V. I.

Lenin

Last summer, Rech , the chief liberal newspaper in
Russia, published an article by Mr. Mikhail Mogilyansky on the All-Ukraine
Student Congress in Lvov. Rabochaya Pravda at the time pointed out
that Mr. Mogilyansky in a manner most reprehensible (for a democrat, or for
a man who poses as a democrat) showered abuse on the Ukrainian
separatism advocated by
Mr. Dontsov, [1] and others. We stated at once that the issue was not whether one agreed or
disagreed with Mr. Dontsov, whom many Ukrainian Marxists opposed, we said
it was impermissible to hurl such epithets at “separatism” as
“delirium” and adventurism. We said that this was a chauvinist approach,
and that in criticising any particular plan for secession, a Great-Russian
democrat must agitate for freedom to secede, for the right to secede.

As the reader will see, this is a question of principle, of programme,
and concerns the duties of democrats in general.

But now, six months later, Mr. Mikhail Mogilyansky again brings this
point up in Rech (No. 331) but does not reply to us; he replies to
Mr. Dontsov, who sharply attacked Rech in the Lvov newspaper
Shlyakhi [2] and incidentally pointed out that “ Rech ’s chauvinistic thrust was properly branded only in the
Russian Social-Democratic press”.

In replying to Mr. Dontsov, Mr. Mogilyansky states three times
that “criticism of Mr. Dontsov’s recipes does not imply repudiation of the right of nations to self-determination ”.

This statement by a contributor to the liberal Rech is extremely important and we invite our readers to pay particular attention to it. The more rarely the liberal gentlemen establish and
analyse the fundamental and material truths of democracy instead of
indulging in common political-oppositional scandal-mongering, the more
persistently must we call for a serious appraisal of every case in which
they do so.

Does our Constitutional-“Democratic” Party recognise the right of
nations to self-determination or not? This is the interesting question that
Mr. Mogilyansky inadvertently raises.

He thrice repeats his reservation, but he does not give a
straightforward answer to this question! He knows perfectly well that
neither the programme of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, nor its daily
political sermons (propaganda and agitation) provide a straightforward,
precise and clear answer to this question.

“ It must be said,” writes Mr. Mogilyansky, “that even the ‘right of nations to self-determination’ is not a fetish that must
never be criticised: the unhealthy conditions of life of a nation may
engender unhealthy tendencies in national self-determination; and to expose
the latter does not mean repudiating the right of nations to
self-determination.”

This is a beautiful example of a liberal evasion which the Semkovskys
repeat in different strains in the columns of the liquidators’ newspaper!
Oh, no, Mr. Mogilyansky, no democratic right is a “fetish”, and never
must the class content, for example, of any of them be forgotten. All general democratic demands are bourgeois-democratic demands;
but only anarchists and opportunists can deduce from this that it is not
the business of the proletariat to back these demands in the most
consistent manner possible.

The right to self-determination is one thing, of course, and
the expediency of self-determination, the secession of a given
nation under given circumstances, is another. This is elementary. But does
Mr. Mogilyansky, do Russian liberals, does the Constitutional-Democratic
Party admit that it is the duty of a democrat to preach to the
masses—particularly the Great-Russian masses—the great significance and
urgency of this right?

No, no, and no again. That is what Mr. Mogilyansky evades and
conceals. That is one of the roots of the nationalism and chauvinism of the Cadets—not only of Struve, Izgoyev and the
other outspoken Cadets, but also of the diplomats of the Cadet Party like
Milyukov, and the philistines of that party like.... But their names are
not important!

The class-conscious workers of Russia will not forget that in addition
to national reactionaries we have in this country national liberals, and
that the rudiments of national democracy are springing up (recall
Mr. Peshekhonov’s appeal in Russkoye Bogatstvo No. 8, 1906, for
“caution” concerning the nationalist prejudices of the Great Russian
muzhik).

Advocacy of the right to self-determination is very important in the
fight against the abscess of nationalism in all its forms.

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 266–67 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
Shlyakhi ( Paths )—nationalist organ of the Ukrainian
Students’ Union; it was published in Lvov from April 1913 to March 1914.