Journal of the history of International Law 19 (2017) 200–218 JHIL brill.com/jhil The Soviet Approach to the Right of Peoples to Self-determination: Russia’s Farewell to jus publicum europaeum Lauri Mälksoo University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia Abstract The aim of this article is to explore the theory and practice of the Soviet position on the right of peoples to self-determination in 1917 and afterwards. It is a misunderstand- ing to mention Lenin’s (the Bolsheviks’) and Wilson’s concepts of self-determination in one breath, as ‘precursors’ in international law. The Soviet concept of the right of peoples to self-determination was adopted for tactical and propagandistic purposes, and it had little in common with the liberal democratic concept of this right that saw the right of peoples to self-determination as an end in itself. The real contribution of the Russian Bolsheviks to the history of international law has, to some extent, been overlooked. Throughout the 20th century, the West and the USSR had different region- al standards and usages of the right of peoples to self-determination, thus presenting a continuous challenge to the idea of the universality of international law. Keywords self-determination of peoples − Russian Empire − USSR − peace treaties − Lenin − Bolshevik − jus publicum europaeum − universality of international law 1 Introduction In 2017, the world marks the centennial of Russia’s October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks a.k.a. Communists to power for more than seventy years. * Research for and the writing of this article has been supported by a grant of the Estonian Research Council No IUT 20–50. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/ �57�8050-�Downloaded9�3�035 from Brill.com09/30/2021 03:08:12AM via free access Lenin, Wars of Liberation & Soviet on the use of force 201 In Russia and elsewhere in the world speeches will be delivered, thematic con- ferences organized and publications issued. People interested in the politics of history can observe with what ideological messages the centennial will be remembered by the political elite of today’s Russia. On the one hand, it has been said that the main keyword of the centennial celebrations in Russia will be ‘national conciliation’.1 On the other hand, the conservative trend is towards the glorification of imperial Russia that existed before the Bolsheviks came to power. This implies a certain criticism of and dis- tance from the Bolsheviks even though almost all current power holders were Communist Party members in their youth. For example, recently President Putin went on record as saying that Vladimir Lenin placed a ‘nuclear weapon under the building that is Russia’.2 He has also said that victory in World War I was ‘stolen’ from Russia.3 Logically, apart from some foreign powers, the main domestic actor in Russia that could have ‘stolen’ victory was the Bolsheviks, who were agitating against the war. In any case, it is clear that the October Revolution of 1917 is of continued relevance and discussions about its mean- ing are simultaneously discussions about our own time and directions in the future. The Soviet government and international law scholars emphasized the world historical significance of the October Revolution and were convinced that it gave birth to an entirely new epoch of international law begun in 1917, what Tunkin called ‘new international law’.4 Moreover, at least some Western scholars have considered the impact of the October Revolution, and subse- quent Soviet contributions to the development of international law, as signifi- cant and lasting.5 One of the specific areas in which the Soviets are considered to have signifi- cantly influenced the development of international law is the right of peoples to self-determination. In international law scholarship, it has become part of 1 Ilya Barabanov/Natalia Korchenkova/Sophia Samokhina, ‘Oktiabr vperedi. Kak Rossia otprazdnuet vek revoljutsii’, Kommersant, 11 December 2016, available at: http://kommersant .ru/doc/3163935. 2 Ivan Sinergiev, ‘Vladimir Putin obvinil Vladimira Lenina v razvale SSSR’, Kommersant, 21 January 2016, available at: http://kommersant.ru/Doc/2897423. 3 See e.g. Vladimir Socor, ‘Putin Re-Interprets Russia’s Participation in the First World War’, The Jamestown Foundation, 5 August 2014, available at: https://jamestown.org/program/ putin-re-interprets-russias-participation-in-the-first-world-war/. 4 See e.g. Grigory I. Tunkin, Theory of International Law, edited and translated by William E. Butler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1974). 