54 For this discussion see the illuminating article o f M.Hroch ‘From National Movement to the Fully- Formed Nation’ New Left Review 198, March/April 1993 p.p.3-20. Also by the same author The Social
Thirdly, national identity is “situational”55. People in their daily lives, under normal circumstances identify themselves by their occupation, their religion, their gender, their locality or by their membership o f an association, or any other combination of identities which they consider to be a relevant and meaningful reflection o f their existence. At different times a different identity may come to the fore, but generally people go about their business juggling the multiplicity o f allegiances and identities with or without much conflict and usually without many considerations about the ’nation’. There is nothing about national identity that should be in conflict with one’s profession, one’s gender, one’s religion or political orientation - under normal circumstances.
As soon as national identity includes elements that require allegiance and commitment that are in conflict with other loyalties, conflict is inevitable. We must concede that there are situations when the focus on identity is altered and the collective identity overrides all other identities. Such situation can be a war, or some other
collective trauma. R.Pearson considers wars (lost or won) a great stimulus to solidarity and collective sentiment and as such favourable for the development o f a national state56. That is true o f Western Europe too, but the difference with the ECE is that particularly in this century the wars, due to the specific geopolitical and historical developments, were not only frequent, but accompanied by major shifts in borders and populations57.
Individuals and collectives were often not given the opportunity to be in charge o f their destiny, nor their identity. This led to nearly permanent feelings o f insecurity, increased the perception o f threats and so radicalised politics. It does not take much imagination to see why in ECE freedom and national independence are often considered
55 A.D.Smith ‘The Ethnic Sources o f Nationalism ’ in Survival 35:1 Spring 1993 p.p.48-63 p.48 56R Pearson ‘Empire, War, and the Nation-State in Eastern/Central Europe’ chpt.3 p.27 in P.Latawski ed. Contemporary Nationalism in East Central Europe London, Macmillan 1995. Also see Ch.Tilly: ’’war made state, and the state made war, and together they made nationalism” from Formation o f
N ational States in Western Europe Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press 1975, cited in J.Snyder
p. 13
57The Versailles treaty ‘rewarded’ the victors and the dynastic empires were replaced by ‘successor’ states, which were actually smaller versions o f the empires they seceded from, incorporating
‘beneficiaries’ o f the new order (i.e.Czechs), somewhat reluctant nationalities (i.e. Slovaks, Croats), and other apprehensive minorities o f the ‘disadvantaged’(i.e. Hungarians and Germans). Hungary lost 2/3 of its territory to Czechoslovakia, Croatia and Romania, which led to an attempt for a territorial recovery during the Second World War and the annexation o f the Subcarpathian region o f Czechoslovakia. Stalin’s and Hitler’s rule meant another major geopolitical shift accompanied by the brutal methods of genocide and expulsions. Czechoslovakia lost Subcarpathia to the USSR (80 000 people), 140 000 Jews were killed and 3 million Germans and Hungarians expelled. Poland lost nearly all o f its Jewish population and approximately 3 million people were involved in repatriations between the USSR and Germany.
one, and seen to be best secured in an independent state. Thus, history matters, however it is not necessarily ‘ancient’ history, but rather the recent one. When the change in political circumstances makes the exploitation o f history feasible, in order to increase nationalist mobilisation, all history merges into one “living history”58 and ‘ancient hatreds’ remain a part o f political discourse.
1.3.3. Communist Nationality Policies
It can be argued that the collapse o f the Soviet Union, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, testify to the prevalence of nationalist sentiments and tendency toward separatism in all multiethnic Soviet-type societies59. The question here is whether this evident fact can be seen as a logical outcome of communist nationality policies.
The sudden and largely unexpected disintegration o f all multiethnic/national ex- communist states is ironic in at least three aspects. According to Marxist - Leninist ideology the solution to ‘the national question’ was supposed to be the most “important and enduring contribution o f the establishment o f a socialist order”60. Nationalism seen as intrinsically attached to capitalism was considered as a passing phenomenon, therefore the replacement o f capitalism by socialism logically meant that national identification (overcome by the class-based identification) together with the nation-state would eventually ‘wither away’. When the communist system collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions the clash o f ‘isms’ which followed did not bear out the original assumptions. Nationalism had not disappeared, on the contrary it returned with a new lease o f life.
