The Nationality Problem of the Soviet Union • Chapter 7

Even after the pogrom of the non‑Russian nationalities and their cultures and languages, Russian Communism could not achieve full control over the oppressed peoples, and the fight continued"underground" in the party itself and in the respective countries. Here we list briefly the most important events of the continuation of the struggle.

1. The Stalin Constitution, hailed by the Communist as the "most democratic" of the world, represented in reality a tactical move for the "appeasement" of the non‑Russian nationalities. Some years ago, during the persecutions of all non‑Russian nationalities, when these nationalities anticipated even the formal abolition of their "national States" and the final restoration of an "indivisible Communist Russia" as a logical consequence of this policy, Stalin began the discussions about the new Constitution, which would reconfirm the "rights of the non‑Russian nationalities."

Of course this step was a tactical maneuver in order to divide the common front of all the non‑Russian nations against the Russian Communists and to provoke again, on the one hand, some hope for the actual possibility of national life, and, on the other, to provoke all the remnants of the national opposition in the Communist Party "to show their heads from the window" for a clear survey of the oppositional forces by the political police.

Above all, the Stalin Constitution was aimed at the rehabilitation of Stalin and the Russian Communist Party outside the Soviet Union. The proclamations of the centers and exile governments of the non‑Russian nations outside the Soviet Union, their appeals, lectures, publications before the League of Nations and all international organization, the accusations of the escaped non‑Russian Communists themselves against Stalin, lowered the prestige of the Soviet Union to its nadir. The coming of Hitler to power, the entrance into the League of Nations in Geneva, demanded a repainting of the façade of the Soviet Union as a "federal State, formed on the basis of a voluntary union of equal Socialist Republics." The same was urgently demanded also by the new tactic of the Comintern, the formation of the "people's fronts." The new Constitution means in fact full Russian centralization and exclusion of all non‑Russian national initiative by the monolithic Communist Party, in reality a Russian Party. Gradually the earlier constitutional right of national groups to organize themselves into autonomous repress in the Russian S. F. S. R. was abolished. During the discussions about the Constitution Stalin opposed the suggestion that the autonomous p198 republics should have the right to transform themselves into federal republics, making the enslavement of the numerous non‑Russian nationalities in the Russian S. F. S. R. final.

Paragraph 17 of the Stalin Constitution is still echoing the declaration of rights of the peoples of Russia (of November, 1917) by the Council of People's Commissars, which recognized the right of the non‑Russian peoples to self-determination "including the right of separation and the creation of an independent State": "The right freely to secede from the U. S. S. R. is reserved to every Union Republic"; but bluntly contradicting this right is Article 21: "uniform citizenship is established for citizens of the U. S. S. R. Every citizen of a Union Republic is a citizens= of the U. S. S. R.," and the basic duties of every citizen are formulated in Article 133: "to defend the fatherland is the sacred duty of every citizen of the U. S. S. R. Treason to the fatherland — violation of the oath of allegiance, desertion to the enemy, impairing the military power of the state, espionage — is punishable with all the severity of the law as the most heinous of crimes." Thus as we see the Soviet idea of a "fatherland" is in the law formulated as the whole, "one and indivisible Soviet Union." This "one and indivisible fatherland" has "one and indivisible military power." Anyone who would start an agitation for the application of Article 17 in his national republic automatically commits treason against the "fatherland" there do not exist legal prescriptions for the application of Article 17. Consequently the whole Stalin Constitution is Russian Communist tyranny over the non‑Russian peoples, wearing the mask of freedom. This Gleichschaltung was characterized by Stalin thus: "The international importance of this constitution cannot be overestimated. . . . It will mean real support for those who fight against fascist barbarism; . . . It has strengthened our forces and is mobilizing them for new Communist victories."

Summing up: the Stalin Constitution is the "Biggest Lie" among the Communist Big Lies and constituted a deceptive bait for the gullible elements inside and outside the Soviet Union, who still played with the idea of "evolution" in the Russian despotism. The Constitution adopted on de 5, 1936, with all the apparent safeguards of the rights of the non‑Russian peoples, was only the transition to the climax of the political pogrom of the non‑Russians as a rounding of the cultural pogrom.

2. Yezhovshchyna, 1937‑1938, thus is called in Ukrainian the immediate post-Stalin-Constitution period, according to Yezhov, the head of Stalin's secret police. This period means full Russification. Again we limit ourselves to the Ukraine, but the same policy was employed in all non‑Russian territories.

The Ukrainian Communists were the concentration camp of the anti-Stalin opposition, who in the Soviet Union formed an ir "Promethean front" of all the non‑Russian peoples. Stalin nominated Yezhov for the "application of his constitution" to the Ukraine.

In January, 1937, a new purge in the Communist Party was begun in the Ukraine; on January 20, Stalin's Lazar Kaganovich arrived in Kiev as a special delegate, participated in the meeting of the Central p199 Committee, and demanded the elimination of a number of leaders. For the complete economic ruin Postyshev was made responsible; he was recalled, and was replaced by a specialist for economic questions from Moscow, the Russian Kudryavtsev. Finally the Russian N. Khrushchov became Stalin's deputy in the Ukraine. From February, 1937, new purges and arrest among the Communists in the upper hand; in June, 1937, arrests among the red officers in the Ukraine; Yakir, Prymakiv, Kryworuchko, the commanders of the Red Cossacks of the Ukraine (which used Ukrainian as the language of command), etc.; in July-August mass arrests were made in the provincial Ukrainian towns; on June 30, suicide of the chairman of the Ukrainian Soviet Government, Panas Lyubchenko. Michael Bondarenko now was appointed as the head of the government. He was arrested in August, 1937; in November the Commissar of Education, Wolodymyr Zatonsky, was arrested as a nationalist, an old Ukrainian Bolshevik and cofounder of the Soviet Union, who had replaced Skrypnyk. In 1938 a Russian was appointed of Ukrainian extraction, Demian Korotchenkov, who after arriving in Kiev gave his name a Ukrainian ending, Korotchenko.

