Closed Diasporas are Seizing Power Locally and Moscow has No Idea How to Counter That, Shulika Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 29 – The clash between Roma and local Russians in Chelyabinsk earlier this month has not only put “the Gypsy factor” at the center of “growing inter-ethnic tensions in the Russian Federation but also has highlighted two broader problems that should be of concern to all Russians, Kirill Shulika says.

            On the one hand, what happened in Chelyabinsk was less about the action of one Roma against one Russian but rather about the Roma community having taken control of the settlement there and ignoring Russian laws and practices, the Moscow commentator argues (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-10-29/mozhno-li-obuzdat-nravy-kochevogo-naroda-5234038).

            And on the other, the clashes highlighted a much larger problem: the clash in Chelyabinsk resembles clashes that are taking place not only between Roma and Russians but also highlighted the fact that Moscow has no effective plan to deal with them and regional and local officials are largely on their own, often without the resources to suppress violence.

            Given this failure, Shulika says, “it isn’t surprising that various groups like ‘the Russian Community’ have emerged to assume the role of militias” which can act between officials don’t; and it should be a matter of extreme concern that these militias are going to explode in size as Russian veterans return from the war in Ukraine and join up.

            As a result, the violence seen in Chelyabinsk last week almost certainly is a harbinger of far more widespread and bloody clashes ahead, unless Moscow can come up with a strategy to take back control over localities that groups like the Roma and other closed diaspora populations have established in recent years.

            Tragically, Shulika continues, he says he “hasn’t heard a single idea” from Moscow “about what to do with such situations,” thus washing its hands of the situation and placing all the burdens of enforcing Russian law on regional and local bodies which lack the resources to carry that out.

            Those who assume that the local police can handle this spreading problem are profoundly wrong. Instead the fighting is likely to be not between the police and the closed diasporas but  between the closed diasporas and militias that neither Moscow nor the regional governments will be able to control.

            And that, if Moscow remains passive, Shulika suggests, will open the way to a war of all against all, something which will shake the Russian Federation to its foundations.   

No Komsomol-Like Organization Now Exists to Unite and Provide a Social Lift for Its Members, Shpunt Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 27 – In Soviet times and even in the first post-Soviet decade, political parties and youth groups like the Komsomol played important roles a social lifts and that was a major reason they attracted members who viewed them as such, but now no political party or youth group plays such a role, according to Aleksandr Shpunt.

            The Higher School of Economics political scientist says that at present “nothing remains” of the role that the Komsomol played in Soviet times and the absence of any institution performing that function will further complicate the life of the Russian political system in the future (club-rf.ru/detail/7470).

            When people talk about the Komsomol, they focus on its “ideological functions,” often forget that it represented “a colossal vertical lift and a model for the formation of a Soviet elite, not only political but economic.” Now, no institution is playing that unifying political role or helping those interested in politics to rise, although certainly United Russia could do that.

            As a result of the absence of a Komsomol equivalent, Shpunt says, all the state asks of young people is that they obey the law. But “this is a very funny construction, which doesn’t exist even in China where a large number of things have been preserved from the model of a single political party.”

            Young Russians are an extremely diverse lot, he continues; and something like the Komsomol with its single political ideology needs to come into existence to hold the country together. Otherwise the various component parts will spin off in their own directions and weaken the country.

            There have been various attempts to define a new state ideology and to come up with a way to transmitting it to young people, the political scientist says. Much remains uncertain but there are some elements that should be obvious and thus included if that ideology is to play the role needed.

            “For example,” Shpunt says, “national self-respect means much more than it does for most Europeans. In Europe, an individual can calmly accept that his country doesn’t play a major or even any role in the international arena and is happy with the fact that he has a house, a garden and a car.”

            “In Russia,” in contrast, “that is impossible.”

 

Russia’s More than Two Million Homeless Live on Average 19 Years Fewer than Russians with Housing, New Studies Find

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 27 – Homelessness has long been a serious problem in Russia, although it has existed for so long that its dimensions are typically ignored. But new studies report that there are now more than two million homeless in Russia and that they live on average 19 years less than Russians with housing, according to new studies.

            Conducted by activists from Overnight Stay, To Be Precise and Stronger Together, these investigations say that many of these premature deaths come from diseases that could be easily cured and from acts of violence the police should defend the homeless from (tochno.st/materials/bezdomnye-umiraiut-na-19-let-ranse-ostalnyx-rossiian-i-casto-ot-boleznei-kotorye-legko-lecatsia and regionvoice.ru/preodolevaya-socialnuyu-izolyaciyu-kak/).

            If Putin were really serious about boosting the life expectancy of Russians as he now claims (iarex.ru/news/140713.html), he could achieve far more by helping the homeless than almost anything else, especially given that Russia has reduced infant and child mortality to levels that rival those of European countries and can’t expect to cut them more.

            In the past, Russian and Soviet governments counted on improving life expectancies primarily by reducing previously high levels of infant and child mortality, figures that if cut even a small amount have enormous consequences for the life expectancy rates of the entire population.

Moscow’s Tretyakov Closes Contemporary Art Department, Sparking Protest by Artists Fearful Kremlin is Again Turning on All Things Modern

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 28 – Moscow’s Tretyakov Museum, a state institution and the bellwether flagship of art in the Russian Federation, has just closed its department devoted to modern art, sparking fears that the Putin regime’s commitment to “traditional values” is about to grow into an attack on modernism in all forms of art and literature.

            That fear is all too real because earlier Russian leaders including Stalin and Khrushchev cracked down on modernism because they saw it as alien to the Russian system and thus as a threat to their rule. And so it is notable that many of Russia’s most prominent artists have signed an open letter calling for the Tretyakov and the Russian government behind it to reverse course.

            In reporting these developments, Mariya Arbatova, a prominent feminist, commentator, and television host in the 1990s, warns that “art is a living organism and that if you introduce censorship, that is, limit the work of one part, then the entire system will begin to work poorly” (versia.ru/nenuzhnye-xudozhestva).

            That is what has happened in Russia before and that is what is happening again now, something that all thoughtful people should protest before the country is thrown even further back than has already happened, she suggests. Unfortunately, history suggests that such turns against modernity last far longer and do far more damage than most suspect. 

Putin Policy of Recruiting from Poorer Regions Leaving Russian Agriculture with Shortage of Workers

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 27 – In order to prevent his expanded invasion of Ukraine from sparking protests in Moscow and other major cities, Vladimir Putin chose to focus on recruiting men from poorer regions both Russian and non-Russian. But that policy is now backfiring as it has left those agricultural areas with a serious shortage of workers.

            Aleksandr Tkachyov, Russia’s former agricultural minister, is warning of disaster ahead if Moscow doesn’t take “immediate measures” to provide more workers for the agricultural sector. If that doesn’t happen, he says, Russia will soon face an agricultural catastrophe (versia.ru/selskomu-xozyajstvu-predrekayut-katastrofu-iz-za-nexvatki-kadrov).

