J. V.

Stalin

The Question of the

Union of the
Independent
National Republics
Interview With a Pravda Correspondent

November 18, 1922

Source : Works, Vol. 5, 1921 - 1923

Publisher : Foreign Languages Publishing House,
Moscow, 1954
Transcription/Markup : Salil Sen for MIA, 2008
Public Domain : Marxists Internet Archive (2008).
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Interviewed by our correspondent on

questions concerning the formation of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,
Comrade Stalin gave the following
1
explanations :

Who initiated the movement for the union of the

independent republics?

—The republics themselves initiated the

movement. About three months ago, leading
circles of the Trans-caucasian republics already
raised the question of forming a united economic
front of Soviet Socialist Republics and of uniting
them in a single union state. The question was then
put before wide Party meetings in some districts of
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia and, as is evident
from the resolutions that were passed, it roused
unprecedented enthusiasm. At about the same
time the question of union was raised in the
Ukraine and in Byelorussia, and there too, as in
Transcaucasia, it roused marked enthusiasm
among wide Party circles.

These facts are indubitable evidence of the

vitality of the movement and show that the
question of uniting the republics has certainly
matured.

What gave rise to the movement; what are its

basic motives?

—The motives are chiefly economic. Assistance

to peasant farming, the raising of industry,
improving means of transport and communication,
financial questions, questions concerning
concessions and other economic agreements, joint
action in foreign markets as buyers or sellers of
commodities—such are the questions that gave rise
to the movement for the formation of a Union of
Republics. The exhaustion of the internal
economic resources of our republics as a result of
the Civil War, on the one hand, and the absence of
any considerable influx of foreign capital, on the
other, have created a situation in which none of
our Soviet republics is in a position to restore its
national economy by its own unaided efforts. This
circumstance makes itself specially felt now when
for the first time since the termination of the Civil
War the Soviet republics have set to work in
earnest to solve their economic problems, and
here, in the course of this work, have, for the first
time, realised the utter inadequacy of the isolated
efforts of the individual republics, and how utterly
inevitable is the combination of those efforts and
the economic union of the republics as the sole way
of really restoring industry and agriculture.

But in order really to combine the economic

efforts of the individual republics to the degree of
uniting them in a single economic union, it is
necessary to set up appropriate permanently
functioning Union bodies capable of directing the
economic life of these republics along one definite
road. That is why the old economic and
commercial treaties between these republics have
now proved to be inadequate. That is why the
movement for a Union of Republics has outgrown
these treaties and has brought up the question of
uniting the republics.

Do you think that this trend towards unity is an

entirely new phenomenon, or has it a history?

—The movement for uniting the independent

republics is not something unexpected and
"unprecedented." It has a history. This unification
movement has already passed through two phases
of its development and has now entered the third.

The first phase was the period 1918-21, the

period of intervention and civil war, when the
existence of the republics was in mortal danger,
and when the republics were compelled to combine
their military efforts in order to defend their
existence. That phase culminated in the military
union, the military alliance of the Soviet republics.

The second phase was at the end of 1921 and

beginning of 1922, the period of Genoa and The
Hague, when the Western capitalist powers,
disappointed in the efficacy of intervention,
attempted to secure the restoration of capitalist
property in the Soviet republics not by military but
by diplomatic means, when a united diplomatic
front of the Soviet republics was the inevitable
means by which alone they could withstand the
onslaught of the Western powers. On this ground
arose the well-known agreement between the eight
independent friendly republics and the
R.S.F.S.R., 2 concluded before the opening of the
Genoa Conference, which cannot be called
anything else than the diplomatic union of the
Soviet republics. Thus ended the second phase, the
phase of the diplomatic union of our republics.

Today, the movement for uniting the national

republics has entered the third phase, the phase of
economic union. It is not difficult to understand
that the third phase is the culmination of the two
preceding phases of the movement for unification.

Does it follow from this that the union of the

republics will end in re-union with Russia, in
merging with her, as is happening with the Far
Eastern Republic?

—No. It does not! There is a fundamental

difference between the Far Eastern Republic 3 and
the above-mentioned national republics:

a) whereas the former was

established artificially (as a
buffer), for tactical reasons (it
was thought that the
bourgeois-democratic form
would serve as a reliable
guarantee against the
imperialist designs of Japan
 and other powers) and not at
all on a national basis, the
latter, on the contrary, arose as
the natural result of the
development of the respective
nationalities, and have chiefly
a national basis;

b) whereas the Far Eastern

Republic can be abolished
without in the least harming
the national interests of the
predominant population (for
they are Russians, like the
majority of the population of
Russia), the abolition of the
national republics would be a
piece of reactionary folly,
calling for the abolition of the
non-Russian nationalities,
their Russification, i.e., a piece
of reactionary fanaticism that
would rouse the protest even
of obscurantist Russian
chauvinists like the Black-
Hundred member Shulgin.

This explains the fact that as soon as the Far

Eastern Republic became convinced that the
bourgeois-democratic form was useless as a
guarantee against the imperialists, it was able to
abolish itself and become a constituent part of
Russia, a region, like the Urals or Siberia, without
a Council of People's Commissars or Central
Executive Committee, whereas the national
republics, which are built on an entirely different
basis, cannot be abolished, cannot be deprived of
their Central Executive Committees and Councils
of People's Commissars, of their national b ases, as
long as the nationalities which gave rise to them
exist, as long as the national languages, culture,
manner of life, habits and customs exist. That is
why the union of the national Soviet republics into
a single union state cannot end in their reunion,
their merging, with Russia.

