Letter to the Tashkent Congress of Soviets of the Turkestan Territory, to the Council of People’s Commissars of the Turkestan Territory, for Ibrahimov and Klevleyev

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A reply to a telegram from the Fifth Congress of Soviets of the Turkestan Territory held in Tashkent from April 20 to May 1, 1918. The Congress sent greetings to the Council of People’s Commissars and welcomed its correct national policy. The main item on its agenda was the question of autonomy for the territory. The Congress adopted a decision to set up a commission for the convocation of a constituent congress of Soviets of the Turkestan Territory to define the frontiers and the sphere of competence of Turkestan’s autonomy.

You can rest assured, comrades, that the Council of People’s Commissars will support autonomy for your territory on Soviet principles; we welcome your initiatives, and are deeply convinced that you will cover the whole territory with a network of Soviets, and will act in close contact with the Soviets already in existence.

We ask you to send the commission for the calling of a Constituent Congress of Soviets, which you have undertaken to organise, to us here in Moscow, in order to work out together the question of defining the relations between the plenipotentiary organ of your territory and the Council of People’s Commissars.

In greeting your Congress, we hope that you will be equal to the tasks imposed on it by history.

Moscow, April 22, 1918

Lenin and Stalin