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Russian, Imperial and Soviet Identities

Dominic Lieven

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society / Volume 8 / December 1998,

pp 253 - 269
DOI: 10.2307/3679297, Published online: 12 February 2009

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Dominic Lieven (1998). Russian, Imperial and Soviet Identities.
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 8, pp 253-269
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 RUSSIAN, IMPERIAL AND SOVIET IDENTITIES
By Dominic Iieven
READ 2 6 SEPTEMBER I 9 9 7 AT THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH,
LONDON

IN a much-cited statement Ernest Renan once commented that the

nation was a daily plebiscite.' Whereas the state's essence are institutions
and laws, the nation exists first and foremost in the consciousness of
the population. How strongly a population identifies itself as a nation
differs over time and from one section or class to another. The nature
of the external challenges facing a community will also help to determine
its sense of identity. Though different groups and individuals may all
claim membership of the same nation, they may still disagree radically
about the institutions, memories, symbols and values which embody
that nation and make it worthy of allegiance.
National identity is indeed a complicated matter, much more con-
fusing and fluid than Renan's metaphor of the plebiscite might suggest.
Plebiscites occur rarely, concentrate the mind, demand yes or no
answers, and usually concern a single political issue of commanding
importance. Group identities—including national ones—are usually ill-
defined and overlapping. For most people politically denned group
identities are not of pre-eminent importance, nor are individuals usually
faced with the need to make definitive choices between competing
political group allegiances.
Even when diis does happen, many extraneous factors may well
determine their choice. In i860—i, for instance, Robert E. Lee was
faced with a choice between loyalty to the American nation and the
federal army on the one hand, and the Commonwealth of Virginia
and the Southern nation on the other. An educated man long aware
of the issues involved in the conflict between north and south, Lee was
well equipped to make his choice. Since he had been offered top
command in both of the rival armies, the dilemma was both especially
agonising and doubly important. According to Lee's latest biographer,
however, the final decision to opt for the South was owed in part to
his liking for a quiet life without personal confrontations and conflicts,
including those that would erupt between him and his wife and family
should he continue to serve the Union.2

' For instance in Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins ofNations (Oxford, 1986), p. 136.
2
Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee (New York, 1995), pp. 187-90.

253
254 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY
National identity can to some extent be seen to revolve around two
poles, one political, die odier cultural. In the former case it is the state
and its institutions, perhaps above all its armed forces, which are of
primary importance, togedier with the memories, myths and symbols
attached to diem. In the latter case language, popular customs, religion
and values come to the fore. The distinction between diese poles is
usually anything but absolute, religion, for instance, clearly linking the
two, but it is real and, especially in die Russian context, useful for the
scholar. Significandy, die adjective 'Russian' in die English language is
a translation of two Russian words widi clearly distinct meanings. The
first word, rossiyskiy, is traditionally associated widi die Russian dynasty
and state, die institutions dirough which it ruled and die territory over
which it exercised sovereignty. By contrast, die word russkiy is linked to
die Russian people, culture and language.
Russian statehood and Russian political identity owe dieir origins to
die Moscow branch of die Rurikid dynasty, to die polity diey created,
to die aristocratic families who dominated diis polity over die centuries,
and to die territories over which diey ruled. The fact that monarchy,
aristocracy and polity endured provided die essential continuity between
die medieval land of die Rus and die later Russian Empire.3 The huge
success of diis polity as an instrument of power and territorial expansion
was die essential basis of its legitimacy and of die alliance between
monarchy and aristocracy which was its core. That alliance and
legitimacy was also embedded in a range of myths, symbols, rituals and
institutions.4 Aristocratic families found it easy to identify widi a dynastic
state whose history was their own. In die imperial (i.e. post-Petrine)
era, for instance, die state created a range of military, administrative,
educational and honorific institutions and corporations which aristo-
cratic families dominated and widi which diey identified.5
The tsarist elite was relatively open to new blood, to some extent
from edinically Russian families of die minor gentry and official class,
but also from non-Russian minorities widiin die polity and from abroad.
Before die mid-nineteendi century access was often easier for non-
3
On Muscovite and early modern Russian identity the English-speaking reader should
consult: D.J. Halperin, 'The Russian Land and the Russian Tsar: the Emergence of
Muscovite Ideology, 1380—1408', Forschungen zur Osteuropaischen GeschkhU (1976), 23; P.
Bushkovich, 'The Formation of a National Consciousness in Early Modern Russia',
Harvard Ukrainian Studies, X, 3—4 (1986); M. Cherniavsky, 'Russia', in O. Ranum (ed.),
Motional Consciousness, History and Political Culture in Early Modem Europe (Baltimore, 1975); J-
Cracraft, 'Empire versus Nation: Russian Political Theory under Peter I', Harvard Ukrainian
Studies, X, 3-4) (1986).
4
R. S. Wortman, Scenarios of Power, Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, vol. I
(Princeton 1995).
5
D. C. B. Lieven, Russia's Rulers under the Old Regime (Yale University Press, New Haven,
1989), chs. 2, 3, 4, 5.
 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET IDENTITIES 255

