ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a somewhat different framework for assessing the implications that rising ethnonationalism has for Soviet political stability. It argues that the preservation of important features of national identity is not of itself incompatible with Soviet goals. The political salience of ethnicity in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is not self-evident and automatic, but varies over time and among contexts, and is constrained and shaped by complex factors. The capacity of the Soviet system to manage ethnonational assertion in ways that reduce or eliminate its potential for instability is a critical variable in any assessment of Soviet prospects in the years ahead. An assessment of the potential scope and limits of ethnonationalism in the USSR therefore requires a close examination of the issues that have served as catalysts of national tensions in the Soviet context and the nature of the cleavages they have crystallized.
