Interview with Botakoz Kassymbekova | Ukraine’s victory must be decisive and durable
Oleksandr Pankieiev: My first question is relatively simple but also quite complex. You coined the term “imperial innocence,” which you apply to both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Would you please unpack this concept?
Botakoz Kassymbekova: “Imperial innocence” is not simply a propaganda device, because imperial innocence is not simply a state-level phenomenon. It has permeated throughout Russian identity—a deep belief in one’s own innocence and martyrdom, it is the linking of goodness and rightness with Russianness. When the Russian government “plays innocent”—such as by saying they are saving Ukraine from evil—it understands and knows what it is doing, being more cynical in this regard—but I was more interested in the “imperial innocence” that is found in Russian society.
For example, on many occasions over the years when I discussed the Soviet past, a typical reaction from older and younger generations was “but we sacrificed ourselves for you,” meaning they suffered while bringing civilization to us (because it was not easy), and how can we be ungrateful? This is also a discourse accompanying the full-scale invasion, where the Russian state communicated that it “developed” Ukraine so it had the moral right to destroy it if they did not receive gratitude for their (earlier) goodness.
That focus on “goodness” effectively obstructs critical discussion of the Soviet and colonial past. For example, even in discussions of Stalinism, which also affected many Russians, the focus is on victimhood, innocence, and sacrifice rather than its causes. In the context of discussing Russian colonialism, it prevents people from realizing that the Soviet Union privileged the Russian nation and did not “liberate” former colonial peripheries of the Tsarist Empire but were, in reality, a source of illegitimate violence, suffering, and abuse. This deep Russian identity, which combines innocence and sacrifice, prevents people from seeing the colonial nature of the Russian Empire and Russian culture. I realized that people deeply believe in the righteousness and innocence of Russian culture and society and that “Russianness” is about “being good.” It struck me, and I realized that is why it is so difficult to talk about colonialism. This was before the full-scale invasion, but even three years after the full-scale invasion, it has turned out that this identity is still powerful, and I do not see any significant changes.
Pankieiev: When we speak about “imperial innocence,” what are its intellectual and social underpinnings? How has it formed over time?
Kassymbekova: We just acquired some books for our library, and I was looking through some of the Russian titles. The narrative that we are a multi-ethnic society is very strong. We are a multi-ethnic country, and we co-opted people of different nationalities and different ethnicities, more or less peacefully. For a long time, academia—including the influence of Russian discourse on Western academic thought—indirectly promoted the idea that the Russian Empire was unique because of its tolerance and ability to make deals with the colonized. For example, the “religious tolerance of Catherine II” was commonly emphasized, and there is also the notion that the dominant Russian culture co-opted peoples voluntarily, as if it did not involve violence. Then, there is the idea that Russia was good for other peoples and that they chose to be part of the empire.
After the defeat of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union did not collapse due to prolonged anti-colonial wars, so there were no political processes to break up the continuation of imperial social and academic narratives. As you know, these political events are significant to how we think. The Soviet Union collapsed mostly because it did not work anymore. There is also the issue of how colonialism is understood through a Western lens, which sets certain standards for what constitutes a “colonial empire” or not. This was then applied to the Soviet Empire.
Pankieiev: This leads to my next question. You mentioned that we have a model of colonialism accepted in Western academia to determine whether any particular power is “colonial.” However, Russia has generally not been seen as a case study of colonialism in Western academia. It has been discussed, but it has never become a mainstream topic. Why is this? Why has the West failed to include Russia in the colonial discourse so far?
Kassymbekova: This is an excellent question, and it is important to point out that some people did consider it colonial, but they were stamped as “Cold Warriors.” I believe this question has to do with certain intellectual traditions. Those from leftist Marxist traditions were more interested in socialism. The United States played a dominant role in shaping knowledge about Eastern Europe, with much European work aligning itself with what was written in the United States.
