15 December 1917. Vladimir Lenin

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Vladimir Lenin

Petrograd, Russian Republic

Proceeding from the interests of the unity and fraternal alliance of factory workers and the working and exploited masses in the struggle for socialism, and also from the recognition of these principles by numerous decisions of the organs of revolutionary democracy, the Soviets, and especially the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets, the Council of People’s Commissars—the Socialist government of Russia—reaffirms that the right to self-determination belongs to all nations oppressed by tsarism and the Great Russian bourgeoisie, up to and including the right of these nations to secede from Russia.

Accordingly we, the Council of People’s Commissars, recognise the People’s Ukrainian Republic, and its right to secede from Russia or enter into a treaty with the Russian Republic on federal or similar relations between them. We, the Council of People’s Commissars, recognise at once, unconditionally and without reservations everything that pertains to the Ukrainian people’s national rights and national independence.

We accuse the Rada of conducting, behind a screen of national phrases, a double-dealing bourgeois policy, which has long been expressed in the Bada’s non-recognition of the Soviets and of Soviet power in the Ukraine (incidentally, the Rada has refused to convoke a territorial congress of the Ukrainian Soviets immediately, as the Soviets of the Ukraine had demanded). This ambiguous policy, which has made it impossible for us to recognise the Rada as a plenipotentiary representative of the working and exploited masses of the Ukrainian Republic, has lately led the Rada to steps which preclude all possibility of agreement.

, and others

1 Like

Comment

✍ Also today

Osip Brik with Vladimir Mayakovsky

7, Malaya Ital'yanskaya street, Petrograd, Russian Republic

Here’s how Mayakovsky understood love: if you love me, it means you are mine, with me, for me, always and everywhere and under all circumstances. There can be no situation in which you are against me, however wrong, unjust or cruel I may be.

, and others

Comment

Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich

Gatchina, Russian Republic

I read in papers that Niki, apparently, ran away from Tobolsk - I guess it must be just rumors.

, and others

1 Like

Comment

Nikita Okunev

Moscow, Russian Republic

All of today’s newspapers are spreading rumors about the escape of Nicholas II from Tobolsk. Earlier, they were also reporting that his daughter Tatiana ran away to England dressed as a man.

, and others

1 Like

Comment

Amedeo Modigliani

is working on "Doctor Devaraigne"

Paris, France

, and others

1 Like

Comment

Erich Maria Remarque

St. Vinzenz-Hospital, Duisburg, Germany

For a soldier on the front, the word “patriotism” is unclear because a simple soldier will never utter it. His patriotism is made of actions, not words.

, and others

Comment

John Reed

Petrograd, Russian Republic

On November 27th, a committee of Cossacks came to Smolny to see Trotsky and Lenin. They demanded if it were true that the Soviet Government did not intend to divide the Cossack lands among the peasants of Great Russia? See more

, and others

4 Like

Comment

14 December

Lenin explains his views on the Constituent Assembly

Kerensky finds another place to hide

For Nicholas II both days went absolutely the same

1917. Zombies, drugs, and progress

Why did the Russian Empire collapse

in Petrograd

-6

in Moscow