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nation used to be the "Great Russian," which conquered in succession the Finns and the Tartars, the Ukrainians and the Armenians, the Georgians and the Poles, the Sivashes and Moravians, the Kirghizes and Bashkirs, and dozens of other tribes. It naturally follows that some proletarians of these peoples foster mistaken notions concerning everything Russian. He has been accustomed to being ordered about and abused by the Tzar's officials, and he thinks that all Russians and the Russian proletariat as well are like what the former was.
It is for the purpose of instilling a brotherly confidence in the various sections of the proletariat that the programme of the Communists proclaims the right of the labouring class of every nation to complete independence. That means to say that the Russian worker who is now at the head of the Government must say to the workers of other nationalities living in Russia: "Comrades, if you do not wish to form a part of the Soviet Republic: if you wish to organise your own Soviets and form an independent Soviet Republic, you can do so. We fully acknowledge your right to do so, and we do not wish to detain you by force even for a single moment."
It is self-evident that only by such tactics can the confidence of the proletariat as a whole be won. Let us imagine what would happen if the workers' Soviets of Great Russia were to attempt by force of arms to coerce the working class of other nations into submission. The latter would, of course, defend themselves with arms. That would mean the complete collapse of the whole of all proletarian movements and the fall of the Revolution. That is not the right way to act, for, we repeat, victory is possible only on condition of a fraternal union of the workers.
Let us bear this in mind. The question is not of the right of the nation (i.e., of the workers and the bourgeoisie together) to independence, but of the right of the labouring classes. That means that the so-called "will of the nation" is not in the least sacred to us. We consider sacred only the will of the proletariat and the semi-proletariat masses.
That is why we speak not of the rights of nations to independence, but of the right of the labouring classes of every nation to separation if it so desires. During a proletarian dictatorship it is not the Constituent Assemblies (all national,
