Samuel P. Oliner

The USSR comprises one-sixth of the global land mass and consists of
over one hundred nationalities and ethnic groups, twenty-two of whom
have over 1 million people. Most racial groups are represented on Soviet
soil with the exception of the Negroid stock (other than visiting African
students and diplomats). The dominant ethnic groups are the Russians
and their "younger brother Slavs"--the Ukrainians and Belorrussians.
It should be understood that Ukranians and Belorussians are not on the
same footing as the 140 million Russians (sometimes also known as Great
Russians). Although there are fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics com-
prising some 281 million people, for administrative purposes the Soviet
Union is divided into fifty-three administrative regions.

The non-Russian ethnic groups of the USSR can be divided into two
large groups. First are the Europeans who subscribe to Christianity and
comprise Armenians, Georgians, the three Baltic republics ( Latvia, Es-
tonia, and Lithuania), Ukrainians, Poles, Bessarabians; and smaller
groups. These ethnic groups have historically had cultural ties with the
West and feel friendly toward Western visitors. The second group are
Muslim people who have kin and co-ethnic groups in the Middle East
and Asia in general. These areas are known as the Crimea, Central Asia,
Siberia, and North Caucasus.

In this largest multinational country, there are conflicting claims about
he status of the ethnic groups and their relationship to the dominant
ethnic group, the Russians. The Soviet government and Soviet scholars

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