The Current Ethnic Situation in the USSR: Perennial Problems in the Period of “Restructuring”*

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.M. Khazanov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
The State ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Soviet Empire ◽  
The Soviet Union

It has already been pointed out by many scholars that the supranational Soviet state meets many sociological criteria of an empire. Thus, it is populated by many different ethnic groups; they did not join the state voluntarily, having all been conquered in the past or incorporated into the state by force; and they are still forcefully kept together, even though force is far from being the only factor. Last but not least, the Soviet empire, like any other, has one dominating nation: the Russians. Thus, many regularities in other empires may also be applicable to the Soviet Union.

Part I: Morning Session The View from Above

1990 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-6
Author(s):  
Alexander Motyl
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Morning Session ◽  
The Past ◽  
Soviet Empire ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Time To Build ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
One Year

When we met last year, the situation in the Soviet Union, although fluid, was still hopeful. One year later, things seem to have become immeasurably worse. Some will, perhaps, dispute this assessment and argue that the situation is even more hopeful than it was in the past. Such arguments remind me of socialists who think that now is the time to build socialism in Eastern Europe. Clearly, the situation in Armenia and Azerbaijan is out of control. I need not remind you of the Lithuanian “events,” to use that memorable Soviet term, the miners' strikes in mid-1989, and last, but not least, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, which is the decisive event of that year and, perhaps, of the second half of the twentieth century. Communism's demise obviously casts a totally different light on the nationality question in general and on the dynamics of the Soviet empire in particular.

Soviet Federalism and Ethnic Mobilization

1991 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip G. Roeder
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Developmental Strategy ◽  
Ethnic Mobilization ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Public Politics ◽  
Political Success

Central among recent changes in the Soviet Union is an expanding and increasingly public politics of federalism. The Soviet developmental strategy assigned federalism and the cadres of national-territorial administration a central role in its response to the “nationalities question.” This strategy offers a key to three questions about the rise of assertive ethnofederalism over the past three decades: Why have federal institutions that provided interethnic peace during the transition to industrialization become vehicles of protest in recent years? Why have relatively advantaged ethnic groups been most assertive, whereas groups near the lower end of most comparative measures of socioeconomic and political success have been relatively quiescent? Why have major public demands—and the most important issues of contention between center and periphery—focused to such a large degree upon the details of the Soviet developmental strategy and upon federalism in particular

Life and Death in the Demiansk Pocket: The 123rd Infantry Division in Combat and Occupation

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-380
Author(s):  
Jeff Rutherford
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social

During the past two decades, focus on the German-Soviet war has shifted from a nearly exclusive fascination with field marshals and their battles—“chaps and maps”—to one more concerned with the social aspects of the war. Issues of resistance and collaboration, German occupation policies and everyday life under Nazi rule, and the Soviet Union's recovery from the catastrophe of 1941 and its subsequent unprecedented mobilization during the latter stages of the war now constitute the main emphases of research. Many of these new lines of investigation revolve around the implementation and results of the German Vernichtungskrieg, the war of annihilation carried out by the Wehrmacht, SS, and myriad other German agencies against the Soviet state and population. As the army was the largest and most powerful German institution operating in the Soviet Union, it has recently attracted the most attention and generated the most controversy. Historians have reached a rough consensus concerning the German High Command's complicity in implementing the Vernichtungskrieg; here, the set of orders commonly referred to in the literature as the “criminal orders” illustrate the army's means of achieving Hitler's goals. More recently, scholars have begun to investigate the army's responsibility for starving millions of Soviet civilians. While some dissenting voices have been heard, it is clear that the German High Command willingly and even enthusiastically participated in the war of annihilation.

