V. I. Lenin

Draft Theses on

National and Colonial Questions

For The Second Congress Of The Communist

International [1]

In submitting for discussion by the Second
Congress of the Communist International the following draft theses
on the national and the colonial questions I would request all
comrades, especially those who possess concrete information on any
of these very complex problems, to let me have their opinions,
amendments, addenda and concrete remarks in the most concise form ( no mree than two or three pages ),
particularly on the following points:

Austrian experience; Polish-Jewish and Ukrainian experience;
Alsace-Lorraine and Belgium; Ireland; Danish-German, Italo-French and Italo-Slav relations;
Balkan experience; Eastern peoples; The struggle against Pan-Islamism;
Relations in the Caucasus; The Bashkir and Tatar Republics;
Kirghizia; Turkestan, its experience; Negroes in America;
Colonies; China-Korea-Japan.

N. Lenin

June 5, 1920

1) An abstract or formal posing of the problem of equality in
general and national equality in particular is in the very nature
of bourgeois democracy. Under the guise of the equality of the
individual in general, bourgeois democracy proclaims the formal or
legal equality of the property-owner and the proletarian, the
exploiter and the exploited, thereby grossly deceiving the
oppressed classes. On the plea that all men are absolutely equal,
the bourgeoisie is transforming the idea of equality, which is
itself a reflection of relations in commodity production, into a
weapon in its struggle against the abolition of classes. The real
meaning of the demand for equality consists in its being a demand
for the abolition of classes.

2) In conformity with its fundamental task of combating
bourgeois democracy and exposing its falseness and hypocrisy,
the Communist Party, as the avowed champion of the proletarian struggle to overthrow the bourgeois yoke, must
base its policy, in the national question too, not on abstract and formal principles but, first, on a precise
appraisal of the specific historical situation and, primarily, of economic conditions; second, on a clear
distinction between the interests of the oppressed classes,
of working and exploited people, and the general concept of
national interests as a whole, which implies the interests of
the ruling class; third, on an equally clear distinction
between the oppressed, dependent and subject nations and the
oppressing, exploiting and sovereign nations, in order to
counter the bourgeois-democratic lies that play down this
colonial and financial enslavement of the vast majority of
the world’s population by an insignificant minority of the richest and advanced capitalist countries, a feature
characteristic of the era of finance capital and imperialism.

3) The imperialist war of 1914-18 has very clearly revealed to
all nations and to the oppressed classes of the whole world the
falseness of bourgeois-democratic phrases, by practically
demonstrating that the Treaty of Versailles of the celebrated
“Western democracies” is an even more brutal and foul act of violence against weak nations than was the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk of the German Junkers and the Kaiser. The League of
Nations and the entire post war policy of the Entente reveal this
truth with even greater clarity and distinctness. They are
everywhere intensifying the revolutionary struggle both of the
proletariat in the advanced countries and of the toiling masses in
the colonial and dependent countries. They are hastening the
collapse of the petty-bourgeois nationalist illusions that nations
can live together in peace and equality under capitalism.

4) From these fundamental premises it follows that the
Communist International’s entire policy on the national and
the colonial questions should rest primarily on a closer union of
the proletarians and the working masses of all nations and
countries for a joint revolutionary struggle to overthrow the
landowners and the bourgeoisie. This union alone will guarantee
victory over capitalism, without which the abolition of national
oppression and inequality is impossible.

5) The world political situation has now placed the
dictatorship of the proletariat on the order of the day. World
political developments are of necessity concentrated on a single
focus—the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the
Soviet Russian Republic, around which are inevitably grouped, on
the one hand, the Soviet movements of the advanced workers in all
countries, and, on the other, all the national liberation
movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities,
who are learning from bitter experience that their only salvation
lies in the Soviet system’s victory over world imperialism.

6) Consequently, one cannot at present confine oneself to a
bare recognition or proclamation of the need for closer union
between the working people of the various nations; a policy must
be pursued that will achieve the closest alliance, with Soviet
Russia, of all the national and colonial liberation movements. The
form of this alliance should be determined by the degree of
development of the communist movement in the proletariat of each
country, or of the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement of the
workers and peasants in backward countries or among backward
nationalities.

