Angina

National movements in the modern world.

With adoption in 1961 new Program The CPSU was associated with the beginning of a new stage in the development of national relations in the country. Its features were seen in the further rapprochement and achievement of “complete unity” of nations. The party pledged to pursue a national policy designed to regulate national relations at a new stage “on the basis of Lenin’s national policy,” not allowing “neither ignoring nor inflating national characteristics».

The most important goal of the policy was seen “as before” - to ensure the actual equality of nations and nationalities “with full consideration of their interests, paying special attention to those areas of the country that need more rapid development.” The benefits growing in the process of communist construction were promised to be “fairly distributed among all nations and nationalities.”

However, the “full-scale construction of communism” in the country did not last long. In November 1967, L.I. Brezhnev announced that a developed socialist society had been built in the USSR, and in the future it had to be improved. The new authorities also abandoned other methodological innovations of the Khrushchev period. The position of a new historical community was retained and received further development with a clarification of the idea of it as a multinational people.

The position about the allegedly fully formed new historical community in the USSR was contained in the speeches Secretary General at the XXIV (1971) and XXV (1976) party congresses. In development of this position, the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU prepared and published in two editions the book “Leninism and national question V modern conditions"(1972, 1974), which gave an official interpretation of the phenomenon. The book explained: “The Soviet people do not represent some new nation, but are a historical, broader than a nation, a new type of community of people, embracing all the peoples of the USSR. The concept " Soviet people"appeared as a reflection of fundamental changes in the essence and appearance of Soviet nations, as an expression of their comprehensive rapprochement, the growth of their international features. But even with the close intertwining of the international and the national in socialist nations, the latter form the Soviet people, while remaining at the same time its national components.” The consolidation of a new historical community seemed the most important goal state national policy.

Throughout the 70-80s. was published in the country a myriad of books and articles about the flourishing and rapprochement of Soviet nations, about the relationship between the national and the international, about the triumph of the “Leninist national policy.” However, the works were declarative and scholastic, and did little to reduce the gap between science, politics and life. The rapidly revitalizing national consciousness was treated as a manifestation of nationalism. The real contradictions of national life and interethnic relations were stubbornly ignored. “Naziology” in the conditions of “developed socialism” became noticeably more active on holidays - in connection with the anniversaries of the October Revolution and the formation of the USSR. This could not but leave an imprint of “prosperity” on a significant part of the works devoted to national issues.

Of course, the new historical community of people in the USSR was not only a created myth, but also a reality. In current means mass media recognition that they were really soviet people, is often identified by liberals only with a kind of inferiority (hence the contemptuous word “scoop”). However, this does not negate the fact that at the level of public reflection there was a feeling of “Soviet nationality”. Football fans of different nationalities in major international matches cheered as if they were their own, for Kiev and Tbilisi Dynamo, Yerevan Ararat, for our cosmonauts, regardless of their nationality. In other words, there definitely existed a certain substantive space not with an ethnic, but a civil basis.

"According to everyone modern ideas about the state and nation, the Soviet people were a normal multi-ethnic nation, no less real than the American, Brazilian or Indian,” S. G. Kara-Murza rightly asserts today. Of course, the degree of “Sovietism” varied among different groups population, however, a single economy, a single school and a single army made the Soviet people much more united than the aforementioned multi-ethnic nations. A convincing argument in favor of the existence of such a community is the increase in the number of ethnically mixed marriages. The 1959 population census recorded 50.3 million families in the country, of which 10.3% were ethnically mixed. By 1970, mixed families made up 13.5%, in 1979 - 14.9, and in 1989 - 17.5 (12.8 million out of 77.1 million families). Behind each of the spouses there were usually groups of relatives, many times increasing the number of people of different nationalities related to each other.

The formation of a new community was also indicated by data on a significant number of non-Russians who recognized the Russian language as the language of interethnic communication, their “native” language. According to the 1926 census, 6.4 million were recorded, in 1959 - 10.2, in 1979 - 13; in 1989 - already 18.7 million. If the process of switching to the Russian language were not quite natural and voluntary, then the overwhelming majority of non-Russians would not call it “native”, limiting themselves to indicating “fluency” in it. Population censuses also showed constant growth number of people fluently using Russian along with their native national language. In 1970, 241.7 million people lived in the USSR (of which 53.4% were Russian). By 1989, their number increased to 286.7 million, among them there were 145.2 million (50.6%) Russians by nationality. At the same time, 81.4% of the population of the USSR and 88% of the population of Russia considered Russian their native language and spoke it fluently.

The Constitution adopted in 1977 characterized the “developed socialist society” built in the USSR as a society “in which, on the basis of the rapprochement of all social strata, the legal and actual equality of all nations and nationalities, a new historical community of people arose - the Soviet people.” The people were proclaimed the main subject of power and lawmaking in the country. The equality of citizens was declared, regardless of race or nationality; it was argued that “the country’s economy constitutes a single national economic complex”; the country has a “unified system public education" At the same time, the Basic Law stated that “each union republic retains the right to freely secede from the USSR,” each union and autonomous republic has its own Constitution, taking into account their “peculiarities,” the territory of the republics “cannot be changed” without their consent, “ the sovereign rights of the union republics are protected by the USSR.” Thus, the “Soviet people” in the Constitution were presented in words as one, but in reality cut into various “sovereign” and “special” parts. The latter was also consistent with the spirit of the never-repeated Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which proclaimed at the dawn Soviet power(November 2, 1917) not only “the equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia,” but also their right “to free self-determination up to and including secession and the formation of an independent state.”

Researchers identified nations, nationalities, ethnic and national groups within a single new historical community that clearly differed in their ability to exercise their sovereignty. There was no consensus on their relationship in Soviet times. “Titular” and “non-titular” peoples, national majorities and minorities had different opportunities for realizing their vital interests.

The peoples of the USSR differed significantly in their rates of population growth. For example, from 1959 to 1989, the number of Estonians and Latvians increased by 3.8 and 4.2%, respectively, Ukrainians and Belarusians - by 19 and 27%, Russians and Lithuanians - by 27 and 31%, Georgians, Moldovans and Armenians - by 48, 51 and 66%, Kazakhs and Azerbaijanis - by 125 and 130%, Kyrgyz and Turkmens - by 161 and 172%, and Uzbeks and Tajiks - by 178 and 202%. All this created a natural concern among individual peoples about the demographic situation, which was aggravated by unregulated population migration.

