An Armenian reformer in Khrushchev’s Kremlin : Anastas Mikoyan and the politics of difference in the USSR, 1953-1964

Abstract

Veteran Soviet statesman and longtime Politburo member Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan (1895-1978) is perhaps best known in both the West and the post-Soviet space as a master of international diplomacy. Less well-known is the pivotal role that Mikoyan – once a loyal Stalinist – played in dismantling and rejecting the authoritarian Stalinist state after the death of Iosif Stalin in 1953. Mikoyan served as the Kremlin’s leading reformer on nationality matters under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) during the Thaw (1953- 1964). A native son of Sanahin, Armenia, he believed that the ethnic diversity of the USSR was a strength that should be embraced, not a danger that needed to be suppressed. This study contends that Khrushchev’s nationality policy, as guided by Mikoyan, represented a significant departure from the state violence and centralization characteristic of Stalin’s approach toward nationalities during the height of his power. That departure was reflected in Mikoyan’s work in several ways, including (1) the rehabilitation of repressed cultural leaders among nationalities; (2) Mikoyan’s expressed effort to combat both national nihilism and national chauvinism; (3) patronage for nationality republics (as seen in Mikoyan’s work in Armenia); (4) the use of historical narratives to enforce aspects of the nationality policy; (5) the return of deported North Caucasus nationalities; (6) the development of a new nationality policy in the 1961 CPSU Party Program; and (7) the drafting of a new constitution advocating greater devolution to national republics, emphasizing their rights vis-à-vis Moscow.