Lenin Ukrainian nationalists. Lenin creates Soviet Ukraine. From the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on Soviet power in Ukraine

Portrait of Lenin rescued on the Chelyuskin

Today, many myths are being invented about Lenin’s attitude to the national question, incl. and Ukrainian. It seems to me timely and relevant to hold a small educational program on this topic on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s birthday.

For such a multinational and contradiction-torn country as Tsarist Russia, where the dominant and largest nation of Russians (Great Russians) constituted a minority (43%) of the population, the correct solution of the national question was of exceptional importance. Based on this, Lenin, at the beginning of the 20th century, developed the theoretical foundations and practical requirements of the Marxist national program. In a number of works he substantiated the program provisions of the party. Lenin's works on the Ukrainian question contain invaluable ideological wealth and represent a huge source of knowledge about the most complex and important national problem for Ukraine, about how it must be solved in the interests of the entire people.

The RSDLP Program, adopted by the Second Party Congress in 1903, stated that the party sets as its immediate political task the creation democratic republic, the constitution of which would provide: regional self-government for areas characterized by special living conditions and population composition; full equality of all citizens regardless of religion, race and nationality; the right of the population to receive education in their native language, ensured by the creation of the necessary schools for this at the expense of the state and self-government bodies; the right of every citizen to speak in his native language at meetings; introduction of the native language along with the state language in all local public and government institutions; the right to self-determination belongs to all nations that make up the state.

The party’s attitude towards the rights of the Ukrainian nation naturally followed from the program provisions. However, in December 1912 Lenin took up in-depth study Ukrainian national question. In work " National question.II"Lenin made extracts with critical remarks from the books: S. Shchegolev. "The Ukrainian movement, like modern stage South Russian separatism". K., 1912; M. Grushevsky. “Ukrainianism in Russia, its demands and needs.” St. Petersburg, 1906; from articles by P.B. Struve about “Ukrainianism” in the magazine “Russian Thought”.

Lenin’s close interest in the Ukrainian question was explained by the rapid growth of both local, Ukrainian, and great-power Russian bourgeois nationalism in view of the impending world imperialist war. In addition, Lenin took into account that, according to the All-Russian census of 1897, the Ukrainian nation was the second largest (17%) after the Russian, and together there were two Slavic peoples, “so close in language, and in place of residence, and in character, and in history" made up the majority of the country's population. Lenin also took into account the fact that Ukraine was one of the most industrially developed regions of the empire, and its working class was one of the most numerous groups of the all-Russian proletariat. The proletariat of Ukraine was multinational, consisting of Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, Jews, Poles, etc., with Ukrainians making up about 70% of industrial workers.

In the conditions of Ukraine, the struggle of the proletariat for liberation from the oppression of landowners and capitalists was connected with the struggle for national liberation. Hence the task of the Bolshevik Party - to merge the struggle of the working people for socialism and national liberation into one stream. The great-power Russians and local Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists set themselves the opposite task - to subordinate the working people to their influence, dividing them along national lines.

Under the pretext of preparing for the “defense of the fatherland,” the Russian great powers (the tsarist government, the Cadets and other right-wing parties) intensified attacks on representatives of the national movement. Such Black Hundred organizations as the “Union of the Russian People” and the “Chamber of the Archangel Michael” intensified their activities. The “Russian Nationalists Club” functioned in Kyiv, whose members inspired society that Ukrainians allegedly strive to create an autonomous Ukraine under the scepter of the Habsburgs and destroy the great Russian Empire, and therefore they should not be trusted. In May 1913, V.I. Lenin in the article “ The working class and the national question" noted: " Government policy, the policy of the landowners supported by the bourgeoisie, is permeated through and through with Black Hundred nationalism».

At the same time, Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism was raising its head, “ trying to distract the working class by national struggle or the struggle for national culture from its great world tasks" The Party of Ukrainian Social Democrats (USDRP), whose heralds were D. Dontsov, L. Yurkevich and others, advocated, ostensibly in the name of strengthening the unity of the nation, for weakening the strong ties that had developed over centuries between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples within the same state.

Lenin twice took advantage of the deputy status of a member of the Bolshevik Party Petrovsky to propagandize the party’s program and policy on the national, including Ukrainian, issue from the Duma rostrum. In April 1913, Lenin wrote and sent Petrovsky a draft speech “On the National Question,” which he delivered at the Duma meeting on May 20. The speech attracted the attention of the progressive public throughout the country.

In turn, workers turned to Bolshevik deputies with various requests and proposals. Thus, on June 22, 1913, Pravda published in Ukrainian a letter from 1,790 peasants of the Yekaterinoslav province to Petrovsky regarding the statement of the Chairman of the IV State Duma, the Ukrainian landowner monarchist Rodzianko, that teaching in Ukrainian schools in the Ukrainian language is impossible, because such a language supposedly does not exist at all . In their letter, the peasants, protesting against Rodzianko’s speech, asked the Bolshevik deputies to defend the demands of autonomy for Ukraine on an equal basis with autonomy for other nationalities, the introduction of the Ukrainian language in Ukrainian schools and in all public institutions. " And Panam Rodzinki, Skoropadsky and Savenka are reminded that the hour will soon come when “the heavenly ones find out whose skin you are wearing”“, the Ukrainian peasants concluded their letter.

Those. Lenin's position on the Ukrainian question was formed in inextricable connection with constantly changing social practice and was based on the study of vast factual material.

« Conscious workers, Lenin explained, they do not preach separation; they know the benefits of large states and the unification of large masses of workers. But large states can be democratic only with the most complete equality of nations, and such equality also means the right to secede».

In the article " More about “nationalism”“Lenin, arguing with the Russian great-power chauvinist Duma deputy Savenko, who said that the demand to grant Ukraine autonomy threatens the unity of Russia, asked reasonable questions: “ Why does “autonomy” not interfere with the unity of Austria-Hungary? Why did “autonomy” even strengthen the unity of England and many of its colonies for a long time?... What kind of strangeness is this? Will it occur to readers and listeners of the “nationalist” sermon why it is impossible to strengthen the unity of Russia through the autonomy of Ukraine?”

In the article " On the right of nations to self-determination"Lenin developed this idea: “...Why can’t Russia try to “strengthen” the connection between Ukrainians and Russia... by providing Ukrainians with freedom of their native language, self-government, an autonomous Sejm, etc.? ...Isn’t it clear that the more freedom the Ukrainian nationality has in one country or another, the stronger the connection between this nationality and this country will be? It seems that one cannot argue against this elementary truth unless one decisively breaks with all the premises of democracy».

Defending the equality of languages, V.I. Lenin in the article “ Liberals and Democrats on the issue of languages"Compared the situation in Switzerland with the situation in Tsarist Russia: " Little Switzerland does not lose, but gains from the fact that it does not have one national language, but there are three of them: German, French and Italian. In Switzerland, 70% of the population are Germans (in Russia 43% are Great Russians), 22% are French (in Russia 17% are Ukrainians), 7% are Italians (in Russia 6% are Poles and 4.2% are Belarusians)... If all privileges disappear , if the imposition of one of the languages stops, then all the Slavs will easily and quickly learn to understand each other and will not be afraid of the “terrible” thought that speeches in different languages will be heard in the common parliament».

