. (B) in 1919:

But the application and recognition of this "evil" was stopped by Lenin even with more "mental reservations" and "exceptions"; analyzing the character of the "national movements" the world over he divided them into two categories: national movements which are acting against imperialist powers (enemies of Russia) and car battery in suitable situations by "Socialist" Russia against these imperialist powers; and national movements opposed to "Revolutionary Countries" (i.e., Russia).

Only the first national movements deserve full support from "Socialism"; the second category has to be fought. Moreover, Lenin did not forget one more principle: practically both categories of national movements have always to be kept "under full control of the proletariat" (i.e., of Russia). Lenin solved this problem of "control" by means of the "Trojan horse": the conspiratorial introduction of Communist cells secretly directing the whole movement.

In the second category of national movements the Communist cells have the task of fighting the national movement and its final goal, a national, independent State. In opposition to the independent State they uphold the idea of the "unity of the world proletariat." Consequently, such cells and factions in the Polish Socialist Party had to combat the idea of a separated independent Poland, or in the Ukrainian or Georgian Socialist Parties to fight the ideas of a separated and independent Ukraine or Georgia which was virtually to fight for the "indivisibility of Russia."

But the first category of national movements, especially in Asia and Africa, which were directed against colonial powers, had to obtain full Communist support for complete self-determination by the establishment of their national, independent States. Because these movements are weakening the colonial powers that oppose Russia they are here  p66 destroying the remnants of feudalism and consequently creating the proletarian classes. The slogan of "the support of bourgeois democratic national movements" in Asia was later changed into the support of "national revolutionary movements":

Let us compare this basic hypocrisy and dishonesty of Lenin toward the national movements directed against Tsarist Russia until 1905‑1906, which usually were not bourgeois but under Socialist leader­ship of the non‑Russian nationalities, with the following statements in which Lenin sees the tremendous possibilities of the "national-movement weapon" for the use of the Communist Russian Party:

These views of Lenin were expressed before the revolution and, of course, acquired great importance after the downfall of Tsarism. Lenin's carefully planned tactics and ultimate aims concerning the nationality questions, backed by his Communist "ideological army," his party apparatus, and its systematic conspiracy and propaganda, had the following results:

a) They systematically misled the public opinion of the non‑Russian nationalities about the real significance of his nationality program.

b) Those nationalities were by Lenin's slogans of "self-determination and emancipation" partly maneuvered into the Russian Federative Soviet Republic.

c) The opposing nationalities, which proclaimed their independence, were forced into the "Soviet Union by military aggression."

d) Russia's theoretical "federative principle" was only a propaganda  p67 window dressing and was almost completely annulled by the monolithic organization of the Communist Party, in which the Russians dictated the whole policy behind this federative façade.

Lenin got a brutal and cunning executor of his national program in the person of the Commissar for Nationalities, J. Stalin. Even for the Russian Lenin all the measures of Stalin after coming to power were difficult to digest; but as a sick man, Lenin could only "write letters," which were completely ignored by this Caucasian abrek.​31

Stalin sums up the contribution of Lenin to the study of the national problem in the following way, replying to the question of the first American Labor Delegation​32 to Soviet Moscow: "What new principles have Lenin and the Communist Party added to Marxism in practice?"

Of course, everything considered in what we have presented on Lenin as a man and politician, our point of view differs from Stalin's opinion. Lenin's contribution is:

a) Lenin constructed from the ideas of Marx and Engels about the nationality problem a system for combating in the name of internationalism the legitimate national aspirations of the non-Russian nationalities in Tsarist Russia in the epoch of imperialism, taking them in a two-front Russian offensive from the right and left side;

b) Lenin, by deceit­ful promises, utilized the nationality problem for overthrowing the Russian Tsarist tyranny and for the establishment of the Russian Communist tyranny;

c) Lenin, by fraudulent interpretations of Marx and Engels connected with the plan of international proletarian revolution a justification of the new enslavement of non‑Russian peoples and the re‑establishment of the new Russian tyranny; at the same time he used the nationality problems outside the Soviet Union as a weapon against the imperialist rivals, and identified the further expansion of Russian imperialism with the victory of the proletarian revolution in the world.

