Lenin was, however, pragmatic enough to realise that force alone would not suffice to hold the new Soviet polity together, and that the non-Russians would have to be won over with concessions. The raw materials, goodwill and co-operation of the non-Russians were vital to sustain the already precarious Russian economy. As Stalin himself put it in October 1920... "Central Russia, that hearth of world revolution, cannot hold out long without the assistance of the border regions, which abound in raw materials, fuel and foodstuffs..." (Swoboda: p.352) Therefore, in the face of strong nationalist feelings and the overwhelming need for stability and productivity; Lenin made two essential concessions, which hardly accorded with the Party's Marxist inheritance. He granted cultural autonomy to the non-Russian nationalities and adopted an element of federalism in the formal structure of the state.
The non-Russians were subsequently offered an implicit national contract. In essence, they were promised sovereign statehood and equality within a federal structure. The new policies of 'Korinezatsiya' (meaning nativisation) were introduced in 1923 and were designed to promote the training and development of native personnel, rather than Russian or Russified elements, in order to complete the process of building their nation-states within the Soviet federal framework. Other policies included emphasis on local language, culture and education. The Russian language was purposely discriminated against in the Ukraine and Byelorussia, while great efforts were made by Moscow to improve the economic and educational well being of the more backward Central-Asian Republics. In return for these considerable cultural and administrative guarantees of autonomy, which became known as the 'Leninist Principles', the non-Russian nationalities would give up their present form of state sovereignty and become part of a socialist federation of states. In effect there was no longer to be any ruling nation, only a fraternal brotherhood of socialist states. At first glance, the Union Treaty of 1922 may have seemed to be advocating and perpetuating national identity and differences; a direct rebuttal of Marxist doctrine. However, Lenin believed that with the establishment of socialism the coming together of nations was inevitable. This in turn would lead to the merger of the proletariat of different nations. This programme was at the heart of Lenin's nationality policy. However, the fatal flaw in this plan was that the power needed to implement these policies was concentrated in the ruling Communist Party, which, in turn, was dominated by the Russians. Lenin firmly believed that a true socialist union could only be achieved through the suppression of 'Great Russian chauvinism'. In this respect he became bitterly disillusioned and alarmed at the strength of Russian chauvinism in the Party; on his deathbed, he lamented that the state, which he had built, was ending up 'more Russian than Soviet'. The fears of Lenin were well founded, for a time during the 1920's the national contract was observed and non-Russian peoples enjoyed a brief moment of national revival and cultural autonomy, but as Stalin increased his control over the party apparatus the national contracts began to be systematically nullified.
Ultimately, Stalin perceived the non-Russian nationalities as a threat to his far-reaching economic policies of collectivisation and industrialisation. He equated this, and consequent centrifugal tendencies, as tantamount to a bourgeois mentality and a threat to his power. As well as forcibly reoccupying the Baltic States, Russification and oppression of the 'fraternal and equal' republics began with a vengeance. All of Lenin's policies were reversed; cultural diversity was stamped out and the Russian language was promoted vigorously. The Russification of the Soviet Union reached its last. Stalin removed any doubt that the Russian people were pre-eminent in the USSR when, as part of the 1945 victory celebrations, he proposed..."a toast to our Soviet people, and in particular to the health of the Russian people.... the leading nation of all nations belonging to the Soviet Union, because in this war, the Russian people have earned the general recognition as the guiding force of the Soviet Union among all the other peoples of our country." (Smith: p.7) Like Lenin before him, Stalin was quite aware of the potency of the national problem. However, he relied upon a combination of terror and Great Russian chauvinism to keep the non-Russians subdued.
In 1956, at the historic 20th Party Congress, the new General Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, publicly rebuked Stalin and his practices. He exposed the mass deportation of non-Russian's and promised, selectively, to restore both their nationality contracts and their homelands. Regional economic councils were introduced, with substantial autonomous powers, in an effort to bring the living standards of all the republics into line. However, the relief among the non-Russian nationalities, at the reversal of Stalin's policies, was tempered by the education reforms of 1958-59. Which promised to promote the Russian language as the favoured means of communication at the expense of the native tongue. It rapidly became clear that the commitment to 'coming together' was to be a purely partisan affair on behalf of the non-Russian peoples. However Khrushchev believed 'merger' to be a policy that was to be maintained for the next twenty-five years. Separate national cultures were to 'flourish' alongside their 'drawing together' until their final 'merger' was realised. Hiding behind these semantic somersaults was the rationale that: increased modernisation and social mobilisation, together with camouflaged Russification and the inter- mixing of populations, would eliminate non-Russian nationalism’s and break down national identities. This policy was actively pursued throughout the Brezhnev era, and combined with centralisation of power plus suppression of the cultural and national rights of non- Russian nationalities