In work " Critical Notes on the National Question", opposing the Ukrainian nationalists, Lenin wrote that " Even from the point of view of bourgeois nationalists, some of whom want full equality and autonomy for Ukraine, while others want an independent Ukrainian state, this reasoning does not stand up to criticism. The opponent of the liberation aspirations of the Ukrainians is the class of Great Russian and Polish landowners, then the bourgeoisie of the same two nations. What social force is capable of resisting these classes? The first decade of the 20th century provided the actual answer: this force is exclusively the working class, leading the democratic peasantry. In an effort to divide and thereby weaken a truly democratic force, whose victory would make national violence impossible, Mr. Yurkevich betrays the interests of not only democracy in general, but also his homeland, Ukraine. With the united action of the Great Russian and Ukrainian proletarians, free Ukraine is possible, without such unity there can be no talk of it.”

“...The powers that be get along wonderfully together, as shareholders of “profitable” million-dollar “businesses” (like the Lena mines) - Orthodox Christians and Jews, Russians and Germans, Poles and Ukrainians, everyone who has capital exploits together workers of all nations". That's why " The wage worker does not care whether his predominant exploiter is the Great Russian bourgeoisie in preference to the foreign bourgeoisie, or the Polish bourgeoisie in preference to the Jewish one, etc. The hired worker, conscious of the interests of his class, is indifferent to the state privileges of the Great Russian capitalists and to the promises of the Polish and Ukrainian capitalists that heaven will be established on earth when they have state privileges... In any case, the hired worker will remain an object of exploitation, and successful the struggle against it requires the independence of the proletariat from nationalism.”

The only political force in Russia independent of nationalism was Lenin’s Bolshevik Party, which united in its ranks the proletarians of the entire country, without distinction of nationality, and built its activities on the principles of internationalism. " Thin advisers to workers, petty-bourgeois intellectuals from “Dzvin”, wrote Lenin, They are bending over backwards to try to reject the Ukrainian Social-Democrats. workers from the Great Russians. “Dzvin” is doing the work of the nationalist petty bourgeoisie. And we will do the work of international workers: to unite, unite, merge workers of all nations for a single joint work.

Long live the close fraternal union of the Ukrainian, Great Russian and all other nations of Russia!»

With the victory of the February Revolution of 1917, a qualitatively new socio-political situation arose in the country. In conditions of bourgeois-democratic freedoms in Ukraine, as well as in other national outskirts of the former empire, the national liberation movement intensified significantly. The Ukrainian Central Rada was formed - a coordinating body created in early March 1917 by Ukrainian political parties And public organizations. The Rada at the beginning of its activities put forward the slogan of broad national-territorial autonomy of Ukraine within the democratic federal Russian republic.

Before the February Revolution, Lenin wrote: “ Marxists... are hostile to federation and decentralization - for the simple reason that capitalism requires for its development the largest and most centralized states possible. All other things being equal, the conscious proletariat will always defend a larger state... will always welcome the closest possible economic unity of large territories in which the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie could unfold widely... As long as and since different nations form a single state, Marxists are not in no case will they preach either the federal principle or decentralization».

With the fall of autocracy and the rapid growth of national movements, “one and indivisible,” that is, strictly centralized, Russia began, as they say, to burst at all the seams.

Theoretically, Lenin was ready for such a development of events. Back in 1914, in his work “On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” he noted: “...Once mass national movements have arisen, to dismiss them, to refuse to support what is progressive in them means, in fact, to succumb to nationalist prejudices, namely: to recognize “one’s” nation as a “model nation” (or, let us add, a nation with exclusive privilege for state-building).”

And in June 1917, in a speech at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Lenin put forward a new slogan: “ Let Russia be a union of free republics"(PSS vol. 32, p. 286). However, even earlier, in a speech on the national question at the VII (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP(b), Lenin spoke in favor of preserving the multinational Russian state, but on new principles - the principles of equality and fraternal union of all peoples, for granting them statehood in the form of republics. " If there is a Ukrainian republic and a Russian republic, there will be more communication, more trust between them“- this is how Lenin explained his position.

After the October Revolution in Ukraine, the implementation of the course of the new Bolshevik government in the field of national relations proceeded in an acute political struggle, often with the use of armed force, which reflected the irreconcilability of the class interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

At first, success accompanied the Central Rada. Taking advantage of the overthrow of the Provisional Government, on November 7 (20), 1917, the Rada proclaimed as its Third Universal the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic - a parliamentary-type state within Russia. At the same time, the Rada condemned the October Revolution, did not recognize the Council of People's Commissars as the central all-Russian government and led a struggle against it.

Unfortunately, to this day the falsifiers of history, ideologically biased publicists who seek to present the conflict between the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Rada as an unprovoked gross intervention of Soviet Russia in the internal affairs of the sovereign UPR, which has escalated into armed aggression, have not been translated. This allegedly decided the fate of power in Ukraine in favor of the Bolsheviks. However, such an interpretation of the dramatic events of November 1917 - February 1918 does not stand up to criticism.

Firstly, the Rada did not declare, until January 11 (24), 1918 (IV Universal), the secession of the Ukrainian People's Republic from Russia. Moreover, both in the III Universal and in subsequent documents, the Rada declared that it was fighting for the creation, under the leadership of a “homogeneous socialist” government, in which the Bolsheviks would be assigned the role of a political force devoid of decisive influence, a federal democratic republic on the site of the former empire. And she not only declared, but also took practical steps in this direction. Therefore, the conflict between official Petrograd and Kiev cannot in any way be considered an interstate, Russian-Ukrainian conflict. It was a class, political conflict within Russia, similar to the conflicts of the Council of People's Commissars with counter-revolutionary local authorities in other regions (Don, Ural, etc.).

Secondly, the Rada never had real power throughout Ukraine. Already in the first days of the revolution, Soviet power was established in Lugansk, Makeyevsky, Gorlovsky, Shcherbinovsky, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovsky and other regions of Donbass. In November - December 1917, as a result of re-elections, Kharkov, Ekaterinoslav (city and provincial), Yuzovsky, Vinnitsa, Zhitomir, Kamenets-Podolsky, Lutsk, Proskurovsky, Rivne, Nikolaevsky, Odessa, Kherson and many other Workers' Councils were under the control of the Bolsheviks, soldiers' and peasants' deputies. Bolshevik resolutions were adopted by regional, provincial, and district congresses of Soviets. As a result, a situation of dual power arose. This gave Lenin the basis to write on December 11, 1917 that recent events in Ukraine indicate a new grouping of class forces going on in the process of struggle between the bourgeois nationalism of the Ukrainian Rada, on the one hand, and the Soviet government, the proletarian-peasant revolution of this national republic, on the other . And on December 30, Lenin made a more categorical conclusion: «... Revolutionary movement of the Ukrainian working classes for the complete transfer of power to the Soviets is becoming increasingly large and promises victory over the Ukrainian bourgeoisie in the near future».

The immediate reason for the aggravation of relations between the Central Rada UPR and Soviet Russia was the Rada’s support for the counter-revolutionary rebellion of the Kaledinites on the Don. November 23, 1917 general secretary On military affairs of the UPR, Petlyura, in a direct conversation with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Soviet Russia, Krylenko, stated that the UPR government would not allow revolutionary units to enter the Don through Ukraine to fight the Kaledin counter-revolution, but would allow Cossack units to help Kaledin. In response, Lenin and Trotsky gave Krylenko the following instructions: “ We are for Soviet power in the independent Ukrainian Republic, but not for the counter-revolutionary Kaledin Rada. Take this firmly into account in all measures and steps"(p. 165).

