Interpretations: The Impact of the Nationalist Resurgence (Edexcel A-Level History): Revision Notes

Growing Nationalist Unrest, 1988–90

Overview

Between 1988 and 1990, the Soviet Union experienced a dramatic surge in nationalist unrest across its various republics. This period marked a crucial turning point in Soviet history, as different ethnic groups increasingly demanded independence or greater autonomy. The nationalist movements were fuelled by a combination of ethnic tensions, economic grievances, environmental concerns, and Gorbachev's policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). The Soviet Government's responses to these challenges ranged from economic sanctions to military force, but ultimately proved ineffective in maintaining control over the increasingly fragmented union.

Nationalist violence

The Karabagh crisis (1988)

The first major outbreak of nationalist violence occurred in Karabagh, a region within the Republic of Azerbaijan. The crisis began in February 1988 when Armenian nationalists living in Karabagh organised protests demanding that the region's boundaries be redrawn to allow them to unite with neighbouring Armenia. This demand for territorial change triggered a strong reaction from Azerbaijani nationalists, who launched a counter-campaign to defend their republic's territorial integrity. Within weeks, the situation escalated from peaceful protests to violent riots.

Gorbachev's response was to impose direct rule over Karabagh, effectively removing local authority and placing the region under central Soviet control. However, this intervention satisfied neither the Armenian nor the Azerbaijani side. Instead, it led to the formation of new militant groups fighting for their respective national communities. The violence spiralled into massacres and forced the mass migration of Armenians from their homes.

By the end of 1989, the Communist Party had lost control of the Republic of Azerbaijan entirely. In January 1990, Azerbaijani nationalists, who had effectively taken power in the republic, carried out massacres of Armenians. Mass rallies of Azerbaijani nationalists demanded formal independence from the Soviet Union, demonstrating how local ethnic conflicts could rapidly transform into broader challenges to Soviet authority.

Violence in Uzbekistan (1989)

A year after the Karabagh crisis began, similar patterns of ethnic violence emerged in Central Asia. In 1989, Uzbeks massacred members of the Meshketian minority, a Muslim community living in Uzbekistan. As in Azerbaijan, Soviet authorities proved unable to restore peace or negotiate a compromise between the conflicting groups. This failure to manage ethnic tensions led to a significant loss of faith in the Soviet Government, which appeared increasingly incapable of either ensuring peace or addressing the legitimate demands of nationalist movements.

Common patterns in nationalist violence

The Tbilisi massacre (9 April 1989)

Events in Georgia

The crisis in Georgia demonstrated the severe limits of Gorbachev's actual power and the difficult choices facing Soviet authorities when confronting nationalist movements. On 9 April 1989, Georgian nationalists organised protests against the rights of the Abkhazian minority within Georgia. Unlike previous incidents where Soviet authorities had attempted to avoid confrontation, on this occasion Soviet troops were ordered to restore order by force.

The military intervention resulted in 19 Georgian protesters being killed and thousands more wounded. The use of lethal force against civilian protesters outraged Georgian nationalists and turned what had been a protest about minority rights into a broader movement against Soviet authority. As had happened in Uzbekistan, the government's harsh response transformed Georgian nationalists from critics of Soviet policy into opponents of the Soviet system itself.

Consequences of the Tbilisi massacre

The killings in Georgia had two significant and long-lasting consequences that would shape the Soviet Government's ability to respond to future nationalist challenges:

Russian nationalism

The emergence of Russian nationalism

During the late 1980s, a distinct form of Russian nationalism began to emerge, which was particularly significant given that Russians formed the largest ethnic group within the Soviet Union. Traditionally, many Russians had identified strongly with the Soviet Union and took pride in the successes and world power status achieved under Communist rule. However, as the economic crisis deepened from 1988 onwards, Russians increasingly blamed the Soviet Union and its leaders for the country's problems. This shift led to a growing demand for change that would prioritise Russia first, rather than the broader Soviet Union.

The environmental (green) movement

Russian nationalism was significantly strengthened by the growth of an environmental or green movement. The catalyst for heightened environmental awareness was the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion in 1986, which exposed the devastating environmental consequences of Soviet industrial policies. Following this disaster, Gorbachev's policy of glasnost led the government to publish environmental data that had previously been concealed. This data revealed that Russia was far more polluted by Soviet industry and farming practices than had been publicly admitted.

