In four years of Civil War, we were obliged to display liberalism towards the republics. As a result, we helped to form hard-line ‘social-independentists’ among them, who regard the Central Committee’s decisions as simply being Moscow’s. If we do not transform them into ‘autonomies’ immediately, the unity of the soviet republics is a lost cause. We are now busy bothering about how not to offend these nationalities. But if we carry on like this, in a year’s time we’ll be verging on the break-up of the party.
In his text, Stalin reiterated the main lines of his ‘autonomization’ project. He did not anticipate Lenin’s reaction.
The least that can be said is that Lenin was not content with Stalin’s memorandum; he sensed trouble. In a note to Kamenev dated 26 September 1922, he asked the latter to examine the proposals for the integration of the republics into the Russian Federation. He had already discussed the issue with Sokolnikov, would be seeking a meeting with Stalin, and was tomorrow seeing Mdivani, the Georgian leader accused of the deviation of ‘independentism’ (nezavisimstvo) by Stalin’s supporters. He added that in his view, ‘Stalin tends to rush things too much’, and that amendments would be required. Lenin had already sent some to Stalin and the latter had accepted the first and most important of them, replacing his formula – ‘joining the Russian Federation’ – by Lenin’s – ‘a formal unification with the Russian Federation in a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of Europe and Asia’. And Lenin explained: we must not destroy their independence; we must construct a higher tier, consisting in a federation of independent republics enjoying equal rights. There were further amendments Lenin wanted to discuss with Stalin and he also wished to meet with other leaders. The amendments he had proposed thus far were just preliminary; more would be sent out to all members of the Politburo. This note was simply a first draft: after discussing matters with Mdivani and other leaders, he would suggest new changes. But he requested that the text in its current form be communicated to the whole Politburo.
Stalin’s reaction to Lenin’s proposals was acerbic. In a note he sent to members of the Politburo on 27 September 1922, he professed himself in agreement with the changes to paragraph one suggested by Lenin. He had no choice. But he rejected all the others with snide remarks like ‘premature’, ‘absurd’, ‘pointless’, and so on. He sought to turn the accusation of undue haste back against Lenin: ‘His haste risks encouraging the independentists’ and demonstrated the error of Lenin’s ‘national liberalism’. The argument is not very coherent. Stalin was furious because he had to retreat from his project of ‘autonomization’. Unable to contain himself, he sought to retrieve the initiative by pointing to a ‘deviation’ (‘national liberalism’) that could rally his own supporters against Lenin. Defeat was not something that Stalin could easily live with. But it was just around the corner.
In an exchange of notes between Kamenev and Stalin during a Politburo meeting on 28 September 1922, Kamenev scribbled that Lenin had ‘decided to go to war on the issue of independence’ and had asked him to ‘go to Tbilisi to meet the leaders offended by Stalin’s supporters’. In response Stalin wrote: ‘We should get tough with Hitch [Lenin]. If a few Georgian Mensheviks can influence some Georgian Communists, who in turn influence Lenin, one can ask: what does all this have to do with “independence”?’ But Kamenev warned him: ‘I think that if V. I. [Lenin] persists, opposing him [Kamenev’s emphasis] would only make things worse.’
What was Kamenev up to? Was he not being duplicitous in doing Lenin’s bidding, while informing Stalin? Or did he think that Lenin would not be around much longer?
Stalin responded to the last note as follows: ‘I don’t know. Let him do as he sees fit.’ This was a practice in which Stalin excelled: manoeuvring to present his retreat in the best possible light. He wrote to all members of the Politburo to inform them that ‘a slightly abridged, more precise version’ was in the process of being prepared, and that he and his committee on relations between the republics would be submitting it to the Politburo. But the revised text was Lenin’s: all the republics (including Russia) were joining to form a common Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but retained the right to leave it. This state’s highest body was to be the ‘Union Executive Committee’, on which all republics would be represented in proportion to their populations. This Committee would nominate a Union Council of Commissars.
Since Stalin’s game is what interests us here, we shall not linger over the details of the government constitution. Compelled to give way on his project of autonomy, Stalin did not give up on attaining his main objective by roundabout means, manipulating the language that defined the prerogatives of the Moscow-based future commissariats (i.e. ministries) so as to nip any desire for independence in the bud, whatever the constitutional niceties. For their part, the republics were all too aware of what was at stake: without proper, clearly stated constitutional guarantees, the ministries based in Moscow would in fact be in the hands of the Russian Federation or, in plain language, in Russian hands.
This point was broached in a lengthy memorandum to Stalin from Christian Rakovsky, the head of the Ukrainian government, on 28 September 1922. In essence, this is what he said: Your draft refers to independent republics deferring to the centre. But it says nothing about their own republican rights, executive committees, or councils of commissars. The new nationalities policy would deal a blow to efforts to revive local economies, since it would significantly hamper their room for initiative. They had no material means and were being deprived of the rights required to develop their wealth and acquire what they currently lacked.
While Rakovsky appreciated the need for a federal government that was in a position to act, he thought that this could be achieved provided republican interests were secured by clearly formulated rights. He saw in Stalin’s proposals not so much the project of a federation as the liquidation of the republics. This, he thought, could only harm the USSR internally and internationally. Lenin had the same concerns and was now ready for a fight. It was the so-called ‘Georgian incident’ that sounded the final alarm in his mind.
During the Georgian Central Committee’s struggle against forcible incorporation into the Transcaucasian Federation, Stalin’s irascible representative Ordzhonikidze had slapped one of the Georgian leaders.[2] Following this incident, the Georgian Central Committee collectively resigned, while vigorously criticizing the new project for the USSR in its entirety. There was a danger of the affair turning into a prolonged scandal. Lenin initially misunderstood what had occurred, but he rapidly made inquiries and learned that Stalin had sent Dzerzhinsky, accompanied by two other non-Russians, to investigate the conflict. Stalin’s envoys sided unambiguously with Ordzhonikidze. Deeply disturbed by this incident, Lenin arrived at the conclusion that on the national question Stalin and his associates were behaving as ‘representatives of a domineering great power’ (velikoderzhavniki) – the term used by Lenin, but possibly inspired by the Georgians who were in constant touch with him. On 6 October 1922 he wrote a letter to Kamenev that began half-jokingly and ended in deadly earnest: ‘I am declaring war on great-Russian chauvinism: it is necessary to insist absolutely that the Union’s Central Executive Committee be chaired in turn by a Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, etc. Absolutely.’
2
The episode is described more fully in Lenin’s