Since the Central Rada remained in its previous position, the Council of People's Commissars presented it with a 48-hour ultimatum on December 3, in case of failure to comply with which the Council of People's Commissars " will consider the Rada in a state of open war against Soviet power in Russia and Ukraine" On December 19, the Council of People's Commissars stated, " that any attempt to eliminate the war with the Rada, if the Rada recognized Kaledin’s counter-revolutionism and did not interfere with the war against him, is certainly desirable", and invited the Rada to open business negotiations. And only when, due to the fault of the Rada, which continued to support the Kaledinites, the peace negotiations were disrupted, the Council of People’s Commissars entrusted the Central Rada with “ full responsibility for the continuation of the civil war».

Disagreements also arose between the leading officials of Soviet Ukraine. The most serious of them was caused by the formation on the initiative and with the active participation of the secretary of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog regional committee of the RSDLP (b) Artem (F.A. Sergeev) and members of this committee V.I. Mezhlauk, S.F. Vasilchenko, M.P. Zhakov and Others of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic (the territory of the current Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk and Lugansk regions) with its separation from Ukraine. It's artificial public education with its Council of People's Commissars, chaired by Artyom, was proclaimed in Kharkov at the end of January 1918, despite the categorical objections of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets and the People's Secretariat of Ukraine.

The Soviet government of Ukraine knew in advance, but could not overcome the separatist tendencies on its own and turned to V.I. Lenin for help. Back in January 1918, having received information about the intentions of Artem and his supporters, Lenin pointed out to them the inadmissibility of creating the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic and separating it from Ukraine. On January 23, the head of the Council of People's Commissars signed a telegram “ Everyone, everyone, everyone..." which emphasized that delegates from all regions, including Donkrivbass, would take part in the upcoming II All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. But the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic was nevertheless proclaimed. And then Lenin had personal conversations with Mezhlauk and Artem, during which he convinced them “ recognize the Donetsk basin as an autonomous part of Ukraine" The head of the Council of People's Commissars also instructed the temporary extraordinary commissioner of Ukraine Ordzhonikidze to “explain all this” to Vasilchenko and Zhakov, members of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic who persist in defending their erroneous position. On March 15, 1918, the Central Committee of the RCP (b), at its meeting with the participation of Lenin, advocated that delegates from all over Ukraine, including from the Donetsk basin, should attend the Second All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, and at the congress one government would be created for all of Ukraine. The Donetsk basin was recognized as part of Ukraine.

In the spring of 1918, the situation in Ukraine deteriorated sharply. The half-million army of Germany and Austria-Hungary, invited by the Central Rada, occupied almost all of Right Bank Ukraine. Soviet Russia, observing the difficult conditions of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty imposed on it, was forced to recognize the independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Also forced, the Second All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets (March 17-19, 1918, Yekaterinoslav) declared Soviet Ukraine an independent state.

But already in November 1918, when the RSFSR denounced the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk due to the defeat of Germany and its allies in the World War, it became possible to restore the federal connection between Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia. However, the highest authorities of both republics were in no hurry to restore.

A year later in Letter to the workers and peasants of Ukraine regarding the victories over Denikin"Lenin explained this, based on the experience of the civil war, by the fact that the capitalists managed for a while to play on the national mistrust of non-Russian peoples towards the Great Russians, " managed to sow discord between them and us on the basis of this mistrust. Experience has shown that this mistrust is eradicated and passes only very slowly, and the more caution and patience the Great Russians, who have long been an oppressor nation, show, the more surely this mistrust passes. It is precisely by recognizing independence... that we are slowly but steadily winning the trust of the most backward, most deceived and downtrodden by capitalists, the working masses of neighboring small states. It is in this way that we are most likely to tear them away from the influence of “their” national capitalists, and most likely to lead them to complete trust».

It did not follow from this that Lenin abandoned the idea he put forward in 1917 of transforming former tsarist Russia into a union of republics, that is, a federation. " We want a voluntary union of nations, - noted in the “Letter to the workers and peasants of Ukraine ...”, - such a union that would be based on complete trust, on a clear consciousness of fraternal unity, on completely voluntary consent. Such a union cannot be realized immediately; it must be worked out with the greatest patience and caution, so as not to spoil the matter, so as not to arouse distrust, so as to allow the distrust left by centuries of oppression of landowners and capitalists to be eliminated, private property and hostility due to its divisions and redistributions.”

Following the principle of “patience and caution,” Lenin in May 1919 composed “ Draft directive of the Central Committee on military unity", according to which the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and other republics, while remaining independent states, united " for the entire duration of the socialist defensive war. The military-political union of the Soviet republics played a decisive role in the victory over foreign invaders and the all-Russian and local counter-revolution. In the summer of 1920, the military-political union of the republics ensured the expulsion from the territory of Ukraine of the Polish army, which committed aggression at the invitation of the “head otaman” of the UPR Petliura.

On December 3, at the VIII All-Russian Party Conference, reading the resolution, Lenin stated: “The Russian Communist Party stands for the recognition of the independence of the Ukrainian SSR,” and at the same time again pointed out the “need for a very close union for all Soviet republics in their struggle against the formidable forces of world imperialism.” As for determining the forms of the union, this “will be finally decided by the Ukrainian workers and working peasants themselves.” The caution of Lenin and the Central Committee of the RCP(b) is quite understandable. At that time, in Ukrainian society, and even among the Bolsheviks, there were different opinions on the question of “whether to merge Ukraine with Russia, whether to leave Ukraine as an independent and independent republic, and in the latter case, what kind of federal connection should be established between this republic and Russia” . The conference overwhelmingly adopted the resolution “State relations between Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia”, aimed at establishing close federal ties between the Ukrainian SSR and the RSFSR. In May of the same year, the IV All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets supported the position of the Bolsheviks, and in December, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR Lenin, People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR Chicherin and Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR Rakovsky signed " Union Workers' and Peasants' Treaty between the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR"(in Russian and Ukrainian languages). The contracting parties, recognizing each other's independence and sovereignty, entered into a military and economic union. The agreement lasted two years; life convinced of the need for a closer union.

In his greeting to the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets on December 10, 1922, Lenin writes: “...We recognize ourselves as equal in rights with the Ukrainian SSR and others, and together and on an equal basis with them we are entering into a new union, a new federation, the “Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia».

Well, on December 30, 1922, through the unification of the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, BSSR and ZSFSR, Russia was recreated by creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Based on materials presented in the collection " IN AND. Lenin on the Ukrainian question", Kyiv, 2010

Portrait of Lenin rescued on the Chelyuskin

The Program of the RSDLP, adopted by the Second Party Congress in 1903, stated that the party’s immediate political task was the creation of a democratic republic, the constitution of which would provide: regional self-government for areas characterized by special living conditions and population composition; full equality of all citizens regardless of religion, race and nationality; the right of the population to receive education in their native language, ensured by the creation of the necessary schools for this at the expense of the state and self-government bodies; the right of every citizen to speak in his native language at meetings; introduction of the native language along with the state language in all local public and government institutions; the right to self-determination belongs to all nations that make up the state.

The party’s attitude towards the rights of the Ukrainian nation naturally followed from the program provisions. However, in December 1912, Lenin began an in-depth study of the Ukrainian national question. In work " National question.II"Lenin made extracts with critical remarks from the books: S. Shchegolev. "The Ukrainian movement as a modern stage of South Russian separatism." K., 1912; M. Grushevsky. “Ukrainianism in Russia, its demands and needs.” St. Petersburg, 1906; from articles by P.B. Struve about “Ukrainianism” in the magazine “Russian Thought”.

