Russians are proud and tough, and like us also face a
major demographic and immigration crisis. Unlike us, they recognize that
immigrants are a threat
Originally appeared at American Renaissance
Americans have something to learn.
White people in the former Warsaw Pact
countries still cherish their racial and cultural identities, and their
politicians and citizens are trying to keep immigrants out. Even if we in
America and Western Europe become extensions of the Third World, the countries
behind the Iron Curtain will still be European.
I would like to discuss the most important
of these countries: the Russian Federation. Here, people feel no white guilt.
Why should they? While American blacks were demanding civil rights and
reminding whites of slavery, Soviet citizens were suffering a kind of modern
slavery. White privilege did not save the millions who disappeared in Stalin’s
labor camps, nor did it help those who starved during the famines that he and
his party bosses created. If American blacks or British Muslims had a taste of
what Soviet citizens went through in the 1930s and 1940s, they would be glad
they were American citizens and British subjects.
Prisoners
at Belbaltlag gulag camp.
Russians are proud to be Russian. Their
people have produced some of the greatest literary and intellectual giants in
the history of the West, and Russians take their greatness for granted. They
are a tough people who stopped the Grande Armée in the 19th century
and the Wehrmacht in the 20th—both considered the most fearsome
fighting forces of their time. Russians are proud and tough, and like us also
face a major demographic and immigration crisis. Unlike us, they recognize that
immigrants are a threat.
Immigrants
to the Russian Federation come mostly from the former Soviet republics, which
have sent an estimated 13 million people to Russia since the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1989. During the Soviet era, the government sent many Russians
to live in
Immigrants to the Russian Federation come
mostly from the former Soviet republics, which have sent an estimated 13
million people to Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. During
the Soviet era, the government sent many Russians to live in outlying republics
as a means of cultural and political control. In the early years after the
collapse, immigration consisted largely of these ethnic Russians streaming back
to the motherland. In 1991-92, for example, 81 percent of immigrants were
Russian, but beginning in 1994, their numbers began to decline. By 2007, ethnic
Russians represented only 32 percent of immigrants, and perhaps 10 to 13
percent of the rest were from Ukraine. The remainder were almost certainly from
former republics such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Some of these
people look almost white, but they are not Slavs, and many are culturally
Asiatic. Now the greatest number of immigrants to Russia come from these
Central Asian countries.
As in Yugoslavia after the end of
authoritarian rule, long-festering ethnic conflict flared up after the Soviet
collapse. In 1944, Stalin had removed Meskhetian Turks from his native republic
of Georgia, deporting them to Uzbekistan. In 1989, Uzbek nationalists rioted
against this group they saw as interlopers, and many Meskhetian Turks fled for
their lives, in many cases to Russia.
Another fighting that broke out in the
1990s after the Soviet collapse sent yet more refugees to Russia. During the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, both Armenians and
Azeris fled in large numbers to Russia. When Chechnya rebelled against Russian
rule, both Slavic and non-Slavic people from Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan
fled to Russia.
The demographic effects of migration are
sometimes hard to quantify because of the effects of internal migration.
Non-Slavic Russian citizens, such as Chechens, Ingush, Azeris, etc. are moving
into Western Russia and are bringing cultural problems. Because these people
hold Russian passports, their movements are not counted as immigration. Only
82.4 percent of Russian citizens are actually Slavs, and many non-Slavs seem
intent on moving into the ancestral Slavic homelands.
There are now millions of temporary workers
and illegal immigrants in Russia, though no one knows the exact number. Figures
provided by the Russian Federal Migration Service and Human Rights Watch range
from three to 10 million.
The Western media portray Russia in a very
negative light, but life in Russia is much better than in Central Asia or in
the Caucasus Mountains. In Moscow and other major Russian cities, migrants
enjoy a higher standard of living than would be possible in their home
countries. Typically, Central Asians work in the short-term labor market as
construction workers, restaurant workers, and in small workshops in private
homes. As the Russian migrant rights activist Lidiya Grafova put it (yes, even
Russia has such people), it is good for business to hire cheap, powerless
Tajiks.
The Russian view of immigrants
Russians do not like immigrants from the
Caucasus and Central Asia, nor do they care much for their own Muslim citizens.
Articles posted on Human Rights Watch and the liberal, Moscow-based SOVA Center
for Information and Analysis suggest that Russians frequently attack
immigrants. However, it is clear from the conversation with Russians and from
local news stories that immigrants victimize Russians just as Mexicans and
blacks victimize whites in America. According to Moscow’s commissioner of
police, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, migrants are responsible for 70 percent of the
crime in that city, and the crime rate keeps growing. He noted that Central
Asians are especially prone to rape, and that rape had increased 79 percent
from 2013 to 2014. Attacks and robberies by Central Asians are a staple of
conversation in big cities.
