Soviet Nationality Policy in North Western Siberia: An Historical Perspective

Philip Lineton

North western Siberia is an area of tundra, marsh and forest, traversed by the Ob and other rivers. I t is inhabited by numerous ethnic groups, engaged in hunting, fishing and reindeer herding. In this article I shall consider Soviet nationality policy with particular reference to these societies of north western Siberia which could be termed ‘traditional primitive societies’. Before doing this, however, it is necessary to consider the history of the relations of these societies with the pre-revolutionary Russian state so that a clear idea of the background and the context of the later policy can be gained. I shall concentrate on two groups of Finno-Ugri speaking peoples, the Khanti and Mansi, These were divided at the time of Russian conquest into small local territorial groups with leaders called ‘princes’ by the Russians, although they would be more aptly thought of as chiefs. The local societies were divided into three strata - the ‘princes’ and aristocracy, the common people, and the slaves. These local groups inhabited regions very different in their natural characteristics and there were corresponding differences in the ways of life of the groups. The nature of the region affected such things as patterns of seasonal migration and the relative importance of the main economic pursuits, fishing, hunting for game animals, gathering of forest products, and so on; thus in the south agriculture and fishing tended to be of greatest importance, while in the north fishing and hunting occupied the largest place.

An obvious but extremely important feature of the Russian colonial advance was that the Asian land mass is contiguous to European Russia and there were no difficult natural barriers separating the two domains. This meant that not only was the time

Development and Change (SAGE, London and Beverly Hills), Vol. 9 (19781, 87- 102

88 Philip Lineton

span of the contact between European Russia and the peoples of nor th western Siberia relatively great but also the nature of the contacts with Russians was not limited to administrators but extended from the earliest times to peasants, runaways and trappers who tended to meet on a more equal footing with the native peoples they encountered than was generally the case with Western colonialism.

The first recorded contact with the peoples of western Siberia made by Russians came in the eleventh century, although there is evidence that contacts had been made previously (and that the area had traded with western China earlier still). The contacts had been made by traders from Novgorod in search of the valuable furs in which the area abounded. The lands beyond the Urals were mentioned in the titles of the princes of Novgorod, although there is no evidence of any actual sovereignty having been exercised over the area. Even during the time of Mongol rule in Russia, men from Novgorod visited the region, and met strong resistance from the native peoples. In 1476 Ivan 111 absorbed all Novgorod's possessions and from that time Russian movement into Siberia was under Muscovite control. Campaigns, rather in the nature of raids, were conducted in the late fifteenth century, but they brought no actual gains in territory and it was only in the late sixteenth century, after the fall of the Tatars of Kazan, that control of western Siberia passed into the hands of Moscow following the spectacular successes of the Cossack leader Yermak, whose conquest of the area was accepted by Ivan the Terrible.

The initial conquest was rather easy, and quickly recognized by the disorganized natives who were unfamiliar with firearms, Subsequently, the Russians acted quickly to establish their hold upon the region, establishing forts along all the important waterways; these forts could act as administrative centres in peace time, and as military bases in the event of an uprising. By establishing the forts along the major lines of communication, large-scale uprisings, like that of Prince Anna of Kadu in 1606-07, were made more difficult; in general, however, such movements were rare. The major function of the forts was the collection and dispatch to Moscow of the fur tax, call yusak, levied on the natives; this will be discussed in more detail later.

The treatment of the native population was marked by diplomacy except in the face of resistance, which was always mercilessly and often cunningly crushed. Native rulers became agents of the Russian government in the collection of the fur tax

Soviet Nationality Policy in N . W. Siberia 89

and they were accepted as having the right to rule over their people. They often furnished troops for the Russian state and in addition waged wars quite vigorously against their fellow tribesmen. It was a pattern that was similar to the policy pursued by the Russians against many of their native subjects in all parts of their expanding empire.

The policy of the central government was quite explicit in respect of the treatment of these groups: native customs were to be respected, there was to be minimal interference in their affairs, officials were expected to learn native customs so that misunderstandings could be prevented, the natives were to be treated kindly and there was to be no forced Christianization or interference with native religion. This attitude emerges from the central government’s replies to complaints and petitions of the natives and also from their statements of general policy. As against the humane policy of the central government, which was to be a constant right up to the revolution and beyond, were the actions of the local administrators, which unfortunately were also a constant in the life of the native population. The greed, cruelty, inefficiency and stupidity of the local officials were proverbial even as early as the seventeenth century, and while the religion and customs of the natives may not have been persecuted, their goods and chattels and persons were certainly not treated with the kindliness the central government enjoined.