Russians. Subsequently the growth of a Russian middle class and of

Russian nationalism contributed to making the imperial polity and its
ruling elites more ethnically and culturally Russian. Whereas at the
beginning of the nineteendi century non-Russian elites found it easy to
combine allegiance to their own cultures with identification with the
Russian imperial polity, this was becoming harder by 1914. Nevertheless,
in wide sections of the non-Russian aristocracy loyalty to the Russian
dynasty, pride in die Russian army, and consciousness of historical links
between family and state remained important, as did solidarity between
these elites and the tsarist state in defence of property, privilege and
culture in the face of threatened social revolution.6
To what extent if any, die bulk of the Russian population identified
widi die tsarist polity is difficult to say. For most of tsarist history die
masses were bodi illiterate and discouraged from expressing political
opinions. As in odier early modern European states die power and
wealdi of die royal-aristocratic polity was largely based on die exploi-
tation of die peasantry.7 In die Russian case serfdom was particularly
arbitrary and brutal, as well as having been imposed relatively late on
a previously free peasantry. From die late seventeendi century in Russia,
as elsewhere in Europe, a gulf opened up between elites who understood
die world in increasingly scientific and rational terms, and masses
whose cosmology was still religious and magical.8 In Russia, however,
die elites remained relatively smaller and dieir partial adoption of
Western clodies, languages, cultures and values may have made diem
seem even more alien from die bulk of die population dian was true
elsewhere.9 Even in 1914, let alone before 1861, it is certainly wrong to
see die tsarist empire as dominated by die Russian nation. Widiin die
Russian community die gulf between elite and mass in terms of power,
culture and consciousness makes use of die term 'nation', widi its
connotations of civic equality or at least spiritual solidarity, distincdy
dubious. The sense of national pride and identity which Russian
literature had developed in die intelligentsia was by definition mean-
ingless to a peasantry barely, if at all, literate. Russian peasants were
certainly not privileged in comparison to dieir un-Russian peers, indeed

6
On the tsarist ruling elites see B. Meehan-Waters, Autocracy and Aristocracy. The Russian
Service Elite 0/1730 (Rutgers, 1982); J. LeDonne, 'Ruling Families in the Russian Political
Order 1689-1825', Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique, XXVIII, 3-4 (1987); D. Iieven,
'The Russian Civil Service under Nicholas II: Some Variations on the Bureaucratic
Theme'', JahrbucherJUr Geschkhte Osteuropas, 29 (1981), 3. For non-Russian elites' relationship
with the imperial polity see A. Kappeler, Russland als Vtebo'lkarekh (Munich, 1993).
'But see a very interesting short essay by Steven Hoch, 'The Serg Economy and the
Social Order in Russia', in M. Bush (ed.), Serfdom and Slavery (London, 1996).
8
E. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen (Stanford, 1976), especially ch. 29.
'The classic statement on this was by A. von Haxthausen, The Russian Empire. Its
People, Institutions and Resources (London, 1968), vol. II, p . 185.
256 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

if anything quite the opposite. During the eighteenth century in the

Volga region, for instance, Russian peasants could be the serfs of Tatar
nobles and were subject to military conscription. Tatar peasants enjoyed
me much less burdensome status of state peasants and were free from
service in die army.10
Tsarist history therefore offered ample reason why die bulk of die
Russian population should fail to identify with the dynastic state.
This became very important in die early twentiedi century when
revolutionary movements began to mobilise die masses behind alter-
native political conceptions. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to read
1917 back throughout die whole of Russian history or to deny diat for
much of tsarism's existence die monarchy had a considerable hold on
die imagination and loyalty of die peasantry."
The case of die army as a source of mass identification widi die
polity is more ambiguous. Russian peasants dreaded conscription into
die long-service regular army diat existed from Petrine days to 1874.
Ripped away forever from dieir families and villages, shock and ill-
treatment resulted in die deadi of a large percentage of die new
conscripts even before diey reached dieir regiments. Conditions of
service were harsh, medical services before die nineteendi century, for
instance, being non-existent. And yet, as die French emigre General
Langeron commented, diis army, whose conditions of service ought to
have made it die worst in Old Regime Europe, was in fact probably
die best. Among die explanations for diis cited by contemporaries were
die unique (for die times) edinic homogeneity of die army and die
strong national loyalties of die soldiers. Certainly no observer ever
questioned die deep sense of identification of soldiers widi dieir regi-
ments, widi some of dieir commanders, widi die Orthodox Church
and widi dieir monarchs. The astonishing morale and capacity for self-
sacrifice shown by Russian soldiers and sailors on so many occasions is
inexplicable unless such factors are invoked. Moreover, aldiough die
rank and file of die pre-1874 armed forces were to a considerable extent
divorced from civilian society, it is inconceivable mat die loyal and
often heroic service of literally millions of ordinary Russian men had
no impact on die masses' political identity in die eighteendi and
nineteendi centuries. Heroes such as Suvorov and Rumyantsev, great
patriotic dramas such as 1812 and die defence of Sevastopol, must have
left dieir mark at die time and certainly provided great potential for