Secondly, when the crisis o f the regime became obvious, renegotiation o f all hitherto unifying principles was required. Negotiation is at the heart o f politics, but politics was not at the heart o f communism; another of its assumptions was that the
58 L.Deak H ungary’s Game f o r Slovakia Bratislava, Veda 1996 introduction
59 V.Zaslavsky ‘Nationalism and democratic Transition in Postcommunist Societies’ in D aedalu s\2\ Spring 1992 p.p.97-121 p. 98 A lso see A.Motyl ed. The Post-Soviet Nations New York, Columbia Press 1992, in which particularly the essays by G.Gleason, R.J.Hill, N.Harding Walker Connor and M.Beissinger. Further for the idea o f nation-building in the Soviet Union see the work o f R. Suny ‘The Revenge o f the Past: Socialism and Ethnic Conflict in Transcaucasia’ in New Left Review 184
November/December 1990 p.p.5-37 and chpt.6 ‘Nationalism and the future o f the federal system’ in A.Dallin and G.Lapidus ed. The Soviet System in Crisis Oxford, Westview Press 1991
content o f ideology and the goals of communist society were not concepts open to negotiation, for they were clear and moreover the property o f the Communist Party. When the new policy o f ‘glasnost’ offered an open discussion and inadvertently put the Party to the ultimate test o f legitimacy, it allowed critique of its very concept o f the truth and lost out to the plurality o f opinions. One o f the truths held in Communist systems was that all national particularism was counter to the “integrity o f the system”61. Thus, when the integrity o f the system itself became the subject of questioning, national particularism became legitimate.
Thirdly, the system designed to withstand the national cleavages and dedicated to internationalism seems to have again inadvertently created and fostered policies which made an independent nation the obvious option after communism. Yet it cannot be said that communism intensified nationalist passions; the majority of dissidents during ‘party rule were protesting against the practices o f the party, not against its national policies. They wanted liberation, but not necessarily a national one, and if they were labeled as nationalists it was for another reason altogether. For example, when Tito(1971) removed the Croat reformist leadership, who sought to loosen the command system in politics and economy, he justified the action by accusing them of divisive nationalism62 and
counterrevolution against the Party, without which, he claimed, Yugoslavia would fall apart. The point is that everything that failed to fall within the framework of the party dictate was seen as divisive, therefore nationalistic.
If it was the national banner that replaced the banner o f ‘brotherhood and unity’, the question is why and what were the theoretical assumptions, institutional
arrangements and practices which regulated national policies in multiethnic communist states. Their assumptions originated in the Soviet Union but were later applied with some modifications to Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. It can be argued that not national policies, but the system to which these policies were subordinated and which they were meant to support was responsible for the subsequent break-down o f these states, with disastrous consequences in the case of Yugoslavia.
The communist federations (Czechoslovakia became a federation only after 1968) were built on the principle o f national-territorial autonomy. It is not an exaggeration to
61 N.Harding ‘Legitimations, Nationalities and the Deep Structure o f Ideology’ p.94 in A.Motyl The ^ B a n a c '‘T heFtarfol Asymetry o f War: The Causes and Consequences o f Yugoslavia’s Dem ise’ p. 157
say that Soviet Russia under Lenin became “the first modem state to place the national principle at the base o f its federal structure”63. However, it was not national-territorial autonomy as such that was at the heart o f federal arrangement, but the internal stability o f an omnipotent unitary state and later its outer empire (the Soviet Union and
Czechoslovakia). Yugoslavia on the other hand, claimed that a strong unitary state was a necessity against the threat o f inclusion into the Soviet empire. One could question the validity o f a federation without democracy and all three cases, regardless o f the
motivation, demonstrate that such a federation is unsustainable in the long term and that it provides the basis for nationalism.
The theoretical assumptions behind Soviet national policy are to be found in Marxist theory which, it must be contended, had never been put into practice by Marx, but by Lenin who faced a much more complex set of circumstances than the 19th century author could possibly envisage. The communist revolution did not happen as a result of capitalism’s collapse under the weight o f the inner contradictions, as predicted by Marx, but through an imposition o f a Marxist ideal onto a pre-capitalist Russia. Marx s
assumptions became the foundations of that new system which in reality became a Leninist project. I shall briefly sketch some of these assumptions that are relevant to the forthcoming discussion.
Firstly, is the notion, following its founding fathers (Marx and Engels) that Marxism is an ideology rooted in science - a true theory o f “evolution in human history”64- which gave Marxism an added relevance as the science of society whose application would lead to lasting well-being and peace. Any measures taken by the leadership, however counter to peace and well-being, were justified in the name o f the scientifically assumed final goal. The principal point concerning the nationality question in Marxism-Leninism is that nationhood was o f incidental importance. Contrary to nationalist claims that nations are a natural phenomenon and were the source of loyalty and inspiration, scientific socialism put the emphasis on a different type o f grouping - a class. It considered economics as the basis of society and consequently defined the group as being class-based; hence, it followed that nations, having been constructed by
capitalism for its own benefit remain the source of antagonism between people, who
63 R.Pipes The Formation o f the Soviet Union, Communism and Nationalism cited in V.Zaslavsky