The Contemporary Doctrine of the Soviet State and its Philosophical Foundations

1954 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 1031-1057 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon V. Aspaturian
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Theoretical Problem ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Recent Monograph ◽  
Party Congress

“The problem of the ‘dying away’ of the state,” observed A. Y. Vyshinsky rather sarcastically in a recent monograph, “is a purely theoretical problem.” Within the context of contemporary Soviet political theory, the accuracy of this observation is beyond question, although Vyshinsky would have been the first to admit that a “theoretical problem,” no matter how pristine, always reflects a practical quandary within the methodological precepts of Marxist-Leninist ideology. This particular theoretical problem conceals an important chapter in the profound transmutation of Marxist political theory and its philosophical substructure in the Soviet Union, for it was the failure to cope adequately with this utopian legacy which led to the abandonment of the eschatological categories of the Marxist doctrine and the erection of a totally new theoretical edifice supported by new philosophical foundations.Contrary to widespread impression, the theoretical problem of the Soviet state was not satisfactorily resolved at the 18th Party Congress in 1939, although the view is prevalent that Stalin was able to provide an adequate rationalization for the existence of the state in Soviet society. It was on this occasion that the late Soviet leader explained that the state was a necessary institution because of “capitalist encirclement” and that it would persist in socialist and communist society until this encirclement was finally liquidated.

scholarly journals Formation of the model of state of the whole people in Soviet constitutionalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
Viktor Sergeevich Pletnikov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Knowledge ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Three Stages

The analysis of sources of ideological and normative character demonstrates the process of formation of perception on the state of the whole people within the Soviet legal science and practice. The boundaries of this research are defined through correlation of the concepts: image – model – theory. This allows focusing attention on the significant, system-forming sources of legal knowledge that emerged in the period of 1947-1964, rather than paying attention to separate mentions regarding the need for building the state of the whole people. The theory of the state of the whole people started to develop after L. I. Brezhnev came to power. The author determines the stages in formation of the model of state of the whole people, which were passed by the Soviet State in its development. The three stages in formation of the model of state of the whole people with their legal peculiarities and forms of manifestation were highlighted: - The first stage is associated with the development and preparation of the draft program of the All-Union Communist Party Bolsheviks in 1947; - The second stage is characterized by adoption of the program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1961; - The third stage is associated with the process of drafting the Soviet Constitution of 1964. Formation of the model of state of the whole people enables formation of the theory of state of the whole people, implemented with adoption of the 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union.

scholarly journals Diana Dumitru, Basarabenii în viziunea administrației românești în a doua jumătate a anului 1941 / How the Bessarabians Were Perceived by the Romanian Civilian-Military Administration in 1941

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-102
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Social Category ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
Military Administration

This chapter delineates the ambivalent perception of Bessarabians by the representatives of the Romanian administration after June 1941. The resentment accumulated by Romanian officials, as a result of loss of Bessarabia to the USSR in 1940, aggregated with the broader fear of the Soviet state, and marked their attitude toward the population of Bessarabia once the province was returned to Romania in the summer of 1941. While the population was still viewed as an integral part of the Romanian nation, their mentality and their devotion towards the Romanian state were considered corrupted by the influence of communist ideology and Soviet egalitarian milieu. Correspondingly, Bessarabians were blamed for loosing their sense of being Romanians and the atrophy of sentiments of discipline, respect, and hierarchy under the rule of the Soviet Union. Still, the Bessarabian Romanians were regarded as the most trustworthy social category, compared to other indigenous ethnic groups which, were suspected of anti-Romanian feeling and deemed to share an affinity for the Soviet regime. In the views of Romanian authorities, the Bessarabians could be brought back to normality through a process of “rehabilitation.” Until then, the population of Bessarabia could not enjoy the complete trust and had to be administered by devoted elements, predominantly functionaries originating from the Old Kingdom, or verified member of the Bessarabian elites who took refuge to Romania after the Soviet annexation from 19401

Russian Protectionism: Problems of Institutional Heritage

2012 ◽  
pp. 96-114
Author(s):  
L. Tsedilin
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
The State ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
State Monopoly ◽  
The Times ◽  
Soviet Experience

The article analyzes the pre-revolutionary and the Soviet experience of the protectionist policies. Special attention is paid to the external economic policy during the times of NEP (New Economic Policy), socialist industrialization and the years of 1970-1980s. The results of the state monopoly on foreign trade and currency transactions in the Soviet Union are summarized; the economic integration in the frames of Comecon is assessed.

