Soviet of Nationalities

The founding debate, 1922–1923

How the non-Russian republics of the Union would be represented was the central dispute on the eve of the USSR's formation. The scheme Stalin pushed in 1922, "autonomisation," would have folded republics such as Ukraine into the Russian Federation as autonomous units; Rakovsky countered with the federal principle and the republics' right to self-determination. After Rakovsky proposed a second chamber representing the nationalities in November 1922, Stalin initially opposed it but finally relented, and the body was established in February 1923.

The precise basis of its composition was fiercely contested at the Twelfth Party Congress. What Rakovsky opposed was not bicameralism as such but Stalin's formula: giving the fifteen autonomous republics and oblasts inside the RSFSR the same number of votes as Ukraine and Belorussia would let the RSFSR secure at least 280 of 360 delegates. Rakovsky moved that no single republic hold more than two-fifths of the upper chamber's delegates; Stalin dismissed the motion as "state fetishism" and it was voted down. The congress held a separate session on the national question in April 1923 whose verbatim transcript remained secret until 1991.

Composition and powers

The national representation issue was resolved by a two-chamber Central Executive Committee: a Soviet of the Union elected in proportion to population, alongside a Soviet of Nationalities, confirmed by the 1924 Constitution. It contained five representatives from each union or autonomous republic and one from each autonomous region. The chambers had equal rights of legislative initiative, but in practice it did little until 1989 beyond approving decisions already taken by the party leadership.

The 1936 Constitution replaced the Central Executive Committee with the Supreme Soviet and made the Soviet of Nationalities its upper chamber. Representation was set at twenty-five deputies from each union republic, eleven from each autonomous republic, five from each autonomous region and one from each national area. If the chambers disagreed, a parity conciliation commission was formed; failing agreement, the Presidium dissolved the Supreme Soviet and ordered new elections. The Russian SFSR, with 147 million people, and the Estonian SSR, with about 1.5 million, each received the same number of deputies. The system sharply boosted the representation of smaller nationalities and left the Russians the most underrepresented.

The 1977 Constitution kept the two chambers and adjusted the allocation to thirty-two deputies from each union republic, eleven from each autonomous republic, five from each autonomous region and one from each autonomous area. After the competitive elections of 1989, the Soviet of Nationalities was reduced to 271 deputies and, for the first time, became a forum of lively debate rather than a ratifying body. Its final session was in December 1991, after the Soviet of the Republics replaced it that October.

Significance and limits

The Soviet of Nationalities institutionally recognised the Union's multinational composition, but representation rested not on ethnic groups but on republics and autonomous units as administrative divisions. No ethnic group as such, Russians included, was directly represented. The problems Rakovsky raised, the real powers of the non-Russian republics and the overreach of the central bureaucratic apparatus, disappeared from open debate after 1923; it was for these positions that he joined the Left Opposition in 1927 and was expelled from the party.