            Russia’s current agricultural minister, Oksana Lut, concurs and says that the sector she oversees currently has a labor shortage amounting “at a minimum” to 200,000 people despite some recent efforts to correct the situation (versia.ru/glava-minselxoza-prizvala-rossiyan-stavit-svechki-ile-proroku).

            Both of them as well as other Moscow agricultural experts have placed the blame for this development and its possible impact on Russian food production on the slow dying off of villages. That certainly plays a role, but it is the impact of Putin’s war that has exacerbated this long-term trend and turned it into a crisis.

Special Units in Regions Bordering Ukraine Allow Local Elites to Get Enormous Benefits without Risk of Having to Fight, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 27 – After Ukrainian forces entered Kursk Oblast in August, the Russian Defense Ministry established special BARS Detachments alongside the existing territorial units in border regions, detachments allowing regional elites to portray themselves as patriotic without risk of fighting and to enrich themselves while most people suffer, ‘Horizontal Russia’ says.

            Moscow presents these special detachments as expansions of the territorial defense forces that had been set up earlier (rg.ru/2024/09/05/reg-cfo/v-belgorodskoj-oblasti-poiavitsia-dobrovolcheskij-otriad-bars-belgorod.html); but in fact, the regional agency says, the two are very different (t.me/gubernator_46/9672 reposted at semnasem.org/articles/2024/10/28/otryady-dlya-elity-chto-takoe-bars-i-pochemu-lyudi-ot-vlasti-massovo-vstupayut-v-eti-voennye-podrazdeleniya).

            The territorial forces recruited people with significantly lower bonuses and sent them into combat on occasion, while the BARS units offered enormous bonuses and largely restricted enrollment to the elite, allowing them to engage in PR and take home enormous payments without the risk that they will be sent to fight in Ukraine or even against Ukrainian forces.

            According to specialists on regional politics, the local populations increasingly recognizing how elites are using the BARS units and thus are becoming more hostile to them and even to the broader war effort, which now looks to many of them less as a national act than a means to further enrich the elites at their expense. 

 

Roma Pogroms in Chelyabinsk Make a Mockery of Russia’s Days of National Unity and Accord and Reconciliation, Anti-Discrimination Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 25 – In a few days, Russia will mark its Day of National Unity (Nov. 4) and its Day of Accord and Reconciliation (Nov. 7), but what is happening in Chelyabinsk Oblast makes a mockery of the values those holidays are supposed to embody, Stefaniya Kulayeva, an anti-discrimination expert at Memorial says.

            In Korkino, on the outskirts of Chelyabinsk, “crowds of angry people are destroying the houses of Roma residents, demanding the deportation of their neighbors even though these neighbors as citizens of the Russian Federation have nowhere to go, burns cars, and attacking everyone who seems ethnically alien to them” (kavkazr.com/a/tyurjma-narodov-o-prazdnike-i-pogromah/33175042.html).

            According to Kulayeva, “the lynching of local residents is aimed at the Roma community as a result of information that has apparently been disseminated by nationalist groups like the Russian Community and Northern Man concerning the death of a taxi drive at the hands of a Roma resident of Korkino.”

            “Hundreds of police officers who came to stop the pogrom failed to do so, and houses continued to burn on the second night of unrest,” she adds, pointing noting that “the authorities were afraid to denounce the actions of the brutal crowd” but instead promised raises on Roma residents.

            Moscow officials made the situation even worse by talking about how a diaspora had attacked the indigenous peoples of Chelyabinsk, ignoring the fact that the Roma have been living in that oblast for decades and are as much an indigenous people there as are the ethnic Russians, Kulayeva says.

            In the upcoming holidays, there will be much talk about “agreement” among all the peoples of the country and  their unity, she continues “but there is no agreement among them and unity is manifested only in the oppression of all peoples by a single one,” something prompting talk about Russia being “a prison house of nations” (youtube.com/watch?v=ipmkkqAPC14).  

Indigenous rights advocates are sounding the alarm about rising nationalism, anti-migrant and anti-Asian sentiment, and fear that Russian Community branches in Siberia are also dangerous for the region's indigenous people, the Memorial expert says. But “in the Urals, a Russian revolt is already rating, one merciless and cruel.”

Dust Storms Now Hitting Tajikistan 35 to 45 Time a Year, 10 Times More Often than in 1991, Dushanbe Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 25 – One of the most serious consequences of water shortages in Central Asia has been that dust storms with their negative impact on public health are now hitting the countries of that region far more often than was the case three decades ago, according to Muazama Burkhanova.

            An independent Tajik specialist on the environment, she cites the cites the finding of the Tajikistan Academy of Sciences that dust storms now hit that country 35 to 45 times a year, up from only three or four time in 1991 when Tajikistan gained independence (cabar.asia/ru/puti-adaptatsii-k-novoj-realnosti-borba-s-pylnymi-buryami-v-tadzhikistane).

            According to World Bank research, the dust storms are now costing the Tajik economy four percent a year; and according to Dushanbe officials, a minimum of 4800 Tajiks have lost their lives to illnesses caused by the dust storms, and many more suffer from long-term illnesses as a result.

            The dust storms are affecting both cities and rural areas, and activists like Burkhanova are calling for the government to go back to traditional forms of economic activity in the hopes that the situation will not continue to deteriorate further. (For background on these appeals, see fsci.tj/.

Putin Seeks to Drown Calls for De-Colonization of Russia with Talk about Neo-Colonialism, Sidorov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 25 – Stung by criticism that Russia remains an empire and must be de-colonized, Vladimir Putin selected Kazan to be the host city of the BRICS summit in a transparent attempt to seize control of the debate by suggesting that it is not the non-Russians but Moscow via its war in Ukraine that is really fighting colonialism, Vadim Sidorov says.

            He is doing so, the Prague-based expert on the non-Russians within the current borders of the Russian Federation says, by arguing that the need for de-colonization has largely passed and that the challenge now is to fight neo-colonialism, something he says Russia and others in “the global South” are threatened by (idelreal.org/a/sammit-briks-kremlevskiy-antikolonializm-i-kolonizirovannye-narody-rossii-/33172929.html).

            At the BRICS meeting in Kazan, the Kremlin leader achieved a great deal because those attending were happy enough to sign a declaration denouncing neo-colonialism which many of them believe they face and ignoring the continued existence of real colonial empires like the Russian, Sidorov argues.

            But even if it is the case that some of those who signed this declaration are in fact victims of neo-colonialism, many, including both Russia and China, remain colonial powers whose treatment of minority nations within their borders fully corresponds to the classic definition of colonialism, he continues.

