Pan-Slavism and World War II
Author(s): Hans Kohn
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Sep., 1952), pp. 699-722
Published by: American Political Science Association
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PAN-SLAVISM AND WORLD WAR II
HANS KOHN
College of the City of New York
In spite oflaterclaimsthat it had been theleader ofthe anti-fascistcamp and
ofthe Slav worldfromthe beginningofthesecondWorldWar,the Soviet Union
followed a strictlyRussian policy, neither anti-fascistnor Pan-Slav, from
August, 1939, to June, 1941. This policy clearly foreshadoweda nationalist
revival of the language and aspirationsthat had been most characteristicof
Old Russia but wereassumed to have been definitely
buriedin the ten Novem1917
which
ber days of
shookthe world.Duringthesetwoyearsnotthe slightest
under German occupation was
sympathyfor the Czechs and Poles suffering
expressed. Indeed, although Leninist communismduringWorld War I had
conducteda violentdefeatistpropaganda compaignin bothwarringcamps,the
subversivecommunistpropaganda that was resumedin 1939 was directedonly
against the democratic nations. "Moreover, officially,even ostentatiously,
help was grantedto the camp of fascismso that, from1939 to 1941, the Soviet
Union could be considereda non-belligerent
partneroftheAxis. Fromthepolicy
of benevolent neutralitytowards the Axis the Soviet Union was removed
against its will. Circumstancesmade it an ally of the democracies.This change
was performed
reluctantly,onlybecause no otherchoicewas left."'
The communistleadershipwas convincedeven as late as May, 1941, that
its policy of neutralitywould safeguardRussia's peace,2but in January,1945,
the same leadershipboasted of having "always" correctlyforeseenthe course
of events,as well as of being alone able to recognizehow and whitherevents
must develop in the future.3In any event,in his reportto the Moscow Soviet
on November 6, 1941, Stalin rightlyaccused the German invaders of having
"perfidiously
attacked our peace-lovingcountry."4Clearlyagainst its foresight
and will, the Soviet leadershipwas forcedto enter,not a war forproletarian
revolution,social justice, or democracy,but a "war of national liberation" a
1 N. S. Timasheff,
"Four Phases of Russian Internationalism,"Thought,
Vol. 20, p. 47
(March, 1945). In 1927, at the FifteenthCongressof the Russian CommunistParty,
Stalin declared:"The revolutionin USSR is onlypart of the worldrevolution,its beginningand the base forits successfuladvance."
2 Bolshevik,
No. 10, pp. 1-2 (May, 1941).
-3 "Our Party is theoretically
equipped and unitedas no otherpartyon earthbecause
in its activityit leans on the Marxist-Leninist
theoryand mastersthe knowledgeof the
laws ofsocial development.The dutyofthe Partyand Sovietpersonnel. . . is unceasingly
to studythe theoryof Marx and Lenin,remembering
that it gives the Party the ability
to orientitselfin any circumstances,
to foreseethe courseof events,to understandthe
innerconnectionsof currentdevelopments,and to recognizenot only how and whether
eventsare now developing,but also how and whethertheymust developin the future"
(Bolshevik,No. 1, p. 10, Jan., 1945).
4 Stalin, 0 velikoiotechestvennoi
voineSovetskogo
Soyuza [On theGreatPatrioticWar of
theSovietUnion],5th ed. (Moscow, 1946), p. 17. See also, fromhis radioaddressofJuly3,
1941: "Germanysuddenlyand treacherouslyviolated the non-aggression
pact of 1939"
(p. 10).
699
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"great patrioticwar," the title previouslygiven by the Russians to the war of
1812. In his reportto the Moscow Soviet, Stalin accordinglyused words not
heard officiallysince the "Great October Socialist Revolution," the twentyfourthanniversaryof which he was celebrating.Hitler, he said, was out to
"exterminatethe Slav peoples, the Russians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Ukrainians,and Byelo-Russians."The Nazis had the audacity "to call for
the annihilationofthegreatRussian nation,the nationofPlekhanovand Lenin,
Pushkinand Tolstoi, Glinka and Tschaikovsky,
Belinskyand Chernyshevsky,
Gorkyand Chekhov,Sechenov and Pavlov, Repin and Surikov,Suvorov and
Kutuzov." And in his address to the Red ArmyParade the next day, Stalin
called upon Soviet soldiersto let themselvesbe inspiredin this war by "the
manly images of our great ancestors-Alexander Nevsky, Dmitri Donskoi,
Kuzma Minin, Dmitri Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov, Mikhail Kutuzov."
The feudal saints of the Orthodox Church and the generals servingtsarist
reaction,all ofthemexclusivelyRussian, werethus proclaimedthe ancestorsof
the supernationalrevolutionaryRed Army.5
In the war yearsthemselvesthe Russian fatherlandcompletelyovershadowed
the Soviet fatherland. Traditional national values were restoredwithoutany
referenceeitherto class war or to the revolutionarystruggleand withoutany
regardforthe national feelingof the non-RussianSoviet nationalities.To the
nationalistheroes and warriorsof the past, everythingwas forgiven.At the
(1943), Prince Peter Bagration,
end of S. Golubov's novel GeneralJBagration
the general mortallywounded in the battle at Borodino, was presentedas
kissingthe Emperor'ssignatureon a letterofthanksjust broughtto him and as
dying with the words, "Soul and body alike and my blood to the last drop,
I give all to myfatherlandand to his Majesty's service."' Field Marshal Count
Ibid., pp. 26-28, 36. In his Order of the Day as National Commissar for Defense on
February 23, 1942, Stalin rightly emphasized that the policy of racial equality of the
USSR was a factor of strength in comparison to Hitler's racial policy (ibid., p. 42).
6 In November, 1941, the popular young poet Konstantin Simonov (see the article on
him by Elena Mikhailova in Soviet Literature, No. 8, pp. 46-49, Aug., 1946) wrote in a
famous poem to his friend Alexei Surkov: "I am proud of this dearest of countries, this
dear sad country that gave me my birth. I am proud that in Russia my life is to finish,
that the mother that bore me was Russian of race, that when seeing me off,in the old
Russian manner, she locked me three times in her loving embrace." And Surkov replied:
"In the midst of night and darkness we have carefullyborne before us the inextinguishable
flame of faith in our Russian, our native folk." A fervent Russian patriotism became the
theme of all the poems, short stories, novels, and plays, glorifyingthe "Holy Homeland"
(svyashchennayarodina). The general slogan was "za rodinu, za Stalina"-"for fatherland
and Stalin."
7 See Michael Karpovich, "Soviet Historical Novel," Russian Review, Vol. 5, pp. 5363 (Spring, 1946). This novel was translated into English by J. Fineberg under the title
of No Easy Victories (London, 1945). A number of other Russian war novels and biographies about historical heroes are available in English translations, among them S. SergeevTsensky, Brusilov's Break-Through (London, 1944); S. Borodin, Dmitri Donskoi, trans. E.
and C. Paul (London, 1944); Mikhail Bragin, Field Marshal Kutuzov (Moscow, 1944); K.
Osipov, Alexander Suvorov; A Biography, trans. E. Bone (London, 1944); and R. Wipper
(Robert Yuryevich Vipper), Ivan Grozny,trans. J. Fineberg (Moscow, 1947). In the last,
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AlexanderVasilyevichSuvorov (1729-1800), who cruellysubdued,on theTsar's
behalf,the peasant rebellionof Pugachev and thelast resistanceoffreePoland,
became the greatesthero of the communistyouth; even General Alexei Brussilov, who was appointed in May, 1917, commander-in-chief
of the Russian
Armywhichthe Bolsheviksdid everythingat the timeto undermine,was honoredby a greatwar noveland by the "deep respect"whichthe Red Armypaper,
Krasnaya zvesda,expressed on September3, 1943, for "the man who in the
stern years of the last war upheld with dignitythe honor and glory of the
Russian Army."
The Russian nationalismset loose by events did not confineitselfto a defensivepatriotism,the chauvinismofwhichmightbe explainedby the military
catastrophefacingthe country.It immediatelyasserteditselfin an aggressive
way. The annexationofeasternPoland, ofBessarabia, and ofpart ofBukovina
could be "justified"by nationalism,by the goal of unitingall Ukrainiansand
Byelo-Russians under the Soviet flag (though this unificationdeprived the
Soviet Ukrainiansofthat considerationwhichtheyhad receivedfromMoscow
when the Soviet Ukraine was yet to attract the "brothersby race" living in
Poland and Rumania). No similarjustificationexistedforthe annexationofthe
Baltic Republics, but, quite naturally,many Russian non-Bolsheviknationalists greetedthis step. People who had pleaded forthe independenceof the
Magyars or the Irish accepted the controlby Moscow of Transcaucasia, of
the Baltic coast, and of the Ukraine,as justifiedby Russian needs of security
and economy.8Understandably,meanwhilethe "Internationale"was abolished
as the national anthemof the Soviet Union; its expansivepromise"the Internationale unites the human race," did notringtrue in an atmospheresatiated
with gloryto Velikaya Rus, "the great Russia," as distinct fromthe rest of
mankind.And the daringchallengeto the self-relianceofthe masses, "Nobody
will bringus liberation,neithera Tsar, nor a God, nor a hero," became unacceptable in the era of VelikyStalin, "the great Stalin"-Tsar, God, and hero
to his people and, what no tsar had claimed,ofall "progressive"mankind.