Collective Memory: Between Values and Historical Knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-142
Author(s):  
VICTOR BURLACHUK
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Main Element ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

At the end of the twentieth century, questions of a secondary nature suddenly became topical: what do we remember and who owns the memory? Memory as one of the mental characteristics of an individual’s activity is complemented by the concept of collective memory, which requires a different method of analysis than the activity of a separate individual. In the 1970s, a situation arose that gave rise to the so-called "historical politics" or "memory politics." If philosophical studies of memory problems of the 30’s and 40’s of the twentieth century were focused mainly on the peculiarities of perception of the past in the individual and collective consciousness and did not go beyond scientific discussions, then half a century later the situation has changed dramatically. The problem of memory has found its political sound: historians and sociologists, politicians and representatives of the media have entered the discourse on memory. Modern society, including all social, ethnic and family groups, has undergone a profound change in the traditional attitude towards the past, which has been associated with changes in the structure of government. In connection with the discrediting of the Soviet Union, the rapid decline of the Communist Party and its ideology, there was a collapse of Marxism, which provided for a certain model of time and history. The end of the revolutionary idea, a powerful vector that indicated the direction of historical time into the future, inevitably led to a rapid change in perception of the past. Three models of the future, which, according to Pierre Nora, defined the face of the past (the future as a restoration of the past, the future as progress and the future as a revolution) that existed until recently, have now lost their relevance. Today, absolute uncertainty hangs over the future. The inability to predict the future poses certain challenges to the present. The end of any teleology of history imposes on the present a debt of memory. Features of the life of memory, the specifics of its state and functioning directly affect the state of identity, both personal and collective. Distortion of memory, its incorrect work, and its ideological manipulation can give rise to an identity crisis. The memorial phenomenon is a certain political resource in a situation of severe socio-political breaks and changes. In the conditions of the economic crisis and in the absence of a real and clear program for future development, the state often seeks to turn memory into the main element of national consolidation.

Condition of the Armenian Apostolic Church at the Time of Coming to Authority N. S. Khrushchev

2020 ◽  
pp. 245-265
Author(s):  
Арсен Артурович Григорян
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
National Archive ◽  
The State ◽  
State Archive ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Apostolic Church

Цель данной статьи - описать условия, в которых Армянская Апостольская Церковь вступила в эпоху правления Н. С. Хрущёва, начавшуюся в 1953 г. По содержанию статью можно поделить на две части: в первой даются сведения о количестве приходов на территории Советского Союза и за его пределами, а также о составе армянского духовенства в СССР; во второй излагаются проблемы, существовавшие внутри Армянской Церкви, и рассматриваются их причины. Методы исследования - описание и анализ. Ценность исследования заключается в использовании ранее неопубликованных документов Государственного архива Российской Федерации и Национального архива Армении. По итогам изучения фактического материала выделяются основные проблемы Армянской Апостольской Церкви на 1953 г.: финансовый дефицит, конфликт армянских католикосатов и стремление враждующих СССР и США использовать церковь в своих политических целях. The purpose of this article is to describe the conditions in which the Armenian Apostolic Church entered the epoch of the reign of N. S. Khrushchev, which began in 1953. The article can be divided into two parts: first one gives information about the number of parishes in the territory of the Soviet Union and beyond, and about the structure of the Armenian clergy in the USSR; the second one sets out the problems that existed in the Armenian Church and discusses their causes. Research methods - description and analysis. The value of the study lies in the use of previously unpublished documents of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the National Archive of Armenia. Based on the results of studying the materials, the main problems of the Armenian Apostolic Church in 1953 are: financial deficit, the conflict of Armenian Catholicosates and the eagerness of USSR and the USA, that feuded with each other, to use the Сhurch for their political purposes.

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