and yes it's real.
https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/125503/5042_Luxemburg_Russian_Revolution.pdf
The best proof is the Ukraine, which was to play so frightful a role in the fate of the Russian Revolution. Ukrainian nationalism in Russia was something quite different from, let us say, Czechish, Polish or Finnish nationalism in that the former was a mere whim, a folly of a few dozen petty-bourgeois intellectuals without the slightest roots in the economic, political or psychological relationships of the country; it was without any historical tradition, since the Ukraine never formed a nation or government, was without any national culture, except for the reactionary-romantic poems of Shevschenko. It is exactly as if, one fine day, the people living in the Wasserkante should want to found a new Low-German (Plattdeutsche) nation and government! And this ridiculous pose of a few university professors and students was inflated into a political force by Lenin and his comrades through their doctrinaire agitation concerning the "right of self-determination including etc."
Putin:
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
The Bolsheviks treated the Russian people as inexhaustible material for their social experiments. They dreamt of a world revolution that would wipe out national states. That is why they were so generous in drawing borders and bestowing territorial gifts. It is no longer important what exactly the idea of the Bolshevik leaders who were chopping the country into pieces was. We can disagree about minor details, background and logics behind certain decisions. One fact is crystal clear: Russia was robbed, indeed.
When working on this article, I relied on open-source documents that contain well-known facts rather than on some secret records. The leaders of modern Ukraine and their external ”patrons“ prefer to overlook these facts. They do not miss a chance, however, both inside the country and abroad, to condemn ”the crimes of the Soviet regime,“ listing among them events with which neither the CPSU, nor the USSR, let alone modern Russia, have anything to do. At the same time, the Bolsheviks' efforts to detach from Russia its historical territories are not considered a crime. And we know why: if they brought about the weakening of Russia, our ill-wishes are happy with that.
Yeah, if you ascribe to Historial Materialist (and by extension Dialectical Meterialist) views, you should understand that 20th century Ukraine isn’t 21st century Ukraine by definition.
The idea of a nation of "Dixie" existed in the Southern US, and still does for some.
I mean I don't know if Stalin is the best source on the determination of small nations.
Western Ukraine was definitely quite distinct from Russia back then too. The Imperial Census had Ukrainian as a language and most of Western Ukraine had been a Cossack vassal state for nearly 50 years in the 18th centure before being absorbed as it's own administrative division into the empire.
Some people who somehow view Rosa as this non authoritarian council communist queen (and she is dope of course) would be very surprised to hear that on issues of ethnic or national determination and "questions" (and on a bunch of other stuff) Rosa was more "authoritarian"(oof dont really like using this) and "not as progressive" compared to Lenin and they had disagreements on these issues that if you took out the names and who said what 95% of online "leftists" would think Rosa is Lenin and Lenin is Rosa
I think she is correct that Ukrainian national identity and determinism is a vague concept at the time and one that pretty much was created by some intellectuals. However, HOWEVER I don't think that materially mattered anymore by the time the Civil War was raging. This is the general weakness of Rosa's critiques of the Bolsheviks, one she often alludes to. The situation on the ground was not matching what theory had prepared for. By that time Ukraine as a region had several states declared, parts under German control and parts under Allied control. The Bolsheviks there declared several governments with little continuity and a few full retreats due to many recruits joining the Civil War elsewhere, putting the revolution above securing their home "nation".
Ukrainian determinism was out of the bag now, so what was Lenin to do? Violate his correct principles of the right of self-determination of small nations? A principle that had materially matched Marxist observations made specifically in Ireland with Connolly as Lenin points out in his very work. Just set a precedent that no nascent nationalist movement will see and say "oh oh they just mean Ukraine and when they say those things that are lobbed against our struggle they are actually true this time"? Even if that was true, no one was gonna buy it, no one was gonna take up arms for it.
