29

p Lenin and the Bolshevik Party thought very highly of the colonial peoples’ anti-imperialist battles as a powerful factor deepening the general crisis of capitalism. Lenin pointed out that the intensification of the national liberation struggle in colonies and dependencies lent the international revolutionary movement a truly world-wide nature.  [29•15  In his theses to the Second Congress of the Comintern Lenin said: "A policy must be pursued that will achieve the closest alliance, with Soviet Russia, of all the national and colonial liberation movements.”  [29•16 

p Referring to the mounting revolutionary activity of the masses in the colonial countries, Lenin mentioned the events in Africa. In May 1922 he wrote: "In these twenty years  [29•17  the revolution has developed into an invincible force in countries with a total population of over a thousand million (the whole of Asia, not to forget South Africa, which 30 recently reminded the world of its claim to human and not slavish existence, and by methods which were not altogether ‘parliamentary’).”  [30•18 

p There is a note which Lenin wrote to his secretary L. A. Fotieva (not later than 8 May 1920), asking her to get " Waltman’s report on South Africa"  [30•19  for him. One of the founders of the South African Communist Party S. P. Bunting, who attended the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, wrote in his memoirs that Lenin had read the manuscript of his article on colonial issues.  [30•20 

p Lenin also took an interest in the revolutionary events in Egypt. On 25 April 1919 he read a memo of the Eastern Department of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs about the situation in that country. Later he referred to Britain’s method of “solving” the Egyptian question in 1922 (recognition of Egypt’s formal independence coupled with the preservation of occupation regime and the actual rule of British imperialism) in order to criticise the LloydGeorge method of "truncated revolution".  [30•21 

p The development of the national liberation movement in Africa found its reflection in a number of documents of the Bolshevik Party. For instance, in its resolution on the Report of the Central Committee, the 14th Congress of the CPSU specially mentioned the uprising of the Riffs in Morocco calling it one of the biggest revolutionary acts in the countries of the East. The Congress noted that the entire system of imperialism had been undermined by the awakening colonial and semi-colonial peoples (China, India, Syria, Morocco), whose movement, which in places had assumed the form of national liberation wars, had attained immense, formerly unheard-of dimensions.  [30•22  Five years later, the 16th Congress of the CPSU pointed to the further 31 weakening of imperialism’s positions as a result of the intensification of the national liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples of Asia and Africa.

p The Soviet people repeatedly demonstrated their solidarity with the national revolutionary movement in African countries. When, after suppressing strikes and uprisings in 1922, the South African authorities instituted judicial and police repressions against the Transvaal miners, Soviet workers actively joined the international campaign in support of the working class in the Union of South Africa. The Fifth All-Russia Congress of Trade Unions which took place in September 1922 in Moscow sent a telegram to the South African workers condemning the measures of the South African reaction and British capital. "The Congress protests,” the telegram read, "against death sentences passed on the leaders of the strike in South Africa and supports the determined protest of the international proletariat against the infamous repressions instituted by the bourgeois judiciary.”  [31•23 

p The fresh pressure which Britain brought to bear on Egypt at the end of 1924 and which virtually resulted in a coup and the institution of a reign of terror against the national democratic forces there, evoked a wave of indignation in the USSR. A campaign of protest against the measures of British imperialism was launched in the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan, Georgia and other Soviet republics. On the initiative of the newspaperj/sTommamsi, a mass meeting took place in Baku on 28 November 1924 at which the working people of Azerbaijan and representatives of other peoples of the Soviet East (Daghestan and Central Asia), and also of Iran and Turkey decided to set up a HandsOff-Egypt society.

p On behalf of 50,000 Baku miners, the Presidium of the Central Board of the Azerbaijan Branch of the USSR Union of Miners issued an appeal to the workers of Britain: "We vehemently protest against the action of the [British] Government designed to shamelessly exploit the working people of Egypt, and urge you to raise your voices against the 32 violence committed by the Baldwin Government against the defenceless toiling population of Egypt.”  [32•24 

p Millions of Soviet citizens expressed their solidarity with the heroic struggle of the Riffs. In June 1925 there were demonstrations and meetings of working people in Moscow which were addressed by Communist Party leaders, workers, office employees, students, soldiers and Comintern leaders. Resolutions were adopted which urged the international proletariat actively to support the struggle of the Moroccan people for independence and prevent the dispatch of foreign troops and materiel to Morocco.

p Ali Yata, the leader of Moroccan Communists, recalled the stand of the USSR towards the uprising of the Riffs in a statement on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia. "Our country,” he noted, "was one of the first to feel the fresh wind which the October Revolution brought into the international working-class movement.... And if at that time the October Revolution was unable to furnish material assistance to the uprising of the Riffs, it gave it great moral support.”  [32•25 

p The USSR rendered increasing, many-sided aid to the national revolutionary struggle of the African peoples. For instance, the Soviet government provided young people from Africa, Asia and Latin America with an opportunity to study in the USSR. Back in the 1920s and 1930s a group of revolutionary minded young people from colonial countries, some of whom subsequently played a prominent part in the African working-class and national liberation movement, studied at Soviet institutions of higher learning, chiefly at the Communist University for Toilers of the East.

