The “Brotherhood of Nations” buzzed everyone’s ears. But here’s what’s characteristic: it was predominantly Russian people who became Soviet. Neither Georgians, nor Armenians, nor Kyrgyz, nor other peoples forgot their original name, did not forget for a moment that they were Georgians, Armenians, Kyrgyz... Yes, all national republics obeyed Soviet laws, but remained national. And the concept of Soviet man was personified mainly by Russians. At the expense of the Russians, the entire mythical brotherhood of the Soviet peoples was built, which burst at the seams, revealing all its falsity at the first push. At the end of the 80s, an ugly truth was revealed: “Brotherhood is brotherhood, but tobacco is separate.” Lenin’s legacy detonated when his reformed heirs brought the fire to the carefully left fuse, and suddenly it became clear that there was and is no Soviet brotherhood, and all this time the “brotherly peoples” had been accumulating in themselves the seeds of chauvinism, once fertilized by the Bolsheviks, and hatred of “ occupiers,” and by this he meant not so much the Soviet Union as Russia, not so much communists as Russians. The price for the illusions of “brotherhood” was Russian blood, gushing on the outskirts of a dying power...