The central government attempted to stop the predations of the native rulers one against the other and to stop the excesses of the local administrators against the native population. Swift and severe action was usually taken on native complaints and petitions, although the complaint had to be extremely serious for a largely illiterate population to make the considerable effort needed to have it written and then taken without the knowledge of the watchful and very unsympathetic officials to the court in Moscow.

Thus, initially the policy was one of indirect rule, with the administrative units being based on the boundaries of the old native petty principalities and the native leaders either being crushed if they showed resistance or, if cooperative, being used as agents of the Russian state to collect the yasak and dues on private merchants and assist the local administrator. For this they were rewarded with gifts, exemption from yasak and, of course, a limited amount of power. It is possible that these rulers may in fact have increased their power during this period by the concentration of the yasak furs in their hands and the greater availability of goods with which

90 Philip Lineton

to exchange them, and, in the last resort, the possibility of calling upon the Russian regime to support their actions and authority.

Some insight into the reasons behind such a policy may be gained by an examination of the government’s attitude in this early period to Christianization of the natives. According to Lantzeff (1972): ‘As the Russians had no race prejudice and regarded religion as the only barrier separating them from the natives, the newly baptised were treated on equal terms with the Russians.’ Once a native was baptised, he became a Russian citizen and thus no longer liable to pay yasak. In the light of this, the central administration issued the command not to convert natives by force and also the rule that any baptism had to be submitted to it for approval. This was connected to the practice of local officials of forceably baptising natives and then enslaving or making serfs out of them, which reduced the central government’s yasak revenues. The central government was unsuccessful in its aims and by the beginning of the eighteenth century it was possible to own lawfully native serfs or slaves. During the period up to the eighteenth century the aim of the central government was to maintain its revenues from the fur tax and it was to this end, and in the context of an underpaid and venial local bureaucracy, that its policy of non-interference and protectionism towards the natives was formulated. However, in the late seventeenth century and to an accelerating extent during the eighteenth century two factors were to affect this policy. Firstly, the number of fur-bearing animals in the region became rapidly depleted with the excessive demands made upon them, while the opening up of new fur-bearing areas in the New World began to depress the world market price for fur. Secondly, as the Russians consolidated their hold on the territory there was less need to give the local rulers the large degree of autonomy they had held in their own affairs, or to allow them to maintain troops. The significance of these rulers progressively diminished until they were little more than equivalent to the lowest rung of the Russian bureaucracy.

As a result of these changes, the government reversed its former policy and strenuous efforts were made to convert the natives to Christianity. Whereas in 1606 the government had commanded that an ‘idol’ be returned to the princes of Kanda (whose authority it symbolized), at the beginning of the eighteenth century the Russian state proceeded on a campaign in which native idols were burnt. As the same time, reductions of only three years in the payment of yasak, rather than complete exemption, were offered to converts. In general this proselytizing drive met with little success,

Soviet Nationality Policy in N. W. Siberia 91

with most of the natives having only a very limited idea of Christianity.

After this vigorous effort at prosyletizing under the direction of Peter the Great, during the remainder of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century the policy of kindly protection of the natives was maintained; later, under Catherine the Great, it was to be tinged with ideas of the noble savage, imported from Western Europe. However, the position of the natives deteriorated. The decline in animal numbers meant that payment of' yasak became more difficult and with the decline in the importance of the revenue to the state from yasak the interest of the central government in the well-being of the natives, while always expressed in humane terms, was not pursued vigorously enough to prevent the local officials from despoiling the native population by their demands for personal gifts and their attempts to use the native population as their serfs. In addition, as Russian penetration increased, more and more merchants came into the area. Chinese merchants were prohibited and the native population became totally dependent on these merchants for grain and metal implements, having to sell their catches of fish at very low prices and being left to government charity, which was not always forthcoming, in the winter. In this way many of the natives - and an increasing number in the case of the nineteenth century - became little more than indentured labourers for the merchants.