10
O n Russians and Tatars, see A. Kappeler, Russlands Erste .Nationalitatm. Das ^arenreich
und die Vtilker der Mittleren Volga von 16 bis 19 Jahrhundert (Cologne, 1982).
" M. Cherniavsky, Tsar and Peopk. Studies in Russian Myths (New York, 1969); M. Perrie,
Pretenders and Popular Monarchism in Early Modem Russia (Cambridge, 1995). For a sceptical
view, D. Field, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar (Boston, 1976).
 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET IDENTITIES 257
12
later exploitation by nationalist politicians and intellectuals.
Behind both dynasty and army stood the Orthodox Church, which
undoubtedly played the greatest role in creating a sense of unique
national identity and community among the Russians, and in legit-
imising the dynastic polity with which the church was fused. Orthodox
rituals, music, icons and belief became intertwined with every aspect
of the masses' existence and of their conceptions. Surrounded by
Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and pagans, the Russian sense of unique
identity rooted in Orthodoxy is unsurprising. Nevertheless although the
church was far better placed than any odier force to fuse political
(rossiyskiy) and cultural (russlriy) national identity, it nevertheless suffered
some weaknesses in this respect. The closeness of state and church
meant that die latter inevitably suffered as tsarism's legitimacy declined
after 1861. After Peter I's ecclesiastical reforms the church could never
generate an autonomous leadership or political voice, which contributed
to its helplessness when tsarism collapsed in 1917. Compared to its
Ottoman rival one great strength of die early-modern Russian state
was its success in overcoming religious conservatism and in adopting
European technologies and values. One price paid, however, was a
split in the Orthodox community, many of whose most active and
fervent members defected to die various traditionalist Old Believer
sects. In time too the Europeanised Russian elites often became
increasingly dissatisfied with a church which rejected most aspects of
European modernity. The defection of much of educated Russia to
rival religions or adieism further weakened the national church and
dierefore die Russian polity and society as well.'3
In die nineteendi century there emerged a number of political
movements which stressed die gap between state and people, and
emphasised to an increasing degree mat die latter alone embodied die
true Russia worthy of service by patriots. Ironically, die Slavophile
movement of die 1840s, which played a key role in launching diis
tradition, was in many ways deeply conservative and was led by mosdy
wealdiy land-owning nobles drawn from die top ranks of Muscovite
society. To some extent Slavophilism reflected a split often found in early
modern European society between 'court' and 'country'. Muscovite
Slavophile aristocrats were asserting a claim as spokesmen for die
audientically Russian land and people against a cosmopolitan, alien
and impersonal Petersburg court and bureaucracy, which had litde
12
On the army, its morale, and the role of ethnic homogeneity see W. Fuller, Strategy
and Power in Russia 1600-1914 (New York, 1992), esp. Ch. 3, and C. Duffy, Russia's Military
Way to the West. Origins and Nature of Russian Military Power (London, 1981). In ch. V I of his
splendid When Russia Learned to Read (Princeton, 1985) J. Brooks barely mentions the
army's impact on popular consciousness.
'3 These themes are covered in G. Hosking, Russia, People and Empire (London, 1997).
258 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

concern for truly Russian values and interests. But, in tune with ideas
current in a Romantic and nationalist age, they identified the peasantry,
its culture, and its sense of instinctive collectivism and solidarity, as the
essence of true Russianness. The Slavophiles were never hostile to the
monarchy, let alone the Orthodox Church, and their heirs in the 1860s
and later to some extent forged an alliance with die state rooted in
support of a foreign policy which would defend Russian power and
prestige, and 'protect' Slav interests.'4
Nevertheless a certain degree of distrust and tension remained
between the state on the one hand, and this core element in conservative
Russian nationalism on the other. To some extent diis merely reflected
die fact diat die tsarist state after 1861 was too weak to pursue
victoriously an expansionist and glorious foreign policy capable of
winning die elites' allegiance in Bismarckian style. Conscious of diis
fact, die state was deeply scared by nationalist, Pan Slav pressure which
might expose it to dangerous conflicts widi foreign powers. In addition,
die survival of autocracy and die absence therefore of any formal
controls over government by public opinion and social elites made it
impossible to generate a sense of citizenship and civic nationhood, or a
firm confidence diat die state embodied society's values and aspirations.
Public opinion's hysteria about 'dark forces' and treason in court circles
during die Great War owed somediing to diese factors.'5
The Slavophiles' stress on die peasantry as die bearers of a collectivist
and essentially Russian identity was taken up by die early Russian
socialists in die 1860s. Much of die Russian socialist tradition was in a
sense deeply nationalist. Most of die 1860s and 1870s socialists and
many of their twentiedi-century heirs idealised die Russian peasantry
(narod/volk), believed in its uniquely collectivist and egalitarian morality,
and stressed diat Russia would find its own padi to modernity dirough
socialism. Unlike die Slavophiles, however, die socialists totally rejected
die monarchy, church and even army, denying diem any legitimate
role as constituent elements or defenders of Russian identity.'6
The competition between die tsarist regime and its radical opponents
to define a legitimate Russian identity was complicated by die fact diat
nineteendi-century Russia was no longer an edinically homogeneous
community but instead a multi-edinic empire. Aldiough, however, die
1897 census showed diat roughly 46 per cent of die empire's population

