Ethnic conflicts and separatism as prerequisites for the collapse of the USSR in the context of the crisis of official ideology

The object of the study was the federal relations within the USSR and the RSFSR, developing in the crisis conditions of ethnic conflicts and stagnation of the official Soviet ideology. The subject of the study was ethnic conflicts and separatism as prerequisites for the collapse of the Soviet Union in the context of the crisis of communist ideology. The purpose of this study was to study certain negative trends in the development of federal relations in connection with the growing crisis phenomena in the USSR. To achieve this goal, a set of universal (dialectics), general scientific (analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, structural-system method), private scientific methods (historical method), special methods (formal-legal) were used. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that on the basis of archival documents, the author substantiates the dualistic nature of the genesis and development of interethnic conflicts, which, on the one hand, have deep historical roots, and on the other hand, were aggravated due to the miscalculations of Soviet federal construction. In addition, the crisis of the ideology of Soviet internationalism, which degenerated into scholastic dogmatism, mechanically exploited by the supreme power, without successful attempts at modernization, is clearly shown. A special contribution of the author to the research of the topic is the introduction into scientific circulation of archival documents from the funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the State Archive of Socio-Political History.

ethnic conflict, separatism, state structure, soviet federalism, RSFSR, USSR, sovereignty, national self-determination, unitary state, asymmetric federation