Treaty on the Creation of the USSR


The Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics officially created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly known as the Soviet Union. It de jure legalised a union of several Soviet republics that had existed since 1919 and created a new centralised federal government where key functions were centralised in Moscow.
The Treaty along with the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR was approved on 30 December 1922 by a conference of delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR. The Treaty and the Declaration were confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by heads of delegations Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze and Grigory Petrovsky, Aleksandr Chervyakov respectively on December 30, 1922. The treaty provided flexibility to admit new members. Therefore, by 1940 the Soviet Union grew from the founding four republics to 15 republics.
On 8 December 1991, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian Presidents signed the Belovezha Accords. The agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states and established the CIS. On 10 December, the accord was ratified by the Ukrainian and Belarusian parliaments. On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore the Russian SFSR renounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russia's independence from the USSR.
On 26 December 1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Council of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the first house of Soviet legislature.

Causes of the treaty

The Treaty was a result of many internal political conflicts within the Bolshevik Party and governments inside the Union. Initially Vladimir Lenin did not see that Russia's October Revolution would end all foreign borders as such. This view was supported by Leon Trotsky and his followers, who believed that Russia was only a first step in a future world revolution. However, as the Red Army approached the edges of the former Russian Empire and its borders, it needed an excuse to cross them. One such method was a creation of an alternative government, a Soviet Republic, that would then take over authority as the Red Army ousted the existing government. This was the case with Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and failed campaigns such as in the Baltic States and Poland. Alternatively it would use the presence of a minority to undermine the standing army, and where there was no national minority, a government based on geographical locale – Far Eastern Republic, Turkestan.
However, the Red Army's ultimate failure in the Polish campaign placed the Bolshevik World Revolution plans on hold. Simultaneously the growing figure of Joseph Stalin pursued a different agenda. Lenin himself saw the creation of national republics as a permanent feature in line with his korenizatsiya policies. In spring of 1922, Lenin suffered his first stroke, and Stalin, still being a People's Commissar for Nationalities gained a new official chair as the General Secretary of the Communist Party.
Stalin argued that now that the Russian Civil War had concluded and that war communism was now replaced by the New Economic Policy, it required a country whose legal de jure framework would match its de facto one, and re-organising the Bolshevik state into a single sovereign entity. This included liquidating the many splinter Soviet governments and restoring supreme rule to Moscow.
This line went directly in conflict with both proponents of korenizatsiya and some of the local governments, most notably in Ukraine and Georgia. Thus the treaty can be viewed as a compromise between the different groups within the Bolshevik camp, to satisfy the aspirations of large minorities and to allow for potential expansion, as well. Byelorussia was the smallest republic, yet its official languages included Polish and Yiddish in addition to Russian and Belarusian to undermine the authority of the neighbouring Second Polish Republic and to use its sizeable Jewish minority, as well as the Belarusians and Ukrainians in Poland as a future fifth column. At the same time, it created a new centralised federal government where key functions would clearly be in the hands of Moscow.

List of preceding treaties

The original document included a cover sheet, the declaration, the treaty and the signatures of the delegations that signed it.
In the cover sheet, the title Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was typed in Russian, French, English and German, as well as the actual words Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics also in those four languages. It contained the original state emblem of the Soviet Union.
The declaration was written as a reflection on contemporary international relations and why the treaty was necessary. According to the narrative, there are now two distinct camps, an "exploiting" capitalist with colonialism, chauvinism and social and ethnic inequalities and a "free" socialist one with mutual trust, peace and international cooperation and solidarity. The former sought to destroy the latter, but because of the common good that the latter is based on, the former has failed.
The declaration goes on and lists three factors as to why this Union is a necessary step. First of all, the aftermath of the Civil War left many of the republics' economies destroyed, and rebuilding in the new socialist fashion is proving difficult without closer economic cooperation. Secondly, foreign threats continue to loom over the socialist camp, and its sovereignty requires an alliance for defence. Finally, the ideological factor, that the Soviet rule is internationalist in nature and pushes the working masses to unite in a single socialist family. These three factors justify in uniting in a single state that would guarantee prosperity, security and development.
Finally the declaration then specifies that the resultant Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is one that is created on free will of the peoples, that its purpose follows the ideals of the October Revolution, that each and every socialist republic has the right to join and leave the Union at its own will, and hinting at the Soviet foreign policy of socialist irredentism, finishes stating that the treaty ...will serve a decisive step on the path of unification of all workers into a "World Socialist Soviet Republic".
Following the declaration, is the treaty itself consisting of a preface and 26 articles.