14
On the Slavophiles the best place to start is A. Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy
(Oxford, 1975). On the social history of the early Slavophiles see also M. Hughes,
'Independent Gentlemen: the Social Position of the Moscow Slavophiles and Its Impact
on their Political Thought', Slavonic and East European Review (1993), 71.
15
See ch. 8 of D. Lieven, Huholns II. Emperor of all the Russians (London, 1993).
l6
F. Venturi, Roots of Revolution (Chicago, 1983), remains the best introduction to this
theme.
 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET IDENTITIES 259

were Great Russians, the significance of this fact was a cause for some
debate. Roughly 20 per cent of the population were Ukrainians and
Belorussians, whom not only the regime but also most of its liberal
opponents saw as offshoots of die Russian tribe, with whom diey were
said to have a common religion and language of high culture. When
one considered two-thirds of the population to be Russian, discounted
many Muslims and most nomads as too primitive to matter, and
believed that the smaller Christian peoples had little alternative but to
prefer Russian dominion to that of the rival German and Ottoman
empires, it was relatively easy to believe that, given sufficient deter-
mination by the government, most of die Russian Empire could be
transformed into something approximating to a nation-state.'7
Important factors existed to sustain this view. As Russian educated
society grew in size and nationalism took a greater hold on European
public opinion, pressure mounted to make the polity less cosmopolitan
and aristocratic, and more clearly Russian in cultural terms and in its
leading personnel. A small but symptomatic example of this comes
from the world of music in the Petersburg of the 1860s and 1870s.
Traditionally, the court and high society had patronised foreign music
and musicians. The assault by the 'Mighty Five' on diis tradition
dierefore combined personal ambition and outraged national feeling in
a manner very familiar to historians of nationalism.'8 Of more obvious
political significance was the growing belief among sections of an
increasingly professional and ethnically Russian bureaucracy that
Russian economic power, religion, language and culture should be
encouraged to dominate as much as possible of the empire, and
particularly the Western Borderlands inhabited by east Slavs.
There were also strong prudential reasons for attempting to con-
solidate the empire around its Russian edinic core. Everywhere in
Europe, as dramatic changes in education, communications and com-
merce undermined traditional local loyalties and widened horizons,
nationalism appeared to be a means to re-integrate society and provide
it widi common loyalties and values. Conservatives noted the successes
of Bismarck and Disraeli in mobilising mass nationalism to defend
existing elites and institutions against die radical and socialist challenge.

''The literature on this theme is already immense and interest in nationalities' issues
since the break-up of the USSR ensures its exponential growth. Kappeler, Russland ah
VuhoUterreich, remains the best overall study but three recent works well deserve attention:
T. R. Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia (De Kalb, 1996). O. Andriewsky, The
Politics ofNational Identity: the Ukrainian Question in Russia 1904-12 (Harvard Ph.D., 1991): W.
Rodkiewicz, Russian Nationality Policy in the Western Provinces of the Empire during the Reign of
Nicholas II, 1894-1005 (Harvard, Ph.D., 1996).
18
A very inadequate summary of R. C. Ridenour Nationalism, Modernism, and Personal
Rivalry in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Bloomington, 1981).
260 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Statesmen could not ignore the impact of nationalism on states' viability

and power. The nation-state appeared to be the wave of the future.
Germany and Italy overcame resistance to unification. Britain and
Germany, both perceived as nation-states, became Europe's greatest
powers by 1900. Meanwhile polyglot empires such as Turkey and
Austria seemed doomed to weakness and probable dissolution. The
greatest single issue facing the Russian state by 1900 seemed to be
whether she would become one of the world's leading, dynamic polities
along widi Britain and Germany, or whether she would decline and
ultimately fall along with die other polyglot empires of her day. The
answer to this question seemed to revolve, in part anyway, around the
extent to which die regime could create a homogeneous national
community and legitimise itself in its eyes.'9
Nevertheless diere were always many Russian statesmen who pointed
to die impossibility of russianising most of die non-Slav population,
particularly when it already possessed a high culture of its own, and
who warned of die dire political consequences of attempting to do so.
In 1914 the dilemmas of Russian and imperial identity were very far
from being resolved, even in die minds of tsarist statesmen. Moreover,
diese dilemmas could only worsen as previously illiterate peasants and
nomads acquired die new consciousness mat education and urbanisation
would entail, and as die state attempted to penetrate more deeply into
society widi programmes of, for example, compulsory education for
all.20
It is instructive to compare English and Russian national and imperial
identities on die eve of 1914. At diat time die two empires were die
largest in die world and bodi embodied Europe's immense expansion
at die expense of die non-Christian continents. In bodi cases dieir
peripheral position within Europe had gready facilitated expansion
beyond its borders. A large question mark stood against die survival of
bodi empires by 1914, however. Long-term viability depended above
all on die extension and consolidation of Russian and British national
identity well beyond die limits of England and Great Russia. For die
tsarist regime die greatest challenge was to ensure the russianisation of
Ukraine and Belorussia. For die English it was to create a genuine
British Federation of die White dominions and to defuse the challenge
of Irish nationalism at die empire's core. The greatest obvious difference

19
See e.g. P. B. Struve's writings before 1914: 'Otryvki o gosudarstvei natsii,' (Russkaya
Mys?, May 1908) and a further article on the same theme in December 1914: Collected
Works, vol. VQ, pp. 187-98 No. 360 and vol. XI, pp. 176-80, University Microfilms,
•97O-
20
1 tackle these issues in much greater detail (and with a large bibliography) in my
forthcoming article in the Journal of Contemporary History entitled 'Dilemmas of Empire
1850-1918. Power, Territory, Identity'.
 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET IDENTITIES 261