Contradictions in the national sphere, created at different stages of history, came to the surface of public life years and decades later. The movements of the Soviet Germans and Crimean Tatars for the restoration of the autonomy lost during the war. Other repressed peoples demanded permission to return to their places of former residence (Meskhetian Turks, Greeks, etc.). Dissatisfaction with living conditions in the USSR gave rise to movements among a number of peoples (Jews, Germans, Greeks) for the right to emigrate to their “historical homeland.” Protest movements, excesses and other acts of discontent national policy arose for other reasons as well. A whole series of these can be noted according to the chronology of events.

Thus, on April 24, 1965, in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in Turkey, a funeral procession of one hundred thousand people took place in Yerevan. Students and workers and employees of many organizations who joined them walked to the city center with the slogan “Justly resolve the Armenian question!” The demonstrators were dispersed using fire trucks.

On October 8, 1966, on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the formation of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, rallies of the Crimean Tatars were held in the Uzbek cities of Andijan and Bekabad, and on October 18 - in Fergana, Kuvasay, Tashkent, Chirchik, Samarkand, Kokand, Yangikurgan, Uchkuduk. Many rallies were dispersed. Moreover, in Angren and Bekabad alone, 17 protesters were convicted of participating in “mass riots.”

In March 1967, the “Abkhaz events” continued for two weeks, the participants of which demanded the legalization of Abkhaz toponymy in the republic, the provision of privileges to representatives of Abkhaz nationality in employment and admission to higher education. educational institutions, studying the Abkhaz language in all non-Abkhaz schools of the republic and even separating Abkhazia from Georgia with the status of a union republic within the USSR. In September 1967, a group of Abkhaz cultural figures arrived in Moscow with a demand to withdraw from circulation a book published in Tbilisi, the author of which tried to prove that the Abkhaz nationality does not exist, the Abkhaz are Georgians who once converted to Islam. As a result, the secretary of the regional committee and the chairman of the government of Abkhazia were relieved of their positions and Abkhazians were recommended in their place. Georgian names and signs in Georgian have been replaced by Abkhaz ones. Departments of Abkhaz language and literature were opened at Tbilisi University.

On May 22, 1967, during the traditional meeting and laying of flowers at the monument to Taras Shevchenko in Kyiv, several people were detained for participating in an unauthorized event. Outraged people surrounded the police and chanted: “Shame!” Later, 200-300 meeting participants went to the Central Committee building to protest and seek the release of those arrested. Authorities tried to stop the movement of the convoy with water from fire trucks. The Minister of Public Order of the Republic was forced to release the detainees.

On September 2, 1967, the police dispersed in Tashkent a demonstration of many thousands of Crimean Tatars protesting against the dispersal on August 27 of a two-thousand meeting-meeting with representatives of the Crimean Tatar people who returned from Moscow after receiving them on June 21 by Yu. V. Andropov, N. A. Shchelokov, Secretary of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces M. P. Georgadze, Prosecutor General R. A. Rudenko. At the same time, 160 people were detained, 10 of them were convicted. However, on September 5, 1967, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Court was issued, removing the charge of treason against the Crimean Tatars. They were returned civil rights. Tatar youth received the right to study at universities in Moscow and Leningrad, but Tatar families could not come and settle in Crimea. The partisans of Crimea objected to their return, but the main reason was that Crimea had by that time been “given” by N.S. Khrushchev to Ukraine.

It took a long time to overcome the consequences of the clash between Uzbek and Russian youth that occurred in Tashkent during and after the football match between the teams “Pakhtakor” (Tashkent) and “Krylya Sovetov” (Kuibyshev) on September 27, 1969 at a stadium with more than a hundred thousand people. The hostility of the local population towards Russians was caused negative traits(drunkenness, hooliganism, theft, prostitution), allegedly brought to the republic in the 20s. mainly from the Volga region. The contemptuous nickname “Samara” has since taken root among the Uzbeks and has been transferred to all Russians. The conflict arose in the middle of the match, when the referee did not count a goal scored by Pakhtakor. Clashes continued after the match. As a result, more than a thousand people were arrested. The republic's leaders tried to minimize information about the scale of the excess. Understanding the ugliness of the incident, especially against the background of the enormous assistance to Tashkent from the RSFSR and other union republics after the devastating earthquake of 1965, they did not want the incident to be regarded as Uzbek nationalism.

Period 60-80s. characterized by a significant increase in Zionist sentiment among Soviet Jews. The consequence of the “awakening of Jewish consciousness among young people” was the growth of emigration impulses. In order to refute accusations that the USSR allegedly pursues a policy of state anti-Semitism, an official brochure “Soviet Jews: Myths and Reality” (1972) was published. It noted that Jews, who made up less than 1% of the total population of the country, accounted for 11.4% of Lenin Prize laureates, 55 people received the highest title of Hero of Socialist Labor, 4 were awarded this title twice, and 3 representatives of this nationality were awarded three times. Under the policy of state anti-Semitism, this would be impossible.

In 1972, when there was a change in the post of 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Republic in Georgia, the opportunity opened up to reconsider the attitude of its leadership towards the national problem of the Meskhetian Turks. V.P. Mzhavanadze, when he was the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee (1953-1972), considered their return impossible. “Firstly,” he said, “the lands of the Meskhetians are already occupied by others, and secondly, there is a border nearby, the Meskhetians are engaged in smuggling, and therefore the border guards object to their return.” Attempts by the leaders of the KGB and border troops to show that this was incorrect information had no effect. E. A. Shevardnadze, when he became the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee, continued to adhere to the version of his predecessor. As a result, only Meskhetians who decided to change their nationality and become Georgians by passport were able to return to Georgia.

On March 30, 1972, in the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, when discussing the book of one of its members P. E. Shelest “Our Soviet Ukraine” (1971), the following was said: “This book glorifies the Cossacks, promotes archaism,” “in Ukraine there are many signs and advertisements on Ukrainian language. How is it different from Russian? Only by distorting the latter. So why do this? Objections were raised against the establishment of city coats of arms, excursions and tourism to ancient cities and memorial sites. A. N. Kosygin said: “The creation of economic councils at one time was also a manifestation of nationalism... It is not clear why in Ukraine they should study the Ukrainian language in schools?.. From time immemorial, Sevastopol has been a Russian city. Why and why are there signs and shop windows in Ukrainian?” It can be assumed that each of the speakers, deep down in their souls, considered Ukrainians, or at least their ancestors, to be Russians. As a result, the magazine “Communist of Ukraine” (1973, No. 4) published an editorial article “On the serious shortcomings of one book,” and instructions were given to discuss the article and Shelest’s book at all city and regional activists. The book was withdrawn from sale. In April 1973, by decision of the plenum of the Central Committee, its author “went on vacation for health reasons.”

