Nationalities in the Soviet Union

By N. SRINIVASAN, M. A.
(Reader in Politics, The Andhra University, Guntur)

I

By the close of the 19th century Russia had built up a vast empire comprising nearly one-seventh of the globe (8,500,000 sq. miles), extending from the Baltic and Black seas in the West to the Pacific in the East, from the Arctic in the North to the borders of China, India, Persia, Iran and Turkey in the South and South-East. Her empire-building had brought under her rule peoples as different as the Poles, Letts, Finns, Germans, Ukrainians, Georgians and Armenians at one end, and the nomadic and pastoral peoples of Mongolia and Siberia and of the Central Asian highlands at the other. On the eve of the Great War of 1914-18 the population of the empire was estimated at 181 millions. There were counted among them more than a hundred nationalities or as many as 577 tribes. They fell into at least a dozen ethnic groups. They professed several creeds, Christianity, Orthodox as well as other Confessions, Islam, Judaism and several primitive cults. The spoken languages numbered more than a hundred and fifty, many of them without a script and most of them without a literature and quite unsuited to modern scientific use. In national consciousness too they differed widely. The peoples of the West, such as the Poles, Finns, Ukrainians, Georgians and Armenians, had developed powerful national movements, while those of the East were hardly touched by the spirit of Nationalism.¹

Tsarist policy towards the subject peoples is summed up in the word, russification, Alexander III (1881-94) initiated the policy, but it assumed the widest proportions after the failure of The Revolution of 1905. The Tsars followed the policy of ‘divide and rule’ in the West and kept the peoples of the East in ignorance. There was a persecution of non-orthodox creeds and a suppression of vernacular languages. The language of the courts was Russian and local languages were not permitted even for the education of children. There was no autonomy for the subject nationalities; they were excluded from the army and government, and the Great Russian held a privileged position throughout the empire.

In this context it is not surprising that a national consciousness soon developed among the subject peoples, especially in the European part of Russia, which frequently issued in revolts. Revolts were brutally suppressed, and in the case of Finland led to the withdrawal of her autonomy. The Jews were treated periodically to pogroms. In the task of overthrowing Tsarism, the Bolsheviks found in the oppressed nationalities a powerful any National resentments played a decisive part in the Revolution, after which the Soviets were left with a legacy of unfulfilled national aspirations and memories of Great Russian dominance and oppression. Even the comradeship in the struggle for emancipation could not quite overcome this, and the nationalities constituted a serious problem. The Soviets, in the three decades of their power, have squarely faced the problem and built up a unified Russia, a Russia that is more strongly unified than even a homogeneous. Nation-State, like France.² The achievement of the Soviet Union is, on all accounts, a brilliant one.

What is it that has enabled the Soviets to solve this problem and to create the united front and the unconquerable will that is evident in the struggle against Hitler? The answer to this question lies in the colonial policy of the Soviets since their accession to power.

II

The policy of the Soviets was evolved in the period from 1896, and Lenin and Stalin were its makers.³ Its essence is the recognition of the right to self-determination and secession of every nationality in the Empire. The Russian Social Democratic Party at its conference in London in 1896 resolved:

“The Congress declares that it upholds the full right of self-determination of all nations and expresses its sympathy for the workers of every country now suffering under the yoke of military, national or other despotism; the Congress calls on the workers of all these countries to join the ranks of the class-conscious workers of the whole world, in order to fight together with them for the defeat of international capitalism and for the achievement of international social democracy.”⁴

As Lenin who inspired the resolution explained later, the resolution was preceded by a debate of possible alternatives. It was Lenin’s view that Self-determination was perfectly compatible with socialist internationalism and that “it, was absolutely a mistake to ignore the tasks of national liberation in a situation of national oppression.” He wrote: “The resolution of the International reproduces the most essential, fundamental propositions of this point of view: on the one hand the absolutely direct, unambiguous recognition of the full right of nations to self determination; on the other hand, the equally unambiguous appeal to the workers for international unity in the class-struggle.”⁵

The right of self-determination has always been understood to mean the right of secession, and independent State existence and not mere cultural autonomy. “The right of secession presupposes the settlement of the question by the Parliament, (Diet, or Referendum) of the seceding region.”⁶

The Communist party has held to this principle consistently ever since. Self-determination and secession have been hailed as the key to be the solution of the difficulties that arise from the co-existence of several nationalities in a single political system.

