Friday, January 31, 2020

Uzbeks Today Don’t Call Those Who Resisted Soviets ‘Basmachis;’ They Call Them ‘National Heroes,’ Rasulov Says


Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 26 – Abdulla Rasulov, a professor at Namangan State University who received his academic training as a specialist on the 1920s and specifically the role of Tatars in Central Asia, says that Uzbeks no longer call those who resisted Soviet power “basmachis,” a derogatory term Moscow insisted on but rather “fighters for national liberation.”

            In an extensive interview with Kazan’s Business-Gazeta, the Uzbek historian describes the remarkably open intellectual life he experienced in Tatarstan in the 1980s and something of his research into the role Tatars from the Middle Volga played in the extension of Soviet power to Central Asia (business-gazeta.ru/article/455061).

            Some Uzbeks still believe that the Tatars were used by Moscow not to provide assistance to the peoples of Turkestan but rather as part of “the colonial policy of the Bolsheviks,” Rasulov says. But one must keep in mind that the Tatars who did come to Central Asia at that time “really believed in the ideals of communism” and thought they were helping the Turkestanis.

            At the same time, the Namagan historian points out, “there were cases when the Tatars took part” in helping the peoples of Turkestan to resist Moscow. They too were fired by high ideals, at least in most cases. But the actions of all involved must be put in the context of the times, Rasulov continues.
           
            Perhaps his most intriguing comments concern Soviet military commander Mikhail Frunze and Tatar national communist Mirsaid Sultan-Galiyev and the preference many Central Asian leaders showed for taking Tatar women as their wives.

            Frunze, Rasuloov says, “knew well the customs, language and psychology of the Muslim population because he was a native of these places.” And there is a report that on at least one occasion, he delivered a speech to the Tatar brigade in Tatar, an action that pleased and inspired its members.

            There is also a remarkable story about the Soviet conquest of Bukhara.  Frunze’s forces were having no luck penetrating the city’s walls. He then suggested that the soldiers begin to chant “there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is His prophet.” Once that happened, the Bukharans opened the gates to them. That is how Soviet power came to the emirate!

            The Bolsheviks also employed other methods many of which were less clever and morally defensible. They made promises of safety to their opponents and then killed them a few days after they surrendered. That too is part of the history of the fight in Central Asia in which the Tatars were involved.

            Sultan-Galiyev “did a lot,” Rasulov says. “But he was the victim of Stalin’s repressive machine. Sultan-Galiyev wanted that the Turkic republics receive full status, integrate among themselves, and develop. He called for the equality of all peoples so that there wouldn’t be any national republics of second or third class. But this didn’t happen.”

            And Tatars were active players on the cultural front, not only in editing early Central Asian newspapers and journals but also as wives of party leaders. 

            Senior officials in Turkestan “preferred to marry Tatar women.” Their attractions included that they “were more independent, had their own opinioin and could speak with men as equals but never go beyond the limits.” Among the most famous of these was the mother of Chingiz Aitmatov, Nagim Abdulvaliyeva.

            Rasulov says that he is developing the field of Tatar studies in Uzbekistan. It now includes two of his students and his daughter as well as three or four other scholars.  He himself is planning to prepare a major monograph summarizing this work under the title The Tatars in Central Asia.

            Asked about his impressions of changes in Kazan since the 1980s, the Uzbek historian says that it has become “a contemporary, almost European city but that relations among people have become other than they were, market-oriented. There is not the sincerity and simplicity there was earlier.”

            Moreover, he continues, the theater is now in Russian rather than Tatar and while there are more books in Tatar available, it is far from clear whether they are being read.  But “perhaps,” he concedes, these reactions are only subjective. “I don’t know, Rasulov concludes.

MASHR Rights Group Says Cases Against Ingush Activists ‘Baseless and Politically Motivated’


Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 26 – Having been unable to prove their original charges and forced to dream up charges of an extremist conspiracy against eight leaders of the Ingush protest movement, the Ingush and Russian authorities have shown conclusively that all the charges they have brought are “baseless and politically motivated,” according to the MASHR Human Rights Group.

            That Ingush organization has released a statement saying that those actions like the ones directed at the liquidation of the Spiritual Center for Muslims of the Republic of Ingushetia, the Council of Teips of the Ingush People, the Ingush Committee of National Unity and other NGOs are “nothing but an anti-constitutional struggle with the Ingush people” (kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/342/posts/41490).

            “We demand an end to the illegal persecution of the participants of popular protest in Ingushetia,” MASHR says.

            Volunteers for the prisoner assistance group, First Aid, are speaking out about the efforts of the authorities to get them to describe their activities and to give them up. The volunteers say that they have consistently maintained that they are doing nothing wrong and that they are glad they can do what they are doing to help those behind bars (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/345128/).

            The group has released a video about its activities which include collecting money and goods from throughout the republic and then three times a month taking packages of goods of “first” necessity to the prisoners and also doing what it can to help the families of those behind bars who have often been left without a breadwinner (kavkaz-uzel.eu/videos/5512).

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Moscow Policies Set the Stage for Leningrad Oblast to Become ‘a Second Shiyes’


Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 25 – After anti-trash protests eased in Moscow oblast with the authorities promising that wastes would be sent further away from the capital, many in the Russian government comforted themselves with the fact that environmental protests were taking place mostly far from the megalopolises and thus represented less of a challenge.

            But now, Boris Livanov of the MNews portal, says, Russian policies are setting the stage for Shiyes-type protests to re-emerge in Leningrad Oblast, the region around St. Petersburg that many Russians have long used as a vacation destination (mnews.world/ru/natsionalnaya-ideya-protiv-kolchatoj-nerpy-v-lenoblasti-mozhet-vspyhnut-vtoroj-shies/).

            The reason for that conclusion, he says, lies in the fact that two investors have put ten billion rubles (150 million US dollars) into a project involving the use of a newly expanded port to export coal, something not approved by the local authorities but included in the nearly sacred “national plans” of Moscow and thus likely to go ahead regardless of protests.

            Local people and environmental activists are protesting the purchase in court as a violation of Russian anti-monopoly laws and calling attention to the impact of coal dust on the surrounding land and the Gulf of Finland where contamination will kill off many species of animal life.

            The activists have expert assessments on their side. Oblast level officials claim to have expert assessments showing something else but have not released them, and they are giving the green light to the project despite the consequences.  That has infuriated residents of the oblast and the northern capital.

            All this clearly shows, the MNews commentator continues, that “those protesting do not intend to stop and will seek a ban on construction [of the coal terminals not listed in the original plans] by all available means.” And they have been encouraged in this by the visit of Greta Thurnberg to St. Petersburg last month. 

            Moscow has been trying to quiet the situation by promising that no final decision on the coal exporting facilities has been made. But Livanov says it is highly improbable that the two Russian investors would have put so much money down “if they weren’t certain” that the coal terminals will be built.

            As a result, he concludes, the authorities are creating the conditions for “a second Shiyes” – and one certain to garner more attention because it is closer to a major city and has more international support and one that may become the driver of a new round of environmental demonstrations as the weather warms up.