Children of Elites in Non-Russian Republics Radicalizing Because Their Parents Say One Thing in Public and Quite Another in Private, ‘Volya’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 28 – Many in Moscow were surprised by the fact that all the participants in the recent terrorist attacks in Dagestan were children of local elites, but they shouldn’t have been, the Volya telegram channel says. The explanation is simple: these elites now say one thing in public and quite another in private, and their children are taking note of that.

            In the current Russian system, the children of these elites know that their own futures are now severely limited by Moscow’s Russian nationalist attitudes and lack of trust in non-Russians in general. In short, they have “hit a ceiling” and aren’t prepared to accept that as their parents do (mayday.rocks/vse-byli-iz-bogatyh-i-vpolne-vliyatelnyh-dagestanskih-semej/).

            And the attitudes of these children of the current regional elites are being formed by the behavior of their parents, Volya says. “At home, a member of the United Russia Party from Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia or Ingushetia can talk about Russian occupiers even though in public, they talk about the civilizing role of Russia in the region.”

            Commenting on this reality, Vadim (Kharun) Sidoorov of Prague’s Charles University observes that “the present Russian authorities prohibit the formation of ethnic and regional parties under the aegis of which the establishment in these regions could consolidate without harm to their own social-psychological requirements” (idelreal.org/a/edinaya-rossiya-ne-vsegda-edinaya-i-ne-vsegda-rossiya-/33011648.html).

            That marks a sharp contrast with other countries where such parties are allowed to exist and even with the Soviet approach in which the CPSU had republic branches and was committed to internationalism instead of “the Russian nationalist” agenda that United Russia now displays (idelreal.org/a/31173814.html).

            Elites in non-Russian republics join United Russia “not from ideological considerations but because that is the only way for them to make political careers in a centralized state,” Sidorov says. But what has happened in Dagestan shows that “the gulf between the personal and family attitudes of certain members of United Russia” is growing and can led to explosions.

            And the more Russian nationalist United Russia becomes, the deeper this gulf will become – yet another way Putin’s “Russian world” is now on course to self-destruct.