The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939

The most common sites for such fights were the long lines at factory stores: "Lines are the breeding-ground of great power Russian chauvinism and local nationalism. In lines you can hear the Europeans call the nationals asses, morons and so forth and the nationals call the Russians dogs. "

The Ingush petitioned for money from the cultural fund as "the most culturally and economically backward people of the North Caucasus," although local pride forced them to add: "except Chechnya."

Regional tests carried out in 1931-1932, which now judged only whether the employees did or did not know Ukrainian, confirmed these fears: in Kiev, 58 percent of those tested did not know Ukrainian; in Odessa, so percent; in Kharkov, 6o percent.

In the Donbass, the major focus of Ukrainization in this period, employee knowledge of Ukrainian rose from 5.7 percent in 1927 to 16.9 percent in 1928, but by 1930 it had fallen again to 8.5 percent.