V. I.

Lenin

Coming to the aid of the muddled Mr. Mogilyansky, the editors of the liberal
Rech [1] recently (in issue No. 340) published an unsigned,
i. e., official and editorial statement on an important issue, namely, the
right of nations to self-determination.

Evading a direct answer, Mr. Mogilyansky had asserted that his views
had “nothing in common with the repudiation of the right of nations to
self-determination”. Now Rech officially declares that Clause 11
of the Constitutional-Democratic Party programme gives a “direct, precise
and clear answer to the question of the right to free cultural
self-determination”.

The word we have underlined is particularly important, since it was
not “cultural” self-determination that was discussed in
Mr. Mogilyansky’s first article, or in Mr. Dontsov’s reply to it, or in
Mr. Mogilyansky’s polemic with Mr. Dontsov. The question discussed was the
political self-determination of nations, i. e., the right of
nations to secede, whereas by “cultural self-determination” (a
meaningless, pompous phrase, which contradicts the entire history
of democracy) the liberals really mean only freedom of languages.

Rech now declares that Proletarskaya Pravda hopelessly confuses self-determination with “separatism”, with secession
by a nation.

Which side is revealing hopeless (or perhaps deliberate...) confusion?

Will our enlightened “Constitutional-Democrats” deny that, throughout
the entire history of international democracy, and especially since the middle of the nineteenth century,
self-determination of nations has been understood to mean precisely
political self-determination, i. e., the right to secede, to form
an independent national state?

Will our enlightened “Constitutional-Democrats” deny that the
International Socialist Congress held in London in 1896, in reaffirming the
established democratic principle (to which, of course, the Congress did not
confine itself) also had in mind political and not some sort of
“cultural” self-determination?

Will our enlightened “Constitutional-Democrats” deny that Plekhanov,
for example, who wrote about self-determination as far back as 1902,
thereby understood political self-determination?

Please, gentlemen, explain yourselves more clearly; do not conceal the
fruits of your “enlightenment” from the “mob”!

On the main issue Rech states:

“ Actually, the Cadets have never pledged themselves to advocate the right of ‘nations to secede’ from the Russian state .”

Splendid! Thank you for being so candid, and for making such an
explicit statement of principles! We draw the attention of
Rossiya , Novoye Vremya , Zemshchina , [2] and others, to this “most loyal” statement by
the Cadets’ semi-official organ!

But stay your ire, gentlemen of the Cadet Party, should you be called
national-liberals precisely for that reason. Herein lies one of
the root causes of your chauvinism and of your ideological and political
bloc with the Purishkeviches (or of your ideological and political
dependence upon them). The Purishkeviches and their class inculcate in the
ignorant masses the “firm” belief that it is “right” to “grab ’em and hold
’em ”. [3] The Cadets have studied history and know only too well what—to put it mildly—“pogrom-like” actions the
practice of this “ancient right” has often led to. A democrat could not
remain a democrat (let alone a proletarian democrat) without systematically
advocating, precisely among the Great-Russian masses and in the Russian
language, the “self-determination” of nations in the political amid not
in the “cultural” sense.

Always and everywhere the characteristic feature of national-liberalism
lies in its taking a stand entirely on the basis of relations (and
boundaries) determined by the Purishkevich class and protected (often to
the detriment of economic development and of “culture”) by Purishkevich
methods. In effect, this means adapting oneself to the interests of the
feudal-minded landlords and to the worst nationalist prejudices of the
dominant nation, instead of systematically combating those prejudices.