Talk:Soviet of Nationalities

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[edit] Ethnic Inequality

2 Matsuhito Russians, wich comprised 50% of the USSR population, got 32 seats out of 750 in the Soviet of Nationalities. This was clearly a form of discrimination.

• German bundesrat is not a good example because Germany is ethnically homogenious country and USSR was not.
• German lands and US states don't differ 100 times in terms of population.
• autonomous republics and autonomous oblasts (regions with non-Russian minorities) were represented.

Ordinary (with Russian population) oblasts were not. DonaldDuck 11:34, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

us states in fact differs that much in population - some states has only several hundred thousand people, other has tens of millions (new york, california), but all has only two senators. oblast and republic was not the same thing - belarussia, ukraine, kazakhstan and so on had oblasts too and they werent represented either. and of course in ssrs like kazakh ssr there were many russians as well and they could have been elected into the soviet; there were autonomous oblasts and republics not only in russia but in other ssrs as well (georgian, uzbek, moldovan) (that is, the soviet represented administration units rather than ethnicities). the point is that in all federative states the system is similar. and, what is even more important, is that wikipedia cannot judge whats discrimination and whats not - it can only give information and let the readers to decide. i am therefore implementing a compromise solution.Matsuhito 12:11, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• And of course in ssrs like kazakh ssr there were many russians as well and they could have been elected into the soviet;

In fact it was unlikely. Besides this non-Russians could be elected in Russian SFSR too.

• there were autonomous oblasts and republics not only in russia but in other ssrs as well (georgian, uzbek, moldovan)

It only diminished Russian representation. And there were no Russian autonomous oblasts.

• that is, the soviet represented administration units rather than ethnicities

Administration units were planned to diminish Russian representation as much as possible. The system was similar to Rotten borough system which is textbook example of unfair elections. The fact is that Russians got 32 seats out of 750 although they comprised more than 50% of USSR population. If it is not discrimination, then what is it? DonaldDuck 12:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

it is impossible to compare; in the russian sfsr (without all the autonomous areas) there were only a few percent of non-russians while in kazakh ssr russians comprised the majority (and the situation was similar in many autonomous areas of the russian sfsr, only in chechenoingushetia, dagestan and tuva non-russians had a majority). this system is existing in all the federational countries. in usa most amerindians lives in the little populated desert states, so you could say that white americans are discriminated by amerindians according to this logic. remember that another house of parliament is always left for the majority of population. it is also important that it was not so only with russians but with all nations. tens of millions of ukrainians also are not the same as one and half million estonians. while tatars had less representatives than estonians because the type of tehir unit was not an ssr, but tatar nation was double in size to estonian one. and there are amny examples. therefore an explaination as it is now without mentioning nations is the best as we couldnt list all nations.Matsuhito 13:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Soviet Union was not a federational country. Russians which comprised more 50% of USSR got about 5% of seats in the Soviet. You try to explain it by administrative division of USSR, but the fact is that the hole system of administrative division+election system in USSR was discriminative towards Russians. We can not consider this 2 issues separately. DonaldDuck 14:59, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

as i have said, this was not so only with russian sfsr - i have explained how a larger tatar nation had less seats than estonian ssr and other examples, if we would give every example it would take too much space and people can understand already that if all ssrs had the same amount of seats then so did russian and estonian units; and officially ussr was federative, with even the constitutional right to seccede (although of course in practice it was different). anyways, the current version of domino theory is perhaps not the best, but i will not remove it - i hope you like it as well so we could continue editing wikipedia elsewhere. Matsuhito 20:02, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

the thing is already mentioned about estonian ssr and russian sfsr it does not needs to be repeated many times. as it is said, it was not directly related to ethnicities - but there is a link to articles about adminsitrational division of ussr, anybody can read it and most people knows already that nationalities where somewhat based on ethnicities. so, it is clear from the current version already that russian sfsr (russian unit) had proportionally lower number of representatives in this soviet than estonian ssr which was estonian unit (however, as was said by domino theory, nationalities did not directly equalled to ethnicities thus claiming that they did would be wrong). i do not agree much with the current version as i dont agree with giving particular examples, but i will support this version as a compromise one as i hope domino theory listened to both you and me and thus came with the solution we probably wont reach a more neutral one ourselves. Matsuhito 07:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Administrative division of the USSR was based on ethnicities. Roughly speaking, most inhabitants of Russian SFSR were Russians, most inhabitants of Georgian SSR were Georgians ond so on. So electoral system was to a very high degree related to ethnicities, although not directly. Throwing ethnicities out of consideration is not correct.DonaldDuck 08:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

yes you are right. but the point of wikipedia is linking as wikipedia is for articles (wikibooks is for freely edited books, in wikibooks you can write long explainations and theories). there are links from this article to the articles about the administrative division (Republics of the Soviet Union and other divisions) and people could read that it was bbased on ethnicities (and it is clear anyways as the names of all republics and other autonomous units are made of ethnicity names) therefore it is not thrown out of consideration. of course, far from every unit had the majority of the ethnicity that was -official- in it and therefore direct explaination of the issue based on ethnicities is not correct (but as i said readers of wikipedia are not idiots, they can understand it from what is said already and what is said is factually correct). Matsuhito 08:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)