The reasons for the adoption of self-determination were two. Socialism in its fight against Capitalism must use all available resources, must use all revolutionary forces, and fight of all fronts. The fight of ward peoples against imperialism was a revolutionary fight for freedom inasmuch as it also involved the freedom of the working class in the oppressed country. It was a fight against the same enemy, Capitalism.

But nationalism is not, to Lenin and Stalin, an end in itself. The ultimate aim of socialism is a world community based on the perfect equality of all nationalities. As Lenin states it:

“The aim of Socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small States and all national isolation, not merely to bring the nations closer to each other, but also to merge them…Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the transition period of the dictatorship of the oppressed class, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of the nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their freedom to secede.”⁷

The socialists look forward to “the collaboration of nations within a single world economic system.” The world is already such a system. Capitalism and the advancement of science have built up a world market and a world economic system. This needs a rapprochement among nations. A world economy is the material basis for the victory of socialism. Capitalism effects the rapprochement by force and exploitation, by annexations and the colonial system. Socialism would base the rapprochement on the free and voluntary co-operation of free nations.

These facts made the national and proletarian freedom struggle essentially one. The desire of oppressed nationalities for freedom and secession is not opposed in fact to the needs of working class solidarity against the capitalist order and the building up of a socialist world order. Nor is the separatism of nationalities opposed to the tendency towards the economic integration of the world. Stalin observes:

“For communism these two tendencies, the tendency towards emancipation from the shackles of imperialism and the tendency towards an economic rapprochement among the nations (which arose as a result of the formation of a world market and a world economic system), are but two sides of a single cause–the cause of the emancipation of the oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialism; because Communism knows that the union of nations in a single word economic system is possible only on the basis of mutual confidence and voluntary agreement, and that the road to the formation of a voluntary union of nations lies through the separation of colonies from the integral imperialist whole through the transformation of the colonies into independent States.” ⁸

Consequently, the duty of the Communists became a two-fold one. They were to urge the right of secession of the oppressed nationalities among the proletariat of the oppressing nations. It was needed more in their own interests than in the interests of the oppressed nationalities.⁹ Among the proletariat of the oppressed nations voluntary union was to be emphasized. “The socialist in the latter must fight against small nation narrow-minded fullness, must emphasize in his agitation the second word in our formula: voluntary union of nations.”¹⁰

The right of self-determination must be distinguished from the claim to its exercise in concrete cases. What was recognised by Lenin and Stalin was nearly the right of self-determination. The exercise of the demand and the actual separation of any nationality are subject to a number of limiting conditions. The nationality seeking to exercise the right must satisfy a number of tests. Is the separation in the interests of the working class and the proletarian revolution and international class solidarity? Is the people seeking to exercise this right so situated geographically that it can exercise this right without prejudice to the parent State? Is the demand merely the attempt of the bourgeoisie of the subject nationality to substitute its rule for the rule of a foreign capitalism? The Socialist’s ideal is not, to repeat, the splitting of the larger political entities in the world into their constituent units, but a world community of free and equal nations where the working classes of all nations are equal, where no nation as such has any privileges, and rights are identical. Lenin writes:

“The right of nations to self-determination means only the right to independence in a political sense, the right to free political secession from the oppressing nation. Concretely, this political, democratic demand implies complete freedom to carry on agitation in favour of secession, and freedom to settle the question of secession by means of a referendum of the nation that desires to secede. Consequently, the demand is by no means identical with the demand for the partition and for the formation of small States. It is merely the logical expression of the struggle against national oppression in art form. The more closely the democratic form of State approximates to complete freedom of secession, the rarer and weaker will the striving for secession be in practice; for the advantages of large States, both from the point of view of economic progress and from the point of view of the interests of the masses, are beyond doubt, and these advantages increase with the growth of capitalism.”¹¹

Or, again, as Lenin observes at another place:

