The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 (The Wilder House Series in Politics, History and Culture)
In the popular imagination, the Soviet Union was always synonymous with Russia, but in the U.S.S.R.'s early days Soviet leaders had a very different idea in mind: they wanted to establish a true multinational, multi-ethnic empire. To that end, they attacked Russian nationalism as a vestige of Tsarism, and instituted a set of policies that looked very much like affirmative action, enforcing the use of local languages and fostering the development of ethnic leaders, even at the cost of discriminating against Russians. Yet, as Martin shows in this fascinating history, simply giving an order was not enough, even in the Stalin years, and the complex relationship between socialism and nationalism in places like Ukraine often frustrated Soviet intentions. More important, ethnicity, once fostered, was frequently a counterweight to, rather than a bulwark of, Communist ideology; although Stalin remained rhetorically committed to the multi-state idea, he ended up terrorizing those ethnic leaders he saw as threats.Copyright © 2005The New Yorker--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.