In his electionspeech broadcast fromMoscow on February 9, 1946, Stalin
praisedthe "Soviet multinationalstate system"as havingsurvivedsuccessfully
the test of the war, because it was built on foundationspromotingthe-feeling
of friendshipand fraternalcollaborationbetween the various peoples of the
USSR. But in June,1941,the Soviet governmenthad thoughtitselfobligedto
apply against one of these peoples a "barbarous measure" which the tsarist
governmenthad long hesitated to decide upon. The victimswere those Germans who, in the later eighteenthcentury,had settled along the lowerVolga
and developeda prosperouscommunitythere.In 1916,two yearsafterthe outa historian of repute tried to save Ivan's reputation as a reformerand "progressive" military strategist against moralistic "liberal" considerations. The liberal historians, according
to Wipper, translated "the significant, and on the lips of Russians extremely majestic,
surname 'Grozny' by the vulgar words. . . 'Ivan the Terrible' " (pp. 233-234).
8 The Russian nationalist point of view was expressed, for example, in Walter Kolarz,
Stalin and Eternal Russia (London, 1944), pp. 48 if.
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break of World War I, the Russian governmenthad made up its mind to remove temporarilythe Volga Germans, but the March Revolution had intervened beforethe plan could be carriedout. After1917 Lenin singledout these
same Volga Germansforespeciallyfavorabletreatment.Their Oblast,the first
autonomousunit created by the communistgovernment(in July,1918), was
raised in 1924 to the status of an autonomousrepublicof the RSFSR. Their
city of Pokrovskwas renamedEngels and became the capital of the republic,
while theirotherlarge town, Katherinenstadt,named afterCatherineII who
settled the Germans there in 1764, was rebaptized Marxstadt.9However, in
June, 1941, Stalin apparently became convinced that the two decades of
Sovietlifeand educationwhichsupposedlyhad promotedthefraternal
solidarity
of peoples had been a failure.While Hitler'sarmieswerestillfaraway in western Russia, Stalin ordered,withoutany proofof collectivetreasonor any trial,
the permanentevictionand dispersionof the Volga Germans.Their autonomy
provedto be nothingbut a scrapofpaper. The regionwas clearedofall tracesof
German cultureand ruthlesslyRussified,with the cities unprotectedeven by
the names of Marx and Engels. Furthermore,
this policy of wholesaledestruction of culturaland politicalentityby the Bolsheviststhemselveswas not carriedthroughon a class basis, but purelyon a racial one.
was the case of fourMohammedan peoples in the
Only somewhatdifferent
Soviet Union. On December 17, 1917,a proclamationofthe new Soviet governmentsignedby Lenin and Stalin was addressedto the Moslems of Russia and
the East: "The rule of the robbersand enslaversof the peoples of the earth is
about to end-. . . A new worldis being born,a worldof workersand freemen
... Moslems of Russia, Tatars of the Volga and the Crimea, Kirgiz and Sarts
ofSiberia and Turkestan . .. Chechensand mountaineersofthe Caucasus-all
those whose mosques and chapels have been destroyed,whose beliefsand customs have been trampledunder foot by the Tsars and oppressorsof Russia.
Henceforthyour beliefsand customs,your national and culturalinstitutions,
are freeand inviolable. Build your national lifefreelyand unhindered."But
in 1943 and 1944, four of the Mohammedan autonomous Soviet states-the
Kalmyk ASSR, the Crimean Tartar ASSR, the Chechen-Ingush,and the
Karachayev autonomousregionsin thenorthernCaucasus-were removedcompletelyfromthe map and fromlife,the peoples transportedto unknownregions
in northernAsia, theirlanguageseradicated,theircitiesand villages renamed.
No tracewas leftofthesehistoriccommunities,and the lands wereresettledby
Russians.
No reasons were given forany of these nationalistexcesses,but apparently
all were based upon the assumptionof collectiveracial "guilt." And as the
Mohammedanterritories
werein factreachedby the Germanarmies,it can be
9 On the establishment of the autonomy of the Volga Germans, see Rudolf SchilzeMolkau, Die Grundzige des WolgadeutschenStaatswesens im Rahmen der russischen Nationalitdtenpolitik(Munich, 1931), and Manfred Langhans-Ratzeburg, Die Wolgadeutschen, ihr Staats- und Verwaltungsrecht
in Vergangenheitund Gegenwart,zugleich ein Beitrrag
zum bolschewistischenNationalitatenrecht(Berlin, 1929).
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assumed that parts of the populations did collaboratewiththe Germans. In
any case, manySoviet citizensofall nationalitieswentoverto the Germanside;
and degradaifHitlerhad followeda less beastlypolicyofhumanextermination
tion,the numberoftheelementsdisloyalto Stalinismprobablywouldhave been
muchlarger.As it was, Stalin apparentlybecame convincedthat he could count
only upon the support of the Great Russians, to whose emotionsthe annexations of the years 1939-1941 had appealed and among whom some began to
look upon him as the leader who would bring about both the Pan-Slav and
Pan-Asian expansionismof extremeRussian nationalistsand the utopia of
universal social justice of Slavophil messianists.
Conscious of the debt whichhe owed to the Great Russians, Stalin acknowledgedit publiclyin the toast withwhichhe concludedthe Kremlinbanquet for
the Red Armycommanderson May 24, 1945: "I should like to drinkto the
healthof ourSovietpeople-and firstof all to the health of the Russian people.
I drinkfirstof all to the health of the Russian people because it is the most
outstandingnation of all the nationsformingthe Soviet Union.... It has won
in thiswar universalrecognitionas the leadingforcein the Soviet Union among
all the peoples of our country.... The confidenceof the Russian people in the
Soviet governmentwas the decisive forcewhich ensured the historicvictory
over the enemyof mankind-fascism." The historicalsorrowsand triumphsof
Stalin's. Afterhe had attackedJapan
Russian imperialismbecame now officially
in August, 1945-breaking his pact of friendshipand nonaggressionof 1941
with Japan as treacherouslyas Hitler had broken his own with Stalin-he
celebratedthe quick victoryin a broadcast fromMoscow on September2, in
which he said: "The defeat of Russian troops in 1904 in the period of the
Russo-JapaneseWar leftgrave memoriesin the minds of our people. It was
a dark stain on our country.Our people trustedand awaited the day when
Japan would be routedand the stain wiped out. For fortyyears have we, men
ofthe oldergeneration,waitedforthisgeneration,waitedforthisday. And now
this day has come." This astonishingdeclaration,describingvictoryin a way
whichresembledso closely Mussolini's triumphin wipingout the stain of the
battle of Adua fortyyears later in the victoriouswar against Ethiopia, was a
completereversalof the officialattitudeof Russian Socialismin 1905-an attitude unalteredin highschool textbookspublishedin 1941,whichdeclaredthat
"Lenin and the Bolsheviksworkedforthe defeatof the tsaristgovernmentin
this predatoryand shamefulwar, because the defeatfacilitatedthe victoryof
the revolutionover tsarism." And in one of his leafletsagainst the RussoJapanese War, Comrade Stalin had written:"Let us wish that this war will
become a still greaterdisaster for the tsarist regimethan was the Crimean
War.... Then serfdomwas ended. Now, as a consequenceofthis war, we will
burythe child of serfdom,the tsaristregimewithit stinkingsecretpolice and
gendarmes."'0
10 The first quotation is from Istoriya SSSR, Vol. 3 (for the tenth grade), 2nd ed.
(Moscow, 1941), p. 29. The quotation regarding Stalin's attitude is from Lavrentii Pavlovich Beriya, K voprosu ob istorii bolshevistskikh
organizatsii v Zakavkazie [Concerningthe
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Thus when the Soviet Union after thirtyyears revived Russia's past, it
revivedthat past in its mostnationalistand-imperialistmood, whichhad never
beforebeen sanctifiedas officialpolicyand had always been resistedby strong
liberaland humanitariantrendsof thought.But the new Stalinistnationalism
did not shed the worldwideimplicationsand ambitions of Leninism; what
emerged was the "universal Russian monarchy" which the Czech historian
Palacki had dreaded in 1848, but withthe addition of a new kind of monarch
at its head, a man of the masses, a bearer of the social gospel endowed with
qualities of "genius" and "omniscience"such as no Russian rulerand no leader
of a people had ever claimed. It was only natural that in such an atmosphere
the ghostof Pan-Slavism rose again-not the liberalPan-Slavism of the WesternSlavs of 1848,but the Pan-SlavismofMoscow and ofthe Pan-Slav Congress
of 1867, a Pan-Slavism whichpreached the liberationof the otherSlavs from
alien influencesby the Russian people, a Pan-Slavism whichwas Pan-Russism.
The Chairmanof theCommissionon Credentialsof the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet, P. A. Sharia, as reportedby Izvestivaon March
Question of the History of the Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasiaj, 5th ed. (Moscow,
1939), p. 56. In the new edition of the Istoriya SSSR, published in 1946, the text has been
changed and Stalin's speech on September 2, 1945, after the victory over Japan is quoted
(Vol. 3, p. 45). The military technology of the tsarist army is blamed for its backwardness:
"In Port Arthur there was not even a wireless telegraph, though it had been invented in
1895 by A. S. Popov" (p. 29).
The spirit of invincibility under a better government than that of the tsars was expressed in a pamphlet by N. M. Korobkov, Mikhail Kutuzov (Moscow, 1945), written
especially for officers:"We are on the road to a new growth of the power of our country.
Prepared historically for great feats, our army and our new Stalinist military art surpass
everythingthat Russian history has ever known. But we do not forgetour great ancestors,
we do not forget the heroic past of our nation. [Their] memory is a faithful guarantee of
the great future to which the genius of a leader (genialny vozhd), Generalissimus Stalin,
leads the country on new paths" (p. 5).
