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The National Uprisings in the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

David D. Laitin
David D. Laitin
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Abstract

Recently published histories of national groups living under Soviet rule provide a rich secondary literature on the various paths taken by these groups to be incorporated into the Russian empire and the Soviet state. Social scientists who want a differentiated understanding of political mobilization among the various nationalities should not ignore these important contributions. This review essay attempts to synthesize these histories in order to provide a coherent model of nationality politics. Proposing an “elite incorporation model” of political mobilization, the essay accounts for different sources of national protest. The model weight not only the pressures for national autonomy and republican sovereignty but also the pressures that provide support for the Union.

Type
Review Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , October 1991 , pp. 139 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1991

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References

1 See Nationality Papers, special issue 18 (Spring 1990), which is a record of discussions among experts at the Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia University. Alexander J. Motyl states the premises of the discussions in the following way: “Gorbachev . . . already has lost control of at least half of the Soviet empire; arguably, control over the other half is slowly slipping out of his hands as well” (p. 6).

2 Three recent books with findings that bear on nationality politics in the Soviet Union are not under review here, but they have informed my perspective. See Karklins, Rasma, Ethnic Relations in the USSR (Boston:Allen and Unwin, 1986Google Scholar); Motyl, Alexander, Will the Non-Russians Rebel? (Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1987Google Scholar); and Bahry, Donna, Outside Moscow (New York:Columbia University Press, 1987Google Scholar). See also , Motyl, ed., Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities (New York:Columbia University PressGoogle Scholar, forthcoming). The preliminary draft chapters of this volume have also informed my judgments.

3 In the Fisher volume, for example, nearly every positive force for the Tatars under Russian/Soviet rule is reluctantly presented only because scholarly objectivity required him to do so. On the question of Nazi collaboration, for example, Fisher argues in two directions at once. In order to exonerate the Tatar people from Soviet charges of collaboration with the Nazis (which was the Soviet excuse for evacuating the entire population from the Crimea in 1944), Fisher points to the Tatars who joined the partisans and who remained loyal. But to explain the joy in the streets during the military defeat of the Red Army, and the collaboration between Ankara exiles from the Crimea and the Nazis, Fisher justifies the Tatars' hatred of the Soviets. A textured social analysis-who among the Tatars collaborated and who became partisans and why-would have served historiography better than an attempt to exonerate the nation from Stalin's charges and simultaneously to excuse them from actions consistent with those charges. The book, replete with grudging admissions of Russian goodwill and excuses for Tatar perfidy, is largely empty of social analysis.

4 Gertrude Schroeder's perceptive essays in the Conquest and Hajda and Beissinger volumes analyze economic trends with great perspicacity; one wishes the nationalist historians would make more use of her work.

5 This is the excuse I give to explain why a scholar who is just beginning to learn his Russian declensions should be writing a review essay concerning affairs about which other scholars are far more competent to make nuanced judgments.

6 Doyle, , Empires (Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1986), 45Google Scholar.

7 Given, James, State and Society in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1990Google Scholar), is exemplary in its comparative power to analyze the incorporation of Gwynedd into England and Languedoc into France without presupposing whether the incorporation was empire or state building.

8 This key variable was recognized by Emerson, Rupert, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1967), 44–47Google Scholar. The variable is embedded in a model that relies on the dynamic approach toward nations developed by Deutsch, Karl, Nationalism and Social Communication (Cambridge:MIT Press, 1953Google Scholar); but it is more sensitive to the expected utility of elites and their choices. Gary B. Miles relies heavily on a model of the expected utility of elites in his “Roman and Modern Imperialism: A Reassessment,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32 (October 1990), 629CrossRefGoogle Scholar–59, at 63–40.

9 My concept of most favored lord is borrowed from the notion of most favored nation in international trade negotiations. Just as it is the case that many of the entities given mostfavored-nation status are not themselves “nations,” in the case at hand, many of the incorporated elites are not “lords.”

