Ethnic Composition

Abstract

From Lenin onwards, the leaders of the CPSU have recognised the ethnic heterogeneity of ‘the Land of the Soviets’ through the operation of various institutional arrangements. Perhaps the most obvious is the division of the country into the ‘territorial-administrative structure’. Here it can be noted that, in addition to the fifteen Union republics, each with its separate constitutional existence, there are twenty autonomous republics, eight autonomous regions and ten autonomous areas.