Treaty system between Soviet republics (1920–21)

Background

The Civil War and foreign intervention made it urgent to bind the military and economic resources of the separate Soviet republics into a single command structure. In June 1919 the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree "On the unification of the Soviet Republics: Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus for the struggle against world imperialism," which designated republican organs of military organisation and command, the councils of the national economy, and the commissariats of finance, labour, and transport for unification, with joint collegiums to direct them. After Soviet power collapsed in the Baltic region, this integration continued in the form of bilateral treaties.

The bilateral treaties

On 30 September 1920 a Military and Economic Union Treaty was concluded between the RSFSR and the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. On 28 December 1920 the Workers-Peasant Union Treaty between the RSFSR and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was ratified by the Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and on 16 January 1921 a treaty of the same kind was concluded between the RSFSR and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Under these treaties the commissariats of military and naval affairs, the Supreme Council of the National Economy, foreign trade, finance, labour, transport, and posts and telegraphs were declared unified, and these joint commissariats entered the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. The council of people's commissars of each republic was to have its own plenipotentiaries for the unified sectors, appointed and supervised by that republic's central executive committee and congress of soviets.

Extension and outcome

After the Azerbaijan, Armenian, and Georgian Soviet republics were established in Transcaucasia, a military convention on naval and military affairs was concluded between the RSFSR and the Transcaucasian Soviet republics in Tbilisi on 8 December 1921. At a conference in Moscow on 22 February 1922, representatives of the RSFSR, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Far Eastern Republic, and the Bukharan and Khorezm Soviet republics signed a protocol transferring to the RSFSR the right to represent and defend the interests of all the republics and to conclude international treaties in their name. This treaty system was the institutional precedent for the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on 30 December 1922 by the RSFSR, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Transcaucasian federation.