Korenizatsiia (, ; ) was an early policy of the Soviet Union for the integration of non-Russian nationalities into the governments of their specific Soviet republics. This term comes from the word korennoi in the phrase korennoi narod, which means "native people" or "indigenous population." In the 1920s, the policy promoted representatives of the titular nation, and their national minorities, into the lower administrative levels of the local government, bureaucracy, and nomenklatura of their Soviet republics. The main idea of the korenizatsiia was to grow communist cadres for every nationality. In Russian, the term () derives from (, "native population"). The policy practically ended in the mid-1930s with the deportations of various nationalities. The goal of korenizatsiia was to engage non-Russian populations through the cultivation of national identities, which Soviet leaders believed would enable their transition toward "universal culture, the revolution, and communism."
Politically and culturally, the nativization policy aimed to eliminate Russian domination and culture in Soviet republics where ethnic Russians did not constitute a majority. This policy was implemented even in areas with large Russian-speaking populations; for instance, all children in Ukraine were taught in the Ukrainian language in school. The policies of korenizatsiia facilitated the Communist Party's establishment of the local languages in government and education, in publishing, in culture, and in public life. In that manner, the cadre of the local Communist Party were promoted to every level of government, and ethnic Russians working in said governments were required to learn the local language and culture of the given Soviet republic.
Lenin believed that nationalism had the potential to attract class allies for the Bolsheviks and that the historical distrust of non-Russian peoples toward Great Russians could be overcome in this way. Korenizatsiia was a preventive policy designed to stop the rise of nationalism among the non-Russian peoples who had been oppressed in the past. The Bolsheviks believed that Great Russian chauvinism was a bigger danger than local national movements. Because of this, korenizatsiia also included criticism of Russian culture and the use of the Russian alphabet, which were linked to the colonial and Russification policies of the former Tsarist regime. Korenizatsiia was also designed to support the decolonization process, which the Bolsheviks saw as unavoidable, while at the same time helping to maintain the territorial unity of the former Russian Empire.
Beginnings The nationalities policyNationalities policy went through several stages. For a general timeline, see the Russian-language Wikipedia article on "Nationalities policy of Russia" (:ru:Национальная политика России) For a substantive analysis, see Slezkine (1994). The korenizatsiya phase roughly spanned the period from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, though vestiges of it carried over. was formulated by the Bolshevik party in 1913, four years before they came to power in Russia. Vladimir Lenin sent a young Joseph Stalin (himself a Georgian and therefore an ethnic minority member) to Vienna, which was a very ethnically diverse city due to its status as capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Stalin reported back to Moscow with his ideas for the policy. It was summarized in Stalin's pamphlet (his first scholarly publication), Marxism and the National Question (1913).A copy can be found here: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03.htm.
The first clear and comprehensive expression of the policy was published by Joseph Stalin in an article in Pravda on 10 October 1920. In this article, Stalin stated that all Soviet institutions operating in the border regions—including courts, administration, economic bodies, local governments, and Party organizations—should be composed of individuals who understood the customs, way of life, and languages of the local populations. This statement marked a turning point in Soviet nationalities policy.
Korenizatsiia was later systematically defined, especially during the Party Congresses of March 1921 and April 1923, and was shaped around two main objectives:
Training of national cadres (elites): The goal was to create a class of administrators and specialists from among the local populations. In this way, greater representation of local people in the lower levels of the Soviet bureaucracy was encouraged. Linguistic localization (linguistic korenizatsiia): It aimed to promote the use of local national languages in public administration, education, and the press. These languages were intended to replace Russian and become dominant within their respective regions.
As adopted in 1923 korenizatsiia involved teaching and administration in the language of the republic; and promoting non-Russians to positions of power in Republic administrations and the party, including for a time the creation of a special administrative units called (, national selsoviets) and (, national districts) based on concentrations of minorities within what were minority republics.For further discussion, see Yuri Slezkine, "The USSR as a Communal Apartment, Or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism," Slavic Review 53, No. 2 (Summer 1994): 414–452. For example, in Ukraine in the late 1920s there were even natssovety for Russians and Estonians.
In 1920s, there still was animosity towards the Russians and towards other nationalities on the part of the Russians, but there were also conflicts and rivalries among other nationalities.Timo Vihavainen: Nationalism and Internationalism. How did the Bolsheviks Cope with National Sentiments? in Chulos & Piirainen 2000, p. 79.
