| as a russian, I'll try to clarify. i believe there were two different concepts. the first one — an enemy of the state, or enemy of the people (враг народа) — is not about ethnicity. it's about "criminals" who deed horrible things to Soviet state and Soviet people. some of these people were indeed criminals (although someone could argue that their crimes are usually not so horrible, i.e. banal theft), some of them — a lot, I think — were innocent. enemy of the state/people was a working concept in 1930-1950s. the second concept is about ethnicity. i don't know is there a name for it though. all of the ethnicities in Soviet Russia were declared equal, USSR was extremely anti-racist and anti-nationalist. at the same time there were some nuances. for example, it was very hard to go to the top university if you are a jew (or jewish? I don't want to cause offence here). no one will tell you that you are not qualified because you are jewish, but you won't be there anyway. there were two reasons behind that. the first one: it was too dangerous to give a good education to someone who could leave USSR for Israel later. the second one is quite obvious, i think. I don't know when it began but it was relatively difficult for jewish kids to get to the top faculties of top universities even in 1980s. the same could be said about top-secret research and some other areas. |
Declarations and actual policy were very different things in USSR (should I tell anything about Constitution of 1936?).
There were very brutal deportations of some Caucasian nations, of Germans, of Crimean Tatars based solely on ethnicity in 1940s. Many people died from cold and hunger, many children lost their parents. The forced labor (Labor Army) and movement restrictions were in place until mid-1950s and even children upon reaching age of 16 were required to report to local authorities as "special settlers" (I have archive documents from NKVD of such reports for my family). The practice of oppression was in place until end of 1980s: for example, Crimean Tatars were not allowed to return to their homes and were able to do so only in 1990s. Restoration of Autonomous Volga German Republic or creation of German autonomy within USSR in any other form was never allowed despite public demands.
These historical events are well-documented and recognized by government of Russian Federation, which rehabilitated the victims and in 1990s even paid small compensations (in form of increased pension) for these crimes.