ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the constitutional and doctrinal bases of republican rights in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Bureaucratic nationalism is the tendency for the “national factor” to be expressed within the various branches and subdivisions of the formal organizations of the Soviet system. Nationalism only exists under circumstances in which ethnicity is politicized and mobilized. An accurate assessment of the vitality of bureaucratic nationalism must take into account the internal dynamics of the institutions themselves in terms of central control and local prerogatives. Preemptive control of nationalism has historically been exercised through a policy associated with the advancement of local leaders. Western constitutional scholars are in agreement with many Soviets in concluding that the rights of the republics under Soviet constitutional doctrine extended primarily to: verbal assurances of “sovereignty"; formal recognition of “national statehood"; and symbolic recognition of the republics as separate administrative units.
