Soviet leaders and authorities officially condemned nationalism and proclaimed internationalism and anti-nationalism, including the right of nations and peoples to self-determination. Soviet internationalism during the era of the USSR and within its borders meant diversity or multiculturalism. This is because the USSR used the term "nation" to refer to ethnic or national communities and or ethnic groups. The Soviet Union claimed to be supportive of self-determination and rights of many minorities and colonized peoples. However, it significantly marginalized people of certain ethnic groups designated as "enemies of the people", pushed their assimilation, and promoted chauvinistic Russian nationalistic and settler-colonialist activities in their lands. Whereas Vladimir Lenin had supported and implemented policies of korenizatsiia (integration of non-Russian nationalities into the governments of their specific Soviet republics), Joseph Stalin reversed much of the previous policies, signing off on orders to deport and exile multiple ethnic-linguistic groups brandished as "traitors to the Fatherland", including the Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Kalmyks, Koreans and Meskhetian Turks, with those who survived the collective deportation to Siberia or Central Asia legally designated "special settlers", meaning that they were officially second-class citizens with few rights and were confined within small perimeters.
After the death of Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev criticized the deportations based on ethnicity in a secret section of his report to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, describing them as "rude violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationality policy of the Soviet state". Soon thereafter, in the mid- to late 1950s, some deported peoples were fully rehabilitated, having been allowed the full right of return, and their national republics were restored — except for the Koreans, Crimean Tatars, and Meskhetian Turks, who were not granted the right of return and were instead forced to stay in Central Asia. The government subsequently took a variety of measures to prevent such deported peoples from returning to their native villages, ranging from denying residence permits to people of certain ethnic groups in specific areas, referring to people by incorrect ethnonyms to minimize ties to their homeland (ex, "Tatars that formerly resided in Crimea" instead of "Crimean Tatars"), arresting protesters for requesting the right of return and spreading racist propaganda demonizing ethnic minorities.
