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p One of the cardinal tasks of the period of transition is to effect socialist changes in the sphere of relations between nationalities. This is a particularly pressing task in a multinational country, where in addition to the ruling nation there were subject, oppressed nations. This was the case with old Russia, which had scores of big and small nations.

p Capitalism is a society in which national oppression is rife, in which some nations enslave others. This gives the socialist revolution the task of abolishing not only social, class oppression but also its inescapable fellow travellernational oppression.

p In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote: “In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put to an end, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put to an end. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.”

p A programme for settling the nationalities problem, drawing nations together and giving them equal opportunities for progress was drawn up by Lenin. The principles underlying it were: comprehensive democratisation of social life, genuine equality for all races and nations, the right of nations to self-determination up to the formation of independent states, and the internationalist solidarity of the working class of all nationalities in the country. Permeated with profound respect for big and small nations and with concern for their most cherished needs and aspirations, this programme united the workers and peasants of the numerous nationalities of Russia into an unbreakable alliance headed by the working class, an alliance which was a key factor of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

p The Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, adopted by the Soviet Government on November 15, 1917, proclaimed the abolition of national oppression and the 165 establishment of political and juridical equality for all the numerous nations and nationalities inhabiting the country. However, the emancipation of nations could not be confined to the abolition of oppression and the granting of political and juridical equality. The main thing was to surmount the age-old economic and cultural backwardness inherited from the Russian autocracy. The Soviet socialist state successfully resolved this problem as well, not only granting the formerly oppressed nations the right to free development but also helping them to end their backwardness and achieve a high level of economic and cultural development.

p After restoring the national economy, which had been dislocated by the First World War and the Civil War, the Communist Party and the Soviet Government initiated the industrialisation of the non-Russian republics. Thanks to the constant concern displayed by the Party and the government and the disinterested aid rendered by other nations, chiefly the Russian, new industries which ensured unprecedented rates of development mushroomed in the formerly undeveloped republics. Agriculture was completely reorganised. Today it consists entirely of highly mechanised collective and state farms.

p Economic development has given all the Soviet republics well-trained national cadres and a huge army of intellectuals. Cultural backwardness has become a thing of the past. It may be stated that the peoples of the Soviet Union have accomplished not only a sweeping economic but also a thorough-going cultural revolution.

p Illiteracy has been wiped out and today all the Soviet republics have large networks of schools, institutions of higher learning and research and cultural establishments. A new culture that is socialist in content and national in form has blossomed forth. In cultural development the nonRussian Soviet republics have outstripped not only the Eastern capitalist countries but also some of the capitalist countries of the West.

p Socialist construction thus changed the non-Russian regions of the Soviet Union from economically and culturally backward sources of agrarian and other raw materials into advanced, sovereign socialist states each with a versatile industry, a productive agriculture, a working class and a large army of intellectuals. The formerly backward peoples 166 have become qualitatively new, socialist nations united by a community of economic, political and spiritual interests in a single Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Proletarian internationalism has become firmly entrenched in the ideology of these nations.

p The settlement of the nationalities problem in the U.S.S.R., one of the most acute and complicated problems of mankind’s development _? becomes all the more significant in view of the fact that many of the peoples inhabiting the Soviet Union had by-passed the capitalist stage when they embarked upon socialist development. The proletarian dictatorship made it possible for them to travel all the way from feudal and even pre-feudal relations to socialism in the life-time of a single generation.

p This is striking proof of the triumph of scientific socialism, the triumph of proletarian internationalism.

The Soviet experience has convincingly shown that only the socialist revolution creates the conditions for the complete eradication of national oppression, for the voluntary integration of free and equal peoples in a single state and for drawing nations ever closer together and promoting their prosperity. Today this experience is used and enriched by the socialist countries in the settlement of the nationalities problem within each country separately and in the socialist community of nations as a whole. This problem has been successfully settled in nationally heterogeneous countries like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, where socialist construction is drawing together nations and nationalities, who are creating a new society and furthering its economy and culture. This experience is also valuable for the peoples of the new sovereign national states that have shaken off the colonial yoke and for peoples who are fighting for liberation from colonialism. For these peoples the successes of the Soviet Union are a source of inspiration and strength in their bitter struggle against imperialism and colonialism. They see their future in the present of the socialist nations.