both general proportional representation and particular Jewish demotion, the post-Stalinist state continued, in a mild form, the policy of limiting Jewish access to elite colleges and prestigious professional positions. According to the Soviet sociologist V. P. Mishin, “Whereas some peoples (Ukrainians, Belorussians, Moldavians, Tatars, Uzbeks, Azerbajanis and others) are still far below the national average with regard to the development of higher education and the training of scientific cadres, certain other peoples (Armenians, Georgians, Jews) have greatly exceeded that average. . . . Therefore, the proper goal of the directed development of interethnic relations consists not only in the equalization of conditions, but also in the continued maintenance of real equality among the peoples of the USSR.” 182 The Soviet state did its best to achieve that goal. Between 1960 and 1970, the number of employed professionals with higher education increased by more than 100 percent among Ukrainians, Belorussians, Moldavians, Tatars, Uzbeks, and Azerbaijanis, and by 23 percent, among Jews. The Jews were still light-years ahead (166 “specialists” per 1,000 people, as compared to 25 for Ukrainians, 15 for Uzbeks, and 35 for the second-place Armenians), but the trend was clear and durable. In the two decades prior to 1970, the proportion of scientific personnel increased by 1,300 percent among Uzbeks and 155 percent among Jews. 183 Most American readers will find Mishin’s recommendations and Soviet practices fairly familiar and possibly understandable, but it is also true that the two institutional frameworks are not at all alike. The main structural difference between the United States and the Soviet Union was the fact that the Soviet Union was a federation of ethnoterritorial units; the main difference between the Jews and all the other nationalities on Mishin’s list was the fact that the Jews did not have a unit of their own. (Birobidzhan was not taken seriously by anyone, and there is little reason to believe that any other Jewish unit on Soviet territory would have been.) The Georgians and Armenians were, like the Jews, overrepresented among white-collar professionals and hurt by Soviet affirmative action. Unlike the Jews, however, they had “their own” republics, within which their dominance was accepted as entirely legitimate by both the central state and all would-be competitors. The Jews were far from being the main victims of the Soviet nationalities policy (the Piedmont nationalities, such as the Finns and Poles, were not even included in official statistics, and some deported peoples, such as the Volga Germans and Crimean Tatars, remained in exile until the end of the Soviet period), but they were unique among the USSR’s “major nationalities.” It was the combination of cultural prominence with administrative irrelevance that made the position of the Jews (as a Soviet nationality) truly