did the soviet “nationalities policy” ever succeed?...

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DID THE SOVIET “NATIONALITIES POLICY” EVER SUCCEED?

EVIDENCE FROM THE PATTERNS OF ETHNIC INTERMARRIAGE IN RUSSIA

Nikolai BotevPopulation Activities Unit, UN/ECE

Mailing address:93D ave. d’Aire

CH-1203 Geneva, SWITZERLANDe-mail: [email protected]

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1998Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America inChicago, IL (2-4 April 1998). The analysis is based in part on afive percent random sample of the families in the RussianFederation from the 1989 former Soviet census, drawn atGoskomstat of Russia by a team headed by Andrei Volkov. Theviews, findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed arethose of the author and do not necessarily coincide with thoseof the organization in which he is employed.

Did the Soviet “nationalities policy” e ver succeed?

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INTRODUCTION

The former USSR prided itself as a model for achieving

ethnic harmony in a society composed of peoples belonging to

over 100 ethnic groups1, 53 of which had some form of legally

recognized rights over a particular territory. Soviet leaders

from Lenin, through Stalin and Khruschev, to Gorbachev,

extolled the success of the Soviet “nationalities policy”2.

Even one of the documents considered to have marked the advent

of perestroyka proclaimed that “the solution of the

nationalities question is an outstanding accomplishment of

socialism”, and went on to state that “ethnic conflicts became

a thing of the past, and fraternal comradeship, close

cooperation and mutual assistance of all peoples of the USSR

became a way of life” 3. Yet only three years after these

proclamations the former Soviet Union started to tumble amidst

an upsurge of ethnic unrest. By 1991 the USSR had

disintegrated, with all 15 union republics having achieved

independence and close to two dozen other regions or areas

having declared sovereignty. Currently, ethnic conflicts are

smoldering in Nagorno-Karabakh and Chechnia. Some observers

expect tensions to flare up in other of Russia’s ethnic

republics.

What went wrong? Numerous attempts have been made to

answer this question (see e.g. Mirsky 1997; Cheshko 1996;

Khazanov 1995; Legvold 1992). Most of the research on the

topic comes from the domain of political science and generally

follows one of three interpretative approaches. The first


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approach emphasizes the vulnerability of pluralist, liberal

democracies when faced with internal structural problems, by

either invoking the collapse of Weimar republic (1918-1933) as

a historical precedent (see Snyder 1993), or by blaming

Gorbachov’s policy of perestroyka for the collapse of an

otherwise sound edifice (Cheshko 1996). The second approach

borrows ideas from the resource competition theory (Barth

1969; Nagel 1995). Its proponents argue that in the contest

for the assets of the disintegrating Soviet state many used

ethnicity and nationalism as ideological justification for

their claims (Matuszewski 1994). Finally, a third approach,

which is often referred to as “the ancient hatred theory”

contends that the upsurge of ethnic hostilities, which

followed the collapse of communism, was an inevitable

consequence of age-old ethnic feuds, which were suppressed by

the totalitarian regimes (see Snyder 1993). Exponents of this

theory usually allude to the characterization of the Russian

empire as a “prison of the peoples”4 and argue that the only

thing that changed with the Bolshevik takeover were the prison

guards.

In general, little empirical evidence is offered in

support of these theories and contentions. This paper will

attempt to partly fill this gap by utilizing data from the

1989 Soviet census to study one particular aspect of the

interethnic relations in the former Soviet Union -- ethnic

intermarriage. The analysis is limited to the Russian

Federation, which was the largest of the fifteen Union


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republics.

THE PREVALENCE OF INTERMARRIAGE

Intermarriage has been used widely as an indicator of how

ethnic and other interactions are structured in a society. A

recent study, for example, demonstrated that the patterns of

ethnic assortative mating in the former Yugoslavia were

consistent with the ethnic rifts that tore that country apart

(Botev 1994). Similarly, research on intermarriage patterns

and ethnically mixed families can give important insights into

the nature of the relations between different nationalities in

the former Soviet Union and thus contribute to understanding

the factors that led to its disintegration.

There is already a body of literature on this subject

(see e.g. Tolts 1990; Volkov 1989; Susokolov 1987; Borzykh

1984; Fisher 1980; Terenteva and Ustinova 1979). The general

finding is that mixed marriages in the former Soviet Union were

widespread and that ethnic exogamy was on the increase. Census

returns show that the proportion of families where the spouses

have declared different ethnic backgrounds had increased by

over a third between 1959 and 1989 (see Table 1). A trend

towards increasing ethnic intermarriage is observable also

from the scanty officially published vital registration data

on the ethnicity of those marrying (see Table 2). These data

demonstrate as well the overwhelming prevalence of exogamy

among certain ethnic groups in the Russian Federation

(especially Ukrainians, Byelorussians and the Jewish). Survey


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data on popular attitudes towards ethnic intermarriage also

suggest that exogamy was widely accepted in the former Soviet

Union. Thus Arutiunian (1969), Susokolov (1988) and others

report that between 66 and 85 percent of those interviewed in

various surveys approved of mixed marriages, although this

proportion was significantly lower in the Central Asian

republics (see Susokolov 1988).

INSERT TABLES 1 AND 2 ABOUT HERE

As can be expected, the prevalence of exogamy was higher

in the urban areas, where almost one in five marriages in 1989

was ethnically mixed. Compared to the former Soviet Union as a

whole, the proportion of exogamous families in the Russian

Federation was lower (Table 1). This difference becomes more

conspicuous if compared with other former Soviet republics

like Moldova, Byelorus and Ukraine where about one third or

more of the families in the urban areas were ethnically mixed

(Volkov 1989). Interpreting these differences, as well as the

differences between the ethnic groups in Table 2 is difficult,

however, because structural factors like group size or sex

ratios may strongly affect the levels and trends of exogamy

(see e.g. Gray 1987; McCaa 1989; Jones 1991). Their effect is

especially strong in populations with disordered cohort flows,

as was the case with the former USSR, where a considerable

deficit of males in some of the ethnic groups seriously

perturbed nuptiality. This deficit was due to human losses

during World War II, excess mortality among males, and gender-

selective migration (see Darsky and Ilyina 1990 for more


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details). It was especially pronounced among the ethnic

Russians, where for every 100 men there were 122.3 women in

1970, 120.1 in 1979, and 116.3 in 1989 (GOSKOMSTAT RSFSR 1990,

29). The sex imbalances were further exacerbated by gender

differentials in educational levels (see Toltz 1992), as well

as in other characteristics. That increased the likelihood of

ethnic intermarriage, as certain groups were facing tight

marriage markets and their members had to look elsewhere for a

suitable partner.

