The Anti-Imperialist Empire: Soviet Nationality Policies under Brezhnev

This dissertation argues that the Soviet Union functioned as an empire despite its decidedly anti-imperialist rhetoric. Beginning in the 1920s, Bolshevik policies transformed the former Russian Empire into a new type of empire that was based on Marxist-Leninist ideology. Moreover, the Bolshevik policy of korenizatsiia as well as Marxist-Leninist rhetoric promoted the development of a decolonization process among the non-Russian peoples of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s. Although Stalin abandoned korenizatsiia in the 1930s in favor of greater emphasis on Russification, the decolonization process continued into the Brezhnev period of the 1960s and 1970s. This decolonization process quickly rose to the surface in the 1980s as a result of Gorbachev\u27s reforms.;This dissertation focuses on the Brezhnev leadership\u27s handling of the Soviet nationality question as this period represents the final effort to maintain and to consolidate further the Soviet Empire. Brezhnev\u27s doctrine of Developed Socialism emphasized the continued rapprochement of the nations of the USSR into a supranational Soviet nation, the importance of the Russian language as the language of inter-national communication within the Soviet Union, the further consolidation of power at the center of the Soviet Union at the expense of Union Republic sovereignty, and the treatment of the USSR as a single economic complex. The tenets of Developed Socialism, then, are imperialist in nature as they promoted the Russian language at the expense of non-Russian languages and they focused on the greater concentration of power in Moscow and the erosion of Union Republic sovereignty. The ratification of a new USSR Constitution in 1977 and of new Union Republic constitutions in 1978 is the high-water mark of Brezhnev\u27s imperialist policies. The Brezhnev leadership\u27s imperialist policies, however, were rooted in Marxist-Leninist ideology as an analysis of the essays written by Lenin and Stalin will show.;Although Brezhnev\u27s policies were imperialistic, they were implemented unevenly across the USSR, resulting in continued diversity within the USSR in terms of nationality policy. Moscow kept a tighter rein on the western republics, such as Ukraine, while maintaining looser control over the Central Asian republics. As evidence of this, the CPSU Politburo removed Petro Shelest from his post as First Secretary in Ukraine for tolerating manifestations of Ukrainian nationalism while Sharaf Rashidov in Uzbekistan kept his post as First Secretary until his death in 1983 despite increasing displays of Uzbek nationalism there in the 1970s.;This dissertation also argues that a decolonization process began in the Soviet Union as early as the 1920s, but that this process is reignited by Khrushchev\u27s policies in the 1950s. The Brezhnev leadership\u27s focus on further consolidating power at the center could not stop this decolonization process and in some ways, it contributed to the continued growth of a decolonization process among the non-Russian peoples of the USSR. In the 1960s, nationalist dissent re-emerged, centered primarily in the western Soviet Union, which continued into the 1980s. Though it did not pose a direct threat to the Soviet regime\u27s stability, nationalist dissent did encourage the Brezhnev leadership to rely further on the tenets of Developed Socialism.;This dissertation also compares Soviet nationality policies with similar policies enacted by other modern empires such as the British and French empires in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thus, much of Chapter One compares the Soviet Union with the British and French empires to demonstrate that the Soviet Union did indeed function as an empire. Moreover, Brezhnev\u27s strategy of re-invigorating Soviet imperial policies through the tenets of Developed Socialism represented the Soviet Union\u27s second colonial occupation. Just as the British sought to rekindle their empire in East Africa and Malaya after World War II, the Soviet Union under Brezhnev acted to renew its imperial control over the Union Republics in the 1970s. The Brezhnev leadership\u27s pursuit of grandiose construction and modernization projects such as the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway are not unlike Britain\u27s groundnut scheme in Tanganyika after World War II. Through comparing the Soviet Union with other modern empires, this dissertation places Soviet history and practices in a world history context

