‘Only Non-Russian Republics have Strength to Overthrow Russian Government,’ Bashkir Activist Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 10 – Eight years ago, I wrote an article for the then-new Region.Expert Tallinn portal entitled “Regionalism is the Nationalism of the Next Russian Revolution” (region.expert/regionalism-next-nationalism/; for the English-language original of that essay, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/regionalism-isnt-separatism-as.html).
    Now, Vadim Shtepa, the editor of Region.Expert, points out that the Putin regime has so suppressed the regions of the Russian Federation that at least for the time being there is no political life worthy of the name going on there (svoboda.org/a/zamorozhennaya-politika-vadim-shtepa-ob-otsutstvii-sobytiy/33221703.html reposted at region.expert/no-events/).
    And Bashkir activist Aigul Lyon, who has lived for a long time in the US, argues that “today, only national republics have the strength to overthrow the Russian government” (lb.ua/world/2024/12/07/648825_bashkirska_aktivistka_aygul_lion.html, translated into English at abn.org.ua/en/liberation-movements/bashkir-activist-aigul-lyon-today-only-national-republics-have-the-strength-to-overthrow-the-russian-government/).
    No one who follows events in the Russian Federation can deny that Putin has had more success in suppressing regionalist challenges than he has in eliminating nationalism among the non-Russian minorities or that at least for the present only the latter appear to be the prime movers for secessionist challenges to Moscow.
    Nor can anyone fail to recognize that those in the West have devoted more attention to the non-Russians as the source of such challenges at least in part because of the analogies such analysts and policy makers continue to make with the events of 1991 when the USSR fell apart on the basis of union republics.
    But the arguments of Shtepa and Lyon should prompt those now talking about the disintegration of the Russian Federation to consider whether that is more possible if only the non-Russian republics are viewed as the challengers, given their small size and dispersed locations or if helping the regions is an important means to that end.
    Some in fact have argued that regional activism is a prerequisite for the disintegration of the Russian Federation (e.g., windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/in-war-for-consciousness-of-russias.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/09/decolonization-far-more-likely-to.html).
    If they are correct, then Shtepa’s conclusion about the suppression of political life in the predominantly ethnic Russian regions suggests that the demise of the Russian Federation is unlikely as close as many advocates say or as the Kremlin invokes as a scarecrow to justify its actions.