The seventy-four years of the Soviet experiment did not help the Russians to resolve their “accursed question” (proklyatyi vopros). The policies of the Bolshevik regime toward Russian nationalism in many ways repeated those of its tsarist predecessors. Initially the regime attempted to legitimize itself by relying on a universalist ideology; under these circumstances a distinct Russian national identity was perceived by the revolutionary regime as an impediment to its ideological premise. Therefore, the Bolsheviks attempted at first to repress the Russian identity in favor of an “internationalist” identity incorporating the minority nations.

The communist regime “discovered” Russian identity and nationalism only when it perceived that the Marxist–Leninist ideology was no longer a sufficient source of legitimacy. However, much as tsarist regime before, the state-inspired Russian nationalism was tolerated only so long as it could be grafted by the regime to the notion of empire and an internationalist ideology, making the distinction between Russia and the USSR fuzzy and often unrecognizable.

The Russian national identity that evolved during the Soviet period, on the elite level, especially after World War II, was organically linked to the imperial Soviet identity.