Under the pretext of preparing for the “defense of the fatherland,” the Russian great powers (the tsarist government, the Cadets and other right-wing parties) intensified attacks on representatives of the national movement. Such Black Hundred organizations as the “Union of the Russian People” and the “Chamber of the Archangel Michael” intensified their activities. In Kyiv, the “Club of Russian Nationalists” functioned, whose members inspired the public that Ukrainians allegedly strive to create an autonomous Ukraine under the scepter of the Habsburgs and destroy the great Russian Empire, and therefore they should not be trusted. In May 1913, V.I. Lenin in the article “ The working class and the national question" noted: " Government policy, the policy of the landowners supported by the bourgeoisie, is permeated through and through with Black Hundred nationalism».

Those. Lenin's position on the Ukrainian question was formed in inextricable connection with constantly changing social practice and was based on the study of vast factual material.

Long live the close fraternal union of the Ukrainian, Great Russian and all other nations of Russia!»

With the victory of the February Revolution of 1917, a qualitatively new socio-political situation arose in the country. In conditions of bourgeois-democratic freedoms in Ukraine, as well as in other national outskirts of the former empire, the national liberation movement intensified significantly. The Ukrainian Central Rada was formed - a coordinating body created in early March 1917 by Ukrainian political parties and public organizations. The Rada at the beginning of its activities put forward the slogan of broad national-territorial autonomy of Ukraine within the democratic federal Russian republic.

With the fall of autocracy and the rapid growth of national movements, “one and indivisible,” that is, strictly centralized, Russia began, as they say, to burst at all the seams.

And in June 1917, in a speech at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Lenin put forward a new slogan: “ Let Russia be a union of free republics"(PSS vol. 32, p. 286). However, even earlier, in a speech on the national question at the VII (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b), Lenin spoke in favor of preserving the multinational Russian state, but on new principles - the principles of equality and fraternal union of all peoples, for granting them statehood in the form of republics. " If there is a Ukrainian republic and a Russian republic, there will be more communication, more trust between them“- this is how Lenin explained his position.

Secondly, the Rada never had real power throughout Ukraine. Already in the first days of the revolution, Soviet power was established in Lugansk, Makeyevsky, Gorlovsky, Shcherbinovsky, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovsky and other regions of Donbass. In November - December 1917, as a result of re-elections, Kharkov, Ekaterinoslav (city and provincial), Yuzovsky, Vinnitsa, Zhitomir, Kamenets-Podolsky, Lutsk, Proskurovsky, Rivne, Nikolaevsky, Odessa, Kherson and many other Workers' Councils were under the control of the Bolsheviks, soldiers' and peasants' deputies. Bolshevik resolutions were adopted by regional, provincial, and district congresses of Soviets. As a result, a situation of dual power arose. This gave Lenin the basis to write on December 11, 1917 that recent events in Ukraine indicate a new grouping of class forces going on in the process of struggle between the bourgeois nationalism of the Ukrainian Rada, on the one hand, and the Soviet government, the proletarian-peasant revolution of this national republic, on the other . And on December 30, Lenin made a more categorical conclusion: “... The revolutionary movement of the Ukrainian working classes for the complete transfer of power to the Soviets is taking on ever greater proportions and promises victory over the Ukrainian bourgeoisie in the near future».

The immediate reason for the aggravation of relations between the Central Rada UPR and Soviet Russia was the Rada’s support for the counter-revolutionary rebellion of the Kaledinites on the Don. On November 23, 1917, the General Secretary for Military Affairs of the UPR Petliura, in a conversation over a direct wire with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Soviet Russia, Krylenko, stated that the UPR government would not allow revolutionary units to enter the Don through Ukraine to fight the Kaledin counter-revolution, but would allow Cossack units to help Kaledin. In response, Lenin and Trotsky gave Krylenko the following instructions: “ We are for Soviet power in the independent Ukrainian Republic, but not for the counter-revolutionary Kaledin Rada. Take this firmly into account in all measures and steps"(p. 165).

Disagreements also arose between the leading officials of Soviet Ukraine. The most serious of them was caused by the formation on the initiative and with the active participation of the secretary of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog regional committee of the RSDLP (b) Artem (F.A. Sergeev) and members of this committee V.I. Mezhlauk, S.F. Vasilchenko, M.P. Zhakov and Others of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic (the territory of the current Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk and Lugansk regions) with its separation from Ukraine. This state formation with its Council of People's Commissars, chaired by Artyom, was proclaimed in Kharkov at the end of January 1918, despite the categorical objections of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets and the People's Secretariat of Ukraine.

Well, on December 30, 1922, through the unification of the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, BSSR and ZSFSR, Russia was recreated by creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Based on materials presented in the collection " IN AND. Lenin on the Ukrainian question", Kyiv, 2010

And their political heirs are outraged by “communist terror”

In Western Ukraine, monuments to LENIN are being swept away from their pedestals. “Westerners” are foaming at the mouth and talking about the crimes of communists against the “Ukrainian people.”

“Russia must repent on its knees to us for the Holodomor, for the oppression of national consciousness, for the fact that we were slaves for 70 years,” Svidomo citizens write on local websites. Here the Ukrainian proverb will come in handy: “Look into someone else’s eye right away, but never into your own.” After all, in an amicable way, today’s “thick crests” should kiss the communists’ hands.

Without Lenin And Stalin, without Soviet power and the national policy of the Bolsheviks, neither Ukrainians nor Ukraine would have ever appeared in the form in which we know it. It was the Bolshevik regime and its leaders who created Ukraine from the Southwestern region of Russia, and Ukrainians from its population. And then they added to this new formation territories that had never belonged to Little Rus', the Hetmanate, or the Southwestern Territory.

The overwhelming majority of Ukrainians did not want to become a separate country. And Lenin was well aware of this. On January 30, 1917, Vladimir Ilyich sent a letter Inessa Armand, where he quotes verbatim a soldier who escaped from German captivity: “I spent a year in German captivity... in a camp of 27,000 people. Ukrainians. The Germans are forming camps according to nations and using all their might to separate them from Russia. The Ukrainians were sent clever lecturers from Galicia. Results? Only 2,000 were for “independence”... The rest flew into a rage at the thought of separating from Russia and going over to the Germans or Austrians.”

Why then was all this done? The Bolsheviks believed that in the “communist paradise” the Russian people should not dominate. National composition the first government of the Country of Soviets is no secret. For them, the Russian people were an oppressor people, the Russian state was an enslaving state, and Russian culture was “Russian great-power chauvinism.”

Today's ardent communists naturally disagree with this. For them, Lenin is the liberator of peoples, who peacefully released Finland, abolished the Pale of Settlement, and gave Ukrainians the opportunity to develop their culture. Let's not argue with them. Lenin's role in history is complex and contradictory. But the fact remains that it was thanks to Lenin that the territory appeared over which the yellow-black banner is currently flying.

Hello to Nadezhda Konstantinovna

But what would the leader of the world proletariat do without local support?

Ukrainian nationalists helped him forge a bright future. Even before the revolution, on December 28, 1914, one of the leaders of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine Maryan Melenevsky wrote Lenin a warm letter:

“Dear Vladimir Ilyich! I am very glad that I can convey my best greetings to you.