What, in your opinion, should be the character

and form of the union of the republics into a single
Union?

—The character of the union should be

voluntary, exclusively voluntary, and every
national republic should retain the right to secede
from the Union. Thus, the voluntary principle must
be made the basis of the Treaty on the Formation
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The parties to the treaty of union are: the

R.S.F.S.R. (as an integral federal unit), the
Transcaucasian Federation4 (also as an integral
federal unit), the Ukraine and Byelorussia.
Bukhara and Khorezm,5 not being Socialist, but
only People's Soviet Republics, may, perhaps,
remain outside of the union until their natural
development converts them into Socialist
Republics.

The supreme organs of the Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics are: the Union Central
Executive Committee, to be elected by the
constituent republics of the Union with
representation in proportion to population; and
the Union Council of People's Commissars, to be
elected by the Union Central Executive Committee,
as its executive organ.

The functions of the Union Central Executive

Committee are: to draw up the fundamental
guiding principles of the political and economic life
of the republics and federations constituting the
Union.

The functions of the Union Council of People's

Commissars are:

a) direct and undivided control

of the military affairs, foreign
affairs, foreign trade, railways,
and posts and telegraphs of
the Union;

b) leadership of the activities

of the Commissariats of
Finance, Food, National
Economy, Labour, and State
Inspection of the republics and
federations constituting the
Union; the Commissariats of
Internal Affairs, Agriculture,
Education, Justice, Social
Maintenance, and Public
Health of these republics and
federations are to remain
under the undivided and direct
control of these republics and
federations.

Such, in my opinion, should be the general form

of union in the Union of Republics, so far as it can
be perceived in the movement for the union of the
national republics.

Some people are of the opinion that in addition

to the two Union organs (Central Executive
Committee and Council of People's Commissars) it
is necessary to set up a third Union organ, an
intermediary one, an Upper Chamber, so to speak,
in which all the nationalities should be equally
represented; but there can be no doubt that this
opinion will not meet with any sympathy among
the national republics, if only for the reason that a
two-chamber system, with an Upper Chamber, is
incompatible with the structure of the Soviet
system, at all events in its present stage of
development.

How soon, in your opinion, will the Union of

Republics be formed, and what will be its
international significance?

—I think that the day of the formation of the

Union of Republics is not far off. It is quite
possible that the formation of the Union will
coincide with the forthcoming convocation of the
Tenth Congress of Soviets of the R.S.F.S.R.

As for the international significance of this

Union, it scarcely needs special explanation. If the
military alliance of the Soviet republics in the
period of the Civil War enabled us to repulse the
military intervention of our enemies, and the
diplomatic alliance of those republics in the period
of Genoa and The Hague facilitated our struggle
against the diplomatic onslaught of the Entente,
the union of the Soviet republics in a single union
state will undoubtedly create a form of all-round
military and economic co-operation that will
greatly facilitate the economic progress of the
Soviet republics and convert them into a citadel
against attacks by international capitalism.

Pravda, No. 261, November 18, 1922

Notes
1. J. V. Stalin headed the commission set up by the
Plenum of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.)
on October 6, 1922, to draft the Bill for uniting the
R.S.F.S.R., the Ukrainian S.S.R., the
Transcaucasian Federation and the Byelorussian
S.S.R. into a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
This commission directed all the preparations for
the First Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R.

2. This refers to the agreement signed in Moscow

on February 22, 1922, by the plenipotentiary
representatives of the independent republics of
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Byelo-russia, the
Ukraine, Khorezm, Bukhara, the Far Eastern
Republic and the R.S.F.S.R., authorising the
R.S.F.S.R. to represent these republics at the
European economic confer- ence in Genoa.

3. The Far Eastern Republic included the Pribaikal,

the Trans-baikal, the Amur Region, and the
Maritime Province, Kamchatka, and the northern
part of Sakhalin. It existed from April 1920 to
November 1922.

4. The Transcaucasian Federation—the Federative

Union of Socialist Soviet Republics of
Transcaucasia, was founded on March 12, 1922, at
a plenipotentiary conference of represent- atives of
the Central Executive Committees of Georgia,
Azer- baijan and Armenia. In December 1922, the
Federative Union was transformed into the
Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet
Republic (T.S.F.S.R.). The Transcaucasian
Federation existed until 1936. In conformity with
the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. adopted in 1936,
the Armenian, Azerbaijanian and Georgian Soviet
Socialist Republics entered the U.S.S.R. as Union
Republics. (Concerning the Transcaucasian
Federation, see this volume, pp. 231-36, 256-62.)
5.The Bukhara and Khorezm People's Soviet
Republics were formed in 1920 as a result of the
successful people's insurrections in the former
Khanates of Bukhara and Khiva. At the end of 1924
and beginning of 1925, as a result of the
demarcation of states in Central Asia on a national
basis, the territory of the Bukhara and Khorezm
Republics became part of the newly formed
Turkmenian and Uzbek Union Soviet Socialist
Republics, the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist
Republic and the Kara-Kalpak Autonomous
Region.