10 The most sophisticated elaboration of this pattern, without the focus on most favored lord being a necessary condition for success, is de Swaan, Abram, In Care of the State (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1989Google Scholar), chap. 3.

11 Weber, , Peasants into Frenchmen (Stanford, Calif.:Stanford University Press, 1976Google Scholar).

12 Laitin, “Language Games,” Comparative Politics 20 (April 1988), 289–302, at 293.

13 Gourevitch, Paris and the Provinces (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), chap. 10. A distinct identity by the people of a region is a necessary condition for a peripheral nationalist movement to mobilize. Gourevitch does not speculate on the question of how ethnic identities are seen to be distinct. Without independent criteria of ethnic difference (very difficult to establish, given the multiple possibilities of ethnic reidentification), Gour-evitch's theory tends toward tautology. In Section III below, I suggest the criterion of perceived ethnic difference at the period of political incorporation. But further work on this point, in light of recent research on identity reconstruction, is clearly necessary if tautology is to be avoided.

14 Rural populations in Catalonia, for example, blamed Madrid for extortionist taxes and for forcing them to billet troops. When “Spain” was in trouble in the seventeenth century, and in need of new taxes, rural folk at the peripheries saw local nobles as potentially more benign than those at the center. See Elliott, J. H., The Revolt of the Catalans (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1963Google Scholar). The Catalan national revivals in the 1920s and 1970s relied on an alliance between the rural folk and the rising bourgeoisie.

15 This is the argument in my study of the Catalan revival in Spain; see Laitin, , “Linguistic Revival: Politics and Culture in Catalonia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History (April 1989), 297–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Hudson Meadwell, “A Rational Choice Approach to Political Regionalism,” Comparative Politics (forthcoming). Meadwell's discussion of national revival politics in Brittany is a sophisticated analysis of the internal dynamics of nationalism among elites from the periphery.

17 Gourevitch (fn. 13) points to Ireland as the principal exception of his model for Western Europe (pp. 209–10). The alternative path I propose can, I believe, explain the Irish case. I doubt, however, that the two paths described in this paper account for the full range of incorporative strategies. I make no claim for completeness.

18 In Soviet studies the “titulars” are those people who live in a republic named for their nationality.

19 For evidence that in a variety of language domains, especially in science and technology, Asian languages of the Soviet Union rely almost totally on Russian roots, see Wolf Mosko-vich, “Planned Language Change in Russian since 1917,” in Michael Kirkwood, ed., Language Planning in the Soviet Union (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), 87–88. Use of Russian root words is not evidence of assimilation. But as Deutsch's work teaches (fn. 8), it is a good indicator of high levels of transactions, a necessary condition for a new national identification.

20 See Karklins (fn. 2), 59–60. On the military, see Martha Brill Olcott and William man, “Soviet Youth and the Military,” U.S. Department of State Contract # 1724–6; pp. 30–31.

21 Starr, “Tsarist Government: The Imperial Dimension,” in Azrael, Jeremy, Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York:Praeger, 1978), 18–19Google Scholar.

22 Romanovich-Slavatinskii, Dvorianstvo v Rossii ot nachala XVII vekp do otmeny krepo-stnago prava (Nobility in Russia from the seventeenth century until emancipation of the serfs) (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Ministerstva Vnutrennikh Del, 1870), 87–112.

23 Lubomyr Hajda (in comments on my presentation at MIT, February 21, 1991) pointed out that while Ukrainians did get most-favored-lord rights, they could not exercise those rights anywhere in the empire. Notably, their successes were greater in Russia than in the Ukraine, suggesting tsarist fear of fifth columnists. Greater mobility at the center than at the periphery should make the national dynamic outlined in this paper even more pronounced.

