Sultan-Galiev was arrested in the spring of 1923. For the first time the political police were brought into a dispute among Communists, and for the first time a prominent party figure was arrested for his views. At the June 1923 conference on nationality questions Stalin explained the reasons for the arrest of his former associate in the Commissariat of Nationalities. The GPU had allegedly intercepted secret, seditious correspondence by Sultan-Galiev.133 The Tatar dissident was freed not long after his first arrest but was rearrested in 1929. He died in the 1930s at a time and place unknown. The term Sultan-Galievism continued to be used as a weapon against all nationalist deviations and was among the charges brought against the defendants in the Moscow trials of 1936—1938. The arrest of Sultan- Galiev and the condemnation of Sultan-Galievism in the summer of 1923 was for Stalin a way of avenging a defeat he had suffered earlier on the question of the draft constitution for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In August 1922 the commission assigned by the Central Committee to draft a constitution for a union of the Soviet republics and headed by Stalin came up with a draft proposing the "autonomization" of the other Soviet republics; that is, they should all become part of the RSFSR but retain their "autonomy" within it. The first clause in this "Draft Resolution on Relations Between the RSFSR and the Independent Republics" proposed: 'That a treaty be concluded between the Soviet republics of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and the RSFSR concerning the formal incorporation of the former into the RSFSR, leaving open the question of Bukhara, Khorezm, and the Far Eastern Republic."134
Lenin categorically opposed Stalin's "autonomization" plan. He regarded it as a crude and undisguised violation of the party's nationalities policy and of its central principle, the right of nationals to self-determination. In his view it would provoke major conflicts that could only weaken the Soviet cause. On October 6, 1922, the Central Committee approved a new draft rewritten along lines favored by Lenin, entitled, "On the Relations Between the Sovereign United Republics." Its first clause stated: "It is deemed necessary that a treaty be concluded between the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Federation of Transcaucasian Republics, and the RSFSR unifying them into a single Union of Socialist Soviet Republics while reserving to each the right to secede freely from this Union."135
Lenin's "federalization" plan won out over Stalin's "autonomization." But in the meantime Stalin had succeeded in partially neutralizing the Caucasian republics, especially Georgia, by pushing through the formation of the Transcaucasian Federation, which was placed under the authority of the Transcaucasian Bureau (Zakburo) of the party, headed by Ordzhonikidze, the conqueror of Georgia and one of Stalin's cronies. The discussion that followed the Central Committee's approval of Lenin's plan showed that even "federalization" did not receive support everywhere, because it did not guarantee genuine sovereignty. While the constitution of the USSR was being worked out, the Central Committee's position was frequently criticized.136
The nationality question was discussed freely for the last time at the Twelfth Party Congress in April 1923. Lenin had been impaired by illness through much of 1922. Nevertheless, at the end of 1922 and the beginning of 1923 he made preparations for an open attack on Stalin and his henchmen at the upcoming party congress, intending to call for a sharp condemnation of their actions. To Lenin, Ordzhonikidze's behavior in Georgia was evidence of a severe crisis in the party over the nationality question. In the heat of an argument Ordzhonikidze, the representative of the Russian party's Central Committee, had slapped a member of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist party. Lenin did not wish to look at the real reason for the failure of the party's nationalities policy, it being the inevitable result of a state where autocratic power was in the hands of a dictatorially centralized party.
For Lenin the "intrigues of the class enemy" were behind the conflict, the "bourgeois elements" that were filling up and defiling the state apparatus. The countermeasures that Lenin wished to present to the Twelfth Party Congress amounted to nothing more than the strengthening of the party's control over the machinery of state and government officialdom. However, Ordzhonikidze himself was a leading member of the party's institutions of control. Lenin intended to propose other measures as well, including a "code of conduct" for Communists assigned to work in areas populated by minority nationalities. All of these measures were aimed directly against Stalin, but Lenin's illness prevented him from speaking at the congress. He entrusted all his materials on the nationality question to
Trotsky, asking him to speak against Stalin in defense of the Georgian Communists and to present Lenin's view.
Trotsky could not make up his mind to speak at the congress. It was Rakovsky, one of Trotsky's closest collaborators, who spoke against Stalin's policy. He warned that unless the necessary corrections were made, the mishandling of the nationality question could lead to a civil war. Stalin refuted the arguments of all his critics with little effort. As ever, he stood firmly on Marxist principles. He defended a strong, centralized state and the leading role of the party in all spheres of life. He pointed out that the political base of the proletarian dictatorship was necessarily located in the central industrial regions, not in the outlying areas, with their predominantly peasant population. In other words, the Russian Republic had to have primacy over the national republics. Stalin supported his arguments with numerous quotations from Lenin. He questioned Lenin's argument that it was better to be overly indulgent toward the national minorities than to overdo things in the opposite direction. Stalin argued that it was never good to overdo.
On July 6, 1923, the Central Executive Committee formally approved the Constitution of the USSR. On January 31, 1924, ten days after Lenin's death, the constitution was ratified by the Eleventh Congress of Soviets.
In September 1924 the people's republics of Khorezm and Bukhara "dissolved themselves" and were absorbed by the Uzbek, Turkmen, and Tadzhik republics. Earlier, in November 1922, the Far Eastern Republic had "dissolved itself" to join the RSFSR.
The Constitution of the USSR did not go into effect until 1924, but the fundamental principles of Soviet nationalities policy, the principles of the centralized Soviet state, had been laid down long before. Zinoviev expressed them clearly and concisely as early as 1919, when he proclaimed the natural resources of the non-Russian republics—Azerbaijani cotton and Turkestani cotton, for example—indispensable to the new state. Unlike their predecessors, however, the Soviets would be imparting civilization when they came.
LENIN'S MANTLE
On May 25—26, 1922, Lenin suffered a stroke. His right side was paralyzed and he lost the power of speech. Not until October 2 did he gradually begin to resume work. On December 13 a second stroke put him almost entirely out of commission. From then until March 9, 1923, when a third stroke turned him into a living corpse (that survived for another eleven months), Lenin could do nothing more than think, dictate his thoughts for a few minutes each day, and hope that his advice would be taken by his cohorts and disciples.
Lenin used those last weeks of conscious life for a desperate effort to work out some formulas that he hoped would cure the serious disorders he had discovered in the party and the state after he had fallen ill. When he saw that his own death was imminent and inevitable, he offered his last advice on how he should be replaced as head of the party and the state. The struggle for Lenin's mantle, to use the expression common at the time, began with the first signs of his illness. The structure of the party's governing bodies limited the number of candidates. Formally speaking, the highest body of the party was its congress, which was held once a year every year from 1917 through 1925. Between congresses the party was led by the Central Committee. In 1919 a Political Bureau (better known by its short form, Politburo) was elected for the first time. Power within the party was concentrated in the Politburo. At the same time there existed a Secretariat, in charge of day-to-day affairs, and an Organization Bureau, the Orgburo, which handled organizational matters.