The green movement first gained significant strength in Armenia during the late 1980s. In 1987, environmentalists organised mass demonstrations against the Soviet Government's environmental policies. These demonstrations were unprecedented in Soviet history and indicated the powerful appeal of environmental concerns in mobilising public opposition to Soviet policies.

Links between environmentalism and nationalism

Environmental groups in Russia increasingly framed their concerns in explicitly nationalist terms, speaking of saving the Russian landscape and the Russian environment specifically. This nationalist framing of environmental issues undermined support for the Soviet Union while simultaneously strengthening Russian nationalism.

Cultural nationalism

Nationalism also flourished among groups dedicated to protecting national monuments and traditional buildings. This movement to preserve physical heritage was part of a broader effort to protect Russian culture and re-evaluate the country's past. Some Russians began to argue that Tsarism (the pre-revolutionary monarchy) had actually been a better system of government than Communism. This represented a fundamental challenge to Soviet ideology, which was built on the premise that the Communist revolution had liberated Russia from an oppressive past.

Baltic independence movements

Historical background

The break-up of the Soviet Union began in the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. These three republics had a unique history that made them particularly determined to seek independence. They had been independent nations during the 1920s and 1930s, before being conquered and forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union by Stalin in 1940. Baltic nationalists sought to restore the independence their countries had lost, making their nationalist movements different from those in republics that had never experienced independent statehood.

The growth of popular fronts

By 1988, large 'popular fronts' – broad-based movements dedicated to achieving independence – were growing rapidly in all three Baltic states. These organisations brought together people from different backgrounds united by the common goal of independence from the Soviet Union.

Estonia took the first significant step in November 1988 by declaring itself sovereign from the Soviet Union. Importantly, Estonia did not immediately attempt to leave the Union entirely. Instead, the Estonian government claimed the right to make certain autonomous decisions, including reviving the old Estonian flag (banned under Soviet rule) and beginning to educate citizens in the Estonian language rather than Russian. This gradualist approach represented a middle path between full membership in the Soviet Union and complete independence.

Lithuania's declaration of independence (March 1990)

The most dramatic challenge to Soviet authority came from Lithuania. In elections held in 1990, nationalist candidates gained majorities in several Baltic parliaments, representing the first major electoral victories for openly anti-Soviet movements. In March 1990, the newly elected parliament of Lithuania declared Lithuanian independence from the Soviet Union. This declaration represented the first major nationalist challenge to Soviet territorial integrity since 1921.

Soviet use of force in Lithuania (January 1991)

Economic sanctions having failed to force Lithuania to accept Soviet authority, in January 1991 the Soviet Government escalated its response by sending in troops. Soviet forces occupied the press and television headquarters in Lithuania, killing 14 people during the operation. This use of force provoked outrage across the entire Soviet Union, not just in the Baltic states.

Even more seriously for Soviet authority, Boris Yeltsin, the leader of the Russian Republic, publicly asked Russian soldiers to refuse to obey orders from the Soviet Government that would suppress political protest. Yeltsin also began creating a Russian army to defend the Russian Republic from potential Soviet attack, directly challenging the monopoly of the Soviet Government over military force.

Yeltsin's challenge to Soviet authority (May 1990)

Yeltsin pushed the boundaries of Russian autonomy even further in May 1990 by declaring that laws made by the Russian parliament were legally superior to Soviet laws. This extraordinary claim effectively gave Russia a significant degree of independence from the Soviet Union, even though Russia was the largest and most important Soviet republic. Yeltsin's statement represented a fundamental challenge to the authority of the Soviet Government.

Further evidence of rising Russian nationalism included the re-emergence of the old Russian flag and the double-headed eagle, which had been the symbol of the Russian monarchy before the revolution. Both symbols had been banned by the Soviet Government as representing the old tsarist order. The fact that Russians supporting Yeltsin openly displayed these formerly forbidden symbols indicated that Russian nationalists wanted to break away from Soviet Communist identity and assert Russia's distinct national independence.