Poland was annexing the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, the Ukrainian People's Republic did nothing as it was selling ports to the Germans and digging in on anticommunism. Poland, the Germans, and the Allies wouldn't cease, and the people living in the geographical region would need actual incentives to join the Bolsheviks. Only the east of the country was strongly communist, the communists in Kiev had left when they had a chance to serious contend for power cause they felt they didn't have the base support for it there.
When Lenin sent commissars to Ukraine he specifically urged them to be tactful, to not mock the idea of Ukrainianism, as they could not afford to piss them off and belittle them when they needed help. They did so anyways and accurate or not, it didn't help the revolution.
Now about half of what I said happened during or a bit after Rosa wrote this, the WUPR and UPR didn't exist yet only the Rada did, but they were inevitable on some level. Rosa lays this at Lenin's feet, "inflated into a political force by Lenin and his comrades" which is a soundly anti-materialist statement. The Central Rada was not just some university students, it was a bourgeoise formation made up of Kulaks and the like. It was a thing, not just in theory even if it was hardly concrete. Lenin could not afford to waffle or debate the merits of this specific case of self-determination. Now he did trust the Rada more than he should have, but the acquiescing was bound to happen anyways. Would he dare make the central Asian territories question if he was genuine about their determination? This was not some head in the clouds purity on Lenin's part, but pragmatic.
Good excerpt of what she is referring to
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jun/28.htm
The new, coalition Provisional Government’s policy failure is becoming more and more obvious. The Universal Act on the organisation of the Ukraine, issued by the Ukrainian Central Rada[1] and adopted on June 11, 1917, by the All-Ukraine Army Congress, plainly exposes that policy and furnishes documentary proof of its failure.
“Without seceding from Russia, without breaking away from the Russian State," reads the Act, “let the Ukrainian people have the right to shape their own life on their own soil.... All laws by which order is to be established here in the Ukraine shall be passed solely by this Ukrainian Assembly. And laws establishing order throughout the Russian State must be passed by the All-Russia Parliament.”
These are perfectly clear words. They state very specifically that the Ukrainian people do not wish to secede from Russia at present. They demand autonomy without denying the need for the supreme authority of the “All-Russia Parliament”. No democrat, let alone a socialist, will venture to deny the complete legitimacy of the Ukraine’s demands. And no democrat can deny the Ukraine’s right to freely secede from Russia. Only unqualified recognition of this right makes it possible to advocate a free union of the Ukrainians and the Great Russians, a voluntary association of the two peoples in one state. Only unqualified recognition of this right can actually break completely and irrevocably with the accursed tsarist past, when everything was done to bring about a mutual estrangement of the two peoples so close to each other in language, territory, character and history. Accursed tsarism made the Great Russians executioners of the Ukrainian people, and fomented in them a hatred for those who even forbade Ukrainian children to speak and study in their native tongue.
Russia’s revolutionary democrats, if they want to be truly revolutionary and truly democratic, must break with that past, must regain for themselves, for the workers and peasants of Russia, the brotherly trust of the Ukrainian workers and peasants. This cannot be done without full recognition of the Ukraine’s rights, including the right to free secession.
We do not favour the existence of small states. We stand for the closest union of the workers of the world against “their own” capitalists and those of all other countries. But for this union to be voluntary, the Russian worker, who does not for a moment trust The Russian or the Ukrainian bourgeoisie in anything, now stands for the right of the Ukrainians to secede, without imposing his friendship upon them, but striving to win their friendship by treating them as an equal, as an ally and brother in the struggle for socialism.
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Rech, the paper of the embittered bourgeois counter revolutionaries, who are half demented with rage, savagely attacks the Ukrainians for their “unauthorised” decision. “That act by the Ukrainians," it says, “is a downright crime under the law, and calls for the immediate application of severe legitimate punitive measures." There is nothing to add to this attack by the savage bourgeois counter-revolutionaries. Down with the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie! Long live the free union of free peasants and workers of a free Ukraine with the workers and peasants of revolutionary Russia!
