This collected volume, edited by Roy Suny and Terry Martin, looks at how Soviet state managed to create a multiethnic empire in its earlt years, from the end of the Russian Revolution to the end of World WAr II. It brings together the newest research on a wide geographic range, from Russia to central Asia.

Contributors Ronald Gregor Suny and Terry Martin: Introduction Part I: Empire and Nations 1: Ronald Grigor Suny: The Empire Strikes Out: Imperial Russia, "National" Identity, and Theories of Empire 2: Terry Martin: An Affirmative Action Empire: The Soviet Union as the Highest Form of Imperialism Part II: The Revolutionary Conjuncture 3: Joshua Sanborn: Family, Fraternity, and Nation-Building in Russia, 1905-1925 4: Peter Holquist: To Count, to Extract, and to Exterminate: Population Statistics and Population Politics in Late Imperial and Soviet Russia 5: Adeeb Khalid: Nationalizing the Revolution in Central Asia: The Transformation of Jadidism, 1917-1920 Part III: Forging "Nations" 6: Daniel E. Schafer: Local Politics and the Birth of the Republic of Bashkortostan, 1919-1920 7: Douglas Northrop: Nationalizing Backwardness: Gender, Empire, and Uzbek Identity Part IV: Stalinism and the Empire of Nations 8: Matt Payne: The Forge of the Kazakh Proletariat? The Turksib, Nativization, and Industrialization during Stalin's First Five-Year Plan 9: Peter A. Blitstein: Nation-Building or Russification? Obligatory Russian Instruction in the Soviet Non-Russian School, 1938-1953 10: Davd Brandenberger: "...It is Imperitive to Advance Russian Nationalism as the First Priority": Debates within the Stalinist Ideological Establishment, 1941-1945 Index

"A State of Nations gives a very useful overview of the actual situation of American studies on 'empire and nation-making' from the late tsarist empire to the end of the Stalin era."--Journal of Modern History "The volume of A State of Nations gives a very useful overview of the actual situation of American studies on 'empire and nation-maiking' from the late tsarist empire to the end of the Stalin era. These innovative articles revise the image of Soviet nationality policies as a linear process, planned by the center, and show convincingly its contradictions and improvisations, the simultaneity and interdependence of nation creating and nation destroying."--The Journal of Modern History "This outstanding collection contains some of the most exciting research now available on nationalism and nation-making in the Soviet Union. With its cutting-edge scholarship, original insights, and theoretical sophistication, A STATE OF NATIONS is sure to make an important contribution to the study of the Soviet multinational state."--Adrienne Edgar, University of California, Santa Barbara "The book is not only an interesting and generally high-quality collection of essays, it also serves to introduce new work by a group of young scholars..."--The Russian Review