It is thus crucial for a better understanding of the

ethnic processes in the former Soviet Union to disentangle the

influence of structural factors from the changes in the

propensity to intermarry, irrespective of the marriage market

constraints. Unfortunately, many of the existing studies of

intermarriage in the former Soviet Union are based on crude

measures and do not account for structural effects (see e.g.

Tolts 1992). Others apply various indices to control for these

effects (see e.g. Pershitz 1967; Terentieva and Ustinova

1979), most popular in the Soviet literature being the system

of nuptiality indices proposed early this century by the

Ukrainian demographer Mikhail Ptuha (1922)5. As McCaa (1989)

and others have shown, although more refined, these indicators

do not offer sufficient analytical flexibility.

Another shortcoming of the existing research is that in

most cases it is based on fragmentary data, which limits the

generalizability of its results. Some of the studies focus on

particular ethnic groups – for example Altshuler (1987) and


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Tolts (1992) examine the patterns of exogamy among the Jewish

population; Arutiunian (1969) concentrates on Tatars and

Russians; Roosson (1984) focuses on Estonian and Russians, etc.

Very often they cover small teritorial units – e.g.

Arutiunian’s (1969) study is based on a survey taken in the

rural areas of the Tatar Autonomous Republic; Kurbatova and

Pobedonostseva (1992) limit their research to the city of

Moscow and a few other urban areas of the former Soviet Union.

One of the major reasons for this was the lack of adequate

data. The former Soviet Union was notorious for its

secretiveness and scarcity of official information. The number

of endogamous families by union republics was published as

part of the official tabulation programs for the 1970 and 1979

censuses (TsSU 1973 and 1984). Unofficial estimates of the

same indicator for the 1959 census have been provided

elsewhere (Isupov 1964). Complete tabulations of families by

ethnicity of the spouses have never been published. Data on

the nationality of the brides and the grooms were collected as

part of the former Soviet Union’s vital registration system,

however only the numbers of endogamous marriages by age for

some of the largest ethnic groups for 1978 and 1988 were ever

published (GOSKOMSTAT 1989)6. Cross-tabulations of the

marriages by ethnicity of the bride and the groom based on

vital registration data have never been published. Data from

the third potential source of information for the study of

intermarriage, sample surveys, were also relatively scarce.

Several studies based on survey data have been published


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(Arutiunian 1969, Roosson 1984; Susokolov 1988). In all cases

the samples were too small to draw detailed conclusions and

none of them was available to outside researchers.

All this underscores the need to use more sophisticated

analytical approaches and more detailed data to study ethnic

intermarriage in the former Soviet Union.

DATA AND METHODS

As mentioned earlier, this study will be based on a five

percent random sample of the families in the Russian

Federation from the 1989 Soviet census. Whereas the vital

registration data, commonly used in studies of mating

patterns, refer to marriages contracted over a given period,

the census data present the stock of intact families at a

certain point of time. This stock reflects both past

nuptiality and intermarriage trends, and differential

attrition through divorce, mortality and change in ethnic

self-identification. If ethnically exogamous marriages are

less stable than the endogamous ones (as existing research

suggests -- see Ho and Johnson 1990, or Glenn and Supanic

1984), the proportion of ethnically mixed families at any

point in time will be lower than the proportion of exogamous

marriages in the original marriage cohorts. Attrition through

mortality will introduce a bias if there are ethnic

differentials in mortality7.

In general the stock of families also reflects the

evolution of the ethnic self-identification of the spouses --


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a phenomenon that in and of itself is important as an evidence

of assimilation trends, but which usually confounds the

overall picture in studies of intermarriage based solely on

stock-type data. As a result, the appropriateness of stock

type data and specifically census data for research on

ethnicity-related issues, including intermarriage, is

sometimes questioned. What sets the former Soviet Union apart

is that ethnicity there was rigidly institutionalized and

treated as an ascribed characteristic. The main instrument for

that was the internal passport system -- a person’s ethnic

background had to be declared at the time of legal maturity

(age 16), when the first internal passport was issued and

‘nationality’ was written in it (the so called ‘piatii punkt’,

i.e. ‘fifth point’). Changing this initial declaration

involved a complicated administrative procedure and was rarely

done. Although the 1989 Soviet census was based on self-

declaration (as are most censuses), given that canvassing was

the enumeration procedure used (i.e. the enumeration was

performed through face-to-face interviews) and enumerators

were regarded as ‘official figures’, it is unlikely that the

responses to the census questionnaire would differ

significantly from the officially declared ethnicity8. Soviet

census data can thus be considered more robust as far as

studying ethnic intermarriage is concerned.

In order to keep the analysis manageable and meaningful,

I will consider only the ten largest ethnic groups in Russia,

as well as the Jewish, which rank fourteenth in terms of size


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(see Table 3), but have more frequently than most of the other

ethnic groups been subject to studies of intermarriage and are

sufficiently dispersed over the territory of the Russian

Federation to allow analysis of the regional variations in

their exogamy patterns. The members of these eleven ethnic

groups speak languages belonging to six different linguistic

groups: Slavic (Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians), Turkic

(Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvashes), Finno-Ugric (Mordvas, Udmurts),

Caucasian (Chechens), Germanic (Germans) and Judaic (the

Jewish). Historically they have adhered to 6 main religions:

Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Lutheran,

Judaism, as well as remnants of paganism (e.g. among the

Udmurts) -- see Table 3.

INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE

To better elucidate the regional and rural/urban

variations in the prevalence and patterns of ethnic

intermarriage, I will consider separately four broad

geographic areas in the Russian Federation, and within them

distinguish between urban and rural settlements. These four

areas are aggregations of the eleven economic regions into

which the Russian Federation is unofficially subdivided. The

first area, which I call “Western Russia”, covers the three

economic regions in the west of the country (the Central, the

Black-Earth and the North-Western), as well as the Kaliningrad

oblast. Although relatively small in terms of surface (this is

the second smallest of the four areas – see Table 4), it

covers the most densely populated and urbanized parts of the


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country, including the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The four economic regions that lay to the east and north of

the “Western Russia” area (the Northern, the Urals, Volga-

Vyatka and Povolsk) form the second area, which I term “North,

Urals and Volga”. This is the largest of the four areas in

terms of population and the second largest in terms of

territory. It includes nine autonomous republics, among which

Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Mordovia, Tatarstan and Udmurtia,

which are homelands to five of the ethnic groups that will be

considered further in the analysis. The third area, which I

call “Siberia and the Far East” covers a vast and sparsely

populated territory that includes the three regions in the

east of the Russian Federation (Western Siberia, Eastern

Siberia, and the Far Eastern Region). It includes five

autonomous republics, eight autonomous areas, as well as the

Jewish autonomous region. Finally, because of its geographic,

ethnic, and other idiosyncrasies, I consider separately the

North Caucasus region. This is the most ethnically diverse

part of the Russian Federation and includes seven autonomous

republics, including Chechnia.


The analysis is based on general log-linear models, which

allow distinguishing the effects of changes in the marginal

distribution of spouses' traits from patterns that reflect the

association between these traits. The major advantage of this

approach is that log-linear analysis examines patterns of

deviation from baseline assumptions about the relationships in


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a contingency table, which is a natural way to present the

association between the ethnic backgrounds of spouses, rather

then distinguishing between dependent and independent

variables, as is the case of classic regression-type

techniques. A potential drawback is that only actual marriages

are considered and not the marriage market as a whole, so the

information on those that remain unmarried is lost9. This may

lead to biases in situations of aberrant marriage patterns

(very late marriages or high levels of celibacy), but should

not be a major concern here, as marriages in the former Soviet

Union ranged from early and universal in most parts of the

country to moderately late in the Baltics, but nowhere does

the proportion never-married by age 50 reach levels that can

be termed aberrant.

RESULTS

This study analyses ethnic intermarriage in the former

Soviet Union along two dimensions: the first is the

association between the ethnic backgrounds of the spouses in a

family; the second dimension is the variation of this

association across areas (regions) and settlement types (urban

vs. rural). Table 5 presents the statistics of fit for various

specifications of log-linear models that incorporate different

assumptions along these two dimensions.

The first dimension of the analysis is operationalized in

the four models represented by the column-headings in Table 5.

The independence model is used as a baseline representing the


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opportunity structure. It includes only the marginal effects

and assumes random mating (i.e., marital choices reflect only

the relative supply of potential husbands and wives and are

not affected differentially by ethnic background). This model

fits the data poorly, as is indicated by the high values of

the likelihood ratio statistic (G2), and the Bayesian

Information Criterion (BIC)10. The rest of the models include

parameters that reflect the preference for endogamy. They

present mate selection as an outcome of two distinct

tendencies: an endogamy tendency, which reflects the

preference for marrying endogamously, and an exogamy tendency,

where those who do not marry within their own group choose

mates according to specific rules. In the "uniform endogamy"

model, all ethnic groups are assumed to have the same degree

of preference for ethnic endogamy, while in the "variable

endogamy" model ethnic groups vary in the degree of preference

for members of their own group. In both cases mating is random

for exogamous marriages (see the Appendix). The quasi-

independence models are based on the assumption that once

people cross the boundaries of their own ethnic group, they

face a random mating situation.


The four sets of models designated in Table 5 by the

panel-headings A, B, C, and D refer to different assumptions

about the second dimension of the analysis: the interactions

between mating preferences and residence. The first set of

models (region and settlement type invariant models) assumes


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that the same mating preferences characterize all regions and

types of settlement. The second set (settlement type-invariant

models) includes interactions of mating preferences and

region, so that mating preferences can vary across regions,

but remain the same for rural and urban settlements.

Alternatively, the third set (region-invariant models)

includes interactions of mating preferences with settlement

type, but not with region (i.e., mating preferences remain the

same across regions but vary by urban/rural residence). In the

fourth set of models (unconstrained models), mating

preferences vary both across regions and settlement types.

As expected, the models reflecting preference for

endogamy fit the data better than does the independence model.

Introducing a single endogamy parameter (i.e. assuming a

tendency towards endogamy that is constant across ethnic

groups, republics, and settlement types as is done in the

region- and settlement type-invariant uniform endogamy model)

lowers the likelihood ratio and BIC statistic by about one

third compared to the independence model, although only one

degree of freedom is lost. The fit statistics for the other

uniform endogamy and variable endogamy models are even better.

This finding underscores a tendency towards endogamy in the

former Soviet Union, although for the quasi-independence

models BIC never assumes negative values. The interpretation

of this fact is that even in terms of the trade-off between

fit and parsimony the saturated model is preferable, which

indicates that the tendency toward endogamy was not the only


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factor driving mating patterns in the former Soviet Union.

Table 5 also shows that the variable endogamy models fit the

data better than the uniform endogamy ones, indicating that

the different ethnic groups varied in their degree of

preference for endogamy. Allowing for both endogamy and

settlement type, and endogamy and region interactions in the

uniform endogamy and variable endogamy models improves the fit

of the models compared to the respective settlement type- and

region-invariant models. This suggests that there were both

regional and urban/rural differentials in ethnic intermarriage

in the former Soviet Union.

So far the parameterization of the models was

theoretically driven, as there were a priori reasons to

believe that ethnicity and residence mattered. An important

assumption was embedded in them -- that men and women of an

ethnic group are equally likely to marry persons from other

ethnic groups, or stated in other words, that exogamous

marriages are quasi-symmetrical (see Appendix A). Some of the

remaining larger residuals between the observed and the fitted

frequencies in the unconstrained variable endogamy model

indicate that relaxing this assumption could further improve

its fit. The residuals also reveal patterns of deviation that

suggest the existence of "special affinities" with respect to

exogamy. These observations allow introduction of empirical

"fixes" which further improve the fit of the model. They are

formalized in the extension of the unconstrained variable

endogamy model with added asymmetry and special affinity


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parameters. The asymmetry parameters capture sex differentials

in mating preferences (e.g. some form of hypergamy or

hypogamy) and thus relax the assumption of quasi-symmetry. The

special affinity parameters account for marital preferences

beyond those implied by the quasi-independence models, and

allow the identification of pockets of ethnic affinities, or

conversely, aversion. Adding these parameters produces the

best fitting model, which I use further in the analysis. BIC

for it is negative, indicating that in terms of the trade-off

between fit and parsimony this model represents the data

better than the saturated one.


The estimates of the intermarriage parameters based on

best fitting model are presented in Table 6. These parameters

show the relative chances of marrying within one’s own ethnic

group (for ease of presentation the parameters are shown in

log form). They reveal a relatively strong tendency towards

ethnic endogamy, as people are between two and several

thousand times more likely to marry within their own ethnic

group than is implied by random mating (see Table 6). The

least endogamous group are the Russians. The estimates in

Table 6 show that they were only between about two and four

times more likely to marry other Russians than is implied by

random mating. In fact, everywhere the endogamy parameters for

the Russians are the lowest among the eleven ethnic groups

included in this analysis, except for the urban areas of

Western Russia, where the Udmurts are less endogamous (the


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difference between endogamy parameters for the Russians and

the Udmurts is statistically significant at p<.05)11. This

finding may be interpreted as reflecting the position of the

Russians as the dominant group in the former Soviet society

and is generally in accordance with the minority group effects

theory, according to which a group's social behavior

(including mate selection) depends upon its relative size in a

given population (Blalock 1967; Goldscheider and Uhlenberg

1969). On the other hand, the endogamy of Tatars, Chuvashes,

Bashkirs, Mordvians, Udmurts and Chechens is highest precisely

in the areas where their homelands are, and thus their

relative size is higher. This is the opposite of what minority

group effects theory would have predicted, and is presumably

due to a self-selection mechanism: the emigrants within these

ethnic groups are those that have been more open to contacts

with other ethnicities and thus those that live outside a

given group’s homeland are less endogamous. Those that have

stayed in the ethnic republic are less opened to interethnic

contacts and are thus more endogamous.

The most endogamous ethnic group among the eleven that we

are studying are the Chechens. Our estimates identify them as

quasi-perfectly endogamous, as they are thousands of times

more likely to marry within their ethnic group than is implied

by random mating (after controlling for group size and

composition). This finding is not unexpected, given the

current events in the North Caucasus. Rather unexpectedly, the

Jewish population ranks, together with the Bashkirs, right


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after the Chechens in terms of the degree of endogamy. This

finding runs counter to the prevailing understanding that

Soviet Jewry was a group with a markedly exogamous orientation

and suggests that structural factors rather than the proneness

to exogamy were driving the relatively high proportion of

mixed marriages in that group. This finding is also

underscored by the indications that official data may

underestimate the level of endogamy among the Jewish

population -- as many authors point out, given that

disproportionately many children in ethnically mixed families

where one of the spouses is Jewish were registered as

belonging to the ethnic group of the non-Jewish parent, some

of those who are of mixed origin and appear as ‘non-Jewish’

spouses in vital registration and census returns, may be

Jewish even by Jewish orthodox standards (Toltz 1992).

Two main factors contributed to the marriage market

imbalances faced by the Soviet Jewry and determined the high

proportion of exogamous marriages in that ethnic group: (1)

while in the urban areas of the former Soviet Union women

significantly outnumbered men in marriageable ages (due mostly

to the gender differences in the rural-to-urban migration

flows, but also to excess male mortality), men outnumbered

women in the Jewish population (which was mostly urban to

begin with and sex differences in mortality were small); (2)

while the overall educational attainment of men in the Russian

Federation was lower than that of women, Jewish men had higher

educational attainment than their female counterparts and were


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thus facing the ‘dilemma’ of whether to mate assortatively

along educational or along ethnic lines. One other notable

aspect of the mating patterns of Soviet Jewry is also worth

mentioning. While, as could have been expected, the tendency

toward endogamy is stronger in the rural than in the urban

areas, for the Jewish population the endogamy parameters are

lower in the rural areas. This apparent inconsistency is most

probably the result of a self-selection mechanism: as already

noted, the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union was

residing almost entirely in the urban areas. Thus, most of

those that have been living in the rural areas have probably

moved there after marrying someone from another ethnic group.

When testing alternative models it was demonstrated that

not only the type of settlement (i.e. rural or urban)

mattered, but also the area. Comparing the parameter estimates

across the four areas, however, reveals that none of them

shows consistently lower (or higher) endogamy levels. Thus, we

are faced with a situation where the different ethnic groups

differed in their levels of endogamy across the four areas but

none of the areas was truly outstanding in terms of the levels

of endogamy.

The special affinity parameters suggest the existence of

"zones of attraction" with respect to exogamy. The Eastern

Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Bielorussians) form one such

zone, which is particularly strong in Western Russia and the

North Caucasus. The five ethnic groups of Turkic and Uralic

background form another such zone in the North, Ural and Volga


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area, where they are primarily concentrated. Tatars and

Bashkirs are considerably more likely to intermarry than

implied by random mating (after controlling for group size and

composition) throughout the former Soviet Union. The special

affinity parameters also suggest that the Jewish people were

more likely to intermarry with Slavic people (particularly

Russians and Ukrainians) than with the other ethnic groups. A

similar tendency was observed among the German minority.

