Martin’s reading on the early Soviet Union as an “affirmative action empire” provided an informative context on a seemingly paradoxical response to the “national question” in the 1920s — fostering nations as a “cure” for nationalism. It also raised questions as to how the concept of a “Soviet empire” has changed throughout history. What intrigued me the most was Martin’s description of Russians were now “literally asked to bear the burden of empire” by “suppressing their national interests and identifying with a non-national affirmative action empire” — a kind of ultimate reversal of how Suny defines an empire, in which the ruled nations are subordinate to the the ruling institution/nation. (Which, as Martin notes later, provoked “resentment among Russian party members,” leading to the Greater Danger Principle’s ultimate demise). How, if at all, is this related to the kind of “civilizing” mission of tsarist Russian imperialists, who viewed (according to Suny) themselves as pretty OK colonizers compared to their contemporaries? I imagine that even after the end of the actual “ideal-type” affirmative action empire in the 1930s, we will continue to see this kind of sentiment amongst the Soviet centre (i.e., the majority-Russian Communist Party) — that they are the ones sacrificing in order to uplift these poorer, less civilized nations. This also, I imagine, will be a heavy feature in propaganda (movies, TV, literature). Something I would have liked to see Martins include in the same narrative is how the affirmative action empire could dissolve so fully into the events of the 1930s (mass deportations, etc.).
And a final question out of curiosity, in light of Suny’s thorough discussion of the definition of empire: Was the Soviet Union an empire (whether in 1920s, 30s, or all throughout)? How do Suny and Martin differ on this (if at all)?
Martin’s description of the Russian “nation” bearing the load of empire caught my eye as well, but for a different reason – he also wants to contrast this suppression of Russian ethnic identity against the concentration of political power in the Russian centre. This contrast could have been a very real conflict, after all: Martin talks tantalizingly about “national Communist assertiveness among non-Russian cultural and political elites[.]” (p81) Further explaining this process might answer your question about how Stalin’s affirmative action empire then led to the events of the Stalinist 1930s.
Finally, on an unrelated note, I felt so much satisfaction reading Suny’s short and sweet description of how the Ottoman and Soviet “empires” ended: the metropole, clinging to a cohesive ruling-class identity, seceded from a developed and integrated periphery. Its succinctness justified all the thorough theory that Suny had to first lay out – his construction of empire, of the metropole’s relation with the periphery, and so on.
One thing I believe the Martin reading missed is how, theoretically Lenin and the “nationalists” squared there commitment to national liberation with the fact that communism by its very nature is an ideology that is supposed to spread, or be implemented on an international scale, without regard to whether some nations want communism or not. Additionally, the Martin reading did not asses Trotsky role in the debate between the nationalists and the internationalists. It may very well be that Trotsky had no role in this debate, but I would think that Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, that states that the Russian Revolution has to be linked with other revolutions in more economically advanced countries would place him within the international camp.
It seems to me that, based on both our discussion in class and the two readings, empire might be something of an essentially contested concept, particularly as it related to the Soviets and their expansion. I believe the beginning of the Suny piece addresses this well with the Beissinger quote “The general consensus now appears to be that the Soviet Union was an empire and therefore it broke up. However, it is also routinely referred to as an empire precisely because it did break up” (23). This circuitous logic seems to plague much of the discussion around empire; a political entity can only be called an empire if it eventually breaks up so any designation of empire before breakup indicates an assumption that it eventually will. While the different Soviet states had different ethnic and cultural distinctions, the Soviet Union likely would have been considered a nation rather than an empire had it had any staying power (see: the United States). This is a somewhat roundabout way of answering your question, the Soviet Union was always an empire because it eventually broke up but it wasn’t an empire until it broke up.