Two official translations into English exist for the text of the pamphlet by Beriya,
Stalin's fellow countryman and faithfulfollower: On the History of the Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia, trans. from the 4th Russian ed. (New York, 1939) and trans. from
the 7th Russian ed. (Moscow, 1949). Beriya's speech reveals the switch from "socialism"
to "nationalism" in Stalin's line and establishes the officiallegend about Stalin's activities
in his younger years. Stalin's attitude in 1905 is discussed on pp. 44-46 of the 1939 ed.
(pp. 71-73 of the 1949 ed.): "In January 1904 the Russo-Japanese War broke out. The
Bolsheviks of Transcaucasia, headed by Comrade Stalin, consistently pursued Lenin's
line of 'defeat' for the Tsarist government, constantly urging the workers and peasants
to take advantage of the military overthrow of the autocracy. The All-Caucasian Committee of the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the Bolshevik organization), the Tiflis and Baku Committees of the RSDLP issued a number of leaflets exposing
the imperialist predatory character of the Russo-Japanese War on the part of both warring
powers and calling for the defeat of Tsarism. One of the leaflets . . . said: 'However much
they may call us non-patriots and the enemies at home, let the autocracy . .. remember
that the RSDLP represents 99 % of the population of Russia....
Their brothers are being
driven into the jaws of death to shed the blood of the sons of the Japanese, a brotherpeople! . . . We want this war to be more lamentable for the Russian autocracy than was the
Crimean War. . . . ' Day in and day out the Bolsheviks urged the soldiers to support the
revolutionary struggle of the people against Tsarism."
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15, 1946, enlarged on Stalin's statementof the Russian people as the leading
force of the Soviet Union: "Every people in the' Soviet Union understands
perfectlywellthat the main,decisiverolein the achievementofvictoryoverthe
enemy in the Great Patriotic War. . . was played by the great Russian
people. For this reason the prestigeof the Russian people is so immeasurably
high among the other peoples; forthis reason the peoples of the USSR bear
towardit boundlessconfidenceand a feelingoftremendouslove and gratitude."
The same love and gratitudewere expected fromthe youngerSlav brothers
who had been liberatedby the Russian Army.The new Pan-Slavism,turning
away fromthe West and lookingto Moscow, was also justifiedby the unique
positionof Russian culture."Naturally our literature,whichreflectsa system
much higherthan any bourgeois democratic system,a culture many times
higherthan any bourgeoisculture,has the rightto teach othersa new universal
morality.Where can you findsuch a people or such a countryas ours?" wrote
AndreiAlexandrovichZhdanov in Pravda on September21, 1946,whenhe was
probably the second most influentialman in the Soviet Union. On June 27,
1947,Pravda declared: "We may say withconfidencethat the centerofartistic
cultureof the worldhas now moved to Moscow. From here mankindreceives
the art of the most advanced thought,of greatfeeling,ofhighestmoralityand
noteworthyartistry."This highestcultureon earth had, of course,foundits
instrumentin the Russian language. "The futurebelongsto the Russian lanKomsomolets
assertedon March
guage as thelanguage of socialism,"Moskovsky
6, 1949; "the democraticpeoples are learningthe Russian language,the world
language of internationalism."Under these circumstances,would not the Slav
peoples ofthe West gladlyaccept the Russian cultureand the Russian language,
akin to them by blood and traditionand at the same time the most advanced
on earth?
II
Less than two monthsafterthe Germanattack on the Soviet Union a Pan,
Slav Committeewas formedin Moscow, and on August 10, 1941,it held its first
meetingunderthe chairmanshipofGeneralAlexanderSemyonevichGundorov.
Though no officialSoviet leaders participated,the Russian communistintelligentsiawas well representedby such foremostmembersas the authorsNikolai
Simenovich Tikhonov (the firstwriterto receive the Order of the Patriotic
War, First Class), AlexanderAlexandrovichFadeev, and Alexei Tolstoi, and
the composer Dmitri Shostakovich. The Poles were representedby Wanda
Wassiliewska, wife of the Ukrainian playwright and communist leader,
AlexanderKorneichuk;the Czechs by ZdenbkNejedly,professorofmusicology
at Prague Universityand biographerof Smetana and, Masaryk, and by Jan
Sverma, a communistwho died fightingin Slovakia in 1945. In his opening
words, Tolstoi "rejected the old ideologyof Pan-Slavism" as reactionaryand
contraryto the principlesof equality among the nations. "Slavs, let us unite,
that each Slavonic nation may be entitled,as the othernations are, to a free,
peaceful existence-that the cultureof our nations may flourishwithoutrestraint." The main emphasis of the meetingwas on the fightagainst the
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Germanenemy,a call upon all Slavs to establisharmed forcesand to sabotage
Much morerepresentativeand morecarefullypreparedwas
the enemy'sefforts.
the second meetingofthe Slavs in Moscow on April4 and 5, 1942. Shostakovich
issued a call to arms: "I am proud to be a Russian, I boast of beinga Slav....
May all the spiritualforces,all the intellectualsof the gloriousfamilyof the
Slavonic nations fearlesslyfulfilthe great missionentrustedto them by hisof history
tory!" And Tolstoi summedup the revisedSlavophileinterpretation
in an articlein Pravda: "We mustrevisethe wholehistoryof the Slav peoples.
... During one thousandyears,our youngblood vitalizeddecrepitByzantium.
Thanks to the Slavs, Byzantiumpreservedancientcivilizationand transmitted
it to feudalEurope. The Slav peoples,hard-working,
loversoflibertyand peace
and culture,had as theirneighborson the East nomadic empireswhichalways
cherishedthe utopian designof worldconquest,and on the West medievalemperorswhoseimposingcavalcades wereequally vain. The aggressionsfromEast
and West broke against the fearlessresistanceof the Slav world. The role of
the Slav peoples in the formationof European humanismhas not yet been
appreciatedat its true value.... "''i
What no previousSlav congresshad attemptedwas now realized,thanksto
officialgovernmentsupport.A monthlyperiodicalSlavyane [The Slays],began
to appear in Moscow in January,1943; special committeesto workamong Slav
youth,Slav scholars,and Slav womenwereformed;Slav scholarshipand publicationswereencouragedin the Soviet Union underthe leadershipof Professor
Nikolai Sevastyanovich Derzhavin, who since 1898 had published numerous
workson Slav history,especiallyon the Bulgarians,and who was awarded the
Order of Lenin in 1945; above all, the Pan-Slav propaganda was carried to
Britain, Canada, Latin America, and the United States, appealing as Hitler
had done to the racial solidarityof citizens of Slav descent. A congressof
Slavonic nations meetingin London on May 25, 1944,underthe chairmanship
of R. W. Seton-Watson,was attended mostlyby Slavs living in England in
temporaryexile. Of much greaterimportancewas the AmericanSlav Congress
whichtook place in Detroit on April25 and 26, 1942. It made use of the wartime enthusiasmfor "our Russian ally" and triedto organizethe ten million
Americansof Slav descent immediatelyin supportof the commonAmericanRussian struggleagainst Hitler and permanentlyin support of the Soviet
Union and its policy.12
11 A good discussion of the Slav peoples in and after World War II is in Albert Mousset,
The World of the Slavs (London, 1950), which is a revised edition of the French original,
published in 1946.
12 Testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Judge Blair F.
Gunther of the Court of Common Pleas, Pittsburgh, accused the American Slav Congress
of being "the most dangerous fifthcolumn operating among our Slav population. Its chief
aim is to subvert millions of Slavic Americans operating in our basic industries in order
to cripple our national defense apparatus. It gives every evidence of Moscow direction
and control." The Congress was listed as a subversive agency by the Attorney General of
the United States on September 21, 1948. On June 25, 1949, the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities found that the Congress changed its keynote at the end of World
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The officialrecognitionofthe Russian OrthodoxChurchby Soviet authorities
in September,1943, and the elevationof the MetropolitanSergiusof Moscow
to the dignityof a patriarchof all Russia made the Church-as it had been
among the Pan-Slavs of the second half of the nineteenthcentury-an instrument of Russian imperialpolicy. Patriarch Alexei, who succeeded Sergius in
May, 1944, praised Stalin as "a wise leader,placed by the Lord over our great
nation." All churcheswere orderedto offerprayers"for the health and wellbeing of the God-sent leader of the peoples of our Christ-lovingnation." As
in the nineteenthcentury,Pan-Orthodoxismwas to support Pan-Slavism;
Orthodoxchurcheseverywherewere to be united under Moscow's leadership.
Patriarch Alexei, at whose coronationthe patriarchsof Alexandria,Antioch,
and Georgiaparticipated,visitedthe Near East in 1945 to renewthe ties which
had existed in the time of tsarist Russia; Orthodoxchurchesin Europe and
America whichhad split away fromthe Moscow patriarchatewere warnedto
renter. In the same year Roman Catholicsin Czechoslovakiaheld a conference
at Velehradin Moravia, whereSt. Cyriland St. Methodius had workedin the
ninthcenturyforthe Christianizationof the Slavs and where the Pan-Slav
enthusiasmof the nineteenthcenturyhad led to many demonstrationsof Slav
spiritualsolidarity.The keynoteaddressat thisconferencecalled on all Catholic
theologiansof Slav descent to join "the general Eastward orientationof the
country."