between the two empires was that the Russian imperial polity was a
homogeneous land mass and therefore much easier to defend and
consolidate than its British maritime rival, which was scattered across
the oceans. The often terrifying sea voyage which had accompanied
emigration and the radically different natural environment which
confronted the colonist also contributed to a sense of distance and
separateness from the metropolis which the Russian colonist was
unlikely to feel to any similar degree. For him it would be hard to say
where Russia ended and empire began as he continued his ancestors'
age-old pattern of migration across the Steppe. Only perhaps when he
reached the Tauride peninsula, the Caucausus mountains and the
ancient cities of Central Asia was he confronted with totally dissimilar
societies on a par to those subjected by British imperialism.21
Nevertheless, particularly where identities are concerned, by far the
greatest difference between the two empires was rooted not in geography
but in politics. English seventeenth-century colonialism was founded
on the principle of colonial self-government, a principle which was
strongly reasserted in the Victorian era. In general a clear constitutional
and institutional distinction was made between the United Kingdom
on the one hand and the overseas' colonies on the other. The one
exception, Ireland, showed the huge difficulties involved in attempting
to assimilate a colony into the imperial metropolis, particularly where
the metropolitan polity was a liberal, and later democratic, one. By
keeping empire and metropolis apart the British avoided the Roman
trap of allowing republican institutions of self-government to be per-
verted by the despotic imperatives of empire. But the self-governing
institutions they conceded to dieir White dominions played a huge role
in facilitating the creation, articulation and effective defence of a
separate colonial, and subsequently national, identity divorced from
Britain.
Russian colonists outside the Great Russian heartland, like their
British equivalents, created societies and cultures distinctly different to
what they had left behind. The egalitarian and anarchic Cossack
communities of die sixteenth and seventeendi centuries were far
removed from the world of autocratic and serf-owning tsarist Russia.
Had these autonomous Cossack communities survived, one can well

" For further comparisons between Russian and, inter alia, English empire see my 'The
Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as Imperial Polities', Journal of Contemporary History,
30, 4 (1995) and my forthcoming Empire and Russia. As regards the impact on Russian
consciousness of imperial conquests two recent English-language books are Y. Slezkine,
Arctic Mirrors. Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, 1994) and S. Layton, Russian
Literature and Empire. Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy (Cambridge, 1994). In
this context Layton's book is inevitably more useful, since the Caucasus made a vastly
greater impact on the Russian imagination than was the case with the Siberian natives.
262 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

imagine a separate Cossack political identity being developed on the

basis of 'frontier myths'. Indeed to some extent Taras Shevchenko did
precisely diis when he attempted to articulate a separate Ukrainian
identity by defining it against the despotic Russian tsardom and as
the legitimate descendant of Cossack democracy. In Siberia too, the
regionalist movement that grew up in the second half of the nineteenth
century stressed that a new community had developed in Russian Asia:
free from serfdom and nobles, and subjected to a uniquely harsh natural
environment, the Siberians had become different to the metropolitan
Russians, a process aided by inter-marriage with the natives. In both
the Siberian and the Cossack case, however, any prospect of a separate
political identity's development was nipped in the bud by the tsarist
regime, which crushed any attempts to develop such an identity and
rejected any institutions of regional self-government. One result of this
is that Siberia and the former Cossack territories remained Russian
long after Australia, to take but one example, was no longer British.
But the Russian determination to retain and assimilate farflungimperial
conquests within a centralised, unitary polity undoubtedly contributed
to the weakness of liberty and democracy within the Great Russian
core.22
When the empire went to war the Russians were obviously not a
nation, if by nation one means a body of citizens bound together by
democratic rights and liberties, and by a sense of shared interests,
values and community. Events in the revolutionary years suggest that
for the peasantry, still the overwhelming mass of the population,
die legitimate political community encompassed die village and narod
(people), widi litde place for die cities or the traditional rural elite.23
As regards imperial consciousness, much depends on definitions. If
one means a sense of racial and cultural superiority over subject peoples,
no Russian of any sense was likely to have such an attitude towards
die non-Russian but European peoples of die empire, who were not
merely White but also very often richer and more cultured dian die

" On the Cossacks the English-speaking reader must rely on P. Longworth, The Cossacks
(London, 1969) for a survey, which should be supplemented by H. Stockl, Die Entstehwtg
des Kosakentums. On Siberia the place to start is chapter 1 of A. Wood (ed.), The History of
Siberia. From Russian Conquest to Revolution (London, 1991). O n the regionalists, see S.
Watrous, 'The Regionalist Conception of Siberia, 1860-1920', ch. 7 in G. Diment and
Y. Slezkine (eds.), Between Heaven and Hell. The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture (New York,
1993) and W. Faust, Russlands Goldener Boden. Der Sibirische Regwnalismus in der zweiten. Hdlfte
des ig Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1980).
23
O n this huge and difficult subject O . Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga
Countryside in Revolution (1917-1921) (Oxford, 1989), is excellent. See also the essays by
Gorky and Chayanov in R. E. F. Smith (ed.), The Russian Peasant igzo and 1984 (London,
1977)-
 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET IDENTITIES 263
24
Russians themselves. On the contrary, the empire's rulers were if
anything exaggeratedly conscious of Russians' inferiority in culture,
education and enterprise and were obsessed by the need for the state
to make up for their 'natural' inferiority by policies favouring ethnic
Russians.25
Traditionally the Russian elites had intermarried with the aris-
tocracies of the Tatar Khanates and the Caucasus, readily assimilating
diem into the tsarist ruling class so long as, in time, diey converted
from Islam to Orthodoxy. Widi cultural Westernisation and die vastly
enhanced power that technology brought to European states and armies
in die nineteenth century there came also, however, a sense of cultural
arrogance and civilising mission, at least among the educated classes.
Foreign observers noted, however, diat Russian peasants and soldiers
in central and east Asia had very litde of the racial arrogance or sense
of inherent superiority to natives which was so marked a feature,
especially, of North European Protestants in die colonies.26
If, however, by imperial consciousness one merely means a com-
mitment to Russia's position as a great power and to its retention of its
imperial borders dien clearly not merely the tsarist regime but also die
entire liberal opposition and most of middle and lower-middle class
Russia fall widiin this category. The collapse in die masses' commitment
to die war effort in 1917 suggests diat imperial consciousness was less
widespread in die lower classes dian among the elites. In die pre-war
decades die tsarist state had lacked the resources, cadres or confidence
to attempt to indoctrinate die masses in imperialist and nationalist
beliefs, along British or German lines. The sharp antagonism between
die regime and much of educated society inevitably deterred such
efforts and weakened tiieir impact when diey were made.27
Despite the radical and traumatic changes which occurred in Russia
between 1917 and 1921, die Russian polity emerged from diese years
still in possession of almost all its previous imperial territories. One
important reason for tiiis was diat tsansm's resolute policy of obstructing
die growth of indigenous Ukrainian elites and institutions played a key

