THE BOLSHEVIKS AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION, 1917-23 STUDIES IN RUSSIA AND EAST EUROPE This series includes books on general, political, historical, economic and cultural themes relating to Russia and East Europe written or edited by members of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in the University of London, or by authors working in association with the School. Recent titles include: Roger Bartlett and Karen Schonwiilder (editors) THE GERMAN LANDS AND EASTERN EUROPE Essays on the History of their Social, Cultural and Political Relations John Channon (editor) POLITICS, SOCIETY AND STALINISM IN THE USSR Geoffrey Hosking and Robert Service (editors) RUSSIAN NATIONALISM, PAST AND PRESENT Krystyna Iglicka and Keith Sword (editors) THE CHALLENGE OF EAST-WEST MIGRATION FOR POLAND Marja Nissinen LATVIA'S TRANSITION TO A MARKET ECONOMY Political Determinants of Economic Reform Policy Jeremy Smith THE BOLSHEVIKS AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION, 1917-23 Jeanne Sutherland SCHOOLING IN THE NEW RUSSIA Innovation and Change, 1984-95 Keith Sword DEPORTATION AND EXILE Poles in the Soviet Union, 1939-48 Studies in Russia and East Europe Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-71018-0 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG2 l 6XS, England The Bolsheviks and the National Question, 1917-23 Jeremy Smith Researcher and Lecturer in Soviet History Ren val! Institute University of Helsinki ~ in association with ~ PALGRAVEMACMILLAN First published in Great Britain 1999 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndrnills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-40610-4 ISBN 978-0-230-37737-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230377370 First published in the United States of America 1999 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-22026-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, Jeremy, 1964-- The Bolsheviks and the national question, 1917-23 I Jeremy Smith. p. cm. - (Studies in Russia and East Europe) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-22026-6 (cloth) 1. Soviet Union-Ethnic relations. 2. Soviet Union-Politics and government-1917-1945. I. Title. II. Series. DK33.S55 1999 323.1'47'09041----dc2l 98-41177 CIP © Jeremy Smith I 999 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 978-0-333-72759-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WlP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 109876543 2 l 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 ()() 99 To Hanna Contents List of Tables ix Preface and Acknowledgements x List ofAbbreviations, Russian Terms and Organisations xv Note on Transliteration xvii Introduction 1 2 Marxists, Bolsheviks and the National Question 7 From Marx to Lenin 7 The Bolsheviks before 1917 14 The Bolsheviks after 1917 19 3 The Case for National Autonomy - Causes and Processes 29 The People's Commissariat of Nationality Affairs (Narkomnats) 30 National Units in the Red Army 34 The National Commissariats and Departments of Narkomnats 39 The Muslim Commissariat 41 National Territorial Autonomy 43 The Turkestan Soviet Autonomous Republic 45 Bashkir and Tatar Autonomy 47 The Spread of Autonomous Republics and Regions 50 Autonomy in Transcaucasia 55 4 Building Nationhood - Borders and State Structures 66 Transcaucasia's Internal Borders 69 Belorussia's Borders 70 The Internal Borders of Central Asia 78 Migration and Resettlement 85 Problems of Autonomy 93 The Bashkir Crisis, 1919-20 94 Conflict in Turkestan, 1921 99 The People's Soviet Republics 101 The Independent Soviet Socialist Republics 103 Economic Development 104 Vil viii Contents 5 'Korenizatsiia' - National Communist Leaderships 108 The Jewish Socialist Parties 109 The Ukrainian Borotbists 116 Muslim National Communists 125 Communist Schools and Universities 136 6 'Cultural Autonomy' - Education, Language and Culture 144 Education of National Minorities 145 Language Planning 162 National Culture 168 Religion 170 7 The Georgian Crisis and the Formation of the Soviet Union 172 Competing Plans for the Organisation of Relations between the Soviet Republics 173 'Federalism', 'Confederalism' or 'Autonomy'? 