From Labor's Champion
May 15-31, 1990
By Jim Rosenbaum
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The Soviet Union is a multi-national state consisting of numerous republics. These include, besides Russia itself, the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the republics of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus and other republics in both the European and Asian parts of the country.
With Gorbachev's coming to power and his policy of perestroika and glasnost, or "openness," there has been a rise of national movements and conflicts among nationalities. Today, the Baltic republics are at various stages of attempting to declare independence from the Soviet Union. There has been strife between various peoples in the Caucasus, especially between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. And there has been a sharp increase in anti-Semitism. What is behind this?
The U.S. capitalist class and its news media claim that this is all a result of "democracy" being introduced into the Soviet Union. According to them, now the peoples who were allegedly brought into the Soviet Union by force are able to protest, and the "age-old ethnic conflicts" which arise naturally among different peoples have again come to the surface. But this is a lie. Rather, the truth is the opposite. The explosive national conflicts of today are a direct result of (1) the intensification of capitalist exploitation, first initiated by Khrushchev and brought to new heights by perestroika and (2) the deliberate policy of national incitement and oppression by the leaders of the Russian nation -- headed by Gorbachev. These changes, since the death of Stalin, have destroyed the proletarian internationalist relations that bound the different nations and peoples of the USSR during the period of genuine socialism, when Lenin and Stalin were the head of state. Every leader since Stalin, from Khrushchev to Gorbachev, has worked to destroy the revolutionary working class movement as the basis of unity in the USSR. The successfully worked to destroy the Marxist-Leninist party, the CPSU-B, which once united the workers of all nationalities in the Soviet Union in the days of genuine socialism, until Stalin's death. But after Khrushchev came to power he encouraged and prepared the restoration of capitalism headed by a new bureaucratic capitalist class. This exploiting class has pitted one nation against the other and created the soil for a worsening situation, for a return to the national pogroms and lynchings that were typical of the days of Czarism. Today, in such places as Georgia and Azerbaijan, the situation is similar to the period of right reaction that fell upon czarist Russia after the defeat of the revolution of 1905. Just as then, all unity between the working class of these republics has collapsed.
Stalin's Policy Based on Democracy
In his famous work Marxism and the National and Colonial Question (1913), Joseph Stalin, a young active revolutionary, described how the policy of the Czarist government (based on the power of the landlords and capitalists) strangled the oppressed nations and broke the bonds of unity between workers of different nationalities, which had been achieved during the revolution of 1905. He wrote:
"The period of counter-revolution in Russia brought not only 'thunder and lightning' in its train, but also disillusionment in the movement and lack of faith in common forces. As long as people believed in 'a bright future,' they fought side by side irrespective of nationality: common questions first and foremost! But when doubt crept into people's hearts, they began to depart, each to his own national tent. Let every man count upon himself! The national question first and foremost!"
This was later overcome in the workers' revolution of October, 1917, and the period of socialism because of the proletarian internationalist policy guiding the Bolsheviks (the genuine Marxist party) who led the workers.
The Bolshevik Party, under Lenin and Stalin, pursued a correct policy on the national question. This was to forge unity of the workers of all nationalities, both against the Czar and the capitalists, and in the process of building socialism. And to achieve the unity of the nations inhabiting the Russian empire and ensure their voluntary unity after the socialist revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks put forward as a basic democratic right, the right of all nations to self-determination, up to and including secession. This principle was carried out in practice by the Bolsheviks and is necessary for all Marxist-Leninists who want to achieve genuine socialism - the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is a right unheard of in bourgeois democratic states, especially in a multi-national imperialist state such as the United States, whose ruling class does not even recognize the existence of oppressed nations within its borders and carries out the most unbridled aggression against the peoples of other countries.
The actual history of the USSR, undistorted by the enemies of socialism (the open capitalist agents and the revisionists), is a brilliant example of how the national question was once solved and how it has become re-inflamed in recent time. Let us focus on the situation in the Baltic Republics.
