Treatment of National Minorities in the USSR (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• The Bolsheviks won support from national minorities by promising self-determination

  • This was set out in the Decree on the Rights of the Peoples of Russia in November 1917

• Self-determination was abandoned during the Civil War

  • Finland broke away

  • Georgia was crushed by force in 1921-22 on Stalin's orders

• The USSR was created in December 1922 as a federation of "equal republics"

  • In practice, Moscow kept tight control

  • The republics could be "coerced" by the centre

• The 1920s brought real concessions to national minorities

  • Native languages were promoted

  • A Jewish "national homeland" was created in 1926

  • Legal anti-Semitism ended

• Under Stalin, the 1930s saw a shift towards a single "Soviet identity"

  • Russian was made compulsory in schools in 1938

  • National leaders were purged

  • Minorities were deported

• Historians debate whether Soviet rule was a genuine break from tsarism or Russian domination in a new form

Lenin’s Decree of Nationalities and Treatment of Minorities

An empire of many peoples

• The Bolsheviks inherited a vast and multi-ethnic empire

  • Around half the population was non-Russian

  • It contained Slavic, Turkic, Caucasian, Baltic and Jewish peoples

• Marxism treated nationalism as a tool of the old ruling class used to divide the workers

  • In theory, workers of every nation shared the same class interests

The promise of self-determination

• The Bolsheviks won power partly through minority support

  • They promised minorities the right to self-determination

  • This was delivered in the Decree on the Rights of the Peoples of Russia in November 1917

    • It gave minorities the right to self-determination, including the right to break away

    • It encouraged separatist movements, especially in Finland, the Baltic and the Caucasus

• Some groups acted quickly

  • In December 1917, Finland chose independence

  • An elected Rada (parliament) was also set up in Ukraine

Self-determination abandoned in the Civil War

• During the Civil War, the regime could not afford to lose key regions

  • Displays of national culture were still allowed

  • Native languages were still allowed

  • However, independence movements were branded "counter-revolutionary"

• Stalin oversaw minority policy as Commissar of Nationalities

  • Georgia's bid for independence was crushed by the Red Army in 1921-22 on Stalin's orders

• Georgia became a key example of promise versus practice

  • Stalin had assured Lenin that the Mensheviks had already been overthrown by the Georgian people

  • Lenin and Trotsky were shocked to learn that the Communists were crushing a popular, independent socialist regime by force

• Lenin condemned Stalin's harsh handling of his own native province

Building the USSR, 1922

• In December 1922, the USSR was created

  • It replaced the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR)

  • It was presented as a federation of republics

• Lenin won the argument with Trotsky for a federation of republics on "equal footing"

  • He opposed direct rule from Moscow

  • He argued that direct Moscow control would look too much like tsarist imperialism

• In practice, the difference was limited

  • The republics were kept under very strict central control

  • Their governments acted like regional branches of Sovnarkom

  • They could be "coerced" from the Communist Party leadership in Moscow

Concessions in the 1920s

• In the 1920s, the regime made real concessions to national minorities

  • Major nationalities, including Jewish people, were given separate representation within the Communist Party

  • Literacy campaigns encouraged the use of national languages

• Jewish minorities gained important rights after centuries of tsarist persecution

  • Anti-Semitic laws were abolished in 1917

  • Yiddish became an accepted language

• In 1926, Soviet Jews were given a "national homeland" in the far east

  • It became an autonomous republic in 1934

  • By 1941, about a quarter of that region's population was Jewish

Stalin and the ‘Soviet Identity’: Russification Under Communism

The turn to centralisation

• From the early 1930s, Stalin's policy shifted towards centralisation

  • Separate ethnic identities were tolerated far less than in the 1920s

  • The regime pushed a single "Soviet identity"

• In practice, "Soviet identity" often meant Russian dominance

  • Russians were placed at the head of the "family of nations"

Russification in practice

• Leaders of the republics were purged if they challenged Moscow

  • They were accused of being "bourgeois nationalists"

• Russian became the common language of the USSR

  • From 1938, learning Russian became compulsory

The 1936 Constitution

• The 1936 Constitution, drafted by Bukharin, presented the USSR as a federation of 11 republics

  • It claimed to be "the most democratic in the world"

• The new Supreme Soviet had two chambers

  • The Soviet of the Union

  • The Soviet of Nationalities

• Each republic had its own supreme soviet

  • The constitution promised support for national cultures

  • These were meant to be "national in form, socialist in content"

• In practice, these rights were largely ignored

  • Moscow controlled the republics' budgets

  • Union law came first

  • Regional independence remained very limited

• The right to leave the union was nominal

  • During the Great Purge, national communist leaders in the republics were removed if they were seen as putting local interests above loyalty to Moscow

Deportations and reviving anti-Semitism

• Stalin began deporting non-Russians in the 1930s

  • These were mostly internally forced migrations

  • They began with the Finns (1929-31 and 1935-39)

  • Then the Poles from Belorussia, Ukraine and European Russia (1932-36)

  • In 1937, the Koreans in the Russian Far East were deported

• Stalin also divided Central Asia into five separate republics

  • Muslim ethnic groups were forced to migrate

  • This weakened loyalty to any single Muslim state

• Anti-Semitic attitudes revived in the 1930s

  • This was especially clear in rural areas during the campaigns against "saboteurs"

  • The regime officially opposed racial discrimination

  • Most campaigns were political rather than racial

• Deportations of whole peoples became far more common during the Second World War

How Different Was the Life of Minorities Under Soviet Rule Compared to Tsarism?

• Comparing minority life under the tsars and the Soviets means weighing real change against real continuity

Change: ways life genuinely improved

• Soviet rule began by promising what tsarism had denied

  • The right to self-determination was granted in the November 1917 decree

• Jewish minorities saw the clearest change

  • Under the tsars, Jewish people had been confined to the Pale of Settlement and restricted by laws such as the May Laws (1882)

  • The Soviets abolished anti-Semitic laws in 1917

  • They accepted Yiddish

  • They created a Jewish "national homeland" in 1926

• Native cultures were supported in the 1920s

  • National languages were promoted through literacy campaigns

  • Major nationalities gained separate representation within the Communist Party

• The USSR was deliberately built as a federation of republics

  • This avoided the appearance of direct rule from Moscow

  • Direct rule would have echoed tsarist imperialism

Continuity: ways Soviet rule echoed tsarist domination

• Self-determination was abandoned when it threatened the state

  • This echoed the tsars' resistance to national independence

  • Georgia's independence was crushed by force in 1921-22

• Stalin's "Soviet identity" revived Russian dominance

  • Russian was made compulsory in schools from 1938

  • Russian was the only language of the Red Army

  • Russians sat "firmly at the head" of the "family of nations"

• Repression of national groups continued and intensified

  • National leaders were purged as "bourgeois nationalists"

  • Minorities were deported

  • Rural anti-Semitism revived in the 1930s

• Behind the federal structure, Moscow kept tight central control

  • The republics could be "coerced"

  • This echoed the way the tsars had ruled their empire