Ethnicity in the Soviet Union

Abstract

In the Soviet Union, ethnicity is the major force for change. It is a multiethnic society, where the Russians constitute the ruling majority. The country's political system recognizes the ethnic principle in a federal state structure, but the real power is exercised by a unitary and highly centralized Communist party. The ruling ideology of Marxism-Leninism postulates class-based internation alism as the basis of Soviet national integration. Ethnic antagonisms, inherited from Russia's colonial past, were submerged in the Stalinist period, but growing ethnic self- assertion by non-Russian groups became visible in the sixties and seventies, under the impact of accelerated moderniza tion and other policy decisions, such as the development of ethnic cultures. Quantitative and qualitative hegemony of the Russians has been a major catalyst. New Soviet educated elites are the spokesmen for ethnic interests, which are aggregated within national republics. Ethnic conflict man ifests itself in all spheres of political, social, economic, and cultural life, but is played by systemic "rules of the game." There is no open separatism or ethnic warfare. Ethnic forces press for an evolution toward greater autonomy, but if it is denied, there may be an explosion.