Great Russian chauvinism: the history of the appearance of the expression, its meaning, periods of use with quotes

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The expression "Great Russian chauvinism" was commonly used in the literature of liberals and communists. It was related to the way Russian government officials used derogatory language to other Russian peoples.

Initially, there was a similar expression - "great-power chauvinism of the Russians", which could also be used in relation to other peoples. In this case, the end of this expression, of course, was replaced.

Lenin's attitude to the term

The expression was most widespread in the society of liberal revolutionaries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As soon as the Bolsheviks gained power, the expression sharply acquired an extremely negative connotation, great-power chauvinism was opposed to internationalism.

Lenin expressed himself rather unambiguously about great-power Russian chauvinism. He treated him negatively. Vladimir Ilyich called for the fight against Great Russian chauvinism, while Zinoviev said to burn with a red-hot ironanything that contains the slightest hint of chauvinism.

This great power could be observed to the greatest extent during the formation of various national administrative bodies. The agricultural commissar Yakovlev said that chauvinism penetrates through the apparatus. He was declared the main state danger in all the speeches that Joseph Stalin made about the national question at many party congresses.

Over time, however, the expression was forgotten, giving more scope for the creation of common government structures. At the same time, the Russian language again acquired a dominant position in office work, and the languages of other nationalities more and more disappeared from the apparatus. For this reason, the expression "Great Russian chauvinism" was lost in history for this period.

Perestroika era

In the era of perestroika, the term again found its place on the pages of the liberal press, and its meaning has not changed much. Only a certain Marxist component has disappeared.

Now the term is used much less often than a century ago, although it has not completely disappeared.

Lenin on Great Russian chauvinism

In Switzerland, in early December 1914, Lenin wrote an article en titled "On the National Pride of the Great Russians." In the same month, the article was published in the Social Democrat newspaper. Together with similar articles, this one reveals the opinion of V. I. Lenin regarding the national question in Europe and Russia during the First World War.

This textwas written at the beginning of the First World War, when there were disputes between Lenin and his political opponents from his own party, who accused him of lack of love for the Motherland.

The text notes the serious importance of the national question due to Russia's attempts to subjugate the Balkan countries, Armenia and Galicia (a region in Eastern Europe). Also in the article, you can find many references to the "suffocation of the Ukrainian people".

Among other things, his democratic-revolutionary point of view on the issue of the nation was formulated there:

Is it alien to us, the great Russian conscious proletarians, a sense of national pride? Of course not! We love our language and our Motherland, we are most of all working to raise its working masses (that is, 9/10 of its population) to the conscious life of democrats and socialists.

We are full of a sense of national pride, and that is why we especially hate our slave past (when the landowners nobles led peasants to war in order to stifle the freedom of Hungary, Poland, Persia, China) and our slave present, when the same landowners, those aiding the capitalists are leading us to war in order to stifle Poland and the Ukraine, in order to crush the democratic movement in Persia and China, in order to strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskys and Purishkeviches, which dishonors our Great Russian national dignity. No one is to blame if he was born a slave; but a slave who not only shies away from striving for his freedom, but justifies and embellishes his slavery (for example, calls the strangulation of Poland, Ukraine, etc. Fatherland of the Great Russians), such a slave is a lackey and boor who evokes a legitimate feeling of indignation, contempt and disgust.

In addition, Lenin notes the high importance of the abolition of the oppression of nations in Russia for the prosperity of the economy:

And the economic prosperity and rapid development of Great Russia requires the liberation of the country from the Great Russians' violence against other peoples.

Estimates of the "Encyclopedic Dictionary"

In the "Encyclopedic Dictionary" it was noted that the text of V. I. Lenin provided program provisions on the concept of advanced Russian proletarians about national pride and patriotism.

Their patriotism is manifested in the battle for the Motherland to be freed from the enslavement and oppression of the exploiting classes in the struggle to find happiness for their people. In such patriotism, the incredible love of the working people for their Motherland is closely connected with the enormous hatred for its opponents and enslavers.

Among other things, the pride of V. I. Lenin for the working class in Russia, which had an honorable vanguard role in the struggle for the liberation of people, was noted. Attention is also drawn to Lenin's opinion that the struggle of the Bolshevik Party for socialism meets the fundamental interests of the country and the correctly understood interests of the nation of the Russian proletariat coincide with the interests of the socialists of the working class of other countries.

Short vocabulary score

In the "Concise Dictionary of Scientific Communism" it was noted that the text of V. I. Lenin is a methodology for analyzing the historical patriotism of the working classtogether with its unity with proletarian internationalism.

But were the views of the Bolsheviks on the question of the nation really internationalist? In their policy, did they really proceed from a certain principle of democratic equality and equality of all nations? Or were their opinions in this area also subject to the class approach of the Marxists?

Position of the Bolsheviks

In this matter, the Bolsheviks considered IV Dzhugashvili (Stalin) a specialist. He was appointed to the post of People's Commissar for Nationalities in the RSFSR in the period from 1917 to 1923.

The Bolshevik stance on the issue of nationalities was far more radical than most of the national parties that advocated the autonomy of culture. Once upon a time, a sovereign nation was not divided into certain ethnic components. Nowhere was it called an oppressive nation.

In the Russia of the Soviets, the attitude towards the Russian people itself was the one and only point in which the class approach was relegated to the background, and the revolutionary Russophobic hatred of the sovereign community of Russians was brought to the fore.

Russophobia and Tsarist power

A certain Russophobic part was also present in the hatred of classes for the monarchy in the Russian Empire. The Bolsheviks stood not only for the destruction of royal power and the empire itself, but also for the right to detach those nationalities that cannot or do not want to continue to remain within the framework of something whole.

Modern use of the term

In our time, the expression"Great Russian chauvinism" is used extremely rarely compared to the twenties of the last century, but it has not disappeared completely.

B. V. Putin, during his speech at the international conference en titled "Eurasian Integration: Trends in Modern Development and Challenges of Globalization" on June 18, 2004, spoke about the problems that hinder integration as follows:

If I were allowed to take part in this section, I would say that these problems can be formulated very simply. This is great-power chauvinism, this is nationalism, this is the personal ambitions of those on whom political decisions depend, and, finally, this is just stupidity - ordinary cave stupidity.

During a meeting with representatives of youth movements in the village of Zavidovo in the Tver region, which took place on July 24, 2007, Putin, in response to a remark regarding the problem of migration, said that this, of course, was grounds for inciting nationalism within the country. But in any development of events, great-power chauvinism is also unacceptable.

Sentenced to two years on probation for extremist activity, the executive director of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, which was banned by the court because it was recognized as extremist, Stanislav Dmitrievsky believes that at a time when propaganda of chauvinism takes place, all means of preventing events in Kondopoga are meaningless.

Referring to the mass riots in September 2006 in the Karelian city of Kondopoga, caused by the murderstwo local residents in a group that consisted of six people who came from Chechnya and Dagestan. The Petrozavodsk riot police were involved in the suppression of mass unrest, during this suppression a total of over a hundred people who took part in the riots on the streets were detained.

In addition, the use of the expression "Great Russian chauvinism" can be found in the farce-comedy of 1995 called "Shirley Myrli". It is used by one of the characters in the film, who is a gypsy by nationality.