Decolonizing Soviet Nationality Policy: Historical Analyses of Central Asian and Volga Nationality Policy in The Russian Review

Featured Articles:

Medish, Vadim. “Sino-Soviet Central Asia: National Unification Versus Political Division.” The Russian Review 22, no. 1 (1963): 56-67.

Pipes, Richard E. “The First Experiment in Soviet National Policy: The Bashkir Republic, 1917-1920.”The Russian Review 9, no. 4 (1950): 303–19.

Seton-Watson, H. “Soviet Nationality Policy.”The Russian Review 15, no. 1 (1956): 3–13.

Thomas, Alun. "The Caspian Disputes: Nationalism and Nomadism in Early Soviet Central Asia." The Russian Review 76, no. 3 (2017): 502-25.

Yessenova, Saulesh. “‘Routes and Roots’ of Kazakh Identity: Urban Migration in Postsocialist Kazakhstan.” The Russian Review 64, no. 4 (2005): 661–79.

In the struggle to decolonize Russian history and that of its borderlands, the question of the Soviet Union’s status as an Imperial power occupies a central and heavily debated position. [1] The destruction of Tsarist colonial structures and the national-liberation of oppressed peoples was an important facet of Bolshevik thought as far back as writings by V.I. Lenin in 1914. [2] By the 1920s, these aims materialized in the form of nationality policy, which, over the lifespan of the Soviet Union, sought to foster national cultural identities with socialist features for officially recognized minority nationalities. This policy served as a means of unifying, modernizing, and bringing about a “socialist union of denationalized peoples.” [3] In Central Asia, the application of nationality policy brought about national delineation. 1923 to 1924 saw the creation of new political and administrative entities for officially recognized minority nationalities in the form of Union and then Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs) federated under the central Soviet state. [4] Though grounded in liberatory socialist principles, the subject of nationality policy’s immediate and lasting influences on the Indigenous populations they concerned has taken center stage in the academic debate surrounding the Soviet Union’s imperial status. [5]

As far back as 1950, historians writing for TheRussian Review took critical stances on the Soviet Union’s claim to anti-imperialism, doing so primarily through analyses of nationality policy in Central Asia and nearby regions. With the aim of shining a light on how TheRussian Review has contributed to the decolonization of Russian history and how approaches to colonized populations’ histories have changed over time, this curated collection presents five such articles in chronological order by topic time frame.

During the 1950s, as Richard Pipes emphasizes, Soviet historiography advanced the line that the implementation of nationality policy had eliminated inter-ethnic tensions across the Union. Key to this narrative was the claim that Bolshevik policy united the struggles for class and national liberation in the fight against the capitalist exploiter during the Russian Civil War. [6] In the same period, Western historians rejected notions of nationality policies’ cooperative or liberatory qualities by advancing that the policies constituted a conscious recreation of colonial “divide and rule” tactics aimed at dividing and then pacifying borderland ethnic groups. [7] 

Taking a position critical of elements of both Soviet and Western historiography, “The First Experiment in Soviet Nationality Policy” by Richard Pipes explores the contention between class and national struggle in Civil War-era Bashkiria and demonstrates how the first implementation of Bolshevik nationality policy empowered the Russian working class at the expense of the Bashkir national movement and decolonial struggle. Pipes’ study takes the reader from the late Tsarist period up to 1920, and details the origins of Bashkir marginalization, regional inter-ethnic and class dynamics, the formation of their national movement, and how nationality policy affected it as while navigating the tumultuous and violent Civil-War period. 

Though this study is centered outside of Central Asia in the Volga region, what merits its inclusion within this curated collection is its application of elements of decolonial history to Soviet nationality policy in 1950, which predates the popularization of these methods during the Russian-Soviet historiographical “Imperial Turn” of the 1990s. [8] The first decolonial method Pipes employs is the narrative centrality of Bashkir experiences with their pre- and revolutionary-era national movements. He explores nationality policy through the perspectives of leading figures. Second, Pipes provides an analysis of colonized time wherein he discusses how the Bashkirs were colonized, the resulting class and inter-ethnic dynamics, and how colonization influenced the implementation of nationality policy. Lastly, he provides a complex view of colonization by repeatedly focusing on how another group, the Volga Tatars, benefited from Imperial expansion at the expense of the Bashkirs. However, despite Pipes’ early imperial critique and employment of the aforementioned historical elements, he propagates a linear and hierarchical view of cultural development in his description of Bashkir culture as “primitive” and a teleological view of Russian eastward expansion by stating that the Bashkirs “were placed by history directly in the path of Russian colonization.” [9]

Delivered in 1954 and published two years later, Hugh Seton-Watson’s “Soviet Nationality Policy” asks what the guiding ideological tendency was for Soviet nationality policy from 1920 onward. Suspecting that Russification played a central role, much of Seton-Watson’s text revolves around comparing Soviet nationality policy with Imperial Russian policy and those of other colonial regimes, generating some notable insights for the time. The first of these appears in his discussion of official Kyrgyz history, which was mandated to depict Russians as a historically progressive force under nationality policy. It went as far as painting the Imperial conquest of the Kyrgyz peoples as good in that it “furthered the social development of the Kirgiz nation…” [10] Though couched in Marxist terms, the Seton-Watson argues that the association of Russians with progress, and Central Asians with backwardness reflects the civilizing mission narratives seen in 19th century American and European colonial theory. [11] In this sense, Seton-Watson’s article is notable in its early discussion of imperialism from a British perspective as possessing “an idea or spirit” rooted in the Enlightenment.