A whole series of political trials accompanied the mass arrests. According to the official paper, Kommunist, in three months, July to September, there were conducted in the Ukraine 65 political trials1 which ended with 260 death sentences for the defendants, condemned as "saboteurs and bourgeois nationalists." The tension in the interior was also characterized by the replacement of the Ukrainian Commissar of Interior Affairs and Chief of the G. P. U., Wsewolod Balycky. He was replaced by Israel Leplewsky, soon dismissed by a pure Russian, Uspyensky. According to Kommunist, February 10, 1937, two vice-chairmen of the Kievan Communist Committee, Kushnir and Kotlyarevksy, and its secretary, Dudkivska, were fired as "counterrevolutionaries and nationalists"; on February 13, the chief of the cultural propaganda division of the party, Samutyn, and the chief of the economic division, Baran, were fired, both as "nationalists"; on February 28 the vice-chairman of the Charkiv-Party Committee, Bochucky, was fired "as an incorrigible counterrevolutionist and nationalist"; in March the chief of the industrial board in Dnipropetrovsk, Lehky, was arrested as a "nationalist," and a "Ukrainian terroristic center" was discovered, under the leadership of Holubenko; on March 20, according to the Kommunist, new "enemies of the people" were discovered and arrested in the presidency of the "Union of Ukrainian Writers"; Senchenko, Kovalenko, and Prots, the first of them being the chairman of the "Association of the Writers of the Soviet-Ukraine"; the accusation of "Ukrainian counter-revolution " was extended also to the writers in Kharkiv, especially Mykytenko. Parallel with this, new purges were going on in the Ukrainian radio stations in Kiev and Kharkiv, accused of "nationalism," and arrests among the railway workers in the Ukraine.

p200 In view of all these facts, and taking into account the shooting of a Ukrainian Red Cossacks commander, Prymakiv, we can understand the national opposition against the rising tide of Russian chauvinistic Communism.2 This Ukrainian opposition closely collaborated with the Crimean Tatarian opposition which also became a victim of Yezhov; "liquidated" because of bourgeois nationalism were the President or Proceed, Ilias Tarkhan; the chairman of Council of the Commissars of the Crimean Republic, ibrahin samedin; many commissars; most of the "Soviet" poets, writers, and professors. The best illustration of what happened in all other non‑Russian republics is the fate of all these gullible leaders of non‑Russian Communists, who in 1935 were invited to represent the non‑Russian republics on the special committee appointed for the drafting of the Stalin Constitution. They were: Petrovsky, chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Ukraine; Cheryakov, chairman of the Central Executive Committee of Byelo-Russia; Aytakov, chairman of the Central Executive Committee of Turkmenistan; Musabekov, chairman of the Council of Commissars of the Trans-Caucasian Federation; Rakhimbayev, chairman of the Council of Commissars of Uzbekistan; Goloded, chairman of the Council of Commissars of Byelo-Russia; Lubchenko, chairman of the Council of Commissars of the Ukraine; Ikramov, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan; Erbanov, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Buryat-Mongolia. All these leaders were at the very height of their power when the Constitution was accepted at the end of 1936, but in the course of 1937 all of them, without a single exception, either committed suicide in order to escape liquidation, or were proclaimed "enemies of the people" and "disappeared" from political life. All of them were replaced by a new set of "stronghand boys" trained by the Russian Communist Party in Moscow, unconditionally faithful to the orders of Stalin. Thus, almost all leading non‑Russian statesmen and leaders in the non‑Russian Soviet republics who were so naïve as not yet to grasp the real nature of Russian Communism were liquidated.

As objective evaluation of the importance of this non‑Russian national opposition against Russian Communist imperialism, especially in the Ukraine, is still wanting in the literature dealing with Soviet matters outside the Soviet Union. That is the special achievement of the Jacobsons and Kohns on the one hand, and on the other these internal events were overshadowed by the much discussed trials of the Trotskyites: Kamieniew, Zinoviev, Pysatkov, etc., of the leaders of the military opposition, Marshal Tukhachevsky and colleagues, and later by the trial of Bukharin, Rykov, and their comrades.

It is surely a mistake to regard the events in the Ukraine as only a provincial part of the general opposition in the Russian R. S. F. S. R. against Stalin, or as a part of the ideological quarrels between Trotsky p201 and Stalin over the right interpretation of the Communist doctrines and Communist tactics. Against such an interpretation we have the following arguments: (a) the continuity and stability of the Ukrainian opposition over nearly two decades against Soviet Moscow; no other nationality has a similar record of constant rebellion against Russian Communism; (b) the ideological reasons for this permanent Ukrainian rebellion against Muscovy have nothing to do with the Moscow quarrels; this Ukrainian opposition was based on the demand for cultural and political independence from Moscow, as only the fulfillment of these demands could guarantee to the Ukraine a normal economic development by the liberation of the country from the exhausting exploitation of the Ukrainian raw materials by the Muscovite industry; (c) the Ukrainian importation was clearly directed against the arbitrary appointments by the Russian Politburo of Russians to leading positions in the Ukraine, such as Postyshev, Khatayevich, Kudryavtsev, etc., and the Thirteenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Ukraine still had the courage to carry through the motion: "The congress states that in the work of many organizations of the C. P. U. (K. P. B. U.) at the last time [during the last persecutions] is expressed a lessening of attention towards the questions of the nationality policy of the party, also an underestimation of these problems. It was expressed especially in the insufficient Ukrainization of the party, state, professional and Komsomol organizations, in the insufficient appointments of Ukrainian bolshevik cadres to leading positions in the party, state, economic, and professional work."

Thus, we see, this is a clear protest against the Russification of the Ukraine, and the demand for a complete "Ukrainization" of the party and State apparatus remained despite all the Russian terrorism a basic principle of the opposition in Ukraine. Therefore Moscow never trusted Ukrainian Communists, and never was a Ukrainian appointed secretary of the Communist Party in the Ukraine.

But since the Ukrainian opposition was the leader of the opposition of all the non‑Russian nationalities the whole nationality, especially the Ukrainian, problem, exploded in the trials because of the tactics of the Ukrainian, H. Hrynko, then Soviet Commissar of Finance, who attempted to use the internal Russian quarrels for Ukrainian interests.

3. The Bukharin, Rykov, Hrynko, trial 19383 It was clearly shown in this mock trial that the Promethean ideology, by its publications, declarations, and congresses, had penetrated also the Soviet Union in the course of its ideological war against Russian Communo-chauvinism. The opposition was charged with

"having at the instruction of the Intelligence services of foreign States hostile to the Soviet Union formed a conspiratorial group named the block of Rights and Trotskyites' with the object of espionage on behalf of foreign states, wrecking, diversionist and terrorist activities, undermining the military power of the U. S. S. R., dismembering the p202 U. S. S. R. and severing from it the Ukraine, Byelo-Russia, the Central Asiatic Republics, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Maritime Region of the Far East for the benefit of the aforementioned foreign states, and lastly with the object of overthrowing the Socialist social and state system existing in the U. S. S. R. and of restoring capitalism, of restoring the power of the bourgeoisie."

This trial came to an end finally with the fall of Stalin's hangman, Yezhov, and a subsequent purge in the N. K. V. D. itself.

The desire for self-determination and democracy of the non‑Russian nationalities was mixed up during the trial with German, Japanese, and English "imperialism and espionage" for Communist propaganda purposes. In reality the Promethean Movement was organized by the exiled democratic leaders of all non‑Russian peoples; it was an expression of their uncompromising struggle for national self-determination and of their desire for free international co‑operation with the free nations in the former League of Nations in Geneva, as the supra-national organization.

