Smith, Jeremy Robert Charnock; (1996) The Bolsheviks and the national question, 1917-1923. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis examines the formulation and execution of policies towards the various nationalities of the Soviet Republics from the October revolution of 1917 until the formation of the Soviet Union in 1923. Most of the Russian and Western literature on this question focuses on the process of the reincorporation of the non-Russian regions of the former empire into the new Bolshevik-led state. Accordingly, there is a general assumption that the purpose of Bolshevik national policy was to gain the short-term support of the national minorities in the struggle to win the civil war. By examining the material newly released from the Soviet archives in addition to the material previously available, I have concluded that the goal of Bolshevik nationality policies was to "raise the cultural level" of the non-Russians and to eliminate the inequalities arising from economic and historical conditions. The central policies pursued were: the creation of formally independent or autonomous republics and regions; the maintenance, as far as was practicable, of the ethnic homogeneity of these territorial national units by means of rearranged borders and movements of population; the development of a cadre of national communist leaders including the incorporation of sympathetic nationalists into the republican communist parties; encouraging a flourishing national culture through the education system, the use of native languages in the press and administration, and the selective promotion of both historical and new "socialist" cultural traditions; and the development of industry and agriculture in non- Russian areas. The final objective of all these measures was to create and encourage a strong sense of national identity based mostly, but not exclusively, on national territorial units, and through that national identity a loyalty to the Soviet state.

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