Ukrainian tongue was forbidden. None of the subject nationalities in Russia were even permitted to decide whether they wished to form part of the Russian State or not.
The German government closed the Polish schools. The Austrian government prohibited the use of the Czech language and forcibly imposed German upon the Czechs. The British bourgeoisie regards the indigens of Africa and Asia with contempt; it subjugates the backward semi-savage peoples, plunders them, and shoots them down when they attempt to deliver themselves from the British yoke.
In a word, when in any State the people of one nation possess all rights and the people of another nation possess only a part of these rights; when one nation, the weaker nation, has been forcibly united to a stronger nation; when the stronger nation has against the will of the weaker nation imposed upon the latter a foreign tongue, foreign customs, etc.; when the people of the weaker nation are not allowed to lead their own lives — then we have what is termed oppression of a subject nationality, we have national enslavement.
56. The Unity of the Proletariat.
First of all, however, we must propound and decide an extremely important and fundamental problem. Should the Russian worker and the Russian peasant look upon the Germans, the French, the British, the Jews, the Chinese, or the Tartars, as enemies, irrespective of the class to which these belong? Are the Russian workers and peasants entitled to hate or to regard with suspicion those who belong to another nation, for the sole reason that these latter speak a different tongue, that their skins are black or yellow, that they have different customs and laws? Obviously, this would be quite wrong. The German workers, the French workers, the Negro workers, are just as much proletarians as the Russians are. No matter what tongue the workers of other lands may speak, the essential