            And their invoking of the need to fight neo-colonialism is nothing more than a transparent attempt by a clever sleight of hand to distract the attention of the world from and the possibility the nations under their colonial rule will achieve their independence, the Prague expert suggests.    

Moscow Boosts Spending on Housing Not to Help Russia’s Regions but to Help Russia Control Occupied Ukrainian Lands, Lyutova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – One of the few line items in the 2025 Russian budget to go up in percentage terms by more than spending on the military and the siloviki more generally is for housing and communal services, a trend that many Russians mistakenly believe is the government’s response to natural disasters this year.

            But that is not the case, Moscow economic journalist Margarita Lyutova says. Instead, increased spending in this area is part of Putin’s war effort because the budget allots almost as much to the Russian-occupied territories as it does to all the federal subjects within the borders of the Russian Federation (theins.ru/opinions/margarita-lutova/275515).

            This is just one of the statistical sleights of hand the Russian government is doing to obscure just how much Putin’s war in Ukraine is hurting the Russian people and especially those who live outside the megalopolises and arms producing regions, the Russian economic journalist says. 

            Others include changing what the government is actually spending on under the traditional rubrics which are understood very differently, Lyutova says. Thus, increasingly, Moscow is gutting spending on schooling in normal subjects in favor of using educational institutions as propaganda channels.

            This pattern means that Putin’s war in Ukraine is costing the Russian people far more than they generally recognize, Lyutova concludes.   

Far Fewer Russian Women Childless than Moscow Thinks Because of Shortcomings in Last Census, ‘To Be Exact’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – The shortcomings of the last Russian census continue to cast a dark shadow on that country. Many Russians who support banning abortions and childfree to boost the birthrate do so because they believe that, judging from the 2020/21 census returns, 10 percent of Russian women aged 45 to 50 do not have children.

            While the most thoughtful of them recognize that most of those women in fact want children but have not had them either because they couldn’t for physical reasons or because of poverty and other negative life chances, they and many in the West who pick up on their reporting accept the 10 percent figure.

            But that figure, as the To Be Exact portal demonstrates, is an exaggeration. As the portal notes, the two federal subjects which the census said had the highest share of women between 45 and 50 who reportedly did not have children were Ingushetia with 22 percent and Chechnya with 18 percent.

            Those figures reflect not reality in two republics with Muslim populations and birthrates far higher than the Russian Federation as a whole but the reality that census takers there did not contact people there but instead filled in the census forms and often left the children line black because they had no way of knowing that.           

            The result was an overreporting of the percentage of women without children in that age cohort, an error that affects the overall figure on the share in the country as a whole but also highlights why the 2020/21 census may be the most unreliable census in Russian history with the possible exception of Stalin’s 1939 enumeration and should be used only with extreme caution.

Another Black Hundreds Group Revived in Putin’s Russia – the Union of the Russian People -- and with Official Support

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – Just as took place in the last decades of the Russian Empire, extreme right and often prepared for violent Russian nationalist organizations are springing up in Putin’s Russia, announcing their intention to fight against all the Kremlin’s enemies so as to defend the Russian people.

            The most prominent of these so far is the Russian Community organization which has branches in 140 Russian cities (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/extremist-russian-community-now-active.html), but it and most of its allies have been cautious about highlighting the obvious parallels between themselves and their notorious pre-1917 predecessors.

            Now, a new group has emerged whose leaders say they are not creating something new but restoring these tsarist-era groups. At a congress in Moscow in the Christ the Savior Cathedral, a group of more than 1,000 officials and activists announced the restoration of the Union of the Russian People (tsargrad.tv/news/sojuz-russkogo-naroda-tysjacha-neravnodushnyh-russkih-ljudej-obedinilis-radi-budushhego-rossii_1072812).

            Organizers, led by the Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev declared that “we are a union of Russian people who are not indifferent, a union of the Russian people, and that in our movement there are no limits.” They also said that the meting had attracted governors, deputies, business people, scholars, soldiers, priests, students and sportsmen.”

            Among the speakers were Duma vice speaker Pyotr Tolstoy, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mariya Zakharova, Duma deputy Aleksandr Boroday, and former ROC MP priest and now prominent actor Ivan Okhlobystin. Their participation suggests that this new movement enjoys support from the Kremlin.

            On his telegram channel, Malofeyev outlined the group’s goals: “Our ideals and values are simple: Russia is a great Orthodox state-civilization. The Russian people is the state-forming state and on its well-being depends the well-being of all the citizens of our country. The foundation of the people is a strong, traditional, multi-child family, the support of which is the most important obligation of the state” (t.leme/kvmalofeev/3053).

            The Russian nationalist oligarch said that “the overwhelming majority of Russian people” support these ideas. “We are the voice of the Russian Orthodox majority. The revived Union of the Russian People. All who are not indifferent to the future of Russia should join the Society Tsargrad and its Russian Militia.” (On that group, which took part, see t.me/s/russian_druzhina.)

            Not everyone in Russia is thrilled by this development. Moscow commentator Viktor Frolinsky suggests that it “is designed to inherit all the worst in the Black Hundred movement of pre-revolutionary Russia: Ideological obscurantism, aggression and servility to those in power” in the country  (vkrizis.info/russia/soyuz-czarya-i-grada/).

Even the Tsargrad title that the revived Union of Russian People has chosen is indicative, he continues. This word “refers to imperial dreams of Constantinople and the chauvinistic organization” of Aleksandr Dubrovin, an anti-Semite who eaded the predecessor of today’s Union of the Russian People and organized pogroms.

Before he was executed by the Soviets, Frolinsky said, Dubrovin identified himself as “a monarchist communist.” People like Malofeyev and his ilk can say they same thing. Indeed, they are now doing do.

To Boost Productivity, Russia Must Shift Focus from Regions to Agglomerations, ‘Nezavsimaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – For more than a decade, various Russian officials, politicians and experts have urged that Moscow promote the development of urban agglomerations rather than continuing to focus on existing federal subjects. Demographic and economic trends are making their arguments even more compelling, the editors of Nezavisimaya Gazeta say.

            The paper points out that productivity in Moscow is growing at 2.5 times that of the country as a whole and that this increase is not connected with the oil and gas industries and thus meets Putin’s call for raising productivity overall in order to compensate for increasing shortages of cadres (ng.ru/editorial/2024-10-23/2_9121_red.html).

            The Moscow agglomeration, the editors argue, must become a model for the rest of the country where many of the 30 million residents of small cities and approximately 15 million people in rural areas are currently unable to find highly productive work, something that is holding the country back.

            That means, they suggest, that the country must adopt a developmental strategy based on the development of an increasing number of urban agglomerations where productivity will increase and end its focus on existing territorial divisions which will never be the locations of high productivity.