In 1822, under Count Speransky, the Siberian administration was reformed and again one finds in the pronouncements for native administration much which would be found laudable in such a programme at the present day. However, as the attention of the central government was to be concentrated on the agricultural areas of Siberia further south, little was done to see that these laudable policies were carried out. The general policy was to preserve the internal autonomy of the tribal groups, to maintain religious toleration and local customs while leaving the way open for economic and social transformation from outside. The native population was to be divided into three categories of settled, nomad and vagrant, and for the last two categories their administration was to be based on local customs, which were to be better defined. The categories of nomad and vagrant were based on criteria which were extremely vague and difficult to apply, such as simplicity of local custom and uncertainty of place of residence, but different taxation rates were to be applied to these categories,

92 Philip L ineton

membership of which often depended on the whim of the local officials. Taxation rates varied with the category, although the criteria for the categories were rather vague and difficult to apply, and some groups suffered through being placed in a category that entailed higher taxes. The native administrative unit was to be the clan, which had responsibility for the appointment of the tax burden and general administration but which was directly under the authority of the local Russian administration. The rights and duties of this unit were not well defined, nor was local custom ever codified, and this situation gave the administration ample opportunity to dictate the actions of the clan - which in most cases was not a real social unit but simply a territorial administrative convenience, which may be compared in power and duties to a Russian peasant village. These clans had no genealogical significance or content and although most had originally corresponded to the local territorial groups mentioned above, these had by this time lost their social functions and social forms. The ‘aristrocratic’ strata whose main function had been that of warfare had withered leaving only certain leaders who acted as minor Russian officials. There is evidence that the population had become more dispersed during this period as the necessity of acquiring the furs to pay the tax meant that the population had to spread out away from the old centres dominated by the princes and their aristocratic warriors.

Thus while this new regime was full of guarantees of local autonomy, religion, customs and rights, there was no protection against the actions of local officials and merchants. In addition, the new statute was simply inapplicable to many groups, and there was no attempt to undertake the research necessary to fi t the provisions of the statute to particular local conditions.

The position of the native peoples during the nineteenth century progressively worsened. Not only was the fur tax still imposed even when the animals had largely been hunted out but the activity of the Russian merchants increased to the detriment of the natives. While native fishing grounds were supposedly protected by the new statute, they were progressively pushed off these by groups of merchants who rented the grounds from them, and who bought up their fish and furs very cheaply while selling them necessities and vodka very dearly, and thereby binding the population to them. The policy of leaving the natives open to economic and social influences from the outside was most certainly not advantageous to

Soviet Nationality Policy in N. W. Siberia 93

them. This economic crisis of the native population had by many accounts severely reduced their numbers by the end of the nineteenth century and left the remainder weakened by debt, hunger and disease. They had no answer to the superior economic power and organization of the embryonic Russian capitalism which increasingly impinged on their lives.

This was the situation which faced the Soviet government when i t came to power in 1917. The native population of north western Siberia had experienced more than three centuries of Russian domination and an even longer period of Russian influence. The initial impact upon their way of life had been very great and similar to that of Europeans upon the Canadian Indian groups. The demands of the government for fur led to changes in the way of life of the peoples: there was increased competition between native groups for areas rich in fur, food production was neglected in favour of fur collection, and the greater amount of time and effort spent on fur hunting increased the demands of the native groups for the goods that the Russian merchants could offer, at a price. While there was an abundance of f u r and good prices for it , the natives did not suffer too badly, but the reduction in price and its increasing scarcity after the seventeenth century imposed very severe difficulties upon them. I t could be said that the actions of the native groups during this period were an adaptive response to the increasing demands and presence of the Russians. It is quite certain that the Russians brought about a major change in the means of livelihood of these people.

While in some senses the Russian government pursued a humane and liberal policy towards the natives, attempting to preserve their customs, religion and autonomy in their everyday lives, much of this was vitiated by the actions of the local officials and later by official neglect. It would seem in any case to have been a policy adopted as i t was in the seventeenth century, because of its expediency for the central government’s tax revenues; after this time it may be argued-and has been by Soviet commentators-that the protectionist policy and conservative view of native affairs taken by the central government served only to prop up a moribund social organization which had become little more than a branch of the Russian administration and which left the general population prey to the activities of the unscrupulous merchants and their official helpers. This is an argument which will be considered later in the discussion of Soviet policy, but it should be noted that it is an

94 Philip Lineton

argument - however apparently simplistic - which is generally relevant to the question of the future of traditional Societies; that is, who benefits from policies of a protectionist nature?

