Baltic politicos are right - Russian Empire doing population transfers.

CanadianGoose · Sep 5, 2008

One of favourite recurring topics for politicos from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is "Soviet Union tried to assimilate us through massive Slavic colonization post-1945". It is complete bull feces, but let's assume this is truth, Russian Empire/Soviet Union did engage in massive "Slavicization" program (I'm not saying "Russification", as Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians generally stick together when living among "others" and consider themselves "Russians"). And, since 1945 is too late, let's start in 1863.

I see 1830 Polish uprising as a POD. Empire authority grow deep distrust toward ethnic and/or religious minorities and talk starts about "melting pot", where Russian Orthodox population (unified within "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and National" dogma) should assimilate everybody else. It remains talk until 1863 due to more reasons that I could care to list. But, enraged by Lithuanian support for 1863 uprising, Empire authorities decided to test the idea. Government takes lands of all the nobles who supported uprising and distributes it among Russian settlers. Anyone who was active in uprising is re-settled in Volga region. Little by little government starts to implement the same policy in other Baltic provinces, as well as in Northern Caucusus. By the 1900, it is a firm tradition - any land reclaimed through government irrigation/land improvement programs in non-Slavic regions is distributed to Slavic settlers, non-Slavs are encouraged to re-settle in Russia proper. Poland and Finland are not affected by this policy. Poland is too fragile and there're too many Poles to digest them easily, and Finland has special status within the Empire. By 1917, there're solid (60% or more) Slavic majorities in Baltic provinces and Slavs are about 20% of population in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, about 10-15% in Uzbekistan.

What's next?

bernooch · Sep 6, 2008

why is the russification concept "Complete bull feces?" sounds like a blatant denial with no facts to back it up

abas · Sep 6, 2008

CanadianGoose said:
But, enraged by Lithuanian support for 1863 uprising, Empire authorities decided to test the idea. Government takes lands of all the nobles who supported uprising and distributes it among Russian settlers. Anyone who was active in uprising is re-settled in Volga region.

This is OTL, only they weren't resetled in one region.

Tyr · Sep 6, 2008

bernooch said:
why is the russification concept "Complete bull feces?" sounds like a blatant denial with no facts to back it up

So does saying its true with no facts to back it up.
It wasn't a big co-ordinated effort by Russia to assimilate the baltics. Russians just moved there as they tended to be rather good, rather urban areas.

Admiral Canaris · Sep 6, 2008

CanadianGoose said:
One of favourite recurring topics for politicos from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is "Soviet Union tried to assimilate us through massive Slavic colonization post-1945". It is complete bull feces, but let's assume this is truth, Russian Empire/Soviet Union did engage in massive "Slavicization" program (I'm not saying "Russification", as Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians generally stick together when living among "others" and consider themselves "Russians"). And, since 1945 is too late, let's start in 1863.

I see 1830 Polish uprising as a POD. Empire authority grow deep distrust toward ethnic and/or religious minorities and talk starts about "melting pot", where Russian Orthodox population (unified within "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and National" dogma) should assimilate everybody else. It remains talk until 1863 due to more reasons that I could care to list. But, enraged by Lithuanian support for 1863 uprising, Empire authorities decided to test the idea. Government takes lands of all the nobles who supported uprising and distributes it among Russian settlers. Anyone who was active in uprising is re-settled in Volga region. Little by little government starts to implement the same policy in other Baltic provinces, as well as in Northern Caucusus. By the 1900, it is a firm tradition - any land reclaimed through government irrigation/land improvement programs in non-Slavic regions is distributed to Slavic settlers, non-Slavs are encouraged to re-settle in Russia proper. Poland and Finland are not affected by this policy. Poland is too fragile and there're too many Poles to digest them easily, and Finland has special status within the Empire. By 1917, there're solid (60% or more) Slavic majorities in Baltic provinces and Slavs are about 20% of population in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, about 10-15% in Uzbekistan.

What's next?

First, why would it be complete bullshit? Are the stories about, say, Estonians deported to Siberia bullshit? Weren't they replaced by "Good Russians"? And wasn't the ruling CPSU rather Russian-dominated?

For the scenario, I'd imagine the areas would stay in the RSFSR after the Civil War. This might affect the run-up to WWII somewhat, with a different Nazi-Soviet Pact, but it wouldn't be too much of a difference.

How much does this policy undermine the authority of the Baltic German landlords? If the change's substantial, that might affect internal policies a lot, and also have various butterfly effects. Alfred Rosenberg might not end up with the Nazis, for example.