Notes
The Ukrainian Central Rada (Council) was a counter-revolutionary bourgeois nationalist organisation founded in April 1917 at the All-Ukraine National Congress in Kiev by a bloc of Ukrainian bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalist parties and groups. M. S. Grushevsky, an ideologue of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, was its chairman and V. K. Vinnichenko its vice-chairman. Among its members were Petlyura, Yefremov, Antonovich and other nationalists. Socially, the Rada relied for support on the urban and rural bourgeoisie, the kulaks, and the petty-bourgeois nationalist intellectuals. It tried to consolidate the power of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie and landowners and to establish a Ukrainian bourgeois state, taking advantage of the national liberation movement in the Ukraine. Under the guise of lighting for national independence, it strove to win the support of the Ukrainian people, divert thorn from the all-Russia revolutionary movement, bring thorn under the sway of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, and prevent the victory of the socialist revolution in the Ukraine. The Rada supported the Provisional Government despite differences over the issue of granting autonomy to the Ukraine.
Following the victory of the October Socialist Revolution the Rada declared itself the supreme organ of the “Ukrainian People’s Republic” and campaigned openly against Soviet rule. It was one of the principal centres of the counter-revolutionaries of the whole of Russia.
then in December of 1917
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/dec/03.htm
Proceeding from the interests of the unity and fraternal alliance of factory workers and the working and exploited masses in the struggle for socialism, and also from the recognition of these principles by numerous decisions of the organs of revolutionary democracy, the Soviets, and especially the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets, the Council of People’s Commissars—the Socialist government of Russia—reaffirms that the right to self-determination belongs to all nations oppressed by tsarism and the Great Russian bourgeoisie, up to and including the right of these nations to secede from Russia.
Accordingly we, the Council of People’s Commissars, recognise the People’s Ukrainian Republic, and its right to secede from Russia or enter into a treaty with the Russian Republic on federal or similar relations between them.
We, the Council of People’s Commissars, recognise at once, unconditionally and without reservations everything that pertains to the Ukrainian people’s national rights and national independence.
We have not taken a single step, in the sense of restricting the Finnish people’s national rights or national independence, against the bourgeois Finnish Republic, which still remains bourgeois, nor shall we take any steps restricting the national independence of any nation which had been—or desires to be—a part of the Russian Republic.
We accuse the Rada of conducting, behind a screen of national phrases, a double-dealing bourgeois policy, which has long been expressed in the Bada’s non-recognition of the Soviets and of Soviet power in the Ukraine (incidentally, the Rada has refused to convoke a territorial congress of the Ukrainian Soviets immediately, as the Soviets of the Ukraine had demanded). This ambiguous policy, which has made it impossible for us to recognise the Rada as a plenipotentiary representative of the working and exploited masses of the Ukrainian Republic, has lately led the Rada to steps which preclude all possibility of agreement.
These, firstly, were steps to disorganise the front.
The Rada has issued unilateral orders moving Ukrainian units and withdrawing them from the front, thereby breaking up the common united front before any demarcation, which can be carried out only through a formal agreement between the governments of the two republics.
Secondly, the Rada has started to disarm the Soviet troops stationed in the Ukraine.
Thirdly, the Rada has been extending support to the Cadet-Kaledin plot and revolt against Soviet power. On the patently false plea of “the Don and the Kuban” having autonomous rights, a plea that serves to cover up Kaledin’s counter-revolutionary moves, which clash with the interests and demands of the vast majority of the working Cossacks, the Rada has allowed its territory to be crossed by troops on their way to Kaledin, but has refused transit to any anti-Kaledin troops.
Even if the Rada had received full formal recognition as the uncontested organ of supreme state power of an independent bourgeois Ukrainian republic, we would have been forced to declare war on it without any hesitation, because of its attitude of unexampled betrayal of the revolution and support of the Cadets and the Kaledinites—the bitterest enemies of the national independence of the peoples of Russia, the enemies of Soviet power and of the working and exploited masses.
At the present time, in view of the circumstances set forth above, the Council of People’s Commissars, with the full cognisance of the peoples of the Ukrainian and Russian Republics, asks the Rada’[2] to answer the following questions:
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Will the Rada undertake to give up its attempts to disorganise the common front?
