FORMATION OF NATIONAL AUTONOMIES IN THE RSFSR IN EARLY 1920s: PROBLEMS AND CONTRADICTIONS (on the example of creating the Mordovian Autonomous Region)

Abstract

At the initial stage of the reforms in the administrative-territorial division in the conditions of the Civil War, the process of federalization hardly met any resistance from the center. By the beginning of 1921 the RSFSR included as its parts the Tatar, Kirghiz, Bashkir, Dagestan, Gorsk Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republics, autonomous regions of the Kalmyk, Mari and Chuvash peoples and Labour communes of the Germans in the Volga region and the Karelians. By 1922 21 associations were already established. It was not possible to form the Mordovian autonomous administrative-territorial unit. Strengthening greater concentration of power, lack of territory with compact residence of the Mordovian population, unformed national elite, corporate interests of provincial authorities representatives served as constraining factors in the struggle for autonomy.