ABSTRACT
How do we explain the rise of nationalism in the Soviet Union during the era of Gorbachev’s reforms? Did the existing theoretical literature on nationalism provide an adequate framework for interpreting the events that led to the breakup of the Soviet Union? Reflecting the general modernist consensus, most scholars have begun with preconceived notions of the modern, artificially constructed nature of nations and have denied the persistence of pre-Soviet nations within the USSR. They have interpreted the rise of nationalism under Gorbachev as the result of Soviet nation-building policies and the institutional legacies of Soviet federalism (Suny 1993; Brubaker 1994). Other modernist accounts have neglected aspects of culture and identity in favor of an instrumentalist emphasis on elite interests (Gleason 1990; Laitin 1991; Roeder 1991). The insights of these modernist approaches are valid primarily with respect to the republics of Central Asia, where no clear nations had existed in the pre-Soviet past and where local elites belatedly adopted nationalist policies in response to the weakening of central control from Moscow. However, these modernist perspectives offer a flawed explanation of the breakup of the USSR because the “new” nations of Central Asia experienced little mass mobilization in favor of independence and played a minimal role in ending the Soviet regime.