The traditional primitive societies of north western Siberia had thus undergone numerous cultural revolutions before the coming of the Soviets, either under Russian economic pressure or under pressures more difficult to locate, as with the adoption of reindeer herding by groups of northern Khanti, from the Nentsi in the seventeenth century. The degree of Russian cultural penetration varied from the south, where agriculture was possible and where the native groups had by and large been totally assimilated to the Russian peasant population, to the north, where in many cases the reverse process had occurred, with Russian peasants adopting the life style of the native population and in some cases even their language. Everywhere the vital political structure of the groups had been taken into the Russian domain, making the identification of specifically native forms of social organization very difficult, with the power of such native administrative units as did exist being extremely limited for the reasons outlined above. The religious affiliations of the indigenous groups varied too, from full Christianity, which was extremely rare, to their original beliefs, although here there is evidence of syncretic additions. The majority, while nominal Christians, still maintained their old beliefs. There is little evidence for enforced conversion.

This then is a rough sketch of the past of the peoples of north western Siberia, a past which I would argue is necessary to appreciate in order to understand the future which the Soviets were to plan for them.

The general question of the theory of Soviet nationality policy is too broad and for the most part irrelevant to the question of the treatment of the traditional primitive societies of the Soviet Union; it will thus not be discussed in depth here. However, 1 shall deal briefly with those aspects which are applicable to such groups. The first point to be grasped is that the Marxist-Leninist background to the policy is one which unambiguously asserts the value of economic and social development as defined by the Marxist scheme of social progression. The second point is that the definition of an ethnic unit within this philosophy is exceedingly complex and difficult. The standard definition, offered by Stalin in his paper of 191 3, ‘Marxism and the National Question’, written under Lenin’s guidance, gave as the identifying characteristics of a people, (i) a

Soviet Nationality Policy in N. W. Siberia 95

common language, (ii) territory, (iii) economic life, and (iv) physiological make-up (or national character). The definition i s both vague and difficult to defend in Marxist terms, particularly as regards the last characteristic. The difficulty of this definition lay in the question of whether an ethnic unit was to be considered an independent variable within the historical process or whether i t was dependent, as were other entities, like class, on the economic infrastructure. This ambiguity led to two broad positions being taken by Soviet theoreticians on the nationality question, positions which may be seen as two tendencies within the general field of policy. The first is an assimilationist position which in its extreme form holds that with the revolution nationalities will inevitably disappear with the disappearance of class antagonisms and that policy ought to be directed to speeding up this process, The second is a pluralist position which holds that in some measure ethnic units are independent entities and should be allowed to develop their o w n national characteristics within a socialist framework. Both sides of the debate in fact anticipated an eventual merging of nationalities within the Soviet state; pluralists, however, thought that by encouraging national culture the nationalist feelings of the population would not be enflamed by persecution and that assimilation and cooperation would thereby be more easily achieved. Much of thi5 debate was in respect of the larger, more advanced national minorities of the Soviet Union: the pluralist position saw these as experiencing a flowering of national culture with the cooperation of the other national groups; of the smaller, less developed nationalities, much less was said, and many thought that they would simply be directly assimilated by Russian culture. However, the arguments around these points were and are exceedingly complex and often contradictory and thus only the skeleton of the debate has been given so that some understanding of the background to the policy may be gained. I shall move on now to an examination of what the Soviet government actually did with respect to these peoples from its coming to power up to the present day.

The first statements of the Soviet regime with regard to the smaller national groups announced the cessation of the use of force against such groups, the establishment of equal rights for them in language and culture, the ending of their exploitation and promise of their future economic development. Of these statements the last was to receive the greatest attention through the period.