In 1972, the funeral of R. Kalanta, an 18-year-old young man from Kaunas, who committed self-immolation on May 18 in protest against the “Soviet occupation of Lithuania,” caused great resonance. They grew into a large-scale manifestation of national protest. About 400 demonstrators were detained, and 8 of them were convicted.

In 1973, the situation around the Prigorodny district worsened North Ossetia. On January 16-19, thousands of Ingush gathered in Grozny, demanding that the authorities solve this problem. The statement submitted to the authorities listed facts of discrimination against the Ingush population in Ossetia, mainly in hiring. The Ingush asked to be provided with equal rights to the Ossetians in the disputed area. Demonstrations and rallies continued for several days and were eventually dispersed by water cannons and police batons.

In January 1977, it came to terrorism on ethnic grounds. Three Armenians, members of the underground National United Party, came from Yerevan to Moscow and detonated three bombs on January 8 - in a subway car and two food stores. 37 people were killed and injured. After a failed attempt to detonate three charges at the Kursk station the day before November holidays the criminals were detained. It is characteristic that in this case, in order not to “compromise the Armenian people,” on the instructions of the leadership of the Communist Party of Armenia, not a single newspaper published in the Armenian language published reports about terrorist act. The documentary film about the trial of terrorists was also banned from being shown. When a speech by A. D. Sakharov appeared in Izvestia, who protested against the allegedly illegal arrest of Armenians (he refused to believe that terrorists could come to Moscow to commit murders), K. S. Demirchyan was indignant: “How dare Sakharov disclose the names of the criminals , who gave permission to the editors to print this material!

Football fans in Vilnius were among the first to respond to the adopted new Constitution of the USSR. On October 7, 1977, after the victory of Zalgiris over the Vitebsk Dvina, and three days later over the Smolensk Iskra, several hundred spectators of the first football match and more than 10 thousand after the second moved through the streets of the city, shouting: “Down with the constitution occupiers!”, “Freedom for Lithuania!”, “Russians, get out!”. Lithuanian youth tore down posters for the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution and smashed windows with visual propaganda. The incidents ended in the first case with the detention of 17, and in the second - 44 participants in these peculiar demonstrations.

Contradictions in the national sphere emerged when new republican constitutions were adopted in 1978 on the basis of the USSR Constitution. To reflect the process of “bringing together” nations, articles on the state language were excluded from the draft constitutions of the Transcaucasian union republics at the suggestion of the Center. This “innovation” caused a wave of open protest from students and intellectuals. The articles had to be preserved, despite the fact that they were not in the constitutions of the other union republics, nor in the Union Constitution.

In the spring of 1978, rallies of the Abkhaz population took place in various settlements of the autonomous republic with demands for state status Abkhazian language, stopping migration of Georgians to the republic, secession from Georgia and joining the RSFSR. A concession to the demands of the Abkhazians was the inclusion in the constitution of the autonomous republic of a provision on the introduction of three state languages: Abkhazian, Russian and Georgian.

In December 1978, a demonstration of German “refuseniks” took place in Dushanbe demanding that they be allowed to leave the country. The 1st Secretary of the City Committee addressed the audience and promised to increase the number of exit permits. The promise was kept.

In 1979, the opportunity opened up to solve the problem of Soviet Germans evicted from their places of residence during the war. In the book “KGB and Power” (1995), F. D. Bobkov wrote about this: “It was difficult to explain why their rights were not restored after the war... Centers appeared in Germany that supported the emigration sentiments of Soviet Germans... We but they pursued an ostrich-like policy, pretending that the problem did not exist at all. Things were reaching the point of absurdity. For example, about a million Germans lived in Kazakhstan, expelled from their inhabited land in the Volga region, and they tried to hide this fact from the Soviet and world public. In the encyclopedia of Kazakhstan, the Germans were not even mentioned as a nationality in the population of the republic... But German Chancellor Adenauer was going to visit Moscow. The Central Committee of the CPSU began to fuss, realizing that the Soviet Germans would certainly appeal to him. And then a truly Solomonic decision was made: out of many thousands who wanted to leave for Germany, about three hundred families received permission to leave. They did exactly the same thing later, when other high-ranking officials from both German states visited the USSR.”

The KGB department headed by Bobkov entered the Central Committee with a proposal to create a German autonomous region on the territory of Kazakhstan. The proposal was accepted, the Politburo issued a corresponding decision. The leaders of the republic promised to resolve the issue. The territory of the future autonomy was determined, its capital was named (the city of Ermentau in the east of the Tselinograd region), the building of the regional committee was chosen, and its composition was planned. All that remained was to proclaim the formation of an autonomous region, scheduled for June 15. However, on the morning of this day, a demonstration of Kazakh students took place in Tselinograd against the decision of the authorities in Moscow and Alma-Ata to create autonomy. It was held under the slogans: “Kazakhstan is indivisible!”, “No German autonomy!” We had to ask the activists of the autonomist movement to “wait” for the proclamation of their national-territorial formation.

The autumn of 1980 was a time of youth unrest in Estonia. On September 22, after the Propeller youth pop orchestra's performance at the Tallinn stadium after a football match was canceled, about a thousand Estonian schoolchildren took to the streets to protest against this decision. The concert was canceled due to the discovery of “nationalist motives” in the lyrics. The demonstration was dispersed by the police, and several high school students were expelled from school. And on October 1 and 3, the police had to disperse more than a thousand demonstrations of protest against these exceptions. Demonstrators waved flags of independent Estonia and shouted slogans “Freedom for Estonia!” and “Russians, get out of Estonia!” On October 7 and 8, further protest demonstrations followed in Tallinn (several hundred participants), and on October 10, youth demonstrations in Tartu and Pärnu. As a result, about 100 students were expelled from schools, and several people were convicted of “hooliganism.”

The year 1981 is characterized by an intensification of the authorities’ offensive against Russian patriotic forces. On March 28, Yu. V. Andropov sent a note to the Politburo in which he noted the creation of a “Russians” movement among the intelligentsia. In the note, Russism was presented as “demagoguery about the need to fight for the preservation of Russian culture, ancient monuments, for the “salvation of the Russian nation,” with which “outright enemies of the Soviet system” “cover their subversive activities.” Under the slogans of protecting Russian national traditions, the Russianists, the head of the KGB reported, “are essentially engaged in active anti-Soviet activities.” Andropov raised the question of the speedy liquidation of this movement, which, in his opinion, threatened the communist foundations more than the so-called dissidents.