But where Seton-Watson falls short is in his perception of Soviet anti-imperialism common in 1950s Western historiography. [12] Specifically, while Seton-Watson correctly identifies some imperial elements of nationality policy, he perceived it as solely dedicated to solidifying totalitarian control over the Soviet borderlands and does not take seriously the desire of Soviet officials to realize their vision of “a socialist union of denationalized peoples.” [13] In relation to ethnic minority and colonized populations’ historiographies, Seton-Watson’s article mirrors issues common in present “colonial approach” histories which simplify the complexity of colonial or exploitative power dynamics by only discussing the colonized population as subjects of state violence and never as people embedded within the state and with the power to influence policy or its implementation. [14] Applied to nationality policy, Seton-Watson silences the role of Central Asian elites and party members in the formulation and implementation of nationality policy by downplaying their agency in high government positions and the possibility of genuine local belief in Soviet reform. [15] However, Seton-Watson’s article is notable for the time in its discussion of how colonized peoples like the Vietnamese used imperial educational systems for their own aims, which included the organization of anti-colonial resistance.[16] Though Seton-Watson ultimately discounts the replication of this dynamic in Central Asia on the premise of Soviet totalitarianism, it would take until 1976 for another historian to tackle the same question in depth. [17] 

From the 1950s into the 1960s, American and Soviet competition for influence over the rapidly decolonizing “Third World” had a major impact on scholarship surrounding Central Asia and nationality policy. [18] Perceiving religious and cultural connections between Central Asia, Islamic nations, and South Asia, Soviet historians sought to portray nationality policy in the region, both past and present, as a story of the successful decolonization, as the “modernization” of minority cultures, and as an example of why others should follow the Soviet model. [19] Western historians sought to counter these claims by describing the USSR as a “cloaked empire” that merely levied the language of international anti-imperialism to hide its use of nationality policy to colonize the ethnic minorities within the Union. [20] 

The article “Sino-Soviet Central Asia” written in 1963 by Vadim Medish takes a novel approach to this debate through its comparative analysis of Soviet and Chinese Central Asian nationality policy. Countering Western perspectives, Medish gives weight to reported Soviet efforts at countering and undoing minority marginalization and discrimination during the pre-collectivization period and efforts at minority administrative and economic empowerment during the Khrushchev era. Nevertheless, in his historical overview of Soviet nationality policy Medish points out the contradictions between internationalist rhetoric and state practice given the rise of Russian chauvinism and minority expulsions under Stalin, the persistence of cultural discrimination and a Sino-Soviet border born from imperial conquest, and the demographic displacement experienced by Central Asians as a consequence of Stalin and Khrushchev era economic projects.

Though a helpful analysis of imperial continuity within Soviet nationality policy, such with the retention of the originally imperial Sino-Soviet border, the article suffers from issues prevalent in the previous decade of Indigenous Central Asian history. Namely, it silences the significant participation of Indigenous Central Asians in creating the Central Asian republics by overemphasizing the role of the Soviet state beyond its decision to divide Turkestan along national lines in 1923, ignoring the role Central Asian party elites played in deciding the boundaries of each nation during national-delineation, and simplifying the cultural differences across and within Central Asian republics in its advocation for the creation of a pseudo-Turkestan government. [21] 

With the fall of the Soviet Union and the independence of the Central Asian republics in 1991 came major changes in regional historiography. Many ascendant Central Asian political and academic figures came to deride Soviet nationality policy for repressing their respective national movements. [22] In the West, a number of academics sought to vindicate the Soviet “modernizing” mission while others countered certain Central Asian narratives by placing the origin of Central Asian nationalisms within early Soviet nationality policy. [23] Among those articles published by TheRussian Review in the post-Soviet period, there is a noticeable shift away from focusing on the Soviet state and towards uncovering how nationality policy internally shaped Indigenous Central Asian societies.

First among these articles is “‘Routes and Roots’ of Kazakh identity” written in 2005 by Kazakh born historian Saulesh Yessenova. The article finds that the source of discrimination against rural emigrants in contemporary urban Kazakhstan stems from colonial imaginations and social inequalities created in the Soviet period. [24] This article highlights how colonial perceptions of Otherness can survive into the post-colonial through their adoption by politicians as a means of further weakening those they seek to control, and detaching themselves from harmful images of Otherness for an international audience. This manifests in Yessanova’s article as the reformulation of Soviet perceptions of Kazakh Otherness to apply solely to rural Kazakh emigrants who are branded in academic works and political media as “archaic, inferior, and, therefore, incapable of modern nationhood and self-governance.” [25] As the article goes on to explain, the construction of this image of Otherness took place in the context of Soviet nationality policy as state administrators, political figures, and ethnographers sought to define Kazakh society and “advance” it towards nationhood. [26]