The victoriesof the Soviet Union in 1944 and 1945 in the Balkans, in the
Danubian Basin, and along the Vistula completelychanged the picture in
central-easternEurope. The Russian ArmyenteredKonigsberg,the cradle of
the Prussianmonarchy,and Berlin,Budapest, and Vienna; the Kremlinclaimed
the legacy of the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns.Though the Soviet Union
had not enteredthe war for any purpose of "liberation,"neverthelessit demanded the gratitudeof the Slavs as theirliberator.FromLondon,King Peter
of Yugoslavia declared on January 11, 1945, that "fraternalunion with
Russia is one of the most deeply-rootedsentimentsof the Slav peoples."
With greaterclaritythe new situationwas put forwardby a Bulgarian writer:
For one hundred and fiftyyears the Slav idea served the private interests of two parasitic
classes, the landowners and the bourgeoisie, i.e., it was exploited to the harm of the Slav
peoples themselves. Today for the firsttime in 1300 years, Slavdom lives through a propitious moment which will make its security forever possible. The German danger has
disappeared. The governments which fanned hatred among the Slav peoples have been
thrown out. Now the Slavs can proceed to build up their society. What should be their
program? The Slavs form a racial, linguistic and cultural group with a common character.
They constitute a geopolitical and economic bloc which can be an important factor in the
preservation of European peace. The Slav nations, in order to liberate themselves from
German capitalism, must build up technically perfected national economies which would
secure their independence. Their inner structure must be democratic, freedom-lovingand
socially just. The Slav nations have to work out a political system for Pan-Slav cooperaWar II "from super-patriotism to outright treason." The Committee charged that the
embassies of the USSR and of the Slav states cooperated actively with the American Slav
Congress.
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tion, the principle of which ought to be full equality of small and great nations. The
USSR should organize and lead this Slav society.'3
Pan-Slavism was to become the vehicleof a commoncivilization-the civilization of communistRussia, of the Soviet Union, and of its leading people, the
greatRussian people.
In 1946 the Soviet Union controlledall of Europe east of a line running
fromStettin on the Baltic Sea to Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. Behind this
linetherewerenot onlyall the Slav peoplesbut,as Danilevskyin 1869and other
Pan-Slavs had demanded, the Magyars, Rumanians, and Albanians as well.
That Greece and Constantinopledid not live up to Danilevsky's expectations
was due not only to the will of resistanceof theirown citizens,but also to the
far-sightedstatesmanshipof Winston Churchilland Ernest Bevin. Yet there
was no doubt that K6nigsberghad become Kaliningrad; Potsdam was under
communistdomination;the two westernSlav nations,Poland and Czechoslovakia, had emergedfromthe war with their territorymuch diminishedand
(under communistinspiration)on a purelyracial basis, since they had driven
out the Germansand othernational minorities;Moscow claimednow the right
-which had fallenin 1919 to the Westerndemocraciesand had been exercised
in 1939 by Hitler's Germany-of settlingall territorialand other disputes in
the area. In addition,by the annexationof Carpatho-UkrainefromCzechoslovakia, Russia became the immediate neighbor of Czechoslovakia and of
Hungary,commandinga strategicfootholdin the Danubian plain south of the
Carpathian Mountains and establishingfrontiersthere and along the OderNeisse line which conjuredup, as the fascistdictatorshipshad hoped to do, a
racial past many centuriesold. Of all the Slav peoples, only the Poles abroad
and the Polish governmentin London raised a passionate protest.As theyhad
so oftenin the last two hundredyears,the Polish nationaltraditionsand hopes
had to live on in exile. In the homelands,however,the Slav spokesmenstressed
the "democratic" and "peace-loving" characterof the Slavs. This was no new
melody. The romanticistsamong them had done it since the time of Herder.
It had been the constantchant ofthe Slavophiles,and it was not changedsubstantially by being communist-directed.
The hope was now held out to all
peoples that they might partake in this "democratic" and "peace-loving"
as the Slavs did, theirundyinggratitudeand
communityiftheywould affirm,
indissolubleattachmentto the greatleader ofthe Slav worldand ofprogressive
mankind,Soviet Russia underStalin.
In this atmospherea Pan-Slav congressmet in Belgrade forfivedays beginningon December 8, 1946. It markedthe thirdgreat congressin the historyof
the Pan-Slav idea: the first,in Prague, representedthe Westerndemocratic
trendamong the AustrianSlavs of 1848; the second,in Moscow, expressedthe
aggressiveRussian nationalismofthe 1860's; the third,in the Yugoslav capital,
was the triumphantaffirmation
of Moscow's hold over the Slav world. Of all
13 ChristoGandev in
Slavyanskobratstvo,
sbornik[Slav Brotherhood;
A Symposium],
Biblioteka Izvori [Sources], No. 2 (Sofia, 1945).
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its members,at that time the Yugoslavs and theirwartimeleader, the old and
trustedcommunistfighterand organizer,Marshal Tito, received the highest
consideration,second only to that of Russia's Marshal Stalin; and it was not
by accident that Belgrade was chosen as the seat of the Pan-Slav Congress,
the centerof the new Pan-Slav movement.(AfterSeptember,1947, Belgrade
was also the home of the newlyestablishedCominform[CommunistInformation Bureau] and of its officialmagazine, the firstissue of which appeared
there on November 15, 1947.) The programof the Congresscomprisedthree
points: the Slav peoples in the world strugglefor peace and democracy; the
contributionof the Slav peoples to worldculture;and organizationalproblems
of Slav cooperation.For the firsttime in the historyof Pan-Slavism,this program and this Congresswereregardedas an officialand not a privatemanifestation; forthe firsttime,too, the Congresswas worldwide,withSlav delegates
fromthe United States, Canada, South America,Australia,and New Zealand
or menand women
attending-Auslandsslavensimilarto theAuslandsdeutschen,
of German descent and loyalty,though citizens of non-Germancountries,of
Hitler's time. Interestinglyenough, however,the Slav representativeswere
organizednot on a basis ofnationalitybut ofstates. There was a representation
fromthe Soviet Union (includingUkrainiansand Byelo-Russians,but without
takinginto account the manynon-Slavnationalitiesofthe Soviet Union,which
now acted officiallyas a Slav state), Yugoslavia (comprisingSerbs, Croats,
Slovenians and Macedonians), Poland, Czechoslovakia (comprisingCzechs
and Slovaks), and Bulgaria. The officialstate-conceptdefinitelyreplaced the
formerlypredominantnationality-concept.
The Congress was opened by Marshal Tito, who was received,according
to the officialreports,with a "long-lastingovation."' ("Equally enthusiastic"
was the receptionaccorded to Marshal Fedor Ivanovich Tolbukhin,who had
commanded the Soviet armies whichvictoriouslyenteredRumania, Bulgaria,
Belgrade,and Vienna and thus "liberated" the southernSlavs.) In his opening
address Marshal Tito said: "What would have happened if the gloriousRed
Armyhad not existed?What would have happened ifthisstate of workersand
peasants with Stalin, the man of genius,at its head, had not existed,which
stood like a wall against fascistaggressionand whichwith innumerablesacrifices and rivers of blood liberated also our Slav nations in other countries.
For these great sacrificeswhich our brothersin the great Soviet Union made,
we otherSlavs thank them ... " He finishedhis talk witha three-foldtoast:
to Slav solidarity (using the word which the Slovak Pan-Slav poet Kollar
had coined in 1837), to "our greatestSlav brother,"the Soviet Union (forgetting that the Soviet Union was not Slav but supraracial), and to its leader of
genius, Stalin (a climax of personal adulation unthinkableat the Moscow
Pan-Slav Congress of 1867). Marshal Tito was followed by the two main
speakers,the Yugoslav Milovan Djilas, who discussedthe struggleofthe Slavs
for peace and democracy,and ProfessorBoris D. Grekov of the Academy of
Sciences ofthe USSR, who read a long catalogue ofnames as "Slav contributors
to world culture." The trite verbosityand the lack of ideas of these papers
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distinguishedthe Belgrade Congress fromthe nineteenthcenturyPan-Slav
congressesas much as did the harmoniousunanimitymanifestin all discussions and decisions.A Pan-Slav Committeewas elected, on whicheach of the
five states was representedby five members.A Yugoslav, Major General
Bozhidar Maslaric, became its president;a Russian, a Pole, a Czech and a
Bulgarian were elected vice-presidents.Belgrade became the seat of this PanSlav Committee,and the formerPan-Slav Committeein Moscow was reorganized in March, 1947, as the Slav Committeeof the USSR, with Gen. A. S.
Gunderov as its chairman,and threevice-presidents,
AlexanderA. Veznesensky, rectorof the Universityof Leningrad,AlexanderVladimirovichPalladin,
presidentof the UkrainianAcademy of Sciences, and Yakub Kolas, a ByeloRussian poet and vice-presidentof the Byelo-Russian Academy of Sciences.
In 1947 the monthlySlavyane,whichso farhad appeared as the organ of the
Pan-Slav Committeein Moscow, became the organ of the Slav Committeeof
the USSR.
The Pan-Slav Congressin Belgrade representedthe crest of the Pan-Slav
tide afterWorld War II. Its resolutions,plans, and hopes came to naughtas had those of all the previous congresses-when far-reachingdesignsbroke
upon the rocks of reality.One more success,however,was to be registeredby
Moscow's Pan-Slavism, interestinglyenough among the Czechs, whose conciliatoryrealismand spiritof politicalmaturitywereunique among the Slavs.