“We cannot advance to that goal (the goal of socialist revolution) without fighting all nationalism, without maintaining the equality of the workers of all nations. A thousand factors which cannot be foreseen will determine whether the Ukraine, for example, is destined to form an independent State. And without attempting idle ‘guesses’, we firmly uphold what is beyond doubt: the right of the Ukraine to form such a State. We respect this right, we do not uphold the privileges of the Great Russians over the Ukrainians, we educate the masses in the spirit of the recognition of this right, in the spirit of rejecting the State privilege of any nation.”¹²

Stalin, who has been the expert of the Communist party on the national question, has clearly set forth the distinction we have been trying to explain in his report to the All-Russian Party Congress: (April, 1917)

“The question of the right of nations freely to secede must not be confused with the obligation of a nation to secede at any given moment. This latter question must be settled by the party of the proletariat in each particular case independently, according to circumstances. When we recognise the oppressed nation’s right to secede, the right to determine their political destiny, we do not to thereby settle the question of whether particular nations should secede from the Russian State at any given moment. I may recognise the right of a nation to secede, “but that does not mean that I compel it to be secede. A people has a right to secede, but it may or may not exercise that right according to the circumstances. Thus we are at liberty to agitate for or against secession according to the interests of the proletariat, of the proletarian revolution.”

The Communist policy, as it crystallised in the period before the Revolution, may be stated in the words of Stalin in this report:

“Our point of view can be summed up in the following propositions:

(a)    The recognition of the right of nations to secede;
(b)   For the nations remaining within the limits of a given State–regional or autonomy;
(c)    For national minorities–special laws guaranteeing their free development;
(d)   For the proletarians of all nationalities of the given State–a single, indivisible, proletarian collective, a single party.”

III

The opportunity for the practical application of the policy came with the October Revolution of 1917. From the days of the February Revolution demands for autonomy had been put forward by the border provinces in the west and South and South-east. A number of States arose in the Western provinces which proclaimed their independence outright, e.g., Finland, Latvia, Esthonia, and Poland. In the Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and the Mohamedan provinces, demands for autonomy were voiced. The demands could not be considered genuinely popular, as the masses were inert and the active socialists were against separation from Russia. In the South and South-east claims for independence were mixed up with anti-revolutionary movements and foreign intervention. This complicated the issue and made straight-forward admission of the right to self-determination impossible for the revolutionary Government.

The Bolsheviks, however, proceeded to affirm the right of nations to self-determination. One of the very first things that Lenin did was to publish the Secret Treaties for the partition of the colonies of Germany and Turkey among the Allies in the Great War of 1914-18. Soviet Russia denounced these treaties and dissociated itself completely from the imperialist and annexationist aims of the Allies. Lenin made his famous appeal to the Mohammedan of the East for their support to the Revolution, proclaiming that the Revolution was the friend of their national and religious freedom. The independence of Finland, Esthonia, Poland and other countries was formally recognised. To crown it all, a declaration of the rights of nationalities was made in December 1917, in the following terms:

1.      The equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia;
2.      The right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination, including separation and the organisation of an independent State;
3.      The abolition of all national and national-religious privileges and limitations; and
4.      The free development of national minorities and ethnographic groups inhabiting the territory of Russia.

To translate these principles into fact, the Commissariat for Mohamedan Affairs was set up in January 1918 with Mohamedans as its chiefs. Later, in 1920, these duties devoted upon the Commissariat of Nationalities. The decree constituting it prescribed for it the following functions:

“(a) The Study and execution of all measures guaranteeing the fraternal collaboration of the nationalities and tribes of the Russian Soviet Republic; (b) The study and execution of all measures necessary to guarantee the interests of national minorities on the territory of other Nationalities of the Soviet Federation; and (c) The settlement of all litigous questions arising from the mixture of Nationalities.”

Stalin became People’s Commissar for Nationalities. He was associated in his work by a Soviet of Nationalities, of representatives from the autonomous republics and regions, in an advisory capacity.

The work of the Commissariat of Nationalities was, in the main, then granting of cultural autonomy to the Nationalities within Russia, and “actual encouragement” of the admission of members of the national minorities to the work of local administration.”¹³ The constitution of the RSFSR had made provision for the union of Soviets which are distinguished by a particular national and territorial character and even for the entry of autonomous republics into the Russian State on a federal basis. Between 1918 and 1922 most of the distinct ethnic groups in the European part of Russia were organised in Autonomous Republics and Autonomous Regions. These authorities did not have the powers of federal units. They were, in law, not different from provinces of a unified State. The constitutions adopted were similar to that of other parts of the country. But they enjoyed “a practical autonomy in purely cultural matters of local concern.”¹⁴ In fact, the Commissariat served to strengthen the unity of Russia rather than to split it, to achieve working class solidarity rather than to effect political separation of the minorities.