Stability analysis of a continuous model of mutualism with delay dynamics

In this paper we introduce delay dynamics to a coupled system of ordinary differential equations which represent two interacting species exhibiting facultative mutualistic behaviour. The delays are represen- tative of the beneficial effects of the indirect, interspecies interactions not being realised immediately. We show that the system with delay possesses a continuous solution, which is unique. Furthermore we show that, for suitably-behaved, positive initial functions that this unique solution is bounded and remains positive, i.e. both of the components representing the two species remain greater than zero. We show that the system has a positive equilibrium point and prove that this point is asymptotically stable for positive solutions and that this stability property is not conditional upon the delays

Simultaneous determination of seven β-lactam antibiotics in human plasma for therapeutic drug monitoring and pharmacokinetic studies

There is strong evidence in literature supporting the benefit of monitoring plasma concentrations of β-lactam antibiotics in the critically ill to ensure appropriateness of dosing. The objective of this work was to develop a method for the simultaneous determination of total concentrations piperacillin, benzylpenicillin, flucloxacillin, meropenem, ertapenem, cephazolin and ceftazidime in human plasma. Sample preparation involved protein precipitation with acetonitrile containing 0.1% formic acid and subsequent dilution of supernatant with 0.1% formic acid in water. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a reversed phase column (C18, 2.6. μm, 2.1. ×. 50. mm) via gradient elution using water and acetonitrile, each containing 0.1% formic acid, as mobile phase. Tandem mass spectrometry (MSMS) analysis was performed, after electrospray ionization in the positive mode, with multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). The method is accurate with the inter-day and intra-day accuracies of quality control samples (QCs) ranging from 95 to 107% and 95 to 108%, respectively. It is also precise with intra-day and inter-day coefficient of variations ranging from 4 to 12% and 5 to 14%, respectively. The lower limit of quantification was 0.1. μg/mL for each antibiotic except flucloxacillin (0.25. μg/mL). Recovery was greater than 96% for all analytes except for ertapenem (78%). Coefficients of variation for the matrix effect were less than 10% over the six batches of plasma. Analytes were stable over three freeze-thaw cycles, and for reasonable hours on the bench top as well as post-preparation. This novel liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method proved accurate, precise and applicable for therapeutic drug monitoring and pharmacokinetic studies of the selected β-lactam antibiotics

Assimilation of GPM-Retrieved Marine Surface Meteorology Variables for Two Winter Storms

No abstract availabl

Data aggregation in wireless sensor networks with minimum delay and minimum use of energy: A comparative study

Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC), 2015. First published in the Electronic Workshops in Computing series at http://dx.doi.org/10.14236/ewic/bcsme2014.2The prime objective of deploying large- scale wireless sensor networks is to collect information from to control systems associated with these networks. Wireless sensor networks are widely used in application domains such as security and inspection, environmental monitoring, warfare, and other situations especially where immediate responses are required such as disasters and medical emergency. Whenever there is a growth there are challenges and to cope with these challenges strategies and solutions must be developed. This paper discusses the recently addressed issues of data aggregation through presenting a comparative study of different research work done on minimizing delay in different structures of wireless sensor networks. Finally we introduce our proposed method to minimize both delay and power consumption using a tree based clustering scheme with partial data aggregation

Sacramento River Predator Diet Analysis: A Comparative Study

This study examined diets of two predatory fish species, the native Sacramento Pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus grandis) and the introduced Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis), in the Sacramento River, California, USA. Both species have been implicated in native species declines through predation, eliciting our investigation of their diets in the Sacramento River. Sampling occurred between March and November 2017, and was conducted via hook and line on a 35-km reach near Chico, California. Habitat types sampled include engineered structures (water diversions and beam bridges), rip-rapped channel edges, and natural riverbank. Stomach contents were collected via gastric lavage and later processed using visual, gravimetric, and genetic techniques. Diets of Sacramento Pikeminnow and Striped Bass were highly similar as determined through index of relative importance and PERMANOVA modeling. Water temperature was the only variable that significantly affected diet composition. Results reflect similar dietary niches for both species in the Sacramento River