ethnic minorities

Question 1

nov 1917 what did bolsheivks issue

Answer 1

declaration of the rights of the peoples of russia

Question 2

what did stalin pusblish and when and what did it mke him seem like

Answer 2

1913 - book called marxism and the national question
because he was gerogian he was considered to be an expert on minority groups
in fact, he was happy to see russia dominate other national groups

Question 2

what did the declaration promise

Answer 2

promised to the different peoples of the tsarist empire:
equality
self determination - inluding right to leave and be independent
freedom of religion
right to devlop culture and lifestyle

Question 3

when ussr was established what was it descibed as

Answer 3

federation of nationalities

Question 4

when was first census of ussr

Answer 4

1926

Question 5

what did the census of the USSR show

Answer 5

172 distinct nationalities
55% of population russian
each of the 15 SSRs had significant ethnic minority populations in them
ethnic groups without self governing region - bulgarians, greeks, gypsies, hungarians, koreans, poles and volga germans

Question 6

what was once communist policy but changed

Answer 6

promotion of non russian languages and culture, in 1930s, became sign of disloyalty.
leaders, teachers, writers and artists from minorities rounded up. quotas as to how much should be arrested

Question 7

forced relocation

Answer 7

mid 1930s:
1937 - 171000 koreans deported from russian far east to central asia
89000 finns deported to kazakhstan in 1941

Question 8

persecution of eastern europeans

Answer 8

when poland invaded September1939 - a million poles arrested, sent to gulag.
1940 - hen ussr seized control of baltic states, 56000 people arrested + sent to labour camps.
1941 - when germany invaded USSR, volga germans arrested + exiled to siberia and central asia.

Question 9

why was communist government suspicious of minorities

Answer 9

people from ethnic gorups also living in countries bordering ussr distrusted.
gov particularly worried about loyalty of finns and poles living in ussr, as their countries bordered ussr.
minorities living deep in ussr distrusted, for fears of them becoming independent of government in moscow. they were denounced as ‘bourgeois nationalists’

Question 10

case of the polish prisoners

Answer 10

during invasion of poland, sep 1939, ussr deported officers of defeated polish army to russia, along with well educated poles arrseted by stalins secret police, e.g university lecturers, lawyers and doctors.
22000 of these prisoners were executed and buried in mass graves, the aim in doing so being to remove the leadership of the polish nation.