            Indeed, Nezavisimaya Gazeta argues, “high tempos of the market development of Russia are possible exclusively along the paths of the establishment of new agglomerations in various parts of the country,” something especially important at a time when existing economic and demographic trends are working against such increases in productivity.

            If the Kremlin accepts this argument – and the Putin administration’s concern with demography and productivity mean that the authors of it are speaking the language of the Presidential Administration – that could presage a shift in Moscow’s development strategy away from existing regions to new urban centers.

            And this in turn could upend the existing administrative-territorial divisions of the country on which much of its current political arrangements and even stability are predicated, leading not so much to the amalgamation of federal subjects Putin has pursued in the past but to the neglect of regions as a result of a new focus on megalopolises instead.  

Putin’s Terrorism Increasingly Irrational and May Devour Its Creator, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 23 – Many are now focusing on the increasingly absurd statements and actions of Putin loyalists, Vladimir Pastukhov says; but they should see them collectively as evidence that “the post-communist neo-totalitarian state has reached its highest and final stage of development.”

            Since 2013, the London-based Russian analyst says, Russia has been in “a terror phase” of development, one that “is characterized by the predominance of the irrational over the rational,” a phenomenon not directed at a specific target and “cannot be controlled but only directed” (t.me/v_pastukhov/1281 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=671A5745E2EFC).

            In recent months, Pastukhov continues, the terrorism of the Putin system has become increasingly disembodied, with “the engine of this terror” formerly “Putin’s deep state” ever more being replaced “by Putin’s deep mind,” a development that means that “if earlier we mainly saw the consequences of irrational actions, now we will see the results of irrational thoughts.”

            According to Pastukhov, “we must be prepared for the fact that we are entering, alas not for the first time, into a harsh period of Russian history in which human life and destiny will largely depend on someone’s prevented fantasy, often one with complex sexual or even suicidal aspects.”

            In brief, he concludes, the important thing to recognize is that “Kafka’s time has now arrived in our Animal Farm.”

Ukraine Must and Will Work to Attract Non-Ukrainian Immigrants to Compensate for Losses, Kyiv Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 23 – Because of war losses and the large number of Ukrainians who have fled their homeland in recent years, many of whom are unlikely to return, Kyiv analysts say, Ukraine will have no choice but to seek to attract immigrants from other countries after the war. Indeed, they point out, some Ukrainian industries are already doing that.

            Olga Musafirova, a Novaya Gazeta journalist who spoke with many of these experts, says that at a time when Russia is pushing immigrants out, Ukraine “is beginning to think about the need for attracting labor resources from outside” (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/10/23/ukraina-kotoruiu-my-znaem-i-liubim-ischezaet).

            That is because Ukraine has lost so many people in combat and by flight abroad, with only about a third of those who left are likely to return; and so its population is projected to decline even more after the war ends.  As a result, Ukrainian officials and businesses cannot afford to dismiss an expansion in the use of immigrants.

            Vladimir Fesenko who heads Kyiv’s Penta Center for Applied Political Research says that some metallurgical enterprises are already doing so and that their example is likely to be copied by others even before the Ukrainian government takes any general decision on attracting immigrants.

Russia Able to Build Fewer than a Quarter of the Ice-Class Ships Required to Meet Putin’s Ambitious Targets for Northern Sea Route, Deputy PM Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 23 – Russian shipyards will be able to build only 16 of the 70 ice-class ships that had been planned for and would be needed to meet the ambitious targets Vladimir Putin has set for the Northern Sea Route, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnyev over oversees Far Eastern and Arctic policies for Moscow told the Russian cabinet this week.

            As a result of this, the failure to build land-based infrastructure to support the NSR and of rising prices for Russian icebreakers to accompany ships not of ice-class, he said, the route will not meet annual targets well into the 2030s (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/trutnev-nuzno-70-sudov-ledovogo-klassa-mozem-postroit-tolko-16/419200 and https://akcent.site/novosti/35945).

            Russian officials earlier suggested that this might be the case (e.g., 1prime.ru/20240607/verfi-848943438.html), but this is the bleakest assessment by the most senior Russian official yet, his remarks prompted by the impact of both sanctions and the Kremlin’s diversion of funds from the NSR and other projects to Putin’s war in Ukraine. 

            Unless Moscow is able to purchase ships from other countries or China expands its role in the NSR, the Northern Sea Route which the Russian government had counted on to be a major earner and even driver of Russian economic development is simply not going to deliver at least in this decade. 

Ever More People are Saying Putin is Restoring Soviet System but Ever Fewer are Studying that System, Savvin Warns

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – Dimitry Savvin, the editor of the conservative Russian Riga-based Harbin portal, says that at a time when ever more observers are declaring that Putin is restoring the Soviet system, ever fewer of them and other scholars are studying that system and thus are ever less well positioned to say what the restoration of the Soviet system will mean.

            After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Sovietology largely disappeared as well; but now it is obvious, the editor says, that Sovietology must be restored and developed if the world is to understand precisely what Putin is about and what it will mean for Russia and the world (harbin.lv/stalinskiy-sotsializm-tekhnokratiya-neosovetizm).

            As a contribution to this task, Savvin offers his new article, “Stalinist Socialism, Technocracy, and Neo-Sovietism: the Russian Federation as a Product of the Natural Evolution of the Communist System” which appears in Russian in the latest issue of Warsaw East Law Review (ipw.com.pl/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/The-Warsaw-East-Law-Review_numer-1_2024-r_.pdf).

            In that article, he draws on the writings of émigré Russian scholars whose works about the Soviet system were sometimes but far from always employed by Western sovietologists, something that only adds to the weight of his argument for the revival of the study of the Soviet system not simply as a subject of history but as one of immediate political import.

Lukashenka Continues Soviet Practice of Forcing Political Prisoners to Work in Industries that Threaten Their Health

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – Soviet political prisoners in Stalin’s time were often sent to work in uranium mines and other industries where their lives were put at even greater risk than those faced by prisoners in regular camps. Tragically, Alyaksandr Lukashenka is continuing that horrific tradition.

            According to Belarusian and international human rights activists, a minimum of 681 of the 2336 sentenced to serve time behind bars since 2020 have been sent to work in what people there refer to as “chemical” facilities (rfi.fr/ru/европа/20241022-правозащитники-с-2020-года-в-беларуси-по-политическим-мотивам-осуждены-более-шести-тысяч-человек).

            “Such punishments,” RFI Russian reports, “began to be called ‘chemistry’ in Soviet times when citizens were dispatched to hazardous production facilities in the chemical industry.” Today, Belarusian jailors house such people in barracks-type institutions and then transport them to chemical plants to work.       

             No data is available on how many Belarusian politicals may have lost their lives or at least their health as a result of this practice, but the international community should do whatever it can to end this practice in Belarus – and indeed in any other part of the former Soviet space where such Stalinist practices live on or are being revived. 

