Lenins profound understanding of the

national question initiated by Marx was

because he was from Russia, the most
multinational state of the time. Czarist Russia
was not a nation; it was a state composed of
200 nationalities and languages.

The ethnic diversity of the empire and later

the Soviet Union was amazing. But the
experience of the minority nationalities
before the revolution was common:
institutionalized oppression. Their languages
were often banned. Some peoples had no
written language. Most people in the
oppressed nations could not read or write.
Czarist Russia was known as the prison house of
nations because of the very brutal and
autocratic rule by the Czarist nobility over the
many subject peoples. But the other nationalities
Georgians, Azerbaijanis or Turkic peoples and the
otherssuffered extra oppression.
It was known as Russia because of the dominance
of the Great Russian nation which distinguish
the dominant nationality from the White Russians
or from the Ukrainians.

The state religion was Orthodox Christianity.

Jews were denied all rights.
Muslims were considered religious enemies.
Muslims were not allowed to vote.
There were over 100 laws that denied Jews basic
rights. They were victims of pogromslarge-
scale massacres unleashed by the czar.
Among some of the Central Asian nationalities,
women were treated as property who could be
killed if they dared to read or write.
For Lenin, as leader of the Bolsheviks, the
question was how to develop a party and
lead a revolution in such a multinational
state, with all the divisions among the
nationalities and peoples, with all the
oppression experienced at the hands of
the Great Russian nation
How could the Bolsheviks build the unity of
all workers and oppressed peoples that
was necessary in order to overthrow the
czar and build socialism?
Lenin asked, How could there be real unity
under these circumstances between the
workers of the oppressor nationality and
the workers of the other nationalities?

For Lenin, the key was for the Great Russian

working class and the revolutionary party
to make clear their unequivocal
opposition to every manifestation of Great
Russian oppression, privilege and racism.
The party (Bolsheviks) had to be the leader
in fighting for equality of language rights,
equality of education and of cultural
rights. He was confident that the unity
would come about when the oppressed
peoples, especially the workers and
peasants, were confident that the
Bolsheviks were committed to self-
determination and equality.
To make it completely clear that the
revolutionary workers party was
committed to ending national oppression,
it must also support the right of the
oppressed nation to separate to form its
own state.
 With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the
socialist perspective toward oppressed
nationalities became more important than
ever.
All of the major imperialist empires and powers
joined in the war.
Lenin showed that the imperialists were not
fighting to defend self-determination but to
annex other countries, thus it was more
important to defend smaller countries right to
independence
 By 1914, the continents of Africa, Asia and
Latin America had been carved up and
divided among the imperialist powers.
In April 1916, Lenin wrote The Socialist
Revolution and the Rights of Nations to
Self-determination.
He wrote that the victorious socialist
countries first task would be to extend
bourgeois democratic rights for the
population and to recognize the right of
oppressed nations to self-determination.
 The February 1917 revolution in Russia
brought the capitalists to power under
Kerensky. The first challenges that the new
Provisional government faced dealt with
national oppression.

Finland and Poland proclaimed their

independence immediately. During czarist
rule, the ruling classes of these nations had
not pressed for independence.
 Not a week passed before the Bolsheviks
laid out a whole new series of
revolutionary decrees and institutions
designed to bring about equality among
nations and ending centuries of
oppression.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin addressing a crowd
during the Russian Revolution of 1917.