Talk:Korenizatsiya

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Excellent start! Maybe there should be more context in there regarding the theory of historical materialism to show that the policy was never supposed to lead to a long-term independence of nations.

Dietwald 05:21, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

If nobody objects, I will develop a text that will provide this context. Should take me some time, as it is a difficult subject. I will appreciate any kind of feed-back throughout the process. Since I am something of an anti-Marxist, I recognise that some of my contributions may be coloured by my POV, but I trust the community here to make sure I don't go off too much :) Dietwald 09:29, 14 October 2005 (UTC)


I may add a slight twist to the essay in this sense. As already noted, the word korenizatsiya also can be translated as "rooting," and this was literally what the Bolsheviks were trying to accomplish in the late 1920's -- build roots for the party organization in the locales. In the national minority areas, the recruiting of locals was an important aspect of the struggle against what was called "Great Power Chauvinism," though another threat was "local chauvinism." But in the late 1920's Great Power Chauvinism was officially identified as the main danger to the solution of the national question.

The plan, clearly stated by Stalin at the (I believe 12th Party Congress) was that the fight against Great Power Chauvinism (i.e., Russian chauvinism) had to be carried out by Russians themselves, and the fight against local chauvinism had to be carried out by the locals. They didn't want each group fighting against the other. But they needed a self-regulatory mechanism, and among other things this involved providing representation and voice to all kinds of local soviets. They created and promoted something called "natssovety" (national/ethnic soviets) in all flavors. In Ukraine, for example, there were even natssovety for Russians and Estonians.

Also during the period of late 20's til about 1934 (korenizatsia essentially ended then), there wasn't that much emphasis on the teaching of Russian (contrary to what the essay now says). Rather the emphasis was on the development of schools in the local languages. Although Russian was taught as a language in many schools, it only became universally required as a language of study in 1938 -- arguably sparked by the sense of impending war and the need to do what they could to assure that non-Russians had some comprehension of Russian language, which was the language of command on the Red Army. In this connection, it is well to keep in mind that although the Bolsheviks eliminated the use of the Arabic script in the local languages of Central Asia, at first they did not promote Cyrillic alphabets but rather Latin alphabets. While they wanted to disconnect the locals from the influence of the Islamic clergy, the ma38drassahs, and texts (namely the Koran) in Arabic stript, they did not immediately push Russian script nor Russian language. Both of those came in only in 1938-39, as the Latin scripts were to give way to Cyrillic script in textbooks and other printed form. Thus, on the eve of WW II, the non-Russian areas had not been exposed to widespread and enduring Russification at the hands of the Bolsheviks. The emphasis was rather to avoid ethnic conflict by seeking accommodations.

Thus, I think a fairer way to depict the korenizatsia policy was as a policy of "rooting" the Bolshevik leadership and the new government in the locales in the early phase. Keep in mind that in many of the non-Russian areas, especially in rural areas, there weren't a whole lot of communists. Even after collectivization, there might be one or two communists per collective farm in the non-Russian areas. This is one reason why they created and used the MTS (machine tractor stations) to take political instructors into the countryside: local communists were scarce, so bring in the itinerant propagandists to teach to the locals. But the Bolsheviks also provideed advancement to locals through recruitment of locals into local soviets, and they created natssovety as one form of encouraging local engagement and rooting of the communist regime in the countryside. Further they sought to develop local languages, in many cases 'creating' alphabets -- such as in the project of the Committee of the North -- so that the minorities would have a literary language to use for school textbooks and to carry forward some of their national traditions in literary form. Also bear in mind that prior to ca. 1930, there wasn't much central control of the educational system, and prior to 1934 there wasn't much control over publishing. But in the early 30's things began to shift in emphasis, and the main danger identified as "local chauvinism" instead of "great power chauvinism." And so 1934 witnessed the first significant purges in the national regions to root out local chauvinism (nationalism), and put into place even more docile and indoctrinated (or coopted) locals.--Mack2 03:09, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Later: I made a series of changes, which I hope you all view as improvements. I also noted that the essay had previously implied that korenizatsiya was the very foundation of Stalin's essay on the national problem (not cited yet, by the way) and of Soviet nationalities policy in general. In fact, korenizatsiuya was the watchword only beginning in the latter 1920s and, as the essay noted elsewhere, faded away in the late 1930's. There is no essay on korenizatsiya on the Russian-language version of Wikipedia, but there is a timeline for nationalities policy as a whole. I tried to link to this but don't know the protocols for linking across the different versions of Wikipedia. If somebody knows how to do that, please fix the link. Thank you.--Mack2 16:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Still Later: I added some key citations, to Stalin's pamphlet on "Marxism and the National Question" (1913) and his "theses" on the national question presented at the 12th Party Congress (1923).--Mack2 17:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnographic territories in the beginning of 1900s versus Today

I have some collection of international links to Ukrainian and European ethnographic maps. Maybe it will help to see the difference with the current state: