Soviet Rule under Lenin

On October 26 (November 8), 1917, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, with its Bolshevik majority, called for a Leninist version of peace without annexations and without indemnities, that is, not just a universal peace based on the prewar status quo, but the principle of the universal right to national self-determination for all politically subjugated peoples prior to the war. The actual resolution of the Second Congress read: In accordance with the sense of justice of democrats in general, and of the working classes in particular, the government [Soviet government] conceives the annexation or seizure of foreign lands to mean every incorporation of a small or weak nation into a large or powerful state without the precisely, clearly and voluntarily expressed consent and wish of that nation, irrespective of the time when such forcible incorporation took place, irrespective also of the degree of development or backwardness of the nation forcibly annexed to the given state, or forcibly retained within its borders, and irrespective, finally, of whether this nation is in Europe or in distant, overseas countries.