ABSTRACT
The present state of ethnic relations in the Soviet Union, writes Aleksandr Zharnikov in the June 1989 issue of Kommunist, results from the literal collapse of the "command-administrative system". For the non-Russians tend to formulate their own agendas in light of their perception of the status and role of the Russian nation in the Soviet state. "Empire-savers" regard the present Soviet Union in its current boundaries as the proper and legitimate national "space" of the Russian nation. The process of reevaluation of history has assumed sufficiently large proportions to raise the possibility of a "divorce" or secession of Russian nationalism from the Soviet state and Marxist-Leninist ideology. The debate has expanded in scope to examine traditional Russian attitudes toward the Ukrainian language, culture, and history. The Russians need to fathom the value of democracy and to see that Russia's "voluntary withdrawal from the 'large empire' of the USSR" will be beneficial to the Russian people.
