Immigrant Rights in the Early Soviet Republic

(Quote of the Week)

In its 1918 Constitution, the Soviet workers republic granted citizenship rights to all foreign working people in its territory, while taking measures to safeguard the proletarian dictatorship against counterrevolutionaries. Today, based on the program of Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Party, the Spartacist League calls for full citizenship rights for all immigrants as part of our struggle for new October Revolutions.

20. Acting on the principle of the solidarity of the toilers of all nations, the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic grants all political rights enjoyed by Russian citizens to foreigners resident within the territory of the Russian Republic provided they belong to the working class or to the peasantry not using hired labor. Local Soviets are authorized to confer the rights of Russian citizenship upon such foreigners without any formalities or difficulties.

21. The Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic offers asylum to all foreigners persecuted for political and religious offenses.

22. The Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, recognizing the equality of all citizens, regardless of race or nationality, declares it contrary to the fundamental laws of the Republic to institute or tolerate any privileges or advantages based upon such grounds, or to repress national minorities, or to limit their rights in any way.

23. To safeguard the interests of the working class as a whole, the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic deprives individuals and groups of rights which they may use to the detriment of the Socialist Revolution.

—James Bunyan, ed., Intervention, Civil War, and Communism in Russia: April-December 1918—Documents and Materials (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1936)