'* See e.g. the comments of Alexsei Kuropatkin, the Minister of War and a great
nationalist, on visiting the Baltic provinces in 1903: p. 7 in Dnemik A.M. Kuropathna,
(Nizhpoligraph, N. Novgorod, 1923).
25
Weeks, Nation, and Rodkiewicz, Russian, both stress this point as do experts on
Russian policy towards the Jews. See chs. 2 and 3 of H. Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-
Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (London, 1986) and J. D. Klier, Imperial Russia's Jewish
Question 1855-81 (Cambridge, 1995).
a6
R. Quested, 'Matey' Imperialists. The Tsarist Russians in Manchuria i8gf)-igiy (Hong
Kong, 1987) is usefully compared widi Susan Layton's work on an earlier era and region,
though a little caution is required given the differences between Layton's literary sources
and those deployed by Quested.
27
See my comments in ch. 8 of Iieven, Mcholas II (London, 1993).
264 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

role in wrecking efforts in 1917-19 to create an independent Ukrainian

nation state. Without Ukraine's grain, coal and heavy industry a post-
revolutionary Russia would have been so severely weakened that its
ability quickly to reassert itself as a great power would have been
questionable. In demographic terms too, then as now, a Russian-
dominated imperial polity from which Ukraine was excluded would
have rested on an inherently unstable balance between Great Russians
on the one hand and Moslem peoples on the other. The re-absorption
of Ukraine by Soviet Russia was dierefore crucial. Ultimately, however,
the Russians—tsarist and Soviet—were not the most decisive element
in making this re-absorption possible. The 'independence' of Ukraine,
as indeed of most of Russia's European and Caucasian borderlands,
could only be sustained under German protection and required the
survival of the Brest-Iitovsk treaty. American intervention in the Great
War and the consequent defeat of Germany doomed the Brest-Iitovsk
settlement and with it Ukraine's prospects for independent statehood,
albeit one constrained by any Ukrainian government's domestic weak-
ness and its inevitably very unequal relationship with Berlin.28
The revolution of 1917 destroyed or crippled all the traditional
symbols and bearers of Russian identity. The monarchy was abolished,
the Romanovs exterminated or forced to flee abroad. The church was
disestablished, reduced to a minimal sacramental role, banned from
educating children, and saw many of the clergy murdered.29 The new
regime defined itself against religion and most aspects of the Christian
world-view. An army of sorts survived but all continuity with its tsarist
predecessor and Russia's military heritage was, for the moment, rejected.
Even the old radical glorification of peasant institutions and values as
the essence of Russianness was now anathema to new rulers who
stressed science and rationality and whose roots lay internally in urban
Russia. The old bogeymen against which Russian nationalism had
defined itself in the tsarist era—the foreign (eg German) threat and the
internal enemy (especially the Jews)—were now rehabilitated by a
regime that proclaimed its internationalism. Class not nation was to be
the true focus of loyalty and identity. The Bolshevik elite contained
many non-Russians, and especially Jews. Great Russian nationalism,

28
On Ukrainian elites see e.g. ch. 1 of B. Krawchenko, Social Change and National
Consciousness in Twentieth-Century Ukraine (London, 1985) and A. Kappeler, 'A "Small
People" of Twenty-Five Million: the Ukrainians circa 1900', Journal of Ukrainian Studies,
18, 1-2 (1993). On Germany, see O. S. Fedyshyn, Germany's Drive to the East and the Ukrainian
Revolution, igiy-igi8 (New Brunswick, 1971).
19
On the treatment of the church see e.g. J. Daly, ' "Storming the Last Citadel". The
Boshevik Assault on the Church, 1922', in V. N. Brovkin (ed.), The Bolsheviks in Russian
Society (New Haven, 1997).
 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET IDENTITIES 265

