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The Establishment of Bolshevik Power in the Crimea and the Construction of a Multinational Soviet State: Organisation, Justification, Uncertainties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2012

GRÉGORY DUFAUD
GRÉGORY DUFAUD*
Affiliation:
Grégory Dufaud, 11 rue Le Féron, 60200 Compiègne, France; gregorydufaud@gmail.com
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Abstract

The autonomous Soviet republic of the Crimea was established in October 1921 as part of the Russian Federative Republic. A few months later came the announcement that the new republic was to be ‘tatarised’, in accordance with a policy which was already being implemented in other territories but which was not systematised, in the form of ‘indigenisation’, until 1923. This article examines how the Bolsheviks imposed their authority in the Crimea. It analyses the dealings and negotiations among the principal actors in both Moscow and the Crimea, and traces the establishment of rules and agreements. It also examines the uncertainties and anxieties that troubled the Crimean Communist Party when the enthusiasm of some Crimean communists for indigenisation rapidly led to suspicions of nationalism. This article, written from the periphery, throws light on the construction of a multinational Soviet state by focusing on the actors and their actions.

L'établissement du pouvoir bolchevique en crimée et la construction de l'état multinational soviétique: organisation, justification, incertitudes

Au sein de la République fédérative de Russie, la République socialiste soviétique autonome de Crimée fut établie en octobre 1921. Quelques mois après sa proclamation, la ‘tatarisation’ fut décrétée, conformément à une politique qui avait été implantée dans d'autres territoires, mais ne fut systématisée qu'en 1923 sous le nom d'‘indigénisation’. Cet article entend étudier la façon dont les Bolcheviks installèrent leur autorité en Crimée. Il rend compte des tractations et des négociations entre les différents acteurs, en Crimée comme à Moscou, et de la façon dont les règles et les conventions s'établirent. Mais il s'intéresse également aux incertitudes et aux inquiétudes que suscita, au sein du Parti criméen, l'engagement actif d'une partie des communistes nationaux en faveur de l'‘indigénisation’, qui furent assez rapidement suspectés de nationalisme. Au final, c'est le processus de construction de l'État multinational soviétique qui est éclairé, à partir d'un point de vue périphérique, en se focalisant sur les acteurs et leurs conduites.

Die einrichtung der macht der bolschewiken auf der krim und die konstruktion des multinationalen sowjetischen staates: organisation, rechtfertigung, ungewissheiten

Die autonome Sowjetrepublik Krim wurde im Oktober 1921 als Teil der Russischen Föderativen Republik gegründet. Einige Monate später kam die Meldung, dass die neue Republik ‘tatarisiert‘ werden sollte, und zwar auf Linie mit einer Politik, die schon in anderen Territorien umgesetzt, aber bis 1923 (als ‘Indigenisierung‘) nicht systematisch angewandt wurde. Dieser Artikel untersucht, wie die Bolschewiken ihre Herrschaft auf die Krim ausdehnten. Er analysiert die Beziehungen und Verhandlungen zwischen den Hauptakteuren in Moskau und auf der Krim und geht der Herausbildung von Regeln und Einigungen nach. Der Artikel untersucht ausserdem die Unsicherheiten und Ängste, welche die Kommunistische Partei der Krim umtrieben, als der Enthusiasmus der Kommunisten von der Krim den Verdacht nährte, sie seien Nationalisten. Indem er auf diese Akteure und ihre Handlungen blickt, wirft dieser Artikel wirft ein Licht auf die Konstruktion eines multinationalen sowjetischen Staates.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , May 2012 , pp. 257 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 Fisher, Alan W., The Russian Annexation of the Crimea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970)Google Scholar. At this time the Tatars comprised about a quarter of the population (186,000). More than half the population of the Crimea consisted of Russians and Ukrainians (371,000); slightly less than a quarter (138,245) was made up of Jews, Germans, Greeks, Armenians and Bulgars. Statistiko-ekonomitcheskii atlas Kryma, vol. 1 (Simferopol: Izdanie krymstatupravleniia i krymizadata, 1922), pp. 5–7.

2 On relations among Russian Muslims see Kuznetsov, I. D., ed., Natsional'nye dvizheniia v period revoliutsii v Rossii (Sbornik dokumentov iz arkhiva byv. Departmanta politsii) (Cheboksary: Chuvashskoe gosizdat, 1935)Google Scholar; Bennigsen, Alexandre and Lemercier-Quelquejay, Chantal, L'Islam en Union soviétique (Paris: Payot, 1968), pp. 39–57Google Scholar; Sharipova, R. M., ‘Tatarskie reformatory mezhdu dvumia revoliutsiiami (1905–1917)’, in Sevost'ianov, G., ed., Tragediia velikoi derzhavy: Natsional'nyi vopros i raspad Sovetskogo Soiuza (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo “Sotsial'no-polititcheskaia mysl”’, 2005), pp. 68–77Google Scholar.