Much attention has been paid in the literature on the

presumed strong gender differences in the propensity to

intermarry among the Central Asians in the former Soviet Union

(see e.g. Besemeres 1980). Various authors provide evidence to

support the existence of such differences, however it is

always fragmentary, or based on small convenience samples. For

example according to one study in Turkmenistan, 887 Turkmenian

men and only 162 Turkmenian women in a ill-described sample

married exogamously (cited after Besemeres 1980, p. 80).

Because of the nature of marriage and marriage markets, such

contentions should have little merit, unless there were high

levels of celibacy among the Central Asian women, which is

known not to be the case. Alternative mechanisms that can

result in significantly higher proportion of exogamous

marriages among men are: high masculinity ratios (i.e. men

significantly outnumber women); significantly higher

remarriage rates among men coupled with higher propensity to

marry exogamously upon remarriage; or in situations of

polygyny, where one of the wives in a polygamous marriage


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belongs to another ethnic group and thus the entire family is

classified as ethnically mixed. Neither of these can fully

explain the magnitude of the reported gender differences in

the levels of ethnic intermarriage in Soviet Central Asia.

They are most probably caused by the fact that in patrilocal

societies, as are those in Central Asia, there is a pronounced

tendency for the newly married couple to live in the area

where the husband comes from. Thus a selectivity bias is

introduced, as ethnically mixed couples where the husband is

Central Asian are more likely to be residing in Central Asia,

and vice versa -- ethnically mixed couples where the wife is

Central Asian are more likely to be residing elsewhere.

WHY DID THE SOVIET “NATIONALITIES POLICY” FAIL?

The answer to the question in the title of this paper was

a priori known. Soviet nationalities policy did not succeed,

and the best evidence is the ethnic unrest that accompanied

the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Our findings also add

to the body of evidence. A relatively well pronounced tendency

towards ethnic endogamy persisted, especially in the rural

areas. Pockets of ‘affinities’ and ‘aversions’ (e.g. Slavs,

groups of Turkic and Uralic origin) were separated by rigid

‘barriers’. Certain ethnic groups, most notably the Chechens,

were virtually closed to interethnic contacts and remained

almost perfectly endogamous, notwithstanding the official

efforts to obliterate national distinctions and tear down

ethnic barriers. Another question then emerges: ‘Why did the


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Soviet nationalities policy fail?’ Below, I consider two of

the directions where an answer could be sought: the first is

the way this policy was implemented; the second, is to look

critically at one of the most important instruments of Soviet

nationalities policy -- the rigid institutionalization of

ethnic identity at both individual and societal levels. My

main argument is that the lack of coherence in Soviet

nationalities policy and its discordant aims and means were

sending a mixed message to the populace, and that the rigid

institutionalization of ethnic identity, as one of the

cornerstones of this policy, backfired by increasing the

ethnic consciousness.

The Official Doctrine and its Implementation

Many observers have noted that Soviet policies towards

the nationalities lacked coherence (Gleason 1992; Cheshko

1996). This was true both in terms of the discordant aims and

means of these policies, and in terms of the way different

Soviet leaders were implementing them. This lack of coherence

stemmed largely from an inherent rumpus between the postulates

of Marxism and the exigencies of ruling a multinational state.

According to the official Marxist doctrine, nationalism and

ethnic loyalties are transient social phenomena, product of

capitalism and subordinate to class struggle. The “working man

has no country” proclaimed Marx in his Communist Manifesto and

reasoned that the nation and nationalism will be transcended,

just as capitalism was destined to disappear into what he

called the “waste heap of history”. Although Marx never


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addressed the category of ‘ethnic identity’ itself, many of

his followers treated it within the context of the nationalism

issue, applying directly the above postulates (for a

discussion of the Marxist views on ethnicity and ethnic

policies see Davis 1978; Connor 1984; Stam 1989). Lenin, the

theoretician, followed this basic premise. Lenin, the

revolutionary, however had to make compromises. Although on

purely theoretical and ideological grounds he should have been

expected to be an opponent of federal arrangements, he

realized that the Bolshevik revolution faced overpowering odds

unless it could garner the support of nationalist leaders in

the borderlands of the crumbling Tsarist empire (see Gleason

1992, for a more comprehensive treatment of this contention).

Hence, one of the first acts of the Bolsheviks after coming to

power was to grant various ethnic groups “national statehood”

within a federal framework, in exchange for their political

support. This gave political legitimacy to the groups

involved, and became the basis for sustaining their ethnic

identity and national sentiments. Some observers locate the

roots of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the structural

consequences of Lenin’s “compromise” (see Cheshko 1996).

Unlike Lenin and especially Bukharin, who were in favour

of self-determination within a federal framework and a more

gradual approach to the ”solution of the nationalities

question”, Stalin, who was considered the Bolsheviks' expert

on nationalism, favored a centralized administrative and

territorial structure and a more forceful policy towards the


Page 23

ethnic groups. He made steps aimed explicitly or implicitly at

suppression of national identity, as were for example the

forced displacement of entire ethnic groups (Crimean Tatars,

Volga Germans, Meskhetians), or the liquidation of ethnic

intelligentsia (for more details see Simon 1991). In the mid-

fifties Nikita Khrushchev reversed many of Stalin’s policies.

Most notably deported peoples were allowed to return to their

native lands. The basic premise, however, remained unchanged -

- national distinctions were expected to be obliterated as

part of the creation of a classless society. Within this

context Khrushchev argued that the development of Soviet

nationalities would go through a two stage developmental

process – the first stage will be that of their "coming

together" (sblizhenie), followed by a complete merging

(sliianie). The formula of ‘sblizhenie and slianie’ was thus

used to de-emphasise, if not suppress national identity. The

Brezhnev administration’s replacement of the ‘sblizhenie and

slianie’ formula with the idea of a "Soviet man" was a change

in form rather than in substance. Both within ‘sblizhenie and

slianie’ and the "Soviet man" formulas ethnic intermarriage

was considered as one of the most important vehicles for

achieving the merger of the Soviet ethnic groups and was

directly or indirectly encouraged. Brezhnev proudly referred

to the millions of mixed marriages in the former USSR as both

a sign of the success of the process of merging, and as an

indicator of the extend to which mate-selection in the Soviet

state was free of considerations other than romantic love12


Page 24

(Brezhnev 1973: 41). The last three soviet leaders (Andropov,

Chernenko and Gorbachev) never articulated their own

nationalities policy, although there were indications that

Andropov was preparing to take a proactive stance on the

issue, and according to some observers he considered

abolishing the republican status (Zemtsov 1985).