Kazakhstan Manages to Boost Water Level in Northern Aral

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – For most of the last half century, there has been little good news about the struggle to prevent the Aral Sea from drying up and disappearing. In the larger southern segment, that trend continues; but in the northern segment, Kazakhstan has succeeded in boosting water levels.

            It has done so, the Kazakhstan water resources ministry says, by reducing the amount of water used and lost elsewhere and then ensuring that those savings have flowed downstream into the Northern Aral, a part of that body of water that is now separated by a land dam from the rest (dialog.tj/new78640/).

            Since the beginning of 2024, the ministry says in a statement, it has achieved this increase in the water levels of the Northern Aral by subsidizing Kazakhstan farmers who are thus encouraged to use water-saving technologies as well as improving the flow of water in rivers feeding that body of water.

            What Kazakhstan has done is impressive, but it may be difficult to replicate elsewhere. The reason is simple: Kazakhstan controls all the flows into the Northern Aral while flows into the dying southern part are divided among the other countries of the region and any steps forward require international agreements, something that so far have been few and far between.

Moscow Attacks on Childfree Ideology Increasing Stigmatization of Childless Women in North Caucasus, Lokshina Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – Moscow attacks on what Russian officials call “the childfree ideology” are increasing the stigmatization of childless women in the North Caucasus, a region where fertility rates remain well above replacement levels and limiting the possibilities of women there to make choices for themselves and defend their rights, Tanya Lokshina says.

            The director of Russian programs at Human Rights Watch points out that the traditional societies of the North Caucasus already put enormous pressure on women to have large families and stay at home as mothers (kavkazr.com/a/rychag-davleniya-na-zhenschinu-zhiteli-yuga-i-severnogo-kavkaza-o-zaprete-chayldfri/33159114.html).

            Consequently, in this area as in so many others, the Putin regime is producing a result exactly the opposite it intends. While the anti-childfree messages it is sending are intended to boost the birthrate everywhere, they are most likely to do so in places where women are still restricted by traditional values.

            Thus, the fertility rates in the North Caucasus are likely to remain high or even rise higher as a result, a trend that will mean that the percentage of non-Russians in the population of that region and indeed of the Russian Federation as a whole will almost certainly rise still further, exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin clearly wants. 

            But there is yet another way in which this Putin policy is likely to backfire: Russian women have been the leaders of the anti-war movement in much of the country. Now, it is entirely possible that women in the North Caucasus may join them in increasing numbers because of this attack on the rights. 

Kazakhstan Navy Demonstrates Growing Capacity to Repel Any Attacker -- Including Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – Ships of the growing Kazakhstan navy on the Caspian have just completed a seven-day exercise in which they demonstrated, with  the support of Kazakhstan aircraft, the ability to repel any foreign country that might attack that country from its Caspian littoral (gov.kz/memleket/entities/mod/press/news/details/853950).

            Kazakhstan now has more naval vessels on the Caspian than any other littoral state, including the Russian Federation, although its ships are generally smaller and less heavily armed than Russia’s (jamestown.org/program/russias-caspian-flotilla-no-longer-only-force-that-matters-there/).

            But Astana is certainly worried about the possibility of a Russian attack on its territory from the sea and has been engaged in a naval build up for the last several years. (For background on that, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/05/kazakhstan-begins-building-caspian-fleet.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/05/kazakhstan-increasingly-preparing-its.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/kazakhstan-conducts-major-naval.html.)

Russian Far East Will Only Develop in Near Term if China Invests More or Moscow Changes Course in Ukraine, Toth-Cifra Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – The Russian Far East because of its natural resources and location on the Pacific Rim will happen “eventually,” Andras Toth-Czifra says, but Putin’s war in Ukraine has created a situation “from which there is no easy way out.” Moscow doesn’t have sufficient funds to develop the area, and China has a very specific agenda which is different from Russia’s.

            “At a time of high interest rates, uncertain returns on investments, rising taxes and worsening labor market pressure – all to a considerable extent consequences of the war – development of the Russian Far East will take enormous federal financing or considerable foreign investment,” the US-based Hungarian economist says (ridl.io/ru/shatkie-plany-rossii-po-razvitiyu-dalnego-vostoka/).

            Neither is likely in the short term as Moscow is spending ever more money on its war in Ukraine and China is investing only on projects in the region from which it rather than the region as a whole will benefit in the first instance, allowing Beijing rather than Moscow to set the agenda there, Toth-Czifra says.

            Moscow has made the development of the Far East a priority “for more than a decade,” but despite that, the region continues to lose population and its cities remain underdeveloped, its transit slowed by bottlenecks, and its energy generating capacity insufficient to meet developmental needs.

            Moscow set up a ministry for far eastern development in 2012 and added the Arctic to its responsibilities in 2019. “But this has not brought stellar results,” Toth-Czifra says; and many projects there have been delayed or cancelled altogether. Significantly, the region experienced “little or no growth between 2012 and 2017.”

            According to Toth-Czifra, it is difficult to imagine that “people will move en masse to regions [like the Russian Far East] with a significantly lower quality of life, salaries less than the national average, bad social infrastructure, and problems with transport” or that “manufacturers already experiencing problems will move capacity there needing infrastructure and people.”

            Consequently, unless Moscow can find money to address these problems, something unlikely as long as the war in Ukraine continues, or China adopts a totally different approach than it has up to now, the Russian Far East is unlikely to develop however much Putin calls for it to do so.

Moscow Should Be Focusing on Lowering Mortality rather than Boosting Fertility, Russian Demographers Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – Russia’s fertility rate is approximately where Europe’s is, but its mortality rate is far higher. And because no modern country has had much success in boosting the former, Russia should be focusing on reducing the latter if it is prevent the country’s total population from continuing to decline, Russian demographers say.

            Unfortunately, they add, the Russian government has focused almost exclusively on boosting birthrates, something it thinks it can do, and continues to ignore reducing mortality rates by improving medical care and lifestyle choices (holod.media/2024/10/16/k-2100-godu-budet-menshe-100-millionov/).

            Aby Shukyurov says that in fact, Russia’s birthrate “might be fine” given that it is an increasingly urban and modern society; but its “mortality rate is anything but.” The former is “comparable to Europes’s” but its mortality rate is far higher. Moreover, cardiovascular diseases rather than cancer remain the primary cause of death in contrast to Europe.

            Dmitry Zakotyansky points out that economic inequality is a major contributing factor to Russia’s low life expectancy, with as many as 40 percent of all Russians living in poverty, continuing to smoke and drink heavily and are more likely to be involved in or affected by crime, all of which are things the government could but isn’t addressing.

            Both demographers say that Russia’s demographic situation has been affected by the war in Ukraine given that according to some estimates, 120,000 Russian soldiers have died there and 400,000 more have suffered injuries which are likely to shorten their life expectancies. Again the regime could end that conflict and improve the country’s demography.