3 Krasnyi Krym, 7 Nov. 1921.

4 My approach is largely that of ‘pragmatic’ sociology. For a short account of this see Bénatouïl, Thomas, ‘Critique et pragmatique en sociologie: Quelques principes de lecture’, Annales HSS, 2 (1999), pp. 281–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On negotiation see also Anselm Strauss: ‘Négociations: Introduction à la question’, in Baszanger, Isabelle, ed., La Trame de la négociation: Sociologie qualitative et interactionnisme (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1992), pp. 245–68Google Scholar.

5 The idea that the Soviet Union was anti-national was advanced by Pipes, Richard in his ground-breaking study The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917–1923 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954)Google Scholar. It was taken up by numerous students of Soviet history up to the end of the 1980s. See esp. Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, Le Grand défi: Bolcheviks et nations, 1917–1930 (Paris: Flammarion, 1987); Nahaylo, Bogdan and Swoboda, Viktor, Soviet Disunion: A History of the Nationalities Problem in the USSR (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990)Google Scholar; Simon, Gerhard, Nationalism and Policy Toward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union: From Totalitarian Dictatorship to Post-Stalinist Society (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

6 Slezkine, Yuri, ‘The USSR as a Communal Apartment or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism’, Slavic Review, 53 (1994), pp. 414–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, Jeremy, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, 1917–1923 (New York: Palgrave, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin, Terry, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Edgar, Adrienne L., Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Hirsch, Francine, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (London: Cornell University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Cadiot, Juliette, Le Laboratoire impérial: Russie-URSS, 1870–1940 (Paris: CNRS Édition, 2007)Google Scholar; Cadiot, Juliette, Arel, Dominique and Zakharova, Larissa, Cacophonies d'empire: Le gouvernement des langues dans l'Empire russe et en Union soviétique (Paris: CNRS Édition, 2010)Google Scholar.

7 The idea that there was a misunderstanding with the Muslim elites was advanced by, among others, Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, L'Islam en Union soviétique, pp. 39–57. Recent work on alliances between various minorities and the Bolsheviks have focused on the civil war. See, e.g., Khalid, Adeeb, ‘Nationalizing the Revolution in Central Asia: The Transformation of Jadidism, 1917–1920’, in Suny, Ronald G. and Martin, Terry, eds, A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 145–62Google Scholar; Daniel E. Schafer, ‘Local Politics and the Birth of the Republic of Bashkotorstan, 1919–1920’, in ibid., pp. 165–90.

8 Broshevan, V. M. and Formantchuk, A. A., Krymskaia respublika: god 1921-i (Simferopol: Tavriia, 1992), pp. 38, 65Google Scholar.

9 Carrère d'Encausse, Le Grand Défi, pp. 189–93.

10 Ibid., pp. 39–40.

11 Russian State Archives for Political and Social History (RGASPI), 17/12/275/9; State Archives of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea (GAARK), 1/1/43/28.

12 RGASPI, 17/13/502/169; Broshevan and Formantchuk, Krymskaia respublika, p. 41.

13 RGASPI, 17/13/508/192.

14 Broshevan and Formantchuk, Krymskaia respublika, pp. 41–3.

15 Ibid., pp. 44–5.

16 RGASPI, 17/13/499/25, 59.

17 RGASPI, 17/13/504/87.

18 Guboglo, M. N. and Tchervonnaia, S. M., Krymskotatarskoe natsional'noe dvizhenie, vol. 2 (Moscow: TsIMO, 1992), no. 4, pp. 35–6Google Scholar.

19 RGASPI, 17/12/275/10; Revoliutsiia i natsional'nosti, no. 1, 1930.

20 RGASPI, 17/12/275/49, 583/1/115/17v.

21 GAARK, 1/1/102/5.

22 State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF), 1318/25/3/13v.

23 RGASPI, 613/4/27/130.

24 Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, L'Islam en Union soviétique, pp. 120–8; Landa, R. G., ‘Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev’, Voprosi istorii, 8 (1999), pp. 53–70Google Scholar; Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, pp. 228–38.

25 GAARK, 1/1/102/12.

26 Quoted in Botchagov, A. K., Milli Firka: natsional'no-burzhuaznaia kontrrevoliutsiia v Krymu (Simferopol: Krymgosizdat, 1932), pp. 83–4Google Scholar.

27 GAARK, 1/1/102/32.

28 RGASPI, 613/4/27/129.

29 Krasnyi Krym, 28 July 1921.

30 RGASPI, 17/13/499/76; Kozlov, V. P., ed., Protokoly rukovodiashtshikh organov narodnogo komissariata po delam natsional'nostei RSFSR, 1918–1924 gg. (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2001), n. 146, 240Google Scholar.

