The Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of History of the Neighboring Countries of the Historical Faculty of the M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Perihanum Ragimova, presented the report entitled ‘’The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the National Question’ at the International Round Table ‘The Russian Revolution of 1917 in the History and Historiography of the Neighboring Countries.”
According to her, the first such step on the part of the Bolsheviks in this direction was the Declaration of the Rights of Peoples on December 2, 1917. The point of the declaration was the equality, sovereignty of the peoples of Russia, their right for self-government up to the formation of the independent states.
According to the historian, the next step of the Bolsheviks, was to determine the form of the government: "Lenin was a supporter of federalism, Stalin was a supporter of a unitary state. For the first time Lenin expressed the idea of federalism in 1920 in the theses to the Second Congress of the Comintern. In 1922, the idea of Lenin was used for the creation of the Union State as a federation of the equal republics. That is, in 1922 the All-Union Congress of Soviets approved a declaration, an agreement on the formation of the USSR. "
Perikhanum Rahimova focused on the fact that in the first years of the formation of the USSR, the interethnic relations were built on the democratic principles: "There was a fairly clear division of functions of the all-union and republican departments. However, along with collectivization and industrialization, there was a strict centralization of power. Gradually, the embodiment of Stalin’s idea of autonomization started. He began to create the four-level system of the national-state administration - the Union republics, autonomous republics, the autonomous regions and autonomous districts. In reality, neither the republics nor autonomous districts had the right to make decisions independently. "
To fully realize the idea of the fusion of nations, the next step in the government of the USSR was the reform in the sphere of education. It was necessary to form a generation of people who would grow up in the spirit of communism, and for this it was necessary to overcome illiteracy in the country. "It was not possible to completely overcome illiteracy. Nevertheless, the Soviet government managed to raise the level of literacy on the territory of Russia, on the territory of the national suburbs, "Perikhanum Rahimova said.
According to her, a unitary rather than a federal state was created in the USSR, but many peoples of Russia, who did not have written language, for example, the peoples of the North, received their own written language in the first decades of the Soviet power; in some national regions of Russia the level of culture increased. "The Soviet government gave many peoples free and affordable education. As for me, this is the main achievement of the 1917 revolution, " the historian said.