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Will the Rada undertake to refuse transit to any army units on their way to the Don, the Urals or elsewhere, unless it has the sanction of the Commander-in-Chief?
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Will the Rada undertake to assist the revolutionary troops in their struggle against the counter-revolutionary Cadet-Kaledin revolt?
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Will the Rada undertake to stop attempts to disarm the Soviet regiments and the workers’ Red Guard in the Ukraine and immediately return arms to those who had been deprived of them?
In the event no satisfactory answer is received to these questions within 48 hours, the Council of People’s Commissars will deem the Rada to be in a state of open war with Soviet power in Russia and the Ukraine.
Footnotes [1] The Ukranian Central Rada was a counter-revolutionary bourgeois-nationalist organisation set up at the All-Ukraine National Congress in Kiev in April 1917 by a bloc of Ukrainian bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalist parties arid groups. The ideologist of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, M. S. Grushovksy. was its chairman, and V. K. Vinnichenko, his deputy. The Rada had a social base of urban and rural bourgeoisie, and petty-bourgeois nationalist-minded intellectuals. It tried to build up the power of the Ukrainian business class and landowners and set up a Ukrainian capitalist state with the aid of the national liberation movement in the Ukraine. It waved the banner of national independence in an effort to lead the Ukrainian masses away from the all-Russia revolutionary movement, subordinate them to the Ukrainian bourgeoisie and prevent the socialist revolution from winning out in the Ukraine. It supported the Provisional Government in spite of contradictionis over the issue of Ukrainian autonomy.
After the Great October Socialist Revolution, the Rada proclaimed itself the supreme organ of the. I.Ikrainian People’s Republic and launched an open struggle against Soviet power. It was one of tbe centres of the counter-revolution.
The First All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets, held in Kharkov in December 4917, proclaimed the l~kraine a Soviet republic. The Congress declared the Central Rada overthrown. The Council of People’s Commissars of the R.S.F.S.R. recognised the Ukrainian Soviet Government as the sole legitimate government of the Ukraine and decided to give it immediate help in fighting tire counter-revolutionary Rada. Armed uprisings against the Central Rada for the re-establishment of Soviet power took place all over the country in December 1917 and January 4918. In January 1918, Soviet troops in the Ukraine launched an offensive and on January 26 (February 8) occupied Kiev. The Rada was overthrown.
Defeated and ousted from the territory of the Soviet Ukraine, deprived of any support among the working people, the Central Rada joined the German imperialists in an alliance to overthrow Soviet power and restore the rule of the bourgeoisie in the Ukraine. It sent a delegation to Brest-Litovsk and secretly concluded a separate peace giving Germany the Ukraine’s corn, coal, raw materials in return for military aid in the fight against Soviet power. In March 1918, the Rada returned to Kiev as the puppet of the Austro-German armies who dispersed it in late April when they realised that it was absolutely incapable of suppressing the revolutionary movement in the Ukraine and delivering the goods.
[2] The rest of the text was written by L. D. Trotsky and edited by Lenin and Stalin.
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Rosa was right about how bullshit the national government was in its declaration, but the political reality was not something Lenin and the Bolsheviks inflated or let happen, it was an actual force they had to deal with. And they succeeded here. Ukrainian partisans kept fighting as that final note shows, the Red Army eventually stepped in and seriously won a lot of Ukrainians who had been on the fence. The UKP had sold major ports including Crimea to the Germans, and had allowed the Poles to pillage the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. Previously hesitant of the Bolsheviks, people began to side with them. It could have gone a million times smoother, but Lenin was proven correct
My point is that as is often the case......the fault really lies with Poland being a stooge of the forces of reaction :poland-cool:
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Yeah, Luxemburg didn't have a lot of use for self-determination in the first place. It's one of the more irritating elements of her writing. Worth noting that Poland was one of the nationalities that felt it had some claim to the land that is now Ukraine, which probably colored some of her perspective on Ukraine, specifically.
