Stalin’s Role in Transforming the Meaning of Nationalism in the USSR
Out of all the historical leadership figures of the 20th century, arguably the most polarizing and complicated one of this time was Josef Stalin. Leader of the USSR and a leading figure of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 — Stalin’s visage is one that is, for the most part, widely recognized as much as it is widely hated. The source of this hatred comes from many different parts: Mein Keimf, American propaganda campaigns, political rivals, and in some cases—citizens of the USSR itself. Despite this, it is important to recognize and emphasize the relevance of the term complicated when we think of Stalin. There are large sects of socialist, communist, former USSR citizens, and other in-betweens that can agree: Stalin’s theories, personality, and overall leadership in the Soviet Union was successful — he had helped to increase revolutionary fervor and took hand in curating a new Soviet nationality that led the country through a rough period of rapid industrialization, defeating the Nazi’s in WWII, among other major accomplishments. This in turn led to a new period of the USSR that was unprecedented. Most of what will be discussed here comes from Ludo Martens “Another View of Stalin” which features, as the title suggests, a differing view from the mainstream about Stalin.
Simply put: there is a reason why the Soviet Union emerged as a contending superpower towards the United States in the 1960’s and shortly onward.
As an adolescent Soviet Union emerged into the world’s view, seemingly from nowhere, the people of the Soviet Union didn’t see their emergence as coming from “nowhere”. Russia’s past was one of a few countries that was still stuck in a semi-feudal economic mode. While most of Europe had developed, and the United States had begun to reach new heights in economic relevancy — a Tsar and his brutal repression, the Orthodox church's close proximity to the state, a neglected peasantry, and a crumbling political infrastructure all contributed to Russia’s poor conditions at this time. By the time the Bolshevik revolution swept through the country, these conditions had not waned by much at all. It wasn’t until Stalin’s leadership that things began to turn drastically for the republic.
Stalin began his political career early on, joining clandestine socialist groups, starting a political publication, getting arrested and even exiled to Siberia for three years for his defiant activities. After the October insurrection, as he joined the Bolsheviks along with Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, Stalin became the first People’s Commissar of Nationality Affairs. In this position, he was able to understand the issue of a national bourgeois class that had allied itself, by default, with the international bourgeoisie. As this emerging socialist country had no precedent in history, this was a phenomenon that would go on to greatly influence the course of the Union's existence and would influence several prominent communist texts such as Lenin’s thesis on imperialism, and several communist movements worldwide.
From this moment forward, Stalin and Lenin’s analysis of imperialism would lead to a new extension of classic Marxist thought — Marxism-Leninism. This and additional analysis of self-determination through a Marxist lens is what made Marxism-Leninism unique—Marx had simply not lived on to see the transformation of capital decades after his death. This transformation was apparent in that capital had taken on a new character — it had become a highly monopolistic, finance-capital centric, capital export dominated system. It had become based on territorial division among the most influential capitalist powers. As the USSR (and former Russia) was not among these influential capitalist powers (quite the opposite), the task of the USSR was to industrialize and develop a sort of independence from this new world order. In light of this, Stalin had recognized that “the right of self-determination (was the right) not of the bourgeoisie but of the toiling masses of a given nation.” As the budding USSR was but another pawn to be controlled by globalized capital through the national bourgeoisie.
These ideas would come to unite all sections of the exploited within Russia under a banner of national unity and liberation; defining the strong Russian national character that would emerge on the onset of WWII, and would be the fuel that mobilized millions of Soviet soldiers to their eventual, hard-earned, but bloody victory.
When Stalin had become the Party’s General Secretariat, he had established one prominent idea: that the Party’s policies should be focused on the concept of ‘socialism in one country’. This view, which has been widely criticized in Stalin’s time and even today by various sects of modern communists, was a theory that according to Lenin, was correct: “[S]ocialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois.” This would entail that Stalin’s view was not a closed view in which he believed that socialism should only be achieved in one country, but rather as its focus for development and industrialization, the focus of the Party would have to shift to a more nationalistic view of socialism in order for their own advancement (and the eventual turning of other countries towards socialism). This signaled to the Soviet people that Russia was starting on a new path in which the USSR would be the center of its own focus. Where Weimar Germany and other would-be “socialist” projects were not having the same success around the world and in Europe, Russia was, and this was the most important factor.
Stalin's incorporation of a more nationalistic outlook would change everything. In the broader scope of nationalism in Europe, this was incredibly important. As other countries had revved up their nationalistic fervor, such as Nazi Germany, others did not. This would impact the way in which their soldiers would go into war, fight, and win or lose. It would also impact the way in which the country would stand against its enemies and alongside its allies as well. When the U.S. joined the allies after Pearl Harbor, its rallying point was to intern Japanese-Americans out of revenge. Germany revved its fascist base with calls to exterminate Jews, Romanians, the disabled, and communists. Contrastingly, the Soviets' rallying point was based on victory, comradery, and much more egalitarian ideals. While the USSR was no utopian paradise, its redefinition of what it meant to be proud of the nation and nationality was far different than the kinds of ideas being espoused in other parts of Europe and beyond. For African-American actor, singer and composer Paul Robeson “[In the USSR] I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life … I walk in full human dignity.” Not at all of Stalin’s own making, but a making that had gone far beyond him and had been made up of the entire nation.
Stalin, then, played a significant role in the shifting of what had once constituted the Russian national identity — but the real contributor to this shift was the implementation of socialism itself. Whatever side of the political spectrum one may be on, this fact is almost undeniable and apparent the more its investigated.
On May 9th, 1945 Stalin addressed his people with a message of patriotism: “The great sacrifices we made in the name of the freedom and independence of our Motherland, the incalculable privations and sufferings experienced by our people in the course of the war, the intense work in the rear and at the front, placed on the altar of the Motherland, have not been in vain”. What did this mean? It meant that he had successfully utilized nationalism to the victory of the Soviet Union — a phenomenon that would also be occurring in Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, the USA, Japan and the world over — just yielding different and more lasting results not based on racism and imperialism, but rather socialism.
(This was originally written as an essay for a class on nationalism in Europe, December 2021.)
