National delimitation

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National Delimitation in USSR (1924-1936)

After the October revolution in 1917, the new rulers of the former Russian Empire, the Bolsheviks, began the process of “national delimitation” or simply nation building which lasted from 1922 until 1936. The project attempted to build nations out of the various ethnic groups living within the borders of Soviet Russia (the USSR after 1922). Defining a nation or politically-conscious ethnic group was in itself a politically-charged issue in the Soviet Union. In 1913, Stalin described a 'nation' as a ”historically developed stable community with a common language, territory, economic life and psychological makeup manifested in a community of culture,” but many of the subject nations or communities under tsarist rule did not fully meet these criteria. Would nationality be originated from biological terms or something based on cultural and traditional similarities? Not only cultural, linguistic, religious and tribal diversities made the process difficult but also the lack of political consciousness connected to the nationality among people was a major obstacle for this process.

However, the important question is that; why did communist rulers of the USSR need to create national consciousness over people which is generally used by bourgeoisie to curtail the class struggle? The reason lies on both pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary policies of the Bolshevik Party. Before the revolution, Lenin used demands for national autonomy by the non-Russian communities as a tool of gaining power against the tsarist regime; he promised autonomy to these communities, even right to secede. After the revolution, reifying national identities was seen as a solution for the local administrative problems. Sovietization was the ultimate goal behind the nation-building process. In local administrative units, the “rulers” ought to be natives in order to make the non-Russian populations feel that they had been granted national self-determination. Autonomous states like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc... had their own ruling communist parties and native elites, although they were actually under the explicit control of Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU). There was also another aspect of this project; it was not aimed at differentiation of nations but its main goal was unifying them over time. The implicit assumption was that after a short (10-20 year period), bourgeois nationalism would be abandoned and support for a worker-state would follow. The Bolsheviks' aim was not a loose federation but a completely unified modern socialist state.

The Bolsheviks’ plan was to identify the total sum of all national, cultural, linguistic, territorial diversities under their rule and establish scientific criteria to identify which groups of people were entitled to the description of nation. This task relied on the existing work of tsarist-era ethnographers and statisticians, as well as new research conducted under Soviet auspices. Because most people did not know what is meant by a nation, some of them simply gave names when asked about nationality. Many groups were thought to be biologically similar, but culturally distinct. In Central Asia, many identified their "nation" as "Muslim." In other cases, geography made the difference, or even whether one lived in a town versus the countryside. Principally, however, dialects or languages made the distinction between various nations. The results were often contradictory and confusing. More than 150 nations were counted in Central Asia alone. Some were quickly subordinated to others, with communities which had hitherto been counted as "nations" now deemed to be simply tribes. As a result, the number of nations shrunk over the decades.

Eliminating the illiteracy, introducing native languages to education system, and creating a native proletariat were the other significant goals to be achieved for the accomplishment of the “modern socialist state.” Elimination of illiteracy was among the most successful policy especially in the underdeveloped nations of Central Asia. Despite the lack of adequate materials, and specialists for education illiteracy rates had diminished graphically. Another education-related problem was the introduction of native languages; some native languages did not even have written source or an alphabet. In some regions people resisted the usage of their mother tongue as the official language. In some cases native languages had several dialects. Despite these obstacle education was on the bright side of the revolution. Developing a proletariat in every national community was also an inalienable goal of revolution. This was also a successful attempt for a particular period. The number of native proletariat was rising observably in 1920s and 1930s, but this development was not uniform across all regions. In Slavic regions, Georgia and Armenia the number of native workers were really rising but in Central Asia, the mass movement of Russian workers to the industrial capitals of this region was a great factor.

By the zenith of Stalinist era these developments were somehow reversed and “a great Russian chauvinism” was replaced with them. Stalin, converted the “autonomous” federalist states to peripheries even colonies. However Stalin’s despotic governing style was bitter but equal towards all the nations, he did not kill only Kazaks during the forced collectivization process, Russian people were also target of this dramatic transformation of economy.