The Institutionalization of Ethnic Identity

One of the most important instruments of Soviet

nationalities policy was the rigid institutionalization of

ethnic identity, both on the individual and societal levels.

At the individual level this was achieved through the

aforementioned internal passport system, and the treatment of

ethnicity as an ascribed characteristic. At the societal level

ethnicity was institutionalized through the four-tier system

of USSR’s regional administrative division, which was ethnic

based. The four tiers were associated with different political

rights, different levels of control over the local economy and

resources and consequently different levels of autonomy. At

the top of this system were the 15 union republics (SSRs),

which were formally constituted as states with the right to

cessation and had all the attributes of a state (flags,

anthems, governments). At the next level were the 23

autonomous republics (ASSRs), which also had their own

governmental structures and constitutions, but did not have

the formal rights of cessation. At the third tier were the

autonomous regions, and finally the bottom tier was formed by

the autonomous areas. All of these territorial units were


Page 25

associated with a specific ethnic group.

Another aspect of the societal institutionalization of

ethnic identity was the elaborate system of ethnic quotas or

preferences in the educational, employment and political

systems. Preferential investment strategies were also used to

promote leveling off the social and economic development of

different regions and ethnic groups. Although officially aimed

at achieving a more balanced development, thus facilitating

the merger of the constituent nations and nationalities of the

Soviet state, these policies led to an increase in ethnic

consciousness and inflamed national tensions by advancing

particular ethnic groups at the expense of others.

To conclude, ethnic tensions and national movements were

not the only cause for the collapse of the former Soviet

Union. The flaws of the Soviet system manifested themselves in

an array of economic, social and political problems. Experts

disagree about the relative weight of these problems as causes

of that country’s collapse. Still, some claim that “if the

Soviet Union had been as ethnically homogeneous as China, it

would probably still be in business” (Rutland 1998, 17).


Page 26

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Page 33

1 The 1926 Soviet census identified 194 ethnic groups; the

1959 census -- 109; the 1970, 1979 and 1989 censuses -- 104

ethnic groups. The variation in the number of ethnic groups

was due in part to the inclusion in the ‘other’ category

during the later censuses of various small groups that were

not native to the USSR, but were enumerated separately in 1926

(e.g. Italians, Spaniards, etc.). More importantly, certain

sub-ethnoses that were classified separately in 1926 were

later enumerated as part of the broader ethnic groups (e.g.

Boikas, Lemkas, Gutsulas were enumerated as Ukrainians;

Lathgals were enumerated as Lithuanians; Mishars, Kriashens,

Nagabaiks were enumerated as Tatars) -- see Bruk (1986) for

more details.

2 The terms ‘nationality’ and ‘ethnicity’ were often used by

Soviet scholars interchangeably. The semantical difference

according to some was in the fact that the term ‘nationality’

emphasizes the social context of the phenomenon, while

‘ethnicity’ has biological overtones (see Gumilev 1967).

Others make a distinction on numerical grounds using the term

‘nationality’ for larger groups and ‘ethnicity’ for smaller

ones (see Bromlei 1976).

3 The 1986 revision of the Program of the Soviet Union’s

Communist Party (Pravda, 7 March 1986, p. 3)

4 This characterization is often attributed to Lenin himself.

Actually, in his ‘On the National Pride of the Great Russians’

(published originally in Sotsial-Demokrat No. 35 of 12


Page 34

December 1914), Lenin refers to the Russian Empire as “a

country which has been rightly called the ‘prison of the

peoples’”.

5 These indices were among the early efforts to control for

distributional effects and preceded by several decades the

much better known indices proposed by Price and Zubrzycki

(1962), although came later than similar measures proposed by

the French demographer Jacques Bertillion and the Italian

social scientist Rudolfo Benini.

6 Fragmentary data on the ethnic composition of marriages have

been published in the 1920s and only for Estonia in 1965 and

1968.

7 The existence of such differentials in the former Soviet

Union have already been demonstrated (see e.g. Andreev et al.

1992), but they were not of such a magnitude as to seriously

affect our results.

8 Such a conjecture is largely supported by the findings and

interpretations of other authors -- see for example Kozlov

(1975). The indirect estimates of Anderson and Silver (1983),

based on 1959 and 1970 census data, also indicate that ethnic

reidentification was negligible among the 15 titular ethnic

groups of the Union republics and was mostly concentrated

among younger people still not in possession of an internal

passport. Their estimates, however, also show non-trivial

rates of ethnic reidentification among 11 other ethnic groups.

9 See McCaa (1993) for a version of log-linear models that

takes into account both the married and the unmarried. Qian


Page 35

and Preston (1993), and Schoen and Klugel (1988) use an

alternative approach based on marriage functions, which relate

the number of marriages between men and women of two groups to

the number of eligible men and women of different groups.

10The Bayesian Information Criterion adjusts the likelihood

ratio statistic for sample size. The reason for this

adjustment is that G2 is designed to detect any discrepancies

between model and empirical data, so with large samples it

will reject even a good model (Raftery 1986a, 1986b). Given

the large samples on which this study is based (a total of

1,595,604 families), the BIC statistic provides a better

criterion for overall fit. Negative values of BIC indicate

that a model should be preferred to the saturated model in

terms of the trade-off between fit and parsimony, and the more

negative the value of BIC, the better the fit of the model.

11 The standard error of the parameter estimate difference (in

log form) is .110.

12 Marxism’s ideological commitment to love as basis for

marriage stemmed from the rejection of the ‘bourgeois’ notion

of mate selection as a market system, with rules of exchange

that favor homogamous marriages (see Fisher 1980 for a more

comprehensive discussion of this point).