96 Philip Lineton

After the end of the civil war in the region of north western Siberia constructive efforts were made to establish the basis of the new regime. The old f u r tax was abolished and the activities of merchants in the region were severely curtailed. On the basis of the old ‘clan’ administration, clan soviets were established - according to the literature with varying degrees of succcss. Many of these were said to have been dominated by the old ‘reactionary explorative order’, possibly the last vestiges of the native ‘princes’ and there were numerous campaigns, ultimately successful, to replace these figures with representatives of the general population. This work in the Sovict North was carried out under the direction of the Committee of the North, formed in 1922, which was to be responsible for administrative restructuring, education, medical and cultural services. The Committee set up state shops and cooperatives where necessities such as traps, nets, ammunition and food could be bought or supplied on favourable credit terms and the state would buy the furs and fish of the natives at high prices. It was hoped that the larger assortment of trade goods and the high prices offered for the furs would stimulate the activities of the native groups and be a progressive influence in binding them to a market system of production. There were efforts made to establish schools, either settled or moving with the nomads, schools which taught in the native language. However, most of the native languages were not written at this stage, although alphabets were developed for most by the early 1930s, nor were there sufficient numbers of trained teachers, so it must be surmised that much of this programme remained in the realm of good intentions.

An institution which was widely used in this period was the kult baz (an acronym meaning literally a ‘cultural base’) which was a settlement point provided with a boarding school, hospital, shop, club house with cinema and various mechanical and veterinary- technical personnel who could advise the native population on new forms of organization and maintenance of equipment. The kult baz was intended to provide an example of the help the Soviet government could provide; it was also intended to explain to the population the political basis of the Soviet government and the difference between it and the Tsarist regime. From these kult baz medical, technical, political and teaching personnel went out to the outlying settlements.

In the period from 1929 to 1934 the native peoples experienced a

Soviet Nationality Policy in N . W. Siberia 97

much more rapid pace of change. In north western Siberia the autonomous region of the Khanti-Mansi Nat. Okrug and the Yamolo-Nenetskii Nat. Okrug were set up, based on the numbers of the native population of the region. Within these regions the local soviets and party units were given some measure of autonomy over local affairs and sent delegates to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. How much autonomy these regions have is a vexed question but it is a fact that the native population of these regions is positively discriminated towards as regards hunting and fishing rights and certain other things. This is reflected in the fact that most children of mixed marriages in these regions tend to choose as their nationality that of the native parent.

Of greater effect in the lives of the population was the movement for collectivization during this period. The speed of this movement varied considerably from area to area depending on the enthusiasm of the local party officials. In many areas total collectivization was claimed in 1930, often with disastrous consequences in stock losses and in the over-hasty grouping together of large numbers of people far from their hunting and fishing grounds, with little means of transport to reach them. After the first wave of excesses, however, events proceeded more slowly, taking the form, as among the Khanti of the Vakh river, of beginning with small groups of fishermen working collectively and gradually merging and consolidating such groups to form larger units. If such units are taken to be collectives, and they are considered as such in the statistics, then most of western Siberia can be considered to have been collectivized by the late 1930s and the policy of consolidation well advanced by the early forties. Except in the cases of the excesses mentioned above, it is difficult to assess the effects of collectivization on the native population as in many cases it simply meant designating an existing settlement as the collective centre and attaching the outlying very small settlements to it.

After the last war, however, and up to the present day, the policy of consolidating the small collectives into larger units and of reorganizing these units into state enterprises has accelerated. The availability of modern forms of transportation, such as the motor boat, has made this more practicable. The organization of labour has been ‘rationalized’, with the brigade, rather than the extended family, being used as the unit of production. In addition, much larger quantities of modern equipment for hunting and fishing have been made available, and in general the working of the collectives

98 Philip L ineton

has been coordinated so that more activities are actually collectively planned and carried out than was the case previously. One of the biggest changes has been in the size and number of settlements and in the increasing efforts to settle the nomadic reindeer herders so that, presumably, they would be more open to Soviet influence and control and would become, in the Soviet scheme of things, more developed. The settlements have been reasonably successful with the increase in the availability of transport but the settlement of the reindeer herders has presented greater difficulties. Taking the herders to and from their reindeer from a collective centre by helicopter is expensive and while experiments have been made with mobile houses it would seem that no solution to this problem for the Soviet government has been satisfactorily reached.