Against Great-Russian chauvinism In 1923, at the 12th Party Congress, Stalin identified two threats to the success of the party's "nationalities policy": Great Power Chauvinism (, chauvinism of the great power) and local nationalism.See "National Factors in Party and State Affairs – Theses for the Twelfth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Approved by the Central Committee of the Party," available here: http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/NF23.html. However, he described the former as the greater danger:
[The] Great-Russian chauvinist spirit, which is becoming stronger and stronger owing to the N.E.P., . . . [finds] expression in an arrogantly disdainful and heartlessly bureaucratic attitude on the part of Russian Soviet officials towards the needs and requirements of the national republics. The multi-national Soviet state can become really durable, and the co-operation of the peoples within it really fraternal, only if these survivals are vigorously and irrevocably eradicated from the practice of our state institutions. Hence, the first immediate task of our Party is vigorously to combat the survivals of Great-Russian chauvinism.
The main danger, Great-Russian chauvinism, should be kept in check by the Russians themselves, for the sake of the larger goal of building socialism. Within the (minority) nationality areas new institutions should be organized giving the state a national (minority) character everywhere, built on the use of the nationality languages in government and education, and on the recruitment and promotion of leaders from the ranks of minority groups. On the central level the nationalities should be represented in the Soviet of Nationalities.
Creation of socialist nations The main idea of the korenizatsiia was to grow communist cadres for every nationality. By the mid-1930s the percentage of locals in both the party and state service grew considerably.Timo Vihavainen: Nationalism and Internationalism. How did the Bolsheviks Cope with National Sentiments? in Chulos & Piirainen 2000, p. 80.
The initial period of korenizatsiia went together with the development of national-territorial administrative units and national cultures. The latter was reflected above all in the areas of language constructionFor a highly informative yet compact summary see Slezkine (1994). and education.For a review of the national languages in education, see Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver, "Equality, Efficiency, and Politics in Soviet Bilingual Education Policy: 1934–1980," American Political Science Review 78 (December 1984): 1019–1039. For several of the small nationalities in Russia that had no literary language, a "Committee of the North"Committee for the Assistance to the Peoples of the Northern Borderlands. helped to create alphabets so that the national languages could be taught in schools and literacy could be brought to the people in their native languages—and the minorities would thereby be brought from backwardness to the modern world. And in the very large Ukrainian Republic, the program of Ukrainianization led to a profound shift of the language of instruction in schools to Ukrainian.
In 1930, Stalin proclaimed at the 16th Party Congress that building socialism was a period of blossoming of national cultures. The final goal would be to merge into one international culture with a common language. Russian cultural heritage was under attack, churches were closed and demolished, old specialists were dismissed, and science and art were proletarianized.Timo Vihavainen: Nationalism and Internationalism. How did the Bolsheviks Cope with National Sentiments? in Chulos & Piirainen 2000, p. 81.
The Bolsheviks' tactics in their struggle to neutralise nationalist aspirations led to political results by the beginning of the 1930s. The old structure of the Russian Empire had been destroyed and a hierarchical federal state structure, based on the national principle, was created. The structure was nationality-based states in which nationality cultures were blossoming, and nationality languages were spoken and used at schools and in local administration.It's important to be aware of a terminological distinction. In the context of Soviet nationalities policy the term "national," which for clarity here has been rendered as "nationality," referred to ethnic minorities and minority territories, as opposed to central or all-Soviet institutions. In this sense, for example, when educational policy focused on expanding "national schools" (nacional'nje školu – национальные школу), it focused on schools in the traditional languages of the national minorities (Ukrainian, Tatar, Armenian, Karelian, and so forth), not on schools for the Soviet Union as a whole. The transition was real, not merely a centralized Russian empire camouflaged.Timo Vihavainen: Nationalism and Internationalism. How did the Bolsheviks Cope with National Sentiments? in Chulos & Piirainen 2000, pp. 81–82.
The 17th Party congress in 1934 proclaimed that the building of the material basis for a socialist society had succeeded. The Soviet Union first became an officially socialist society in 1936 when the new constitution was adopted. The new constitution stated that the many socialist nations had transformed on a voluntary basis into a harmonious union. According to the new constitution there were 11 socialist republics, 22 autonomous republics, nine autonomous regions and nine national territories. At the same time, administration was now greatly centralised. All the Republics were now harnessed to serve one common socialist state.Timo Vihavainen: Nationalism and Internationalism. How did the Bolsheviks Cope with National Sentiments? in Chulos & Piirainen 2000, p. 83.
End of korenizatsiia
Purges of national cadre