Note: from 23 IX 1913

P. LEPIKH.
THESES ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION.
46 9 of self-determination, does not contradict the exact meaning of the latter, and expresses the wish that the national question be included in the agenda
of the upcoming congress of the R.S.D.L.P. ».
7) Refers to the bloc of the Bund and the P.P.S. (Polish Socialist Party) with Jewish
bourgeois-nationalist elements, thanks to which in the Fourth State Duma, Yagello, a non-social
democrat, was elected from Warsaw against the votes of social-democratic voters.
8) By this time, P. Struve had descended into Black Hundred
nationalism and put forward the slogan "Great Russia" in his writings.
9) "Russian
Rumor" - a newspaper of the "Progressists," published in St. Petersburg by D. Protopopov.
10) "Progressists" - a group of deputies of the State Duma, who, according to their
political physiognomy, occupied a place between the Octobrists and the right-wing Cadets.
Its leader was I. N. Efremov, a deputy from the noble elders of the "Don Army."
11)
Narodowa
Democracy - a reactionary Polish party, relying on Polish industrialists and the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia.
Waged a fierce struggle against the labor movement.

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION. The Lenin Institute does not have
the originals of the letters to Shaumyan, but only copies taken
by the gendarmes during perlustrations. The copy of the first of these letters
was made by such an illiterate copyist, who confused phrases, that we considered it possible to make the corresponding
editorial changes, which make it possible to establish a text closer to the text of Vladimir Ilyich. The perlustrated copy of the second letter also suffers from a number of obvious
distortions of the text. For verification, we used (in view of the absence in Moscow of a corresponding copy of the "Izvestia Bak.
Sovetov") the book: S. G. Shaumyan. - Articles and speeches. Published by "Bak.
Rabochy"
1921, where this letter is reprinted (but also with obvious inaccuracies) and we give a synthetic text, in our opinion, closest to the text of Vladimir Ilyich.
LETTERS TO S. G. SHAUMYAN.
I.
Krakow.
August 11, 1913
Dear Comrade! Returning home, I found your letter.
Be sure to send more materials on the national question in the Caucasus (and Kostrov's article 1) and his books, reports
of delegates with translation into Russian, statistics of nationalities in the Caucasus and material on the attitude of nationalities in the Caucasus, in Persia, Turkey and Russia, in a word
everything that is and that you can collect, send). Since you,
unfortunately, cannot write yourself, I hope you can find someone
to instruct. Don't forget to also look for Caucasian comrades,
who could write articles about the national question in
the Caucasus.
Greetings and wishes for success. Yours V. Ilyich.
Do you know if the writer Goldenberg 2) still lives in Cherny-Yar,
or has he already finished his term?
How is his health, he seems to have been very sick. What is he like now?
I send you greetings and shake your hand firmly.
Have you been to Nizhny and seen any of our mutual acquaintances?

II. LENIN. ---- LETTERS TO S. G. SHAUMYAN.
47 11) Kostrov is the pseudonym of Noah Zhordania, the leader of the Caucasian Mensheviks, who later became the chairman of the Council of Ministers of Menshevik
Georgia.
Wrote a number of articles on the national question in the Georgian
Menshevik press.
2) I. I. Goldenberg (Meshkovsky) - one of the first propagandists of Marxism in Russia, was a member of the editorial boards of Bolshevik publications,
a member of the Central Committee of the party. By the time of the war, he took a defensist position, spoke out against Lenin's famous "theses" in April 1917.
Subsequently, he returned to the Bolsheviks.
He died in 1922. In 1912-13 was in exile in Cherny Yar, Astrakhan province.
II.
Krakow.
November 23, 1913
Dear friend. I was very glad to receive your letter of November 15.
You should know that in my position I terribly value the feedback
of comrades from Russia, especially thoughtful and engaged in
this issue.
Your quick answer was therefore particularly pleasant to me.
You feel less detached when you receive such letters.
But - enough lyrics.
I'm getting down to business.
1.
You are for a state language in Russia.
It is "necessary; it has had and will have a major progressive
significance."
I strongly disagree.
I wrote about this a long time ago in "Pravda" *)
and I haven't encountered any refutation yet.
Your argument does not convince me at all - on the contrary.
The Russian language has had progressive significance for a mass of small and backward nations - indisputably.
But don't you see that it would have progressive significance to an even greater extent,
if there was no coercion?
So, doesn't "state language" mean a stick, beating away from the Russian language?
How do you not want to understand that psychology, which is especially important in the national question
and which, with the slightest coercion, defiles, makes mischief, nullifies
the indisputable progressive significance of centralization, a single language, large states?
But economics are even more important than psychology: Russia already has a capitalist economy,
making the Russian language necessary.
And you don't believe in the power

LENINIST COLLECTION.
of economics and want to prop up economics with the crutches of police rabble?
Don't you see that in doing so you disfigure the economy, slow it down?
Wouldn't the falling away of the lousy police state increase tenfold (a thousandfold) the free unions for the protection and
dissemination of the Russian language?
No, I absolutely disagree with you and accuse you of *Königlichen-preußischen Sozialismus* **)..
2. You are against autonomy.
You are only for regional self-government. I strongly disagree. Remember Engels' explanations3),
that centralization does not at all exclude local "freedoms". Why
does Poland have autonomy, but not the Caucasus, the South, or the Urals?
After all, the limits of autonomy are determined by the central parliament.
We are for democratic centralism, absolutely.
We are against Federation. We are for the Jacobins against the Girondists. But to be afraid of autonomy in Russia... forgive me, that's ridiculous.
That's reactionary. Give me an example, invent an example, where autonomy can become
harmful.
You won't give one.
And the narrow interpretation: only self-government - in Russia (and in Prussia) is in the hands of the vile police state.
3. "The right to self-determination does not only mean the right to
secession.
It also means the right to federal association, the right to autonomy," you write.
I absolutely disagree.
It does not mean the right to Federation.
Federation is a union of equals, a union requiring common consent. How can there be
the right of one party to the consent of the other party?
That's absurd. We are in principle against Federation - it weakens
economic ties, it is a poor type for a single state.
Do you want to secede?
Go to the devil, if you can break the economic ties, or rather, if the oppression and friction
of "cohabitation" are such that they spoil and ruin the cause of economic ties.
Don't you want to secede?
Then sorry, don't decide for me, don't think that you have a "right" to Federation.
"The right to autonomy"? Again incorrect.
We are for autonomy for all parts, we are for the right to secession (but not for the secession
of all).
Autonomy is our plan for organizing a democratic state.
Secession is not our plan at all.
We
do not preach secession at all.
In general, we are against secession, but we stand for the right to secession in view of the Black Hundred Great Russian nationalism, which has so defiled the cause of national
coexistence, that sometimes more ties will result after free secession.