Let us sum up Lenin's abuse of the nationality problem: Marx subordinated the national emancipation movements to the interests of  p68 proletarian world revolution. Lenin, as a Russian nationalist (later Stalin — a creation of Lenin), identified the interests of proletarian world revolution with the interests of the Russian proletariat, claiming proudly for the Russians the leader­ship in the world revolution and thus co‑ordinating the idea and interests of proletarian world revolution to the interests of the Russian Communist Party. Therefore, Lenin immediately fostered the "spread of the world revolution" from the territory of Russia proper into all non‑Russian territories of the former empire, systematically rebuilding by aggression the old Russian Empire as a "Soviet Union," dressed in "progressive" Socialist apparel and systematically re‑establishing by force the former privileged and dictatorial position of the Russians as against the non‑Russian nationalities. Consequently, Lenin's "Russian Communism" is the new "progressive" term for "Russian Imperialism" enlarged and broadened on a world scale; "Russian Communism" in reality is the climax of the old messianistic Russian Pan‑Slavism, in fact Pan‑Russianism. Lenin's dictator­ship is the beginning of the Russian nationalist counterrevolution against the national anti-Russian revolution of the non‑Russian nationalities of the former empire. It is a continuation of the old national struggle in Tsarist Russia on a new "proletarian" level, dressed with Socialist and Communist slogans, on which the Russians claim the right in the "interests of world revolution" to use genocide, terror, slave-labor camps against the non‑Russian nationalities who continue their fight for liberty.

Lenin was the Russian Machiavelli and Machiavellianism was his method applied to all opponents especially to the non‑Russian peoples. Here are some examples of this method (Lenin's system of Machiavellianism is contained in Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, 1920):

(b) To the Chief Commander of the Russian forces invading the Ukraine Lenin issued the following orders: "You are to promise the  p69 Ukrainians virtually everything they may ask for. Once we are established we will proceed in our own way."​34

(c) Here is a passage from the instructions for the agitators sent to the Ukraine:

Stalin formulated the practical application of Lenin's principles to current politics in the following way:

 p70  Stalin publicly stated also his personal opinions about the national rights and languages at the Sixteenth Congress:

As we see, the plight of the non‑Russian nationalities is similar to the turkeys in American turkey farms. They also are given the "chance to develop" until Thanksgiving Day. . . . The Russian Communists decide when the "development" of the non‑Russian nationalities has reached the "Marxist Thanksgiving Day."

But one question demands clarification and that is what language will be used in this future common culture?

The Communist national policy is summed up by an American scholar, James Robinson, from the Institute of Jewish Affairs in New York, in the Slavonic Encyclopedia (1949):

He is right; the Communist program includes the mass murder all non‑Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union. As the executors of this program are Russian Communists, the Soviet nation will be in reality the Russian nation, with the Russian culture, language, and literature as its "cultural inheritance." To came off this process by a semantic smoke screen, "Russification" is called "Sovietization." Thus, the non‑Russian nationalities created by nature and history are doomed; old Tsarist Russia was a "prison of nationalities," new "Soviet Russia" is a "slaughterhouse of nationalities"; Russian "progress" goes full speed ahead.

This national program set up by Lenin lacked after 1920 only a "scientific, linguistic theory," based on Marxism-Leninism, for carrying out this program.

The Russian Communist Party soon found a linguist who furnished the party with a "Soviet Linguistic Theory"; he was N. Ya. Marr, a fanatical Communist neophyte since 1920. His "linguistic theory" became the "sharpest weapon of the Russian Communists against the non‑Russian languages, cultures, and nationalities, giving to the brutal persecutions the appearance of a fight for the future "International" to satisfy the gullible public opinion outside the Soviet Union.