Did the Soviet “nationalities policy” ever succeed?

Page 36

TABLE 1: Proportion of Ethnically MixedFamilies in the former Soviet Union and the

Russian Federation – 1959, 1970, 1979 and 1989census returns (percent)

Census Russian Federation Former USSRdate urban rural total urban rural total1959 10.8 5.6 8.3 15.1 5.8 10.21970 12.5 7.7 10.7 17.5 7.9 13.51979 13.2 9.3 12.0 18.1 9.2 14.91989 15.8 12.6 14.9 … … …

SOURCE: Volkov 1989, 12-3; TsSU 1973, 272-303


Page 37

TABLE 2: Proportion of Ethnically Mixed Marriages inthe Russian Federation by Major Ethnic Groups and

Gender (percent)

1978 1988total urban rural total urban rural

MenRussians 8.6 8.4 9.2 9.7 9.5 10.8Ukrainians 85.7 87.9 79.4 87.9 88.9 83.6Tatars 30.0 41.5 18.1 38.5 48.9 23.3Byelorussians 90.7 91.8 86.8 93.5 93.8 92.4Jewish 59.3 59.0 74.3 73.2 72.8 87.3Kazakhs 18.8 29.8 14.8 24.5 36.7 16.0Armenians 53.1 59.9 31.8 63.4 68.7 43.3

WomenRussians 9.8 10.0 9.2 11.1 11.1 10.8Ukrainians 83.5 85.5 78.1 86.8 87.5 84.1Tatars 30.8 42.4 18.9 39.6 50.5 23.0Byelorussians 89.0 89.9 86.2 92.8 93.0 92.1Jewish 43.0 41.9 74.8 62.8 62.4 80.6Kazakhs 14.4 21.6 11.9 24.5 35.6 16.9Armenians 40.5 44.3 31.7 43.2 48.8 26.2

SOURCE: GOSKOMSTAT 1989, 204-217


Page 38

TABLE 3: The fifteen largest ethnic groups in theRussian Federation in 1989 by size and ethno-

linguistic characteristics

Population Ethno-linguistic characteristicsEthnic Group Size % Language Language Predominant

(thousands) Family Group Religion1. Russian 119,866 81.5 Indo-European Slavic Eastern Orthodox

(EO)2. Tatar 5,522 3.8 Altaic Turkic EO, Sunni Muslims3. Ukrainian 4,363 3.0 Indo-European Slavic EO, Eastern Catholic4. Chuvash 1,774 1.2 Altaic Turkic EO, Muslims5. Bashkir 1,345 0.9 Altaic Turkic Sunni Muslims6. Byelorussian 1,206 0.8 Indo-European Slavic Eastern Orthodox7. Mordvian 1,073 0.7 Uralic Finno-ugric EO, traditional faiths8. Chechen 899 0.6 Caucasian Nakho-dagestanian Sunni Muslims9. German 842 0.6 Indo-European Germanic Catholic, Lutheran

10. Udmurt 715 0.5 Uralic Finno-ugric EO, traditional faiths11. Mari 644 0.4 Uralic Finno-ugric Marian Faith12. Kazakh 636 0.4 Altaic Turkic Sunni Muslims13. Avarian 544 0.4 Caucasian Nakho-dagestanian Sunni Muslims14. Jewish 537 0.4 Semito-Hamitic Semitic*) Judaism15. Armenian 532 0.4 Indo-European Armenian Christian

Other 6,524 4.4 --- --- ---TOTAL 147,022 100.0 --- --- ---

SOURCE: Compiled based on data in GOSKOMSTAT (1990) andBruk (1986).


Page 39

TABLE 4: Basic Statistics for the TerritorialSubdivisions of Russia

Population Density Percent Percent Exogamous Families (%)

total (‘000) Percent per km2 Russian urban urban rural

North, Ural and Volga 51467 34.8 16.7 74.6 73.8 17.4 13.9Northern Region 6149 4.2 4.2 82.1 76.8 23.1 19.1Urals Region 20345 13.7 24.7 73.0 75.0 19.6 17.1Volga-Vyatka Region 8473 5.7 32.2 75.2 69.4 11.2 7.4Povolsk Region 16500 11.1 30.8 73.7 73.5 15.4 12.5

Western Russia 47395 32.0 54.8 93.0 79.8 12.0 7.5North-West and Kaliningrad 9177 6.2 43.4 89.5 86.0 17.6 15.6Central Region 30467 20.6 62.8 93.4 82.7 11.2 7.0Central Black-Earth Region 7751 5.2 46.2 95.2 60.7 7.8 5.1

North Caucasus 16869 11.4 47.5 67.9 57.4 16.6 11.1North-Caucasus Region 16869 11.4 47.5 67.9 57.4 16.6 11.1

Siberia and the Far East 32310 21.8 2.5 83.0 73.6 18.7 17.9Western Siberia Region 15095 10.2 6.2 84.2 73.0 18.0 17.0Eastern Siberia Region 9207 6.2 2.2 83.6 72.2 16.5 14.6Far East Region 8008 5.4 1.3 79.9 76.3 22.5 24.6

TOTAL 148041 100 8.7 81.6 73.8 15.8 12.6

SOURCE: GOSKOMSTAT 1989, 7-10


Page 40

TABLE 5: Likelihood Ratios and Statistics of Fit forSelected Models of Intermarriage in Russia

--------------------------------------------------------Indepen- Quasi-Independence Models Variable

Statistic dence Uniform Variable EndogamyModel Endogamy Endogamy with SAAP

--------------------------------------------------------A. Region and Settlement Type Invariant (Fully Constrained) Models

G2 1,856,966 1,213,916 1,056,719 --d.f. 947 946 936 --BIC 1,843,440 1,200,405 1,043,350 --

B. Settlement Type Invariant ModelsG2 -- 881,795 560,880 --d.f. -- 940 900 --BIC -- 868,369 548,026 --

C. Region Invariant ModelsG2 -- 816,299 621,307 --d.f. -- 944 924 --BIC -- 802,816 608,110 --

D. Unconstrained ModelsG2 -- 461,173 101,299 5,320d.f. -- 932 852 814BIC -- 447,861 89,130 -6,306

--------------------------------------------------------NOTES:G2 is the likelihood ratio statistic; BIC is a statisticof fit, which adjusts the likelihood ratio for samplesize: BIC=G2-(d.f.)ln(N). In our case N=1,595,604.SAAP stands for special affinity and asymmetryparameters.