Russians especially dislike Chechens.
During the Chechen wars of the 1990s and 2000s, the Western media portrayed
Chechens as the good guys fighting for independence. Chechens, with help from
Islamic insurgents from the Middle East, terrorized the local civilians, used
women and children as human shields, kidnapped and tortured civilians, and
killed Russian prisoners-of-war.
Chechnya has also gone through a kind of
ethnic cleansing. In 1989, the census counted 269,130 Russians and 11,884
Ukrainians in Chechnya, together making up 25.9 percent of the population. As
of 2010, virtually all of those people were gone—either dead or driven away by
Chechen death squads and Arab helpers—and Russians and Ukrainians now make up
barely 3 percent of the population.
In addition to Central Asian and Caucasian
immigration, there are rumors that Siberia is turning Chinese. Much of this
information is unreliable or speculative, but if even a fraction of what is
said about Chinese moving into Siberia is true, the Russian Federation faces
serious, long-term problems in the East. Estimates of the number of Chinese
living in Siberia vary, ranging from Russian figures of 35,000 up to Taiwanese
claims of one million. In any case, China is a lot closer to Siberia than
European Russia is, meaning that China can more easily project force into a
region that is rich in coal, iron, manganese, lumber, and petroleum. If China
has, say, a few hundred thousand citizens in Siberia, that constitutes a fifth
column in a region with few Russians. If China’s governing elite needs an
outside enemy to distract the people’s attention from problems at home, a
defenseless and rich Siberia would be a good place to start a conflict.
Russia and China now act as though they are
great allies, but they are united only by the fact that they hate the United
States. An alliance based on mutual hatred of a third party is a weak one that
can easily fall apart. The fact that China is still smarting from a long period
of foreign colonialism, in which Russia exploited the Chinese just as much as
the British or the Japanese, makes the Chinese a very dangerous partner for the
Russians.
How Russians deal with immigrants
Because of the migrant waves of the last
decade, the Chechen wars, and rumors of the Chinese influx into Siberia,
Russians insist that the government take action. In 2011, Vladimir Putin banned
foreign laborers from working as traders in kiosks and markets, and those who
break this law can be deported. Since 2013, 513,000 foreigners have been
deported by Russian courts, and 1.7 million have been banned from re-entering
the country. A deportation hearing takes between three and five minutes, with
the judge ruling against the defendant 70 percent of the time. After the judge
issues his ruling the violator has no right of appeal and is quickly expelled.
Russia uses deportation and immigration as
a political weapon. In September 2006, Georgia arrested four Russian officers
for espionage. The Kremlin took great offense and claimed the officers were not
spies. Russia recalled its ambassador and then cut all rail, road, and sea
links to Georgia and stopped issuing visas to Georgian citizens. This was
followed by several high-profile raids on Georgian businesses and places where
Georgians congregate. In two months 2,380 Georgians were deported and another
2,000 returned on their own. The Russians officers arrested by Georgia were
home in just a few days. There are lessons here for the United States.
Russians are still not satisfied with
government action against immigrants. This is not surprising, given the
corruption and inefficiency of Russian government institutions. Russians are
therefore starting to take matters into their own hands.
On two different occasions in 2010, groups
of Chechen men attacked and killed Russian citizens. In both cases, the killers
were initially let off, amid suspicions that Chechens had bribed the police (a
year later, one of the killers was eventually convicted). Russians were furious
over the killings, and on December 11th there were protests across the country.
The largest was in Moscow, where as many as 50,000 people may have taken part.
The protest soon turned into a riot and Russians began attacking immigrants,
killing 24 and injuring many more.
In 2013, there were further
riots in Biryulyovo, just south of Moscow, after an Azeri man
stabbed a Russian to death. Rioters shouted “White Power” and “Russia for
Russians.” Some ransacked a wholesale vegetable market looking for immigrants
to attack.
When the police do not do a good enough job
of enforcing immigration law, Russians enforce it themselves. In April 2016,
activists from the National Conservative Movement organized a project called
“We Are Moscow,” in which they checked the documents of immigrant food sellers
and turned violators over to the police. Similar raids on illegal food sellers
have been carried out in St. Petersburg. In August, activists joined
police in a sweep of homes of illegal immigrants in St. Petersburg, dragging
them out into the streets and arresting them.
Russians have long memories of invaders.
They suffered under the Mongolian Golden Horde and later at the hands of the
Poles after the death of Ivan IV. They remember the French and the German
invasions, and in today’s Central Asian immigrants they see the modern
equivalent of the Golden Horde. Russians still have pride in their nation and
people and have a government that is at least moderately responsive to their
desires. Even if the United States loses its European character, Russians are
determined to remain masters in their own home.
