The term National Communism describes the ethnic minority communist currents that arose in the former Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 after Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

's Bolshevik Party (formed from the left wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party) seized power in October 1917

October Revolution

The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

.

Left-wing socialists in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 and the Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 areas of the former tsarist empire also developed distinct variants of communism that continued in the USSR until 1928. Ukrainian and Muslim varaints differed from each other on two points in particular. The Muslims believed the fate of world revolution depended on events in Asia not Europe. They also argued alliances with the national bourgeoisie were necessary for the duration of the liberation struggle. Class divisions had to be ignored,otherwise the national bourgeoisie would turn away from national liberation, ally with their imperial counterparts and thus ensure the ultimate collapse of any revolutionary struggle and national liberation. In its Muslim variant it was a synthesis of nationalism, communism and anarchism as well as religion. Muslim communists included people from both left and right wing groups which predated the Revolution, joining the (Russian Bolshevik Party) between 1917 and 1920—some of whom later were Narkomnats

Narkomnats

People's Commissariat of Nationalities was the Government of the Soviet Union body set up to deal with non-Russian nationalities...

, under the People's Commissar Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

.

In Ukraine

In 1918, the book Do Khvyli (translated into English as On The Current Situation in the Ukraine, P. Potichnyj ed. [1970]), written by the Ukrainian communists Serhii Mazlakh and Vasyl' Shakhrai

Vasyl' Shakhrai

Vasyl' Shakhrai was a Ukrainian political activist and Soviet revolutionary during the Russian Revolution. He was noted as an advocate of National Communism and did not support the October Revolution....

, challenged what they saw as Russian domination over Ukraine under Bolshevik rule. The analysis was extended in the 1919 letter of the Ukrainian Communist Party

Ukrainian Communist Party

The Ukrainian Communist Party was an oppositional political party in Soviet Ukraine, from 1920 until 1925. Its followers were known as Ukapists , from the initials UKP.Socialist Sovereigns...

 to the Third International.

In Muslim regions of the former Russian Empire

Open conflict between prominent Muslim theorists such as Sultan Galiev Mirsäyet Soltanğäliev

Mirsäyet Soltangäliev

Sultan Galiev , usually known in English as Mirza Sultan-Galiev, was a Tatar Bolshevik who rose to prominence in the Russian Communist Party in the early 1920s...

 and Lenin and Stalin broke out in 1919 at the Second Congress of the Communist International over the autonomy of the Muslim Communist Party as well as at the Congress of the Peoples of the East

Congress of the Peoples of the East

The Congress of the Peoples of the East was held in Baku in September 1920. The congress was first planned by Mirsäyet Soltanğäliev and the National Communists. However Stalin prevented Soltanğäliev from attending the congress, fearing that he would help consolidate his wing of the communist...

 and the First Conference of the Turkic Peoples' Communists of the RSFSR and significantly at the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (b) (April 1921). The crisis resulted in the purge of the Communist Party of Turkestan

Communist Party of Turkestan

The Communist Part of Turkestan was a the Turkestani branch of the Russian Communist Party . It was formed in June 1918. At the time of its formation, the party was joined by a large section of Jadids....

 in December 1922 and the arrest of Sultan Galiev

Mirsäyet Soltangäliev

Sultan Galiev , usually known in English as Mirza Sultan-Galiev, was a Tatar Bolshevik who rose to prominence in the Russian Communist Party in the early 1920s...

 in 1923. Galiev was the first Bolshevik party member to be arrested by Stalin. The immediate cause of his arrest were his comments on the 12th Congress resolutions regarding concessions to non-Russians. Stalin was infuriated that Galiev rejected his juxtaposition of "great power chauvinism" with "local nationalism." Reaction to great-power chauvinism Galiev explained was not "nationalism". It was simply reaction to great power chauvinism. Nine days later he was arrested.

During this time however, Soltanğäliev, Turar Ryskulov

Turar Ryskulov

Turar Ryskulov — Soviet politician; the chairman of the Central Electoral Committee of Turkestan ASSR.Turar Ryskulov was born on 26 December 1894 in East-Talgar volost' of Semirechensk Province in natural boundary Besagash . During the Soviet Revolution he founded Turkish Communist Party...

, Nariman Narimanov

Nariman Narimanov

Narimanov Nariman Karbalayi Najaf oglu was an Azerbaijani revolutionary, writer, publicist, politician and statesman. In 1920, Narimanov headed the Soviet government of Azerbaijan, the Provisional Military-Revolutionary Committee , replacing Mirza Davud Huseynov, then he was the Chairman of the...

 and Ahmed Baytursan were very influential especially through the Communist University of the Toilers of the East

Communist University of the Toilers of the East

The Communist University of the Toilers of the East or KUTV was established April 21, 1921, in Moscow by the Communist International as a training college for communist cadres in the colonial world. The school officially opened on October 21, 1921...

 which opened in 1921 and was very active until its staff was purged in 1924. Communists from outside the Soviets such as Manabendra Nath Roy

Manabendra Nath Roy

Manabendra Nath Roy , born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya and popularly known as M. N. Roy, was an Indian nationalist revolutionary and an internationally known radical activist and political theorist. Roy was a founder of the Communist Parties in both Mexico and India and was a delegate to...

, Henk Sneevliet

Henk Sneevliet

Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet, known as Henk Sneevliet or the pseudonym Maring , was a Dutch Communist, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East-Indies...

 and Sultan Zade also taught there, formulating similar political positions. Students of the university included Sen Katayama

Sen Katayama

Sen Katayama , born Yabuki Sugataro , was an early member of the American Communist Party and co-founder, in 1922, of the Japan Communist Party....

, Tan Malaka

Tan Malaka

Tan Malaka was an Indonesian nationalist activist and communist leader. A staunch critic of both the colonial Dutch East Indies government and the republican Sukarno administration that governed the country after the Indonesian National Revolution, he was also frequently in conflict with the...

, Liu Shaoqi

Liu Shaoqi

Liu Shaoqi was a Chinese revolutionary, statesman, and theorist. He was Chairman of the People's Republic of China, China's head of state, from 27 April 1959 to 31 October 1968, during which he implemented policies of economic reconstruction in China...

 and Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh

Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...

.

The great purge in the Muslim republics began in 1928 with executions of Veli Ibrahimov of the Tatar Communist Party and Milli Firka followed by the leaders of Hummet, Tatar Communist Party and even the Tatar Union of the Godless

Tatar Union of the Godless

The Tatar Union of the Godless was an atheist political group in the Soviet Union, specifically in the territory nowadays known as Tataristan, consisting mainly of Muslim socialists and intellectuals. It was part of the Society of the Godless, an organisation which existed from 1925 to 1947...

. It also happened in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and the Young Bukharians.

Historic

• Azeri Hummet
• Kazakh Alash Orda
• Milli Firka
• Muslim Socialist Committee of Kazan
  Muslim Socialist Committee of Kazan
  Muslim Socialist Committee of Kazan was an organization which existed briefly in Kazan during the Russian Revolution.It was the best known of a number of Muslim Socialist Committees set up between February and April 1917...
  
  
• Young Bukharians
• Young Khivians

General references

• Bennigsen,A., Muslim national communism in the Soviet Union : a revolutionary strategy for the colonial world (1979).
• Mace, J., Communism and the dilemmas of national liberation : national communism in Soviet Ukraine, 1918-1933 (1983).