N. Botev

Page 41

TABLE 6: Estimates of Intermarriage Parameters for Russia in1989, by Area and Settlement Type -- Variable Endogamy Model

with Special Affinities (in log form)-------------------------------------------------------------

Western Russia North Siberia & North, UralParameters Caucasus Far East & Volga

_______________ _______________ _______________ _______________urban rural urban rural urban rural urban rural

-------------------------------------------------------------ENDOGAMY PARAMETERS

Russian 2.342 2.580 1.604 2.688 0.926 1.292 0.758 0.962Ukrainian 2.842 3.567 2.652 3.619 2.695 3.128 1.444 1.835Byelorussian 4.246 4.410 2.934 4.738 3.136 3.274 2.398 3.083Tatar 3.747 2.390 2.473 2.988 3.270 3.910 4.825 6.008Chuvash 2.822 3.843 1.813 2.890 2.790 4.000 4.953 6.789Bashkir 3.757 4.372 3.788 4.093 5.509 4.856 6.936 9.099Mordvian 3.680 4.994 2.311 4.171 2.752 3.686 4.509 6.660Udmurt 2.325 3.808 2.906 6.023 3.538 4.662 6.166 8.118Chechens 8.573 11.170 14.000 16.620 9.174 9.325 8.038 11.260German 2.815 3.487 4.807 6.625 5.046 7.122 4.178 5.413Jewish 8.910 4.989 7.392 -1.203 5.989 3.540 6.178 1.868

SPECIAL AFFINITY PARAMETERSSlavs 1.604 1.340 1.236 2.084 0.585 0.784 ... ...Slavs-Jewish (1) 2.792 ... 1.878 ... 0.724 -1.121 0.275 -1.917Russians-Uralic (2) 0.470 0.944 ... 1.255 -0.417 ... 0.530 1.135Tatars-Bashkirs 1.826 1.961 ... ... 3.257 2.380 4.530 5.342Germans-Rus/Ukr ... ... 1.338 1.979 1.324 2.178 ... ...Tatars-Ukr/Blrs ... -0.811 ... ... ... -0.394 -0.468 -0.596Turkic-Uralic ... ... ... ... ... ... 0.760 1.721Russians-Chechens ... ... 2.728 3.341 ... ... ... ...

ASYMMETRY PARAMETERSChechen men ... ... 3.352 4.006 ... ... ... ...-------------------------------------------------------------

Bold: estimate is not significantly different from 0 atp<0.05 (no endogamous Jewish families were in the sample forthe rural areas of the North Caucasus).Underlined: not significantly different from the parameterfor the urban areas at p<0.05.

(1) Western Russia: Russians, Ukranians and Byelorussian;Siberia and the Far East (urban) and North Caucasus:Russians and Ukranians; Other: Russians only

(2) Western Russia: Mordva only; Siberia and the Far East andNorth Caucasus (rural): Udmurts only; North, Ural and Volga:Mordva and Udmurt

APPENDIX: Parametrization of the interaction terms in the unconstrained modelsa

Model Parametrization Notation Description of Model and Underlying Assumptions

IndependenceModel

cijkl =0 for all i, j, k, and lcijkl -- interaction term (see the

footnote)This model is used as a baseline representing the opportunity

structure. It assumes random mating, i.e. who marries whom is notaffected differentially by ethnic background.

UniformEndogamy

Model

cijkl =hkl for i=jcijkl =0 for i≠j

hkl --endogamy parameter forregion k (k=1,2,3,4), andsettlement type l (l=1,2)

Marriages are assumed to result from two separate tendencies:an endogamy tendency reflecting the preference to marry withinthe own ethnic group, and an exogamy tendency where ethnicallymixed

VariableEndogamy

Model

cijkl =hikl for i=j

cijkl =0 for i≠j

hikl --endogamy parameter forethnic group i (i=1,...,11),region k, and settlement typel

marriages result from random mating. Exogamous marriages arealso assumed to be quasi-symmetrical, i.e. men and women of onegroup are equally likely to intermarry with persons from another.

DifferentialEndogamy withAffinities andAsymmetries

cijkl =hikl for i=j

cijkl =aijkldijkl for i≠j

dijkl --special affinity parameterfor ethnic groups i and j

aijkl --asymmetry parameter formen of ethnicity i andwomen of ethnicity j

The special affinity parameters account for marital preferencesbeyond these implied by the framework underlying the VariableEndogamy model. Adding asymmetry parameters relaxes theconstraint of symmetry by accounting for sex differences in the ratesof exogamy, e.g. due to some form of hypergamy or hypogamy.

a This appendix presents the most general form of the models used in the paper: the unconstrained models. The region-invariant, settlement-invariant, andfully constrained models are based on the additional constraints that respectively k=const, l=const, and k and l=const. Only the parametrization of theinteraction term is presented, since the rest of the terms in the models do not differ from the general form, which is:

Fijkl=α0ßriß

cjß

tkßp

lτijkl or in linear form: ln(Fijkl)=a0+bri+bc

j+btk+bp

l+cijkl

where: Fijkl --expected number of marriages between groups i and j, in region k, and settlement type l; ßri, ß

cj, ß

tk, ßp

l--row (ethnicity of bride), column(ethnicity of groom), and table (region and settlement type) effects; τijkl--interaction effects (for brevity τijkl and cijkl represent all interactions); α0--geometric mean; a0=ln(α0); br

i=ln(ßri); b

cj=ln(ßc

j); btk=ln(ßt

k); bpl=ln(ßp

l); cijkl=ln(τijkl)

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