HOMO SOVIETICUS: CONSTRUCTION EFFORTS OF SOVIET NATION IN USSR

Abstract

Since the Soviet Union’s each region has its own several characteristics, it is, in general, quite difficult to explain the development of the nations through a single pattern. In terms of Marxist theory, construction of nation in USSR was a temporary phase. On the other hand, the Bolsheviks created a national structure that did not meet any of the Marxist theory and this didn’t reflect the intermixture fact of ethnic communities. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks pondered for the creation of more international proletarian unity and behaved with the thought of which all the cultural and ethnic boundaries would be meaningless and linguistic and racial dissimilarities would be died out in such an association. When it was recognised that such an association can not be achieved in a short time, the Bolsheviks were obliged to make a series of instantaneous and practical decisions. In this context, at first, all prospective members of rival ideologies had been either executed or sent into exile. Secondly, the policy of which all the nations were granted with their own lands in the form of "autonomous" republic, "region" or "zone" was put into effect. On the basis of the available requisites, the Soviet state had launched a process which were pursued at constructing of the nations and might be termed as "ethnical engineering". This process contained the subjects of which the ethnographers were send to the related regions for gathering information about languages, religions, traditions, economies, tribal loyalties and other factors and thus asked for giving advices about the subject that how the nations could be constructed on the basis of such row requisites. The policy called as nativization (korenizatsiya) was quickly put into effect and encouraged the local cadres, that had education in Moscow but still could speak on behalf of their people, to the all levels of the administrations of the republic. In this way, the regime consciously outfitted the non-Russian nations with the raw materials of nationalism and formed a frame of which the nation state might be created one day within the former imperial area. However, the positive discrimination oriented to both national minorities and other nations composing USSR didn’t last long. The nativization policy applied and the first positive discrimination policies oriented to the nationalities had strengthened, at the least, the national consciousness and the ethnic cadres and those were regarded as an temporary step on the road to proletarian internationalism. When the nativization policy got out of the control and turned into "bourgeois nationalism", Stalin didn’t hesitate over implementing terrorism towards his delegates. When World War II approached, there were simultaneous two opposing processes in the USSR. While their own lands, languages, cultures and administrative structures were granted to non-Russian nations, central party, state economic planning and rapid social mobility carried out vertically weakened the national discriminations and tended to create a more general Soviet Russian image. Legitimately sovietization of Russians and non-Russians equalized the status of public living around USSR and standardized the forms of political culture. On the other hand, sovietization was perceived as russification in Ukrain as much as in the Baltic countries and Moldova. This russification policy emerged especially after World War II when non-Russians took place less and less in the country management positions. Equalization of status was evaluated as an attack on the distinctive features of national identity. Although commonly referred to as the return from the Stalinism, when considering ethnic policies in this period it is clear that Khrushchev’s period was a follow-up of Stalin's nationalities policy but had several conflicting practices as well. Government's ethnic/nationality policy was in general for creating a new Soviet community/human. The opinions expressed on the rapprochement of nations was aimed at the creation of the Soviet People theoretically but in practice it was more like russification policy. Khrushchev considered that the fusion of cultures had to pursue the rapprochement (sblijenie) of cultures as a whole in Soviet Union. Accordingly, he did not refrain from attacking any kind of localism (mestnichestvo), particularly national regionalism. As one of the principles of rapprochement of nations, it was suggested that these nations should be mutually enriched in terms of cultures and languages. This issue described in detail in the party program, and the providing of the free development of each national language and the USSR’s each citizen’s educating his/her children in the language in which he/she wants to, was specified as the objective of the party. However, the emphasis on the Russian language in the same program made the objectives, identified in ensuring the development of other languages, meaningless. As the second important element of creating the Soviet human, it was suggested that nations (cultures) have to be coalescenced each other thoroughly. New Soviet culture would arise by coalescence of cultures. Reconciliation and unification of the cultures in the theory would result, in the first phase, in language and cultural unity and in the removal of the de facto boundaries between the republics located within the frontiers of the USSR. However, the results of carefully studied and implemented policies was far from expected. When the planned nation-constructing policies, which were launched in the 1920s and partially remained in the following periods, combined with the urbanization policies, they created an effect on nations which would proceed for a long-time. National consciousness gradually strengthened by any means in many regions from the Baltic Countries where it was most powerful to the Central Asia where it was weakest, even in the regions where the Soviet regime tried to suppress or prevent. In 1961

Özet

Millet ve milliyetçilik sorunu Sovyet yönetiminin karşı karşıya kaldığı sorunların belki de en keskiniydi ve bu durum günümüz Rusya'sında bile fırtınalı anlaşmazlıkları ve farklı görüşleri kışkırtmaktadır. Asırlar boyunca şekillenmiş ve yeni düzene miras kalmış Rus imparatorluğu ve bunu ardıllayan, bir öncekinin yıkıntıları üzerine kurulmuş, pekişmiş ve bir dünya gücüne dönüşmüş Sovyet İmparatorluğu. Bu imparatorluğun kapladığı geniş alan ve halkların çeşitliliği açısından bir benzeri daha yoktu ve böyle bir imparatorluğun doğal sonucu da, ulus ve ulusçuluk sorununun alışılmadık düzeyde karmaşık olmasıdır. Marksist teori açısından, SSCB'deki ulus inşası geçici bir aşamaydı. Fakat Sovyet devleti, Marksist teoriye hiç uymayan bir ulusal yapı yarattı ve bu durum etnik topluluklarının karışımı gerçeğini yansıtamadı. Sovyet devleti "etnik mühendislik" olarak adlandırılabilecek ve mevcut materyalden yola çıkarak yeni uluslar yaratmayı amaçlayan bir süreç başlattı. Fakat ulus inşasının geçici olmadığı anlaşıldığı zaman, 1930'lardan itibaren yapılan düzenlemeler ulusların kaderini değiştirecek yeni bir nitelik kazandı. Rejim bu yolla Rus olmayan halkları bilinçli bir biçimde milliyetçiliğin hammaddeleri ile donatmış ve onlar için eski imparatorluk alanı içerisinde bir gün ulus devletlerin yaratılabileceği bir çerçeve çizmişti. Dolayısıyla bu çalışmada SSCB'nin Sovyet Halkı inşası çabalarını ve ilk başlarda "yerlileştirme" olarak adlandırılan bu politikaların zamanla adları değiştirilerek Ruslaştırmaya dönüşme süreci incelenecektir. İlk başlardaki çok kısa süreli yerlileştirme politikasının sonuçları daha sonra yoğun bir şekilde uygulanan Sovyetleştirme (Ruslaştırma) politikasıyla ortadan kaldırılamamıştır. Öyle ki, yeni Sovyet insanının ve ortak komünist kültürün oluştuğunun iddia edildiği Sovyetlerin milliyetler politikası sayesinde ulusal bilinci güçlenen halklar arasında SSCB'nin son dönemlerinde şiddetli etnik çatışmalar bile yaşanmış ve bu da SSCB'nin çöküşünü hızlandırmıştır