Our Union acts as the core of the future Ukrainian government. We would be very glad to enter into closer relations with the Bolsheviks. There is an extraordinary national revolutionary upsurge among the Ukrainian population, especially among Galician Ukrainians and American Ukrainians. This contributed to the flow of large donations into our union. If you and I could come to an understanding for joint action, we would willingly provide you with all kinds of material and other assistance. Best regards to Nadezhda Konstantinovna.” Did you understand? The establishment of Soviet power was willingly sponsored by both Galicians and Ukrainians living in the USA! And now “thick crests” prefer to present themselves as victims of Bolshevik oppression.

Big Holodomoras

It so happened that I celebrated 2008 on the banks of the Dnieper, in the beautiful city of Kyiv. A cozy restaurant on the landing stage, the prices are ridiculous, the plates with local dishes do not fit on the table. Only one circumstance overshadowed the holiday. Around midnight the TV was turned on. The president Victor Yushchenko addressed the country with an appeal, where he solemnly proclaimed the coming year - the Year of the Holodomor.

By that time, the Russophobic authorities had succeeded in zombifying the population, instilling in them that the famine that struck the republic in the 30s was Moscow’s revenge for Ukraine’s desire for “independence.” The pockmarked ghoul, whose rating in his native country is now zero, even pushed this idea in his New Year’s speech. It was then that I firmly decided that I would figure out who was really to blame for the death of the unfortunate villagers.

So. From 1928 to 1938, the republic was led by an ukrainized Pole Stanislav Kosior. His right hand was the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars - Vlas Chubar, purebred Ukrainian. In the 34th year of Kosior for success in the field Agriculture promoted to Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Both were shot before the war.

Considered third in the hierarchy Grigory Petrovsky, the chairman of the local Central Executive Committee of the party is one hundred percent Ukrainian. It was in his honor that the city of Yekaterinoslav was renamed Dnepropetrovsk. These are the same HUNGER-Muzzles who are responsible for the painful death of millions of people.

Only in 1933, at the height of the Holodomor, was a Russian sent to help the triumvirate Pavel Postysheva, who was appointed second secretary of the Central Committee. But Kosior was still awarded the Order of Lenin - “For outstanding achievements in agriculture and exceeding state plans in Ukraine.” Do you understand what this means? In Ukraine, distraught villagers ate their children to survive, but the republic exceeded its grain target. Yes, and the barrier detachments that did not allow the hungry into the cities; the troops trampling people with horses for trying to find grains in gopher holes did not consist of “Muscovites” at all. And in many ways from the same Ukrainians who doomed their own brothers to death.

Well, and so - just in case. The country was then led Joseph Stalin, born Dzhugashvili. So all the complaints, gentlemen, are against yourself and your dear Georgia.

Bah, all the faces are familiar!

There were leaders in the Soviet regime who were cooler than Kosior. Leon Trotsky- a fiery tribune of the revolution, the creator of the Red Army, the second person after Lenin (and in fact the first) - was a native of the village of Yanovka in Central Ukraine. “Yes, he’s a purebred Jew!” - the “Western” patriot will be indignant. This is true. But no one is stopping you from calling Gogol Ukrainian, although Nikolai Vasilyevich himself did not think so. And he did not write in “Mauve” at all. “We need to write in Russian, we need to strive to support and strengthen one, sovereign language for all our native tribes,” the classic called on his fellow writers. Gogol, then, is good for you, and another fellow countryman is a comrade Bronstein (real name Lev Davidovich) no? It won't work that way.

And, be kind, you shouldn’t be afraid of another Jew! Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich, a faithful associate of Stalin, was born in the village of Kabany, Kyiv province. It was he who proposed demolishing St. Basil's Cathedral so as not to interfere with parades. It’s good that Stalin, seeing how his comrade-in-arms was removing a miniature copy of the cathedral from the model of Red Square, sternly said: “Lazarus, put it in its place!”

Lover of Ukrainian shirts Nikita Khrushchev went down in history as an exposer of Stalin's personality cult. And he “gave” Crimea to Ukraine. But at the same time he himself actively participated in mass repressions. In 1936 - 1937, Nikita Sergeevich headed the Moscow party organization. Of the 38 secretaries of the MK and MGK who worked in those years, only three escaped arrest. 136 out of 146 secretaries of city and district committees, representatives of trade unions, intellectuals, and business executives were repressed. Having led the country, Khrushchev began to pull up “his own”. Khokhlom, in particular, was the all-powerful chairman of the KGB Semichastny.

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev He led the country for 18 years and relied on his fellow Dnepropetrovsk residents. His favorite was the Minister of Internal Affairs Nikolay Shchelokov from near Lugansk. Members of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee Podgorny, Rustle, Shcherbitsky, Kirilenko, First Deputy Chairman of the KGB Tsvigun- all Ukrainians. For five years, the Council of Ministers of the USSR was headed by a Kharkov resident Nikolay Tikhonov. But all of them cannot compete with a native of the Lugansk region Kliment Voroshilov, who was a member of the Politburo for 34 years!

In general, it is foolish to deny that natives of Ukraine not only actively participated in the formation and strengthening of Soviet power, but were also constantly in key positions. And who “oppressed” whom in the USSR is a big question!

David Eidelman

Lenin believed that in the conditions of Ukraine, the struggle of the proletariat and peasantry for liberation from the oppression of landowners and capitalists is closely connected with the struggle for national liberation. He saw the task of the Bolshevik Party as uniting the struggle for social and national liberation. The Bolsheviks talk about territorial, cultural and linguistic autonomy. They proclaim the right of nations to self-determination.

During the First World War, the Bolsheviks and Ukrainian nationalists were united by the slogan about the defeat of the tsarist government in the war. Both were nurtured and financed by the Germans and Austrians.

Then there was a revolution and a civil war. Here the position of the Bolsheviks was very dual and ambivalent, like schizophrenia. But there is a logic to madness. They go crazy about it.

Ukrainian nationalists - they were not automatically for the whites. Those who simply expressed themselves and started pogroms could be left for later, as long as they didn’t get in the way.

The same Petliura was often used as the vanguard of the Red Army. Remember the "White Guard". First, Petlyura’s gangs enter the city, followed by the Red law enforcement officers.

However, the history of the Civil War in Ukraine is extremely complex and confusing. It is unlikely that in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and throughout the world, there are now at least fifty people who know by heart the dates of the change of power in Kyiv during the civil war, and who will be able to correctly list the names of these authorities.

The history of this period is extremely ideological. Ideological illumination was given to it retroactively. And for each their own. Each one presents his own story, in his own order, according to his own narrative. The official history of the USSR told about the struggle of the Ukrainian proletariat and the poor peasantry for the victory of socialism, Svidomite historians tell how the Ukrainian people fought for independence against Muscovites, Jewish historians list pogroms, anti-Semitic historians say that out of 25 members of the Kyiv Cheka, 26 people were Jews.

What was really there? Chaos, lawlessness, war of all against all, etc.

The only thing that can be said for sure is that Lenin’s victory was more beneficial to Ukrainian nationalism than the triumph of the Polish nationalist Pilsudski or the great power Denikin.

But here civil war finished. What's next? Mass Ukrainization begins. Why?

Lenin’s internationalism demanded what in subsequent politically correct times came to be called “corrective discrimination”—Russia was obliged to make amends for former oppression, tyranny, and infringements before the Ukrainians. But the concept of “redemption” was not the main reason for the mass total Ukrainization.

