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Ethnicity in the Soviet Union: Analytical Perceptions and Political Strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Teodor Shanin
Teodor Shanin
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Extract

Social facts and policies can be understood only in light of our own perceptions. This holds true with a vengeance where ethnicity, nationhood, or nationalism are concerned. All through the twentieth century this syndromecum-terminological chain has played an extensive, puzzling and usually unpredicted part in structuring social life and political action. New ethnic identities (for example, Tanzania'ism or Indonesian'ism) with their related designations and loyalties have cometo the fore with a speed that reveals the transitional and relational nature of ethnic phenomena. The same holds true for the ups and downs of acute nationalism. On the other hand, many throughout the world would agree with the great Catalonian historian, Pierre Vilar, whose internationalist values are not in doubt, that “in the relationship between my own life and history, nationals problems seem to overwhelm all others.” However one may conceptualize ethnicity and nationalism, their political impact has provided a major and continuous dimension of social action.

Type
Ethnicity in Soviet Policy and Social Theory
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , July 1989 , pp. 409 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1989

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References

1 Vilar, Pierre, “On Nations and Nationalism,” Marxist Perspectives, 1979, no. 5, 21–22.Google Scholar

2 In Shanin, T., “Soviet Theories of Ethnicity,” New Left Review, no. 129, 1984, a fuller version of discussion concerning Soviet theories of ethnicity may be found. Its summation here provides a necessary introduction to the article's main theme concerning Soviet political strategies where ethnic diversities are concerned, which is discussed later in this article.Google Scholar

3 For further discussion, see Shanin, T., “The Zionisms of Israel,” in Alavi, H. and Halliday, F., Politics and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan (London, 1988).Google Scholar

4 The most impressive recent discussions of the matter (which differ in analysis but correspond in the fundamental approach to its subject matter) came in Hobsbawn, Eric, “Some Reflections on Nationalism,” and Gellner, E., Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, 1983).Google Scholar

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