Red Nations The Nationalities Experience in and after the USSR

Advance praise: 'Jeremy Smith has given us the first comprehensive account of the turns and twists of Soviet nationality policies from the revolution to the present. An acknowledged expert on the USSR's practices among non-Russian peoples, Smith shows how nations were constructed and reconstructed by an ostensibly internationalist socialist state that both promoted ethnic cultures but also exiled whole peoples to eradicate perceived threats to the regime. The importance of his story should not be underestimated. The heritage of Soviet aspirations, achievements, and brutal impositions continues after the collapse of communism and remains the ground on which fifteen new states build their future.' Ronald Grigor Suny, Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History, University of Michigan