For Hrynko and the other non‑Russian Communists it was clear that the sentence would be death. Under the pretext of repentance they spoke to their nations, to their political exiles, and to the free world, reporting the history of the constant national struggle for liberty, and the substance of their confessions for all national opposition was: "Keep fighting against Moscow tyranny!" Hrynko began his statement:

"In order that it may be clear how I came to the execution of the tremendous series of crimes against the Soviet government and the fatherland, and to treason, I must remind you that I joined the Communist Party with other fighters of the Ukrainian Nationalist Organization."

Together with Shumsky, Poloz, and with the later chairman of the Council of the People's Commissars of the Ukraine, Lubchenko, the "conspiratorial center" was formed, and Hrynko called the period until 1926 the period of Shumskism. The program was the separation of the Ukraine from the Soviet Union and the restoration of an independent Ukrainian State. They believed that the economic prosperity of the N. E. P. period offered a good opportunity for such an evolution, and they did not see in Europe a foreign power with which they could ally themselves for the realization of this aim. The second period, according to Hrynko, began after the liquidation of the N. E. P. when this movement in the direction of independence was interrupted; the nationalist organization then gave its members the order to fight collectivization and industrialization, to concentrate its forces for an eventual armed uprising against the Soviet government. Contacts were established with some circles of a State hostile to the Soviet Union and with the Ukrainian exile government, which had provided arms and emissaries. This period ended in 1933 with the arrest of nearly all groups. The third period then began when, about 1935, Lubchenko informed Hrynko that in the Ukraine a "national fascist organization" was acting with the aim of separating the Ukraine p203 from U. S. S. R.4 with the "help of a military intervention"; and he was asked to join it. There can be no doubt that Hrynko worked in Moscow under the cover of his high office for this aim. At the same time this conspiratory organization established contact with the "right Trotskyite block" through Chernov, who had worked earlier in the Ukraine as grain-supply organizer; Chernov was the link with Rykov.

The secretary of the Communist Party of Byelo-Russia, Sharangovich, said that in 1932 he joined a "national-fascist organization" in Byelo-Russia, which aimed at the "overthrow of the Soviet regime and the separation of Byelo-Russia from the Soviet Union in case of a war against the fascist States." The means offering were to include wrecking, rebellion, terror, sabotage of the Soviet policy in the national cultural sphere; even an attempt on the life of Voroshilov during the maneuvers in 1936 was prepared.

Like Hrynko, Khodzhayev, former chairman of the Council of Commissars of Uzbekistan, behaved with much self-confidence. He declared that he had been raised in the national spirit and this national ideology he retained also after joining the Communist Party. He began to fight the Soviet government in 1920 when he headed the Soviet Republic of Bokhara; at that time he joined the national organization, Milli Ittihad — "National Union" — which aimed at separating Bokhara and forming a buffer State between England and the Soviet Union. He proudly boasted of having been the leader of this nationalist organization and of its counterrevolutionary work. The second period started after his appointment to the chairmanship of the Council of Commissars of Uzbekistan in 1925. Since 1928 he had collaborated there with Ikramov, a leader of the nationalist underground. The third period began after a meeting with Rykov when a common front was established against the Stalin regime. The National Uzbek Organization was convinced that an English protectorate would be the best solution for Uzbekistan. As the Communist Party was the only political party permitted, the National Uzbek Organization succeeded in introducing into it a large number of its members in order to dominate the party committee and the State.

Ikramov, first secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, also very confidently "speaks before the court; he joined in 1918 a national youth organization and after officially entering the Communist Party, he was the leader from 1928, of a national organization 'Milli Istiklal' — 'National Independence.' " He declared: "This title speaks for itself; we fought for independence." He described how this association organized and educated the youth for a counterrevolutionary rebellion, together with the Ukrainians, Byelo-Russians, and the nationalists of the other republics. Bukharin, apparently, was informed about these plans. Ikramov confessed that also the other Commissars in Turkestan p204 sympathized with the Pan‑Turc ideology, as he himself did and they discussed the formation of a military group, in the event of a war, which should open the front and co‑operate with the "aggressors."

Rykov did not deny that he had direct or indirect contacts with the leaders of the national opposition groups. The military group of Tukhachevsky was also implicated in these plans for the overthrow of Stalin.

Stalin's public prosecutor, Vyshinsky, in his final speech once more accused them all of having worked for the "dissolution" of the Soviet Union, for the "separation" of the Ukraine, Byelo-Russia, the Central Asiatic Republics, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Maritime Region of the Far East.

There can be no doubt that the national oppositions tried to use the Russian opposition for their cause. On the other hand the same tactics were used by the Russian opposition in order to undermine Stalin; surely Russian and Ukrainian military leaders had decided to back the planned rebellion.

This trial is proof that about 1938 the whole non‑Russian population of the U. S. S. R. fought against Stalin's despotism, including a minority of the Russians themselves. The Russian opposition was prepared to accept the dissolution of the Soviet Union into national republics as the condition for the fall of Stalin's regime. It is a good proof of the indestructibility of the national movements, which in spite of constant persecutions are always finding new practical methods and forms of organizations in their struggle against Soviet Moscow.

The defendants, leaders of the non‑Russian nations, used the trial as a forum for drawing the attention of the free world to the nationality problems in the Soviet Union and to the Achilles heel of Russian Communism, strengthening their own nations by giving them a public report of the past conspiracies as an example for the canopies of the future. They proved to the world that, after a quarter of a century of Russian oppression, Moscow could not kill with its terrorism the ideas of liberty and democracy among the non‑Russian peoples; they proved also that the fight of the non‑Russian peoples about 1938 for their liberty seriously endangered the very existence of the Soviet Union police State. Stalin attempted to minimize the seriousness of this situation for his Communist Party by accusing the national movements of being in the service of foreign States, but such an argument cannot convince even the editors of Pravda; with such accusations one cannot weaken the political significance of this trial. It has revealed deep cleavages in the Stalin edifice and in the very foundations of the "voluntary" Soviet Union. All the non‑Russian national movements had only one aim: the struggle against Russian imperialism and the fight for freedom.

What happened in this period of terror in Turkestan? According to Dr. M. H. Erturk:5

"From 1933‑1938 embraces the second five-year plan of Soviet rule. During this period the Soviet slogans were 'The eradication of remnants p205 of the capitalistic way of thinking from the human mind,' 'Creation of socialist culture,' and 'the introduction of the leading Russian culture.' Soviet Moscow meant that 'the ousting of capitalistic remnants,' the annihilation of national spirit and national customs as well as the annihilation of the 'Socialist Revolution' and of elements opposed of the Communism would be carried out. Under the slogan 'creation of socialist culture,' the existence of a past and present Turkestanian national culture is denied. According to their wishes national culture had to serve 'Socialism' and every creative culture ought to be socialist. There should be no difference between Russian and local national culture. Russian culture was to serve as an example to the national culture. In other words Moscow demanded that its culture should be accepted. . . .

