Richard Pipes in Soviet Publications: Implications of the Reactions of Soviet Printed Media to Richard Pipes's Work on Soviet Nationalities

Abstract

This essay in political historiography aims to show how Professor Richard Pipes's monumental work on Soviet nationalities has been received by Soviet publications. It is more limited in scope than the main title connotes, since it does not deal with Soviet reactions to the totality of Pipes's scholarly work, only to an early but important part of his opus; nor is it concerned with Soviet attacks on Pipes's government service. The printed media surveyed include mostly articles in professional journals and books. Working through the Current Digest of the Soviet Press, this writer has tried to locate Soviet newspaper articles dealing with Pipes's work on nationalities, but has had no success. This is less of a shortcoming than it first appears, because even articles in Soviet scholarly journals, even books undergirded with an impressive scholarly apparatus, insofar as they deal with such a sensitive topic as the partial failure to solve the nationality problem, cannot but follow the party's policies of the moment. Apolitical historiography in the Soviet Union simply does not exist.