BLOG: Stalin’s Downgrading of Abkhazia from Union Republic Status Decried (windowoneurasia.blogspot.com)

Vienna, July 7 – Among Stalin’s many mistakes as a ruler, according to a reviewer of an émigré book on Stalin republished a few years ago in the Russian Federation, was the Soviet dictator’s decision to lower the status of Abkhazia from that of a union republic (SSR) like Ukraine or Kazakhstan to that of an autonomous republic (ASSR) like Tatarstan or Udmurtia.
Had he not done so, Andrey Yezerov suggests in a review of S.V. Dmitriyevsky’s “Stalin. The Forefather of a National Revolution” (1931, 2003), Abkhazia would have gained its independence along with other union republics in 1991 and been widely recognized rather than as a result of Russian military action in 2008 and recognized only by Russia and Nicaragua.

full blog article >>>