Dissent among the Non-Russian Peoples of the USSR: A Brief Commentary from the Sociological Perspective

Extract

The present brief commentary is focused primarily on a topic which at first appearance might seem tangential, but which nevertheless is of central importance to a sociological study of dissent among the non-Russian people of the Soviet Union, who together make up approximately one-half of that country's total population. Ongoing sociological study of any phenomenon ideally is characterized by a data-theory cycle, where a conceptual or theoretical model or framework helps guide empirical research, and where the social reality manifest in observations or the data collected continually tests and refines the guiding model or framework. The ideal is, of course, rarely attained, a matter most noticeable and pronounced in the study of “Soviet minorities.”