Stalin on the Need to Agitate for Proletarian Interests in the National Question

Stalin on the Need to Agitate for Proletarian Interests in the National Question

“It is the duty of Social-Democracy to conduct such agitation and to endeavour to influence the will of nations so that the nations may arrange their affairs in the way that will best correspond to the interests of the proletariat. For this reason Social-Democracy, while fighting for the right of nations to self-determination, will at the same time agitate, for instance, against the secession of the Tatars, or against cultural-national autonomy for the Caucasian nations; for both, while not contradicting the rights of these nations, do contradict "the precise meaning" of the programme, i.e., the interests of the Caucasian proletariat…”

Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National Question