The old Muscovite mania for "State regimentation," "standardization," "unification," converting all human beings of it kholops (serfs) of the Tsar now reached a climax in the Russian Communist Party on a scale embra­cing all spheres of life, and killing also all national individualities. From all the races of dogs must be created the superdog, the  p71 Soviet‑dog; from all the races of pigs there has already, according to the Soviet press, developed the superpig, the new Soviet‑pig in Ukraine; thus, the Soviet man and Soviet language became also an ideal of the Russian Communist Party. Gradually we will see in the next pages how the Russian Communists made the discovery that the new Soviet language need not be invented, because the new voyage nation "inherited the language of Lenin and Stalin," which in due course will be elevated to be the "language of the World Revolution and of the International Proletariat." The old slogans were modernized a little. Workingmen of the world unite for learning Russian! You have nothing to lose but your brains — in which your mother languages are living!

We shall review in the next chapter Marr's linguistic theory. Just as the Russian Communist Party after coming to power, immediately subordinated to its strategy and aims, history and literature, political, economic, and social sciences, and revised them all, so Marr subordinated linguistics and philology to the Russian Communist Party.

3. National Renegadism as a Problem of the Russian Communist Party

Scientific research has not yet discovered the very important and interesting psychological problem of national renegadism of many leaders of the Russian bolsheviks (although this problem is no less important for an understanding of the Russian mensheviks).

The basic fact in this connection is that the three personalities who made the Russian Revolution were not of Russian descent; they were all neo‑Russians as a direct result of the Tsarist cultural and political imperialism. Thus they were Russian "bastards" who among native Russians had constantly to justify their claims for the desired Russian national member­ship. That bastardism had far‑reaching psychological consequences, which would offer a welcome subject to psychoanalysis and bring unexpected inside views into the mentality of men who know that their own nation despises them as traitors. Therefore Freud is in Soviet psychological publications regularly denounced as "idealistic." Russian Communism even developed a kind of fear of Freud which in our opinion is well founded, because psychoanalysis rejects the belief of communism that our troubles spring from causes outside the human personality and can be remedied by corresponding socioeconomical changes. Freud centers his thought on finding the causes which have made human beings happy or un­success­ful within themselves and he shows the mechanism by which a human failure becomes a power-drunken conqueror, but one who id d hunted constantly by his own interior underworld into which were banned, as into a KZ,​a all the voices rising from the antitheses to the Communist theses. The dialectical method provokes these voices; they can be barred, but never silenced. Let us from this point of view analyze the three leading men of the Russian Revolution.

The Russian Communist Party was not very eager to investigate the family tree of its founder. It is a remarkable achievement of  p72 Bertram D. Wolfe​37 who brought this problem to general attention. Lenin is half Tatarian, as is proved by his original name Ulianov, and half of Germanic origin, according to the maiden name of his mother, Blank, apparently of German origin. In the administration of State schools his father attained the rather high rank of an "actual State Counselor" with the title of "Excellency" and the hereditary nobility which could be won only by absolute loyalty to the principles of Russian absolutism, Russian orthodoxy, and Russian chauvinism. This rank was a final bonus for the man who dedicated himself to Russification, renouncing all the recollections of his own people and their national aspirations.

