Soviet patriotism is thesocialist patriotism involving emotional and cultural attachment of theSoviet people to theSoviet Union as theirhomeland.[1] It is also referred to asSoviet nationalism.[2]
Under the outlook ofworld communismVladimir Lenin separated patriotism into what he defined asproletarian, socialist patriotism frombourgeois nationalism.[1] Lenin promoted the right of all nations toself-determination and the right to unity of all workers within nations, but he also condemnedchauvinism and claimed there were both justified and unjustified feelings of national pride.[3] Lenin explicitly denounced conventional Russian nationalism as "Great Russian chauvinism", and his government sought to accommodate the country's multiple ethnic groups by creating republics and sub-republic units to provide non-Russian ethnic groups with autonomy and protection from Russian domination.[4] Lenin also sought to balance the ethnic representation of leadership of the country by promoting non-Russian officials in theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union to counter the large presence of Russians in the Party.[4] However, even at this early period the Soviet government appealed at times to Russian nationalism when it needed support - especially on the Soviet borderlands in the Soviet Union's early years.[4]
Stalin emphasized acentralist Soviet socialist patriotism that spoke of a collective "Soviet people" and identified Russians as being the "elder brothers of the Soviet people".[4] DuringWorld War II, Soviet socialist patriotism andRussian nationalism merged, portraying the war not just as a struggle of communists versus fascists, but more as a struggle for national survival.[4] During the war, the interests of the Soviet Union and the Russian nation were presented as the same, and as a result Stalin's government embraced Russia's historical heroes and symbols, and established ade facto alliance with theRussian Orthodox Church.[4] The war was described by the Soviet government as theGreat Patriotic War.[4] Nationalities deemed "unreliable" werepersecuted, and there werewidespread deadly deportations during the Second World War.[5]
Nikita Khrushchev moved the Soviet government's policies away from Stalin's reliance on Russian nationalism.[4] Khrushchev promoted the notion of the people of the Soviet Union as being a supranational "Soviet People" that became state policy after 1961.[6] This did not mean that individual ethnic groups lost their separate identities or were to be assimilated but instead promoted a "brotherly alliance" of nations that intended to make ethnic differences irrelevant.[7] At the same time, Soviet education emphasized an "internationalist" orientation.[7] Many non-Russian Soviet people suspected this "Sovietization" to be a cover for a new episode of "Russification", in particular because learning theRussian language was made a mandatory part of Soviet education, and because the Soviet government encouraged ethnic Russians to move outside ofRussia and settle in other Soviet republics.[7]
Efforts to achieve a united Soviet identity were severely damaged by the severeeconomic problems in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s resulting in a wave ofanti-Soviet sentiment among non-Russians and Russians alike.[7]Mikhail Gorbachev presented himself as a Soviet patriot dedicated to address the country's economic and political challenges, but he was unable to restrain the rising regional andsectarianethnic nationalism, with the USSRbreaking up in 1991.[7]
In modern day Russia, theCommunist Party of the Russian Federation is often said to follow the ideology of Soviet patriotism.[8]
In many post-Soviet states such as Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Kazakhstan and others, there existsnostalgia for the Soviet Union, primarily among the older generation of people.[9][10]Soviet symbolism and propaganda has been utilized by the Russian forces during theRusso-Ukrainian War (especially during the 2022Russian invasion of Ukraine), to legitimize the actions of the Russian forces in Ukraine.[citation needed]
