The study, written on the basis of the works of contemporary Western and Russian authors, is a synthesis of the national policy of the Soviet Empire. The stages and, accordingly, the changes made in this policy in the years 1917-1964 are highlighted, the replacement in the 1930s of the “cultural egalitarianism” of the 1920s with a brutal centralizing and rusifying policy, accompanied by political repressions, continued in the years to come after the Second World War. N. Khrushchev’s policy was also contradictory. On the one hand, measures have been taken to rehabilitate the peoples subjected to Stalin’s repression, their history, language and culture, and on the other hand Russian language and culture were imposed as elements of “the closeness and fusion of the Soviet peoples”.