The main reason is not the humanism and guilt of the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks had their own realpolitik, and historical materialism suggested that every revolution sooner or later ends in restoration.

What force is capable of restoration? What kind of Holy Rus' is Great Russia (which includes both White and Little Russia). The main enemy of the victorious Bolsheviks is great-power nationalism, great-power ethnocentrism, imperial Russia. They are fighting this enemy, doing more for Ukrainian nationalism and strengthening the role of the Ukrainian language than all the Petliuras and Banderas combined.

Whom do the Bolsheviks take as allies to “kill” the triune Russian people? Again, it’s clear: local nationalisms. Who represents these nationalisms? Local Bolsheviks. And it doesn’t matter what nationality they are. At the beginning, the main figure is generally the Moldovan Frunze, who very clearly voices the desire of the CP(b)U - the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine to gain as much autonomy as possible within the framework of Soviet education.

A variety of local nationalists and Ukrainian leftists in general are joining the CP(b)U (most of the nationalists who fought the Russian Empire were leftists), strengthening the “local” element at a time when there is a demarcation between leftist forces in Russia, and the Bolsheviks are destroying former comrades-in-arms.

It is extremely important for the Bolsheviks to weaken that nationalism, which alone can break its neck - dismantling begins key element all-Russian nationalism, the concept of a triune Russian nation, uniting Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians. This trinity explained what the Great Russian people were, suggesting the denial of Ukrainianness and Belarusianness as separate national organisms.

In Belarus, in general, it is very clear that large territories are being annexed to it (for example, the Vitebsk region), which by that time were already so Russified, that local people there actively protested against being annexed to Belarus, because they had previously been in composition of the RSFSR.

The era of indigenization is coming - replacing the Russian language with the languages of national minorities in administration, education and the sphere of culture. The roots were not so much sought out as planted. Remember Blok’s “Let’s fire a bullet into Holy Rus'”... Every new newspaper in the Ukrainian language, every new school translated into Ukrainian as the language of instruction, every new official who is forced to switch to “readna language” in his office work is a bullet into opportunity great power restoration.

When planting, various seedlings are used - preparations of poetic Ukrainian nationalism of the 19th century, things prepared by the Austrians on the eve of and during the First World War, manifestations of nationalism, civil soldiers who grew up in chaos, etc.

The root beginstheization of the state apparatus and the party. Ukrainianization of personnel. The Ukrainian language is being established as the state language.

Stanislav Kosior called on the communists: “At meetings, meetings, when meeting with comrades, speak only Ukrainian.”

Here fromState Archive of Lugansk Region:“To confirm that only persons who speak the Ukrainian language can be accepted for service, and those who do not speak can be accepted only in agreement with the District Commission for Ukrainization.”

The bearers of Great Russian chauvinism - or russianism, if we were talking about officials - are a very important object of Ukrainization. In fact, in this way, a class ally of the Soviet government was formed from national nominees against the old bureaucracy, which seemed to be a counter-revolutionary element

Everything and everyone was Ukrainianized: the press, schools, universities, theaters, institutions, office work, stamps, signs, etc. For example, in Odessa, where Ukrainian students made up less than a third, all schools were Ukrainized. The Russian theater was practically destroyed. In 1930, there were only 3 large Russian-language newspapers left in Ukraine (one each in the cities of Odessa, Stalino and Mariupol).

Why did the entire famous “Odessa school” of Russian literature move to Moscow? One of the main reasons is the Ukrainization of Odessa. In the book “My Diamond Crown” there is a funny description of how the last of the company Kataev took Eduard Bagritsky out of “Odessa, which became a Ukrainian city.”

And “Ukrainian” began to mean not only nationality, but also party affiliation - everyone who dared to call himself a Little Russian or use the term “Little Russia” risked continuing his great-power activities in Siberia or Solovki.

That is why the head of the Bolshevik Party V.I. Lenin can be rightfully called the pope of Ukrainian nationalism than Mazepa, Petliura, Bandera, Grushevsky, etc.

Soon, April 22 is the birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The date is not round, and one might not remember it if not for two circumstances. The first is the wave of destruction of Lenin monuments that swept across Ukraine during Euromaidan. The second is an epidemic of patriotism, which is massively decimating the ranks of all kinds of leftists against the backdrop of events in Crimea and the South-East of Ukraine.

The hatred of Ukrainian nationalists for Lenin is rationally inexplicable, but objectively justified. Lenin is in fact the only major Russian pre-revolutionary politician who consistently defended the unconditional right of the Ukrainian people to create an independent state. And this is even in those days when the Ukrainian nationalists themselves had not even mentioned anything more than “cultural-national autonomy” within the Russian Empire, and, for example, Petlyura wrote jingoistic articles calling on Ukrainians to defend the integrity of the Russian empire and expressed the most ardent hopes that Ukrainians “will fulfill their duty as citizens of Russia in this difficult time to the end and not only on the battlefield, in the ranks of the battle army fighting against violators of world peace and law, but also as ordinary citizens, obliged, to the best of their strength and capabilities, to contribute to the successful fulfillment by the Russian army of the exclusively responsible task that has fallen to its lot.” Moreover, the fact remains that only under socialism did Ukraine exist as a historical phenomenon and develop successfully. Each time the Ukrainian nationalists came to power brought untold disasters to Ukraine and its people. This is why they hate him.

As for Great Russian patriotism, interpreted in the spirit of pride in the successes of its kings and bourgeoisie in suppressing other peoples, Lenin hated it with fierce hatred and castigated it as a betrayal of the homeland and the brotherhood of all the peoples of Russia.

Let's give the floor to Lenin himself.

From the work “On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination”

“Whether, for example, Ukraine is destined to form an independent state depends on 1000 factors not known in advance. And, without trying to “guess” in vain, we firmly stand on what is certain: Ukraine’s right to such a state. We respect this right, we do not support the privileges of the Great Russian over the Ukrainians, we educate the masses in the spirit of recognition of this right, in the spirit of denying state privileges of any nation.”

February-May 1914

From the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on Soviet power in Ukraine

Due to the fact that Ukrainian culture (language, school, etc.) was suppressed for centuries by tsarism and the exploiting classes of Russia, the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party imposes the duty of all party members by all means to contribute to the elimination of all obstacles to the free development of the Ukrainian language and culture. Since, on the basis of many centuries of oppression, nationalist tendencies are observed among the backward part of the Ukrainian masses, members of the Russian Communist Party are obliged to treat them with the greatest tolerance and caution, opposing them with a word of comradely explanation of the identity of interests of the working masses of Ukraine and Russia. Members of the RCP on the territory of Ukraine must actually implement the right of the working masses to study and communicate in all Soviet institutions in their native language, in every possible way resisting attempts by artificial means to relegate the Ukrainian language to the background, striving, on the contrary, to turn the Ukrainian language into an instrument of communist education of the working masses. Measures must be immediately taken to ensure that in all Soviet institutions there are a sufficient number of employees who speak Ukrainian, and that in the future all employees will be able to communicate in Ukrainian.

