There is a kind of joke now that always likes to say: Although the Soviet Union has long disappeared, the Soviet Union's "civil war" has been fighting.
In the Central Asia side, as early as the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan had already begun to get fire in the border areas. Later, multiple rounds of border armed conflicts broke out. It has not completely stopped and has been tossing for more than 30 years, but it has basically been a "lose".
and Armenian and Azerbaijan from the Caucasus region. They also started to "fight" privately since the Soviet Union fell, and there have been constant conflicts since. The most recent time was not long ago in September 2020. The two countries fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The intensity of the battlefield was not low at that time;
Another Caucasus country, Georgia , is not stable. In the early 1990s, in the armed conflict after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a "Abkhazia Republic" was directly "born"; during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Russian-Germany War broke out, and another "born" the South Ossetia Republic (of course, the above "two countries" UN did not recognize it).
Furthermore, it is the conflict and war between Ukraine and Russia. Since the second color revolution in 2014, Crimea has been referendum to Russia, and war has ignited in Donbas region. By 2022, it has turned out to be a war that seems to be out of sight....
For the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in addition to the ulterior motives of external forces and fanning the flames, many people believe that the root of the problem comes from the ethnic identification and division policy at the beginning of the founding of the Soviet Union.
After all, unlike other former Soviet republics, Eastern Slavic "Sanmao", Russia, Ukraine and Belarus , they originated from an ancestor - the medieval Kiev Rus ;
In addition, in the long Tsarist Russian era, Ukraine and Belarus had never been independent political entities, but were more like a geographical concept, both belonging to the administrative divisions within Tsarist Russia, rather than the relatively independent autonomous body of the Grand Principal of Finland.
For example, Ukraine was always called "Little Russia" in modern times. In Ukraine and Belarus, Russian is both the official language and is also the native language of the vast majority of urban populations. On the contrary, Ukrainian and Belarusian are too narrow to express many modern things, so they once became the language of communication between serfs and rural tenants, exuding a "rustic flavor" and are called "rural words".
However, even though they are all used to speaking Russian and mainly believe in Orthodox religion, it is still difficult to achieve directly with Russian tribe in the early 20th century.
Starting from the mid-19th century, with the introduction of modern nationalist concepts, democratic thoughts emerged within Ukraine and Belarus. At the same time, Austria-Hungarian Empire and German Empire also specially cultivated and supported a large number of Ukrainians to differentiate Russia.
As Germany and Austria hoped, this trick was indeed very effective. By the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, some Ukrainian nationalists directly proposed the "goal" of independent establishment and actively put it into practice.
0000s After Poland was divided, except for some western territories, most parts of Ukraine today are directly under the jurisdiction of the Tsarist Russian Empire. For example, in the novel "How Iron Is Steel Tempered by ", the white bandit armed forces, the leader Peter Liula, once presided over the Ukrainian nationalist separatist regime. Taking advantage of the chaos of Russian revolution , he established a "People's Republic of Ukraine" in Kiev and served as the leader.
As a result, Peter Liula was immediately suppressed by the old Tsarist Russian White Army and the Soviet army, and had to fight against the White Army and the Bolshevik army at the same time.
At that time, Peter Liula directly defected to Germany and Austro-Hungarian Empire according to the law of "the enemy is a friend" - unexpectedly, these two seemingly majestic European powers collapsed first.
In early 2019, in order to win over populists to vote for themselves, Tymoshenko also specially laid wreaths at the monument of the Peterliula party gangsters
Almost at the same time, Belarusian nationalists also established the Belarusian Kingdom of Greater Lada. Although this regime entity was overthrown by the Soviet army as early as 1919, the "leadership team" was extremely strong and even lasted until the 21st century. It is still continuing to maintain this government in exile in the United States (now called the so-called " People's Republic of Belarus ").
Therefore, the national consciousness of Ukraine and Belarus was not formed after the Soviet Union had ethnic identification. In the Tsarist Russian Empire in the early 20th century, nationalist thoughts had emerged and formed a certain scale. Ukrainians, Belarusians and other nations had tried to establish independent regimes, but in the end, they all became puppets of some major powers, and ended in a miserable situation.
