For Opposition to Putin’s War, Look to the Fringes of His Empire

Consider the Buryats, one of Siberia’s largest Indigenous groups. Closely related to Mongolians, they were subjugated, annexed, and subsequently colonized by Russia in the 1600s. Russian independent news outlets Mediazona and iStories found that by mid-May, Buryatia had the second-highest number of soldiers killed in Ukraine since the start of the invasion—just after Dagestan, another conquest of the Russian Empire. By May 18, Buryatia had lost 117 soldiers (the actual number is likely higher), whereas the city of Moscow, with a population around 15 times Buryatia’s, lost only three. Relative to the population, Buryatia’s rate of battle deaths was the highest in all of Russia. Go through Russian war casualties, and the preponderance of Muslim names—mainly from units raised in Dagestan and other North Caucasus republics—is striking. Russians of Central Asian ethnicity are disproportionately dying as well: At least 10 ethnic Tajiks have already been killed in Ukraine while fighting for Russia.

Prompted by Putin’s ludicrous claims about “de-Nazifying” Ukraine and the Russian state media’s nakedly fascist narratives, Alexandra Garmazhapova, a former journalist and co-founder of Buryats Against War, began to crowdsource first-person experiences of non-ethnic Russians. The response was overwhelming: Thousands of Kazakhs, Yakuts, Dagestanis, and other nonwhite Russians flooded her Instagram inbox with horrific accounts of xenophobic and racist abuse by their ethnic Russian colleagues, classmates, neighbors, and strangers. Another activist, the Yakut film director Beata Bashkiroff, gathered a similar collection of testimonies and came to the conclusion that it is Russia itself that needs to be “de-Nazified.”

As activists from Russia’s Indigenous lands are rediscovering their ancestral heritage and languages suppressed by colonialist policies—or simply considered unfashionable or inimical to one’s career—they are now also motivated by an anger that their status as imperial subjects has turned into a matter of life and death.

Here you are thoughtfully "explaining" China to another FReeper back in 2006...the advice to communist party leaders paraphrasing Chairman Mao at the end is a nice touch.

China In Revolt

The Chinese don't really think too much about these things because it doesn't do much to improve their material lives, not because they believe in collective efforts. If collective effort were their thing, Communism should have succeeded beyond Marx's wildest dreams in China. The reality is that under Communism, China goofed off because nobody wanted to work harder than the next guy for the same bowl of rice and (Chinese) pickles. Now that you get paid more the harder you work, the ancient Chinese work ethic, not flair for collective work, is coming out of its shell.

Now that it's acceptable to acquire status symbols that flaunt your superior status in life, compared to your neighbors, ordinary Chinese are starting to work long hours - hours that would have been unthinkable in Communist work units. (One upmanship, not humility, is a traditional Chinese value - the first is the reality as practiced over most of Chinese history, whereas the second is the theory taught in Chinese ethics texts).

Bottom line is that Chinese are fiercely entrepreneurial and competitive (with each other). Communism kept this suppressed for a while. It is this competitive spirit that will bring China out of its economic slumber. At the same time it is also what endangers the Party - there are political contenders who see clearly that the Party is just another in a millennia-long line of power-seekers. The idea "I could do that job - probably better" along with sufficient organizational skills and charisma is how previous contenders to the Dragon Throne have won power in the past. The Chinese are attached to the idea that there should be a unitary Chinese state. Historically, they have not exhibited as strong an attachment to the idea that a particular faction should be in charge.

This is why the Party will need to be vigilant to maintain its power. It is also why it seems to overreact to every provocation. Because a single spark can start a prairie fire.

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