Ethnic Cleansing and Stalinism: The Holodomor and Deportation Policies as Attempts to Russify the Soviet Union

Abstract

Throughout my undergraduate studies, I was both fascinated and repulsed by nationalism and its effects on individuals, groups, and polities, due in part to my own personal confusion at why people identify so strongly along national lines. Nationalism continued At the same time, I was quite interested in the disconnect between Marxist/socialist theory and Soviet political, economic, and cultural practices - particularly during the Stalinist period. My academic fascination with these ideas in practice ultimately latched itself most strongly to the terror that was the 20th century, in the form of ethnic cleansing and genocide (as well as war and general tension) throughout Europe, as exemplified in the Soviet Union. In essence, this paper is a testament to that fascination: an exploration of the politics, ideology, and human cost of ethnic cleansing.