Despite this stability,it was onlyin Bohemia and Moravia, the Czech parts of
Czechoslovakia,that the communistswere able' to achieve in freeelectionsin
Europe-held on May 26, 1946-a vote of40.17 per cent.Wide circlesexpected
a recessionof the communistvote in the electionsof May, 1948, and it might
have been the fearof such a defeatwhichpromptedthe communistleadership
to seize total controlof the countryin February,1948. Czechoslovakia quickly
became an integral part of the Moscow-controlledand directed Pan-Slav
empire, apparently adjusting fully to the intellectual,moral, and political
modelset by the Kremlin.But thissuccess,achievedagainstthe mostWesternized Slavs, was morethan balanced by the event of June28, 1948, whichtook
the world by surprisein its revelationof an open and wideningriftbetween
Moscow and Belgrade-between Marshal Stalin and Marshal Tito, the two
most prominentleaders of the new Pan-Slavism.
The Yugoslav defectioncreated in the Slav "familyof nations" a situation
similarto that whichhad existedbetween 1830 and 1945 as a resultof the enmityofthe Poles and the Russians. As Poland had done then, Yugoslavia now
became the "Judas" and "traitor"to the Slav cause and a "tool" of "Western
scheming"against the Slav worldwhichthe Russians, then as now, magnanimouslyidentifiedwith Moscow. The similarity,even to the very words used
in the diatribesby Katkov and his generationand those now used by Stalin's
spokesmen,was astonishing.But while the Polish communistsacknowledged
that it was only thanks to Moscow that Poland could end the "feudal" age,
and that Poland's liberationfromGermanoccupationwas due onlyto the Red
Army-forgettingthat it was Soviet Russia's cooperationin 1939 whichfacili-
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tated Poland's subjugationby Hitler-the Serbs could pointto a longtradition
ofpeasant proprietorship
and to theircourageousfight,independentofRussian
help, waged against Turks and Germans for independence.The communist
leadersin Belgrade refusedto admit that theircountryowed its liberationand
its new orderof "social justice" only,or primarily,to Russia's help and guidance. They denied the thesis propagated fromMoscow that the Slav peoples
could not preservetheirindependenceexcept under Russia's protection.They
did not wish to subordinatethe economic modernizationof their countryto
the needs of "the motherland"ofthe Slavs and ofthe socialistworldrevolution.
Furthermore,Tito's defectionhad repercussionsin the Pan-Slav Congressin
the UnitedStates; some ofits mostactive leaders,likeLouis Adamic,sided with
the dissidentcommunists.The growinghostilityof the Kremlinto the democracies had made the Americanpeople more aware of the threat to the West
impliedin the theoryand actions emanatingfromMoscow, the centerof the
now intimately-fused
movementsof Pan-Slavism and worldcommunism,with
the resultthat the AmericanPan-Slav Congressceased most of its activities.
Altogether,the period of Pan-Slavism in its third,communist,Pan-Russian
formcame to its end. But even in its heyday it had been unable to solve, in
spite of all totalitarianpressureand conformity,
the old problems disputed
amongthe Slav peoples: the controlof Teschen contestedby Czechs and Poles,
the allegiance of Macedonia to Yugoslavia or Bulgaria, and the desire of the
Ukrainianpeople forindependencefromthe Great-Russians.
III
The Pan-Slavism ofthe war years,promisingthe equality ofall Slav peoples,
was openlyreplaced after1947 by a Pan-RussismwhichimposedRussian predominanceand leadershipon the Slav peoples first,but also on Magyars and
Rumanians, on Uzbeks and Caucasians. In fact, the new Soviet patriotism
hardly distinguishedbetween "Russian" and "Soviet." Soviet historiography
had to followthe trend; books writtenand praised as recentlyas 1941, were
rejected as not patriotic enough in 1947. Russian scholarshipnow began to
extol the Russian past beyond anythingthat the most extravagantinstances
of formerRussian historiographyhad ever attempted.The Kievan state now
receiveda Slav past on Russian soil. Its rise was now foundto have originated
in a veryancienthigheast-Slav civilization,muchsuperiorto that ofits neighbors; the multinationaland yet centralizedRussian state was dated back for
many centuries,even beforethe sixteenthcentury,with the Great Russians,
thanks to their cultural superiority,the leading element. The Great-Russian
people was now generallycalled "the great Russian people,." and more and
moreemphasiswas put on the factthat the Russians owed theirwholedevelopment to their own creative originalityand initiative.As one writerhas explained, "The Soviet imperial idea of a union of socialist peoples has given
body to its own thinnedspiritualsubstanceby its absorptionofthe old Russian
idea of the State, withall its expansionistand centralizingtendencies.It must
by all means be made acceptable to the otherpeoples of the Soviet Union that
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the Russian people-unlike Lenin's idea-has at present become the true
bearer of the world revolutionarytasks of Marxism. The Great Brother is
now the leader on the road to progressand liberty.If subjectionto Russia was
once proclaimed 'the lesser evil,' it has now become no evil at all but sheer
good fortuneand a blessing."' Accordingly,it is not surprisingthat in 1951
ProfessorMilitza Vasilyevna Nechkina (one of the well-knownyoungerhistoriansof Russia, authorof manyworkson the Decembrists,and editorof the
second volume, covering the nineteenthcentury, of the officialtextbook
Istoriya SSSR) wrote in the officialorgan of the Soviet historians,Voprosy
istorii, that the conquestofcolonialpeoples by tsaristRussia had been not only
"the lesser evil" comparedwith the conquest by Britain or Turkey to which
they mighthave otherwisesuccumbed-the officialSoviet theorysince 1934but a positive good: the Ukrainians,Georgians,Armenians,and Usbeks were
activelyhelped in theireconomicprogressby inclusionin the Russian empire.
Tsarism oppressedthe peoples,above all the Russian people, "the olderbrother
of all the peoples of the Soviet land." But the struggleagainst the common
enemy,tsarism a struggleled by the Russian people-became the foundation
of a fraternity
of all the peoples devoted to the commonconstructionof a new
socialistsociety,and the education ofthe non-Russianpeoples by the Russians
createdthe conditionfortheirliberationand progress.To elucidatethese more
"profound"aspects of the annexationof the non-Russianpeoples by the Russian Empire, had become one of the great tasks forSoviet historiography.15
nauka v Rossii [BourgeoisHistorical
In 1931 in Burzhuasnayaistoricheskaya
Sciencein Russia] (p. 92), Sergei A. Piontkovskyhad violentlyattacked the
well-knownbook by Matvyei Kuzmich Lyubavsky, Obrazovanieosnovskoi
narodnosti[The Development
of theState
territorii
velikorusskoi
gossudarstvennoi
Territory
oftheGreatRussian Nationality](Leningrad,1929),because it stressed
"chauvinistically"the Great Russian element in the historyof the Russian
state. The book was then characterizedby the disciplesof Pokrovskyas the
"political programof the NEP bourgeoisie."Now, however,both Pokrovsky
and Piontkovskyare regardedas un-Marxist and unscientific,and presentday Russian historiographygoes infinitelyfurtherthan Lyubavsky (1860the Russian national element.In 1951
1936) and his generationin glorifying
Voprosyistoriipraised the thesis of Lt. Col. L. G. Beskrovny,professorof the
historyof warfare of the Military Frunze Academy, entitled "Stroitelstvo
russkoiarmiiv XVIII veke" ["The Buildingof the Russian Armyin the 18th
Century"]. In it the author rejected the "cosmopolitan" views of "bourgeois
14 Georg von Rauch, "Die Sowjetische Geschichtsforschung heute," Die Welt als Geschichte(1950), No. 4, p. 258.
15 Mrs. Nechkina's article "K voprosu o formule neimenchee zlo" ["On the Question of
the Lesser Evil"], Voprosy istorii, No. 4, pp. 44-48 (1951) was in the form of a letter to the
editor and was specially recommended by the editor. Yet her volume in the Istoriya SSSR,
2 vols., 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1947-49) had been censored in Voprosy istorii, No. 7 (1950) for
insufficientunderstanding of tsarist colonial policy on the ground that she had not recognized the reactionary, pro-British and pro-Turkish character of the independence movement of the Caucasian peoples under Shamil against tsarism.
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historians accordingto whichPeter I built the Russian armyupon German
models. On the contrary,Russia in the eighteenthcenturyproducedthe best
arms in Europe and made manyinventionsin the fieldof artillery;the Russian
army was then trained accordingto its own national system,which was the
were Russians and not foreignmostprogressivein Europe; the leading officers
ers,and Napoleon learnedmuchfromthe tacticsand the strategyofSuvarov.16
The same issue of Voprosyistoriibestowed similarpraise on a symposiumon
the "progressiveinfluenceof the great Russian nation on the developmentof
the Yakut nation.... The Yakuts, as a resultof theirinclusioninto the centralized Russian state, enteredthe most advanced culture of the period and
acceleratedtherebythe process of theirsocial-economicand culturaldevelopment. The concrete elucidation of this question has at present,besides its
purelyscientificinterest,great political significance.The study of the process
of the historicaldevelopmentof the nationalitiesin the lightof theirhistorical
interactionappears as one of the importantmomentsin the education of the
workersof our countryin Soviet patriotism."'7It is hardlyastonishingthat, in
an officialprogrammaticarticleabout the tasks of historicalscience published
in the same journal laterin the year,I. Kon asserted: "Marxist historicalscholarship must wage an incessantwar against the falsificationof historyby the
bourgeoisie.This war, whichplaces Soviet historiansin the firingline, is being
conducted(and mustbe conducted)in all fieldsofhistoricalscience. . . . Soviet
historicalsciencedevelopsunderthe constantand close leadershipofthe Soviet
state, the Bolshevikpartyand Stalin himself.... All Soviet scholarshipworks
under the guidance of Lenin and Stalin forthe welfareof our nation."'
