Borders in Red

Borders in Red shows how Lenin and his Bolshevik leadership embraced the nationality question as a way of managing diversity and institutionalized it as a means of governance. Stephan Rindlisbacher uses the making of national borders as a lens through which to examine the Bolsheviks' fundamental shift from proletarian internationalism to ethnonational federalism sui generis. Comparing how party and state managed issues of national diversity in the core regions of Soviet federalism—Ukraine, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia—Rindlisbacher provides insights into their policymaking and into the roots of current territorial conflicts.

President Putin has condemned Lenin's nationality policy to be a historical mistake, and with its war against Ukraine, Russia has tried to revise borders that date back to the early days of the Soviet state. However, Borders in Red shows that the Soviet Republics were not arbitrarily divided by leaders like Stalin or Khrushchev. They were the result of long-lasting debates involving politicians, experts, and people from the border regions. The developing Soviet order was a product of trial and error.

Stephan Rindlisbacher is a postdoctoral researcher at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder).

This fascinating book outlines the ways in which Soviet officials at all levels dealt with the problem of territorial delimitation in the USSR. The case studies are eye-opening and nuanced, and the subject is painfully relevant and newsworthy today.

Adeeb Khalid, author of Making Uzbekistan:

This is an important work with the potential to make a major contribution to Soviet history and the history of boundary making.