# Draft Law on the Equality of Nations and the Protection of the Rights of National Minorities{74}
Source: PSS, Volume 25

1. The boundaries of Russia’s administrative divisions—whether rural or urban (villages, volosts, counties, gubernias, districts and subdistricts within cities, suburban areas, and the like)—shall be redrawn in light of contemporary economic conditions and the national composition of the local population.

2. Such delineation shall be carried out by commissions elected by the local population through universal, direct, equal, and secret ballot, with proportional representation. In cases where non‑national minorities are so small that they cannot elect even a single commissioner under proportional representation, they shall nonetheless have the right to elect a commissioner endowed with an advisory vote.

3. Final approval of the newly established boundaries rests with the central parliament of the state.

4. Local self‑government shall be instituted in every single locality throughout the state, based on universal, direct, equal, and secret ballot with proportional representation. Moreover, any group of localities characterized by distinct geographical, social, or economic conditions—or by a unique national composition of their populations—shall have the right to form autonomous regions, each equipped with its own autonomous regional sejm.

5. The demarcation of the jurisdictional scope of autonomous sejms and local self‑governing bodies shall rest with the central parliament of the state.

6. All nations within the state shall be absolutely equal in rights, and any privileges accorded to one nation or one language shall be deemed unacceptable and unconstitutional.

7. Local self‑governing bodies and autonomous sejms shall determine the language in which all official and public institutions within a given locality or region conduct their affairs. Every non‑national minority shall have the right to demand the unconditional protection of its linguistic rights, grounded in the principle of equality—for example, the right to receive responses from state and public institutions in the very same language in which the original communication was made, and so forth. Any measures adopted by zemstvos, cities, and the like that infringe upon the linguistic equality of national minorities—whether in financial matters, administrative procedures, judicial processes, or any other sphere—shall be declared null and void and subject to revocation upon protest lodged by any citizen of the state, regardless of their place of residence.

8. Each self‑governing unit within the state—whether rural or urban—shall elect, through universal, equal, direct, and secret ballot with proportional representation, school councils that shall manage, in full autonomy and without external interference, expenditures for all cultural and educational needs of the local population, under the oversight and guidance of municipal and zemstvo institutions.

9. In territorial units whose population is ethnically heterogeneous, the number of members on school councils must not be fewer than 20. This minimum threshold (20) may be increased by resolution of the self‑governing units and autonomous sejms. Localities with a heterogeneous ethnic composition are defined as those in which non‑national minorities account for at least 5% of the total population.

10. Any national minority within a given self‑governing unit that is so small that it cannot elect a single member to the school council under proportional representation shall nevertheless have the right to elect a member to the school council who exercises an advisory vote.

11. The proportional share of funds allocated to the cultural and educational needs of non‑national minorities within a given locality must not be less than the proportional share of non‑national minorities in the total population of that locality.

12. Population censuses, taking into account the native languages of citizens, shall be conducted no less than once every ten years across the entire state, and no less than once every five years in regions and localities characterized by a heterogeneous national composition.

13. Any measures adopted by school councils that, in any respect, undermine the full equality of nations and languages among the local population, or that fail to ensure proportionality in expenditures for cultural and educational needs in accordance with the share of national minorities within the population, shall be declared null and void and subject to revocation upon protest lodged by any citizen of the state, regardless of their place of residence.

Written after May 6 (19), 1914.

First published in 1937 in Lenin’s Collected Works, Volume XXX.

Printed from manuscript.