            Indeed, their arguments imply that all the Kremlin’s talk about boosting the birthrate is first and foremost a smokescreen to conceal its almost complete unwillingness to address mortality issues, precisely the area where state intervention could be far more effective in improving Russia’s demographic future.

New Data from Russian Supreme Court Highlights Increasing Repression of Migrant Workers and Disproves Claims They’re Behind Crime Wave

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 21 – A new set of data from the Russian Supreme Court shows that judicial repression of migrant workers is increasing even though the number of immigrants in the Russian Federation is falling but undercuts claims by some officials that immigrants are the source of increases in violent crime.

            Below are the key findings of this data set as explored by the Important Stories portal (istories.media/news/2024/10/21/sudi-protiv-migrantov/):

·       For the first half of 2024, Russian courts convicted approximately 86,000 immigrants, as many as during all of 2022 and putting them on track to be the highest level ever.

·       During the same period, the courts took up 124,000 cases involving immigrants. About 100,000 involved violation of immigration rules, another 16,000 for violations of employment law, and only about 10,000 for violating all other Russian laws.

·       Migrants and other foreigners formed about four percent of all those convicted of criminal violations, a figure that hasn’t changed from earlier years, despite claims by officials that immigrants are powering a crime wave.

Kremlin Sees Small Parties as Playing Several Useful Roles and Will Continue to Support Them, Markelov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – The small parties in Russia, those not represented in the Duma, have almost no opportunity to rise to that level unless one of the parties there collapses; but despite that, Sergey Markelov says, the Kremlin views these small parties as extremely useful for itself and thus will continue to support them.

            The Moscow political consultant argues that the Kremlin sees them as useful also because they round out the political pyramid Putin has constructed, serve as farm teams for the existing parliamentary parties, and play important roles in municipal political life where personalities rather than parties are more important (club-rf.ru/detail/7461).

            Thus suggestions, all too often heard, that the Kremlin is about to shut them down is almost certainly wrong, Markelov concludes.He doesn't mention but his argument suggests that Putin has derived his understanding of why small parties are so important to the top leadership from his time as a KGB officer in East Germany.

Russia and China Both Competing and Cooperating in Central Asia, Dankov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – Most commentaries on the roles Russia and China are playing seek to declare either that one country is dominant at the expense of the other or that the two are cooperating across the board, Artyom Danov says. But neither of those judgments is supported by the facts on the ground which show the two both competing and cooperating.

            The historian at Tomsk State University says Russian officials must recognize this reality before they try to draw up plans for Moscow’s future action in Central Asia (asia24.media/main/-tendentsiya-kotoruyu-ne-zamechayut-u-kitaya-rost-vneshnetorgovogo-oborota-so-stranami-tsentralnoy-a/).

            Danov suggests that Russia and China currently interact in four distinct areas and that in each of these there are examples of cooperation as well as cases of competition. Consequently, it is a mistake to draw any overarching conclusions, especially as the situation is changing so quickly.

            The first area is trade. There China has seen its trade rapidly increase over the last decade while Russia has seen its trade fall. This is particularly worrisome, the Tomsk historian says because trade between Russia and the countries of Central Asia has fallen on account of declines in the export of Russian goods to the region. In many cases, China is replacing Russia.

            The second area is political cooperation. The countries of the region have five plus one relations with Moscow and five plus one ties with China as well as other countries. What they don’t have is five plus two, with Russia and China the two. It would be in the interests of both for them to promote such an arrangement.

            The third area is the cultural and humanitarian sphere. There Russia has an overwhelming advantage as far as language training is concerned, but China is catching up there and also expanding into popular culture, displacing Russian culture and the influence it has traditionally had.

            And the furth area is cooperation on security. “China isn’t dominating in this area,” Dankov says; “but it appeared on the arms and military technology market in Central Asia in the last decade,” whereas Russia had been there by itself earlier. Many in Moscow view this as threatening, but it is time to ask whether the two can cooperate in the security sphere.

Extremist Russian Community Now Active Across Russian Federation, Threatening Both Immigrants and Indigenous Non-Russians as Well

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – The extremist and often violent Russian Community, which rose to prominence over the last year in the North Caucasus and Russian cities west of the Urals, now has gone country-wide with 140 cells in the capitals of non-Russian areas in Siberia and the Russian Far East as well (youtube.com/watch?v=7RFvUfOXYTg).

            The group, which enjoys the support of the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church as well as many Moscow-appointed heads of the non-Russian republics within the Russian Federation, is now attacking not only immigrants but indigenous populations and promoting racist policies against both.

            For background on this group, which is rapidly growing and threatens to become an organization like the Black Hundreds at the end of the tsarist period, see jamestown.org/program/russian-community-extremists-becoming-the-black-hundreds-of-today/, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/extreme-right-russian-community.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/russian-community-now-largest-extreme.html.

            The group is so radical and violent that it is already generating resistance even among republic elites, a development that almost certainly will spark violence if regional heads are given the power to form militias, as the Kremlin is urging (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/chechnya-seeks-to-rein-in-russian.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/moscow-gives-heads-of-all-federal.html.)

Russia’s Economy isn’t Growing Much Outside Military Industry Sector, Aleksashenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – Sergey Aleksashenko, an economist who helped prepare Russian budgets in the 1990s, says that despite the Russian government’s failure to discuss this openly, Moscow has provided enough data to conclude that the Russian economy is not growing very much outside of the military industry sector.

            On the one hand, that is not surprising given that Russia is at war in Ukraine; but on the other, it means that the growth in the military sector is not trickling down into the civilian sector but if anything is doing so less and less with each passing month (hronika.substack.com/p/400 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/est-li-v-rossii-rost-nevoennoj-ekonomiki).

            And that in turn means that military spending is doing ever less to help other branches of the economy and the standard of living of the Russian people than many now think, something that his analysis suggests will be increasingly true as Putin’s war in Ukraine and potentially elsewhere drags on.

            Aleksashenko provides a detailed discussion of the methodology he employs to exploit what data have been released to reach his conclusion that military spending is not boosting overall GDP by anything like the amount the Kremlin claims and that many still uncritically accept.

Kadyrov Says He’ll Send Chechens Convicted of Administrative Law Violations to Fight in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – In a declaration of loyalty to the Kremlin and possibly a harbinger of what will soon happen across the Russian Federation as a whole, Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov has declared that he will send Chechens convicted of administrative law violations to fight in Putin’s war in Ukraine.

            Kadyrov’s latest statement (kavkazr.com/a/glava-chechni-prizval-otpravlyatj-na-voynu-veduschih-prazdnyy-obraz-zhizni-zhiteley-respubliki-/33153341.html) is not so much an innovation as a reaffirmation of an approach he has been using, as the Kavkazr portal points out (kavkazr.com/a/otpravyat-po-prikazu-v-chechne-na-voynu-protiv-ukrainy-posylayut-provinivshihsya-silovikov/33163400.html).