The peculiarity of every renegade is the constant overstressing and overemphasizing of his "new" nationality in his personal life and his home, in order to disarm all suspicion on the part of the members of the host nationality as to his national laxity or apathy. To demonstrate constantly one's national "activity," ardent chauvinism and loyalty to "holy Russia" was an absolute necessity in Tsarist Russia for anyone who wished to make a career in the civil service. Tsarist Russia accepted with open arms renegades from the intelligentsia of all non‑Russian peoples, but under one condition: that of demonstrative "worship of Russia"; thus, on the stage of Russian public life there were massed in the background renegades of all non‑Russian nationalities who functioned like a Greek chorus in the theater, constantly eulogizing "Russia." The Tsarist regime "honored" the best sycophants by promotions, titles, and bonuses, thus creating a continual rivalry among the renegades in this "Russia worship." Even the Russian liberal intelligentsia were rather pleased by these performances of Russian nationalistic exhibitionism for they regarded them as homage not to the Tsarist regime but to the peculiar "genius of Russia and her mission," that is, to the Russian intelligentsia itself; they flattered their vanity, and the renegades were regarded as "witnesses" of Russian cultural superiority and as allies in promoting cultural Russian imperialism. These Russian intelligentsia were well aware that some 75 per cent of the "Russian culture in literature, music, painting, liberal arts, and sciences, proudly claimed as "Russian" achievements, were in reality created by non‑Russians; therefore they welcomed the talented non‑Russian renegades as promoters of cultural imperialism.​38 Here we have seen why the Russian regime and the Russian intelligentsia were so eager to welcome the members of the non‑Russian intelligentsia as renegades of their nationalities, which were by this policy systematically bled in order to speed up their Russification.

 p73  But what are the reasons which motivated these men to become renegades, to join the persecutors and oppressors of their own downtrodden nationalities? The father of Lenin in his very heart was surely ashamed to be of Tatarian origin. Every renegade has an inferiority complex, created by his original descent. His nation is the loser in the fight for survival, having lost its independence, self-esteem, and becomes a pariah. There were two ways open for every non‑Russian person: either to fight for the liberty of his nation — a hard and bitter way of self-sacrifice for the cause — or to join the oppressor, to get rid easily of the torturing inferiority complex by repla­cing it with the superiority feeling of the ruling Russian imperial intelligentsia, backed by the whole might and prestige of Russian Tsarism, and finally to be honored with the title of "Excellency" as a reward. Lenin's father chose the second way, and as a consequence he had to join that Kanawha of "Russian worshipers," consisting of renegades, with the 150 per cent "Russian patriotism" as a defense against the suspicions of the Russian-born Russians. There is a curse on treason against one's own nation; a renegade expects that the superiority complex of the ruling Russians will give him peace and refuge from his inferiority obsession; that is a mistake. Joining the ruling Russians he lives in constant fear of being suspected of "mental reservations"; and thus begins a real serfdom of the renegade among the Russians for he must continuously prove to real Russians by words and actions that he is a better, a more enthusiastic, a more "devoted‑to-Russia" Russian than the native Russians themselves. The real Russians constantly demand from the renegades the proclamation that the Russian nation is moral and intellectually "better" than their own politically oppressed original nation and that they have joined the Russians as a "superior" and "great" nation because of these moral and intellectual reasons. Thus these renegades are used by the Russians for moral and intellectual justification of the oppression of all non‑Russian nationalities, and for the fostering of further Russian imperialistic expansions. These renegades are the "witnesses of Holy Russia" and of her "mission." The Russians were more cunning than the renegades; they were convinced that these amoral individuals had committed the most heinous of crimes, treason against the idea of liberty of their own peoples, and that such cowards can never be trusted; therefore they expected from them an everlasting adoration of the "Russian nation." In the home of such a renegade Lenin grew up, surrounded by Russian chauvinism. Surely the sons of the Russian "Excellency" knew what origin they had and for what kind of "activities" their father had received his rank as a traitor to his oppressed people; these boys had a double inferiority complex, first as the sons of a Tatarian renegade and a German mother (the Germans were generally contemptuously called Kolbasnik, "sausage maker"), and second, against the background of the growing Socialistic movement, as the sons of a contemptible lackey of Russian absolutism. The Russian chauvinism of the home was then the source for the rise of the superiority complex of the younger Ulianov generation, of a Russian revolutionary messianistic superiority complex, in which the old Russian nationalistic fanaticism was  p74 transplanted into the revolutionary Socialist sphere. Lenin's brother soon lost his life, and in Lenin himself this new Russian revolutionary messianism acquired a messianistic "international" significance and embraced all mankind.

