Nationalities of the Soviet East
Publications and Writing Systems
Edward Allworth
Columbia University
The peculiar social and political complexity which characterizes the Soviet East today, quite aside from the great natural ethnic and linguistic diversity, has resulted to a large extent from the manipulation of outsiders. An extraordinary flux marking the progress of Eastern nationality affairs now increasingly attracts the attention of American scholars, and can be traced directly through conflicting but politically inspired tendencies within the area. Throughout recent history the Eastern territory and population, annexed by the Czarist and then the Soviet regime, have served as a laboratory accommodating zealots eager to test their formulas for unifying the widely disparate nationalities into one homogeneous mass.
As Russia invaded the East in centuries past, Orthodox missionaries mixed with or followed Czarist soldiers moving ... | 
