The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus

by Charles King

The essence of Stalin’s views was that socialism and national flourishing were not incompatible if properly understood. Not all aspects of national traditions needed to be celebrated.

The Soviet Union was portrayed not as a place where ethnic identity had ceased to matter but as a happy union of many discrete ethnonational groups collectively striving to create modern, classless nations that would eventually fuse into a single Soviet people.

occur. In the Caucasus the real story of the late twentieth century is not about deep-rooted sentiments of ethnicity or ancient grievances but about the ways in which personal ambition, structural incentives, and the simple presence of sufficient quantities of guns led to bloody conflict.