The organisation of autonomous regions and republics had this good result. They satisfied the craving for self-government where it was particularly appreciated. They served to pave the way for Federation in 1924. From autonomous regions the national minorities have been able in many cases to rise to the status of union or constituent republics in the two decades from 1918.

We must answer the question why the States that were set up on the fall of the Tsarist Government in the border provinces were not able, with a few exceptions, to continue in their independence, but were brought into the Soviet Union by 1924. Were these States brought in by force? Did they, in practice, enjoy the self-determination that was promised to all Nationalities by Soviet declarations? Do they now enjoy that right as constituent republics of the Union?

The States, which sprang up on the fall of the Tsars had come to fell a void. They had been made by the upper classes. None of them, however, possessed the means of real independence. During the period of the Civil War and intervention, they were dominated by the forces of interventionists or of counter-revolutionaries such as Denikin, Kolchak and Wrangel. The Soviet State had to fight these States to preserve itself. In the fight they fell. The association with the counter-revolution and foreign intervention was fatal to the exercise of self-determination by these States. Within their own borders there was no working class support for these States, and the Communists limited the exercise of the right to these classes. Perhaps more important than these was the reason that the establishment of socialism imperatively demanded the union of all Russia. There could not be any plebiscite for or against separation in the circumstances.

IV

We have seen that the exercise of self-determination and of the right to secession was not the means to the solution of the pr9blem of nationalities in the Soviet Union. By what other means has the problem been solved cultural autonomy, equality, democracy, federalism, and, above all, a full sharing in the tasks of construction and amelioration,–these have been the methods by which the marvelous unity of the Soviet Union has been created.

The October revolution has been a genuine act of emancipation for the subject nationalities. It has proclaimed and in large measure achieved a real equality of opportunity in education and employment, pay and living conditions, irrespective of colour and creed. The standards of life have progressively improved. Every nationality has had the freedom to develop its cultural life. Privilege of every kind has been ended. The State has been de-nationalised; it is, as the Webs have pointed out, dissociated from both nationality and race:

“In spite of the dominance of the Russian race in the USSR, and its undoubted cultural pre-eminence, the idea of there being a Russian State has been definitely abandoned. ‘Russia’ was, in 1923 deliberately removed from the title of the Soviet Union. All sections of the community….enjoy throughout the USSR, according to law, equal rights and duties, equal privileges and equal opportunities. Nor is this a formal equality under the law and the Constitution. Nowhere in the world do habit and custom and public opinion approach nearer to a like equality in fact.” ¹⁵

The nationalities in Russia have shared, in the three decades of Soviet power, the creed of socialism and participated in a number of ways in the task of building it. As citizens, as members of Trade Unions, in producers’ organisations, and as members of Consumers’ Co-operatives, of Collective Farms, the Red Army and the Communist Party, minority nationalities have effectively participated in the development of the Soviet Union. The political structure of Russia favours the self-expression of nationalities and cultural development. The hierarchy of Union Republic, Autonomous Republic, Autonomous Region or District provides the institutional means for political self-expression. Every group, small or large, can be fitted into the State structure with powers appropriate to its need. The group gains a freedom in matters which are prized by it, and becomes a willing partner of bigger whole for larger purposes.

We may know the meaning of this equality from a study of the rights and duties of the citizen in the Soviet Union under the Constitution. Legal equality of the citizens was first proclaimed by the Declaration of the Rights of the Toiling Masses in 1917. Chapter X of the new Constitution states the basic rights and duties of the citizen. Articles 122 and 123 assert the principle of equality of rights for women and nationalities respectively. The latter reads:

“Equal rights for the citizens of the U.S.S.R, irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, shall be an irrevocable law.
“Any direct limitation of the rights, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any propagation of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, shall be punished by the law.”

