The expression "Great Russian chauvinism" was usually used in the literature of liberals and communists. It was connected with the way Russian government officials derogatoryly addressed other Russian peoples.
Initially, there was a similar expression - "great-power Russian chauvinism", which could be used in relation to other peoples. In this case, the end of this expression, of course, was replaced.
Lenin's attitude to the term
The most widespread expression was in the society of liberal revolutionaries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As soon as the Bolsheviks gained power, expression sharply acquired an extremely negative connotation, great-power chauvinism was opposed to internationalism.
Lenin on great-power Russian chauvinism was expressed quite clearly. He treated him negatively. Vladimir Ilyich called for a fight against Great-Russian chauvinism, while Zinoviev said burning with a hot iron everything that contains the slightest hint of chauvinism.
This great power was to the greatest extent observed during the formation of various national administrative bodies. Agricultural Commissar Yakovlev said that chauvinism penetrates the apparatus. He was declared the main state danger in all the speeches that Joseph Stalin delivered on the national question at many party congresses.
Over time, however, the expression was forgotten, giving more scope for the creation of common government structures. At the same time, the Russian language again gained a dominant position in office work, and languages of other nationalities more and more disappeared from the apparatus. For this reason, the expression "Great Russian chauvinism" was lost in history for this period.
Era of adjustment
In the era of perestroika, the term again found its place in the pages of the liberal press, and its meaning remained practically unchanged. Only a certain Marxist component disappeared.
Now the term is used much less frequently than a century ago, although it has not completely disappeared.
Lenin on Great Russian chauvinism
In Switzerland, in early December 1914, Lenin wrote an article entitled "On the National Pride of the Great Russians." In the same month, an article was published in the Social Democrat newspaper. Together with similar articles, this reveals the opinion of V.I. Lenin regarding the national question in Europe and Russia during the First World War.
This text was written at the time of the beginning of World War I, when there were disputes between Lenin and his political opponents from his own party, which accused him of lack of love for his homeland.
The text notes the serious importance of the national issue because of Russia's attempts to subjugate the Balkan countries, Armenia and Galicia (a region in Eastern Europe). Also in the article you can find many references to "strangulation of the Ukrainian people."
Among other things, there was formulated his democratic-revolutionary point of view on the question of the nation:
Are we feeling great national pride in Great Russian conscious proletarians? Of course not! We love our language and our country, we are working most of all to raise its working masses (that is, 9/10 of its population) to the conscious life of democrats and socialists.
We are full of feelings of national pride, and that is precisely why we especially hate our slave past (when the landowners nobles led men to war to strangle the freedom of Hungary, Poland, Persia, China) and our slave present, when the same landowners, who are rushing capitalists, lead us to war, to strangle Poland and Ukraine, to crush the democratic movement in Persia and China, to strengthen the gang of the Romanovs, Bobrinsky, Purishkevichs, dishonoring our Great Russian national dignity. No one is guilty if he was born a slave; but a slave who not only eschews the aspirations for his freedom, but justifies and embellishes his slavery (for example, calls the strangulation of Poland, Ukraine, etc. “protection of the Fatherland” of the Great Russians), such a slave is a lawful feeling of indignation, contempt and loathing and boor.
In addition, Lenin notes the high importance of the abolition of oppression of nations in Russia for the prosperity of the economy:
And the economic prosperity and rapid development of Great Russia requires the liberation of the country from violence by Great Russians over other nations.
Grades of the Encyclopedic Dictionary
In the "Encyclopedic Dictionary" it was noted that in the text of V.I. Lenin were provided programmatic provisions on the concept of advanced Russian proletarians about national pride and patriotism.
Their patriotism is manifested in the battle for the Motherland to be delivered from the enslavement and oppression of the exploiting classes in the struggle to find happiness for their people. In such patriotism, the incredible love of the working people for their homeland is closely connected with the enormous hatred for its opponents and enslavers.
Among other things, the pride of V.I. Lenin for the working class in Russia, which had an honorable vanguard role in the struggle for the liberation of people, was noted. Attention is also drawn to the opinion of Lenin that the struggle of the Bolshevik party for socialism meets the fundamental interests of the country and that the correctly understood interests of the nation of the Russian proletariat coincide with the interests of the socialists of the working class of other countries.
Brief vocabulary score
In the Brief Dictionary of Scientific Communism, it was noted that the text of V. I. Lenin is a methodology for analyzing the historical patriotism of the working class along with its unity with proletarian internationalism.
But were the Bolshevik views on the question of the nation internationalist in reality? In their politics, did they really proceed from a certain principle of democratic equality and the equality of all nations? Or were their opinions in this sphere subordinate to the class approach of the Marxists?
The position of the Bolsheviks
In this matter, the Bolsheviks was considered a specialist I.V. Dzhugashvili (Stalin). He was appointed to the post of People's Commissar for Nationalities in the RSFSR from 1917 to 1923.
The Bolshevik position on the issue of nationalities was much more radical than that of most national parties that advocated cultural autonomy. Once upon a time, a sovereign nation was not divided into certain ethnic components. Nowhere was it called an oppressive nation.
In Soviet Russia, the attitude towards the Russian people themselves was the only one point in which the class approach was pushed into the background and revolutionary Russophobic hatred of the sovereign Russian community was put forward.
Russophobia and imperial power
A certain Russophobic part was also present in the hatred of the classes towards monarchy in the Russian Empire. The Bolsheviks stood not only for the destruction of the monarchy of power and the empire itself, but also for the right to detach those nationalities that could not or did not want to continue to remain within the framework of something whole.
Use of the term in modern times
Nowadays, the expression "Great Russian chauvinism" is used extremely rarely compared to the twenties of the last century, but it has not disappeared completely.
Vladimir Putin, during his speech at an international conference entitled "Eurasian Integration: Trends in Contemporary Development and the Challenges of Globalization" on June 18, 2004, spoke about the problems that impede integration, as follows:
If I were allowed to take part in the work of this section, I would say that these problems can be formulated very simply. This is great-power chauvinism, this is nationalism, this is the personal ambition of those on whom political decisions depend, and finally, this is just stupidity - ordinary cave stupidity.
During a meeting with representatives of youth movements in the village of Zavidovo in the Tver Region on July 24, 2007, Putin, in response to a remark regarding the issue of migration, said that this, of course, was the basis for inciting nationalism inside the country. But with any development of events, great-power chauvinism is also unacceptable.
Convicted to two years probation for extremist activity, the executive director of the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship, which is banned by the court since it is recognized as extremist, Stanislav Dmitrievsky believes that while chauvinism is being propagated, all means of preventing the events in Kondopoga are meaningless.
This refers to the riots in September 2006 in the Karelian city of Kondopoga, caused by the killings of two local residents by a group of six people who came from Chechnya and Dagestan. To suppress mass unrest, the Petrozavodsk OMON was involved, during this suppression a total of more than a hundred people who took part in the riots in the streets were detained.
In addition, the use of the expression "Great Russian chauvinism" can be found in the farce-comedy of 1995 under the name "Shirley-myrli". It is used by one of the heroes of the film, who is a gypsy by nationality.