Discussion of Soviet Marxist Historians about non-Russian Peoples in the 1920s to early 1930s

The paper discusses the controversies on the history of non-Russian peoples in the USSR among the Soviet Marxist historians in the 1920s to early 1930s. The development of early Marxist historical science in the USSR was closely related with the policies of the party. The party leaders distinguished the nationalism of the oppressing nations from that of the oppressed nations, and considered “great power chauvinism,” or Russian nationalism, the main danger. Accordingly, the study of all the peoples in the USSR and the improvement of their cultural level became an important task for scholars, including historians. At the fi rst convention of the All-Union Society of Marxist Historians in December 1928 to January 1929, the study of the history of the peoples in the USSR was declared as the main task of Soviet historians. For the fi rst time, the historians faced the problem of how to interpret the history of non-Russian peoples from the Marxist perspective. One main arguing theme was the evaluation of the Russian rule over the non-Russian peoples. Another main problem was the tendency of “the great power chauvinism” of the Russian Marxist historians; this issue was raised by Ukrainian Marxist historians, including M. Iavorskii. They criticized some Russian Marxist historians for underestimating the Ukrainian elements in the history of the revolutionary movement in Ukraine and for not acknowledging the independent features of the cultural, social, and economic history of Ukraine. However, M. Pokrovskii, the most authoritative Russian Marxist historian, did not accept the criticism, and thus, the historians never reached a consensus. In contrast, the problems that became serious themes in the Stalin period, such as the evaluation of the Khan who led the rebellion of non-Russian peoples against Russia, or the evaluation of the “Holy war” by the Muslim population against Russian rule, were given less attention by the historians.