Behind Lenin's "internationalism" is hidden the split personality of the son of a renegade and of a Tsarist servant, who found in the revolutionary Communism a superior goal of life as an offset against his contempt for his father. But his father's home formed Lenin subconsciously into a Russian nationalist, and later the nostalgia of emigration made him a deeply conscious, even intolerant Russian in whom Russian Pan‑Slavic messianism evolved into Russian Communist messianism. Thus the original overstressed Russian nationalist feelings and Russian culture are the chief factors that shaped Lenin's personality. A Russian chauvinist pride in the large number of Russians and the vast extent of their Empire was the basis of his conception of "Russia as the avant-garde of world revolution," endangered by the aspirations of the non‑Russian nationalities. Consequently Lenin's "internationalism" was in reality a Russian revolutionary nationalism with which he fought the democratic non‑Russian nationalities that attempted to dissolve his "Russian springboard of world revolution." Lenin thorough understood that a real "Russian democratic revolution meant the dissolution of his "Russia," and that therefore the nationality problem in Russia had to be only tactically used for the overthrow of the Tsarist regime and the establishment of the dictator­ship of his Russian proletariat; but Lenin understood that the preservation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Empire could be achieved only by a Russian revolutionary chauvinism against the non‑Russian nationalities, parading, of course, under all the slogans of internationalism, socialism, progress, and humanity. Perhaps Lenin would not have acted as brutally as Stalin did later, but there can be no doubt that Lenin had clear conception or role of the Russian nation in his world revolution, and that this role was to become the leader of all the peoples of the world; "Workers of all countries, unite!" meant for Lenin: "Unite under the command of the Russian proletariat!"

In our opinion, here lies also the secret of Communism's strong appeal to the real Russians; they all had a kind of inferiority complex toward Western Europe, and especially America. They felt themselves as citizens of a technically backward country with a barbarian Tsarist regime. And into this hopeless vacuum devoid of self-confidence entered Lenin's ideology, which lifted the Russians and their culture to the very top of all nations as the "leaders of progress and humanity."

Stalin offers another example of a renegade's blind alley; in the being done of his youth were poverty and the inferiority complex of a malformed arm and foot. The numerically small Georgian nation with an excellent intelligentsia, with the best orators in the old Russian Empire, offered no opportunity for a political role to the power-hungry Caucasian abrek; among the intellectual elite of his own nation Stalin was a hopeless failure, several times publicly slapped in the face and thrown out as a hooligan. Therefore he developed in the senseless emptiness  p75 of his life a deep hatred for the Georgian intelligentsia and a thirst for revenge against all the high-brows of his own nation. As a matter of fact, Stalin was practically an outcast of his nation before World War I.

So long as his hopes were still associated with the golden nation, Stalin used Georgian pseudonyms: Koba, Nizheradze, Besoshvili; then he began to use Russian pseudonyms: Chichikoff, Vasilyev, Ivanovich, which herald his "drifting away," and at last the pseudonym "Stalin" signals his final "renegadedom." The choice of the name "Stalin," i.e., "the man of steel," is excellent material for a psychoanalytic approach to an understanding of his "renegadedom." The national outcast and bodily misfit compensates for his inferiority complex by such a "great" name, which means that "nerves," as important among the high-brows as "conscience, responsibility, decency, honesty, etc.," will never stop him on the road to power.

Why did he join the Russian bolsheviks? Only the Russians could give him a chance to satisfy his lust for power; for him the vat Russian Empire represented the nucleus of "internationalism," and this term becomes the justification for his "renegadism"; he commanded a Russian "international" army against his own Socialist independent national republic, headed by the hated high-brow Socialist Noe Jordania, and took revenge for all his former humiliations: "You have slapped and despised me, but now I command the whole international revolution and also all of Georgia!"