24 Under the Georgian king Erekle II (1762–98), an agreement of protection with Russia permitted the Georgian Orthodox church to remain autocephalic, yet with representation in the Holy Synod of the Russian church. In 1811 the Georgian church was brutally incorporated into the Russian church, and the churches were forced to employ the Slavonic liturgy. It was not until 1943, under Stalin, that autocephaly was restored (Suny, 64, 84–85, 284).

25 Romanovich-Slavatinskii (fn. 22).

26 In his discussion of Soviet “semicolonics,” Michael Voslensky differentiates between Russian and Soviet rule along the same geographical divide; see Voslensky, , Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class, trans. Mosbacher, Eric (Garden City, N.Y.:Doubleday, 1984), 285Google Scholar 86.

27 This view is amply supported by the quantitative data presented by Hodnett, Grey, Leadership in the Soviet National Republics (Oakville, Ontario:Mosaic Press, 1978), 309Google Scholar, Table 6.2.

28 This is the assessment of Rasma Karklins, in a personal communication to the author, November 11, 1990.

29 See Motyl (fn. 2, 1987), chap. 4. Motyl's interpretation of these data differs from mine.

30 Bialer, Seweryn, Stalin's Successors (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1980), 219Google Scholar, 223–24.

31 Isabelle T. Kreindler, “Soviet Language Planning since 1953,” in Kirkwood (fn. 19), 48–49.

32 See Mark Beissinger and Lubomyr Hajda, “Nationalism and Reform in Soviet Politics,” i n Hajda and Beissinger, 308. The authors argue that the ethnic division of political labor is characteristic of politics at all levels. But their data suggest that in the western republics the division of political labor is intraethnic-as would be predicted by the most-favored-lord model.

33 Motyl (fn. 2, 1987), 85–86.

34 John A. Armstrong points to the relatively moderate level of nationalist activity in the Ukraine; see Armstrong, , Ukrainian Nationalism, 3d ed. (Englewood, Colo.:Ukrainian Academic Press, 1990), 238Google Scholar.

35 See Taagepera, Rein, “Baltic Population Changes, 1950–1980,” Journal of Baltic Studies 12 (Spring 1981CrossRefGoogle Scholar), discussed in Karklins (fn. 2), 35–57, at 54–55.

36 Jarve spoke on this issue at the East-West Center, Duke University, April 13, 1991. On Russians learning Estonian, I rely on Toivo Miljan, who spoke at a panel discussion on Comparing the Democratic Movements in the Baltics at the University of Illinois, Chicago, October 6,1990.

37 Barbara Anderson and Brian Silver report rapid Armenian out-migration from Georgia in the 1960s and 1970s; see Anderson, and Silver, , “Demographic Sources of the Changing Ethnic Composition of the Soviet Union,” Population and Development Review 15 (December 1989), 638CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 See B. G. Hewitt “Aspects of Language Planning in Georgia,” in Kirkwood (fn. 19).

39 The percentage of the titular population having these jobs (which is quite high for the Kazakhs) is not relevant here. Titular nationals seeking social mobility will seek a near monopoly on high-status cadre jobs even it they have only a plurality of the republican population. The data here are from Hodnett (fn. 27), 108, Table 2.14. Excellent general discussions of the role of the new men in the Soviet context are available in Bialer (fn. 30), chap. 6; and Hough, Jerry, “In Whose Hands the Future,” in Problems of Communism 16 (March-April 1967), 18–25Google Scholar.

40 Lubin, , “Assimilation and Retention of Ethnic Identity in Uzbekistan,” Asian Affairs (London) 12Google Scholar, pt. Ill (October 1981), 277–85, at 283–84. See also idem, Labour and Nationality in Soviet Central Asia (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1984Google Scholar). This extremely astute volume focuses on Russian/Asian ethnic relations in the economy, not on Uzbeks versus other Asian minorities within Uzbekistan.