MerryPrankster · Sep 6, 2008

bernooch said:
why is the russification concept "Complete bull feces?" sounds like a blatant denial with no facts to back it up

CanadianGoose claims to oppose "propaganda" and want "the true facts" of the Cold War, but in practice, he only disagrees with anti-Soviet propaganda and swallows pro-Soviet propaganda by the gallon.

ac220v · Sep 6, 2008

bernooch said:
why is the russification concept "Complete bull feces?" sounds like a blatant denial with no facts to back it up

Well... I don't know whether it's still on display, but there's an interesting document in Riga's military museum. It was a Party directive issued ca 1950. IIRC it practically closed any career in Latvian Party structures to non-bilingual members, that is those who didn't know both Latvian and Russian, with the emphasis on the Latvian. There were schools of all levels and universities where the only subject not taught in Latvian was Russian language, and Russian schools in Latvia all taught Latvian (It wasn't really good though. I was taught by my late grandma, thank her... ). There were movies shot in Latvian, books both original and translated, and Latvian-language TV.

So, WHAT SORT of "Russification" is that???

It all didn't help to ameliorate national issues though, situation was quite tense in 80s. But not because of any e-e-e-vil russification plot. It was just that most Latvians didn't and don't like communists for a variety of reasons.

ac220v · Sep 6, 2008

That said, there really were russification attempts by Russian Empire, like ban of printing in non-Cyrillic fonts, overzealous promotion of Orthodoxy, etc... But no population transfers I know of. Then again, there were Baltic Germans, Jews, raskolnyki, etc... all having quite an influence here (especially Germans), and that might be mostly targetted against them, with Latvians themselves being an afterthought.

serebryakov · Sep 6, 2008

Admiral Canaris said:
First, why would it be complete bullshit? Are the stories about, say, Estonians deported to Siberia bullshit?

No. Exaggerated, maybe (or toned down, depending on what sources you use).

Admiral Canaris said:
Weren't they replaced by "Good Russians"?

No. For twenty years after annexation national composition of Baltic states did not change drastically. (In Latvia, in fact, which also underwent a deportation bout after annexation, there were MORE ethnic Latvians in 1949 than in 1935 - 80% and 75% respectively. Guess why). Only the ongoing industrialisation caused the inflow of people from other regions of the SU.

Admiral Canaris said:
And wasn't the ruling CPSU rather Russian-dominated?

That's like saying that... well... Indian parliament is dominated by Hindi-speakers. Of course, any nominally democratic institution would be "dominated" by majority. On the other hand, if you take local CP's and Soviets, both were "dominated" by titular nations of the corresponding republic.

Admiral Canaris said:
How much does this policy undermine the authority of the Baltic German landlords?

That is, IMHO, a cogent argument against the idea as a whole. Ostseedeutchen were an influential group in the empire.

Also, I don't think Russian authorities of the time thought quite in these terms. They _did_ hold "deep distrust toward ethnic and/or religious minorities" (especially latter)... but it did not force them to hold to any sort of cogerent policy concerning these minorities.

Valdemar II · Sep 6, 2008

serebryakov said:
No. For twenty years after annexation national composition of Baltic states did not change drastically. (In Latvia, in fact, which also underwent a deportation bout after annexation, there were MORE ethnic Latvians in 1949 than in 1935 - 80% and 75% respectively. Guess why).

The flight of the Germans (3%), the death of the Jews (5%) could explain that.

DrakonFin · Sep 6, 2008

serebryakov said:
For twenty years after annexation national composition of Baltic states did not change drastically. (In Latvia, in fact, which also underwent a deportation bout after annexation, there were MORE ethnic Latvians in 1949 than in 1935 - 80% and 75% respectively. Guess why). Only the ongoing industrialisation caused the inflow of people from other regions of the SU.

Estonia had 97% ethnic Estonians in -45 and only 62% by -89. You cannot say that just happened by way of spontanious change in a totalitarian country that was organized through central planning. The increase of Slavs in Estonia (and therefore, the comparative decrease in the proportion of ethnic Estonians) was a result of Soviet policy, that is it was brought about by the decisions made about the way industry and military bases, etc. were being developed in the Estonian SSR. To ethnic Estonians, this was, and is, the result of disruptive foreign influence: it would not have happened in an independent Estonia.

Sure, a active policy of "Slavicization" might have not existed, but you should accept the fact that there was a valid reason for the Estonians to feel discriminated, even oppressed: the Soviet policies implemented in effect constantly eroded the political, social and cultural position of the Estonians in their own country.

ac220v · Sep 6, 2008

Admiral Canaris said:
First, why would it be complete bullshit? Are the stories about, say, Estonians deported to Siberia bullshit? Weren't they replaced by "Good Russians"? And wasn't the ruling CPSU rather Russian-dominated?

