ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author wishes to concentrate comparisons on differing attitudes toward ethnicity, the way in which these are reflected in state structure and governmental processes and the implications of these attitudes and practices for the evolution of society. The United States is still commonly called an Anglo-Saxon country. In terms of governmental derivation, language and culture such a designation is not incorrect, though evolution over 200 years of independent American history has been toward continuous dilution of the Anglo-Saxon heritage. Soviet nationality theory evolved as a device for justifying continuation of the Russian Empire while reducing the strains and contradictions inherent in a difficult history of nationality relations.