"The aims of this period were to create the Soviet individual and the Soviet nation and to introduce the Russian to the Turkestanian as a 'brother' and to inaugurate Russian as the official state language. During this period the Russians stated that the Russian language was an 'international language.' The learning of the Russian language is compulsory."

Finally, Stalin himself gave in 1938 once again an "interpretation" of the rights of the non‑Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union. This interpretation is in fact a revocation of all their rights and a program their further Russification. Only Russian nationalism is proletarian, the national feelings of the non‑Russian peoples are "bourgeois" for they oppose Russification:

"The right of nations freely to secede must not be confused with the expediency of secession of a given nationality at a given moment. The party of the proletarian (the Communist Party) must decide the latter question quite independently in each particular case from the standpoint of the interests of the social development as a whole and of the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat for socialism. . . .

"The party of the proletariat resolutely rejects what is known as 'national cultural autonomy,' under which education, etc., is removed from the competence of the state and placed within the competence of some kind of national diets. National cultural autonomy artificially divides the workers living in the same industrial area, according to their various 'national cultures'; in other words it strengthens the ties between the workers and the bourgeois culture of individual nations. . . .

"The interest of the working class demands that the workers of all the nationalities of Russia should have common proletarian organizations: political, trade union, educational institutions of the cooperatives and so faith. Only such common organizations of the workers of the various nationalities will make it possible for the proletariat to wage a successful struggle against international capital and bourgeois nationalism."6

p206 4. World War II and its results for the nationality problem in Europe and Asia

The Moscow mock trials, with the Promethean ideology as the chief defendant, are the facts which preceded the great diplomatic game before the outbreak of World War II. In this game the nationality problem played a decisive and, in the present literature, a completely underestimated role; the fellow travelers do everything to hide this cancer of Russian imperialistic Communism.

Let us present briefly the European international situation, the political tendencies of the powers, and how for tactical aims they used the nationality problem as a political weapon. We shall describe also the political conditions among the exile centers of the non‑Russian nationalities and their activities, which attempted again to use the rivalries of the powers for a final solution of the nationality problem inside the Soviet Union and in Central Europe.

It must be understood that a nationality problem existed not only in the Soviet Union, but that a nationality problem as "the problem of minorities" was of paramount importance in Central Europe and the Balkans. The creators of the post-World War I treaties had in many places disregarded the rights of self-determination of the native populations, and the League of Nations had proven itself incapable of safeguarding the promised rights of the "minorities"; finally some powers directly revoked their obligation to their minorities under the Covenant of the League of Nations and made a peaceful solution of these border problems, with the free participation of the native populations, impossible. Thus gradually they returned into European politics the principle of Realpolitik and "might is right," which by these secondary questions completely obscured the chief European problem, the problem of the survival of Europe, as a cultural and historical entity, which was threatened with extinction by Russian Communism. Europe was so unaware of this basic problem that the powers finally invited the Soviet Union into the League of Nations, exempting Russian Communism from all conditions required for membership in this organization. The diplomatic game invented many forms of mutual alliances, collective security, and nonaggression pacts, all of which had the aim of putting the other side in a morally untenable position before the final armed conflict.

The dynamic force in European politics after 1932 was Nazi Germany, a volcano. Some just claims regarding the self-determination of some parts of the German ethnographic territory were used by Hitler for the kindling of a chauvinist megalomania and master-race ideology, which soon created a mighty army as an instrument of active policy. The Berlin-Rome Axis united Italy and Germany in common political planning for the restitution of their old realms in new forms: the old German Empire and the Roman Empire; they united in common preparing dooming the age of liberty and democracy to ruin and preaching that only their "totalitarian and authorization registers" could save Europe from the decaying democracy which was united with Russian Communism in one front in the League of Nations.

The "self-determination right of her minorities" became Germany's weapon. With the promise of justice she tried to gather around herself p207 all mistreated minorities in the eastern border States, and was seconded by Italy. Thus "the nationality problem" soon became the star feature of Germany in foreign politics. Germany and Italy sympathized also, in words with all the oppressed nationalities in the Soviet Union, attempting to pose as just protectors of their liberty, thus gaining in all countries some sympathy of all anti-Communists. Germany used this weapon with complete success for her policy: remilitarization of the Rhineland, Anschluss of Austria, Anschluss of the Sudetenland. And the European powers, completely ignoring their treaty obligations, and by their appeasements, materially contributed to Hitler's successes and prestige. Soon Germany and Italy began to reorganize as arbiters their Danubian influence spheres, and there the proclamation of the Slovakian and the short-lived Carpatho-Ukrainian Republics electrified the refugees from the Soviet Union as the Berlin-Rome Axis gradually approached the Soviet borders. It appeared to many observers that England and France aimed only at directing the stream of lava from the German volcano to the East and spare the West, dragging completely the ideological and moral principles involved.

Facing this new European and international political situation, the democratic exile governments and national committees of the non‑Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union found themselves in a very delicate situation. Until the year 1932, when Hitler came to power, all hopes were placed in the ideals of the League of Nations and the democratic Western powers. But gradually the League of Nations went politically from one debacle into another; the acceptance of the Soviet Union, of the prison of nationalities, into the League of Nations, the supposed protector of nationalities, was one of the ironies of European history and a political crime against all the non‑Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union, which for many years had fought for the realization of the League of Nations' ideals against its rival the Moscow Comintern.

This betrayal of democracy split the political exiles from the Soviet Union into two camps: one remaining faithful to old democratic program, believing that any military action of Hitler in the East would lead to World War II, in which finally the democratic powers would decide and not forget the just solution of the nationality problem as a cornerstone of a real peace in the East. The other camp was completely disillusioned by the indifference and duplicity of the Western powers, and was gradually persuaded by German propaganda to regard the Axis as the true leader in the reorganization of Eastern Europe. Thus Hitler's Germany soon prepared groups of young men, inexperienced in politics, from the non‑Russian exiles for eventual action in the East.

The whole European situation soon approached the critical stage, when Hitler tried to Aphrodite the same methods he had successfully used toward Czechoslovakia to Poland. Poland was for a few years tempted and threatened by Nazi Germany. Threatened with bringing to an explosion the internal nationality problem in Poland, which was rather badly neglected. Poland had not fulfilled her promises regarding the self-government of the Ukrainians, and there was also, besides the Danzig problem, a Jewish and Byelo-Ruthenian opposition. Modern p208 Poland forgot that the old great Commonwealth was a Commonwealth of nationalities, that with this principle only could she victoriously oppose Hitler and Stalin. Poland was tempted to become a junior partner in a forced reorganization of the European East, in which Germany reserved for itself as an influence sphere the Baltic States and Russia proper, but Poland would have secured an outlet to the Black Sea by receiving at least the whole right-bank Ukraine. In exchange for Danzig, the transit of the German army to the East and the participation in campaign against the Soviet Union, Poland was presented with "great expectations." These she disregarded, remaining faithful to her treaty obligations under the League of Nations Coven, even loyally informing Soviet Moscow of all propositions made by Berlin. After Poland accepted the British guarantee of her frontiers, the world was surprised by the friendship treaty between Hitler and Stalin — and Poland's subsequent fate is known.