"The historiansinto the firingline" was not a new slogan but in line with
Lenin's attitude. Themdifferencewas in what they were firingat. In 1939
Bolshaya SovyetskayaEntsiklopediya,the great depository of communist
scholarship,devoted to Pan-Slavism a very shortarticle,less than a column.
This articlequoted Marx and Engels as pointingout that "the immediategoal
ofPan-Slavismappears to be the creationofa Slav empire,fromthe Erzgebirge
and the Carpathian Mountains to the Black, Aegean and AdriaticSeas, under
Russia's rule." It also stressedthe reactionaryand expansionistcharacterof
Pan-Slavism; Marx and Engels were reportedto have looked with horroron
a resultwhich would make all Slavs share "the terriblefate of the Polish nation."'9
In theircharacterizationofPan-Slavism as Russian imperialismwhichwould
subject the otherSlavs as the Poles had been subjected duringMarx's lifetime,
Marx and the CommunistEncyclopaediaseem for once to have been proved
16 Voprosy istorii, No. 1, pp. 155-156 (1951). The thesis had been defended on June
26, 1950.
17Review of ProgressivnoevWiyanie
velikoi Russkoi natsii na rozvitie Yakutskogo naroda,
Pt. 1, ed. A. I. Novgorod (Yakutsk, 1950) in Voprosy istorii, No. 1, p. 140 (1951).
18 J. Kon, "K voprosu o spetsifike i zadachakh istoricheskoi nauki," Voprosy istorii,
No. 6, p. 63 (1951).
19"Pan-Slavism," Bolshaya Sovyetskaya Entsiklopediya, Vol. 44 (Moscow, 1939), Cols.
68 ff.The reference to Marx and Engels there is to Sochineniya, Vol. 7, p. 277.
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right.As in the worstperiodoftsaristnationalism,the rightofnationaloriginalityhas recentlybeen claimedfor,and reservedto, the Russians alone; the other
Slav nations,Poles and Ukrainians,have had-to adapt themselvesto Russian
nationalism.The result,-so far as the Poles are concerned,was made clear at
the seventhcongressof Polish historianswhichmet in Breslau fromSeptember
19 to September22, 1948: "It is interestingto note that, while the campaign
forthe culturaland national distinctness(of Russia) was being trumpeted,at
least one significantexceptionwas made. The seventhcongressof Polish historians . . . was criticizedprincipallyfor writinghistoryfrom a nationalist
point of view and forcontrastingRussian and Polish cultureratherthan drawEven the Poles who
ing comparisonsbetweentheirfundamentalsimilarity."20
had propagated the new Pan-Slavism after 1945 came in forsharp criticism.
Henryk Batowski, editor of the Pan-Slav magazine Zycie Slowiafiskie(which
began publicationin January,1946) and authorof Historia WspolpracySlowianskiej [Historyof Slav Cooperation],was branded a bourgeoisnationalistbecause he overemphasizedPoland's role in the Slav world and glorifiedpast
instancesof Slav cooperationat the expenseof the present.2'
Had Stalin forgottenthe warningwhichhe voiced in his "Report on National
Factors" beforethe twelfthCongress of the Russian Communist Party on
April 23, 1923? He then regardedGreat-Russianchauvinism,"a forcethat is
gaining in strength,"as a factor impedingthe amalgamation of the Soviet
peoples, underminingthe confidenceof the "formerlyoppressed peoples" in
the Russian proletariat."This is our most dangerousenemy,which we must
overcome;foronce we overcomeit, we shall have overcomenine-tenthsof the
nationalismwhichhas survivedand whichis developingin certainrepublics."22
In the discussionat the same CongressBukharinwent even further:"In our
capacityas a formergreat-powernation,we mustcounternationalistambitions
and place ourselves in a position of inequality,in the sense of making still
greaterconcessionsto national tendencies.By such a policyalone . . . whereby
we artificiallyplace ourselvesin an inferiorpositionas comparedwith others,
only at such a price, can we purchasethe real confidenceof the formerlyoppressednations." Stalin opposed thispointofview because "We mustnot overshoot the mark in politics,just as we must not undershootit." Thirtyyears
later, it seems that Stalin has more and moreundershotthe mark. In spite of
all totalitariancontroland of the ever-growing
purgesof "local nationalists,"
Great Russian chauvinismhas apparentlyaroused and strengthenedthe oppositionof the Slav and non-Slav peoples subject to Moscow.23
20 Anatole G. Mazour and Herman E. Bateman, in Journal of Modern History, Vol. 24,
p. 64 (March, 1952).
21 See the review in Slavyane, August, 1947, pp. 51 ff; Elizabeth Valkenier, "Soviet
Impact on Polish Post-War Historiography, 1946-1950," Journal of Central European
Affairs, Vol. 11, pp. 372-396 (Jan., 1952); and Roman Werfel, "Konferenz polnischer
Historiker," Fur dauerhaften Frieden, far Volksdemokratie(the official Cominform organ,
Bucharest), March 6, 1952.
22 Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National and Colonial Question, tr. from the Russian
ed. prepared by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute (New York, n.d., 1935?), pp. 167-168,
301.
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Soviet patriotism,the officialtermmost frequentlyused, has become more
and more tinged with Slavophile Russianism. On-August 13, 1947, Izvestya
published a lecture on the Soviet people's national pride which S. Kovalev
had deliveredin the Moscow All-unionSocietyforthe Disseminationof Political and ScientificKnowledge. Kovalev had said: "In the process of socialist
constructionin our country,the Soviet people have workedout theirownworld
outlook,peculiarto themselvesalone. One ofits mostimportantcharacteristics
is Soviet patriotism,a feelingof the most profoundlove forand devotion to
the Socialist Motherland.A most importantpeculiarityof Soviet patriotismis
the profoundunderstandingof the superiorityof the Soviet systemover the
bourgeoisand all otherclass systems.... It is preciselythispeculiaritywhich
above all characterizesSoviet patriotismas patriotismofthe highestkind. ..
Like the Slavophiles,he attacked Peter I forhis Westernreformsand the nineteenth centuryWesternizersfortheir "worshipof the West." "Great are the
services of our people to history.Our people have repeatedlysaved Europe
fromdestructionby barbarians ... The great Russian people, as well as the
otherpeoples of Russia, was also in the past not dependenton otherpeoples in
the struggleforprogress,forthe developmentof science,literatureand art."
Kovalev, the officialreport went on, "dwelt in detail on Russia's priceless
contributionto worldcivilizationin all spheresofculture."24Pravda ofthe same
day said editorially:"For centuriesRussian intellectualsfell over themselves
in servilityand obsequiousnessbeforeeverythingforeign.For centuriestheir
consciousnesswas poisonedwithabsurd prejudiceswhichattributedleadership
in science,technology,and cultureto the West .... This mostharmfulsurvival
fromthe past can still be foundamong a certainsection of our intellectuals.
It is a survival which Bolshevik propaganda must utterlydestroy.Our intellectuals must be daily educated and strengthenedin their feelingsof Soviet
national pride."
In spite ofall theseeducationalefforts,
some Soviet intellectualshave continued to succumb to the sin of "cosmopolitanism."In 1951 L. Knipper wrotea
long article, "Protiv kosmopolitizma,za russkynatsionalny stil" ["Against
Cosmopolitanism,fora National Russian Style"], in SovyetskayaMuzyka [Soviet Music], Moscow, in whichhe asked: "Can it be that Russian music is no
23 The future nationalist trend of Lenin's revolution had been foreseen by the Russian
nationalists who published the symposium Smena vekh [The Change of Guideposts] in
Prague, 1921. See especially Nikolai Vasilyevich Ustryalov, Pod znakom revolyutsii[Under
theSign of Revolution],2nd enl. ed. (Kharbin, 1927), where in the introduction he writes:
"No doubt, the motherland is being rebuilt and rises again" (p. v). His articles, written
between 1921 and 1926 are divided into two sections: political articles on national Bolshevism, and sketches of the philosophy of our time. Some of the articles are remarkable for
an understanding of the Russian nationalism of the twentieth century, especially "National Bolshevism," pp. 47-53 (originally published Sept. 18, 1921); "Of the Future Russia,"' pp. 132-135; "The Nationalization of October," pp. 212-218; "Russia and Blok's
Poetry," pp. 346-356; and "Of the Russian Nation," pp. 374-393 (written originally for
a Vseslavyansky Sbornik [Pan-Slav Symposium] published by the Union of Slav Committees in Zagreb in honor of the one thousandth anniversary of the Kingdom of Croatia).
24 The lecture by Kovalev was regarded as so important that it was published in
English by Soviet Monitor, issued by Tass Agency (London), No. 8815, Aug. 13, 1947.
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longer Russian music because it became Soviet music? The Russian nation,
years,has in no way
whichhas changedin some respectin the last thirty-three
ceased being Russian by becomingSoviet.... For therecan be no art whichis
We own the treasureof the trulypopular art of our
not rootednationally.
great Russian classics. Only by goingback to these glorioustraditions,can we
findnew ways forthe developmentofthe Russian song ofthe Soviet era.... In
the brotherlyfamilyof the Soviet republics,the Russian cultureis the first
among equals. The national culturesnot only of the Soviet republicsbut also
of the people's democracies,orientthemselvesafterthe Russian culture and
growto strengththroughit."25And the famousdirectivesofStalin on the question of languagein 1950 had one purpose-to make clearthat the "international" language ofsocialismwould be Russian. In an article,"The Great Language
ofour Epoch," in the LiteraturnayaGazetaofJanuary1, 1950,David Zazlavsky
declared: "The Russian language is the firstworld language of international
significancewhichrejectssharplythe destructionof the national characterby
cosmopolitanism.... Nobody can regardhimselfas educated in the full and
true sense of the word,if he does not understandRussian and cannot read the
creationsofthe Russian mindin the originallanguage." The Russian nationalism of nineteenthcenturyPan-Slavs had never voiced such uncompromising
claims.