            But the prominence he has given to such a practice now both highlights his need to show loyalty to Putin who is desperate to find as many new sources of replacement troops as possible and show that Kadyrov himself views such a policy as a means to combat resentment of his rule inside Chechnya itself. 

Ukrainians Should Focus on the Choice They Made in the Revolution of Dignity Rather than on Control of Territory Alone, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – Ukraine’s revolution of dignity was not about decolonization and control over territory but about an alternative civilizational choice that sought to make Ukraine a European rather than a Eurasian country, a choice that many Ukrainians although far from all support to this day, Vladimir Pastukhov says.

            Thus, that revolution, the London-based Russian analyst says, was far more than about territory and security, something many in Ukraine and the West have now forgotten but something that is why Putin has reacted in the way he has and why territorial concessions to him won’t guarantee Ukraine’s future (echofm.online/opinions/ukrainskaya-vandeya).

            That can be achieved “only by clear and forceful countermeasures that will convincingly demonstrate to Putin that his achievement of his initial goals in this war is unrealistic” now and will remain unrealistic in the future, Pastukhov argues. “Anyone who thinks otherwise is a naïve romantic.”

            “In 2014,” he continues, he “published a book entitled The Ukrainian Revolution and the Russian Counter-Revolution about the challenges Ukraine faced. One of its central ideas was that “attempts to hold the Donbass by force would inevitably come into direct conflict with the goals of the revolution of dignity.”

            At that time, Pastukhov says, he argued that such attempts would lead to a full-scale war and that “war is not the best time for realizing the ideals of freedom and democracy.” Now a decade later, he offers an additional one: “the revolution of dignity … was not about decolonization but about the European choice of the Ukrainian people.”

            Had it been only about decolonizing, control of territory would have been everything because that could have been achieved without fundamental changes in Ukraine. But most Ukrainians understood their choice differently, “as one in favor of other values and principles” than those Moscow had insisted on.

            However, “even if this was the choice of the majority, Pastukhov says, it clearly was not then and is not now the choice of everybody” in Ukraine. In fact, “a sizeable part of the Ukrainian people wanted to return to the comfortable USSR,” and that was the basis of the split between those who supported the revolution of dignity and those who did not.

            And this was and is the real dividing line in Ukraine, the London-based Russian analyst says. And consequently, “the problem is not that ‘Russians’ lived in Crimea or the Donbass but that the majority of those living there were people who wanted to return to the traditional Soviet past.”

            Prior to the revolution of dignity, he says, Russia was apparently committed to a European course while Ukraine was not and those in Ukraine who did not want to follow that course were quite happy to remain in Ukraine. “But when the roles were reversed,” such people “suddenly began to yearn for their ‘historical homeland.’”

            Consequently, he continues, “the southeast of Ukraine is the Ukrainian Vendée. And even if, at the cost of incredible efforts and sacrifices, Ukraine recovers control over these territories, it will also get back all the old problems that will push back for decades the implementation of the choice made by the Ukrainian people in favor of the European path of development.”

            The majority of Ukrainians who continue to favor the goals of the revolution of dignity should be focusing on that rather than expending lives and treasure on recovering something that will only compromise their ability to achieve what they really want, the London-based analyst concludes.

Russian Courts Convicting Record Numbers for Treason, Espionage, and Crimes by Military Personnel, ‘Important Stories’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has released data on convictions during the first six months of 2024. They show that courts there sentenced record numbers of people for treason, espionage, and crimes committed by military personnel, the Important Stories portal says.

            In the first half of this year, according to the portal’s journalists, “52 people were convicted of treason, 3.5 times more than in the same period a year earlier and more than have been convicted in any whole year since 2015” (istories.media/tanews/2024/10/18/gosizmenniki-shpioni-terroristi/).

            Perhaps more significantly, the court figures show that during the first half of 2024, Russian courts found 6,000 Russian soldiers guilty of various crimes, three times more than in the same period in 2023 and 7.5 times more than for that period in the years preceding Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine.

            The crimes for which Russian servicemen were convicted are increasingly serious and the percentage being sentenced to prison is now 4.5 times greater than was the case in pre-war years (istories.media/en/news/2024/10/15/russian-soldiers-have-become-more-likely-to-receive-real-sentences-as-punishment/).

            Russian courts also sentenced more Russian civilians for terrorism and extremism during the first half of 2024. According to Important Stories, 366 were sentenced for terrorism; and 340 were convicted of extremism, both up by double digits from 2023 and even more when compared with earlier years.

Minnikhanov Visits Memorial to Ivan Grozny’s Soldiers who Died Attacking Kazan Khanate in 1552 Having Earlier Banned Meeting to Remember Its Defenders

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – The Kremlin’s efforts to rein in Tatarstan have just taken another step forward, one certain to undermine its authority among Tatars: Republic head Rustam Minnikhanov has visited a memorial to Russian troops who died during the sacking of the Kazan khanate in 1552 after having earlier banned a meeting of Tatars to remember its defenders.

            Between 1989 and 2021, Tatars assembled every year on October to remember those who died in Kazan fighting the Russian advance. At first, only a few hundred did so and then tens of thousands in the 1990s. But as Putin increasingly moved against the republic, Kazan officials were forced to restrict the size and location of such meetings and then in 2022 to ban them.

            (For this history, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/10/kazan-refuses-to-authorize-meeting-on.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/10/this-year-tatars-wont-mark-anniversary.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/10/latest-ban-on-tatarstan-memorial-day.html.)

            Over the last decade, the Russian Orthodox Church and Moscow officials have devoted more attention to marking the 1552 battle at a monument built two centuries ago in tsarist times to those Russian soldiers who lost their lives in the course of their conquest of Kazan (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/10/muscovite-plans-to-memorialize-russians.html).

            And earlier this year, the government of Tatarstan announced that it had allocated 300 million rubles (three million US dollars) to refurbish the Russian monument (m.business-gazeta.ru/news/628522), but few Tatars thought that their own leaders would go there, especially on such a sensitive anniversary.

            Now, however, that has happened, sparking anger among Tatars not only at Minnikhanov who has shown himself increasingly deaf to the demands of the Tatars but at Moscow for its increasingly hostile attitude (idelreal.org/a/dlya-chego-publichno-sech-sebya-ruslan-aysin-o-poseschenii-minnihanovym-hrama-voinam-pogibshim-pri-vzyatii-kazani/33163431.html).

            Minnikhanov’s visit to a Russian shrine may seem a small thing to many outside observers, but it is likely to prove anything but, given that it shows there are apparently no limits to what the Moscow-imposed head of Tatarstan is prepared to do to satisfy the wishes of the Kremlin at the expense of his own nation. 