Reforming the Soviet Union

Gorbachev's declining authority

Gorbachev's response to the surge in nationalism was to propose a reformed union in which the individual republics would enjoy a greater degree of independence while remaining part of a restructured Soviet federation. Gorbachev first proposed a new union treaty in 1990, but negotiations proved extremely difficult due to his declining authority.

The March 1991 referendum

Following the crisis in Lithuania in January 1991, Gorbachev proposed holding a referendum of all Soviet citizens in March 1991. He hoped to strengthen his position by winning popular support for the idea of a reformed union that would keep the Soviet Union together while granting greater autonomy to the republics.

Six republics, including the three Baltic republics, refused to participate in the referendum, demonstrating their complete rejection of any form of union with the Soviet Union. However, among the remaining nine republics that did participate, 76 per cent of voters backed the idea of creating a new union. This result gave Gorbachev some legitimacy to continue negotiations.

The 9+1 agreement (April 1991)

Based on the referendum result, Gorbachev reached a provisional agreement in April 1991. The 9+1 agreement (representing nine republics plus the central government) was designed to establish a federation of independent states with a single president. This would have fundamentally transformed the Soviet Union from a centralised state into a looser confederation, but it would have kept the union together in some form.

Yeltsin's election as Russian president (June 1991)

In June 1991, Russia took another decisive step towards independence by electing its own president in a popular vote. Boris Yeltsin won the election with 57 per cent of the vote, easily defeating the communist candidate who received only 16 per cent. This electoral victory significantly strengthened Yeltsin's position while further weakening Gorbachev.

Negotiations for a new treaty continued throughout the spring and into summer 1991. In mid-July, a complete draft of the treaty establishing a Union of Sovereign States was agreed by the leaders of eight Soviet republics. Gorbachev announced that the treaty would be formally signed on 21 August 1991, a date that would prove significant in Soviet history.

Historical interpretations: the impact of nationalism

Ronald Grigor Suny's interpretation

Historian Ronald Grigor Suny argues that nationalism emerged and threatened the Soviet Union primarily because of the weaknesses of the Soviet regime and Gorbachev's mistakes. According to Suny, when Gorbachev came to power in March 1985, the Soviet state was already in a profoundly weakened condition following years of political and economic stagnation under previous leaders.

According to Suny's interpretation, when democratic forces began to emerge and act under Gorbachev's reforms, nationalist politics rapidly burst beyond the bounds of the old political system in several republics. In Armenia, Georgia, and the Baltic states, this nationalist surge quickly undermined the power of local Communist parties. However, Suny notes that in other republics, particularly in Central Asia, perestroika was contained and Communist officials maintained their control over both state and society. This suggests that nationalism's impact varied significantly across different regions of the Soviet Union.

Anatoly Michailovich Khazanov's interpretation

By contrast, historian Anatoly Michailovich Khazanov argues that nationalism emerged due to specific problems with Soviet policy, particularly the ecological problems created by the Soviet economy and the abuses of minority cultures within the Union.

According to Khazanov, in 1987 various groups emerged across different republics to address social, cultural, and ecological problems that were closely connected to the national interests of these peoples. He highlights that ecological movements were particularly active in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, and Moldavia. The September and October 1987 mass demonstrations organised by environmental groups in Armenia were unprecedented in the Soviet Union at that time.

Khazanov's interpretation suggests that by 1988, the economic and political crisis in the Soviet Union was accompanied by an explosion of nationalism and rising tension in inter-ethnic relations. His analysis emphasises the role of specific grievances – environmental degradation and cultural suppression – in fuelling nationalist movements, rather than focusing primarily on regime weakness or leadership mistakes.

Comparing the interpretations

While both historians agree that nationalism posed a serious threat to the Soviet Union during this period, they differ in their emphasis on the causes. Suny focuses on institutional weaknesses and political mistakes that created space for nationalism to flourish. Khazanov emphasises the substantive grievances – particularly environmental and cultural issues – that motivated nationalist movements. Both interpretations have merit and likely capture different aspects of a complex historical phenomenon. Understanding both perspectives provides a more complete picture of why nationalism surged during this critical period.

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