Introduction

Abstract

The Russian Empire and its successor, the USSR, in the twentieth century experienced acutely the conflicting centripetal and centrifugal pressures of centre-local relations. The centrifugal forces were those forces pulling power away from the centre, the pressure from different national and ethnic groups seeking to break away from the grip of the capital, the pressures from provincial centres and regions seeking greater autonomy, the pressure of peasant communities and organised workers to assert themselves. The centripetal forces were those pulling power back into the centre, extending the reach of the central authorities, imposing its control over those national groups, provincial and regional centres and communities which sought to move outside the centre’s ambit of control.KeywordsLocal RelationCentral AuthorityParty LeaderSoviet StateNationality PolicyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.