The bourgeois media, in reporting on the independence movements in these republics, says simply that they were "forcibly annexed" by the Soviet Union under Stalin in 1940, and that now they are taking advantage of the policy of glasnost under Gorbachev to regain their independence. This is a lie and a distortion. The leader of the Latvian Bolsheviks, Jan Kalnberzins, tells the truth in his 1950 book, Ten Years of Soviet Latvia. The history of the Baltic Republics' relations with the Soviet Union did not start in 1940, or with their formal "independence" in 1920. These territories were continually part of the old czarist Russian empire since the 1700s. They contained major industries, and as in other industrial centers in the empire they developed strong workers' movements. The Baltic workers participated, along with the workers in the rest of imperial Russia, in the revolutionary movement against czarism and for socialism. For example, the Lettish [Latvian] Social-Democratic Labor Party was formed in 1904, and two years later joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. It led the struggle of the Latvian workers in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. In 1910, Lenin referred to the Lettish Marxists: "Having been one of the forward detachments of Russian Social-Democracy during the revolution, the Lettish workers' party was also in the forefront during the stern period of counterrevolution." [Collected Works, Vol. 16, p. 235.]
As in other border areas of Russia, the revolutionary movements of the workers and peasants fought against the combined forces of the bourgeois nationalists, Mensheviks, whiteguards and foreign interventionists.
At one time, independent Soviet governments were established in each of the Baltic Republics, in alliance with Soviet Russia. However, by 1920 they were finally crushed by internal reactionaries and German and British troops, who had intervened on the side of the overthrown capitalists.
The new bourgeois government in Latvia took revenge for the expropriations it had undergone during the Soviet period by shooting 13,000 revolutionary workers, peasants and intellectuals in the first days of its rule. Similar events took place in the other Baltic republics.
The governments that were formed in the Baltic republics from 1920 to 1940 were independent in name only. They served the interests of the western imperialists in forming a "cordon sanitaire" directed against the socialist Soviet Union, and they were dominated by the Baltic German land barons who had earlier been in league with the czar. Despite the reactionary nature of the governments of these new states, the Soviet Union was the first to recognize them in 1920, acknowledging their right to self-determination. The U.S., which encouraged the formation of these governments, did not recognize them until two years later, hoping that the Bolsheviks would be defeated in the Civil War and the Baltic states would be reincorporated into a capitalist Russia. It is for similar reasons that U.S. imperialism does not recognize Lithuania's independence today, not wanting to disturb Gorbachev's open restoration of classical capitalism in the Soviet Union as a whole.
After 1920, the industries in the new states declined, as they became sources of agriculture products and raw materials for the West, and then during the Depression that hit all of the capitalist world in the 1930s, the situation of the working people grew steadily worse.
Together with the rise of fascism in Europe, fascist regimes were established in Lithuania under Smetona in 1927, and in Latvia under Ulmanis and Estonia under Paets in 1934. Hitler's aide, Alfred Rosenberg, himself a Baltic land baron, helped in organizing the Latvian fascist government.
The popular opposition to these fascist regimes continued underground, but was not strong enough by itself to overthrow them. In Latvia, an underground people's front was formed by the Communists and the Socialist peasant-labor party. In early 1939, a meeting in Stockholm of these parties and some democratic liberals declared:
"The Red Army is the only real force capable of waging a successful struggle against the imperialist aggression of Germany in eastern Europe... under these circumstances, only conscious traitors can renounce this sole and natural way of self-defense... Only common struggle to preserve peace through a Peace Front with the USSR and the western powers could maintain Latvia's independence."
Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact
During the period of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, signed in August, 1939, the Soviet Union was able to strengthen its eastern border against the Nazi aggression that it knew would be coming. The pact made it possible for the Soviet Union to sign treaties with the Baltic states that allowed it to station Red Army troops in these countries for mutual defense. But the reactionary regimes in these countries did everything possible to sabotage the treaties. In Lithuania, workers who came out to greet the Red Army were arrested. The three regimes conspired to form an alliance against the Soviet Union. Therefore, the Soviet Union demanded, in June of 1940, that new, democratic governments be organized that would carry out the treaties. The reactionary governments reluctantly agreed.
