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Protest for National Rights in the USSR: Characteristics and Consequences*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

David Kowalewski*
Affiliation:
Benedictine College

Extract

The Soviet regime's contention that the nationalities problem has been solved can no longer be taken seriously. At his speech honoring the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the Soviet Union on December 21, 1972, party chief Leonid Brezhnev claimed:

By now … solving the nationalities problem, overcoming the backwardness of previously oppressed nations, is … habitual for the Soviet people. We must remember the scope and complexity of the accomplishments, in order to appreciate the wisdom … of the party, which took upon itself such a task — and accomplished it.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe 

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References

Notes

1. On the nationalities question see Kupchinsky, Roman, ed., Natsional'nii vopros v SSSR: Sbornik dokumentov (The Nationalities Question in the USSR: A Collection of Documents) (Munich: Suchasnist, 1975); Kamenetsky, Ihor, ed., Nationalism and Human Rights: Processes of Modernization in the USSR (Littleton: Libraries Unlimited, 1977); and Azrael, Jeremy, Emergent Nationality Problems in the USSR (Santa Monica: Rand, 1977).Google Scholar

2. O piatidesiatiletii SSSR (Moscow: Politicheskaiia Literatura, 1973), pp. 24 and 49.Google Scholar

3. Andrei Sakharov Speaks (New York: Random House, 1974), p. 142.Google Scholar

4. See Dve press-konferentsii (K sborniku “Iz-pod Glyb”) (Two Press Conferences [Concerning the Collection “From under the Rubble”]) (Paris: YMCA Press, 1975), pp. 4345; Maltsev, Yuri, Volnaia russkaia literatura: 1955–1975 (Free Russian Literature: 1955–1975) (Frankfurt: Posev, 1976), p. 228; Arkhiv samizdata (Samizdat Archives) (Munich: Radio Liberty Research), 1458 (hereafter AS); Belotserkovsky, Vadim, “Letter to the Future Leaders of the Soviet Union: An Alternative to Solzhenitsyn's Program,” Partisan Review, 42, 2 (1975), p. 269; Wexler, Yuli, The Experiences of Jews in the Soviet Union (New York: Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, 1978), p. 1; Washington Post, January 12, 1975; and Washington Star-News, January 7 and 8, 1975.Google Scholar

5. Lawrence, John, “Soviet Jews,” Religion in Communist Lands, 5, 2 (Summer 1977), p. 76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Pospielovsky, Dimitry, “The Resurgence of Russian Nationalism in Samizdat ,” Survey, 19, 1 (Winter 1973), p. 68.Google Scholar

7. Rywkin, Michael, “Central Asia and Soviet Manpower,” Problems of Communism, 28, 1 (January-February 1979), pp. 910.Google Scholar

8. See Democratic Movement of the Soviet Union, Memorandum demokratov verkhovnomu sovetu SSSR (Memorandum of Democrats to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR) (Frankfurt: Posev, 1972).Google Scholar

9. Veryha, Wasyl, “Communication Media and Soviet Nationality Policy: The Status of National Languages in Soviet TV Broadcasting,” Ukrainian Quarterly, 27, 2 (Summer 1971), pp. 124–49 and 27, 3 (Fall 1971), pp. 269–89.Google Scholar

10. Zwick, Peter, “Socioeconomic Policy and National Integration in the USSR,” paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 20–22, 1978. See also Kolasky, John, Education in Soviet Ukraine: A Study in Discrimination and Russification (Toronto: Peter Marin, 1968), p. 194; and Leslie Dienes, “Investment Priorities in Soviet Regions,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 62, 3 (1972), pp. 437–54.Google Scholar

11. Clem, Ralph et al., “Modernization, Population Change, and Nationality in Soviet Central Asia and Kazkhstan,” in Peter Potichnyj and Jane Shapiro, eds., Change and Adaptation in Soviet and East European Politics (New York: Praeger, 1976), pp. 217–33.Google Scholar

12. Internationalism or Russification (New York: Monad, 1974), p. 45.Google Scholar

13. Kolasky, John, Two Years in Soviet Ukraine: A Canadian's Personal Account of Russian Oppression and the Growing Opposition (Toronto: Peter Martin, 1970), p. 122. See also Vladimir, Tri otnoshenii k rodine: Stati, ocherki, vystupleniia (Three Approaches to the Motherland: Essays, Notes, Speeches) (Frankfurt: Posev, 1978), pp. 123 and 147.Google Scholar

14. Khronika tekushchikh sobytii (Chronicle of Current Events), 8 (hereafter KTS).Google Scholar

15. Decter, Moshe, ed., A Hero for Our Time (New York: Academic Committee on Soviet Jewry, 1970), p. 15.Google Scholar

16. Minogue, K.R., Nationalism (Baltimore: Penguin, 1967), p. 26. See also Smith, Anthony, Theories of Nationalism (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 60.Google Scholar

17. Religion in Communist Lands, 4, 3 (Autumn 1976), p. 27. Veche, a Russian nationalist journal, protests against the destruction of Russian cultural life by industrialization, the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church, and other issues.Google Scholar

18. Israel Public Council for Jewry, Soviet, Leib Knokh: Soviet Jewish Prisoner of Conscience (Jerusalem: Attali, 1977), p. 9; and Kenneth Farmer, “Ukrainian Nationalism and Soviet Nationalities Policy: 1957–1972,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1977, pp. 157–58.Google Scholar

19. Tashkentskii protsess: Sud nad desiatiu predstaviteliami krymskotatarskogo naroda (1 iiulia-5 avgusta 1969 g.) The Tashkent Case: The Trial of Ten Representatives of the Crimean Tatar People [July 1-August 5, 1969]) (Amsterdam: Herzen Foundation, 1976), p. 402.Google Scholar

