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Comment by rasz | Hacker News Reader

Did Russia send Kazakh people to gulags for speaking/teaching own language like it did in Poland, Ukraine and many other places? Might have something to do with resentment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification

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I don't think that anyone was prosecuted strictly because of speaking/teaching language. But there were Kazakh intelligence (who probably promoted language among other national agendas) prosecuted for opposing soviet regime. Again, I don't think that language itself has anything with it. That said, yes, USSR forced other nations to adapt Russian language and it's understandable that those nations didn't like it. But it was almost a century ago, we are living in current conditions, so it's wiser to remember the past, but plan the future according to current realities, not some 100-year old dreams.

> But it was almost a century ago

The USSR colapsed less than 30 years ago.

I think their point is that the repression that you're discussing is largely pre-Krushchev; that's not quite a century ago, but it's a world away from what life in the USSR was like by the 1980s.

Krushchev successor, Brezhnev send tanks to Czechoslovakia in 1968.

And the US successfully overthrew inconvenient governments in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Congo in 1960, the Dominican Republic in 1961, Chile and South Vietnam in 1963, and Brazil in 1964, but you wouldn't call that evidence for the US being a repressive government, would you?

The US is a powerful nation that imposes its will by force on other nations and is indifferent to the interests of those it subjects to its will.

This has been true for a long time and remains true now much like Russias nature.

Ask the Ukrainians about "current realities".

Or with wanting to _decrease_ the % of the economy that depends on Russia.

During Stalin, it was the general policy to suppress national languages.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev...

That article doesn't really say that.

It focuses on Kazakh. For general topic, see:

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/handouts/ussr/soviet...

It doesn't say that either.

Read #6 there if you missed it. It's not very detailed, but it references the topic. If you want detailed examples of national languages suppression, search for articles about Yevsektsiya.

I've read it. What you said is this "During Stalin, it was the general policy to suppress national languages.". This just isn't the case, especially given the duration and the complexity (and contradictions) of policies in use during his tenure. There was certainly Russification. It's hard to point at any period where there was a straightforward "general policy to suppress national languages".

> "During Stalin, it was the general policy to suppress national languages."

It existed in general, but it was especially intense from 1930s until early 1950s. So during Stalin in particular a lot of damage was caused. It's not hard to point out at all.

See some references here: https://sh.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1164774/FULLTEXT0...

(from page 107).

Even that reference does not say anything close to "During Stalin, it was the general policy to suppress national languages." There was no such general policy, the thing you link talks about the tension between the desire for centralized (typically Russian) control and the Marxist ideological demands of 'internationalism'.

There was no "tension". Formal internationalism was quite effectively replaced with persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, including suppression of languages and education. Internationalists were some groups like Makhno's anarchists. Stalin was the complete opposite.

But I think I'm wasting my time here. If you want to deny historic facts, do it elsewhere.

We're looking at the sources you came up with.

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