Ethnicity factors in the territorial partition of Ural region and Bashkortostan Republic in the 1920s

The article analyzes the situation of border conflicts between the Ural region and the Bashkir Autonomous Socialist Republic (BASSR) over the territory of the bend of the Belaya and Kama rivers in the 1920s. It is emphasized that nowadays, there is a narrative in historiography about the predominance of “national republics” in the USSR in the 1920s, but this provision may be revised. Until 1918, the lands in question belonged to Bashkir landowners, but were inhabited by Russian peasants who took them on lease. After the Bolsheviks came to power and the abolition of lease relations, both the Ural region and the Republic of Bashkortostan claimed these territories. The former pointed to the Russian composition of the population, the latter indicated the established economic ties. The paper examines in detail the development of this conflict, the application of the existing mechanisms and tools of decision-making of that time, as well as the role of the ethnic component in them. After lengthy negotiations at the level of local authorities, no compromise was reached. The authorities of the Republic of Bashkortostan campaigned among the local population and engaged specially trained respondents for surveys, while representatives of the Ural region refused to accept any opinion that did not correspond to the idea of local peasants transferring with their land to the Ural region. As a result, the issue was considered by the Administrative Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and the disputed territories were assigned to the Ural region. Therefore, in a state that has abandoned the prejudices of the past, the ethnic principle has played a key role in defining the boundaries of regions. This example shows that the Bolsheviks, even in the early years of Soviet power, were guided not only by the policy of unconditional preferential treatment of “national republics”.