Ethnic categorization in the USSR was an issue that the Soviet authorities were very keen on since the beginning of the regime. The Soviet Union inherited a large multi-ethnic polity from the Romanovs in which roughly 50-55% of the population were ethnic Great Russians. In a nutshell, the position of the state was that while one of the goals of socialism was to reach create a common Soviet identity that was both classless and nationless, the Soviet state would encourage and protect the various nations under its charge. Thus Soviet passports identified its holder both as a Soviet citizen and their titular nationality.

While Great Russians gradually took over a preponderance of the positions of power within the USSR, this hegemony could not erase the large non-Russian population within the USSR. And even with the preponderance of Great Russian leaders and culture, the state did promote various minorities' identities through cultural programming and various local Communist Party branches did provide a basis for native cadres. A number of Western observers, especially Americans, tended to use Russian and Soviet interchangeably or use the horribly inaccurate Frankenstein combination of "Soviet Russia," (protip- anyone who uses Soviet Russia today is automatically considered suspect on Soviet history until proven otherwise). This indiscriminate use of Russian misses the reality of ethnicity within the Soviet Union. The citizens of the USSR knew there was a difference between being a Soviet citizen and their ethnicity.