APPOINTMENT OF THE COMMISSIONER FOR POLISH AFFAIRS.
DRAFT RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’S COMMISSARS.
December 7 (November 21), 1917]
In view of the fact that Leshchinsky¹ is being appointed as commissioner—according to the certification provided by Comrade Dzerzhinsky—not in any capacity as a partisan of a single Polish party (SD 1. P. and L.)—that, by the same certification, he will act entirely free from partisan considerations— that he enjoys the trust of the vast majority of Polish refugees and will pursue the interests of this mass against the Polish bourgeoisie—let Comrade Leshchinsky be appointed Commissioner for Polish Affairs, under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, as Commissioner for National Affairs².
1. M. Leshchinsky (Lensky), born in 1889, was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania since 1900. In 1913, he served as the leader of the Warsaw organization of the “Rozlamovtsy.” That same year, he took part in an expanded meeting of the Central Committee in Poronin. He was a delegate to the April 1917 Conference. Prior to his appointment as Commissioner for Polish Affairs, he had been a member of the Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania, which was affiliated with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks).
£ The question of appointing Yu. M. Leshchinsky as Commissioner for Polish Affairs was first considered at a session of the Council of People’s Commissars on November 21, 1917. It was decided to “postpone consideration of the matter until the Council of People’s Commissars received detailed information on this issue.” This information was submitted by Comrade Dzerzhinsky, who, as a member of the Executive Committee of the SDPK and L., certified that Yu. M. Leshchinsky, despite his affiliation with the SDPK and L.—which, on the question of the right of nations to self-determination, adhered to the Luxembourgist position—would nonetheless pursue a Bolshevik line in national questions and would succeed in uniting the best revolutionary forces among the various other Polish revolutionary groupings, all under the banner of the October Revolution and Soviet power. The cautious wording of the resolution adopted by the Council of People’s Commissars, as proposed by Lenin regarding Leshchinsky’s appointment, was shaped by the complex political climate and the intense factional struggles that characterized the early period of the establishment of Soviet power.