The federation now being built in Russia presents, and should present, an entirely different picture.

    Firstly, the regions which have separated out in Russia represent quite definite units as regards manner of life and national composition. The Ukraine, the Crimea, Poland, Transcaucasia, Turkestan, the Middle Volga, and the Kirghiz territory are distinct from the centre not only because of their geographical location (border regions!), but also because they are integral economic territories having a population with a specific manner of life and national composition.

    Secondly, these regions are not free and independent territories, but units which were forcibly squeezed into the all-Russian political organism, and which are now striving to secure the necessary freedom of action in the shape either of federal relations or complete independence. The history of the "union" of these territories is one long tale of violence and oppression on the part of the former Russian governments. The establishment of a federal system in Russia will mean the emancipation of these territories and the peoples inhabiting them from the old imperialist yoke. From unitarism to federalism!

    Thirdly, in the Western federations the shaping of the state is in the hands of the imperialist bourgeoisie.

Small wonder, then, that "union" there could not be effected without violence. Here, in Russia, on the contrary, the shaping of the political structure is in the hands of the proletariat, the sworn enemy of imperialism. In Russia, therefore, the federal system can, and must, be built on the basis of a free union of peoples.

    It is clear from this, Comrade Stalin continued, that the Russian Federation is not a union of independent cities (as caricaturists in the bourgeois press think), or of regions generally (as some of our comrades believe), but a union of definite historically evolved territories, each distinguished by a specific manner of life and national composition. The point is not the geographical location of certain regions, or even that certain areas are separated from the centre by stretches of water (Turkestan), or mountain ranges (Siberia), or steppes (Turkestan again). This geographical federalism, such as is preached by Latsis, has nothing in common with the federalism proclaimed by the Third Congress of Soviets. Poland and the Ukraine are not separated from the centre by mountain ranges or stretches of water. Nevertheless it would not enter anyone's head to assert that the absence of these geographical attributes precludes the right of these regions to free self-determination.

    On the other hand, Comrade Stalin said, it is unquestionable that the peculiar form of federalism advo-

    The structure of the central authority, its manner of constitution, is determined by the specific features of the Russian Federation. In America and Switzerland, federalism resulted in practice in a two-chamber system: on the one hand, a parliament elected on the basis of general elections, and, on the other, a federal council constituted by the states or cantons. That is the

two-chamber system which in practice leads to the usual bourgeois legislative red tape. Needless to say, the labouring masses of Russia would not reconcile themselves to such a two-chamber system. And this apart from the fact that such a system is wholly incompatible with the elementary demands of socialism.

    These, in my opinion, Comrade Stalin continued, are the general contours of the Russian Federation whose process of constitution we are now witnessing. Many are inclined to regard the federal system as the most stable, and even as ideal, and America, Canada and Switzerland are often cited as examples. But this infatuation with federalism is not warranted by history. In the first place, America and Switzerland are no longer federations: they were federations in the 1860's, but they have in fact become unitary states since the end of the last century, when all authority was transferred from the states or cantons to the central federal government.

    In Russia, constitutional development is proceeding in a reverse way. Compulsory tsarist unitarism is being replaced by voluntary federalism, in order that, in the course of time, federalism may be replaced by an equally voluntary and fraternal union of the labouring masses of all the nations and races of Russia. As in America and Switzerland, Comrade Stalin concluded, federalism in Russia is destined to serve as a means of transition -- transition to the socialist unitarism of the future.