Putin to Bring Back Stalin-Era Sports Parades in Red Square

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 19 – Vladimir Putin is justly criticized for his Stalinist approach to rule; but in most cases, his approach is analogous to the late Soviet dictator. However, there are exceptions in which the current Kremlin ruler is reviving activities that almost precisely those that Stalin promoted and even subsequent Soviet leaders dropped after his death.

            One of those involves the parades of athletes through Red Square, a practice started in 1919 under Lenin but became annual in 1931 after Stalin had consolidated power and then was immediately dropped in 1953 after he died (moscowtimes.ru/2024/10/19/v-rossii-vozrodyat-stalinskie-sportivnie-paradi-a145389).

            In October 2023, Putin said he favors such celebrations because they can help make sports “a norm of life” for three out of every four residents of the Russian Federation. Now, now he has directed the sports ministry to organize the first of these revivals of a Stalin practice in 2025.

            Such Soviet sports marches in Stalin’s time resembled similar marches in Hitler’s Germany, and this parallel contributed mightily to the conclusion that the two regimes, despite their hostility at one level, were manifestations of the same totalitarian approach. Putin’s revival of these celebrations will likely lead many to draw comparisons with fascist regimes. 

By Denying Russia is Now China’s Junior Partner, Putin Only Calls Attention to that New Reality, ‘Moscow Times’ Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – Sometimes a denial has the effect of calling attention to something than silence would have. Such appears to be the case with Vladimir Putin’s insistence that there is no basis for suggesting that Russia is becoming “the junior partner” of China, to judge from a new article in The Moscow Times.  

            Asked at a press conference at the BRIKS conference in Kazan whether he now considers Moscow to be “the junior partner” of Beijing, Putin said there was no basis for such suggestions because the two countries deal with each other as equals (moscowtimes.ru/2024/10/18/putin-otkazalsya-schitat-rossiyu-mladshim-partnerom-kitaya-a145379).

            The Kremlin leader’s words will disturb both those Russians who have long been accustomed to viewing Russia as the “senior” partner in this relationship and others who will see the statistics the newspaper offers that show both China’s role in Russia and Russia’s dependence on China growing.

            Among the figures The Moscow Times offers are the following:

·       The Russian economy is more dependent on China than that of any other country except for North Korea.

 

·       China is rapidly increasing its presence in the Russian economy, with Chinese firms now accounting for more than a third of all new businesses registered in Russia this year.

 

·       Moscow continues to sell gas to China at discount prices far below what it might be able to get from other countries.

 

·       China now dominates the new car market in Russia but shows no interest in building plants in Russia to manufacture them that might employ Russians.

Plans to Restore Chechen District in Dagestan by 2025 Foundering on Property Disputes

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 19 – Moscow and Makhchkala have committed themselves to restoring the Chechen district in Dagestan by 2025, something that would be possible only if most of the ethnic Laks now populating that region are resettled elsewhere. But plans for that have run into difficulties because Lak property owners are insisting on compensation for any takings.

            That district, which runs along Dagestan’s border with Chechnya, existed until 1944 when Stalin deported the Chechens. When the Chechens were permitted to return, the Aukh District was not restored. Instead, it has remained the Novo-Lak district named for the ethnic Laks who had moved there in place of the Chechens.

            After the demise of the USSR, the Chechens were promised both by Moscow and Makhachkala that they would be allowed to restore the Aukh district, that property they had owned there earlier would be restored to them, and that the Laks would be resettled elsewhere in Dagestan.

            But the Laks don’t want to leave unless all of their property claims are satisfied, they are fully compensated for any property they give up, and are provided with equivalent housing and land elsewhere in Dagestan. Not surprisingly, these competing claims are in the courts, with both Chechens and Laks saying they will carry their cases to the highest Russian courts they can.

            That makes it unlikely that this issue can be resolved anytime soon and quite possibly not before 2026 or even later. And it also means that these cases and the human tragedies they reflect will spark more serious conflicts between the Laks and the Chechens, the latter of whom have the backing of Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov.  

            (For the complicated history of this dispute and its growing potential for violence, see  kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/346298/, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/banal-corruption-reason-dagestan.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/moscow-and-makhachkala-risk-violence.html.)

Moscow Not Sending Those Convicted of Draft Evasion to Prison, ‘Vyorstka’ Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – One of the more interesting anomalies of Russian judicial action since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine is that in the course of all of 2023 and the first half of 2024, Russian courts did not send to prison any of the 1378 men they convicted of draft evasion, Vyorstka reports.

            Instead, a handful were given suspended sentences or fined 100,000 rubles (1,000 US dollars) or even more, the independent Russian news outlet says, sentences that are unlikely to cause those who want to avoid service to think again (t.me/svobodnieslova/5780 reposted and discussed at nemoskva.net/2024/10/18/ni-odin-uklonist-ne-sel-v-tyurmu/).

            The absence of real sentences for this crime, especially at a time when serving personnel are now receiving them is striking and may very well reflect concerns that imposing harsh sentences for such actions might affect the sons of too many important people or bring the costs of the war home to a larger number of Russians. 

Putin’s Russia Moving toward One Definition of Totalitarianism where Everything Not Permitted is Compulsory, Grashchenkov Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 18 – More than a half a century ago, I was privileged to take the last course Hans J. Morgenthau taught at the University of Chicago. Among the many wise things he said that have remained with me in the years since was his relating of an anecdote about the difference between democracy, authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

            Morgenthau said that there were of course many differences but he insisted that the key one was this: in a democratic political system, everything not prohibited is permitted; in an authoritarian regime, everything that not permitted is prohibited; and in a totalitarian one, everything permitted is compulsory.

            His words have come to mind on reading a new comment by Ilya Grashchenkov about Putin’s Russia in which he asks whether “everything that isn’t permitted is going to be prohibited” (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-10-18/ilya-graschenkov-teper-v-rossii-vse-chto-ne-razresheno-zaprescheno-5225612).

            That is the classic definition of authoritarianism, the head of the Center for the Development of Regional Policy says, and a good description of a political system where the vice speaker of the Duma, Anna Kuznetsova, has declared that it is time to ban not just this or that activity but “destructive information as a whole.”

            Of course, under the terms of Morgenthau’s anecdote, that would simply mean that Russia would be a full-blown authoritarian state. But because Kuznetsova doesn’t propose to specify everything that she thinks is “destructive,” the next step will be to pass a law telling Russians what they must do in all cases, the very definition of totalitarianism.

            Putin has opened the way to this outcome because he routinely talks about things that he either wants to ban or doesn’t define; and so Russians can expect that the Kremlin leader will move on from measures like the one Kuznetsova is now urging to catalogue not of what is banned but of what is permitted and therefore in most cases at least compulsory.