5 John Quigley, Soviet Legal Innovation and the Law of the Western World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007). Journal of the History of International Law 19 (2017)Downloaded 200–218 from Brill.com09/30/2021 03:08:12AM via free access 202 Mälksoo the established narrative that the Bolsheviks and their leader Vladimir Lenin in particular, were among the very first who recognized the right of peoples to self-determination, not just as a significant political principle as was already being discussed in Europe in the second half of the 19th century, but promoted it to the level of a principle of international law, even accepting secessions based on it.6 Often, in this historical narrative of international law the names of two statesmen are mentioned essentially in one breath: Vladimir Lenin in Soviet Russia and President Woodrow Wilson in the US, who raised the right of peo- ples to self-determination in his Fourteen Points speech on 8 January 1918. Technically, Lenin was the first, though, because he turned his attention to the right of peoples even before President Wilson, who came to focus on it only as the end of the war approached.7 Later, Moscow’s claim for its pivotal role as promoter of the right of peoples to self-determination in international law seems to have been further strength- ened by the strong support that the USSR gave to this right after World War II and especially during the process of decolonization. For example, Soviet diplo- macy strongly supported inclusion of the right of peoples to self- determination in two UN human rights covenants of 1966. When the two covenants were rati- fied, the right of peoples to self-determination became part of universal posi- tive international law – even though heated debates on what this right exactly implies and to whom it applies persist to this day. Until the end of the USSR, Soviet scholars and diplomats continued propagating the position that the USSR had from the outset been particularly supportive of the right of peoples to self-determination in international law. At the same time, a certain historical paradox and puzzle exists here. At its philosophical core, the right of peoples to self-determination is an exten- sion of human freedom from individuals to peoples. In the case of President Wilson and perhaps the Americans more generally, it is relatively obvious why the idea of self-determination of peoples would appear appealing to them. If the Americans could liberate themselves from foreign rule, so could other peo- ples govern themselves and become free. Whether this narrative is always true, or so relatively black and white, is another matter. In this Wilsonian sense, 6 Quigley, Soviet Legal Innovation 2007 (n. 5), 47–48; Bill Bowring, Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia. Landmarks in the Destiny of a Great Power (London: Routledge 2013), 84; Antonio Cassese, Self-Determination of Peoples. A Legal Reappraisal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995), 14. 7 Jörg Fisch, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker. Die Domestizierung einer Illusion (Munich: C.H. Beck 2010), 181. Journal of the History of InternationalDownloaded Law from 19 Brill.com09/30/2021(2017) 200–218 03:08:12AM via free access Lenin, Wars of Liberation & Soviet on the use of force 203 self-determination of peoples was also a corollary of democracy and the indi- vidual capacity to possess rights.8 However, what was the right of peoples to self-determination for the Bolsheviks? It is not immediately clear why the Soviets, who were aiming to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, would support this right. It is a para- dox in itself that the world’s largest territorial state should be considered a historical pillar of the right of peoples to self-determination. Moreover, what- ever the contribution of the Bolsheviks to the economic and societal modern- ization of Russia, the advancement of civil and political rights was not their main agenda or achievement. On the contrary, in their pursuit of establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat, they killed many people, while in particular the rule of Stalin turned into outright state terror with millions of victims. Starting from the 1930s, elements of this terror were also specifically directed against ‘suspicious’ minority ethnic groups in the USSR. So how exactly did the right of peoples to self-determination fit in this picture? It seems that the Bolsheviks must have arrived at this right from another ideological angle and platform than Wilson. In any case, a number of Western scholars have registered con- tradictions and hypocrisies in the Soviet approach to the right of peoples to self-determination and in this sense maintained a dose of scepticism about Soviet attitudes to this right.9 The aim of this article is to explore the theory and practice of the Soviet position on the right to self-determination, mainly immediately after 1917 but also, though more sketchily, afterwards. What was the effect of the respective Soviet claims and practices on international law? My argument is that it is a misunderstanding to mention in one breath Lenin’s (the Bolsheviks’) and Wilson’s concepts of self-determination as ‘precursors’ in international law. The Soviet concept of the right of peoples to self-determination was adopted for tactical and propaganda purposes and had little in common with the lib- eral democratic concept of this right, which saw in it an end in itself.