FORMAL FEDERALISM AND TRANSITION OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT FROM “NATIONAL PATRIOTISM” TO THE IDEA OF “SOVIET PATRIOTISM” IN THE 1930s

Abstract

The author examines the change of meaning of the term “patriotism” during the formation of the USSR, after the change of authority and I. V. Stalin coming to power. Stalin’s concept of “Soviet patriotism” raises the question of “correcting” the party approach to the national question in the USSR originally proposed by V. I. Lenin. To study the issue, the author uses the methodological foundations of source studies and the “history of concepts”, which imply the search and differentiation in texts of historical sources of words and concepts that reflect changes in public consciousness occurring in a specific time, as well as the study of logical and associative relationships between these concepts. It is concluded that the right to secession in the Constitution of the USSR of 1936 was preserved exclusively as an ideological stereotype, while the objectively existing party approach to the national question was characterized by numerous restrictions of nationalities in the implementation of previously declared rights and the imposition of additional limitations.