Moscow’s Suppression of Efforts to Form a Union Republic of Siberian Turks Recalled

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Oct. 31 – One of the biggest challenges the numerically smallest peoples of the Russian Federation face is combining together so that they are sufficiently large to be able to defend themselves against Moscow’s assimilationist agenda. Not surprisingly, many of them are looking back to the 1920s when such efforts seemed possible.
    The Asians of Russia portal discusses how the indigenous Turkic peoples of Southern Siberia – the Khakass, the Altai, the Shors, and others tried to form a single common Turkic state within the USSR but one that Moscow viewed as secession and stamped out during the Great Terror (asiansofrussia.com/delo-soyuza-sibirskih-tyurok-obedinenie-narodov-sayano-altaya/).
    The details the portal provides are primarily of interest only to experts and to members of these communities. What is important and noteworthy, however, is that the Turkic peoples then and now recognized that they would have to form a common state structure in order to survive and that Moscow was committed then and now not to allowing that to happen.
    This is a challenge many of the smaller nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation face to this day and will face if Russia moves toward a genuine federation or disintegrates. And it is important that the peoples involved both recognize this obstacle to their survival and that Moscow has in the past and will in the future make sure remains in place.