20. KTS 48.Google Scholar

21. Luckyj, George, “Polarity in Ukrainian Intellectual Dissent,” Canadian Slavonic Papers, 14, 2 (Summer 1972), p. 277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Leibel, Aaron, “Political Opposition in the Soviet Union: The Case of the Writers,” , University of Maryland, 1972, p. 6.Google Scholar

23. Luckyj, , “Polarity,” p. 272.Google Scholar

24. See Ukrainian national dissident Valery Marchenko's declaration in AS 3381.Google Scholar

25. Beseda s Leonidom Plyushchom,” (Conversation with Leonid Plyushch) in Vadim Belotserkovsky, ed., Demokraticheskie alternativy: Sbornik statei i dokumentov (Democratic Alternatives: A Collection of Articles and Documents) (Achberg: Achberger Verlagsanstalt, 1976), p. 25.Google Scholar

26. See Programma demokraticheskogo dvizheniia Sovetskogo Soyuza (Program of the Democratic Movement of the Soviet Union) (Amsterdam: Herzen Foundation, 1970); The Fifth Issue of the Unofficial Lithuanian Journal Aušra (Munich: Radio Liberty Research, 1977); and KTS 25 respectively.Google Scholar

27. Kontinent, 18 (1979), p. 278. See also the support of prominent Russian dissidents Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn in New York Times, April 15, 1974.Google Scholar

28. On the representativeness of the sample, the accuracy, objectivity, authenticity, and completeness of the sources, and the reliability coefficients (Pearson's r's) of the variables considered, see the author's “Protest Uses of Symbolic Politics,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 1978.Google Scholar

29. Feagin, Joe and Hahn, Harlan, Ghetto Revolts: The Politics of Violence in American Cities (New York: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 48 and 170–71.Google Scholar

30. AS 91.Google Scholar

31. Demonstrations by Tatars returning to their Crimean homeland from many localities to register on the peninsula were excluded.Google Scholar

32. See Enloe, Cynthia, Ethnic Conflict and Political Development (Boston: Little and Brown, 1973).Google Scholar

33. Smith, , Theories of Nationalism, p. 63.Google Scholar

34. Brizgys, Vincent, Religious Conditions in Lithuania under Soviet Russian Occupation (Chicago: Lithuanian Catholic Press, 1968), p. 39.Google Scholar

35. It is possible that the sources underreported dissidence for national rights in rural areas, yet contextual evidence suggests this is not the case. Dissident national journals such as the Ukrainian Herald and the Lithuanian Dawn report on rural dissent in their republics. Yet such dissidence is primarily for religious (Ukrainian Uniate and Lithuanian Catholic) rather than national rights.Google Scholar

36. Space considerations preclude a detailed examination of each group. For an excellent comprehensive treatment, see Edward Corcoran, “Dissension in the Soviet Union: The Group Basis and Dynamics of Internal Opposition,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1977.Google Scholar

37. Gitelman, Zvi, “The Jewish Question in the USSR since 1964,” in George Simmonds, ed., Nationalism in the USSR and Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev and Kosygin (Detroit: University Press, 1977), pp. 325 and 328.Google Scholar

38. Allworth, Edward, The Nationality Question in Soviet Central Asia (New York: Praeger, 1973), p. 7; and Browne, Michael, Ferment in the Ukraine (New York: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

39. Vardys, V. Stanley, The Catholic Church, Dissent, and Nationality in Soviet Lithuania (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), p. 18.Google Scholar

40. Literatura ir Menas, July 18, 1972.Google Scholar

41. Tilly, Charles, From Mobilization to Revolution (Menlo Park: Addison-Wesley, 1978), p. 83.Google Scholar

42. AS 188.Google Scholar

43. Feierabend, Ivo K. et al., “Political Violence and Assassination: A Cross-National Assessment,” in William Crotty, ed., Assassinations and the Political Order (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 138.Google Scholar

44. Canfield, Roger, Black Ghetto Riots and Campus Disorders (San Francisco: R. and E. Research Associates, 1973), pp. 214223.Google Scholar

45. Kenneth, and Dolbeare, Patricia, American Ideologies: The Competing Political Beliefs of the 1970's (Chicago: Markham, 1971), p. 138.Google Scholar

46. The success of some Soviet Jews in obtaining emigration visas and of some Crimean Tatars in registering in the Crimea appears to contradict this assertion. However, thousands of Jews and Tatars still wait for redress of grievances. Moreover, separate analyses of the Jewish and Tatar sub-samples reveal that these groups are no more successful in obtaining concessions at instrumental demonstrations than other groups. Thus it appears that these two groups have obtained some absolute success only because of the high volume of their dissent (see table of distribution of events by nationality).Google Scholar

47. Bell, J. Bowyer, On Revolt: Strategies of National Liberation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48. Barghoorn, Frederick, “The Post-Khrushchev Campaign to Suppress Dissent: Perspectives, Strategies, and Techniques of Repression,” in Rudolf Tökes, ed., Dissent in the USSR: Politics, Ideology, and People (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1975), p. 41.Google Scholar

49. Motyl, Alexander, “USSR's Alternative Press,” Index on Censorship, 7, 2 (March-April 1978), p. 25.Google Scholar

50. AS 1884.Google Scholar

51. Khrushchev's ‘Leap Forward’: Assimilation in the USSR after Stalin,” Social Science Quarterly, 48, 1 (June 1967), p. 34.Google Scholar