About the national pride of the Great Russians

How much they talk, interpret, and shout now about nationality, about the fatherland! The liberal and radical ministers of England, the abyss of “advanced” publicists of France (who turned out to be in complete agreement with the publicists of the reaction), the multitude of government, cadet and progressive (even some populist and “Marxist”) scribblers of Russia - all sing in a thousand ways about the freedom and independence of the “motherland” ", the greatness of the principle of national independence. It is impossible to make out where the corrupt praise of the executioner Nikolai Romanov or the torturers of blacks and the inhabitants of India ends here, where the common tradesman begins, due to stupidity or lack of character, going “with the flow.” And it doesn’t matter to disassemble it. We have before us a very broad and very deep ideological current, the roots of which are very firmly connected with the interests of the landowners and capitalists of the great-power nations. Tens and hundreds of millions a year are spent on the propaganda of ideas beneficial to these classes: a considerable mill, drawing water from everywhere, starting from the convinced chauvinist Menshikov and ending with the chauvinists due to opportunism or spinelessness, Plekhanov and Maslov, Rubanovich and Smirnov, Kropotkin and Burtsev.

Let us, Great Russian Social Democrats, try to determine our attitude to this ideological trend. It would be indecent for us, representatives of the great power nation of the far east of Europe and a good part of Asia, to forget about the enormous significance of the national question; - especially in a country that is rightly called the “prison of nations”; - at a time when it is in the far east of Europe and Asia that capitalism awakens to life and consciousness a whole series of “new”, large and small nations; - at a moment when the tsarist monarchy put millions of Great Russians and “foreigners” under arms in order to “solve” a whole series of national issues in accordance with the interests of the council of the united nobility and the Guchkovs with the Krestovnikovs, Dolgorukovs, Kutlers, Rodichevs.

Is the feeling of national pride alien to us, Great Russian conscious proletarians? Of course not! We love our language and our homeland, we work most of all to raise its working masses (i.e. 9/10 of its population) to the conscious life of democrats and socialists. It is most painful for us to see and feel the violence, oppression and mockery that the royal executioners, nobles and capitalists subject our beautiful homeland to. We are proud that these violence provoked resistance from among us, from among the Great Russians, that this environment brought forward Radishchev, the Decembrists, the raznochintsy revolutionaries of the 70s, that the Great Russian working class created a powerful revolutionary party of the masses in 1905, that the Great Russian peasant began at the same time becoming a democrat, he began to overthrow the priest and the landowner.

We remember how half a century ago the Great Russian democrat Chernyshevsky, devoting his life to the cause of the revolution, said: “a pitiful nation, a nation of slaves, from top to bottom - all slaves.” Overt and covert Great Russian slaves (slaves in relation to the tsarist monarchy) do not like to remember these words. And, in our opinion, these were words of true love for the motherland, love that yearns due to the lack of revolutionism among the masses of the Great Russian population. She wasn't there then. Now it is not enough, but it already exists. We are full of a sense of national pride, because the Great Russian nation also created a revolutionary class, also proved that it is capable of giving humanity great examples of the struggle for freedom and for socialism, and not just great pogroms, rows of gallows, dungeons, great hunger strikes and great servility to the priests, kings, landowners and capitalists.

We are full of a sense of national pride, and that is why we especially hate our slave past (when the landowners, the nobles, led men to war to strangle the freedom of Hungary, Poland, Persia, China) and our slave present, when the same landowners, aided by the capitalists, lead us to war" to strangle Poland and Ukraine, to suppress the democratic movement in Persia and China, to strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskys, Purishkeviches, which disgrace our Great Russian national dignity. No one is guilty if he was born a slave; but a slave who not only shuns the aspirations for his freedom, but justifies and embellishes his slavery (for example, he calls the strangulation of Poland, Ukraine, etc. “defense of the fatherland” of the Great Russians), such a slave is a lackey and boor who evokes a legitimate feeling of indignation, contempt and disgust.

“A people cannot be free if it oppresses other peoples,” said the greatest representatives of consistent democracy of the 19th century, Marx and Engels, who became teachers of the revolutionary proletariat. And we, Great Russian workers, full of a sense of national pride, want at all costs a free and independent, independent, democratic, republican, proud Great Russia, building its relations with its neighbors on the human principle of equality, and not on the feudal principle of privileges that humiliates a great nation . Precisely because we want it, we say: it is impossible in the 20th century, in Europe (even Far Eastern Europe), to “defend the fatherland” except by fighting with all revolutionary means against the monarchy, landowners and capitalists of your fatherland, i.e. the worst enemies of our homeland; - Great Russians cannot “defend the fatherland” except by desiring defeat in any war for tsarism, as the least evil for 9/10 of the population of Great Russia, for tsarism not only oppresses these 9/10 of the population economically and politically, but also demoralizes, humiliates, dishonors, prostitutes teaching him to oppress foreign peoples, teaching him to cover up his shame with hypocritical, supposedly patriotic phrases.

It may be objected to us that in addition to tsarism and under its wing, another historical force arose and strengthened, Great Russian capitalism, which is doing progressive work, centralizing economically and uniting vast areas. But such an objection does not justify, but even more strongly accuses our chauvinist socialists, who should be called Tsarist-Purishkevich socialists (as Marx called the Lassalleans Royal-Prussian socialists). Let us even assume that history will decide the issue in favor of Great Russian great-power capitalism against a hundred and one small nations. This is not impossible, for the entire history of capital is a history of violence and robbery, blood and dirt. And we are not necessarily supporters of small nations; We are certainly, other things being equal, for centralization and against the petty-bourgeois ideal of federal relations. However, even in this case, firstly, it is not our business, not the business of the democrats (not to mention the socialists) to help Romanov-Bobrinsky-Purishkevich strangle Ukraine, etc. Bismarck did in his own way, in the Junker way, a progressive historical cause , but it would be a good “Marxist” who, on this basis, would decide to justify socialist assistance to Bismarck! And besides, Bismarck helped economic development, uniting fragmented Germans who were oppressed by other peoples. And the economic prosperity and rapid development of Great Russia requires the liberation of the country from the violence of the Great Russians against other peoples - our admirers of truly Russian almost-Bismarcks forget this difference.

Secondly, if history decides the issue in favor of Great-Russian great-power capitalism, then it follows that the socialist role of the Great-Russian proletariat will be even greater, as the main engine of the communist revolution generated by capitalism. And for the revolution of the proletariat, a long-term education of the workers in the spirit of complete national equality and brotherhood is necessary. Therefore, from the point of view of interests exactly. of the Great Russian proletariat, a long-term education of the masses is necessary in the sense of the most decisive, consistent, courageous, revolutionary defense of complete equality and the right of self-determination of all nations oppressed by the Great Russians. The interest of the (not servilely understood) national pride of the Great Russians coincides with the socialist interest of the Great Russians (and all other) proletarians. Our model will remain Marx, who, after living for decades in England, became half-English and demanded freedom and national independence for Ireland in the interests of the socialist movement of English workers.

Our home-grown socialist chauvinists, Plekhanov and others. and so on, in the last and hypothetical case that we considered, they will turn out to be traitors not only to their homeland, a free and democratic Great Russia, but also to the proletarian brotherhood of all the peoples of Russia, that is, to the cause of socialism.

Letter to the workers and peasants of Ukraine regarding the victories over Denikin (fragment)

Capital is an international force. To defeat it, we need an international union of workers, an international brotherhood of them.

We are opponents of national enmity, national hatred, national isolation. We are internationalists, internationalists. We strive for close unification and complete fusion of the workers and peasants of all nations of the world into a single world Soviet republic.

