sociolinguistics michael g . smith language and power in the creation of the ussr 1917 - - 1953 1998 . 23 x 15 , 5 cm . vii , 294 pages cloth dm 178 , - / approx . us $ 111 . 00 isbn 3-11 - 016197 - 4 contributions to the sociology of language 80 mouton de gruyter * berlin * new york this is the first comprehensive history of language planning in the ussr , covering the formative period under lenin and stalin . based on party and state archival materials only recently made available , it explores the tension between linguistic russification and nativization of the soviet experience . the author argues that from the moment of its greatest victory in the russian revolution to the difficult days of reconstruction after world war ii , the government was locked into a hegemonic imperative which required a measure of dependence upon the rural russians and peripheral non - russian peoples as much as domination over them . language issues help to understand how the soviet state structure was a machine of centrifugal , as well as centripetal , force . to prove this point , the author examines such unprecedented initiatives as the simplification of the russian spelling system ; the ` latinization ' of the arabic alphabets of the muslim peoples ; and the reform of school grammars and teaching curriculums . he also offers new interpretations about the various linguistic trends which informed these projects , from g . g . shpet 's remarkable ` structural ' phenomenology , to n . ia marr 's ` marxist ' school of linguistics , to stalin 's infamous linguistic essay of 1950 . he reveals how the communist party micro-managed language reform in muslim central asia , and how it dealt with decades of failure rates on the countrywide russian language examinations . the result is an original reading of sociolinguistics and soviet history , weaving together the scientific contributions of linguists , the political imperatives of the party-state , and the everyday responses of various social and ethnic groups . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ mouton de gruyter walter de gruyter , inc . postfach 30 34 21 200 saw mill river road d-10728 berlin hawthorne , ny 10532 germany usa fax : + 49 ( 0 ) 30 26005-351 fax : + 1 914 747-1326 email : mouton @ degruyter . de publications by de gruyter can also be ordered via world wide web : http : / / www . degruyter . com