It’s been almost a year since the annexation of Crimea. Ukraine and the rest of the civilized world haven’t recognized “the historical reunion” of the peninsula with Russia. However, despite the multiple official statements of the Ukrainian politicians that “Crimea have been, is and always will be Ukrainian”, yet a strategy of its deoccupation has not been developed on the government level. At the same time, not only the very mechanism of the return, such as some diplomatic methods, military solutions, economical blockage or combination of a couple of measures, but also the status of the peninsula itself remains the serious problem. Different suggestions are expressed: to save the existing state in the form of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, to reorganize it into a region and deprive of the autonomous rights, or on the contrary, to create the national-territorial autonomy. Followers of the last idea often adduce two points as arguments. First of all, the Crimean Tatars, in practice, act as the only pro-Ukrainian power in Crimea and that allows them to claim to acquire the national autonomy. And, secondly, according to many, such a kind of autonomy has already existed in Crimea in 1920s-30s. How accurate is this point of view?
The national segment of the Crimean autonomy
In the legal terrain the national-territorial autonomy is a kind of territorial autonomy that, as a rule, is created in a unitary state for providing a national minority with certain independence regarding administrative, legal, cultural and language matters.
In 1921 in frames of nation building the Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic was created as a member of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic and later renamed in the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. To what extent did the status of national-territorial autonomy match it?
In the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic the national segment can be traced, first of all, by the “localization” policy that in Crimea took form of “tatarization”, when representatives of Crimean Tatar people have been appointed to the leading party and state posts, documentation management has been changed on the Crimean Tatar language that had the status of the commonly used language along with the Russian one. No other nation of the multinational peninsula has such privileges. Why? The answer is simple: the Bolshevists strived to “kindle the flame” of the world revolution for “the worse of all the bourgeoisies” and considered the Crimean Tatars as conductors of their ideas in the Islamic East. This is why, special conditions should have been created for them that eventually could be used as an orientating point for “the suppressed nations of the East.”
By the end of the 1920s as the result of “tatarization” policy the local authorities consisted of Crimean Tatar for 37% and central and district administrative offices – for 12,2%. Later, the central authorities demanded to activate the policy of national staff, carrying it to the point of absurdity: orders to increase a number of the Crimean-Tatar officials in different fields from 50 up to 90% (!) have been delivered to the local levels. This mechanical approach caused a flow-out of Crimean Tatars from the organs of power by the end of the 30s and escalated the interethnic situation just like the early maintained policy of transmigration of Crimean Tatars from the land-poor areas providing them with bigger, compared to other nations, land allotments.
Actually, the policy of “tatarization” evoked the opinion that the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was the Crimean Tatar Autonomy, but, in fact, it had been created in a somewhat different form.
Territorial nature of the Autonomy
In the soviet-territorial model the term of “the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic”, which didn’t have any strongly pronounced national component but only demonstrated plenary powers of a given administrative and territorial unit, yet including interests of a national minority, was used. In such a way, the Bolshevists tried to set the new world of international harmony and equality of all the peoples and nations, each of which had possibilities for national and cultural development, against the Russian Empire as the “prison of the people”. That was exactly the aspect that distinguished the autonomous republics from the union republics, which had even more plenary rights including the possibility of the session out of the USSR based on the assumption of right for national self-determination.
A special situation developed in multiethnic regions, among which Crimea was ahead by number of nations that lived there. According to the population census of 1921, more than 100 nations with numerical superiority of the Russian and Ukrainian population (approximately 51%) lived on the territory of the peninsula. The Crimean Tatars took the second line (approximately 26%). At the same time, in the next years the numerical growth of Russians (49%) and Ukrainians (13%) was seen whilst reduction in numbers of Crimean Tatars to 19% in 1939.
The term of the “territorial autonomy” have been never mentioned in the Constitutions of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (there were three of them of1921, 1929, 1937 respectively) but on the contrary, the inadmissibility of granting of preferences to any certain nations was emphasized.
The attempt of realization of the own policy orientation that was at odds with instructions of the central authorities came at a high cost for the Crimean politicians. Thus, the chairman of the General Executive Committee Veli Ibragimov was repressed because of artificial accusation, although his main guilt was in striving to resettle 20 000 Crimean Tatars from Turkey to the peninsula, whereas Moscow had completely different plans regarding the settlers. Independence of the local authorities became the reason of the major limitation of the autonomy’s authorization that has been confirmed by the Constitution of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialists Republic in 1937.
And, finally, there is another important factor: the bolshevists didn’t consider the autonomy as a Crimean Tatar’s one, because there were plans for establishing of the Jewish Autonomy on the peninsula. With this in view, a major relocation of the Jewish population from other regions of the USSR has been planned: in total, it was planned to relocate 250 – 300 thousand people. However, this policy ended in fiasco and was canceled in the end of 1930s.
Why was Crimea deprived of the autonomy in the USSR?
The Second World War made essential allowances into the plans of the bolshevists and destinies of the nations of the peninsula, many of which eventually became victims of deportation. On June 25, 1946, in order to finally eliminate all the issues regarding the ethnic structure of the autonomy, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialists Republic was reformed into the Crimean Region in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic by the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. It is remarkable that the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, population of which had been also deported, has been eliminated by the very same Decree.
Experts consider the fact of reforming of the Autonomous Republic into the region as an argument that proves the Crimea-Tatar Status of the autonomy: Crimean Tatars were declared as traitors, deported and their republic was eliminated. But how competent could such statements be if representatives of other nations such as Armenians, Hungarians and Greeks were deported together with Crimean Tatars? It was not the Crimean Tatar Autonomy that was eliminated but the Autonomy in general and, in such a way, the possibilities of direct managing of the “problematic” peninsula was created.
As we can see, the issue regarding the status of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic still remains rather questionable: the policy of “localization” was pursued in the interests of the Crimean Tatars but because of excessive independence, their leaders were repressed, the republican status was changed for the regional one referring to the “treachery” of the Crimean Tatar people, and at the same time representatives of other nations were also deported. All these factors speak only about one thing: the Soviet authorities didn’t have any clear idea about situation in Crimea, that’s why the policy was lead according to a situation as a reaction to developments. At the same time, due to the multinational structure of the peninsula and its geopolitical status, the bolshevists preferred not to focus on the national aspect of the autonomy.