Politics

Initially, the treaty did little to alter the major political spectrum. Most of the governing positions of the RSFSR's supreme organs were automatically transferred to the USSR's. For example, the Chairman of the All-Union Central Executive Committee was taken by Mikhail Kalinin, who would retain his chair as Russia's TsIK. Likewise, Lenin's position as chairman of RSFSR's Council of People's Commissars, which he held since the Revolution, would now to be transformed as the Chairman of the Union's SNK. However, as Lenin remained ill from the stroke, both of his chairs would be occupied by Alexei Rykov as acting head of the government.
Joseph Stalin's position as General Secretary of the Communist Party was also unchanged. However, the Party's position was. Prior to the treaty the Russian Communist Party , had its own bureaus which oversaw the activities in distant regions. After the Treaty, the party was re-organized as the All-Union Communist Party . Whilst the Republic's parties remained, Russia's party not only retained its primus inter pares position but officially took over as a supreme authority in the USSR.

Central Asia

One area where the Soviet division of power was not resolved at the time of the Treaty's signing, was Soviet Central Asia which contained several problems. A major battleground during the Russian Civil War, the region would remain unstable afterward. Turkestan had come under Russian control fairly recently, between 1867 and 1885. Moreover, unlike other ethnic borders of the former Russian Empire, which were delimited during the Tsarist days, the Soviet authorities inherited two provinces that were de jure never part of Russia proper, the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva. During the Russian Civil War, these too shared the fate of the other republics, but even here their special status was preserved, and they were established as the Bukharan and Khorezm People's Soviet Republics. Despite Mikhail Frunze's victories, the conflict was ongoing and whole provinces were under control of the Basmachi movement in 1922.
To settle this issue, in line with the korenizatsiya policy a massive programme of national delimitation in Central Asia was undertaken. On October 27, 1924, TsIK issued a decree where the former Bukharan, Khivan People's Republics as well as the RSFSR's Turkestan were re-organized as the Uzbek SSR and the Turkmen SSR, both of whom became full Union Republics on 13 May 1925. The borders of the new republics matched the ethnic ones, and Uzbekistan initially also contained a newly formed Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which would be elevated to a full Union Republic on October 16, 1929, becoming the Tajik SSR.

Soviet Constitution

In January 1924, the Second Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union, that was called in accordance to the Treaty ratified the first 1924 Soviet Constitution. The Constitution's text is essentially the re-written and expanded Treaty. It even contains the same Declaration. Whereas the Treaty contained 26 articles, the Constitution is split into eleven chapters containing 72 articles.

Aftermath and legality

Some experts argue that the original Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, ceased to exist as such, upon the adoption of the 1936 Soviet Constitution on 5 December 1936 which greatly altered the internal arrangement and re-organised the USSR from a Union-based confederation, into a proper federal country. Instead of the Congress of Soviets, the new Constitution created a permanent parliament, the Supreme Soviet. It also tied together most of the authorities and most significantly affirmed the role of the Communist Party as the driving force behind the USSR's working masses.
With regard to the original Treaty, the adoption of the Constitution re-organised the make-up of the Union. The Transcaucasian SFSR ceased to exist and the three republics that made it up were fully admitted to the Union. Simultaneously two of RSFSR's autonomies, the Kazak and the Kirghiz ASSRs were re-organised as full republics. Therefore, the seven became the eleven.
The Transcaucasian SFSR existed until December 5, 1936, when it was broken into Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani SSRs. The same day Kazak and Kirghiz ASSRs of the RSFSR ceased to exist, and their territory was divided between the new Kazakh and Kirghiz SSRs.

1940

In a prelude to World War II, several new republics were created prior to the German invasion of USSR in 1941. The first was the Karelo-Finnish SSR, which on 31 March 1940 was elevated to a union republic from the Karelian ASSR, previously part of the RSFSR.
After the annexation of Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were transformed into the Lithuanian SSR, Latvian SSR and Estonian SSR, and were formally adjoined to the Soviet Union on 3, 5 and 6 August respectively. The final republic was the Moldovian SSR that merged the large territory of Bessarabia with the Moldovian ASSR previously part of the Ukrainian SSR.
After World War II, no new republics were established, instead, the Karello-Finnish SSR was downgraded into an autonomous republic and re-annexed by the RSFSR on July 16, 1956.

Annulment

On December 8, 1991, the leaders of the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs, and the RSFSR met to agree on the annulment of the 1922 treaty, which was terminated on December 25, 1991, effectively dissolving the USSR.
On March 15, 1996, the State Duma of the Russian Federation expressed its legal position in relation to the decision of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in "The denunciation of the Treaty establishing the Soviet Union" as the wrongful, unconstitutional act passed by a grave violation of the Constitution of the RSFSR, the norms of international law and then in force legislation.

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