Secondly, Lenin never said that the abolition of national oppression and the merging of the interests of nationalities into one whole is tantamount to the abolition of national differences. We have abolished national oppression. We have abolished national muh privileges and have established national equality of rights. We have abolished state frontiers in the old sense of the term, frontier posts and customs barriers between the nationalities of the USSR We have established the unity of the economic and political interests of the peoples of the USSR But does this mean that we have thereby abolished national differences, national languages, culture, manner of life, etc.? Obviously it does not mean this. But if national differences, languages, culture, manner of life, etc.; have remained, is it not evident that the demand for the abolition of the national republics and regions in the present historical period is a reactionary demand directed against the interests of the dictatorship of the proletariat? Do our deviators understand that to abolish the national republics at the present time means depriving the vast masses of the peoples of the USSR of the possibility of receiving education in their native languages, depriving them of the possibility of having schools, courts, administration, public and other organisations and institutions in their native languages, depriving them of the possibility of being drawn into the work of socialist construction? Is it not evident that in their hunt after a sham internationalism our deviators have fallen into the clutches of the reactionary Great-Russian chauvinists and have forgotten, completely forgotten, the slogan of the cultural revolution in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat which applies equally to all the peoples of the USSR; both Great-Russian and non-Great-Russian?
Thirdly, Lenin never said that the slogan of developing national culture under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a reactionary slogan. On the contrary, Lenin always stood for helping the peoples of the USSR to develop their national cultures. It was under the guidance of none other than Lenin that at the Tenth Congress of the Party, the resolution on the national question was drafted and adopted, in which it is plainly stated that: "The Party's task is to help the labouring masses of the non-Great Russian peoples to catch up with Central Russia, which has gone in front, to help them:
a) to develop and strengthen Soviet statehood among them in forms corresponding to the national conditions and manner of life of these peoples;
b) to develop and strengthen among them courts administrations, economic and government bodies functioning in their native language and staffed with local people familiar with the manner of life and mentality of the local inhabitants;
c) to develop among them press, schools, theatres, clubs, and cultural and educational institutions in general, functioning in the native languages;
d) to set up and develop a wide network of general-educational and trade and technical courses and schools, functioning in the native languages." (Original Footnote: See Resolutions and Decisions of CPSU Congresses, Confrences and Centrla Committee Plenums; Part 1, 1953, p.559).
Is it not obvious that Lenin stood wholly and entirely for the slogan of developing national culture under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat?
Is it not obvious that to deny the slogan of national culture under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat means denying the necessity of raising the cultural level of the non-Great-Russian peoples of the USSR, denying the necessity of compulsory universal education for these peoples, means putting these peoples into spiritual bondage to the reactionary nationalists?