No. As Soviet leaders saw it these weren't Estonians, you see... These were "petty bourgeois elements" replaced mostly by local proletariat. It wasn't like, say, Chechens, not at all. What many don't get about all the relations here, is that it wasn't really about ethnicity for the last 50 years, although it seems so. It was all about communism/capitalism.

Actually, once dust settled after seccession, relations got LESS tense, at least in everyday life (you could be called "Russian swine/Latvian Nazi" by a random bystander in 85 or 92... Nowadays people only remember of the issue when politicos who need it to stay in power artifically fan it.) Education reform was plain dumb too (and done in an insulting way), but, well, show me a _smart_ one anywhere in Ex-USSR...

ac220v · Sep 6, 2008

DrakonFin said:
Sure, a active policy of "Slavicization" might have not existed, but you should accept the fact that there was a valid reason for the Estonians to feel discriminated, even oppressed: the Soviet policies implemented in effect constantly eroded the political, social and cultural position of the Estonians in their own country.

Good point. OTOH, Baltics were (and are) under-populated for a full-fledged industrialisation, and additional workers were needed quickly. So, it's difficult to say if independent Baltics had any chance to stay ethnically pure and get decent economy in post-WWII world.

MerryPrankster · Sep 6, 2008

Didn't the USSR have internal passports and internal controls on population movement?

ac220v · Sep 6, 2008

MerryPrankster said:
Didn't the USSR have internal passports and internal controls on population movement?

It did, and it was big deal in Stalin's times. Later, it was next thing to a mere formality unless you wanted to move to Moscow, Leningrad or SSR's capital city. (which was practically impossible without right kind of connections.) Also, if you've got any higher education, you weren't free to select your first job, it was selected for you by some bureaucrat. (again, if there weren't connections.)

MerryPrankster · Sep 6, 2008

ac220v said:
It did, and it was big deal in Stalin's times. Later, it was next thing to a mere formality unless you wanted to move to Moscow, Leningrad or SSR's capital city. (which was practically impossible without right kind of connections.) Also, if you've got any higher education, you weren't free to select your first job (again, if there weren't connections.)

Ah.

I was wondering, with such a system in place, if any demographic changes in the Baltic states had to be part of a government plot since internal movement was less free.

ac220v · Sep 6, 2008

MerryPrankster said:
Ah.

I was wondering, with such a system in place, if any demographic changes in the Baltic states had to be part of a government plot since internal movement was less free.

No, it wasn't really like that. There was one thing that government tightly controlled and which more or less ensured that someone would want to move exactly where Planning Bureau wanted them to.

That was housing availability and distribution. But, OTOH no one (usually) made you to move to somewhere specific. On the third hand, as I said, children of those who moved had to learn local language and culture, and most of population was more or less bilingual, whatever their nationality.

abas · Sep 7, 2008

ac220v said:
No, it wasn't really like that. There was one thing that government tightly controlled and which more or less ensured that someone would want to move exactly where Planning Bureau wanted them to. That was housing availability and distribution. But, OTOH no one (usually) made you to move to somewhere specific. On the third hand, as I said, children of those who moved had to learn local language and culture, and most of population was more or less bilingual, whatever their nationality.

Really, those Russians that actually learned local language and were bilingual were very rear birds. For the others they were thought essential to know Russian.

Prem_Rack · Sep 7, 2008

ac220v said:
Well... I don't know whether it's still on display, but there's an interesting document in Riga's military museum. It was a Party directive issued ca 1950. IIRC it practically closed any career in Latvian Party structures to non-bilingual members, that is those who didn't know both Latvian and Russian, with the emphasis on the Latvian. There were schools of all levels and universities where the only subject not taught in Latvian was Russian language, and Russian schools in Latvia all taught Latvian (It wasn't really good though. I was taught by my late grandma, thank her... ). There were movies shot in Latvian, books both original and translated, and Latvian-language TV.

So, WHAT SORT of "Russification" is that???

AFAIK he's taling Russian Empire era, as that's the title of the topic. Thought yes, the USRR did pay at least a lip service to the minorities' rights.

serebryakov · Sep 7, 2008

DrakonFin said:
The increase of Slavs in Estonia (and therefore, the comparative decrease in the proportion of ethnic Estonians) was a result of Soviet policy, that is it was brought about by the decisions made about the way industry and military bases, etc. were being developed in the Estonian SSR.

Exactly that. It was definitely not some conscious effort to "russify" Baltics, but rather result of policies completely indifferent to ethnic composition of populations. After all, we're all one big great Soviet people... aren't we?