denounced as a pillar of tsarism and of the White counter-revolution,

became a cardinal sin.
Nevertheless, the fact that the first socialist revolution and polity had
come into being on Russian soil was a powerful potential source of
national pride and of legitimacy for the new regime in Russian eyes.
In its last decades tsarist Russia had suffered from being one of the
most backward and least successful of the great powers. Educated
Russians made insidious comparisons between their country and the
rest of Europe, much to the detriment of tsarism's legitimacy. Now
suddenly, for many left-wing Europeans as well as Russians, Europe's
stepchild had become mankind's vanguard. A separate national path
to modernity had been the dream of many Russians, as indeed was
often the case in the post-1945 Third World. Escaping from the
constraints and humiliation of junior membership of an international
political economy controlled and defined by others had inherent
potential appeal to nationalists. like Sinn Fein and Mazzini's 'Italia
fara da se', Russia would cleave to her own path. Unlike them, she
would lead the world in her wake.30
In one sense therefore the revolution did carry powerful germs of an
imperial consciousness, but one defined less in terms of empire's
meaning in the twentieth century than by its place in Late Antiquity
and the early medieval world. As Arnold Toynbee among others was
quick to note, there were parallels between Soviet ideology and an
earlier era of would-be universal monarchies proclaiming a global
evangelical message in the tradition of dogmatic, monotheistic Judaism.
Such parallels are more fruitful man attempts to compare Soviet
thinking with the much more modest conceptions of tsarist foreign
policy, rooted in European orthodoxies of Realpolitik and balance of
power. Inter alia, reference to the would-be universal empires of the first
millennium AD provided a warning that, in time rival centres of
power would emerge within such empires, initially linked often to
disagreements over doctrine as well as to factional struggles, and that
these separate polities would quickly absorb much of the political
culture of the regions where they were based. Had communists come
to power in the wake of a successful German revolution after die First
World War, conflicts of interest, doctrine and power would quickly
have erupted between diem and the Bolshevik regime in Moscow, as
indeed happened as regards bom Yugoslavia and China in the post
1945 era. The hopes invested in the world socialist revolution as the
30
NB a comment by a delegate to the tenth Party Congress in 1921: 'The transformation
of Russia from a colony of Europe into the center of a world movement has rilled with
pride and with a special kind of Russian patriotism the hearts of all those who are
connected with the revolution'; by F. C. Barghoorn, Soviet Russian Nationalism (Oxford,
•956). P- 27-
266 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

answer to Russia's problems of security, isolation and backwardness

were among die most Utopian aspect of early Bolshevik minking.3'
In odier senses of die word empire it is harder to pin die term
'imperial' on die Bolsheviks. They diemselves understood 'imperialism'
in terms defined by Lenin and Bukharin, saw diemselves as leaders of
die anti-imperialist camp, and stoudy denied diat Soviet internal
arrangements had die least similarity to diose of empire. Since the
Soviet Union was not a capitalist country, it is obvious diat twentiedi-
century Marxist definitions of imperialism do not apply to it. Nor does
it make much sense to see the early Soviet regime as an embodiment
of Russian imperialism since die Bolsheviks had imposed diemselves
on die Russians in die same way diat diey later extended dieir rule to
non-Russians as well. Moreover, aldiough die basic principles of
nationalities policy under NEP, namely rule dirough indigenous leaders
and die encouragement of native cultures, were not uncommon even
in contemporary empires, die great stress the Bolsheviks put on mod-
ernising die non-Russian republics and raising diem to an economic
level equal to die polity's core was unique. On die otiier hand die
Bolsheviks showed diemselves determined to impose dieir rule wherever
they could safely do so, regardless of die wishes of non-Russian
majorities. The doctrine of die party as die vanguard of the working
class, which itself had die right to hegemony widiin society as a whole,
legitimised Moscow's rule in regions where the overwhelming majority
of die population was indifferent or hostile to die new regime.32
The consolidation of a distinctive Soviet identity was above all the
product of die Stalinist era. In principle die doctrine of socialism in
one country was an intelligent tactical response to geopolitical realities
and in no sense an abandonment of die goal of world revolution. In
fact, however, Stalinist society was designed to be monolidiic widiin
and isolated from die outside world. Terror was used against diose who
retained pre-Revolutionary memories and values (die old intelligentsia
in general and die Old Bolsheviks in particular), allegiances in die non-
Soviet world Jews, elites in Borderlands annexed in 1940) and even
Prisoners of War who had years of grim experience of die non-Soviet
paradise of Hider's empire. Infantile cultural xenophobia reached its
peak in die years immediately after 1945. At die price of vast suffering
and die permanent destruction of agriculture, collectivisation destroyed
die autonomous peasant world and brought die bulk of die population

31
See in particular vol. VII of A. J. Toynbee, A Study of History (Oxford, 1954). O n
empire in the first millennium, G. Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth. Consequences of
Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993), provokes many thoughts.
32
A Brewer, Marxist Theories of Imperialism. A Critical Survey (London, 1980) is a useful
introduction to this tradition of political thinking. Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet
Union (Cambridge, 1954), remains the best book on this subject.
 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET IDENTITIES 267

