National Minorities

The Bolsheviks had come to power with the support of the ethnic minorities to whom they had promised national self-determination, a pledge first fulfilled by their decree of November 1917. However, this encouraged a separatist movement, particularly in Finland, the Baltic and the Caucasus. In December 1917, Finland opted to become an independent state, whilst an elected rada (parliament) was set up in the Ukraine.

Whether or not to force the integration of the minorities provoked heated debate within the Party. In this, Lenin stood by his principles throughout, although in the difficult circumstances of the civil war, the regime could not afford to lose the Ukraine of Georgia (and Stalin did not hesitate to repress harshly the attempts at independence in his native provinces).

All major nationalities, including the Jews, were given separate representation within the Communist Party and in 1926, Soviet Jews were given a special ‘national homeland’ settlement in which they could maintain their cultural heritage. This was in part of the far eastern province, which became an autonomous republic in 1934. By 1941, about a quarter of that region’s population was Jewish. Furthermore, the early communists promoted literacy campaigns which encouraged the use of national languages and, with the abolition of all anti-Semtitic laws in 1917, Yiddish became an acceptable language, although Hebrew, with its religious connotations, did not.

Stalinist policy in the 1930s veered towards greater centralisation and less tolerance of ethnic groups as he sought to create a single ‘Soviet identity’. Nationalism meant Russian nationalism and the leaders f the different republics that formed the USSR were purged as ‘bourgeois nationalists’ if they deviated from the path laid down in Moscow. From 1938, learning Russian became compulsory in all Soviet schools. Also, Russian was the only language used in the Red Army. So, despite the propaganda which proclaimed the ‘family of nations’, embracing a variety of different peoples, the Russians were firmly at the head.

Stalin began his deportations of non-Russians (which were to become more common in wartime) in the 1930s. The deportations mostly consisted of internal, forced migrations. This started with Finns between 1929 and 1921 and 1935 and 1939. In 1937, Koreans in the far east of Russia were deported while Stalin divided central Asia into five separate republics and forced the migration of Muslim ethnic groups, to weaken any loyalty to a single Muslim state. After the annexation of the eastern part of the Polish republic, 1.45 million in the region were deported in the late 1930s, 63% being Poles and 7% being Jews. The process was repeated in the Baltic republics.

The 1930s also saw anti-Semitic attitudes revive, especially in rural areas against ‘saboteurs’. When 2 million Jews were incorporated into the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1940, as a result of the invasion of eastern Poland and the Baltic republics, many rabbis and religious leaders were arrested in these areas.

The Stalinist state remained officially opposed to racial discrimination and inter-marriage was welcomed as a way of assimilating the different national groups. Indeed, most of the campaigns of the period with politically, rather than racially motivated. 

Under the terms of the Nazi-Soviet ‘Non-Agression treaty’ of August 1939, a secret protocol granted the SU a sphere of influence in the Baltic states, Finland, eastern Poland and Bessarabia. These were effectively the territories the Empire lost in 1917. Assured of Russian neutrality, Germany invaded Poland from the west in September and shortly afterwards the Red Army entered Poland from the east, Troops were accompanied by NKVD agents to carry out arrests and executions. The SU subsequently invaded the Baltic states and, with more difficulty, Finland. These territories were incorporated into the SU.