Medical services, again because of the vastly improved transportation facilities, have been greatly increased and the school system has taken in nearly all native children, including those of the nomads, who attend boarding schools. Here, however, it is difficult to assess how far the programme of teaching in the native language is carried out, and it is difficult to see how i t could be practically carried out beyond the primary level in any case. I t would seem that with the reduction in the isolation of these peoples the opportunities for the use of Russian are increasing and while the figures for the proportion that still use the native language as their own main tool of communication have not dropped disastrously, there has been a progressive drop since figures on this have been collected. Thus in 1959, 77 percent of Khanti and 59.2 percent of Mansi stated that they spoke Khanti and Mansi respectively as their native languages, while in 1970 the figures were 68.9 percent and 52.4 percent respectively.

For a Western anthropologist, the tone of Soviet commentary on native peoples is often startling. Much of their discussion is confined to demonstrating how this or that increase in production or supply of modern equipment has been attained and this is invariably linked with the question of what is termed the non- capitalist development of the native peoples towards socialism. I t is intended that the native peoples will progress directly from their past position to socialism and communism without going through the capitalist stage. This evolutionist doctrine means that one comes across references to unhelpful survivals in primitive culture and to quite explicit discussions of what is good and what bad in a

Soviet Nationality Policy in N. W. Siberia 99

particular society, always of course with reference to the ultimate goals of economic development and the attainment of a socialist society. This does not mean that the traditional society and its culture is denigrated but i t is always evaluated with respect to an absolute goal and not considered in the sometimes romantic and relativistic light of Western liberal anthropology. During the 1930s in the Soviet Union there was extensive debate as to whether the traditional collective forms of organization found in primitive societies could be adapted to aid the drive for collectivization and to act as a shortcut to the goal of socializing production. In part this debate has continued to the present day, but after the experience of collectivization the answer given by most modern Soviet commentators is that such institutions have been of little assistance, although they did make the explanation of the advantages of working collectively somewhat easier. This is an excellent example of the attitude of Soviet theoreticians to the question of the nature of primitive societies in relation to a defined future.

As an example of the workings of Soviet policy I shall give a brief outline of the village of Tegi, and its outlying settlements of Pugari and Ustrem, on the banks of the River Ob in north western Siberia. The population of the village, membership of the collective and its outlying settlements are shown in Table 1 .

Table I

Settlement Tegi Pugori Ustrem Total

Number of households 105 33 31 169 Members of collective 80 28 - 108 Total population 501 195 109 805 Population of collective 42 1 170 - 591

Khanti Mansi Komi Russians Others

417 170 43 630 17 6 23 7 3 10

54 12 61 127 6 4 5 15

The main settlement of Tegi had been shifted from its fishing grounds to higher ground, less liable to flooding; the fishing grounds were easily accessible by motor boat, of which there were fairly large numbers. The members of the settlement traditionally engaged in fishing, hunting and some reindeer herding but at the

100 Philip Lineton

present time were engaged in fishing, some doing farming and vegetable production on a very limited scale. The collective had abandoned hunting and reindeer herding some years previously as being uneconomic, although members of the collective did have the option of ‘taking the plan’ for hunting. However, I was i’nformed that only one old man had in fact done so. (This would involve agreeing to supply so many skins to the state and the receipt of a certain amount of supplies and ammunition.) The settlement had a school, shop, club house, medical centre and post office; these also serviced the outlying settlements. The officials of the collective were all Khanti by nationality, the Russians being in the main technicians and mechanics. There was no evidence of racial prejudice; many of the Russians spoke Khanti and relations on the collective seemed excellent. With the motor boats and modern nets the fishermen gained a more than adequate income, but had little to spend this on. For example - although I do not have reliable statistics on this - fishermen told me that they earned an average of 2000 rbls. per month during the summer when fishing was good, and although they would receive considerably less during winter this compares very favourably with what would be a good industrial wage of around 500 rbls. per month in European Russia. They lived in log houses, well constructed and warm, similar to those of the European Russian peasantry. While most of the younger generation spoke Russian, within the family group and with fellow Khanti the preferred language was Khanti. Many could play the old traditional instruments, dance the old dances and preserved the knowledge of Khanti conception of the surrounding world. The Khanti population expressed warm appreciation of the new technology and greater availability of medical care and education; they were particularly enthusiastic over the motor boat which saved them the back-breaking labour of rowing the many kilometres they would otherwise have had to go for supplies and fishing. They also seemed proud of their skill as fishermen and, in the past, as hunters. Thus it would seem that Tegi was an economically viable community selling its fish to the regional factory for processing and receiving a good income from this, and thus expanding its own facilities and productive enterprise, headed and controlled by the local people.