p Soviet diplomacy effectively aided the national liberation movement in African countries. Opposing the colonial system as a whole, it never missed an opportunity to unmask and criticise concrete forms and manifestations of colonialism.

p Immediately after the October Revolution the government of Soviet Russia annulled all secret treaties concluded by the tsarist and Provisional governments, including agreements on the partitioning of colonies and spheres of influence. The secret London agreement, signed by the Entente 33 and Italy on 20 April 1915 in keeping with which Italy was promised territorial “compensations” in Europe, Asia and Africa for entering the war against Germany, directly affected the interests of the African countries. This agreement was made public in November 1917, and the disclosure of this backstage deal showed the colonial peoples, including African, the real reason why the imperialist powers had inveigled them in the world carnage.  [33•26 

p The Soviet Government’s condemnation of the shameful system of capitulation and its renunciation of all rights and privileges connected with the extraterritoriality which tsarist Russia enjoyed in some Asian and African countries, was a serious blow at colonialism. Of fundamental significance for all the colonial peoples, including African, were Soviet Russia’s agreements with sovereign Eastern countries based on equality and support for their anti-imperialist struggle.  [33•27 

p Soviet foreign policy played an important role in the struggle against the mandate system whose sponsors tried to portray as concern for the "prosperity and development" of the population of the former possessions of the Ottoman Empire and German colonies. Actually, however, the establishment of mandated territories was a new variety of colonialism designed to cover up the imperialist recarving of the colonies after the First World War. The essence of this system, to quote Lenin, was the "handing out mandates for spoliation and plunder".  [33•28  That was why he did not exclude the mandated territories from imperialism’s colonial periphery where 70 per cent of the world population lived. "These are the colonial and dependent countries whose inhabitants possess no legal rights, countries ‘mandated’ to the brigands of finance,” he noted. "For the first time in world history, we see robbery, slavery, dependence, poverty 34 and starvation imposed upon 1,250 million people by a legal act.”  [34•29 

p Time and again the Soviet Government stressed that the system of mandates was in effect an outright usurpation of power over the mandated territories and that the imperialist powers which held mandates under the League of Nations trampled upon the rights, freedom and independence of peoples. "The Government of Russia,” said a Soviet note of 18 May 1923 to the British Government, "does not recognise this new form of the international situation.”  [34•30 

p At international conferences in the early 1920s attended by Soviet Russia it submitted a programme for the eradication of colonialism. On the eve of the 1922 Conference of Genoa, the demand to apply "the ‘Irish’ solution to all colonies and dependent countries and nations"  [34•31  was designated as one of the main points in the directive for the Soviet delegation. This was done on Lenin’s suggestion which was approved by the Communist Party Politbureau.

p At the Genoa Conference the imperialist powers did their utmost to confine discussions to economic matters. Nevertheless, at the very first plenary sitting on 10 April 1922 the Soviet delegation put forward a broad political programme which linked the national colonial issue with the problem of disarmament. Having tabled a motion to convene a world congress on general disarmament and the establishment of universal peace, the Soviet delegation emphasised that it should take place "on the basis of full equality of all peoples and recognition of their right to determine their own future".  [34•32 

p In its struggle against colonialism Soviet diplomacy also used the Conference of Lausanne (1922-23) on the Middle East. Prior to the Conference, Soviet Russia in a note to the British, French and Italian governments of 2 November 1922 stated outright that, being a friend of all oppressed peoples and proclaiming the right of all nations to self- 35 determination, it considered "itself duty-bound to adhere to the same principles" at the Lausanne Conference.  [35•33 

p The Soviet delegation in Lausanne sharply criticised the onerous Treaty of Sevres that was imposed upon Turkey in 1920 by the Entente, including those articles in it which recognised Britain’s colonial rule over Egypt and the Sudan, France’s over Morocco and Tunisia, and Italy’s over Libya. Largely thanks to the Soviet delegation’s firm anti-colonial stance, the imperialist powers refrained from including into the Treaty of Lausanne articles on the formal recognition of colonial protectorate in North Africa and the AngloEgyptian condominium in the Sudan (although some articles of the Treaty indirectly confirmed the fact of imperialism’s colonial domination in the North-African countries).

p Describing the Lausanne Conference, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR G. V. Chicherin called it an extremely important diplomatic clash between the awakened East and Western imperialism, in which "the Soviet republics perform their historical role of a friend of the downtrodden peoples fighting against oppression by imperialism".  [35•34 

p The Soviet Union resolutely opposed the efforts of the imperialist powers to disarm the national liberation movement in African and other colonial countries under the cover of the League of Nations. The USSR declined to attend the Geneva Conference of 1925 sponsored by the League of Nations, at which a convention was adopted for the control of the international trade in arms, munitions and implements of war. According to the convention the colonial administration alone had the right to import arms into the colonies. At the same time a large part of the African continent was included into the list of so-called closed zones where the import, storage and use of weapons were subject to particularly rigid control. It should be mentioned that though the regime of such zones did not extend to the North African countries, Morocco, on France’s insistence, was also proclaimed a closed zone in order to prevent arms shipments to the fighting Riffs.

