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Soviet Union [USSR] NATIONALITIES OF THE SOVIET UNION
The official Soviet census of 1989 listed over 100
nationalities in the Soviet Union (see
table 13, Appendix A). Each
had its own history, culture, and language. Each possessed its own
sense of national identity and national consciousness. The position
of each nationality in the Soviet Union depended to a large degree
on its size, the percentage of the people using the national
language as their first language, the degree of its integration
into the Soviet society, and its territorial-administrative status.
This position was also dependent on each nationality's share of
membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the
number of students in higher institutions, the number of scientific
workers, and the urbanization of each nationality.
The various nationalities differed greatly in size. On the one
hand, the Russians, who constituted about 50.8 percent of the
population, numbered about 145 million in 1989. On the other hand,
half of the nationalities listed in the census together accounted
for only 0.5 percent of the total population, most of them having
fewer than 100,000 people. Twenty-two nationalities had more than
1 million people each. Fifteen of the major nationalities had their
own union republics, which together comprised the federation known
as the Soviet Union.
The nationalities having union republic status commanded more
political and economic power than other nationalities and found it
easier to maintain their own language and culture. In 1989 some
nationalities formed an overwhelming majority within their own
republics; one nationality (the Kazakhs), however, lacked even a
majority. In addition to the fifteen union republics, individual
nationalities had their own territorial units, such as autonomous
republics, autonomous oblasts, and autonomous okruga (see
table 14, Appendix A). The remaining nationalities did not have
territorial units of their own and in most cases only constituted
minorities in the Russian Republic (see
table 15, Appendix A).
The nationalities that have had a significant political and
economic impact on the Soviet Union include the fifteen
nationalities that have their own union republics and the non-union
republic nationalities that numbered at least 1 million people in
1989. They are the Slavic nationalities, the Baltic nationalities,
the nationalities of the Caucasus, the Central Asian nationalities,
and a few other nationalities.
Data as of May 1989
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