The result of the attack on the “Russians” was the dismissal of S. N. Semanov in April from the post of editor-in-chief of the magazine “Man and Law”. In August, the publicist A. M. Ivanov, the author of well-known articles in patriotic circles in the magazine "Veche", the works "The Logic of a Nightmare" and "The Knight of an Obscure Image", was arrested, depicting the history of the Communist Party as a chain of conspiracies, coups, gross violence, conceived and carried out by people who dreamed only of maintaining their personal power. At the end of 1981, the editorial office of “Our Contemporary” was destroyed for publishing materials by V. Kozhinov, A. Lanshchikov, S. Semanov, V. Krupin. The authors were publicly condemned, the editor of the magazine, S.V. Vikulov, after appropriate reprimand, was left at his post, but both of his deputies were fired. At meetings in the Central Committee, such brilliant books by Russian writers as “Lad” by V. Belov and “Memory” by V. Chivilikhin were criticized.

In 1982, the Saratov magazine Volga was destroyed. The occasion was M. Lobanov’s article “Liberation,” written about M. Alekseev’s novel “Brawlers,” which told the truth about the 1933 famine in the Volga region. The article was the first in journalism to comprehend the scale and causes of the people's tragedy of de-peasantization. The publication was condemned by a special decision of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. Editor-in-Chief N.E. Palkin was fired. The magazine has fallen into disrepair. In the fall of 1983, in Literaturnaya Gazeta and Voprosy Literatury, attacks began on scientists studying the works of Russian philosophers V. S. Solovyov, N. F. Fedorov, P. A. Florensky. The publishers of the book by the outstanding Russian philosopher A.F. Losev received severe penalties. During the persecution of the “Russians,” the authorities pardoned (April 1983) the dissident “Eurocommunists” arrested a year earlier (A. Fadin, P. Kudyukin, Yu. Khavkin, etc.) from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, which was headed by the liberal academician N. . N. Inozemtsev, and in 1983-1985. - A. N. Yakovlev.

In the fall of 1981, there were major riots in the capital of North Ossetia. The unrest began on October 24, during the funeral in Ordzhonikidze of an Ossetian taxi driver who was killed by two Ingush men, who were released three days after the murder for a ransom of one million rubles. Participants funeral procession organized a rally and seized the regional committee building. By evening, order in the square was restored by cadets from the local military school. The next day, clashes between protesters (more than 10 thousand people) and law enforcement forces spread throughout the city. Over three days of unrest, more than 800 people were detained, 40 of them were convicted. 1st Secretary of the Regional Committee of the CPSU B.E. Kabaloev was removed from his post.

Towards the end of the period under review, after several fairly calm years, there was major ethnic unrest in the capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe.

In the spring of 1985, long-forgotten unrest was again recorded in military trains with conscripts into the Soviet army. For two days, Muslim conscripts, fueled by alcohol, sorted out relations with non-Muslims. This event opened a series of excesses with a nationalist background in the coming “era of perestroika.” Events in the North Caucasus received special consideration at a meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. The reason for the troubles in the national sphere was seen, as before, in the shortcomings of moral and international education and the pernicious influence of religion. The Central Committee also habitually called for building education in such a way that soviet man I felt, first of all, a citizen of the USSR, and only then a representative of this or that nation.