In the nineteenthcenturyeven the Slavs most friendlyto Russia never
went so far as to back Russia's claims to leadership,and at the Pan-Slav
Congress in Moscow in 1867 even much milder pretensionsaroused strong
oppositionon the part of the Czech spokesmen.Now, however,on March 4,
reporteda long speechin which
1952,the Prague communistorganRude Pradvo
the Ministerof Information,Vaclav Kopeck;, speakingbeforea conferenceof
teachers,had said:
It is known to us that one of the main weapons in America's ideological war is cosThe case of the
mopolitanism, which destroys the tie to one's native land and people....
miserable traitor Slansk' . . . has shown how the malicious. agents of Western imperialism
tried . . . to use cosmopolitanism in its Trotzkyite-Zionist form. Therefore we must resolutely destroy cosmopolitanism, this ideological monster which is today put to the service
of American war-barbarism. We also know that, besides cosmopolitanism, the Western
imperialist enemies use in their preparations for a criminal war another ideological weapon,
The Judas-treason of the Tito clique in Yugoslavia ... and the case of
nationalism....
Clementis ... prove that American imperialism ... tries in this way to loosen the close
Today before all the workers
ties of the people's democracies with the Soviet Union....
25 The struggle against cosmopolitanism began with an article in Pravda, Jan. 28, 1949,
"Ob odnoi antipatrioticheskoi gruppe teatralnikh kritikov" ["About an Anti-Patriotic
Group of Theater Critics"], and in Kultura i zhizn, Jan. 30, 1949, "Na chuzhdikh pozitsiakh" ["On Foreign Positions"]. Stalin's articles on linguistics began to appear on June
26, 1950, as a contribution.to a discussion started by Pravda on May 9, 1950, about the
theories of Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr (1864-1934), a Georgian like Stalin, whose recognition as the officialand the leading Marxist philologist had been assured by Stalin and
who was now completely repudiated by the same Stalin. See Clarence A. Manning,
"Soviet Linguistic and Russian Imperialism," Ukrainian Quarterly, Vol. 8, pp. 20-27
(1952).
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of the world the question of a just and an unjust war and the question of patriotism are
raised, and this in the sense that every action against the Soviet Union is unjust, while
every action of the Soviet Union is sanctified with the seal of supreme justice because its
goal is the welfare of the workers, of the whole working population of the world-the wel26
fare of all peoples and of all mankind...
IV
of harmonizing
After1950 communistdialecticshad to solve the difficulty
of Russia's past with a conRussia's national uniquenessand the glorification
demnationofthe slightestemphasison the nationaloriginalityofotherpeoples.
This may explain the violence of vituperation,unusual even for communist
language, used against violators of the new line, as it helps account for the
uncertaintiesof Soviet policy. One resultwas that the WesternSlavs faced the
possibility of a new German-Russianrapprochementwhich would sacrifice
them to Moscow's interests-a possibilityforeshadowedin Stalin's wire of
October 13, 1949,to WilhelmPieck and Otto Grotewohlon the occasion ofthe
establishmentof the German Democratic Republic: "The experienceof the
last war has shown that the German and the Russian peoples have borne the
greatestsacrificesin that war and that these two nations provide by far the
greatestpotentialforcesin Europe forthe accomplishmentof great actions of
worldsignificance."In theirreplythetwo Germancommunistleadersacknowledged, on behalfofthe Germanpeople,the historicalguiltwhichGermanyhad
assumed by attackingthe Soviet Union. Thus a positive and a negative communityof fate was again establishedbetweenthe two peoples: in 1945, as in
1918, they were the two chiefvictimsof a World War; and Germanyhad become guiltynot by her march into Prague nor her dismembermentand subjection of Poland (helped by the Soviet union), but only by her aggressionof
June22, 1941.
Altogether,the little Slav brotherswere bound to realize theirdependence
on the self-centeredpolicy of the older brother,with whom Yugoslavia had
brokenbecause it feltitselftreated as a colony and its communistparty used
as an instrumentforthe country'sexploitationin the economic,military,and
politicalinterestof Moscow. By 1950 Pan-Slavism was hardlymentionedany
morein the Soviet orbit.Moscow's policy toward Poland and Czechoslovakia
as littlefromthat toward Hungaryor Rumania as its attitudetoward
differed
the Ukrainedifferedfromthat toward its Mohammedan subject nationalities.
In June, 1951, a "decade" of Ukrainian art was celebrated in Moscow,
26 KopeckS stressed the point of supreme loyalty of all workers to the Soviet Union:
"Wherever the question arises whether the working people prefer the land in which they
live (but in which they are exposed to class exploitation, growing misery, and oppression)
or the Soviet Union-they will always decide for the Soviet Union, even should they be
exposed to the greatest terror of capitalist and pseudo-socialist patriots. The working
masses of France, Italy, and other capitalist lands have already taken this decision. They
declare that they will never bear arms against the Soviet Union and the people's democracies and that they will greet the Soviet army as liberator whenever it opposes the aggressor. Yes! The just character of such a war puts the seal of sacred patriotism on the effort
of the peoples which lead it."
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fifteenyears afterthe 1936 "decade," whichclosed the terriblepersecutionof
the Ukrainian peasantry and intelligentsiabegun in 1929. The new decade,
which culminatedin a glorificationof Stalin, of Soviet patriotism,and of the
Pereyaslav Council of 1654 which decided on the union of the Ukraine with
Moscow, coincidedwitha new attack on Ukrainianwritersand on the Ukrainian CommunistParty for"nationalistdeviation." In 1944 VolodimirSosyura,
one ofthe mostrespectedolderworking-class
poets ofthe Ukraine,had written
a poem, "Love the Ukraine,"sentimentaland patrioticas a thousand Russian
poems were at that time:
The Ukraine lives for us in the songs which we sing,
In the stars and in the willow trees along the rivers,
And in the beat of our heart.
How can one love other peoples,
If one does not love her, our Ukraine?
We are nothing without her, like dust of the fields or smoke,
Eternally driven away by the winds.
For seven yearsthispoem was manytimesreprintedin the Ukraine,and it was
even twicetranslatedinto Russian. Only in July,1951,did Pravda discoverthe
"nationalist deviation" in the poem and bitterlyattack the author, as well
as AlexanderProkofiev,whose translationhad appeared in May, 1951, in the
Leningradliterarymagazine Zvezda. "It is the duty of Soviet writers,"Pravda
wrote,"to fightimplacably against all formsof nationalism .., and to sing
in their works the heroic deeds of our great fatherland,which builds communism." Pravda did not say how to reconcilethe implacable fightagainst
all formsof nationalismwiththe glorification
of the great and unique Russian
people and its past, but its articleopened a wholeseriesofattacks on "Ukrainian nationalism."27
AlexanderKorneichukand Wanda Wassiliewskawereeven
accused of having not sufficiently
stressedthe pro-Russian character of the
UkrainianstruggleforliberationfromPoland underHetman Bohdan Khmelnitski, in the librettoto an opera of that name composed by Konstantin Dankevych. And immediatelyafter the appearance of the article in Pravda, a
meetingof the Ukrainian Union of Soviet Writersin Kiev was called. This
meetingrecognizedthe greatimportanceof the Pravda articleforthe development of Ukrainian literature,and all those presentindulged in a "profound
analysis" of their"mistakes." A Ukrainianliterarycritic,Leonid Novichenko,
summedup the accusations against Sosyrua; He had not "freedhimselffrom
the influenceofhostilebourgeoisnationalisticideology,whichfindsa complete
reflectionin the corrupt poem 'Love the Ukraine.' . . . He representsthe
Ukraine as standing alone . . . without connection with the great Russian
27 See "Protiv ideologisheskikh izvrashchenii
v literature" ["Against Ideological Perversions in Literature"], Pravda, July 2, 1951, and "Ob opere Bohdan Khmelnitsky"
["About the Opera Bohdan Khmelnitsky"], ibid., July 20, 1951. On July 10 Pravda printed
an apology by Sosyura: "I think (your) criticismfullyjustified. I am deeply aware that the
Soviet Ukraine is unthinkable detached from the powerful growth of our state of many
nationalities; for the Ukraine achieved its happiness thanks to the fraternal help of the
great Russian people and the other peoples of our motherland,"
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people and the otherpeoples of the Soviet Union. . . He refusesto see that
in the battle to freethe Ukraine,the sons ofall the peoples ofthe Soviet Union,
and in the firstinstance the sons of great Russia, took part; about them he
crudelyand insultinglykeeps quiet. . . . Whilepraisinga certainexclusiveness
of the Ukrainian language, he consideredit possible not even to mentionthe
Russian language, whichis to everyUkrainianas mucha native language as is
Ukrainian itself."28
Novichenko's last sentenceis revealingforthe new trend. When Professor
Alexander VladimirovichPalladin, President of the Ukrainian Academy of
Sciences and Ukrainian representativein the Soviet Pan-Slav Committee,
returnedfromthe InternationalCongressof Physiologyin England in 1947one of the many internationalscholarlycongresseswhichthe aged scholarhad
attended-he reportedin the LiteraturnayaGazeta how he had therescoreda
nationalisttriumph.Though he knew French and English perfectlywell, he
refusedto use eitherof these officiallanguages. Instead, "We said we could not
accept such a humiliatingtreatmentof Soviet science and of the Russian language. This, we said, was the language of a great victoriousnation,and of the
nation whichhad createdthe greatestand most advanced formof state in the
world,and this language must receive its legitimateplace in the work of the
congress.We scored our point. We read our papers in our own language."