But the renegade Stalin calculated falsely. The Russian host nation gives power to the renegades only under one condition: full subordination of their original peoples and of all their political aspirations to Russian imperialism. Russia tempts the candidates for "renegadism" like the devil: "Worship and adore me, and I give you all the power and riches of Russia, including your own country." Anyone who has paid this homage to Russia has sold his mother country to Russian imperialism. Thus Stalin thought he was using Soviet Moscow, but in reality Soviet Moscow used him, not only for the occupation of his mother country but for the pogrom of all the non‑Russian nationalities in the name of "world revolution" and "internationalism." Thus Stalin is in a blind alley. As a renegade he was forced to restore to the Russian culture and language successively all the old privileges; he was forced to be more Russian than the Russians, worshiping them as the "Great Nation"; he was forced to subordinate all the non‑Russian peoples to the new "Russia" — there is the price he had personally to pay for his power to the real Russians. The promotion of Russian imperialism as a Communist world revolution became the basis of the personal power of this renegade. There is no way out for Stalin. He must glorify Russian Tsars and generals, he must sycophantically flatter the insatiable desire for Byzantinic "Hallelujahs" of Soviet Moscow as the "avant-garde of humanity." As a Georgian he must direct the terror of Russian imperialism against the resistance of his own people and of all the non‑Russian peoples in the Soviet Union; he must liquidate all the Communist leaders of the non‑Russian nationalities and replace them with his trusted Russian Communist stronghand boys in order to dominate  p76 the party everywhere; as a "Georgian witness," he must likewise repeat, parrotlike, that "Soviet Moscow solved the nationality problem," and that the nationalities "voluntarily form the confession of equal nationalities with Russia." The Russian Communists, Stalin's low‑brow terrorists, a gangster generation, is then used by Stalin to uphold his personal regime and release the Russian nation itself, 80 per cent of which, as a matter of fact, are the beneficiaries of Stalin's regime. The overwhelming majority of Russians, therefore, sympathizers with Stalin's Russian political and cultural imperialism and readily extol his "genius" with all the sycophantic "Hallelujahs" for which this renegade is thirsty. He enjoys hearing the perpetual flatteries of Russian scholars, poets, writers; he enjoy playing the part of a Russian "father divine," and answers these flatteries with sycophantic flatteries for the "genius" of the Russian nation. A vicious circle, in which Stalin is well aware that the moment he should stop propagating Russian political and cultural world imperialism the support of Russian nationalism would disappear and with it all his "power." Russian Communism is the modern form of Russian imperialism and Stalin is its serf; this serfdom is the "greatness" of this "man of steel," covering by this "greatness" the inferiority feelings of his youth. The "man of steel" — Stalin! How modest, in comparison with this pseudonym, are the names of Lenin, Trotsky, Litvinov.

Very instructive is the fate of the third renegade, Trotsky, the Jew. This brilliant brain was far superior in the knowledge of the world to Lenin; he was really a European and an excellent linguist, at home in Germany and France. His own downtrodden and persecuted nation, like the Ukrainian nation in which he was born, was for him too "small," too "backward" for his life's ambitions; he joined the Russian Socialists; he later jumped on the Communist band wagon, and used the first opportunity proudly to renounce his nation before a Jewish delegation. His inferiority complex found a compensation in Russian Communism. Russia and its language became for a period his "international mother country" and the instrument of his "permanent revolution." But this permanent revolution was not in conformity with the interest of Russian imperialism; the Russian interest demanded first the actual establishment of colonialism over the non‑Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union and the restoration of Russian supremacy. Besides, Trotsky surely was unprepared to follow the way of Stalin, to become a high priest of Russian nationalism and to compete with Stalin in the glorification of Russia's Tsars and generals. Consequently Russian imperialism acquired in Stalin the marvelous instrument not only for introdu­cing anti-Semitic tendencies in the fight against Trotsky, but also for exiling him and finally convincing him with an iron bar in Mexico that his opinions were deviations from the "Russian" Communist point of view. "Holy Soviet Russia" surely enjoyed the spectacle of how one Russian neophyte liquidated another, how one renegade murdered another in the interests of the Russification of his own respective people, the Jews and Georgians, and how later Stalin continued this job with respect to all non‑Russian nationalities.

 p77  "Three who made a revolution" — to use the title of the excellent Book of B. D. Wolfe — were actually three renegades who made the "Russian" revolution; therefore this phenomenon of "renegadism" cannot be disregarded;​39 it must be investigated, the more so as the examples of "renegadism are rather numerous up to the present day among the non-Russian nationalities. From these renegades Soviet Moscow forms her present oprichnina for terrorizing the non‑Russian nationalities.