"New historical community". In 1972, the country celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of the USSR. The results of the development of the Soviet federal state were also summed up. They were quite impressive. The rates of development of the republics of Central Asia were the highest. If in 1922 the illiteracy rate of the population here was 95%, now the same number of residents of the region had higher, secondary and incomplete secondary education. The volume of industrial production over these years has increased in Kazakhstan by 600 times, in Tajikistan - by 500, in Kyrgyzstan - by 400, in Uzbekistan - by 240, in Turkmenistan - by 130 times (in fairly developed Ukraine - by 176 times). Only in the Uzbek SSR in 1972 did more specialists with higher and secondary education work special education than in national economy the entire USSR in the late 20s. High level The Baltic republics have also achieved development - industrial production in Latvia has increased 31 times since 1940, in Estonia - 32 times, and in Lithuania - 37 times. All these results were achieved by the collective work of all the peoples of the country.
In the second half of the 60s. an ideological conclusion about the Soviet people as a new historical community of people took shape. It matured gradually. Initially, this directive itself was voiced in a report dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. Then it was stated that this community signifies the result of many years of rapprochement between socialist nations and peoples. The main thing that unites these nations and forms a single Soviet people, stated in party documents, is “a common goal - the building of communism.”
Soon, party theorists decided that ideological unity was clearly not enough. In the early 70s. the previous provisions were supplemented by the conclusion that the “single national economic complex” that has developed in the country is “ material basis Friendship of Peoples" of the USSR. This provision was enshrined in the 1977 Constitution.
Theoretical setting about the Soviet people as new form community of people could not but affect the political course pursued by the party leadership on the national question.
The course proclaimed by the country's leadership towards the further internationalization of Soviet society inevitably came into conflict with the processes of growth of national self-awareness and the previous experience of relations between the Center and the republics.
Increasing contradictions between the Center and the republics. During the implementation of the 1965 reform, the authorities placed serious emphasis on the development of specialization of the economy of the union republics. Each of them had to develop traditional production: Kazakhstan - growing grain and obtaining livestock products; Uzbekistan - cotton growing; Turkmenistan - gas and oil production; Moldova - growing vegetables and fruits; Baltic republics - agriculture and fisheries.
In the interests of rapid integration of the economies of the Union republics, the industrial development of the less developed of them proceeded at an accelerated pace. The fastest growth rates were in Belarus, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Lithuania. This led not only to high economic indicators for the entire country, but also to overcoming the isolation of the republics. At the same time, rapid industrial construction in these regions, with the leading role of the Union ministries, further strengthened the role of the Center in relations with the republics.
In the 70s All those rights and powers of the union and autonomous republics, both in economic and political matters, which were granted to them in the 50s, were practically eliminated. The peoples of the Union republics lost even limited control over their economy and could not solve many problems of cultural development without sanction from Moscow. In addition, due to the lack of local qualified personnel, engineers and technicians from Russia were resettled to the republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. This was sometimes perceived even at the everyday level as a violent expansion of other traditions and cultures and strengthened nationalism. National movements revived again.
National movements. National movements at this stage of development of the union state acted as a form of protection of national cultures from the policy of leveling and unification pursued by the Center. Any attempts by the intelligentsia to pose at least some problem of their national culture or language were declared a manifestation of nationalism and were considered hostile. In 1971 in Ukraine, in the face of a decrease in the number of national schools and a reduction in teaching in Ukrainian in universities, many began to demand a return to the previous situation. For this, not only the participants in student protests were punished, but also the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine P. E. Shelest was removed from his post.
In the context of growing dissent in the country, national movements began to occupy an increasing share of it.
To the already existing movements for the right of Germans to leave for Germany, for the return of the Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks to their native places, a mass movement of Jews for leaving for Israel was added in 1967. Through their active actions, participants in national movements were able to achieve a lot. In 1972, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR abolished all restrictions on the choice of place of residence by Soviet Germans throughout the country. However, the autonomy of the Volga Germans was never restored. As a result, from the country for 1970-1986. More than 72 thousand Germans emigrated. Departure of Soviet Jews to their “historical homeland” for 1967-1985. exceeded 275 thousand people.
The most widespread and active in the 70s. there were national movements in the Baltic republics. Their participants demanded not only respect for civil rights, but also the removal of restrictions on the activities of the church. Almost 150 thousand people signed a petition addressed to Brezhnev, in which Lithuanians demanded the reopening of the cathedral in Klaipeda, which had been closed by the authorities.
Many nationalist groups and organizations also operated in Ukraine. Clashes in connection with the discussion of the draft of a new constitution took place in 1978 in Georgia, where thousands of people took to the streets demanding that the provision on Georgian as the state language be preserved in this document. In 1977, members of the National United Party of Armenia carried out several explosions in protest, including in the Moscow metro.
The surge of nationalism in the union republics could not but lead to the formation of the Russian national movement. Its participants advocated the abandonment of nation-state building and the transition to an administrative-territorial division of the country. They also demanded greater respect for the Russian people anywhere in the country. The ideologists of the Russian national movement in these years were A. I. Solzhenitsyn, I. R. Shafarevich, I. S. Glazunov, V. A. Soloukhin.
One of the largest organizations of the Russian movement was the All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People (VSKHSON), created in the mid-60s. in Leningrad. The ideology of this organization was based on the rejection of communist construction and the construction of a national Orthodox state. Despite the defeat of VSKHSON, by the late 70s - early 80s. The Russian national movement became one of the most significant in the country.
The activities of national movements in the USSR were supported by foreign emigrant centers - the Anti-Bolshevik bloc of peoples, the Central Asian research center and others. They provided material support to movement participants.
Evolution of national policy. With the growth of national movements, the authorities were forced to adjust national policies. Direct repression, as a rule, was used only against participants in open forms of protest. In relation to the leadership and intelligentsia of the Union republics, a policy of flirtation was pursued. Over 20 years (1965-1984), thousands of cultural, industrial and agriculture Union republics were awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and awarded the highest orders of the country.
Another wave of “indigenization” of the party and state elite of the union republics has begun. As a result, for example, the proportion of Kazakhs in the top leadership of Kazakhstan by the beginning of the 80s. almost doubled and amounted to 60%. The second secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the republics, as a rule, Russians, turned out to be only “observers” of the ongoing processes. At the same time, the authorities seemed completely unaware of the phenomena that were happening in the autonomous republics, national regions and districts. Even in official documents devoted to national problems, the discussion was exclusively about the Union republics. In the 1977 constitution, national minorities and national groups were not even mentioned.
All this led to the gradual ripening of a crisis in interethnic relations.

The reforms that subsequently led to the democratization of public life could not but affect interethnic relations. The first who began to openly defend their national freedoms were the Yakuts. At the beginning of 1986, a series of protests were held in Yakutsk, at which demonstrators demanded the abolition of the mass closure of Yakut schools.

The ruling elite of local self-government and state authorities gradually switched to the side of the common population. So, for example, M. Gorbachev was forced to change the chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, who actively supported and encouraged popular protests.

After G.V. Kunaev took the position, a wave of protests swept across the country, which for the first time began to have a revolutionary character. The Crimean Tatars and the Volga Germans wanted to recreate their autonomy, but Transcaucasia became the territory of the most acute conflict on a national basis.

Formation of national movements

Taking advantage of the outbreak of conflicts in Transcaucasia, popular fronts were actively created in the Baltic countries, the goal of which was the exit of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from the USSR.

At the initial stages of their activity, radical nationalist organizations of the Baltic states were able to obtain from the Supreme Councils of the republics the declaration of national languages as the only state languages. Already in mid-1989, the Russian language was deprived of the status of the state language in these countries.

Following the example of the Baltic states, demands to introduce national languages into state institutions were put forward by Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine. The populations of Tataria, Bashkiria and Yakutia demanded immediate recognition of their republics as full members of the Union.

"Parade of Sovereignties"

In the first half of 1990, national movements and attempts by the government to independently resolve economic and social issues without the participation of the Center led to the adoption of sovereignty in many union republics.

The Russian Federation, Ukraine, the Baltic countries, Georgia, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Belarus became sovereign states. The reaction of the top of the CPSU Central Committee was sharp; economic sanctions were applied to many states.

With great delay, Gorbachev began to develop a new union treaty, which still could not preserve the Soviet state.

The government's attempt to save the collapsing state with the help of the State Emergency Committee led to the exact opposite result. During the period August-October 1991, declarations of state independence were adopted in the Baltic states, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Turkmenistan.

The existence of the Soviet state became possible only in the status of a confederation. In September 1991, the USSR State Council recognized the independence of the Union Republics, which marked the beginning of the end of the existence of the Soviet Union.

Already on December 8, at an official meeting of the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the liquidation of the USSR as a subject was announced international law and the termination of its geopolitical existence.

The final collapse of the USSR became obvious on December 27, 1991, when the last Soviet Secretary General, M. Gorbachev, resigned. Thus, the history of what was once one of the most powerful powers in the world quickly ended. The dreams of the fathers of communism were buried under the ruins of the Soviet state.

The national sphere received perhaps the most noticeable impetus for change immediately after Stalin's death. This was due to decisions made based on Beria’s memos to the Central Committee. They proposed to rehabilitate and immediately release from custody those charged in the “case of pest doctors”, to condemn the operation to kill Mikhoels and the expulsion of G1. Zhemchuzhina as the results of a “provocative fabrication of accusations of anti-Soviet nationalist activity.” Already on April 4, 1953, a resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee was published on the falsification of the “Doctors’ Case” and the acceptance of proposals from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Another impetus for changes in the sphere of national relations was given by the resolutions of May 26 and June 12, 1953, adopted at the initiative of Beria. They were aimed at “decisively putting an end to the distortions of the Leninist-Stalinist national party policy” in Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus. On June 12, based on Khrushchev’s note, a similar decision was made regarding Latvia. The basis of the proposed concept of de-Stalinization of interethnic relations was "indigenization" party-state apparatus (the second after the 1920s) and the introduction of office work in the union republics in the native language.