The rights guaranteed to the citizen include:

“the right to work, that is, the right to guaranteed employment and payment for work in accordance with their quantity and quality”;

“the right to rest” which means a seven-hour working day and holidays with pay and the means of usefully and pleasurably enjoying them;

“the right to material security at old age, and also in the case of sickness or loss of capacity to work”;

“the right to education” secured by the provision of universal, free and compulsory education and post-primary, technical, and University education for the more apt pupils at State expense, and education in the native languages for all;

“the right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, of assembly and meetings, and of organisation and association for the purpose of strengthening the Socialist system;

and “the right to inviolability of person, home and correspondence.”

The obligations of the citizens are also equal. These include obedience to the Constitution and laws of the State, discipline and loyalty to the Socialist order, the safeguarding of public property, and universal military service for the defence of the Fatherland and socialism.

To exclude religious privilege, Article 124 lays down:

“In order to ensure citizens freedom of conscience, the Church in the USSR shall be separated from the State, and the School from the Church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda shall be recognised for all citizens.”¹⁶

These are, of course, merely constitutional provisions. What is important is the progress made to realise them. The Communist Party has carried out a vigorous campaign for what Sir John Maynard has aptly termed the “leveling up” of the condition of the ward nationalities.¹⁷ The material conditions in the East have been changed by a proportionately greater investment of capital; pastoral and agricultural areas have been turned into industrial regions: the methods of agriculture have been revolutionised.¹⁸ Similarly, educational facilities have been made available to the ward peoples to raise their cultural level to that of the advanced Western people of the Union. A constant fight has been waged against disease by the provision of hospitals, sanatoria, etc. And, lastly, a fight has been carried on against Great Russian chauvinism and small nation narrow-mindedness, against subtle forms of the colour bar and insularity. In the tasks of construction, of social amelioration and Government, the ‘native’ has everywhere been utilized, from the highest to the lowest places.

Now we may turn to .the constitutional structure. The Constitution is federal in form. It provides for the exercise of autonomy by even the smallest national minority in national, Village Soviet, District, or Region, and also the opportunity to advance to the status of a constituent or Union Republic of the Federation. This elasticity in constitutional arrangements is a unique feature.

The common device of Western democracies for the safeguarding of the rights of minorities–a second chamber–also finds a place in the Constitution. A Soviet of Nationalities, in which the constituent units of the Federation are given an equality of representation and equal power with the first chamber, assures the smaller Nationalities a sense of real power as compared with the Great Russians.¹⁹

Much, however, should not be made of the federal form of the Constitution. A State of Russia’s size must inevitably be federally organised. The Federal list of powers is vastly more than that in a normal federal constitution and includes, besides the usual powers of a centre,

“foreign trade on the basis of State monopoly, establishment of national economic plans of the USSR, confirmation of the unified State budget of the USSR as well as of the taxes and revenues which go to form the All-Union, the Republic and local Budgets; and the administration of banks, industrial and agricultural establishments and also of trading enterprises of All-Union importance.”

The residuary powers are with the Union Republics and the powers of the Federation are enumerated. But there is no provision for judicial review.

The Molotov amendment to the Constitution, of February, 1944, permit the Union Republics to have their own military formations and representation in foreign States, and the power to conclude agreements with foreign States directly and to exchange diplomatic and consular agents. In both cases the Union Republics have to follow the guiding principles laid down by the USSR and follow the procedure which the latter has the authority to prescribe. However limited these powers of the Union Republics are unique and add considerably to their status.

V

What the Soviet policy towards colonies has meant to the latter can be seen in the Central Asian Republics. These are now five in number: the Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmen, Tadjik and Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republics. The inhabitants are Moslem in religion and numbered 13 millions in 1939. They are of different racial stocks and include the Turks, Persians, Chinese and Jews. The condition of these peoples before the Revolution was like that of Britain’s African colonies or mandates. There was little literacy; the people were excluded from the Government and the army. They were under the domination of Mullahs and land owners and money-lenders, under conditions which could not be distinguished from serfdom. The Government provided no public health services, or modern means of communication or irrigation, or electricity facilities. Since 1926 these areas have become modern States and compare in their industry and amenities with many other part of the Soviet Union including European Russia.

