Lenin (1870-1924), Stalin (1878-1953), and nationalism

Lenin and Stalin did not accept the classical nationalist view of the nation-state as the most desirable form of state, but they recognized the nation as a significant political, economic, and cultural reality. The Soviet Union was organized as a federation of nations. Though the individual republics received some real power, the Moscow center monopolized the most important decisions. Both men acknowledged the right of Soviet nations to their own languages, cultures, and cadres, and Stalin developed articulate policies around this principle after Lenin's death. But national development became ever more restricted by Soviet state patriotism and russocentrism, leading to mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and xenophobic anticosmopolitanism. Though the Soviets established their hegemony after the war, the Eastern European states were not annexed to the USSR. The Communist International accepted the revolutionary potential of nationalism in the colonial world. Stalin gave a prominent role to the patriotic factor in international communist policies.