1928-1941 - Stalin's Impact on National Minorities

• Stalin was less tolerant of national minorities than Lenin.
• As he was from a Georgian background, it is likely that Stalin felt the need to constantly prove himself.
• Stalin's instinct was always greater centralised control.
• Under Stalin, significant internal deportations were carried out in order to prevent large groups of national minorities being able to organise themselves in a particular area to oppose the regime.
• Large numbers of Finns and Poles were deported from eastern areas of Belarus and Ukraine.
• In 1937, Koreans were deported from the east of the USSR and Kurds from the Caucasus.
• As war approached, more Poles, Germans and Romanians were deported from the western edges of the USSR.
• It can be argued that the famine of 1932-34 was partially created by Stalin's determination to crush any separatism in areas such as Ukraine.
• Due to starvation, Ukrainian nationalism was unlikely to pose a threat to Stalin during the 1930s.
• Stalin even refused foreign aid to help Ukraine.
• Due to the famine, many Ukrainians did little to help resist the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941.
• As the prospect of war increased, Soviet propaganda was increasingly focused on a nationalistic Russian message.
• Stalin was depicted as a potential war leader, following in the footsteps of other great Russian leaders.
• Expressions of non-Russian identity were less tolerated.
• In the Great Terror, there were many victims from the national minority areas who were deemed not loyal enough.
• Learning Russian became compulsory in 1938 in all schools across the USSR.
• Anti-Semitism also rose in the 1930s.
• The collectivisation drive and campaign against the kulaks was often accompanies by anti-Semitic rhetoric in areas with a significantly rural Jewish population.
• When the USSR invaded and took over eastern Poland in 1939, 2 million more Jews came under Soviet control.
• Many rabbis and Jewish religious leaders were arrested in the aftermath of the 1939 Polish invasion.
• Jews were also deported from Poland to the East.