Stalin was aware that Germany was very well informed about the nationality problems of the Soviet Union, that Germany would use this information in case of war. But Stalin also knew well Hitler's imperialistic plans against the Poles, Jews, Czechs, Slovenes, and Serbs, and for him, therefore, Hitler was an ally. Common crimes form common fronts. An alliance with Hitler not only could deprive the nationality problem of event foreign support, but would give Soviet Moscow the opportunity to include, as "acts of self-determination" of the Ukrainians and Byelo-Ruthenians in Western Ukraine and Western Byelo-Ruthenia, those countries which were then parts of the Polish Republic. That would mean a tremendous success for Stalin in his fight against Ukrainian and Byelo-Ruthenian opposition. The consequence would be the liquidation of the comparatively free Piedmonts of the Byelo-Ruthenians and Ukrainians in Poland, the possibility of destroying also the Piedmont in the Bukovinean Ukraine, then occupied by Roumania. Thus Moscow could approach nearer to the Carpatho-Ukraine. The inclusion of the latter was the ultimate aim of Soviet Moscow in order to convert the Ukrainian political problem from a European one to a question of Soviet internal politics. Becoming a champion of the "self-determination of all parts of Ukrainian ethnographic territory" in the name of the Ukrainian national ideal of a "United Ukraine," Stalin could return to Ukraine also the old Ukrainian Cossack land in Bessarabia at the mouth of the Danube, thus claiming through Ukraine the rights of a Danube State and virtually dominating this river through this key position. The alliance with Hitler also opened the way for Stalin into the Baltic States, Finland included. As we see, in the calculations of both partners, Stalin and Hitler, the nationality problem played the paramount role. Both were "liberators," and both "solved nationality problems"; Stalin even attempted to appease his Ukrainian opponents who accused him of including Ukrainian north, east, and south ethnographic territory in the Russian R. S. F. S. R. (a territory including England) and Russifying its population, by the putting into effect in the west and southwest the program of the just ethnographic frontiers. The democratic Western powers and the League of Nations neglected the dynamism of the nationality p209 problem in Europe. They had no program at all for a just solution of it, they had only a static program of keeping the status quo. Only once, with Briand's program of a United Europe, was there a hope for a solution of it, but only in the West, as Coudenhove-Kalergi — despite my protest — excluded the Western Soviet Union from his European plans. Thus democracy created an ideological vacuum in the sphere of the nationality problem in Europe, and forced the democratic nationalities between Germany and Semitic into a dlme. Stalin exploited to the utmost the mp of Soviet Moscow in the League of Nations in Geneva as a tactical asset in his bargaining with Hitler, and sold this institution, with all its ideology, down trivial, "justly" dividing its members with Hitler: Poland with Western Ukraine and Byelo-Ruthenia, Czechoslovakia with Carpatho-Ukraine, Roumania with Bukovinean Ukraine and Bessarabia, the Baltic and Balkan States. The new "just" order was established — and World War II was in full swing. Finland was soon attacked and the League of Nations finally had the courage to throw Stalin out of the League.

In the whole bargain between the two "liberators of nationalities" a mutual fraud was included on both sides. Stalin, from his own experience, knew well what it means to have to deal with nationality problems; he attempted there is use Hitler against the capitalist-democratic powers in the West but at the same time he intended to weaken him in the East by the Polish and Czech problems. Hitler, knowing Stalin's nationality troubles, gladly decided to increase them by the Western Ukrainians, and Byelo-Ruthenians, the Balts, the Roumanians and Ukrainians of Bessarabia. He demanded also for selling these nationalities a tremendous contribution to his war effort from Stalin, the selling of more than one million freight cars of food and raw materials. This tremendous contribution, which enabled Hitler to destroy France, Belgium, and Holland, recoiled like a boomerang on Stalin. The lack of a corresponding fleet for England's invasion and the easy victory over the "impregnable Maginot Line" induced Hitler to try the conquest of the East — the territory of all the raw materials for which he had to pay Stalin. This easy victory in France induced Hitler to eliminate also from his Eastern plans a; "aspirations of the nationalities," attempting to realize his original plan from the first edition of Mein Kampf, of securing "Siedlungsland" for the German Bauer at least to the Dnieper-Dvina line. The gullible friends of Hitler amongst the non‑Russian exiles did not anticipate these changes in Hitler's plans. As his attack started in 1941, he was regarded by these consummate fools as the "liberator."

The nationality problem in the Soviet Union exploded in mass desertions and mass surrender of soldiers of the non‑Russian nationalities. The German army advanced with astonishing swiftness, welcomed with flowers as liberators — until the crossing of the Dnieper. Behind the Dnieper, Soviet resistance stiffened. Why? News of Hitler's mass execution of Soviet soldiers, in the overwhelming majority of non‑Russian nationalities was brought by escaped soldiers behind the Soviet front, and all non‑Russian nationalities were warned. This stiffening resistance delayed the advance of Hitler who, apart from climatic conditions in the p210 had started the attack too laste because of the Yugoslavian war. Finally the line was established before Leningrad-Moscow.

We are sure that future research will prove that one of the main causes of Hitler's defeat in the Soviet Union was his complete disregard of the nationality problem. The "liberator" let the mask fall, and a policy of brutal national oppression followed, in which the Nazi Party, organizing the administration behind the front, played the decisive role. The German liberators employed the personnel of the N. K. V. D. which was ordered to remain in the territories, as the most trusted agents of their administration, and used them for the suppression of all expressions of democratic national life in all territories concerned. Soon all the intelligentsia saw clearly the scope of Hitler's order and the first to go underground and to start partisan warfare against Hitler were the same nationalist groups which had accompanied his advance to the East. The fact that the independence of the Baltic States was not restored, that Ukraine was partitioned by including West Ukraine into the General government as an old "Austrian heritage," giving the Roumanians a part of the Ukraine with Odessa, that Byelo-Ruthenian independence was not restored, these facts spoke for themselves. Thus as a matter of fact Hitler's grave mistake in the East was his nationality policy, which united all the partisans from Poland, the Baltic States, Byelo-Ruthenia, Ukraine into one common front. Hitler's disregard of the national aspirations, of the agrarian interests of the peasantry, the master-race megalomania toward the nationalities which welcomed him, created a profound change in the sentiments of the population, which Stalin immediately used for his own purpose.