31 RGASPI, 17/13/504/92.

32 Broshevan and Formantchuk, Krymskaia respublika, p. 9.

33 GAARK, 1/1/102/32.

34 Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, p. 51.

35 GARF, 1235/96/736/5.

36 Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, p. 51.

37 Broshevan and Formantchuk, Krymskaia respublika, pp. 13–15.

38 Krasnyi Krym, 18 June 1921.

39 RGASPI, 17/13/502/139–40.

40 Broshevan and Formantchuk, Krymskaia respublika, pp. 16–17.

41 Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, pp. 189–97.

42 Krasnyi Krym, 31 Aug. 1921.

43 Zhizn’ Natsional'nostei, 25 Oct. 1921.

44 Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, p. 51.

45 Krasnyi Krym, 15 Nov. 1921. On the composition of the TsIK in autumn 1922 see RGASPI, 17/14/391/53.

46 GAARK, 652/1/5/1; GARF, 1318/13/1/3.

47 RGASPI, 17/11/59/153.

48 GARF, 1318/13/13/9.

49 RGASPI, 17/14/391/60; GAARK, 663/1/11/1; GARF, 1318/13/13/18.

50 Krasnyi Krym, 14 Feb. 1921; Durdenevski, V. N., Ravnopravnie iazykov v sovetskom stroe (Moscow: 1927), pp. 186–7Google Scholar. The choice of language was never actually discussed or debated. Gaspirali's version of Tatar won general acceptance and was adopted by default.

51 GARF, 7523/101/640/16–19.

52 RGASPI, 17/12/277/120; Krasnyi Krym, 29 April 1921.

53 Krasnyi Krym, 29 April 1921.

54 Krasnyi Krym, 24 July 1921.

55 Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, p. 26.

56 Desiatyi s'ezd RKP (b), mart 1921 goda – stenografitcheskii ottchet (Moscow, 1963), p. 252.

57 Krasnyi Krym, 26 October 1921.

58 Ibid.

59 GARF, 7523/101/640/16–19.

60 Krasnyi Krym, 29 April 1921.

61 Minassian, Taline Ter, Colporteurs du Komintern: L'Union soviétique et les minorités au Moyen-Orient (Paris: Presses de Science Po, 1997), pp. 23–31Google Scholar. On Soviet policies with respect to the Islamic east from 1917 to 1921, see Gusterin, P. V., ‘Politika Sovetskogo gosudarstva na musul'manskom Vostoke v 1917–1921 gg’., Voprosi istorii, 1 (2010), pp. 92–100Google Scholar.

62 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, pp. 9–15; Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, pp. 213–28; Kaiser, Robert J., The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 3–32Google Scholar.

63 GAARK, 1/1/310/99. The signatories were Veli Ibraimov, Usein Balish, Osman Deren-Aierly, Umer Ibraimov, Bekir Umerov, Seid Umerov, Amet Ismailov, Appaz Pamuktshi, Abdul Mustafa and Shamrat Karabash.

64 GAARK, 1/1/310/100.

65 GAARK, 1/1/310/247.

66 The whole business was orchestrated by Stalin, who had hitherto consistently supported Sultan-Galiev despite his sometimes heterodox views. Stalin discovered that Sultan-Galiev had made a covert approach to Trotsky in April 1923, with a view to forging an alliance, and feared that this might lead to a connivance that would further strengthen an already substantial opposition. See Sultanbekov, B., ‘Vvedenie’, in Gizzatullin, I. G. and Sharafutdinov, D. R. (eds), Mirza Sultan-Galiev: Stat'i. Vystupleniia. Dokumenty (Kazan, 1992), p. 14Google Scholar; Blank, S., The Sorcerer as Apprentice: Stalin as Commissar of Nationalities, 1917–1924 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 183–209Google Scholar; Landa, P. G., ‘Mirza Sultan-Galiev’, Voprosi istorii, 8 (1999), pp. 65–7Google Scholar; Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, pp. 232–6.

67 GAARK, 1/1/310/145.

68 RGASPI, 558/11/33/24.

69 Gatagova, L. S., Kosheleva, L. P. and Rogovaia, L. A., CK RKP (b) i natsional'nyi vopros, vol. 1, 1918–1933 gg. (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2005), no. 131, pp. 325–7Google Scholar.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid.

72 Gatagova, Kocheleva and Rogovaia, CK RKP (b) i nacional'nyi vopros, no. 142, pp. 355–9.

73 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 232–3. Armenia and Georgia were the exceptions that proved the rule.

74 GAARK, 1/1/368/89–90.

75 GAARK, 3/1/164/2,7.

76 Ibid.

77 GAARK, 1/1/50/6.

78 Broshevan and Formantchuk, Krymskaia respublika, p. 93.

79 Idem.

80 Gatagova, Kocheleva and Rogovaia, CK RKP (b) i natsional'nyi vopros, 360–1, p. 365.

81 Ibid., no. 145, pp. 367–8.