The Brezhnev regime was committed to social stability and harmonious development and abandoned much of Khrushchev’s reforms. The emphasis was on a gradual rise in the standard of living. He objected to any artificial process to speed up the 'coming together of nations'. He believed that this process could best be served by the balanced development of the whole Soviet Union. Like his predecessors, Brezhnev continually reminded the USSR of the disinterested assistance of the Russian people in the socio-economic development of the republics. Reinforcing these attitudes was the widespread propaganda about the emergence of a new historical community, that of the Soviet people. As one publication proudly proclaimed in 1977, when discussing the contribution of Lenin to the nationalities question.... "The soviet people are a fundamentally new social and international community of people. The USSR now consists of a single and friendly family of over 100 nationalities, jointly building communism; our social relations are based on friendship, complete equality, multifaceted fraternal co-operation and mutual assistance..." (Problems of Communism, vol 32:p.38). However a rather cynical anecdote gives a much fairer reflection of the 'fraternal brotherhood of nations' during the Brezhnev period.... "Radio programme asks: 'what is the meaning of friendship among the peoples?' Radio replies: 'Friendship of the peoples is when Armenians. Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians and Latvians go together to beat up a Georgian!'. (Problems of Communism, vol. 32:p.39)
Thus, throughout the Brezhnev era any discussion on the relations between the nationalities of the Soviet Union was pushed quietly to one side. Lip service was paid to the idea that a new 'soviet people' had emerged, which, naturally, as Brezhnev pointed out would generate certain problems. However, these 'problems' were never elaborated on, and the co-operation and friendship of the peoples proceeded smoothly. Underpinning this was the tacit assumption that the predominant role of the Russians in such a nation would lead to the denationalisation of all others. Intensifying Russian-language education from kindergarten to university fostered this cultural assimilation. Therefore, while the concept of the merging of nations had been dropped from party propaganda, the policies of achieving this aim went ahead unabated. However the very policies that were supposed to eradicate non-Russian nationalism had the reverse effect. The resentment engendered by the failure of Russians living in other union-republics to learn the native language, was fuelled by the corruption, economic malaise, and falling living standards which were the legacy of the Brezhnev years. All of these factors contributed to a reassertion of national consciousness, which Gorbachev, in turn, failed to address.
Despite Gorbachev's willingness to tackle many of the internal and external problems facing the USSR, he continued to treat the nationality question as of little importance and referred vaguely to the 'flourishing of nations' and a "united soviet people, cemented by the same economic interests, ideology and political goals" (Smith: p.13). The Gorbachev leadership was extremely reluctant to review and alter soviet nationality policies: preferring to stress the need for more tact, and perhaps a reappraisal of Lenin's national contracts. However, the democratisation process provided channels to express long-held national grievances against the Russians themselves, and also between other ethnic groups. The Alma Ata riots, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the unrest in the Baltic States, punctured the ephemeral harmony of the Soviet Union, and elicited a stern response from Gorbachev; he maintained that there would be no break up of the Union. However, the rapid collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe questioned the legitimacy of State power, and the Baltic States became more vociferous in their demands for sovereignty. Rather than dictating policy, Gorbachev began to react to the rapidly unfolding events while still searching for a solution in the national contract policies of Lenin. This search was to prove fruitless. In short, after more than seventy years, it finally dawned in Moscow that the centrifugal forces of nationalism could not be reconciled with the centripetal forces of Russification and the Soviet state.
The Soviet Union has always straddled the often-precarious divide between state and empire. The aim of the Soviet State, at its inception, was to merge the diverse nations and ethnic groups into a homogenous economic and political unit, which would reflect the needs and wishes of the proletariat, rather than bourgeois national aspirations. Unfortunately, these aims acquired a distinctly Russian flavour and abrogated the equality and harmony required to achieve these goals. The fluctuations in the assimilative policies of the soviet leaders, from mild discouragement of ethnic affiliation to outright repression; suppressed ethnic identification but engendered long-term hostility. Furthermore, Gorbachev's policies of 'glasnost' 'perestroika' and democratisation, reduced the level of coercion in the system and allowed people to express their national and cultural aspirations, and air their grievances about their status. When these grievances were combined with the changing demographic trends in the Soviet Union, and the general economic malaise, national and ethnic chauvinism began to gather momentum and become reinforcing; as one ethnic group asserted its identity, so another would be spurred to action. Moscow's leaders struggled for decades to create a Soviet "nation," a "soviet way of life". In the end, they spawned a congeries of ethnic nations that repudiated "sovietism" the moment the Union collapsed. Ultimately, the soviet union had been conceived as an ideological state: a state in which class consciousness and solidarity were to be more important than national or ethnic affiliations, when this ideology proved flawed, and the power of the state finite, the raison d'etre of the Union collapsed and another institutionalised form for its expression had to be adopted.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Breuilly, John Nationalism and the State, second Ed. Manchester: 1993
Brubaker, Rogers, Nationalism Reframed: Nation and the National question in the New Europe, Cambridge: CUP 1996
Connor, Walker Ethno-nationalism: The Quest for Understanding Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1994
McCrone, David The Sociology of Nationalism: Tomorrow’s Ancestors London: Routledge: 1998
Problems of Communism Vol.32 Washington: U.S. Information Agency,
Problems of Communism Vol.38 Washington: U.S. Information Agency,
Seton, H.–Watson Nations and States London: Methuen: 1977
Smith, Graham The Nationalities question in the Soviet Union London: Longman, 1990.
Swoboda, Victor & Nahaylo, Bohdan Soviet Disunion: A History of the Nationalities Problem in the USSR New York : Free Press, 1990.
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