With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the subsequent creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the nationality question has assumed central importance. In this collection of essays, twelve leading specialists analyze the current situation.

How must Sovietology change as a result of the Soviet Union's collapse? Motyl and his colleagues suggest that the first step in reorientation of the field must involve recognizing the non-Russians and their republics as central to both Soviet politics and to the post-Soviet reality. The authors, all leading Sovietologists, illustrate how nationality interacted with and shaped ideology, law, elite recruitment, political repression, modernization, participation, political economy, and class. Each of the articles traces the relationship between nationality and aspects of the Soviet system up to the collapse of the USSR and the emergence in its stead of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The contributors not only provide a coherent interpretation of the demise of Soviet Communism, but they also sugest what dangers and opportunities lie in store for the Soviet Union's successor states.