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Great Russian chauvinism (Russian:великорусский шовинизм,romanized: velikorussky shovinizm) is a term defined by the earlySoviet government officials, most notablyVladimir Lenin, to describe an ideology of the "dominant exploiting classes of the nation, holding a dominant (sovereign) position in the state, declaring their nation as the "superior nation". Lenin promoted an idea for the Bolshevik party to defend the right of oppressed nations within the formerRussian Empire toself-determination and equality as well as the language-rights movement of the newly formed republics.
According to Bolshevik vocabulary, theGreat-Russian chauvinism is a part of more commonGreat-Power chauvinism orchauvinism in general. As theGreat Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE) says, Great-Power chauvinism is an ideology of the "dominant exploiting classes of the nation, holding a dominant (sovereign) position in the state, declaring their nation as the 'superior' nation". The GSE defines chauvinism as an extreme form ofnationalism and acknowledges the existence of great-national chauvinism in theRussian Empire as well as other countries across the globe.
Usage of the word "Great" there traces back to thetriune nation concept which was dominating during theimperial era. ModernRussians were referred to as "Great Russians", whileUkrainians andRusyns were named "Little Russians", andBelarusians were named "White Russians", resembling traditional historical and geographical division of the country's core (compareGreater andLesser Poland).
Following theOctober Revolution, in September, 1922 Lenin wrote a letter to thePolitburo stating, "we consider ourselves, theUkrainian SSR, and others equal and enter with them on an equal basis into a new union, a new federation, theUnion of the Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia".[1] Lenin also promoted an idea for the Bolshevik party to defend the right of oppressed nations within the formerRussian Empire to self-determination and equality as well as the language-rights movement of the newly formed republics.[1]
Moreover, in December 1922 Lenin in his letter "What practical measures must be taken in the present situation?" wrote, "...Thirdly, exemplary punishment must be inflicted on ComradeOrdzhonikidze (I say this all the more regretfully as I am one of his personal friends and have worked with him abroad) and the investigation of all the material whichDzerzhinsky's commission has collected must be completed or started over again to correct the enormous mass of wrongs and biased judgments which it doubtlessly contains. The political responsibility for all this truly Great-Russian nationalist campaign must, of course, be laid on Stalin and Dzerzhinsky."[2]
At the12th Congress of the RCP(b)Nikolay Bukharin stated: “We, [ethnic Russians] as a former great-power nation, must put ourselves in an unequal position. Only with such a policy, when we artificially put ourselves in a position lower than others, only at this price can we buy the trust of formerly oppressed nations."[3]
In all ofStalin's speeches on the national question at party congresses (from the 10th to the 16th), the Great-Russian chauvinism was declared the main danger to the Soviet state. But over time, yielding to the requirements of the newly created super-centralized structures of the Union government, the thesis was forgotten and the indigenous languages were relegated to the background, while Russian became the single language of office.
