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Soviet Nationality Policy and East Central Europe: An Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Andrew Ludanyi
Andrew Ludanyi*
Affiliation:
Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH
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Extract

The Sovietization of East Central Europe between 1945 and 1948 led to a complete reformulation of the “nationalities question” on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory and the practical experience of the USSR. The changed political and ideological context provided the expanded camp of peoples' democracies with new guidelines for the treatment of their minorities. From this time onward, the ethnic/national minorities of these states were guaranteed an existence which was “national in form,” but “socialist in content.”

Type
I The Historical Background
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , September 1996 , pp. 437 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR, Inc. 

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References

Notes

The present collection of essays was to include a special study on the effects of Sovietization on the Hungarian minorities. Unfortunately, because of unforeseen circumstances, this was not completed and the editor of this volume is hereby filling the gap linking the past to the present with this brief introductory review.Google Scholar

1. For most of the following analysis, I am drawing on my study: “Socialist Patriotism and National Minorities: A Comparison of Yugoslav and Romanian Theory and Practice,” in Steven and Agnes Vardy, eds, Society in Change: Studies in Honor of Béla K. Király, (Boulder, 1983), pp. 557-559, 562-565; and Walker Connor, “Leninist Nationality Policy: Solution to the ’National Question‘?” Hungarian Studies Review, XVI, Nos. 1-2, Spring-Fall 1989, pp. 23–40.Google Scholar

2. See Walter Laqueur and Leopold Labedz, eds, Polycentrism (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1962).Google Scholar

3. Levitski, Boris, “Coexistence Within the Bloc,” Survey , No. 42, June 1962, pp. 28–29, 33–34. A good example of such mimicry is I. Nistor, “Example of the Soviet Union Is a Guiding Light,” under heading “Rumania,” The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, IV, 7 February 1953, p. 18. The original article appeared in the 27 December, 1953 issue of Izvestia, p. 3.Google Scholar

4. Wolff, Robert Lee, The Balkans in Our Time (Paperback Edition; New York, 1967), pp. 325, 329, 339, 352.Google Scholar

5. The history of this flexibility is traced sympathetically by István Dolmányos, A nemzetiségi politika története a Szovjetunióban (Budapest, 1964). A more objective analysis of early Soviet nationalities policies is Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism (Revised Edition; Cambridge, MA, 1964).Google Scholar

6. For a more precise definition of “proletarian internationalism” and related terms see the Soviet political dictionary Politicheskii Slovar' (Russian Series No. 5; Ann Arbor, MI, 1948), “bourgeois nationalists,” p. 70; “internationalism,” p. 219; “patriotism,” p. 410; “proletariat,” pp. 451-452; “socialism,” pp. 528–529.Google Scholar

7. Low, Alfred D., “Soviet Nationality Policy and the New Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” The Russian Review, XXII, January 1963, p. 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. In relation to Eastern Europe, this opportunism is reflected in Stalin's utilization of minority nationalities' discontent against Tito. See, “Minorities in Eastern Europe,” East Europe, VIII, April 1959, pp. 9-11; Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution (New York, 1951), pp. 342-345; Wolff, The Balkans in Our Time, pp. 459–461.Google Scholar

9. , Low, “Soviet Nationality Policy…,” pp. 10–12.Google Scholar

10. Dolmányos, A nemzetiségi politika…, pp. 5–36.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., pp. 47–50, 83–104, 118-122; Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union, pp. 43, 56, 93–108, 193-241.Google Scholar

12. , Low, “Soviet Nationality Policy…,” pp. 10–12; Dolmányos, A nemzetiségi politika…, pp. 77–122.Google Scholar

13. , Continuity, rather than change, has characterized Soviet nationalities policies. Low, “Soviet Nationality Policy…,” p. 10, points out that while de-Stalinization has affected most areas of Soviet life, it has not altered to an appreciable degree the country's nationality policy. For additional observations on this continuity, see Barghoorn, Frederick C., Soviet Russian Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), Ch. I; Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: Adopted by the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U. October 31, 1961 (New York: Crosscurrents Press, 1961), pp. 114–118.Google Scholar

14. The reasons for these national differences have been treated extensively by others. See, for example, Wolff, The Balkans in Our Time, pp. 267–274, 278-292.Google Scholar

15. Hoffman, George W. and Neal, Fred Warner, Yugoslavia and the New Communism (New York, 1962), p. 155.Google Scholar

16. utján, Hadak, “A nemzeti kérdés és a kommunizmus,” A Hét, III, 7 April, 1967, p. 1.Google Scholar

17. , Nistor, “Example of the Soviet Union Is a Guiding Light,” p. 18.Google Scholar

18. Ibid. Google Scholar

19. Ibid. Google Scholar

20. For some communist Hungarian reflections on the class basis of such inequalities, see, Imre Nagy on Communism (New York, 1957), p. 233; Mátyás Rákosi, A békéért és a szocializmus épitéséért (Budapest, 1951), p. 279; János Kádár, Socialist Construction in Hungary: Selected Speeches 1957-1961 (Budapest, 1962), pp. 107–108.Google Scholar

21. Some characteristic indicators of this trend include: V. Iliescu, “Ensuring the Unity and Cohesion of the International Communist Movement—Major Imperative of our Day,” Documents, Articles and Information on Romania, XIX, 10 February, 1968, pp. 11–14; Nicolae Corbu and Constantin Mitea, “Development of the Socialist Nation and Proletarian Internationalism,” in Ibid., 1 February, 1968, pp. 14–17; Miklós Kallós, “A dolgozók szocialista politikai tudatának kialakulása és fejlödése hazánkban,” Igaz Szó XII, August 1964, pp. 266-277.Google Scholar

22. , Corbu, “Development of the Socialist Nation and Proletarian Internationalism,” p. 14.Google Scholar

23. Ibid. Google Scholar

24. Kallós, “A dolgozók szocialista politikai tudatának kialakulása és fejlödése hazánkban,” pp. 272–276.Google Scholar

25. Farkas, Zoltán, “Állam, nemzet és szuverénitás a szocializmusban,” Studia Universitas Babes-Bolyai, XI, 1966, pp. 22–24.Google Scholar

26. , Corbu, “Development of the Socialist Nation and Proletarian Internationalism,” p. 16.Google Scholar

27. Ibid. Google Scholar

28. , Iliescu, “Ensuring the Unity and Cohesion of the International Communist Movement—Major Imperative of Our Day,” p. 12.Google Scholar

29. Ibid. Google Scholar

30. Ibid., pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

31. , Corbu, “Development of the Socialist Nation and Proletarian Internationalism,” p. 15.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., p. 14.Google Scholar