Leon Wasilewski

Cancellation of Russia

What is happening beyond the eastern borders of the Republic of Poland deserves not only utmost attention of our state authorities, but also keen interest on the part of broad circles of the Polish society, which sometimes does not realize the significance of what is happening there.

Russian Bolshevism is generally treated in Poland as a temporary phenomenon. Consequently, not much significance is attached to everything it has created or will create throughout its existence. In this respect, we are of the same opinion as the Russian émigré community, which, while arguing fiercely about the bequest from the Bolsheviks, does not doubt that the post-Bolshevik Russia will be what the émigré monarchists, democrats, or Russian socialists would like her to be.

The “future” Russia is seen as something completely certain and defined. Of course, she is imagined within borders different from the pre-war ones, but in other respects she is confusingly similar to Russia — if not that of 1914 then at least that of 1917. The émigré monarchists dream of reviving the Russia of the Romanovs,1 slightly modernized but quickly recovering the lands which she had lost to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Turkey. The democrats would like to revive the tradition of the constituent assembly, which was dismantled by the Bolsheviks, and would accept a somewhat more modest revision of the borders. Both the monarchists and democrats treat “future” Russia as a continuation of pre-Bolshevik Russia, probably believing that the Bolshevik rule will not leave any lasting imprint on the fabric of the country. They look at the Bolshevik state economy from the perspective of assessing its destructive power, while almost completely ignoring its other aspects.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Bolsheviks are masters of destruction. They ultimately destroyed what the war had undermined or impaired. They also caused further disintegration of social and political life. The fierce extermination of the intelligentsia, the liquidation of much of the factory proletariat, the rapid lowering of the overall level of culture, the devastation of the means of transport, the corruption of the masses’ psyche — all this accompanied the Bolshevik regime. But while ruining and dismantling the existing forms of the society’s existence, at the same time, intentionally or not, the Bolsheviks were creating conditions that facilitated development of new forms and symptoms. Taking root, the latter render reconstruction of the former relations impossible.

The cancellation of ownership of great areas of land and the peasants’ taking the land over failed to yield the results expected by the Bolsheviks — it did not turn the peasants into supporters of communism. Nevertheless, a peasant who possesses land shall never let the landowners return, no matter what. Nor will the Orthodox Church, in former Russia so closely associated with the monarchy and the stratum of large owners, regain its former significance. The Bolsheviks led to its internal decay, even in Great Russia, where emerged various mutually opposed church currents and tendencies. In Ukraine, the autocephaly broke the unity of the Orthodox Church. It is difficult to imagine the revival of the unified Orthodox Church of all Russia, although it would not be surprising if the Bolsheviks’ fanatic atheistic propaganda triggered religious reaction.

There is another area where the Bolsheviks have led to the dissolution of the relations established during tsarism. The said area is that of ethnic affairs, where the Bolshevik economy can eventually lead to far-reaching consequences.

Suppressed with unprecedented effort during tsarism, the ethnic movements within the Russian state began to develop in new forms in the face of the Russian fiascoes in the war. Although during the first Russian Revolution (1905) the ethnic tendencies emerged not only in the western “borderlands” of Russia, but even among the semi-barbarian tribes of Eastern Siberia, the post-revolutionary reaction suppressed their development. It was only Russia’s fiascoes in the World War and the German occupation that pushed those movements onto the path of overt national-state separatism. But not all peoples subjugated by tsarism managed to set themselves free of Russia. Not to mention the Finnish and Turkish peoples and tribes of the North and East, or White Ruthenia, where the ethnic movement was very weak — Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Central Asian khanates found themselves back under the Russian rule.

The tribes, peoples, and nations of the old Russia which were awakening to independence forced the Bolsheviks to take into account their aspirations in the sphere of culture. The decisive moment was the desire to win over the peasants in those ethnic groups. The Bolsheviks, who based on the Russian urban working class and the urban population in general, had limited access to the countryside, even in Great Russia. Not to mention the areas inhabited by compact masses of ethnically alien populations, which did not speak Russian and, consequently, were completely inaccessible to the communist propaganda and which had emerging or aroused national aspirations. The desire to win over those peasants who did not speak Russian forced the Bolsheviks to seek ways to appeal to their psyche. The exploitation of national aspirations became an effective means to control the non-Russian countryside.

Autonomous and ethnically homogeneous lands (Oblasts) and republics began to be established, portioned out from the former governorates. The use of local languages was introduced in education, the judiciary, administration, local governments, etc. Communist intelligence began to be produced by means of special schools and courses. Speaking the local languages, that intelligentsia developed literature, the press, reading rooms, theaters, etc., in the given tongues. In some places, like in the case of certain Caucasian tribes, the communist intelligentsia began to create new literatures, which had not existed in those languages. That work was carried out with great intensity, with programmatic communism at times giving way to practical nationalism, which was much more effective in attracting the minds of peasants, especially the Muslim ones.

Over time, the Bolsheviks duly assessed that “nationalization[’s role] in foreign policy, especially with regard to the English possessions in Asia, to Turkey, and, last but not least, to Poland. Bolshevism put up a banner of “liberation of subjugated peoples” and decided to make it a tremendous attractive force for the benefit of the Russian state policy. Having realized how important that means of propaganda was, the Russian Bolsheviks had to draw appropriate conclusions from it, for the growing movement of the awakened ethnic groups was making ever bolder demands. It was no longer satisfied with fictions such as the Belarus consisting of six counties or the totally fictitious “Ukrainization” of education in Ukraine. The Ukrainian, Tatar, Georgian, and other nationalist elements began to work alongside the communists, exerting an increasingly strong influence on the nationalization of the life of individual republics and autonomous states. The slogan of the fight against Great Russia’s chauvinism was now on the agendas of communist congresses. Georgian, Turkestan, and other comrades did not hesitate to accuse the Russian comrades — who were communists same as they were — of Russification tendencies.

The growth of the ethnic movements within the communist framework accelerated the nationalization of public life in the individual countries and republics and gradually deprived their union of a Russian character. The name “Russia” is to officially disappear as of December 1922. The Soviets are creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which shall include: the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkSRR), the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR), and the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia). Although the establishment of the USSR resulted in the deprivation of the individual republics of certain attributes (such as foreign representation), thus strengthening centralism across the Union, it constituted a profound stage in the process of the disappearance of former Russia.

The process of nationalization within the USSR continues. In Ukraine, the Ukrainian language is actually acquiring civil rights not only in education, but also in administration. To the existing White Ruthenia annexed was almost all of the remaining Belorussian ethnographic area, separated from the RSFSR — the Vitebsk, Mogilev, and Smolensk Governorates. The Ukrainian Red Army’s cadres are being formed. Once dominant in the Union, the RSFSR is turning into one of its equal parts, with the voice of representatives of republics and non-Russian countries also being heard in its governing bodies.

Russia has been erased and today the Soviet authorities issue circulars letters that fight the tradition of using this name. Of course, same as everything else that the Bolsheviks do, this too is largely artificial and calculated for effect. But the basis of this process is absolutely real. The awakening of the ethnic movements of all peoples, including the small ones and those on a low level of cultural development, is another factor that renders impossible the restoration of old Russia, which would be a dream come true not only for the Russian monarchists, but also for the democrats, who have not yet learned the lesson coming from what has recently happened on the ruins of tsarism.

Wasilewski Leon, “Skasowanie Rosji,” in: Przegląd polityczny, vol. 1, notebook 3, Warsaw, 1 May 1924, pp. 70‒73.