Soviet Society Under Gorbachev: Current Trends and the Prospects for Change: Current Trends and the Prospects for Change by Maurice Friedberg & Heyward Isham

Author:Maurice Friedberg & Heyward Isham [Friedberg, Maurice & Isham, Heyward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Minority Studies, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781315493640
Google: nl6lDAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 30992812
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-07-08T00:00:00+00:00

The new meaning of nationality

Since the death of Stalin, there have been three major changes in the meaning of nationality in the USSR: a change in its primary source, a change in its importance for individuals, and a change in its impact on the system.

The most dramatic change has been in the primary source of national identity and nationalism. Traditionally, Soviet writers have defined these as perezhitki,' 'survivals of the past,'' destined to be mechanically overcome in the course of economic and political development. They have followed the declines in popular attachment to particular traditions and the rise in various indicators of Sovietization and claimed to see in these figures a vindication of their views. Curiously, many Western scholars have accepted this definition, though not the same conclusion. Instead, they have gathered evidence of the continued vitality of certain folk traditions and of popular resistance to Sovietization.

This debate is not so much wrong as it is sterile, for it does not help us to understand the often contradictory quality of ethnic development in the USSR. Further, it detracts attention from a new and more important source of national identity and nationalism there. That is the intense competition for jobs and resources among elites of various national groups rather than simple attachment to tradition. As Arutiunian and other Soviet ethnosociologists have shown, this kind of national identity and sensitivity arises precisely among those groups that are the most mobilized and Sovietized and on whom Moscow has counted the most. Further, these scholars have argued, as social development proceeds and these elites expand in size, this kind of national identity is likely to intensify even as the older type, found largely among the peasants and based on a xenophobic attachment to tradition, ebbs. The unintended consequence of the success of Soviet social policies, this kind of national identification is likely to prove an ever greater problem for the authorities in Moscow.

Adopting a comparative perspective, we can make two further points. First, as development proceeds, the possibilities that this form of national identity will be exacerbated dramatically increase—especially if a new leader tries to challenge what the national elites have come to view as their just desserts. And second, the two kinds of national identity are not entirely distinct. Ethnicity of all kinds has certain objective referents. Under conditions of high coercion and control, there is little chance that the two can ever link up and mobilize against the central authorities for any policy goal. But as coercion and control decline, the possibilities for such link-ups increase, especially under conditions of economic stagnation and direct challenges to what have come to be seen as national prerogatives by both groups. In looking at the nationality situation in the USSR, we should not forget that the leaders of successful ethnic political challenges and anticolonial movements have almost always come not from the most backward but from the most assimilated groups. Nor of course should we forget that these leaders have had to be able to tap the sentiments of the mass groups.

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