The Soviet Nationalities Problem: Lenin's Solution

Figure 1.--These Soviet Kindergarten boys are wearing tunics with ethnically based embroidered designs. We are not sdure about the nationality involved. Until the 1960s, bith KLenin and Stalin looked sowen bignly on school children. The Soviet Union like the Tsarist Empire before it was a vast empire including many subject ethnic or national minorities. Soviet officials supressed vurtually all nationalist expression. Rare exceptions were ethnic cixtumes and dance. Lenin based the federal structure pf the Soviet Union on ethnic communities. This provided the illusiomn of regional power while maintaining control from Moscow. After Gorbechov lessened police state controls, ethnic communitis begn tonopenly xpress theur ideas and vlues. Regional ethnic leaders began using Lenin's own federal structue to seize actual power and demand independence.

The Bolsheviks prevailed in the Russian Revolution and the Civil War that followed it. But Lenin's goal was not to destroy the Tsarist Empire, he simply wanted to replace Tsarist control with Bolshevik control. While railing against imperaialism, Lenin in fact wanted to maintain the Tsar's vast empire. This meant an empire in which only about half the population was ethnic Ruissians. The ethnid balance had changed slightly bcause of the loss of territorry in the West. The Russian ethnic balance was now over over 50 percent. [Soviet Censuses] The rest of the Soviet Empire was a complex mix of other nationalities, ethnic groups, lamnguages, and religions. The Russians shared Slavic etnicuty with Belarus and Ukraine, but not with the rest of the Soviet population. Lenin's solutions was the supression of virtually all nationalist expression, an eden more brutal campaign of Russification than ever attempted by the Tsars. While at the same time the country was divided into ethically based republics giving the appearance of a nationalist existence. His solution was continued by Stalin with even greater brutality. Constitutionally the Soviet Union emerged as a federation of suposed republics with substantial powers. In fact it was an even more centralized state than the Tsarist system it replaced. The ideology of the state was the international Communist movement. This meant that natioinalism had to be supressed, especially non-Russian nationalism. Thus nationalism in each of the various republics had to be supressed. And various waves of suppressionm as various nationalities over time were eitherr shot or committed to the expanding Gulag. [Solzhenitsyn, pp. 51ff.] Interestingly it was Stalin who most fiercely suppresed the nationalities and he was Georgian. Expression of non-Russian nationalist seniment was actively supressed. Russian nationalism was not strongly promoted, although this varied over time. There was a revival of Russian nationalism during the Great Patriotic War. The only real nationalist expression allowed was basically eye candy--costuming and dancing. The 16 different republics (the number varied over time) had no real power. The country and economy was centrally controlled from Moscow. (Most of which the Soviets would seize back during World War II as a result of the NAZI-Soviet Nomn-Agreession Pact.) The new Soviet Union was still a large multi-national empire with Russia at its core. Another feature of Soviet natioanaliity policy was to nove poitically more relaiable ethnic Russians into the various republics to strengthem the Soviet grip. This policy was pursued by Stalin and was most effective in the smaller republics like the Baltics.

Sources

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. The Gulag Archipelago (Harper & Row: New York, 1973), 660p. The book is well documented so the reader can easily find the waves of repression and how it affected each repunlic and ethnic group from Finns in the north to Azeries in the south.

Soviet Censuses. The first Soviet Census was conducted in 1926. The Russian percentage was 53 percent. Over the blife of the Soviet Union this varied from 51-58 percent. The Slavic population (including Belarusians and Ukranians) was much higher, ranging from 70-78 percent.

Created: 12:23 AM 2/3/2022
Last updated: 12:23 AM 2/3/2022