The political economy of ethnic discourse in the Soviet Union

This dissertation examines Soviet theoretical and methodological perspectives on ethnicity; the impact of political and economic policies on the study of ethnicity in the Soviet Union; and the impact of these policies on Soviet nationalities. In order to ground the theoretical discussions of ethnicity, I examine nationalities policy among two ethnic groups: the Chukchi and Asiatic Eskimo of the Soviet Far North. The degree to which these people have been able to retain traditional forms of their herding and hunting economies is seen, by both the state and the peoples themselves, as having a serious impact on the ability of groups to maintain their ethnic identity and cultural autonomy. In Soviet research and politics there is no doubt that ethnicity is a very real force which can have a dramatic impact on economic, political, and cultural processes, and as such is not a concept to be dealt with only in theoretical discussions, but through practical policies applied to daily life as well. Marxist-Leninist theory has provided a common framework for both the state and ethnography. The role of ethnographers has been to strengthen Marxist-Leninist theory in these areas where it is most deficient and to aid in the implementation of policy by providing information and an understanding of the peoples and cultures to which policy is directed in the Soviet Union. While development policies have varied to take into account the wide range of social and economic conditions of the minorities, all peoples and cultures have eventually been fit into the bureaucratic structure of the Soviet state. The problem of ethnicity will be examined in this dissertation at two levels. The first level is that of theory, and looks at how the Soviets approach ethnicity as a field of study, and how it fits into their world-view. The second level is that of how nationalities policies, which attempt to integrate Marxist-Leninist theory with the realities of social, economic and political life in the multinational Soviet Union, have been implemented in the Soviet Far North