ABSTRACT
Ukraine, Belorussia, and Moldavia, together with the Baltic states, form part of a specific geographical and, less perceptibly, political and cultural entity within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that has conveniently come to be known as the Soviet West. Linguistic Russification has taken a heavy toll among Belorussians residing in the republic's cities. The combination of factors has constituted a formidable challenge to Soviet nationalities policy. Hasty judgments often made on this basis about the relative levels of national consciousness among Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Moldavians were certainly premature, as evidenced by the developments of the late 1980s. From the standpoint of Soviet policy makers, such an approach to the nationality question is not without its merits, particularly in view of the perceived challenge, both ethnodemographic and ideological, emerging from the Muslim Soviet south. Cultural politics in Ukraine, Belorussia, and Moldavia, as elsewhere in the non-Russian republics, have been conditioned by the Soviet determination to forge a single "Soviet people."