What strikesone in thisstatementis not onlythe spiritofnationalistprideand
intransigenceshown at an internationalscientificgathering("This episode,
showed," ProfessorPalladin continued, "how important it is never for a
momentto yield on points affectingour national honorand dignity,nor must
we ever tolerateany kindoftoadyingto the West"), but thefactthat the President of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, an avowed nationalist,is not a
Ukrainian nationalist. He is a Russian nationalist,who regards Russian as
"our" language and reads his paper, in defianceof the rules of international
courtesy,in Russian, not in Ukrainian.29
A similarrevaluationof theirhistoryand culturehas been imposedby Moscow on the non-Slav Soviet peoples. Until recentlyShamil, the famousfighter
for the independenceof the North Caucasus (1834 to 1859), and Kenesary
Kasymov, who led the Kazakh revoltagainst Russian conquest (1837 to 1846),
were recognizedas heroesofliberty.Soviet Russian historiansagreedwiththe
new Kazakh and Daghestani communistintelligentsiain praisingthe "anticolonial" and "progressive"characterof these wars forindependence.But in
1950 it was foundout that thesenationalheroeswereno liberators;"objectively, Russia fillsthe role ofliberatorof the Caucasian peoples fromthe crueland
Pravda Ukrainy, July 15, 1951. The same paper reported, on July 22, that the
Ukrainian Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge complained
that "too few lectures are being given about the eternal friendship of the Russian and
Ukrainian peoples and about the struggle against Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism and
cosmopolitanism."
29 See the report sent from Moscow to the Manchester Guardian by Alexander Werth,
Oct. 26, 1947.
28
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arbitraryoppressionby the Iranian and Turkishbandits." It was onlynatural
that the new Soviet scholarshipsuddenlydiscoveredthat "the longingof progressivepeople in the Caucasus forunionwithRussia had reflectedthe feelings
of the broad masses," and that "Shamil was forcedto overcomethe stubborn
resistanceof the people. who expressedtheirsympathyforRussia, the savior
of Daghestan fromthe easternbrutes."30No lesserbody than the "presidium"
ofthe Academy of Sciences ofthe USSR adopted in November,1950,a resolution blaming leading Russian historians,among them the academy member
Anna Mikhailovna Pankratova, for having idealized and misrepresentedthe
"war of liberation"ofthe Caucasian mountaineersunderShamil's leadership.3'
Thereinwas seen a remnantofthe "un-Marxist"school ofPokrovsky,who had
not understoodthe importanceof the Black Sea and the Caucasus for the
securityof (tsarist)Russia. The independencemovementsofthe Mohammedan
people against Russian controlcould not be consideredprogressive,forthey
allegedlyplayed into the hands of Pan-Turanismand of Britishimperialism,
the foes of mankind.
The new communistintelligentsiaamong the non-Russianpeoples had been
encouraged,at the beginningof the Soviet domination,to explore the past,
and especiallythe folksongs and epic poems,oftheirown peoples. The various
state publishinghouses and academies of sciences of the national republics
had published,and glorified,
such epic poems and heroicsongs as "Altamych"
(Uzbek), "Dede-Korkut" (Azerbaijan), "Korkut-Ata" (Turkmenistan) and
"Gesser Khan" (Buryat-Mongol).But whilethe Russians wereexhorted,after
1934, to take pride in the unique beauty of the "Song of the Expedition of
Igor" and of the byliny (oral popular poetrycelebratingthe exploits of the
pre-TartarRussian princes),theepic poemsofthe otherpeoples wereunmasked
as reactionaryafter 1949. In his Russian translationof the "Altamych," M.
Sheikhsade had characterizedit as the revelationof "the best traits of character of the workingpopulationin the past, of its unceasinglongingforsocial
justice, forhappiness and forthe good, a symbol of all the heroic and noble
aspirationswhich.livedamongthe workingmasses of Uzbekistan." Now it was
30
See Solomon M. Schwarz, "Revising the History of Russian
Colonialism," Foreign
Affairs,Vol. 30, pp. 488-493 (April,1952); Mark Alexander,"Tensionsin Soviet Central
Asia," TwentiethCentury,Vol. 150, pp. 192-200 (Sept., 1951);-and above all M. H.
Ertuerk,"Was gehtin Turkestanvor?", Ost-Probleme,
Vol. 3, pp. 1010-1016 (1950).
31 "Ob antimarksistskoi
i Shamilya v trudakhnauchotsenkedvizheniyamyuridisma
nykhsotrudnikovAkademii" ["About the Anti-MarxistAppreciationof Myuridismand
ofShamilin the Worksofthe ScientificCollaboratorsoftheAcademy"],VestnikAkademii
Nauk SSSR, No. 11 (Nov., 1950); E. Adamov and L. Kutakov, "Iz istoriiproiskovinostrannyagenturyvo vremyakavkazkikhvoin " ["From the Historyof the Intriguesof
Foreign Agents at the Time of the Caucasian Wars"], Voprosyistorii, No. 11 (Nov., 1950).
The most criticizedbook was that by R. Magomedov,Borba gortsev
za nezavisimost
pod
rukovedstvom
Shamilya [The Struggleof the Mountaineers
for Their Independenceunder
Shamil's Leadership](Makhach-Kala, 1939). The author was especiallyblamed forthe
"horrifying
assertion" that this war of independenceformedpart of the international
revolutionary
movement.
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condemned,as was the similar"Gesser Khan" epos:32"The poem cultivatesa
hostileattitudetowardsthe Russian people. The Buryat-Mongolpeople,which
owes its freedomand happiness to the great Russian people, cannot tolerate
that its sentimentsforthe fraternalRussian people be hurt.... Only under
the protectionofthe Soviet power. . . could the cultureofthe Buryat-Mongol
people . . . floweras never before.It formsan indissolublepart of the united
and harmoniousSoviet familyof peoples and progressestowardscommunism,
thanks to the supportof the great Russian people underthe leadershipof the
party of Lenin and Stalin."
Historians of the Mohammedan peoples who had pointed to the influence
of Arab, Iranian, and Turkishcivilizations,were accused of being "cosmopolitans." Accordingto the new theory,the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tadjiks, and Turkmens developed independentlyuntil the nineteenthcentury,when they came
under the benevolentinfluence,not of the Russian tsars,it is true,but of the
Russian people and the Russian culture. Kazakh communisthistorianswho
had regardedthe struggleof their people for independencefromRussia as a
school forthe political education of the masses, were censoredbecause "they
failedto recognizethe deep progressivesignificanceofthe union of Kazakhstan
with Russia.... The Kazakh workingclass had the greatestinterestin this
union.The activitiesofthe Kassymovs (leadersofthe independencemovement)
who wishedto hinderthe union,were in sharp oppositionto the desiresof the
progressivepart ofKazakh society."33
V
The futureofPan-Slavismis uncertaintoday. In 1930 it seemeda dead issue.
World War II broughtan unexpectedrevival,withan unprecedentedbreadth
and intensity.There was fora time some hope of a Pan-Slavism based upon
the equality and free development of the various Slav peoples; Dr. Bene
and Jan Masaryk apparentlybelieved in its possibility.What emergedwas a
Pan-Russism of the kind preachedby the extremePan-Slavs of the nineteenth
centurybut neveradopted by the tsaristRussian governmentand always combatted by liberal and humanitariantrends among the Russians themselves,
as well as by the nationalismof Ukrainiansand Poles, Czechs, and Serbs. Now,
however,a new dimensionhas been added, apparentlyas a permanentfeature,
to theexclusiveand all-inclusivestatereligionofthe Soviet Union.BeforeWorld
War II, Soviet citizenshad to worshipthe party of Lenin and Stalin and the
great Stalin himself.Now a compulsoryobsequious deferenceto the "great"
Russian people has been imposed on all its "youngerbrothers"-a category
32 See "Ob epose 'Altamych' " ["About the Epic Poem 'Altamych' "], Literaturnaya
Gazeta, Feb. 14, 1952; and "O reaktsionnoi sushchestnosti eposa Gesser Khan" ["About
the Reactionary Nature of the Epos Gesser Khan"], Kultura i Zhizn, Jan. 11, 1951.
33 "Za marksistko-leninskoe osveshchenie voprosov istorii Kazakhstana"
["For the
Marxist-Leninist Elucidation of the Questions of the History of Kazakhastan"], Pravda,
Dec. 26, 1950.
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whichall non-Russianpeoples must enter.In this respectthe Pan-Slav frame
has been broadened and racial equality throughoutthe Soviet empire maintained: all its peoples, whetherwhite or colored,Slav or Turk, Christian or
Mohammedan, have equally and continuallyto pay theirdeep respectto the
Russian people and even to the Russian past!
Yet there are signs-in Titoism, in the ever-repeatedofficialaccusations
by Moscow against Polish, Ukrainian,Uzbek, and Caucasian writersand historians-that the non-Russianpeoples,Slavs as well as non-Slavs,do not sufficientlyappreciatebeingconstantlyremindedof the deep gratitudewhichthey
owe to the "great" Russian people and of theirimmutabledependenceupon
the leadership of the Russian people. It is not impossiblethat an enforced
conformity
and loyalty,drivento such length,may prove a weakeningfactor
in the vast Moscow empireand may help one day to restorethe principlesof
liberty,equality, and diversityon which the Pan-Slav movementinsistedin
1848, when it rejected categoricallyMoscow's leadershipand looked to the
West forguidance and inspiration.
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