Beriev’s “indigenization” of the top and middle levels of the party-economic apparatus threatened with considerable complications, since the practice economic activity in a multinational country led to constant migration of personnel from Russia to other republics and from republics to Russia. It began with the replacement of the Russian L. G. Melnikov as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine by the Ukrainian A. I. Kirichenko. In Belarus, the plenum of the Central Committee adopted decisions predetermined by the resolution of the CPSU Central Committee on the release of N. S. Patolichev from the duties of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus and replacing him with M. V. Zimyanin (head of the department of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, until 1953 - second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus) .

The report, prepared for the plenum in the spirit of Beria’s note, proposed introducing the Belarusian written language in the state apparatus, conducting all correspondence, meetings, meetings and congresses only in the Belarusian language. As for the Russians, who in the new conditions will not be able to work in the republic, it was proposed to express gratitude to them and provide assistance in moving to a new place.

Hero spoke out against the report Soviet Union P. M. Masherov, then other participants of the plenum. However, Patolichev's removal did not take place due to the arrest of Beria (June 26, 1953). Patolichev later spoke about his initiatives: “It would be difficult to find a worse type of manifestation of nationalism. Implementation of this crazy idea would turn into a terrible tragedy for millions of citizens living in Belarus.” In the USSR as a whole, it would lead to the displacement of millions of people from one republic to another.

How do you understand the term “indigenization”? On what theoretical positions could

stand its adherents? What phenomena in interethnic relations in our

and other countries does the policy of indigenization remind you?

The indigenization of the party-economic apparatus, carried out in the spirit of Beria’s proposals in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states, his attempts to introduce in the republics their own orders in honor of outstanding national figures, other measures to develop national traditions in the field of culture and language, which would contribute to the cultivation of a sense of nationality pride - all this did not pass without a trace, having a twofold result. On the one hand, this contributed to the elimination of the armed nationalist underground in these republics. On the other hand, it intensified national-separatist and anti-Russian sentiments and contributed to the emergence of numerous nationalist circles and groups, the participants of which were mainly young people.

In an effort to prevent the growth of local nationalism, N. S. Khrushchev sometimes reacted sharply to facts of obvious violation of the “internationalist principles” of personnel policy. He publicly reprimanded the Azerbaijani leader I.D. Mustafayev for the fact that a number of decisions were made in the republic that discriminated against representatives of non-indigenous nationalities, in particular Russians: “No one... can suspect that they are pursuing some kind of chauvinistic policy... They Often, to the detriment of their republic, they provided and continue to provide assistance to fraternal peoples. And now these peoples have not only leveled off, but often in terms of living standards are higher than certain regions of the Russian Federation.”

Quote by: Usubaliev T.U. Epoch. Creation. Fates: Book of Memories. Bishkek: Sham, 1995. P. 275.

The adoption of the new CPSU Program in 1961 was associated with the beginning of a new stage in the development of national relations in the country. Its features were seen in the further rapprochement and achievement of “complete unity” of nations.

The party pledged to carry out the national policy, designed to regulate national relations at the new stage, “on the basis of Lenin’s national policy,” without allowing “neither ignoring nor inflating national characteristics.” The most important goal of the policy was seen “as before” - to ensure the actual equality of nations and nationalities “with full consideration of their interests, paying special attention to those areas of the country that need more rapid development.” The benefits growing in the process of communist construction were promised to be “fairly distributed among all nations and nationalities.”

However, the “full-scale construction of communism” in the country did not last long. In November 1967, L.I. Brezhnev announced that a developed socialist society had been built in the USSR, and in the future it had to be improved. The new authorities also abandoned other methodological innovations of the Khrushchev period. The position of a new historical community was preserved and was further developed with a clarification of the idea of it as a multinational people.

The statement about the allegedly fully formed new historical community in the USSR was contained in the speeches of the General Secretary at the XXIV (1971) and XXV (1976) Party Congresses. In development of this position, the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU prepared and published in two editions the book “Leninism and the National Question in Modern Conditions” (1972, 1974), which gave an official interpretation of the phenomenon. The book explained: “The Soviet people do not represent some new nation, but are a historical, broader than a nation, a new type of community of people, embracing all the peoples of the USSR. The concept of “Soviet people” appeared as a reflection of fundamental changes in the essence and appearance of Soviet nations, as an expression of their comprehensive rapprochement, the growth of their international features. But even with the close intertwining of the international and the national in socialist nations, the latter form the Soviet people, while remaining at the same time its national components.” Strengthening the new historical community seemed to be the most important goal of the state national policy.

Throughout the 70-80s. A countless number of books and articles were published in the country about the flourishing and rapprochement of Soviet nations, about the relationship between the national and the international, about the triumph of the “Leninist national policy.” However, the works were declarative and scholastic, and did little to reduce the gap between science, politics and life. The rapidly revitalizing national consciousness was treated as a manifestation of nationalism. The real contradictions of national life and interethnic relations were stubbornly ignored. “Naziology” in the conditions of “developed socialism” became noticeably more active on holidays - in connection with the anniversaries of the October Revolution and the formation of the USSR. This could not but leave an imprint of “prosperity” on a significant part of the works devoted to national issues.

Of course, the new historical community of people in the USSR was not only a created myth, but also a reality. In today's media, the recognition that there were truly Soviet people is often identified by liberals only with a kind of inferiority (hence the contemptuous word “scoop”). However, this does not negate the fact that at the level of public reflection there was a feeling of “Soviet nationality”. Football fans of different nationalities in major international matches cheered as if they were their own, for Dynamo Kiev and Tbilisi, Yerevan Ararat, for our cosmonauts, regardless of their nationality. In other words, there definitely existed a certain substantive space not with an ethnic, but a civil basis.