The Communist broadcast in Ukrainian, Byelo-Ruthenian, and the Caucasus languages assumed a tone of patriotic nationalism. Immediately all Russian words were dropped from the non‑Russian languages and the old pure literary languages of the Ukrainians and Byelo-Ruthenians were used. The slogans of national liberation were hammered constantly by radio, press, and publication, the Hetman Khmelnitsky military decoration was established for Ukrainians, Pan‑Slavism, and Pan‑Slavic Messianism revived, the Atlantic Charter and the Statutes of the United Nations with all their clauses regarding the rights of nationalities signed, seats reserved for Ukraine and Byelo-Russia in the new organization, everything was done by Soviet Moscow to convince the non‑Russian peoples that in the Soviet Union after the war the solemnly signed obligations of the Atlantic Charter and the Statutes of UN would be applied, and to stimulate thereby the dynamic forces of these nationalities inside the Soviet Army and in the underground, on the one hand, and on the other, to device the U. S. A. and her allies, in order to win the nationalities behind the line, Stettin-Trieste.

Thus the world entered a new stage of "progress." Once some world powers specialized in trading Negro slaves, usually rather a small business involving some thousands of human beings, when Tsarist Russia held the peasantry in serfdom until 1861 (the serfdom of the non‑Russian nationalities continued until 1917). Now after two world wars in "defense of democracy," after the proclamation of Wilson's principles, p211 the League of Nations in Geneva, the proclamation of the Atlantic Charter, the Statutes of the UN and their organization, powers have engaged in wholesale trade. Whole nations were sold into Russian slavery. Amid the constant chatter about human and national rights — the negation of all of them —- the Soviet Union with its slave labor camps and bloody terror sits in the UN among the civilized nations of the world. And the torchbearer of liberty during Tsarism, Poland, together with the Western Ukraine and Byelo-Ruthenia, which sacrificed five million dead for the allied cause, got chains, with the blessing of Western democracy.

Russian Communism consequently also participated in that progress whereby the Stalinist era, having already contributed cannibalism, in the 1930's, achieved the full height of "progress, Stalinist-style": Soviet Moscow began to apply genocide to whole nationalities in the Soviet Union, in order to terrorize the non‑Russian nationalities and to crush their rebellious spirit. The collective responsibility, until now used in the Soviet Union only against whole families, now was extended to whole nationalities. The fate of the Ingrians was shared in 1941 by the German Volga Autonomous S. S. R. It was abolished and the whole population scattered over Siberia. During 1944‑1945 the autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics of the Kalmyks, Chechen-Ingush, of the Crimean Tatars and the Karachaev Autonomous Region were abolished because their populations welcomed the German armies, and their populations were scattered over the slave labor camps of Siberia. As in the old Russian Tsarist times, these names of nationalities were erased from the map; in these territories changes were made in the names of places in order to extinguish even any linguistic traces of the former inhabitants.

Thus the final victory of Democracy in World War II brought for the nationality problem in Central-Eastern Europe and the Balkans the greatest catastrophe modern history knows. But the nationality problem now became gigantic. The old Soviet Union newspaperman is intensified by the annexation of the Baltic States, of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Roumania-Moldavia, Bulgaria (Yugoslavia)º in Europe, and in Asia until now by China, Korea, Tibet, and it is surely not the end. In Asia the Western powers are getting a practical "workshop" education as to how the nationality problem would have to be used by themselves in Europe northern Asia against Soviet Russian imperialism.

As a matter of fact the nationalities who, during World War II, conducted their own underground war for liberty against both the German and the Russian oppressor are continuing their liberation struggle with their own forces against the leading member of the UN — Soviet Union. They created and are creating a political DP mass emigration to the West, unique in history, living witnesses of the Soviet brutality and impeachers of the Russian Communist regime. With their own forces they are conducting a partisan war against Soviet Moscow, in which again the Ukraine with her Ukrainian Partisan army forms the core of resistance within the Soviet sphere of influence. And the non‑Russian peoples are gaining in self-confidence, because if they could demoralize and disintegrate the German army, why could they not achieve this result against the Soviet army? This especially, since, by the tremendous p212 expansion of the nationality problem in the Soviet Union and in the Soviet sphere of influence, the Russians as a nation have become a minority which can uphold its cultural and political imperialism only by force. Consequently, the fight within the Soviet Union will be continued with all means, especially since outside the Soviet Union Tito has created a new center of national rebellion against Soviet Moscow within the Communist ranks. Thus the national oppositions got an army which backs, within the Communist ideology, the idea of equality and cultural self-government against Soviet Moscow. Besides, Titoism finally became an eye opener for the West as to the basic importance of the nationality problem inside the sphere of Communism.

The Ukraine especially, now a member of the UN, is a constant source of trouble for Soviet Moscow; the additional eight million Ukrainians of Western Ukraine, presented to Soviet Moscow by Roosevelt and Churchill in the name of the Atlantic Charter, are not easily digestible. Therefore Stalin practices the old method of "the whip and the cooky"; on the one side terror, on the other side "concessions" for appeasement and pacification of the hinterland of the future front of World War III. At the end of the year 1949 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic approved a new "Ukrainian" anthem, flag, and emblem. Appropriately, the paper Soviet Ukraine, Stalin's mouthpiece in Kiev, published its text, in which Moscow reached the height of deviltry:

p213 When the Russian Tsars oppressed the non‑Russian nations, they at least did not compel their victims to glorify them. The new masters of the Kremlin have "progressed" also in this direction. They not only oppress and murder and destroy all cultures and persecute the people, but they demand at the same time that the victims glorify their new masters and sing peans in honor of Lenin and Stalin as the "true liberators and guiding lights." Not only the Jacobsons and Kohns — but the victims themselves; a page of history which even Dostoyewsky's fantasy had not anticipated.

The new flag, characteristically, includes the blue color in a compromise with the national blue-yellow flag. What is behind these "concessions"? It is the old trouble with the Ukraine under the leadership of the Ukrainian Partisan Army.

After a period of liberty from 1918‑1939, the Baltic States: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia were by soviet aggression included into the Soviet Union. Now, these highly civilized nationalities are suffering a terrible fate under the very eyes of the UN Russian Communism attempts in a couple of years to catch up in the Russification of these peoples with the other non‑Russian nationalities, and to transform them into the soul-less mass of "Soviet people" — Russian-speaking, Russian-ruled, and Russian-inspired. What is happening with their languages and cultures gives a tragic account the following report about Lithuania.7

The reader will find in it all well-known methods previously applied to the non‑Russian nationalities.

