The October Revolution and the National Question

Stalin’s article on the national question after the victory of the October Revolution, in memory of the first anniversary of the victory of the October Revolution. It was first published in Pravda issue No. 241 and No. 250, on the November 6th and 19th of 1918. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 4 of the Complete Works of Stalin and Vol. 1 of the Selected Works of Stalin .

Russia was a multi-ethnic country, and its ethnic problems were very complicated. The national question was also an important question that the Russian revolution must solve. The Bolsheviks and the bourgeoisie had fundamentally different policies on the national question. After the victory of the October Revolution, Stalin connected the national question of Russia with the socialist revolution and the world-wide anti-imperialist front.

He argued: if we consider that the national question is part of the world anti-imperialist movement, and that the socialist revolution has to solve the national question in a simultaneous approach, the emancipation of the oppressed nationalities was inconceivable without a rupture with imperialism, without the overthrow of the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nationalities, without the transfer of power to the labouring masses of these nationalities.

Stalin first emphasized: the national question must not be regarded as something self-contained and fixed for all time. Being only part of the general question of the transformation of the existing order, the national question is wholly determined by the conditions of the social environment, by the kind of power in the country and by the whole course of social development in general. It was not an independent problem, but a part of the proletarian revolution in Russia.

The national policy of Russian revolution had changed along with the development process of the Russian revolution. Stalin also specifically discussed the national question during the February Revolution, the national question in the October Revolution and the world significance of the October Revolution.

With regard to the national question at the time of the February Revolution in Russia, Stalin pointed out that the national movement of the February Revolution had the character of a bourgeois liberation movement. It was a question of emancipation from Tsarism—the “fundamental cause” of national oppression—and of the formation of national bourgeois states. The right of nations to self-determination was interpreted as the right of the national bourgeoisies in the border regions to take power into their own hands and to take advantage of the February Revolution for forming “their own” national states. But after the February Revolution, the abolition of Tsarism and the accession to power of the bourgeoisie did not, however, lead to the abolition of national oppression. The new bourgeois nation-state can neither resist external attacks nor cope with internal revolutionary eruptions. Stalin asserted that the emancipation of the laboring masses of the oppressed nationalities and the abolition of national oppression were inconceivable without a break with imperialism, without the laboring masses overthrowing “their own” national bourgeoisie and taking power themselves.

With regard to the national question of Russia during the October Revolution, Stalin pointed out that the October Revolution led Russia in getting rid of the desperate situation of imperialist war and economic disintegration. The fight of the border “governments” is depicted by some as a fight for national emancipation against the “soulless centralism” of the Soviet regime and opposed the socialist alliance of all Russian workers and peasants under the banner of national liberation. Stalin stressed that no regime in the world has permitted such extensive decentralization, no government in the world has ever granted to the peoples such complete national freedom as the Soviet power in Russia. Stalin pointed out that the performance of the bourgeois national government in the October Revolution would only let people see clearly the essence of the national bourgeoisie: What they pursue is not the freedom to liberate their nation from national oppression, but the freedom to extract profits from the people, and the freedom to preserve their own privileges and capital. Stalin pointed out that the October Revolution ushered the era of a new, socialist movement of the workers and peasants of the oppressed nationalities.

With regard to the world significance of the October Revolution, Stalin put forward that the October Revolution is the first revolution in world history to break the age-long sleep of the laboring masses of the oppressed peoples of the East and to draw them into the fight against world imperialism. The great world-wide significance of the October Revolution chiefly consists in the fact that: (1) It has widened the scope of the national question and converted it from the particular question of combating national oppression in Europe into the general question of emancipating the oppressed peoples, colonies and semi-colonies from imperialism; (2) It has opened up wide possibilities for their emancipation and the right paths towards it; (3) It has thereby erected a bridge between the socialist West and the enslaved East.