“According to all modern ideas about the state and nation, the Soviet people were a normal multi-ethnic nation, no less real than the American, Brazilian or Indian,” S. G. Kara-Murza rightly asserts today. Of course, the degree of “Sovietness” was different for different groups of the population, but a single economy, a single school and a single army made the Soviet people much more united than the aforementioned multi-ethnic nations. A convincing argument in favor of the existence of such a community is the increase in the number of ethnically mixed marriages. The 1959 population census recorded 50.3 million families in the country, of which 10.3% were ethnically mixed. By 1970, mixed families made up 13.5%, in 1979 - 14.9, and in 1989 - 17.5 (12.8 million out of 77.1 million families). Behind each of the spouses there were usually groups of relatives, many times increasing the number of people of different nationalities related to each other.

The formation of a new community was also indicated by data on a significant number of non-Russians who recognized the Russian language as the language of interethnic communication, their “native” language. According to the 1926 census, 6.4 million were recorded, in 1959 - 10.2, in 1979 - 13; in 1989 - already 18.7 million. If the process of switching to the Russian language were not quite natural and voluntary, then the overwhelming majority of non-Russians would not call it “native”, limiting themselves to indicating “fluency” in it. Population censuses also showed a constant increase in the number of people fluently using Russian along with their native national language. In 1970, 241.7 million people lived in the USSR (of which 53.4% were Russian). By 1989, their number increased to 286.7 million, among them there were 145.2 million (50.6%) Russians by nationality. At the same time, 81.4% of the population of the USSR and 88% of the population of Russia considered Russian their native language and spoke it fluently.

The Constitution adopted in 1977 characterized the “developed socialist society” built in the USSR as a society “in which, on the basis of the rapprochement of all social strata, the legal and actual equality of all nations and nationalities, a new historical community of people arose - the Soviet people.” The people were proclaimed the main subject of power and lawmaking in the country. The equality of citizens was declared, regardless of race or nationality; it was argued that “the country’s economy constitutes a single national economic complex”; The country has a “unified system of public education.” At the same time, the Basic Law stated that “each union republic retains the right to freely secede from the USSR,” each union and autonomous republic has its own Constitution, taking into account their “peculiarities,” the territory of the republics “cannot be changed” without their consent, “ the sovereign rights of the union republics are protected by the USSR.” Thus, the “Soviet people” in the Constitution were presented in words as one, but in reality cut into various “sovereign” and “special” parts. The latter was also consistent with the spirit of the never-repeated Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which proclaimed at the dawn of Soviet power (November 2, 1917) not only “the equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia,” but also their right “to free self-determination up to the point of secession and the formation of an independent state.” "

Over time, the territorial principle of the national state structure of the USSR revealed an increasing contradiction with the growing internationalization of the composition of the population of “national” entities. A clear example was the Russian Federation, where 51.5% of the USSR population lived in 1989. The total number of Russian peoples was most often indicated by an indefinite expression: “more than a hundred.” The republic had a complex hierarchical system of national-state and administrative structure. In such a situation, movements naturally arose among different peoples to equalize and increase their “state” status or to gain it, which was quite sensitive and manifested itself in the 60-70s. The peoples of the USSR differed significantly in their rates of population growth. For example, from 1959 to 1989, the number of Estonians and Latvians increased by 3.8 and 4.2%, respectively, Ukrainians and Belarusians - by 19 and 27%, Russians and Lithuanians - by 27 and 31%, Georgians, Moldovans and Armenians - by 48, 51 and 66%, Kazakhs and Azerbaijanis - by 125 and 130%, Kyrgyz and Turkmens - by 161 and 172%, and Uzbeks and Tajiks - by 178 and 202%. All this created a natural concern among individual peoples about the demographic situation, which was aggravated by unregulated population migration.

Contradictions in the national sphere, created at different stages of history, came to the surface of public life years and decades later. The movements of Soviet Germans and Crimean Tatars for the restoration of the autonomies lost during the war continued to make themselves felt. Other repressed peoples demanded permission to return to their places of former residence (Meskhetian Turks, Greeks, etc.). Dissatisfaction with living conditions in the USSR gave rise to movements among a number of peoples (Jews, Germans, Greeks) for the right to emigrate to their “historical homeland.” Protest movements, excesses and other acts of dissatisfaction with national policies arose on other occasions. A number of them can be noted in accordance with the chronology of events.

In March 1967, the “Abkhaz events” continued for two weeks, the participants of which demanded the legalization of Abkhaz toponymy in the republic, the provision of privileges to representatives of Abkhaz nationality in employment and admission to higher educational institutions, the study of the Abkhaz language in all non-Abkhaz schools of the republic, and even the separation of Abkhazia from Georgia with the status of a union republic within the USSR. In September 1967, a group of Abkhaz cultural figures arrived in Moscow with a demand to withdraw from circulation a book published in Tbilisi, the author of which tried to prove that the Abkhaz nationality does not exist, the Abkhaz are Georgians who once converted to Islam. As a result, the secretary of the regional committee and the chairman of the government of Abkhazia were relieved of their positions and Abkhazians were recommended in their place. Georgian names and signs in Georgian have been replaced by Abkhaz ones. Departments of Abkhaz language and literature were opened at Tbilisi University.

On September 2, 1967, the police dispersed in Tashkent a demonstration of many thousands of Crimean Tatars protesting against the dispersal of a two-thousand meeting on August 27 with representatives of the Crimean Tatar people who returned from Moscow after being received on June 21 by Yu. V. Andropov, N.A. Shchelokov, Secretary of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces M. P. Georgadze, Prosecutor General R. A. Rudenko. At the same time, 160 people were detained, 10 of them were convicted. However, on September 5, 1967, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Court was issued, removing the charge of treason against the Crimean Tatars. They were given back their civil rights. Tatar youth received the right to study at universities in Moscow and Leningrad, but Tatar families could not come and settle in Crimea. The partisans of Crimea objected to their return, but the main reason was that Crimea had by that time been “given” by N.S. Khrushchev to Ukraine.

It took a long time to overcome the consequences of the clash between Uzbek and Russian youth that occurred in Tashkent during and after the football match between the teams “Pakhtakor” (Tashkent) and “Krylya Sovetov” (Kuibyshev) on September 27, 1969 at a stadium with more than a hundred thousand people. The hostility of the local population towards Russians was caused by negative traits (drunkenness, hooliganism, theft, prostitution), allegedly brought to the republic in the 20s. mainly from the Volga region. The contemptuous nickname “Samara” has since taken root among the Uzbeks and has been transferred to all Russians. The conflict arose in the middle of the match, when the referee did not count a goal scored by Pakhtakor. Clashes continued after the match. As a result, more than a thousand people were arrested. The republic's leaders tried to minimize information about the scale of the excess. Understanding the ugliness of the incident, especially against the background of the enormous assistance to Tashkent from the RSFSR and other union republics after the devastating earthquake of 1966, they did not want the incident to be regarded as Uzbek nationalism.

