The Role of Russian Nationalism Flashcards
How did Russian nationalism doom the Soviet Union?
Yeltsin had been elected Chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet in March 1990 and from that position he was able to undermine Gorbachev’s Union Treaty
Was Russian nationalism a popular mass movement?
No- largely confined to the intelligentsia, very different that in the Baltic republics
How was Russian nationalism encouraged?
Yeltsin and his fellow reformers were happy to encourage it as a method of undermining the Soviet leader and the Communist Party.
What was an example of this strategy of undermining the Soviet government?
Yeltsin’s encouragement to the national groups of the non-Russian republics to ‘take as much sovereignty as you can stomach’
How did Yeltsin use the support for Russian nationalism to undermine Gorb’s Union Treaty?
The last things Russian nationalists wanted was an end to a ‘greater Russian empire’. So he called for a much looser arrangement, a Commonwealth of Independent States made up of the former Soviet republics.