And the question arises, what is the special role of the Russians in this planned revolution, once directed and organized by men originally non‑Russians, renegades of their own nations? The peculiar genius of the Russian nation, in our opinion, is represented by men like Kalinin, Molotov, Zhdanov, Malenkov, Shvernik, Popov, Suslov, Khrushchov, and others, rather mediocre, even primitive, but with the acuteness, brutality, and shrewdness of the old Russian merchants. These Russians form the overwhelming majority of the Communist Party. They are aware that there is only one way to keep together the "Russian Empire," namely, to uphold the opened absolutism in the new form of a dictator­ship of the Russian proletariat and to e as a bureaucracy over the non‑Russian nationalities the renegades of these peoples — exactly the same system which Russian Tsarism employed for the same purpose of Russification. Thus the leading Russian Communists systematically educate a corps of Russian Janizaries from the renegades of all the non‑Russian peoples, offering to all power-hungry and trigger-happy non‑Russians a marvelous career in the Soviet Union and giving them moral justification for their "renegadism" under the terms of "internationalism," "avant-garde of humanity," and "progress"; and all the fellow travelers outside the Soviet Union welcome these hirelings of Russian imperialism with corresponding glorifications. Thus "renegadism" is becoming "heroism" in the Soviet Union and the convincing proof of supreme loyalty to the Russian Communist Party.

What an abyss yawns between the U. S. A. and Soviet "Russia"! Here, the ideology of the American Declaration of Independence recognized and still recognizes all freedom-loving human beings' "inalienable rights" and full liberty, a badge of the American nation; there, the Russian empire was and is N. & D. on the enslavement of the non‑Russian nationalities and the non‑Russians are compelled by the Russian rulers to use the only "liberty" available which is to join as renegades the Russians in the oppression of their own peoples, to fight the liberation movements of their own peoples against Russia, to "worship Russia," and to spurn all the ideas which made the West and America great. But the pride of a renegade passes all belief. I. Ehrenburg, at the "World Congress of Intellectuals," Wroclaw, 1948, declared:

 p78  A. Z. Toynbee traces in one of his works the origins of this remarkable "institution of making [ideological] soldiers and administrators out of slaves [renegades] " to nomad empires over sedentary peoples. This institution was used later by the Ottoman Caliphs, training Janizary renegades to assist them in keeping order among their "human cattle." We witness now the modern representative of this institution in the systematic training of renegades in the non‑Russian sections of the Russian Communist Party.

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The Author's Notes:

1 The proceeds of the "voluntary accession" of the non‑Russian nationalities into the "Soviet Union" lasted nearly four years, but the "voluntary accession" of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia during World War II was accomplished in a few months. In the same way the "voluntary accession" of Poland Roumania, Czecho­slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria would have been executed long ago if these countries did not represent votes, present or future, for the Russian Communist dictator­ship in the United Nations for the blowing up of this institution.

2 B. D. Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution, 1948, pp579‑590.

3 Marx-Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Erste Abtlg., Vol. 7, p38.

4 The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p14.

5 The Poles did support Marx with 700 francs. Cf. also N. Rjasanoff, Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels ueber die Polenfrage, Archiv fuer die Geschichte des Socialismus und der Arbeitenbewegung, Leipzig, Vol. VI, pp174‑221.

