ABSTRACT
The outcome was the Union Treaty of December 1922 by which the larger non-Russian groups were given "union republic" status within a federation called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. South of the Caucasus Mountains lay the three union republics. Although Stalin himself came from Georgia, the country had not only fought Soviet invasion in 1921 but was also the scene of a mass uprising against Moscow in 1924. Ukraine was the most difficult region for Stalin to deal with simply because it was the biggest. Both Lenin and Stalin denied that there was a Jewish "nation," Stalin emphasizing that the reason for this was the absence of a large Jewish agricultural population. Jewish agricultural settlement was encouraged by Kalinin and others. In scattered areas of Ukraine and Belorussia Jewish farmers through their hard work gained acceptance by their peasant neighbors, who often were at first suspicious.