In 1972, when there was a change in the post of 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Republic in Georgia, the opportunity opened up to reconsider the attitude of its leadership towards the national problem of the Meskhetian Turks. V.P. Mzhavanadze, when he was the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee (1953-1972), considered their return impossible. “Firstly,” he said, “the lands of the Meskhetians are already occupied by others, and secondly, the border is close, the Meskhs are engaged in smuggling, and therefore the border guards object to their return.” Attempts by the leaders of the KGB and border troops to show that this was incorrect information had no effect. E. A. Shevardnadze, when he became the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee, continued to adhere to the version of his predecessor. As a result, only Meskhetians who decided to change their nationality and become Georgians by passport were able to return to Georgia.

In 1972, the funeral of R. Kalanta, 18-

a year-old youth from Kaunas who committed self-immolation on May 18 in protest against the “Soviet occupation of Lithuania.” They grew into a large-scale manifestation of national protest. About 400 demonstrators were detained, and 8 of them were convicted.

In 1973, the situation around the Prigorodny region of North Ossetia worsened. On January 16-19, thousands of Ingush gathered in Grozny, demanding that the authorities solve this problem. The statement submitted to the authorities listed facts of discrimination against the Ingush population in Ossetia, mainly in hiring. The Ingush asked to be provided with equal rights to the Ossetians in the disputed area. Demonstrations and rallies continued for several days and were eventually dispersed by water cannons and police batons.

In January 1977, it came to terrorism on ethnic grounds. Three Armenians, members of the underground National United Party, came from Yerevan to Moscow and detonated three bombs on January 8 - in a subway car and two food stores. 37 people were killed and injured. After a failed attempt to detonate three charges at the Kursky railway station on the eve of the November holidays, the criminals were detained. It is characteristic that in this case, in order not to “compromise the Armenian people,” on the instructions of the leadership of the Communist Party of Armenia, not a single newspaper published in the Armenian language published reports about the terrorist act. The documentary film about the trial of terrorists was also banned from being shown. When did the speech appear in Izvestia?

A.D. Sakharov, who protested against the allegedly illegal arrest of Armenians (he refused to believe that terrorists could come to Moscow to commit murders), K.S. Demirchyan was indignant: “How dare Sakharov disclose the names of the criminals, who gave permission to the editors to print this material !

In the spring of 1978, rallies of the Abkhaz population took place in various localities of the autonomous republic with demands to give state status to the Abkhaz language, stop migration of Georgians to the republic, secede from Georgia and become part of the RSFSR. A concession to the demands of the Abkhazians was the inclusion in the constitution of the autonomous republic of a provision on the introduction of three state languages: Abkhazian, Russian and Georgian.

The autumn of 1980 was a time of youth unrest in Estonia. On September 22, after the cancellation of the performance of the Propeller youth pop orchestra scheduled at the Tallinn stadium after a football match, about a thousand Estonian schoolchildren took to the streets to protest against this decision. The concert was canceled due to the discovery of “nationalist motives” in the lyrics. The demonstration was dispersed by the police, and several high school students were expelled from school. And on October 1 and 3, the police had to disperse more than a thousand demonstrations of protest against these exceptions. Demonstrators waved flags of independent Estonia and shouted slogans “Freedom for Estonia!” and “Russians, get out of Estonia!” On October 7 and 8, further protest demonstrations followed in Tallinn (several hundred participants), and on October 10, youth demonstrations in Tartu and Pärnu. As a result, about 100 students were expelled from schools, and several people were convicted of “hooliganism.” 1981

characterizes the strengthening of the authorities’ offensive against Russian patriotic forces. On March 28, Yu. V. Andropov sent a note to the Politburo in which he noted the creation of a “Russians” movement among the intelligentsia. In the note, Russism was presented as “demagoguery about the need to fight for the preservation of Russian culture, ancient monuments, for the “salvation of the Russian nation,” with which “outright enemies of the Soviet system” “cover their subversive activities.” Under the slogans of protecting Russian national traditions, the Russianists, the head of the KGB reported, “are essentially engaged in active anti-Soviet activities.” Andropov raised the question of the speedy liquidation of this movement, which, in his opinion, threatened the communist foundations more than the so-called dissidents.

The result of the attack on the “Russians” was the dismissal

S. N. Semanova in April from the post of editor-in-chief of the magazine “Man and Law”. In August, the publicist A. M. Ivanov, the author of well-known articles in patriotic circles in the magazine “Veche”, works “The Logic of a Nightmare” and “The Knight of an Obscure Image”, depicting the history of the Communist Party as a chain of conspiracies, coups, brutal violence, conceived and carried out, was arrested people who dreamed only of maintaining their personal power. At the end of 1981, the editors of Nashe Sovremennik were destroyed for publishing materials by V. Kozhinov, A. Lanshchikov, S. Semanov, and V. Krupin. The authors were publicly condemned, the editor of the magazine, S.V. Vikulov, after appropriate reprimand, was left at his post, but both of his deputies were fired. At meetings in the Central Committee, such brilliant books by Russian writers as “Lad” by V. Belov and “Memory” by V. Chivilikhin were criticized.

In the fall of 1981, there were major riots in the capital of North Ossetia. The unrest began on October 24, during the funeral in Ordzhonikidze of an Ossetian taxi driver who was killed by two Ingush men, who were released three days after the murder for a ransom of one million rubles. Participants in the funeral procession organized a rally and seized the regional committee building. By evening, order in the square was restored by cadets from the local military school. The next day, clashes between protesters (more than 10 thousand people) and law enforcement forces spread throughout the city. Over three days of unrest, more than 800 people were detained, 40 of them were convicted. 1st Secretary of the Regional Committee of the CPSU B.E. Kabaloev was removed from his post.

Towards the end of the period under review, after several fairly calm years, there was major ethnic unrest in the capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe.

In the spring of 1985, long-forgotten unrest was again recorded in military trains with conscripts into the Soviet army. For two days, Muslim conscripts, fueled by alcohol, sorted out relations with non-Muslims. This event opened a series of excesses with a nationalist background in the coming “era of perestroika.” Events in the North Caucasus received special consideration at a meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. The reason for the troubles in the national sphere was seen, as before, in the shortcomings of moral and international education and the pernicious influence of religion. The Central Committee also habitually called for education to be structured in such a way that a Soviet person would feel himself, first of all, a citizen of the USSR, and only then a representative of this or that nation.