41 My analysis of Erk is based upon remarks made by James Critchlow of the Russian Research Center, Harvard University, at the East-West Center, Duke University, April 13, 1991

42 Lubin (fn. 40, 1984).

43 Economist, June 10, 1989, p. 44.

44 This is the view of Alexander Zevelev, of the Historical Archives Institute, Moscow, expressed at the East-West Center, Duke University, April 13, 1991.

45 Olcott (pp. 25ff.) presents data suggesting that Kazakh elites received most-favored-lord privileges more often than my model would suggest. Tsarina Anna gave Russian citizenship to the khan of the Small Horde, to protect him against the Kalmyks. But whether this bargain enabled Kazakh khans to claim equal rights with dvoriane is doubtful.

46 Cheifets, quoted in Karklins (fn. 2), 29.

47 Karklins (fn. 2), 65.

48 Some analysts suggest that the causes of titular/minority violence lie in the arbitrariness of the boundaries-an explanation often used to explain ethnic violence in postcolonial Africa. Olcott accepts this view in arguing that the Central Asian republics had an especial problem with arbitrary boundaries and therefore are more subject to conflicts with ethnic minorities. But this logic does not hold. I concur with E. Glyn Lewis that the Soviet jurisdictional boundaries in Central Asia were remarkably sensitive to cultural boundaries, and with James Dingley that the real boundary hodgepodge is in the west, especially in Belorussia, in which four major language groups (Belorussian, Polish, Russian, and Yiddish) were put into a single republic. Most-favored-lord dynamics, rather than the nature of the boundary mechanisms, will best explain minority politics within the union republics. See Lewis, , Multilin-gualism in the Soviet Union (The Hague:Mouton, 1972), 58–59Google Scholar; and Dingley, “Ukrainian and Belorussian: A Testing Ground,” in Kirkwood (fn. 19).

49 A comparison of the Azeris in Armenia with the Armenians in Azerbaidjan would constitute a critical test of the model proposed in this paper. Suppose the Armenians have had greater opportunity to become most favored lords but, nevertheless, in the current nationalist ferment discriminate against Azeri citizens as much as Azeri titulars discriminate against Armenians. Such evidence would constitute disconfirming evidence for the model. My surmise is that intra-Armenian conflict of interest is sufficiently strong to mute efforts to terrorize minorities in Armenia.

50 Vladislav Krasnov in his “Russian National Feeling” (in Conquest) picks up from sa-mizdat comments made by visitors at a Russian chauvinist art exhibit; these express deep longing for symbols glorifying the Russian spirit.

51 See Lewis, Robert A., Rowland, Richard H., and Clem, Ralph S., Nationality and Population Change in Russia and the USSR: An Evaluation of Census Data, 1897–1970 (New York:Praeger, 1976), 137Google Scholar.

52 On university admissions, see ibid., 137.

53 See Laitin (fn. 12), 297–99, for a formal demonstration of the difference between migrant and territorial minority incentives to fight for language revival.

51 Catalonia is actually a better example. There, Spanish-speaking migrants from Anda-lusia speak the language of the central state but not the language of the region. Language assimilation is consequently slower than for, say, Italian migrants to New York. But in the past fifteen years (since Franco, who repressed the use of Catalan) most second-generation migrants into Catalonia are fully bilingual. See Laitin (fn. 15).

55 I owe this interpretation to the work of Ian Lustick; see Lustick, State-Building Failure in British Ireland and French Algeria (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1985). One crucial way in which the Russian case differs from Lustick's cases of Algeria, Ireland, and Israel is that “the Russians who live in the republics enjoy no privileges and are merely a minority against whom the hostility felt by the local populations for their nomenklatura masters in Moscow is often directed. . . . The life led by Russians in the national republics is, generally speaking, not very agreeable”; see Voslensky (fn. 26), 286.

56 I have nevertheless chosen, on September 4, to leave the manuscript intact, exactly as it stood in April, when I added material on the all-Union referendum. I write this postscript not to correct errors but to reflect on the overall argument in light of historic events.