Derusification of Administration in USSR

Abstract

Non-Russian peoples were represented in Russian power structures long before the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, but less than the democratic norm, which suggests de facto ethnic discrimination in the Empire. In Soviet times, the actual ethno-political inequality of peoples in the USSR was gradually overcome, and participation of non-Russians in power structures grew systematically and even accelerated, and the role of Russians decreased accordingly. The increase in non-Russians’ share in governmental bodies was almost exclusively due to an increase in their ethnic status. By 1979, Russians had a very small majority in all government structures in the USSR as a whole, except for the legislative branch, which roughly corresponded to their higher share in the country’s population (50.8 % in 1989). However, the situation was different in the Union republics. Only in the Russian Federation did all peoples, Russian and non-Russian, participate in governmental bodies in proportion to their numbers and in full compliance with the democratic norm. In Belarus, Moldova, and Uzbekistan, titular ethnic groups were underrepresented, and Russians were overrepresented. In Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Estonia, the representation of Russians was below the democratic norm, and in nine republics it was higher, but despite this, they did not have a majority in any union republic. This situation developed as a result of the center’s national policy, which aimed at strengthening the authorities with national personnel, accelerating the modernization of the Union republics and raising the level of development in the lagging republics to the level of the most developed republics.