into the realm of Soviet values and culture. Huge mobility out of the
working class and peasantry not merely contributed greatly to the
regime's legitimacy but also created a new middle class which was the
true repository of the Soviet identity. Especially in its early decades this
middle class was vastly less cosmopolitan and less capable of comparing
Russia with die outside world dian was the case with die educated
classes in .the late imperial era. Its mentalities and values were much
closer to diose of die bulk of die population dian had been true in
tsarist times.33 Lenin was Soviet man's chief icon. Akhough die regime
in formal terms derived its legitimacy from the revolution, for die new
middle class dramatic industrial development between die 1930s and
196s, togedier widi die victory over Germany, were die true sources of
self-confidence and self-esteem. Soviet identity incorporated a world
view diat was resolutely optimistic, materialist and scientific, and which
gloried in man's conquest of nature. It incorporated too die many
unique landmarks and customs of life in a socialist society, including
not just die rhydims and imperatives of life under die Plan but also
die corresponding jargon. In certain ways, it is true, die Soviet identity
included some aspects of die pre-Revolutionary past. Universal literacy
combined widi Stalinist education's shift back to conservative principles
meant diat die masses could absorb die rich traditions of pre-rev-
olutionary literature, diereby acquiring access to a common Russian
identity in a way denied to dieir ancestors before 1917.34 Soviet
patriotism, created under Stalin, generated a sanitised, populist and
saccharine acceptance of some elements of Russian history, above all
in the military sphere. Soviet work styles and communal values owed
something to die old village culture. On die whole, however, die new
Soviet identity was rather far removed from die Russia eidier of die
villages or of the elites of tsarist days. By die 1980s die world of Old
Regime Russia was in every sense very far away.35
It is true diat by dien die Soviet identity was also facing challenges.
The regions annexed by Stalin in 1940 had and retained strong national
identities. Their incorporation in die USSR was a fatal mistake for
which die Soviet regime paid dearly in 1985-91, when democratisation
not merely allowed nationalists to come to power legally in diese regions
but also to act as a model for die odier, inherendy less anti-Soviet,
republics of die USSR. Even in die latter, however, it was clear by the

33
On the Stalinist middle class and its values see above all V. Dunham, In Stalin's Time.
34
S. Fitzpatrick, 'Culture and Politics under Stalin. A Reappraisal', Slavic Review June
1976), vol. 35, 2, pp. 211-32.
35
The literature on Stalinism is already immense and is certain to grow greatly, since
this is at present the main focus of Western research into Russian history. Of recent
works, Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain. Stalinism as a Civilisation (Berkley, 1995) is not
merely among the best but also comes closest to the theme of my article.
268 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

1970s and 1980s that ethnic nationalism was gaining ground at the
expense of identification with the Soviet Union. Within Russia the
younger generation diverged increasingly from the Soviet values of its
elders, and a current of Russian nationalist thought developed which
denounced the Soviet regime's destruction of church and village, joint
bearers of Russia's cultural identity and moral values. The Soviet
regime defined itself against the capitalist world which it promised to
surpass. It was therefore badly wounded by the failure of its predictions
about capitalism's demise and the growing gap between Western and
Soviet technology and living standards, which was fully evident to
members of die Soviet elite of die 1980s.36
Nevertheless die bulk of die Russian population was in no sense
prepared for die dramatic collapse of communism and of the Soviet
Union in 1991, which reduced die Russian polity overnight to its pre-
Petrine borders and made essential a search for edinic Russian symbols,
memories and institutions through which the new state might be
legitimised. The confusion and bewilderment which resulted was well
reflected in 1995 in die great parade to celebrate the fiftiedi anniversary
of victory over Nazi Germany. Russia's veterans marched in dieir old
Soviet uniforms, but diey did so under die command of serving officers
dressed in a new uniform, more tsarist dian Soviet and bearing die
double-headed eagle of the Romanovs on dieir caps. By contrast die
naval units which participated in the ceremony looked more Soviet
dian tsarist but marched under die flag of Saint Andrew, die standard
of die pre-Revolutionary fleet. Given Russia's immense sacrifices during
die Second World War, die parade was a highly emotional event. On
such occasions, music best captures, symbolises and heightens die
feelings of participants and observers alike. At die parade's climax it
would have been most appropriate to play the Soviet anthem but in
the political circumstances and widi Yeltsin present diis was impossible.
To play die current national andiem would have been meaningless,
since few could even recognise it. Instead it was decided to play that
great showpiece of Russian patriotism, Chaikovsky's 1812 symphony.
In Chaikovsky's original composition, to which after 1917 die rest of
die world adhered but die USSR did not, the climax of die 1812
symphony is the Russia Imperial hymn, God Save die Tsar. Whedier

36
O n the non-Russian nationalities, see G. Simon, Nationalism and Policy toward the
Nationalities in the Soviet Union (Boulder, 1991). O n Russia, J . Dunlop, The Faces of Contemporary
Russian Nationalism (Princeton, 1983), traces the rise of dissident Russian nationalism. R.
Szporluk is illuminating on the dilemmas faced by Russian nationalists contemplating
the USSR's demise: ch. 1, 'Imperial Legacy and the Soviet Nationalities Problem', in L.
Hajda and M . Beissinger (eds.) The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society (Westview,
Boulder, 1990). For a balanced over-all survey of the Soviet Union's position on the eve
of Perestroyka see P. Dibb, The Soviet Union: The Incomplete Superpower (London 1988).
 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL AND SOVIET IDENTITIES 269

because it was deemed inappropriate or because they simply possessed

a Soviet score the massed bands that day followed the Soviet tradition.
At the centre of this supremely national day and event there was
therefore, very symbolically, a void within a void. As regards Russia's
post-Soviet and post-Imperial political identity, diat void still very much
remains.37

37
1 watched the parade and commented on it for Canadian television.