A hundred years ago, a major political struggle surrounded the concept of self‑determination. It was used to demand a state and autonomy, but the same term was also used by forces that considered it their right to decide how much self‑determination other nations should be granted at all.

Oliver Rowe, who defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Tartu, studied how self‑determination was used in the collapsing Russian Empire between 1914 and 1924. His work shows that the meaning of the concept depended largely on who used it, to whom it was offered, and in what kind of document the promise was written.

What did self‑determination actually mean?

Although today self‑determination is primarily associated with a people's right to decide their own political future, the meaning of the term has changed significantly over time. Before it entered the vocabulary of nations and collective rights, it referred mainly to individual autonomy and inner development. Only in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did the term begin to denote the political rights of groups and nations.

Even then, no single clear understanding emerged of what self‑determination meant in practice. Russian liberal Kadets spoke of cultural self‑determination and used the term in their 1917 party program. In the socialist movement, national self‑determination was discussed instead, but its content was sharply contested. Vladimir Lenin linked national self‑determination directly to the right to secede from the state — a position that was more exceptional than self‑evident in contemporary politics.

This plurality of meanings led Rowe to focus on political forces that did not demand self‑determination for themselves but claimed the right to grant it to others. In his view, this reveals the imperial mindset shared by many political actors of the time. Both the Bolsheviks and several of their opponents assumed that the center would decide in what form and to what extent the empire's peoples could govern themselves.

This decision‑making power was reflected clearly in how politicians formulated self‑determination on paper. In an election speech, self‑determination could remain a political promise, but in a constitution it became a written right. "When a politician mentions self‑determination in a campaign, it is something entirely different from writing the same right into a constitution," Rowe explained. Thus, the weight of self‑determination depended not only on its wording but also on where and with what force it was written.

Lenin, Stalin and the limits of self‑determination

The self‑determination debate of the final years of the First World War is often associated with two names: Vladimir Lenin and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Their views were, of course, different. Lenin tied national self‑determination directly to the right to secede, while Wilson's name became linked in international politics with a broader understanding of peoples' self‑government.

Every history‑minded Estonian likely knows that Lenin's approach contained a tension. He defended the right of nations to secede, yet envisioned a future socialist society as strongly centralized. According to Lenin's logic, merely recognizing the right to leave should reduce the desire to actually use it. If a people are not held in the state by force, the feeling of oppression diminishes and "fraternal trust" can emerge.

Lenin's ideas received a cold shower after the 1917 revolutions, when secession in the empire's borderlands became a real possibility rather than a theoretical one. In Ukraine and Georgia, left‑wing national forces wanted to separate from Russia for real. "This is the million‑dollar — or million‑ruble — question. Lenin supported the right of nations to secede, but could not fully reconcile it with his vision of a centralized socialist state," Rowe explained.

After the civil war, the Bolsheviks changed their political vocabulary. Whereas the broad concept of self‑determination had previously included autonomy, federation and secession, Stalin began narrowing it already in 1918. Soon he argued that one should speak specifically of the right to secede — the right of a republic to leave the union. "Stalin said outright that self‑determination had become problematic and should be replaced with the right to secede," Rowe added.

The shift was partly driven by the changing reputation of self‑determination in international politics. At the end of the First World War, the concept was associated with Wilson, but after the Paris Peace Conference many were disappointed in the expectations tied to him. The narrower concept of the right to secede was politically useful for the Bolsheviks. They did not intend to allow actual secession within the Soviet state, but the same right could be used to support revolutionary and anti‑colonial movements elsewhere, such as in Ireland.

Estonia, Ukraine and the Treaty of Tartu

How much the meaning of self‑determination could depend on the form in which it was written became sharply evident as the Russian Empire collapsed. After negotiations with the Provisional Government failed to produce the desired result, the Ukrainian Central Rada declared autonomy in its First Universal. A debate erupted in Petrograd over whether the declaration was merely a political statement or a step with legal weight. According to Rowe, this shows how the content of self‑determination was shaped by the type of document in which it appeared.

Events unfolded differently in Estonia. In 1917, the Provisional Government agreed to reorganize the borders of the Governorate of Estonia on a national basis. Rowe sees timing as a possible explanation. At that moment, influential supporters of local self‑government were present in the Russian government. Jaan Tõnisson's activities and Estonian demonstrations in Petrograd may also have played a role. Thus, the fate of national demands depended greatly on when and in what political situation they were presented.

The Bolshevik coup and the continued disintegration of the Russian state changed the aims of national movements. When the Bolshevik government sought a way out of the war with Germany and began negotiations, independence became a much more realistic possibility for several movements. According to Rowe, this must be considered when interpreting the independence efforts of the time. "These independence efforts should be seen more as a response to the collapse of the state than as its cause," he explained.

When independence became reality, self‑determination also became a diplomatic tool for Estonia. During the Treaty of Tartu negotiations, the Estonian delegation demanded that the right to self‑determination be explicitly written into the treaty. This was intended to justify Estonia's independence and improve its chances of broader international recognition. The wording of the Treaty of Tartu later served as a model for other peace treaties the Bolsheviks concluded with neighboring states.

Traces of old thinking

The collapse of the Russian Empire did not erase imperial thinking. Rowe describes the early Soviet Union as a hybrid regime in which revolutionary socialist ideology intertwined with centralized power. The legacy of the empire directly influenced how different peoples were described and classified in the Soviet Union.

This contradiction was illustrated by the Soviet nationalities policy of korenizatsiya, which promoted local languages, cadres and national institutions. According to Rowe, the policy carried forward the earlier logic of self‑determination, even though the term itself disappeared from the Bolshevik elite's political vocabulary after 1921. "On one hand it was a revolutionary socialist state; on the other hand it often interacted with other peoples in clearly imperial ways," he added.

Rowe sees a similar contradiction in today's Russian rhetoric. He finds it notable how the war against Ukraine is justified with talk of "liberation," "oppression" and the protection of various groups' rights. Putin's relationship to the Bolshevik legacy is also telling. He has blamed the Bolsheviks for creating Ukraine, linking the country's emergence to Lenin. At the same time, Putin's view of Russia as a natural great power resembles, in Rowe's assessment, the views of the Bolsheviks' opponents — including the movement of Aleksandr Kolchak.

Thus, although the language of self‑determination may change over time, a great‑power belief in the right to decide the fate of other nations persists stubbornly alongside it. "Ideology may be only a smokescreen or rhetorical device. Behind it lives the conviction that an empire has the right to decide for others," Rowe said.

Oliver Rowe defended his doctoral dissertation "Self‑determination in theory and practice: the reconfiguration of the 'Russian' Empire, 1914–1924" ("Enesemääramine teoorias ja praktikas: 'Vene' impeeriumi ümberkujundamine 1914–1924") on 24 August at the University of Tartu. The dissertation was supervised by Professor of Political Theory Eva Piirimäe. The opponent was Lara Douds from Northumbria University.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and X and never miss an update!