ABSTRACT
At the time when he was People’s Commissar of Nationalities under Lenin, Stalin treated the Great Russians as the most modern, leading nation of the empire. As a historic nation, they overcame “feudal fragmentation” most successfully. The Russians had first drawn their territories together and formed a centralised state. 1 Economic unification further provided Russia proper with a relatively advanced industrialisation and urbanisation. And, last but not least, in Russia the “medieval” fragmentation of people into separate cultural-linguistic communities was overcome more fully than elsewhere. It was nationally the most homogeneous territory. However, the commissar understood that one could not force non-Russian nations to subject themselves to assimilation into Russian modernity. They should be allowed a degree of cultural and administrative autonomy.
