First Published in 1997. This book is the ninth in a series often volumes produced by the Russian Littoral Project, The project shares the conviction that the transformation of the former Soviet republics into independent states demands systematic analysis of the determinants of the domestic and foreign policies of the new countries. The series of volumes is intended to provide a basis for comprehensive scholarly study of these issues. This volume was shaped by the author’s view that future scholarship about the post Soviet world requires both specialized research and broad-gauge studies that carefully juxtapose the breakup of the Soviet empire with the transformation of other multinational empires.

This ambitious ten-volume series develops a comprehensive analysis of the evolving world role of the post-Soviet successor states. Each volume considers a different factor influencing the relationship between internal politics and international relations in Russia and in the western and southern tiers of newly independent states. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the discrediting of Marxism-Leninism as a source of political legitimacy have prompted a search for fresh principles of political organization that will shape the nature of political culture in all the post-Soviet countries. This volume focuses on the International dimension of Post-communist transitions.

The Soviet Union is often characterised as nominally a federation, but really an empire, liable to break up when individual federal units, which were allegedly really subordinate colonial units, sought independence. This book questions this interpretation, revisiting the theory of federation, and discussing actual examples of federations such as the United States, arguing that many federal unions, including the United States, are really centralised polities. It also discusses the nature of empires, nations and how they relate to nation states and empires, and the right of secession, highlighting the importance of the fact that this was written in to the Soviet constitution. It examines the attitude of successive Soviet leaders towards nationalities, and the changing attitudes of nationalists towards the Soviet Union. Overall, it demonstrates that the Soviet attitude to nationalities and federal units was complicated, wrestling, in a similar way to many other states, with difficult questions of how ethno-cultural justice can best be delivered in a political unit which is bigger than the national state.

First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa company.

Combining discourse and comparative historical methods of analysis, this book explores how colonialists and anti-colonialists renegotiated transnational power relationships within the debates on decolonization in the United Nations from 1946-1960. Shrewdly bringing together Sociology, Women’s Studies, History, and Postcolonial Studies, it is interested in the following questions: how are modern constructions of gender and race forged in transnational – colonial as well as ‘postcolonial’ – processes? How did they emerge in and contribute to such processes during the colonial era? Specifically, how did they shape colonialist constructions of space, identity and international community? How has this relationship shifted with legal decolonization?

This unique work will be of great interest to those engaged in politics and Russian studies, as well as professionals dealing with Russia.