The Red Army troops who entered the Baltic countries under the agreements treated them as allies and stayed completely out of their political affairs. Coalition governments of patriotic democrats and Communists were formed. In Lithuania, Justas Paletskis, a progressive journalist, headed a government that included people from the bourgeois democratic regimes before Smetona. The progressive North American writer, Anna Louise Strong, spent a month in Lithuania at that time and described what occurred in her book The New Lithuania. The working masses immediately became involved in political activities. Some thousand political prisoners were freed. Trade unions, organized on an industrial basis, sprang up everywhere. Factory Committees were elected. Candidates for a new parliament, the People's Sejm, were nominated for the single slate bloc of the Working People's Union. They were elected under a four point program that called for the transformation of Lithuania into a Soviet Socialist Republic, its application for admission into the Soviet Union, nationalization of banks and industry, and nationalization of land, with the use of the land to the tiller. Workers' Soviets were organized in the factories to help the new government in the nationalization and to prevent sabotage by the capitalists. The land was not collectivized at that time. Rather, rich peasants (less than 10% of the rural population) had their excess land confiscated and divided up among the landless farm laborers and the poor peasants, who together made up close to half the rural population. Thus, rather than an "annexation by force," the Red Army's role was simply to provide the conditions under which the working masses were able to democratically organize their future.
Soviet Baltic States
The new governments upheld the national pride of the Baltic peoples. They included many, many non-communist patriots in the administrations. The national army units were maintained, though purged of reactionary officers. In Latvia, after the vote to join the Soviet Union, there were a few instances where the national flag was pulled down and replaced with the red flag. The Communist paper said: "Such actions are to be severely condemned since nobody can be allowed to insult the national flag. Instead it should be raised together with the red flag of the working classes."
The Baltic republics are not homogeneous, but include peoples of many nationalities. The czar and the reactionary "independent" governments constantly played one nationality off against another. In Vilna, which was under Polish rule from 1920 to 1939, the Lithuanians had no national rights. When it was turned over to Lithuania under the reactionary Smetona regime in1939, the government in turn suppressed the Poles. Today, Gorbachev tries to incite the Russian and Polish minorities against the Lithuanians.
To the contrary, the new Soviet governments pursued a democratic policy in regard to the national question. Government business, schools, etc. were to be conducted in the local languages. The governor of the Vilna district, Didzhulius, said:
"Under the Poles education was only in Polish; under Smetona it was only in Lithuanian. Now we shall have to have schools in four languages, since there are four chief languages in the district: Polish, Jewish [Yiddish], Lithuanian and Byelorussian."
This was consistent with the line and practice of the Bolsheviks in the rest of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev-Russification
We have gone into some detail on the history of the Baltic republics to refute the slanders of the bourgeois media. We omit discussing the joint struggle of the Baltic peoples with the other Soviet peoples against the fascist invaders during World War II and for socialist construction in the early post-war years for reasons of length. We have seen how the activities of genuine socialists on the national question in these republics is totally contrary to that of Gorbachev. We do not know all the particulars of the policies the revisionists pursued in the Baltics after Stalin's death. However, their general line was one of Russification, restricting the national rights and looking down on the national cultures of the non-Russian peoples. Brezhnev, in particular, proclaimed that the peoples of the Soviet Union were becoming "one Soviet people," whose language and culture were merging into one language and culture, i.e. that of the Russian majority. These policies have clearly pushed the great majority of the Baltic people to follow the bourgeois nationalists in their call for "independence." Gorbachev is trying to forcibly retain them, instead of recognizing their right to self-determination, as Lenin did in 1920.
In this and other respects, Gorbachev is pursuing the same anti-democratic, imperialist stand as President Bush. Both are trampling on the rights of nations and the sovereignty of states (i.e. Bush -- Panama, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, Grenada, etc.; Gorbachev -- Afghanistan, Georgia, Lithuania, etc.). The revolutionary movement of workers and peoples the world over must fight both these superpowers for social and national emancipation.
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