Russian core did acquire some national content (although not as much as the other union republics), and the overarching concept of Sovietness did come to rely on elements of Russian nationalism (although never conclusively or consistently). “Russian” and “Soviet” had always been related: first as the only nonethnic peoples of the USSR and eventually as partially ethnicized reflections of each other: the Russianness of the Russian Republic was relatively underdeveloped because the Sovietness of the Soviet state was predominantly Russian. When, during the civil war, Lenin appealed to the revolutionary workers and peasants to defend their “Socialist Fatherland,” the Russian word “Fatherland” could not be stripped of its presocialist connotations whether Lenin wanted it to be or not (he probably did not). When, during the mid-1920s, Stalin called on the Party to build “socialism in one country,” at least some Party members must have associated that country with the one in which they were born. And when, in 1931, Stalin urged the Soviet people to industrialize or perish, his reasoning had more to do with Russian national pride (as he understood it) than with Marxist determinism: To slacken the tempo would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten. But we do not want to be beaten. No, we refuse to be beaten! One feature of the history of old Russia was the continual beatings she suffered because of her backwardness. She was beaten by the Mongol khans. She was beaten by the Turkish beys. She was beaten by the Swedish feudal lords. She was beaten by the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. She was beaten by the British and French capitalists. She was beaten by the Japanese barons. All beat her—because of her backwardness, because of her military backwardness, cultural backwardness, political backwardness, industrial backwardness, agricultural backwardness. They beat her because to do so was profitable and could be done with impunity. . . . In the past we had no fatherland, nor could we have had one. But now that we have overthrown capitalism and power is in our hands, in the hands of the people, we have a fatherland, and we will uphold its independence. 100 The “mature” Stalinist state ensured the “friendship of the peoples of the USSR” by promoting the nationalism of the non-Russian republics (complete with the officially sponsored and highly institutionalized cults of national bards and ethnic roots). It cemented that friendship by promoting the cult of the