As the Soviet Union was being created, Rakovsky became opposed to the new central leadership over the issue of self-determination for the Soviet republics and autonomous republics. This followed the dispute between, on one side, Joseph Stalin, Zinoviev, Totsky and Kamenev, and, on the other, the leadership of the Georgian SSR ("see Georgian Affair"). At the time, he evidenced a "permanent struggle which the so-called independent and autonomous republics had to carry out to safeguard not only their prerogatives but their very own existence". Arguing in favor of extending the revolution from Ukraine to the Balkans, and indicating his belief that the peasantry was being alienated by internationalist messages, Rakovsky cited concerns that centralism was placing Soviet influence in peril, and called for "carrying out a correct theoretical and practical solution to the national question within the boundaries of the Soviet Union". In November 1922, he successfully proposed the formation of a Soviet of Nationalities to double the Soviet of the Union inside the supreme legislative body; his arguments in favor of reducing the number of representatives of Russian SFSR and barring the total number of envoys from any republic at one fifth of the total were dismissed after being criticized by Stalin.