Contradictions and paradoxes of the Soviet national policy: the expert’s reflections

Abstract

The article is devoted to the contradictions of the Soviet national policy, which in the author’s opinion; along with others factors predetermined the disintegration of the USSR. Particular attention is paid to the artificiality of the borders between Soviet republics, the political hierarchy of Soviet nations and to the mistakes made by the country’s leadership on the eve of the collapse of the USSR. The deportation of some Soviet nations during the war and in the period immediately preceding its beginning is discussed. The overall assessment of Soviet national policy is concretized by a detailed examination of the historical causes of the Ukrainian crisis and the Karabakh and Georgian-Abkhaz conflicts. According to the author, the collapse of the USSR was laid at the time of its formation and is conditioned by two mutually exclusive tendencies in state policy. On the one hand, there was the desire to form a single community — the Soviet people — fused by ideology and not solidarity on a civil basis. On the other hand, there was the ethnic delimitation of the state, with allocation to each nation of its own territory designated by borders. The weakening of the ideological press during the years of “perestroika” became the basis for the emergence of separatist sentiments in most of the Soviet republics. Refs 14.