Belarus, like Ukraine, women like to wear garlands
It is precisely because of the many ethnic groups in the Tsarist Russian Empire that there were many signs of independence that at the beginning of the founding of the Soviet Union, Lenin and Stalin and other leaders gradually explored such a set of "working methods" - using a narrative method of class being higher than the nation to maintain overall unity and centralization.
In other words, it can be understood that such an operation is to use socialist revolution and the realization of communism as the main link to unite the plates of the old empire, and then form a new federation.
that is, actively recognize the existence of different ethnic groups, then carry out socialist revolution in areas where different ethnic groups gather, and then form a "proletarian alliance" by the Soviet republics of various ethnic groups - the Soviet Union.
Based on the objective environment of that year, Moscow's ethnic identification policy on Ukraine and Belarus is generally relatively scientific. The idea that a single decree can make the nation automatically integrate is too naive. It is not only very difficult to achieve, but also can easily arouse local nationalists' group resistance, which is not conducive to the stability of the overall situation and the sustainability of the regime.
Lithuanian girl in Soviet pictorial. Lithuania is the franchise republic with the strongest centrifugal force
Of course, it must be admitted that one of the Soviet Union's franchised republics, the ethnic groups in the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union's ethnic identification and division of Central Asia does have obvious drawbacks.
For example, the figure below is the Central Asian territory under the jurisdiction of the Soviet Union in October 1924. At that time, there were only three ethnic divisions - Kazakhstan, Uzbek and Turkmenistan . Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were both ethnic groups and territories that the Soviet Union forced to "identify" later, and a series of problems have caused constant troubles.
After all, everything needs to be analyzed in for specific issues . For the Soviet Union's ethnic policy, it is not possible to directly judge by the black or white standards. The actual situation is still very complicated.
Are you sure you are smarter than a "revolutionary mentor"?
In addition, we need to clarify the fact that the Soviet Union was once equal to Russia, or that the views "Russia dominated the Soviet Union" are all very one-sided.
The Soviet Union was not completely centered on Russia, which can be fully reflected in its supreme leader.
to give a few simple examples.
Lenin: Father half Russian and half Kalmyk (Mongolian) ancestry, mother has Russian and German ancestry;
Lenin's family portrait when he was a child (the boy on the far right), his father has obvious East Asian appearance characteristics
Stalin: Georgian , considered to have Ossetia ancestry;
Khrushchev : Russian people, but at the age of 14, he moved to Yusovka ( Donetsk in eastern Ukraine) and worked and lived in Ukraine for a long time;
Brezhnev : Ukrainian ;
Andropov: Half Russia, half of Azerbaijani ancestry (his mother is Azerbaijani );
Chernenko: Ukrainian descendants from Siberian .
The big guys in the photo are almost not pure Russian
Gorbachev : A Ukrainian and Russian family born in rural southern Russia.
In addition, from a different perspective, and then straighten it out by time:
1917 The red regime after the October Revolution was called the Soviet Union;
1922 On December 30, 1922, the alliance of Soviet Socialist Republics (hereinafter referred to as the Soviet Union), composed of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasus Federation, was officially established, and the Soviet Union was only then.
After that, countries in Central Asia, and later Baltic Three Kingdoms , etc., also applied to join the Soviet Union after completing the socialist revolution of their own nation (of course some may be reluctant, such as the Baltic Three Kingdoms). In the end, a total of 15 franchise republics were united under a red flag, called each other brothers, and fought together for a great ideal.
In other words, the basis for the founding of the Soviet Union was the revolutionary victory of the three Eastern Slavic nations that first joined the alliance.
Then, if the Ukrainian and Belarusian people are not recognized, the establishment of the Soviet Union will be legally and logically.
Just imagine, if the Soviet regimes of various countries could survive after war in , the Soviet Union might even include Polish , Hungarian , Czechoslovakia , Germany... And the Soviet Union's "great ideal" was indeed planned in this way - when the mentors designed the national structure, one of the main considerations was the potential possibility of the Soviet Union absorbing new franchise republics.
So, in the former "great ideal" of the Soviet Union, the operation of using "Eastern Slavicization" to integrate the three ethnic groups of Kiev, Rus, Russia, Ukraine and White, is really too small.