Returning to the Soviet period, “Nationalism and Nomadism in Early Soviet Central Asia” by Alun Thomas explores how the ideals surrounding border delineation, economic development, national identity, and cultural progress built into nationality policy conflicted with Indigenous nomadic life. As Thomas explains, these contradictions resulted in early Soviet Central Asian administrators and Bolshevik officials, either ignoring the many issues facing nomadic communities or taking aggressive action against a way of life that conflicted with aims and ideals. Over the course of his analysis, Alun makes apparent the colonial features of these nationality policies in that nomadism was targeted explicitly for its Otherness, deemed a barrier to Soviet modernity. Thus, in addition to centering Central Asian experiences, providing a complex view of Indigenous participation within Soviet systems, and detailing processes of colonization ongoing in the early Soviet period, this study actively deconstructs the harmful images and narratives used against Central Asian nomads in its exploration of their history.

As this curated collection demonstrates, articles published by TheRussian Review have long participated in the Imperial Soviet debate with each work helping demonstrate the shifts in historiography centered on Soviet nationality policy in Central Asia and its relationship with decolonial methodologies. Though “divide and rule” and “cloaked empire” narratives were prominent in early Cold War era Western historiography, we find Richard Pipes and Vadim Medish taking novel approaches critical of Western and Soviet positions. In the works of Pipes and Seton-Watson, we see the early application of certain decolonial methods and imperial critiques to Soviet nationality policy in Central Asia and the Urals that are significant given their relatively early publication. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the arrival of the “Imperial Turn” in Russian studies, we find that articles in TheRussian Review move away from a broadly “top-down” discussion of nationality policy’s impact on Soviet rule and Central Asian political movements toward in-depth analyses seeking to understand the ways in which nationality policy shaped colonized societies internally in both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. These articles make extensive use of Central Asian scholarly materials, center Central Asian perspectives, and analyze colonialism, moving beyond two-sided state-versus-society relations to reveal complex Indigenous society-state relations, processes of Othering, and internalized colonial ideals intimately tied to the history of nationality policy. [27]

Notes:

[1] Jeff Sahadeo, Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1865--1923 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007) 4-6; Jacqui Freeman, “The Emancipation of Women in Soviet Central Asia from 1917 to 1940: Strategies, Successes and Failures,” in Social and Cultural Change in Central Asia (Routledge, 2013) 32-33; Francine Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations: Border-Making and the Formation of Soviet National Identities,” The Russian Review 59, no. 2 (2000): 201–204.

[2] Ronald Grigor Suny and Terry Martin, A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2001) 71.

[3] Francine Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations: Border-Making and the Formation of Soviet National Identities,” The Russian Review 59, no. 2 (2000), 225.

[4] Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR (Cornell University Press, 2015), 258, 271; Alun Thomas, “The Caspian Disputes: Nationalism and Nomadism in Early Soviet Central Asia,” The Russian Review 76, no. 3 (2017): 504.

[5] Suny & Martin, A State of Nations; Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations;” Andreas Kappeler, The Russian Empire: A Multi-Ethnic History (Oxford, UK: Taylor & Francis Group, 2001), 372-392.

[6] Richard E. Pipes, “The First Experiment in Soviet National Policy: The Bashkir Republic, 1917-1920,” The Russian Review 9, no. 4 (1950): 303.

[7] Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations,” 201.

[8] Jonathan Daly, “A Scholar with A Sense of Mission: Academic, Cold Warrior, Public Intellectual,” Cahiers Du Monde Russe 59, no. 4 (2018): 554; Michael David-Fox, Peter Holquist, and Alexander M Martin, “The Imperial Turn,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 7, no. 4 (2006): 705.

[9] Pipes, “The First Experiment,” 304.

[10] Seton-Watson, “Soviet Nationality Policy,” 7.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations,” 201.

[13] Ibid, 225.

[14] Perovic, From Conquest to Deportation, 6.

[15] Seton-Watson, “Soviet Nationality Policy,” 8, 10. For deeper investigations of Central Asian involvement in the formulation and implementation of nationality policy, see Adeeb, Khalid, Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR (Cornell University Press, 2015).

[16] Seton-Watson, “Soviet Nationality Policy,” 11.

[17] Artemy M. Kalinovsky, Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018): 9.

[18] Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations,” 201.

[19] Ibid,” 202; Kalinovsky, Laboratory of Socialist Development, 23.

[20] Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations,” 201.

[21] Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, 270-272.

[22] Hirsch, “Toward an Empire of Nations,” 202.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Saulesh Yessenova, “‘Routes and Roots’ of Kazakh Identity: Urban Migration in Postsocialist Kazakhstan,” The Russian Review 64, no. 4 (2005): 662.

[25] Ibid, 662.

[26] Ibid, 667.

[27] Perovic, From Conquest to Deportation, 5-6.

About the Author: 

Zakary Hartley-Dawson is an undergraduate honors history major in his final year semester of a Bachelor of Arts at McGill University where he also works as a research assistant for The Russian Review. Zakary’s main subjects of interest are radical labor and anarchist revolutionary history in early 20th century North America and Eastern Europe.