Secondly, workers must not forget that capitalism has divided nations into a small number of oppressive, great-power (imperialist), full-fledged, privileged nations and the vast majority of oppressed, dependent and semi-dependent, unequal nations. The most criminal and reactionary war of 1914-1918 further strengthened this division and exacerbated anger and hatred on this basis. Over the centuries, indignation and distrust of nations that have no full rights and are dependent on great-power and oppressive nations have accumulated - nations like the Ukrainian one, nations like the Great Russian one.

We want a voluntary union of nations, a union that would not allow any violence by one nation over another, a union that would be based on complete trust, on a clear consciousness of fraternal unity, on completely voluntary consent. Such a union cannot be realized immediately; it must be worked out with the greatest patience and caution, so as not to spoil the matter, so as not to arouse distrust, so as to allow the distrust left by centuries of oppression of landowners and capitalists, private property and hostility due to its divisions and redistributions to be eliminated.

Therefore, steadily striving for the unity of nations, mercilessly pursuing everything that divides them, we must be very careful, patient, and compliant with the remnants of national mistrust. We must be uncompromising and irreconcilable towards everything that concerns the basic interests of labor in the struggle for its liberation from the yoke of capital. And the question of how to determine state borders now, for a while - because we are striving for the complete abolition of state borders - is not a fundamental, not important, secondary question. This question can and must wait, because national distrust among the broad mass of peasants and small owners is often extremely strong, and haste can strengthen it, that is, damage the cause of complete and final unity.

The experience of the workers' and peasants' revolution in Russia, the October-November Revolution of 1917, the experience of its two-year victorious struggle against the invasion of international and Russian capitalists showed more clearly than clear that the capitalists managed for a time to play on the national mistrust of Polish, Latvian, Estonian, Finnish peasants and small owners to the Great Russians, managed to temporarily sow discord between them and us on the basis of this mistrust. Experience has shown that this mistrust is eradicated and passes only very slowly, and the more caution and patience the Great Russians, who have long been an oppressor nation, show, the more surely this mistrust passes. It is by recognizing the independence of the states of Poland, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonia, and Finland that we are slowly but steadily winning the trust of the most backward, most deceived and downtrodden by capitalists, the working masses of neighboring small states. It is in this way that we are most likely to tear them away from the influence of “their” national capitalists, and most likely to lead them to complete trust, to the future united international Soviet Republic

Until Ukraine is completely liberated from Denikin, its government, until the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, is the All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee, the All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee16. In this Revolutionary Committee, along with the Ukrainian Bolshevik communists, Ukrainian Borotbist communists work as members of the government17. Borotbists differ from the Bolsheviks, by the way, in that they defend the unconditional independence of Ukraine. Because of this, the Bolsheviks do not make a subject of divergence and disunity; they do not see this as any obstacle to friendly proletarian work. There would be unity in the struggle against the yoke of capital, for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the communists should not diverge over the issue of national borders, federal or other connections between states. Among the Bolsheviks there are supporters of complete independence of Ukraine, there are supporters of more or less close federal ties, and there are supporters of the complete merger of Ukraine with Russia.

Because of these issues, discrepancies are not acceptable. These issues will be resolved by the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets.

If a Great Russian communist insists on the merger of Ukraine with Russia, Ukrainians will easily suspect him of defending such a policy not for reasons of the unity of the proletarians in the fight against capital, but for the prejudices of the old Great Russian nationalism and imperialism. Such distrust is natural, to a certain extent inevitable and legal, because for centuries Great Russians have absorbed into themselves, under the yoke of landowners and capitalists, the shameful and filthy prejudices of Great Russian chauvinism.

If a Ukrainian communist insists on the unconditional state independence of Ukraine, he can be suspected of defending such a policy not from the point of view of the temporary interests of Ukrainian workers and peasants in their struggle against the yoke of capital, but due to petty-bourgeois, small-scale national prejudices. For experience has shown us hundreds of times how petty-bourgeois “socialists” different countries- all sorts of supposedly socialists Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Georgian Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries and others - were repainted as supporters of the proletariat with the sole purpose of deceitfully pushing through a policy of compromise with “their” national bourgeoisie against the revolutionary workers. We saw this in the example of the Kerenskyism in Russia in February - October 1917, we saw and see this in all and every country.

Mutual distrust between Great Russian and Ukrainian communists thus arises very easily. How to deal with this mistrust? How to overcome it and gain mutual trust?

The best way to achieve this is joint work to defend the dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet power in the struggle against the landowners and capitalists of all countries, against their attempts to restore their omnipotence. Such a joint struggle will clearly show in practice that with any solution to the question of state independence or state borders, the Great Russian and Ukrainian workers necessarily need a close military and economic union, because otherwise the capitalists of the “Entente”, “Consent”, that is, the union of the richest capitalist countries , England, France, America, Japan, Italy, will crush and strangle us one by one. The example of our struggle against Kolchak and Denikin, who were supplied with money and weapons by these capitalists, clearly showed this danger.

Whoever violates the unity and closest union of the Great Russian and Ukrainian workers and peasants helps the Kolchaks, Denikins, and predatory capitalists of all countries.

Therefore, we, Great Russian communists, must with the greatest severity persecute in our midst the slightest manifestation of Great Russian nationalism, for these manifestations, being generally a betrayal of communism, bring the greatest harm, separating us from our Ukrainian comrades and thereby playing into the hands of Denikin and Denikinism.

Therefore, we, Great Russian communists, must be compliant in disagreements with the Ukrainian communist Bolsheviks and Borotbists, if the disagreements concern the state independence of Ukraine, the forms of its union with Russia, or the national question in general. We all must be unyielding and irreconcilable, Great Russian, Ukrainian, and any other nation communists, in relation to the basic, fundamental, issues of the proletarian struggle that are the same for all nations, issues of the proletarian dictatorship, preventing compromise with the bourgeoisie, preventing the fragmentation of the forces that defend us from Denikin.

To defeat Denikin, to destroy him, to make it impossible to repeat such an invasion - such is the fundamental interest of both the Great Russian and Ukrainian workers and peasants. The struggle is long and difficult, for the capitalists of the whole world are helping Denikin and will help all sorts of Denikins.

In this long and difficult struggle, we, the Great Russian and Ukrainian workers, must march in the closest alliance, because we probably cannot cope alone. Whatever the borders of Ukraine and Russia, whatever the forms of their state relations, this is not so important, in this it is possible and should make concessions, in this you can try this, that, and the third - from this it is up to the workers and peasants, the cause of victory over capitalism will not perish.

But if we fail to maintain the closest alliance among ourselves, an alliance against Denikin, an alliance against the capitalists and kulaks of our countries and all countries, then the cause of labor will probably perish for many years in the sense that both Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia will then be able to crush and strangle the capitalists.

Both the bourgeoisie of all countries, and all kinds of petty-bourgeois parties, “compromising” parties that allow an alliance with the bourgeoisie against the workers, tried most of all to divide workers of different nationalities, to incite mistrust, to disrupt the close international alliance and international brotherhood of workers. When the bourgeoisie succeeds in this, the workers' cause is lost. Let the communists of Russia and Ukraine, through patient, persistent, persistent joint work, defeat the nationalist machinations of every bourgeoisie, nationalist prejudices of every kind, and show the working people of the whole world an example of a truly strong alliance of workers and peasants of different nations in the struggle for Soviet power, for the destruction of the oppression of landowners and capitalists , for the world Federative Soviet Republic.