ABSTRACT
Mikhail S. Gorbachev has tried to mobilize Soviet social scientists to help the Party come up with specific solutions to some of the concrete problems that stem from the multinational makeup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). He has called upon scholars to cease the long-standing practice of offering idealized versions of reality and to replace them with “objective” descriptions of Soviet life. The literature on nationality relations written in the early 1980s already provides indications of disagreements among leading scholars as to what types of policies should be introduced to better integrate the non-Russian nationalities into the all-union economy and, more generally, the mainstream of Soviet life. Once Gorbachev resolved to devolve some real authority to the republics he had to limit their constitutional powers, which he did through constitutional amendment in late 1988, to make clear that the law of the USSR must take precedence over that of its constituent republics.