In the Soviet Union the question of the preservation of national culture is fraught with ambiguities. The formulation of ‘socialist in content, national in form’ is vague and difficult to apply and the

Soviet Nationality Policy in N. W. Siberia 101

criteria applied to assessment of national culture are never those discussed above with reference to the debate about the use of traditional institutions in relation to collectivization. The Soviet attitude towards native religious beliefs has been almost everywhere negative, these being seen as bastions and survivals of an old, reactionary and exploitative order, and at best tolerated, at worst actively persecuted, as were the shamans in the 1920s and 1930s. In my experience, however, those activities which do not appear to present a challenge to the regime, as in the understanding of the authorities the shamans did, such as the funeral rights and minor rituals, appear to be tolerated but the young are encouraged to ridicule ancient superstition. As regards native festivals there does appear to be some attempt to introduce new Soviet versions of these, such as the reindeer festivals held in north western Siberia by the Khanti. These festivals have little traditional precedent, although they are held at the same time as the old fairs to exchange furs and goods, and consist mainly of races, competition among reindeer herders and the awarding of official prizes and rewards for outstanding work. An interesting case is that of the bear festival among the Khanti, held on the killing of a bear; these are said by one ethnographer (Z. P. Sokolova, 1971) to be on the increase, and the traditional plays have come to be adapted to carry moral messages enshrining the virtues of hard work and a rejection of superstition. However, in one of the settlements I visited I was told that a licence was necessary to perform a bear ritual because, I was told, people spent too much money on them. This is, I think, a reflection on the ambiguous light in which the authorities view such events.

In the first part of this article 1 dealt at length with the historical relations of the Russians to the traditional societies, with the intention of showing that an evaluation of the future of such societies cannot be attempted without an understanding of how they came to their present situation. I t cannot be doubted that there was an interdependence of Russian and native dating far back and having almost all determining effects on the way of life and society of the native peoples. Native peoples were also eager for the goods of the Russians, as a petition in 1599 from the Voguls (Mansi) makes clear after merchants had been forbidden to supply the natives with certain goods: ‘We cannot cut wood or make traps for animals without axes, we cannot make footwear without knives’ (Lantzeff 1972: 97). The traditional societies had by no means been

stable or unchanging even before the Russian conquest and had been changing in response to a generally hostile Russian environment ever since. In this context the emphasis of the Soviet government since 1917 on providing the native population with a viable economic base on which to live appears to have much to recommend i t as against the Tsarist policy of weak official protection of native custom and tradition while leaving them at the mercy of outside economic pressure. The fact that Soviet commentators can ask the question ‘What is good and what is bad in traditional primitive societies?’ demonstrates that Soviet nationality policy is loaded with value judgement. But so indeed are Western policies towards traditional primitive societies, which are often marked by a vague romantic attachment to the traditions of primitive societies, traditions often developed in response to changing environmental and political pressures. Such traditions ought perhaps to be assessed, as in the Soviet case, in the light of contemporary political and economics conditions. To those who do not unquestioningly accept the goals of Soviet policy, these value judgements about different aspects of culture are disturbing. But the growth of native populations in the Soviet Union and their security on a viable economic base contrasts favourably with most other native populations in the world. I would suggest that in flexibly adapting to the new Soviet policy, which in most senses discriminates positively in their favour, the native peoples of north western Siberia are maintaining their culture and expanding their numbers in one of the few ways possible for traditional primitive societies in the modern world - by changing.

REFERENCES

G . V . Lantzeff: Siberia in the Seventeenth Century: A Study of the Colonial

Z.P. Sokolova: ‘Survivals of Religious Beliefs among the Ob-Ugnanis’, Sbornik Administration (California, Octagon Books, 1972).

Muzeya Antropologii i Etnografii, Vol. XXVll (1971).

Philip Linetoon is a part-time tutor at the University of Adelaide. He is presently working on a thesis on the

Khanti and Mansi of North Western Siberia.