"Members of the Academy of Sciences were ordered to interrupt their teaching and get behind the Party. One hundred 'scientists' were thus mobilized and attached to Agitpunkt No. 22 in Vilnius. The exertions of professors Dzidas Budrys, Purenas, Lasas, Bieliukas and several others were commended by 1st Secretary Snieckus in person. Snieckus said, however: 'Regardless of the excellent achievements in the ideological sphere, it would be deceptive to suppose that the ideological struggle was over. We must persevere in tireless alertness, fight for the Party line in sciences, arts, literature; we must smash all demonstrations of bourgeois-nationalist ideology, combat nationalism, clericalism, cosmopolitanism; fight for the proletarian internationalism, for friendship among the country's nationalities, for Soviet patriotism.' (Party organ "Tiesa," March 11, 1950.)

"This was a notice that more heads would roll — and teachers hastened to abandon the schoolhouses in favor of 'open air treks' in behalf of the Party. Rural teachers realize the indescribable misery of serf life — they had a hard time trying to speak of the 'limitless happiness of life under Stalin's sun,' but the people realized their predicament — duty is duty — the teachers must speak, the serfs must applaud.

"Must Learn the 'Present Lithuanian Language'

"Comrade 1st Secretary Snieckus told the Party Congress in his 4‑hour speech in February 1949:

p214 " 'The basic defects in literature: There are no books depicting kolkhoz life in artistic scenes; the bourgeoisie and the reactionary Catholic clergy are not being demasked; literature for children is neglected. . . . Our artists' creations were seriously criticized at the congress of Soviet artists. Up to now, no theatrical play has been created to portray the Socialist reorganization of village life. The responsibility falls on the leadership of art affairs. Cruel errors persist in magazines and cinema news reviews — the Stakhanovite gardening and kolkhoz creativeness are not depicted, musical arrangement is poor. Some problems are elucidated in a weak manner, especially the role of the Catholic clergy. The history of the Communist party of Lithuania is not yet written. No manual of history of Lithuania was prepared. The class struggle is by‑passed with silence in evaluating the literary heritage, the reactionary ideology of individual writers is retouched. . . . The Goslitizdat (State-Publishing-Lithuania) is guided by no principle: the former editor-in‑chief had smuggled‑in a bourgeois ideology. The writings of Peleda, Valancius, etc. contained not a few reactionary views and religious superstitions.

" 'In regulating the cultural heritage, the Lithuanian Language Institute published two volumes of a Lithuanian Dictionary — written in a clerical phraseology, in a church and feudal language. The Lithuanian Language Institute utterly fails to learn the present Lithuanian language.

" 'Cosmopolitanism is one of the old ideas spread by Anglo-American imperialists and supported by Rightist Socialists. It is alien to Marxism-Leninism. Cosmopolitanism exists in our republic, too, but the CK of Lithuania did not pay due attention to cosmopolitanism.'

" Dictionary 'Errors'

"The linguists and teachers were too deeply shocked by the new Party line regarding the 'new language,' to react immediately. A 'Methodology of the Lithuanian Language,' edited by A. Vasiliauskas, was put out after the Snieckus speech. The Party censors themselves recovered only five months after the Snieckus speech.

"By July 7, 1949, the Party played the tune in the issue of the Party organ 'Tiesa': a comrade K. Duobinis — an unheard‑of 'linguist' — condemned the Methodology for its 'lack of Soviet patriotism and Marxist ideology' and its 'contamination with reaction and religion.' He wrote: 'To confine oneself to a formal declaration regarding the inculcation of a Soviet patriotism and then to demonstrate nothing at all regarding the method of educating the youths, is not a serious view of the teacher's purpose in a Soviet school.' Poetry selections were found to be non‑political! 'He forgot to point out that poetry readings must serve not only the aim of improving reading technique but, by its ideas and mental pictures, must conjure and strengthen the political ideological consciousness. . . . With every lecture, the pupil's political orientation must rise.' Vasiliauskas, however, had failed 'to show a Soviet man not meaning of a kolkhoz.' The comrade recommended that the book be re‑edited and published anew — an auto da fe of books. . . .

p215 "20 days later, comrade President Matulis of the Academy of Sciences of the LSSR, deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the LSSR and the Soviet of Nationalities of the USSR, felt that he had sufficiently learned 'the new Lithuanian language.' The academician, a former intellectual, started off by pointing out the 'faults in the research work' in his own Academy and the small production rate in the various institutes — of Economics, Biology, Geology and Geography. Finally he lashed out at the 'far behind' Institute of the Lithuanian Language: 'So of the collaborators of certain institutes stayed on the side-lines and away from the urgent Socialistic construction, and committed grave errors in their research work. Certain books were contaminated with impermissible errors (the second volume of the Lithuanian Language Dictionary), not all publications of the Academy of Sciences are inspired with the necessary partisanship, alien reactionary ideas and theories harmful to the working people's society are not sufficiently demasked.'

"Purge of Books

Public sessions were held thereafter — and members of the Academy of Sciences humbly confessed their heretical deviations. The repentant heretics then went into action.

"First to act was the University of Kaunas: it was decided to remove from its libraries 'the Morganistic-Mendelistic literature, to review the scientific theses and revoke the assignments which are of no significance to practical life.' A lecturer, Vaskevicius, was denounced for his persistence in presenting the development of plant cells in the following manner: 'One scientist, Weismann, avers . . . The Russian scientist Mechnikov opines . . .' The Party mouthpiece asserted: 'Such objective comparison of all names figuring in the science of biology does not serve the combat against Weismannism. Rather, it is useful to Weismannism.' The University's Party organization and its secretary Kuzminskas were reprimanded for permitting such 'apolitical lecturing.

"The Agricultural and Veteran Academies followed suit in expurgating their libraries of all heretical publications. After some time, however, the Party watchdogs noted that Docents Mastauskis and Vasinaukas had still failed to improve and that Party secretaries Venckus and Minkevicius failed to concern themselves with the party line in teaching.

"It may be noted that the names of the heretics are Lithuanian — Lithuanian only. The Party watchdogs are all Russians. For this reason it took them several months of the condemn the Methodology manual of the Lithuanian language and the Distantly: it had taken several months to translate — Lithuanian Party members were not trusted.

"By October 1949, professors, teachers and writers were all purged and/or reformed: their fate may be gleaned by the tense employed in the criticism. Thereafter, the campaign was begun to era the Lithuanian names of school and historical sites.

"Thus, the Party organ 'Tiesa' announced on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the Komsomol that the 'Ausra' gymnasium of Kaunas p216 was renamed the 'Komsomol Gymnasium.' In ancient Vilnius, the Wall Street marking the ancient ramparts and the park around the Gediminas Castle Hill, were renamed 'Komsomol St.' and 'Komsomol Park.'

"Stalin and Lutheran Catechism

" 'Never before were our people provided with such excellent conditions for developing their culture. . . . In the past, in a bourgeois Lithuania, various Western customs were being aped monkey-fashion, foreign culture was blindly copied. Presently, however, we have every opportunity to show to the world that, even though we are a small people, we are capable of contributing to mankind's treasures of science.

