The range of issues that constituted the national question in the Russian Empire in the early XX century got a practical solution after the October Revolution in the activities of the Soviet government. However, the contours of the Bolsheviks national policy began to take shape even before and during the First World War. Before the war, the approach of the Bolsheviks to the national question was determined through the prism of class struggle. The party support of national movements and the realization of the right of nations to self-determination were seen as a condition for the subsequent development of proletarian internationalism and the transition to socialism. Nevertheless, under the influence of the First World War and the political situation in Russia after the February revolution, characterized by the rise of nationalism in the national outskirts, the views of Lenin and Stalin as the ideologists of the Bolsheviks national policy began to evolve in the direction of recognizing the importance of the national component: culture, language, identity, in the struggle for socialism. In this regard, the category of "oppressed nations" and their positive nationalism became extremely important for the Bolsheviks, as it enabled them to solve current political problems and at the same time to maintain ideological and political purity.