The revolution in Tadjik, for instance meant the over throw of the Emir who was the native ruler under the suzerainty of the Tsars, the establishment of public ownership of land and other productive agencies, and fighting the counter-revolutionary forces of religion, feudalism and the Emir who is said to have been assisted by the British Government. By 1926 those objects had been won largely by the natives of the country with the help of the Red Army. By that time the Soviet system had also firmly been firmly established. A period of rapid industrial and agricultural development has followed. The Republic has become the most important source for the supply of Egyptian cotton for the whole of Russia and the supply of electrical energy for all the five Central Asian Republics.

This is typical of Soviet work elsewhere in Russia. The development is largely undertaken by the ‘natives’. It has been a settled policy of the Soviet Union that at least fifty per cent of the employees in all industry from the highest executive posts to the lowest should be the natives.

Since the war began and the occupation of European Russia by Germany, the development of Soviet Asia has gone much further. Commenting on this the London Economist wrote in its issue of 5th Dec. 1942:

“In the course of 1942 the centre of gravity in the USSR’s economic life has shifted to Asia; and 1942 may rank in the USSR’s history as the year of the ascendancy of its Asiatic republics. Asia is putting a new impress upon all sectors of Soviet life. In the Army soldiers of the West Siberian and South Asiatic nationality have been most prominent. Tadjik and Uzbek detachments have been fighting in Stalingrad under the Siberial general, Rodimstsev.

The article concluded:

“Asia is rescuing Europe; and the influx of fresh blood has added a new strength to the country in its struggle and suffering.”

The Soviet Union has become, in spite of its diversities of race, religion and language, a strong unified State with a single will and purpose. The subject nationalities of the Tsarist empire have found in the Soviet regime and its economic system the fullest freedom and achieved a real progress. The ward peoples have been able to exchange poverty and oppression a servile status ignorance and superstition for a status of equality with the most advanced of the peoples of Russia, a higher standard of life, and a new cultural experience. It should, therefore, cause little surprise that the many peoples of Russia, who once would have preferred independence are now contented partners in the new State. It is a fallacy to regard self-determination as real only when it is exercised to separate from a parent State; it is just as real when neighbouring nationalities recognize their inter-dependence and choose to coalesce with their neighbours in the pursuit of a common ideal.²⁰

¹ Batsell: Soviet Rule in Russia
² A. D. Lindsay, The Modern State, Vol. I P. 142.
“The many national cultures have shown all the unity of a Nation-state.” P. 142.
³ Lenin: Selected Works, Vol. IV.
Stalin: Marxism and the National Colonial Question.
⁴ Lenin: Selected Works, Vol. IV, P. 269.
⁵ Lenin: Selected Works, Vol. IV. 271.
⁶ Ibid p. 271
⁷ Ibid p. 271
⁸ Stalin: Foundation of Leninism, p. 75
⁹ Lenin: Selected Works, vol. IV.
¹⁰ Stalin: Foundation of Leninism.
¹¹ Lenin: The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, p. 270.
¹² Lenin: On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, p. 268-9.
¹³ The Webbs: Soviet Communism, Vol. I, p. 143.
¹⁴ What the concession of cultural autonomy amounted between 1918 and 1922 was merely that the central authorities of the RSFSR did not, in practice, prevent those of each autonomous republic and autonomous area from adopting its own vernaculaer as the official language; or from using it in councils and court of justice, in schools and colleges, and in the intercourse between Government departments and public. The local authorities could give preference to their own nationals, and were even encouraged to do so. Their religious services were not interfered with by the Central Government. They could establish theatres, and publish books and newspapers in their own tongue.” Ibid, pp. 144-145.
¹⁵ The Webbs Soviet Communism, Vol. I, p. 153-4. See the classic account of the Webbs of Russia’s muti-form democracy and democratic centralism in this book.
¹⁶ A. L. Strong: The New Constitution of Soviet Russia.
Sidney and Beatrice Webb: The Truth about Soviet Russia.
¹⁷ Sir John Maynard: The Russian Peasant and other Studies, P. 400.
¹⁸ Grimkov: The Second Five Year Plan: (A Political Interpretation.)
¹⁹ The representation is as follows: Union Republic, 25 each. Autonomous Province, 5 each.
Autonomous Republic, 11 each. National Region, I each.
W. K. Hancock: Argument for Empire (Penguin Special, 1943) P. 15.