7) Federation is a transitional form to the complete unity of
the working people of different nations. The feasibility of
federation has already been demonstrated in practice both by the
relations between the R.S.F.S.R. and other Soviet Republics (the
Hungarian, Finnish [2] and Latvian [3] in the past, and the
Azerbaijan and Ukrainian at present), and by the relations within
the R.S.F.S.R. in respect of nationalities which formerly enjoyed
neither statehood nor autonomy (e.g., the Bashkir and Tatar
autonomous republics in the R.S.F.S.R., founded in 1919 and 1920
respectively).

8) In this respect, it is the task of the Communist
International to further develop and also to study and test by
experience these new federations, which are arising on the basis
of the Soviet system and the Soviet movement. In recognising that
federation is a transitional form to complete unity, it is
necessary to strive for ever closer federal unity, bearing in
mind, first, that the Soviet republics, surrounded as they are by
the imperialist powers of the whole world—which from the
military standpoint are immeasurably stronger—cannot possibly continue to exist without the closest alliance; second,
that a close economic alliance between the Soviet republics is
necessary, otherwise the productive forces which have been ruined
by imperialism cannot be restored and the well-being of the
working people cannot be ensured; third, that there is a tendency
towards the creation of a single world economy, regulated by the
proletariat of all nations as an integral whole and according to a
common plan. This tendency has already revealed itself quite
clearly under capitalism and is bound to be further developed and
consummated under socialism.

9) The Communist International’s national policy in the
sphere of relations within the state cannot be restricted to the
bare, formal, purely declaratory and actually non-committal
recognition of the equality of nations to which the bourgeois
democrats confine themselves—both those who frankly admit
being such, and those who assume the name of socialists (such as
the socialists of the Second International).

In all their propaganda and agitation—both within parliament and outside it—the Communist parties must
consistently expose that constant violation of the equality of
nations and of the guaranteed rights of national minorities which
is to be seen in all capitalist countries, despite their
“democratic” constitutions. It is also necessary, first, constantly to explain that only the Soviet system is
capable of ensuring genuine equality of-nations, by uniting first
the proletarians and then the whole mass of the working population
in the struggle against the bourgeoisie; and, second, that all
Communist parties should render direct aid to the revolutionary
movements among the dependent and underprivileged nations (for
example, Ireland, the American Negroes, etc.) and in the
colonies.

Without the latter condition, which is particularly important,
the struggle against the oppression of dependent nations and
colonies, as well as recognition of their right to secede, are but
a false signboard, as is evidenced by the parties of the Second
International.

10) Recognition of internationalism in word, and its
replacement in deed by petty-bourgeois nationalism and pacifism,
in all propaganda, agitation and practical work, is very common,
not only among the parties of the Second International, but also
among those which have withdrawn from it, and often even among
parties which now call themselves communist. The urgency of the
struggle against this evil, against the most deep-rooted
petty-bourgeois national prejudices, looms ever larger with the
mounting exigency of the task of converting the dictatorship of
the proletariat from a national dictatorship (i.e., existing in a
single country and incapable of determining world politics) into
an international one (i.e., a dictatorship of the proletariat
involving at least several advanced countries, and capable of
exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a
whole). Petty-bourgeois nationalism proclaims as internationalism
the mere recognition of the equality of nations, and nothing
more. Quite apart from the fact that this recognition is purely
verbal, petty-bourgeois nationalism preserves national self-interest intact, whereas proletarian internationalism
demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in
any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that
struggle on a world-wide scale, and, second, that a nation which
is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and
willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow
of international capital.

Thus, in countries that are already fully capitalist and have
workers’ parties that really act as the vanguard of the
proletariat, the struggle against opportunist and petty-bourgeois
pacifist distortions of the concept and policy of internationalism
is a primary and cardinal task.

