Russian Minority Politics in Post-Soviet Latvia and Kyrgyzstan: The Transformative Power of Informal Networks

Chapter 3. Soviet Socialist Legacies and Post-Soviet Nationalization

Chapter 3 Soviet Socialist Legacies and Post-Soviet Nationalization To the Kazakh who divides us into ‘‘native’’ and non-native’’ Our grandfathers’ graves are here, our children were born here, Here our talents and skills turned into business. Our fathers were comrades-in-arms in the war. What the hell kind of ‘‘non-native’’ am I? —Svetlana Nazarova, Ne ostavliaite na potom. . . . Given the 1916 rebellion against Russian colonization and Moscow’s subsequent determination to Russify Kazakh culture, the implied assertion of friendly Russian-Kazakh relations in this stanza of Nazarova’s poem is questionable.1 On top of that, independence rendered Russiantitular relations in all Soviet successor states, including Kazakhstan, potentially conflictual. A key premise of this book is that legacies of state socialism shape various post-Soviet political phenomena such as the emergence of nationalization projects in general, the development of distinct types of nationalization projects in particular, and, most important , whether or not Russians inherited dense informal networks. Certain aspects of the Soviet legacy such as federalism, nationalities policy, demographics, and the success or failure of locally initiated affirmative action policies have powerful implications for the Russian minority question. Federalism and nationalities policy shed light on the origins of post-Soviet nationalization. The territorial division of the Soviet Union based on nationality provided elites with the necessary tools to implement nationalization projects in the aftermath of the USSR’s demise. While korenizatsiya, or nativization, created long-term 28 Chapter 3 enthusiasm for the development of local languages and traditions, Russi- fication generated resentment toward Russians that provided legitimacy for nationalization policies and practices. In addition, demographic trends and the success or failure of locally initiated affirmative action polices in the Central Asian and Baltic regions determined the degree to which Russians dominated various state and party organs; in other words, the results of these affirmative action policies governed the socioeconomic status of Russians. And, as stated previously, the socioeconomic status of the core nation compared to Russians contributed to decisions made by elites to adopt accommodating or antagonistic nationalization. Soviet Federalism: A Source of Post-Soviet National Self-Determination The foundation of Soviet federalism was a set of union republics that served as territorial homelands for different nationalities. Although these republics were an integral part of the union and did not function as independent units, they possessed important elements of statehood. Elites presiding over union republics were well equipped to implement nationalization projects when the Soviet Union collapsed because they were able to manipulate such manifestations of statehood to their advantage . Various characteristics of the federal system enshrined in the 1924 constitution facilitated the development of post-Soviet nationalization. Scholars have argued for decades that the union’s structure provided certain groups with attributes of formal statehood that allowed elites to pursue the interests of their own nation. For example, in the 1970s Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone claimed that Soviet federalism ‘‘proved important in the ability of major nationalities . . . to withstand powerful pressures toward assimilation . . . [and] affords numerous opportunities for evading central directives and promoting local interests.’’2 In the 1980s, Gail Lapidus acknowledged that the federation provided ‘‘an organizational context, a political legitimacy, and a cultural impetus for the assertion of group interests, values, and demands and even served to shape group identities.’’3 In the early 1990s, Philip G. Roeder made a similar argument regarding the role of federal institutions in fueling ethnic mobilization: ‘‘Institutions that were designed to expand Moscow ’s control over ethnic groups . . . have taken on a new life. Autonomous homelands provide essential resources for the collective mobilization of ethnic communities, and both federal institutions and indigenous cadres shape ethnic agendas.’’4 And in the mid-1990s, Rog- Soviet Socialist Legacies 29 ers Brubaker suggested that the purpose of the union republics was ‘‘to serve as the institutional vehicles for national self-determination.’’5 Moscow was compelled to create a territorial-administrative system capable of accommodating a large multiethnic state. Contentious debate generated a decision to adopt a federal system based on the principle of national-territory autonomy.6 In pursuit of socialist equality and the eventual union of denationalized peoples, the Bolsheviks created administrative territories based on the nationality principle. However, they were deeply troubled by the question of whether groups like tribes and clans should be classified as nations. Ethnographers, geographers, and statisticians assisted Bolshevik leaders in determining which groups should in fact be...