6 F. Engels, letter to Marx, May 23, 1851.

7 Marx, The Civil War in France, p42.

8 In Russian Socialist terminology nationalist means chauvinist.

9 Cf. B. D. Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution, pp56‑567.

10 N. Lenin, Collected Works, Moscow, 1925, Vol. XIX, p144.

11 N. Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, Moscow, 1940.

12 Marx, Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Erste Abtlg., Vol. 7, pp115‑118.

13 Karl Marx, p306.

14 Lenin, in his view of the Jews, was completely under the influence of Marx. About Marx's anti-Semitic attitude, cf. Zygmund Dobbs: "Karl Marx, Father of Modern Anti-Semitism, in Plain Talk, 1949, Vol. III, No. 20, pp35‑38. After the Communists came to power Lenin pronounced Marx's article "On the Jewish Question" as one of his "most noteworthy" writings. This can be verified by a reference to Volume XVIII, p47, of Lenin's work issued by and for American Communists through International Publishers in the authorized edition (1926).

15 N. Lenin, The Separatist in Russian and in Austria, pp25‑26. (The term "separatist" used both by Lenin and the Russian Tsarist police is very characteristic.)

16 N. Lenin, The Nationalization of Jewish Schools, p31.

17 Ibid., p75. Since the London Congress the Russian bolsheviks hated the Jewish Bund as an element which had stimulated the demand for national freedom of all non‑Russian peoples in the Russian Empire. This grudge led, during World War II, to the cold-blooded murder of the Bund leaders of Warsaw, H. Ehrlich and V. Adler (surely with the personal approval of Stalin) who asked for refuge in the Soviet Union from the invading Nazis.

18 N. Lenin, Critical Remarks on the National Question, pp39, 40, 48.

19 N. Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, p99.

20 N. Lenin, The Original Sketch of a Thesis on National Questions, pp99, 222.

21 N. Lenin, The Cadets and the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination, p74.

22 N. Lenin, Still About Nationalism, p87.

23 N. Lenin, The Cadets and the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination, pp111, 128.

24 N. Lenin, Critical Remarks on the National Question, p49.

25 N. Lenin, Resolutions on National Matters, p35.

26 N. Lenin, The Cadets and the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination, p73.

27 N. Lenin, The Socialist Revolution and the Right of People to Self-Determination, p158.

28 Minutes of the Eighth Conference of the R. C. P. (B).

29 N. Lenin, speech delivered at the Second Congress of the Comintern, p223.

30 N. Lenin, Summing up the Discussion on Self-Determination, p197.

The Russian Communist Government on November 15, 1917, issued, under the signatures of Lenin and Stalin as Commissar of Nationalities "The Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia" proclaiming the following four basic principles: "The equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia, the right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination, even to the extent of separation and the formation of independent states; the abolition of all national and national-religious privileges and restrictions; and the free development of the nationalities and ethnic groups inhabiting Russia."

31 Highway robber.

32 Karl Marx, Selected Works, Vol. I (Moscow: Cooperative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U. S. S. R., 1935), p78.

33 Cf. W. Baczkowski, Towards an Understanding of Russia, Jerusalem, 1947, pp31‑32.

34 N. Prychodko, Communism in Reality, Toronto, 1951.

35 A. Dotcenko, The Winter March, Warsaw, 1938.

36 Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the Nationalist and Colonial Questions (in English), 1927, Moscow.

37 Three Who Made a Revolution, (New York; The Dial Press, 1948), p39.

38 Non‑Russian or half non‑Russian were: Derzhavin, Karamzin, Kheraskov, Fonvisin, Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Gogol, Bulgarin, Zolotov, Ogaryov, Fet, Griboyedov, Zagoskin, Lermontov, Mikhaylov, Gerbei, Berg, Wainberg, Vostokov, Dal, Kantemir, Bortnyansky, Prokopovych, Grot, Turgeniev, Tolstoy, Nadson, Erenburg, Chirikov, Nekrasov, Korolenko, Dostoyevsky, Glinka, Rosen, Chaykovsky, Rubinstein, Antokolsky, etc.

39 In fact, Moscow demands a "double" renegadism (a) of nationality and (b) of religion.

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Thayer's Note:

a German abbreviation for Konzentrationslager: concentration camp.

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