11) With regard to the more backward states and nations, in
which feudal or patriarchal and patriarchal-peasant relations
predominate, it is particularly important to bear in mind:

first, that all Communist parties must assist the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement in these countries, and
that the duty of rendering the most active assistance rests
primarily with the workers of the country the backward nation is
colonially or financially dependent on; second, the need for a struggle against the clergy and other
influential reactionary and medieval elements in backward
countries; third, the need to combat Pan-Islamism and similar trends,
which strive to combine the liberation movement against European
and American imperialism with an attempt to strengthen the
positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc.; [In the proofs Lenin inserted a brace opposite points 2 and 3 and wrote “2 and 3 to be united”. —Editor .] fourth, the need, in backward countries, to give special support
to the peasant movement against the landowners, against landed
proprietorship, and against all manifestations or survivals of
feudalism, and to strive to lend the peasant movement the most
revolutionary character by establishing the closest possible
alliance between the West European communist proletariat and the
revolutionary peasant movement in the East, in the colonies, and
in the backward countries generally. It is particularly
necessary to exert every effort to apply the basic principles of
the Soviet system in countries where pre-capitalist relations
predominate—by setting up “working people’s
Soviets”, etc.; fifth, the need for a determined struggle against attempts to
give a communist colouring to bourgeois-democratic liberation
trends in the backward countries; the Communist International
should support bourgeois-democratic national movements in
colonial and backward countries only on condition that, in these
countries, the elements of future proletarian parties, which
will be communist not only in name, are brought together and
trained to understand their special tasks, i.e., those of the
struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within their
own nations. The Communist International must enter into a
temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and
backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should
under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form; sixth, the need constantly to explain and expose among the
broadest working masses of all countries, and particularly of
the backward countries, the deception systematically practised
by the imperialist powers, which, under the guise of politically
independent states, set up states that are wholly dependent upon
them economically, financially and militarily. Under present-day
international conditions there is no salvation for dependent and
weak nations except in a union of Soviet republics.

12) The age-old oppression of colonial and weak nationalities by
the imperialist powers has not only filled the working masses of the oppressed countries with animosity towards the
oppressor nations, but has also aroused distrust in these
nations in general, even in their proletariat. The despicable betrayal of socialism by the majority of the
official leaders of this proletariat in 1914-19, when “defence of country” was used as a
social-chauvinist cloak to conceal the defence of the “right” of their “own” bourgeoisie
to oppress colonies and fleece financially dependent countries, was certain to enhance this perfectly legitimate
distrust. On the other hand, the more backward the country,
the stronger is the hold of small-scale agricultural production, patriarchalism and isolation, which inevitably
lend particular strength and tenacity to the deepest of
petty-bourgeois prejudices, i.e., to national egoism and
national narrow-mindedness. These prejudices are bound to
die out very slowly, for they can disappear only after imperialism and capitalism have disappeared in the advanced
countries, and after the entire foundation of the backward
countries’ economic life has radically changed.

It is therefore the duty of the class-conscious communist
proletariat of all countries to regard with particular caution
and attention the survivals of national sentiments in the
countries and among nationalities which have been oppressed the
longest; it is equally necessary to make certain concessions
with a view to more rapidly overcoming this distrust and these
prejudices. Complete victory over capitalism cannot be won
unless the proletariat and, following it, the mass of working
people in all countries and nations throughout the world
voluntarily strive for alliance and unity.

