delegations from the previously sovietized countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia (C No. 7) incorporated them in the Union as the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth constituent Soviet Republics.
| A. | Declarations and Statements Arising from and Relating to the Foreign Policy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics |
| NO. 1. THE DECLARATION OF PEACE THE DECREE OF THE SECOND ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS WORKERS', SOLDIERS' AND PEASANT DEPUTIES OF OCTOBER 26/NOVEMBER 8, 1917[1] |
The appeal of the workers' and peasants' government to all the belligerent nations and governments to start negotiations concerning a just, democratic peace.
Such a peace the government considers to be an immediate peace without annexation (i. e. without the seizure of foreign territory and the forcible annexation of foreign nationalities) and without indemnities.
By annexation or seizure of foreign territory, the government in accordance with the legal concept of democracy in general and of the working class in particular, understands any incorporation of a small and weak nationality by large and powerful State without a clear, definite and voluntary expression of agreement and desire by the weak nationality, regardless of the time when such forcible incorporation took place, regardless also of how developed or how backward is the nation forcibly attacked or forcibly detained within the frontiers of the larger State, and finally, regardless of whether or not this large nation is located in Europe or in distant lands beyond the seas.
If any nation whatsoever is detained by force within the boundaries of a certain State and if that nation, contrary to its expressed desire whether such desire is made manifest to the press, national assemblies, in parties' decisions, or in protest and uprisings against national oppression—is not given the right to determine the form of its State life by free voting and completely free from the presence of the troops of the annexing or strange State, and without the least pressure, then the adjunction of that nation by the stronger State is annexation, i. e. seizure by force and violence.
- ↑ Collection of Enactments and Regulations of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of December 1, 1917, No. 1, Art. 2 (hereafter called C. E.).