"Such is the new outlook professed by comrade Matulis, President of the Academy of Sciences of the LSSR and the most pliant bootlicker of Russian police officials.

"Under his guidance, the Academy put out a collective work intended to mark the 400th anniversary of the first printed Lithuanian book — the Lutheran Catechism edited by Mazvydas. The preface to the collection of silly ravages by semi-literate 'scientists,' boasted: 'The History of Lithuanian books is a history of the Lithuanian people's troubles, sufferings, struggles, cultural efforts and victories. It shows clearly that the Lithuanian people had been held in oppression and did not say by lords and priests. That representatives of a progressive intelligentsia risen from the common folk had struggled for a brighter future for the working people. That the working people of Lithuania having liberated themselves from enslavement by landlords and capitalists, embarked on the Soviet road and, jointly with other peoples of the Soviet Union, are marching toward a bright tomorrow. . . .

" 'The Great October Socialist Revolution finally broke the chains of slavery and cleared the path for all enslaved peoples toward a free, independent life based on the foundations of justice. The Lithuanian bourgeoisie failed to keep the Lithuanian people enchained with new fetter. The word of revolution fired the masses. Lithuania became a Socialist republic after a long struggle, and a Soviet page illuminated by the sun of Stalin's Constitution was opened in the history of our books.'

"Unfortunately, however, the sun of Stalin brought into Lithuania on Red Army bayonets is too bright for the country and a people contaminated to the core with loyalty to the Western Church and the 'cosmopolitanism' of a national spirit. In fact, the 'sun of Stalin' is so he sought that books, catechisms, icons, folklore collections, histories and other bourgeois-nationalist books are reduced to regulation ashes in frigid areas of Siberia. . . .

"There are no bounds to falsification. For instance, after the painstaking efforts of Jablonskis, Buga, dozens of expert linguists and hundreds of "live-word gatherers" over a period of several decades, materials for the great Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language were assembled and arranged alphabetically. Every word was carefully committed on, by illustrations from ancient writings, examples of p217 folksongs, different accents in different parts of the country, etc., by a large staff of experts. Half a million words were finally arranged, and the printing was begun several years prior to World War II. Balcikonis was appointed editor in chief, and the first volume of a thousand pages was prepared by the time the Russian occupied Lithuania. Proofs were ready but Communist censorship prevented the printing. Finally, the materials were recovered from the scrap heaps of the Communist Party Office, and volume one rolled off the press at the end of 1941 — during the German occupation, following the ignominious flight of the Russian satraps."

With this slogan the persecution of all non‑Russian nationalities started in 1928. Soon, in Russia proper, Communist propaganda produced nationalistic Russian plays and films like Levin's play Fatherland, the films We, Russians and Alexander Newsky; gradually rehabilitated were the Russian "Heroic Epochs" of Ivan the Terrible, of Peter the Great, and Catherine II, the Great, of Alexander I, together with all the victorious generals, Kutuzov, Suvorov, Bagration, and the Russian people its language and culture were proclaimed also "great." Glinka's opera, The Life for the Tsar, was remodeled, Pushkin's centennial (1951) was the opportunity to rediscover his works, and finally the whole Communist propaganda machine openly stimulated Russian chauvinism and imperialism. Thus gradually the "international dressings" went into the back and one met as "Socialist content" again the old face of Russian chauvinism and imperialism.

Since 1928 the Russian Communists have proclaimed all the bloody history of Russian imperialism and its chief promoters, together with all the tormentors of the non‑Russian peoples as "Socialist content" and the whole history of the non‑Russian peoples with all their defenders of liberty and independence against Russian imperialism and chauvinism was denounced as "counterrevolutionary." Thus, during World War II the Communists were prepared to proclaim as "Socialist content in Russian national form" the following ideas:8

"In this struggle we ought to be inspired by the images of our glorious ancestors, Alexander Nevsky, Dmitri Donskoy, Minin, and Pozharsky, Suvorov, Kutuzov, and by the victorious banner of Lenin. . . . Soviet patriotism is national and historical. Also national and historical is the Russian Revolution which consequents the tradition of the Russian nation. National consciousness is in the air of our time. The cosmopolitanism of the nineteenth century is a thing of the past, the dreamers who were patriots of time and space have died out. Love for one's own village has been resurrected. But this is not a reversion. Can one love mankind without loving one's own people? We have not lost faith in the brotherhood of nations, but love of our motherland has made it a living faith. . . . Patriotism is love of one's country. What is one's p218 country? My mountains, my trees, my history, the history of my people, my brothers and sisters, my beloved ones. . . . Our love of the motherland has conquered all other sentiments. Human faces, human eyes, human language — this is our Russia, and we are their guardians in this age of calamity. Motherland: this is a stream of people from the remote past to the future in which we believe and which one builds up for himself and the next generation. In some remote future, these individual streams will combine into humanity. But for our age this is a dream. Our age is an age of struggle for freedom, independence, and the right to construct society according to a nation's own laws. . . . We love Russia not because other lands are less admirable, but because Russia is our country. . . . We are proud of our people, and there is no purer sentiment in the world. The value of Russia has stood the test. We look at this value with calm and firmness. We have become the greatest nation in the world, because our ideals are human ideals."

Simultaneously with the evolution of this "Socialist content" the Russians proclaimed the establishment of the "progressive" family of peoples under the "fatherhood" of Stalin, and appointed themselves as the "big brother" but all non‑Russian peoples as "younger" brothers. Thus since the 1930's the Communist Brother Cain forces his "Socialist content" into the national forms of all non‑Russian languages using the "big brother" idea, the Communist version of the old Tsaristic paternalism.9

The Author's Notes:

1 There can be no doubt that torture of some kind was used to obtain "confessions" of membership in counterrevolutionary organizations.

2 A good survey is to be found in Dr. Mikołaj Kowalewski, Polityka Narodowościowa Na Ukrainie Sowieckiej, Instytut Badan Spraw Narodowościowych, Warszawa, 1938.

3 "Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet of Rightists and Trotskyites" (Moscow, 1938).

4 The opposition of Hrynko was based not only on national motives but also on economic. The economic exploitation of the Ukraine by Moscow illustrateº these data: Moscow had, in 1918, 1,850,000 inhabitants; in 1938, 4,000,000; Kiev had, in 1918, 626,000 inhabitants; in 1938, 528,000; Odessa had, in 1918, 631,000; in 1938, 421,000.

9 The "big brother" slogan of the Russian Communists is a political plagiarism from the arsenal of Japanese imperialism in Asia.

p197 Chapter VII Russian Communism and the non‑Russian nationalities, 1936‑1950

"Must Learn the 'Present Lithuanian Language'

" Dictionary 'Errors'

"Purge of Books

"Stalin and Lutheran Catechism

The Author's Notes:

p197 Chapter VII

Russian Communism and the
non‑Russian nationalities, 1936‑1950