(16) October Revolution: More on the nationalities

Rex Wade in The Russian Revolution, 1917 (2017 edition) gives this overview of the conflict among nationalities and different versions of nationalism during the civil war that is generally considered a part of the revolution marked by the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917:

The “nationality question,” as it was called, was complex. The term encompassed a large and diverse population: more than 100 different ethnicities (including about twenty major nationalities) of widely differing size, culture, language, beliefs, and economic development. Moreover, the sense of nationality varied widely. At one extreme were individuals, especially urban and educated, who were basically Russified and had left their ethnic origins largely behind, or who for ideological reasons (Marxism especially) rejected nationalism. In contrast were those, also largely urban and educated, who were strongly nationalist and demanded autonomy or independence. Yet a third extreme variant, perhaps largest of all, were rural populations who identified with their local region or clan and had only a weak sense of being “Ukrainian,” “Kazakh,” or other nationality (although they were perhaps distinctly aware of not being Russian). In between stood people of every gradation of national identity. Moreover, some ethnic groups had a strong sense of national identity while others had little. This had political implications. There were important differences, as far as political mobilization was concerned, among simple ethnic identity (a fundamental identity as Chechen or Latvian based on local custom, language and daily culture), national consciousness (a more complex political concept deliberately fostered by national elites and patriots), and nationalism (an ideology arguing for the establishment of some kind of nationality-based state). [my emphasis]

After the February Revolution, Ukrainian nationalists set up a ruling body called the Ukrainian Central Rada, which Wade explains whose political character reflected "a fusion of nationalism and moderate socialism." The Rada's demands in those early months was for an autonomous Ukraine within a Russia federal structure. And among the nationalists as well, the general approach was to advocate a form of federalism. But the national factor multiplied the complications of the revolutionary process.

"We Don't Want to Fight, But We'll Defend the Soviets" (1922)

And Wade describes how intermixed the populations of Ukraine were:

... the significant non-Ukrainian population – 20–25 percent – ... dominated the cities and government, the professions and commerce. Russians and Jews were the most important in a non-Ukrainian minority population that included Poles, Germans, Tatars, Greeks and others. They were concentrated in the cities, while Ukrainians were primarily rural and peasant. In Kiev, the presumed capital of Ukraine and where most of the Ukrainian congresses and organizations met, Ukrainians made up only 16.4 percent of the civilian population in 1917. Of the ten largest cities of Ukraine, only one had a Ukrainian majority, and in six of the ten Ukrainians were only the third largest group (after Russians and Jews). These urban, non-Ukrainian elements also were more likely to be literate, well educated and politically engaged than were the predominantly rural Ukrainian population. [my emphasis]

In the couple of months after the October Revolution, the Ukrainian nationalists pushed hard for national independence, despite the political differences among its diverse population.

Finland had a more developed nationalist movement, which began focused efforts for independence immediately after the February Revolution. By December, Finland declared its independence, which the new Bolshevik government in Petrograd recognized. But a civil war developed early in 1918 in Finland between Red and White forces, with the Germans intervening at one point on the side of the Whites. The Whites had successfully suppressed their Communist opponents by May.

In the Baltics, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 transferred formal control of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from Russia to Germany. Latvia became the scene of protracted conflict between Reds and Whites, with continuing intervention by German troops and "volunteers," aka, the Freikorps. By the end of 1919, a non-Communist government had established control and German forces had been cleared out of Latvia. A peace treaty with the Soviet Union in August 1920 recognized Latvian independence.

In Estonia, the Red Army attempted to take control in late 1918. But an Allied-backed government with troops from Finland and naval assistance from Britain pushed the Soviet forces back in early 1919. A Soviet government was established in Lituania in the first half of 1919 but was driven out by conservative forces backed by Poland and the Western Allies.

Red Army recruitment poster

Then there were various Muslim groups in the Russian Empire, 90% of them of the Turkic ethnicity. Wade describes this population at the time of the revolution:

Most of the Muslim population was distributed in three major blocks: the Central Asians (modern Tadzhiks, Turkmen, Kirghiz, Uzbeks,Kazakhs); the Azeri Turk (Azerbaijanid) population of Transcaucasia; and the Tatars of the Volga River, Ural Mountains and Crimean regions. The first two groups lived in reasonably compact population regions, but the third was more scattered geographically and more interspersed with Russians. Muslims were a population united by a common religion but divided in many ways: by spoken language, history, geography, social-cultural characteristics, social-economic class, ethnicity and a sense of being different peoples. In many areas, especially Central Asia, identities were not well fixed in modern nationality terms, and many names were in use for various groups (Sarts, for example) that are no longer used. Moreover, many specific local issues drove the revolution in the different Muslim areas.

In the Muslim areas during the revolutions of 1917, along with the secular political ideologies, Islamic modernizers were contending with more conservative traditionalists for hegemony, as well. Wade observes of this period in Muslim areas:

All generalizations about people acting on the basis of class, ethnicity or religion become difficult, especially about their turning those identities into political action. Some Muslims joined local branches of the national political parties – Kadet, Bolshevik, SR, Menshevik – but most identified with Muslim or nationality-based parties of various social and political orientations. A unified Islamic movement failed to develop.

And if those weren't sufficient complications, Georgia and Armenia presented special challenges of their own. Violent, even genocidal Ottoman Turkish hostility toward Armenians strongly inclined Armenians in the Russian Empire toward a strong link to the central government, including after the October Revolution.