175 Stalin's 'Autonomisation' Project 180 The Georgian Affair 189 8 The Twelfth Party Congress and the Sultan-Galiev Affair 213 The Twelfth Party Congress 213 The Sultan-Galiev Affair 228 9 Conclusion 239 Notes 243 Bibliography 265 Index 271 List of Tables 4.1 Population of Autonomous Republics and Regions in 1923 by Nationality 91 4.2 Nationality of Workers in Each Republic and Autonomous Region of the USSR in 1926 105 5.1 Students at the Ten Main Communist Universities on 1 January 1924 138 5.2 Members and Candidate Members of the Communist Party, Compared to the Size of Each Nationality as a Proportion of the Entire Population of the USSR in 1926/1927 140 5.3 Proportion of CPSU Members and Candidate Members of the Titular Nationality in the National Republics and Regions in 1927 141 5.4 Percentage of Nationals on Raion, Volost, Okrug and Uezd Ispolkoms in 1927 142 6.1 Native Language Education For Non-Russian Children in the Republic of Their Own Titular Nationality in December 1927 157 6.2 National Language and Mixed Language Education for Children of the Titular Nationality in the Autonomous Regions in December 1927 157 6.3 Four-Year Schools in the Belorussian SSR in December 1927 158 6.4 Seven-Year Schools in the Belorussian SSR in December 1927 158 6.5 Language of Instruction for Children Belonging to National Minorities, December 1927 (%) 159 6.6 The Growth of Yiddish Schools in Belorussia, Ukraine and the RSFSR in the 1920s 162 6.7 Proportion of Turko-Tatar Literates understanding the New Turkic Alphabet in 1928/29 167 ix Preface and Acknowledgements In October 1991 I began work on the national policies of the early Bolshevik regime which culminated in the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Within a matter of days the USSR had started to disintegrate, and within months all of the Union Republics which had entered into the composition of the federal state in 1923 had declared independence and constituted themselves as separate states. While I was lucky in that the timing of these events contributed additional relevance to my research, it had been clear for several years that the national question was far from being solved in the Soviet Union, in spite of the claims of ex-President Mikhail Gorbachev to the contrary. Taking their lead from the three Baltic Republics which had remained independent until the Second World War, the non­ Russian republics had provided one of the most potent sources of opposition to Soviet Communist rule in the 1980s. At the time it was commonplace to describe the collapse of the Soviet Union as the inevitable fate of a state which had been put together by force after 1917, with little or no recognition of the aspira­ tions of the smaller nationalities of what had formerly been the Russian Empire. This interpretation owes much to the ground­ breaking work of Richard Pipes, whose The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923 (Cambridge, Mass., 1954) has remained the most influential treatment of this question to date. While the work of other scholars in this field, such as Helene Carrere d'Encausse and E.H. Carr is of no less value, it is Pipes' account which has left its mark on all the subsequent historiography. In Pipes' view, the Ukrainians, Belorussians, Georgians, Azeris, Armenians and Moslems of the Russian borderlands had expressed an unequivocal desire for independence by setting up their own states in the wake of the revolutions of 1917. It was only by armed conquest that the Bolsheviks were able to extend their rule beyond Central Russia to cover most of the area of the old empire. Any concessions made to the nationalities were purely tactical: 'Lenin looked upon national problems as something to exploit, and not as something to x Preface and Acknowledgements XI solve' (page 49.) On this reading, nothing positive can be found in the Bolsheviks' approach to the national question. Such an interpretation is inadequate. It ignores, or greatly simplifies, the complexity of Bolshevik and Marxist debate on the national question. It provides no adequate explanation of the great deal of effort put into developing national education and culture, and into the promotion of non-Russian communist cadres. It implies that the federal structures of both the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and the Soviet Union were purely cosmetic, and existed only as a sop to the national movements (which Pipes admits were weak and ineffective). An examination of both the new materials recently released from the archives in Moscow, and of documentation previously available, reveals a quite different picture: while the Bolsheviks had no blueprint for dealing with the national question, and their policies evolved haphazardly and often fortuitously, numer­ ous influences played their part in the development of a coherent set of policies which sought to promote, rather than deny, national distinctiveness.