On the national relics of Ukraine.- Stalin
The Ukrainian Military Revolutionary Council in Petrograd has appealed to us with a request to select the ornaments and national relics (banners, flags, charters, etc.) stored there from the Hermitage and the Transfiguration Cathedral and return them to Ukraine.
These relics were confiscated from Ukrainians back in the era of Catherine the Great. They were confiscated and brought to Petrograd as punishment for Ukraine's freedom-loving aspirations. Their retention in Petrograd is clearly a symbol of Ukraine's old, hated dependence.
The abandonment of these relics in Petrograd could still be somehow justified in the era of bourgeois rule, including the annexationist coalition. But now, after the October Revolution, when the shackles have been broken, when slaves and peasants have come to power, when the right of the Russian Revolution to protect the peoples of the USSR has been forced to abandon this world, the repression of social relics and decorations loses all meaning.
Moreover, such retention is a gross violation of the inalienable rights of a self-determining Ukraine.
In view of this, I, in agreement with Comrade Lunacharsky, who is in charge of the Hermitage and the Transfiguration Guards Cathedral, considered it my duty to satisfy the request of the Ukrainian Revolutionary Guards Headquarters in Petrograd.
The Revolutionary Government of the Russian Republic solemnly returns to Ukraine the national relics unjustly taken from her by the brutal hand of Catherine II.
People's Commissar for National Affairs Dzhugashili Stalin.
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