Endnotes

[1]
Notes to “Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the
Colonial Questions” were received by Lenin from
G. V. Chicherin, N. N. Krestinsky, J. V. Stalin, M. G. Rafes,
Y. A. Preobrazhensky, N. D. Lapinsky, and I. Nedelkov
(N. Shablin), representative of the Bulgarian Communists, as well
as from a number of leaders in Bashkiria, Kirghizia, and
Turkestan. Along with correct ideas, the notes contained certain
grave errors. Thus, Chicherin gave a wrong interpretation to
Lenin’s theses on the necessity of support for national
liberation movements and on agreements with the national
bourgeoisie, without due regard for Lenin’s distinction
between the bourgeoisie and the peasantry. With regard to this
Lenin wrote: “I lay greater stress on the alliance with the peasantry (which does not quite mean the
bourgeoisie)” (Central Party Archives of the Institute of
Marxism-Leninism of the C.C. C.P.S.U.). Referring to the relations
between the future socialist Europe and the economically
underdeveloped and dependent countries, Preobrazhensky wrote:
“. . . if it proves impossible to reach economic agreement
with the leading national groups, the latter will inevitably be
suppressed by force and economically important regions will be
compelled to join a union of European Republics.” Lenin
decisively objected to this remark: “. . . it goes too far. It cannot be proved, and it is wrong to say that
suppression by force is “inevitable”. That is radically wrong” (see Voprosy Istorii KPSS
[ Problems of the C.P.S.U. History ] 1958, No. 2,
p. 16).

A grave error was made by Stalin, who did not agree with Lenin’s proposition on the difference between
federal relations among the Soviet republics based on autonomy,
and federal relations among independent republics. In a letter to
Lenin, dated June 12, 1920, he declared that in reality
“there is no difference between these two types of federal
relations, or else it is so small as to be negligible”. Stalin continued to advocate this later, when,
in 1922, he proposed the “autonomisation” of the independent Soviet republics. These ideas were criticised in
detail by Lenin in his article “The Question of
Nationalities or ’Autonomisation’”, and in his letter to members of the Political Bureau “On the Formation
of the U.S.S.R” (see present edition, Vol. 36, and Lenin
Miscellany XXXVI; pp. 496-98).

[2]
As a result of the revolution which commenced in Finland on
January 27, 1918, the bourgeois government of Svinhufvud was
overthrown and the working class assumed power. On January 29, the
revolutionary government of Finland, the Council of People’s
Representatives was formed by Edvard Gylling, Yrjö Sirola,
Otto Kuusinen, A. Taimi and others. The following were among the
most important measures taken by the workers’ government:
the law on the transfer to landless peasants, without indemnification, of the land they actually tilled; tax-exemption
for the poorest sections of the population; the expropriation of
enterprises whose owners had fled the country; the establishment
of state control over private banks (their functions being assumed
by the State Bank).

On March 1, 1918, a treaty between the Finnish
Socialist Workers’ Republic and the R.S.F.S.R. was signed in
Petrograd. Based on the principle of complete equality and respect
for the sovereignty of the two sides, this was the first treaty in
world history to be signed between two socialist countries.

The proletarian revolution, however, was victorious only in the south of Finland. The Svinhufvud government
concentrated all counter-revolutionary forces in the north of the
country, and appealed to the German Kaiser’s government for
help. As a result of German armed intervention, the Finnish
revolution was put down in May 1918, after a desperate civil
war. White terror reigned in the country, tens of thousands of
revolutionary workers and peasants were executed or tortured to
death in the prisons.

[3] As
a result of mass action by the Lettish proletariat and peasantry
against the German invaders and the counter-revolutionary
government of Ulmanis, a provisional Soviet government was
established in Latvia on December 17, 1918, which issued a
Manifesto on the assumption of state power by the Soviets. Soviet
Russia gave fraternal help to the Lettish people in their struggle
to establish Soviet rule and strengthen the Latvian Soviet
Socialist Republic.

Under the leadership of the Latvian Communist
Party and the Latvian Soviet Government, a Red Army was formed,
the landed estates were confiscated, the banks and big commercial
and industrial enterprises were nationalised, social insurance and
an eight-hour working day were introduced, and a system of public
catering for working people was organised.

In March 1919, German troops and the whiteguards, armed and equipped by the U.S. and the Entente
imperialists, attacked Soviet Latvia. In May they captured Riga,
the capital of Soviet Latvia. After fierce fighting the entire
territory of Latvia had been overrun by the interventionists by
the beginning of 1920. The counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie
established a regime of bloody terror, thousands of revolutionary
workers and peasants being killed or thrown into prison.