p The Soviet Government’s refusal to attend the Geneva Conference and sign the Convention adopted on 17 June 36 1925, deprived it of any practical meaning. As a result, the majority of signatory countries did not venture to ratify it and the convention never entered into force.

p A detailed explanation of the reasons behind the Soviet Government’s attitude to the Geneva Conference was given by Chicherin in a speech at the Third Congress of Soviets of the USSR on 14 May 1925. He stressed that one of the main reasons for the Soviet Union’s negative attitude to the Convention for the Control of the International Trade in Arms was the desire of its authors to intensify imperialist oppression of the enslaved countries, particularly those which had been included in closed zones. "We declined to participate in that conference, which under the guise of regulating arms trade, actually intensified to the extreme the domination of the imperialist powers over the weaker nations.”  [36•35 

p Two years later, at the May 1927 International Economic Conference in Geneva, the Soviet Union submitted a programme that envisaged the "abolition of the system of protectorates, withdrawal of troops from the colonies, and freedom of political and economic self-determination of all peoples".  [36•36 

p The Soviet delegation incisively criticised a draft plan for transition to "free international trade" (including the abolition of national customs tariffs), formulated shortly before the Conference in the so-called bankers’ manifesto (October 1926). This draft mirrored the desire of British and US monopoly capital to clear the way for their expansion in the economically underdeveloped countries. Suffice it to say that the manifesto made the point that there was no reason to promote the development of national industry in those countries since it had no real economic roots.

p The Soviet delegation emphasised, however, that it held a totally different view. "We consider it necessary,” said the Soviet delegate, "that all countries, including colonies, should have the opportunity for free economic development.”  [36•37  He made the following proposals:

p “1) recognise the need to establish the sovereignty of the colonial countries over customs tariffs;

37

p “2) recognise the special interests of the Eastern and colonial countries in customs policy, since their underdeveloped industry makes the lowering and stabilisation of tariffs impossible.”  [37•38 

p But faced with the opposition of the capitalist delegations, these proposals were turned down.

p The Soviet delegation had been consistently opposed to colonialism in the Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference since 1927. Countering the efforts of the Western powers to emasculate the idea of disarmament and even a reduction of armaments, Soviet diplomats, among other things, criticised the imperialists’ designs against the colonies. There was a sharp clash between the Soviet and French delegations over the question of the air forces. The French delegation suggested that the colonial powers should have the right to indicate or not to indicate in the convention for the reduction of armaments the strength of their air forces deployed in the home countries and the colonies. France’s “solution” in fact left the question of the deployment of air forces in the colonies out of the sphere of international control, which, naturally, constituted a direct threat to the interests of the colonial peoples.

p Addressing the 6th session of the Preparatory Commission on 25 April 1929, the head of the Soviet delegation Maxim Litvinov declared that since the principles of Soviet foreign policy were contrary to the principles of the colonial system, the USSR in general was opposed to the deployment of armed forces and military materiel of the home countries in the colonies inasmuch as they could be used against the colonies themselves. As a minimal measure the Soviet side proposed that fixed limits to the air forces in the colonies should be worked out. The bloc of imperialist powers turned down this proposal, and the USSR delegation in its declaration stated that it categorically objected to the decisions of the Preparatory Commission concerning the problems of the colonial countries.

p At the Disarmament Conference in 1932 the Soviet delegation once again condemned the refusal of the imperialist powers to reduce the strength of the colonial troops. "The Soviet government,” declared the head of the delegation during the discussion of a draft resolution summing up the 38 results of the conference’s first session, "could not have acceded to a document formally sanctioning methods of imperialist and colonial policy.”  [38•39 

p Accordingly, the Soviet delegation refused to participate in the Special Committee (officially called Special Subcommittee for Overseas Personnel) that was set up by the Conference in 1933, inasmuch as it had a different approach to the limitation of the armed forces in the home countries and in the colonies.

p The Soviet Union with fresh force emphasised its intolerance of colonialism when it joined the League of Nations in September 1934. The Soviet Union joined this international organisation being fully aware of its defects, but it did not want to miss even those limited opportunities which the League could offer (especially after militarist Japan and nazi Germany had withdrawn from it in 1933) to avert the approaching world war. Examining the question of the Soviet Union’s entry into the League, the Communist Party Central Committee decided in December 1933 that it could accept the invitation to join the League only with certain reservations most of which concerned the national and colonial question. In its resolution the Central Committee said in part that the Soviet Union had a negative view of Article 22 of the League’s Covenant which established the mandates system, and that it favoured the inclusion of a point on the racial and national equality of all its members. These conditions were set forth by the USSR People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Litvinov in a speech at the 15th Assembly of the League on 18 September 1934, i.e., when the USSR joined the League. The Soviet Union also refused to have a representative on the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League.

Commenting on Litvinov’s statement, Izvestia made the point that the Soviet Union bore no responsibility for the League’s earlier activity against the colonial peoples. "This means,” the newspaper concluded, "that the USSR will not only refrain from taking part in such activity, but, will actively oppose it.”  [38•40