American scholars primarily viewed the issue through the lens of “capitalism versus socialism”: under capitalism it was one way, and under socialism another way. These scholars did not have an imperial perspective or perceive themselves as a colonial empire. As a result, they understood the Soviet Union as basically a version of the United States that had chosen socialism instead of capitalism. To them, the Soviet Union was simply an example of what would happen if socialism came to the United States. They focused on the socialist system and the social structure. They interpreted the Soviet Empire as a mirror image of themselves, and because they did not see America’s own colonialism, they were not interested in this topic.
Ironically, the view of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was imperial in and of itself. Subconsciously, the scholars and policymakers understood that the Soviet empire was a highly centralized place and that Moscow decided the development of the rest. This is why a lot of effort was invested into studying Moscow—the metropole—as opposed to any other region, because all the decisions were made there. Everyone knew that the peripheries existed, but they were more challenging to study in practice, and moreover, studying them was considered less important.
Of course, there was also the Marxist idea that capitalism is the source of colonialism and that socialism would put an end to it. Socialist movements in Europe and the United States positioned themselves as anti-colonial and, in turn, believed that Soviet socialism was also anti-colonial in its own way. This notion, that only under capitalism can we have colonialism, became something of a dogma. All the same, I need to point out that there were people who said that the Soviet Union was colonial, but they were not heard.
Pankieiev: This is related to the current conversation about decolonization, which is gaining prominence. Various approaches and interpretations exist of the decolonization of Russia and of Russian studies. From your perspective, what is it?
Kassymbekova: Decolonization is about understanding how colonialism shaped the social, cultural, and political life of the colonized and the colonizers—and about addressing those legacies in order to undo the damage inflicted. It is about questioning the structures and knowledge that helped to uphold the colonial domination. It is also the study of colonialism, explaining what Soviet colonialism was but also sharpening the eye to the colonial structures—because they affected every single sphere of life during the Soviet times.
I myself did not talk about decolonization before the full-scale invasion, simply because I disagreed with a lot of the arguments that use that terminology. For example, many decolonial ideas come from Latin American scholars, who tend to postulate capitalism as the source of colonialism. I disagree with this framework, because socialism can also be colonial, not simply an economic system. Moreover, Russia was never capitalist—a lot of people now say that Russia is capitalist, but I disagree with this. Capitalism does not simply occur, it has to be created. The end of Communism does not automatically create capitalism. Russia is not capitalist, simply because it has no trustworthy private property regime. Capitalism is not merely an economic system but also a legal and political one.
Another part of decolonization is to include people who suffered from colonial domination in conversations about colonialism. I remember an academic event in Germany in April 2022, when a Russian scholar was invited to speak about the full-scale invasion. The scholar did not mention Ukraine at all and spoke about Moscow primarily. This is an opposite example of decolonization; it was totally a colonial action. At the same time, I disagree with the idea that only people who experienced colonialism can understand it. I have colleagues from the United States and Germany and Switzerland—including older and younger white men—who understand colonialism, including socialist colonialism. They do not need to have first-hand experience of colonialism and discrimination to understand it—they just have to be open-minded and without a colonial mindset themselves.
I now believe that it is important to use the term decolonization, even if I disagree with some of its theories or approaches, because it is normal to have diversity in how we interpret the world, but also because I want people outside of our region—people in Latin America, on the African continent, and in Southeast Asia—to understand that we deal with colonialism too.
Pankieiev: What strikes me also is that many members of the Russian opposition now in the West are vigorously speaking against the decolonization of Russia. I understand that they have a completely different notion of decolonization and are afraid—not of the notion per se but the consequences of decolonization. Could you speak about that part of Russian society abroad and why they are so fearful of decolonization?
Kassymbekova: The recent meeting of Yulia Navalnaya with the economists Konstantin Sonin and Sergei Guriev showed precisely why they are afraid of decolonization. They promised the West that Russia would pay reparations, and the idea behind this promise is that they (in the future) must have control over its natural resources as well as all those in the territories of colonized nations. Simply put, it is about money. The Russian opposition’s discourse is all about money—not the carnage that Moscow inflicts on its neighbours and colonized nations. They criticize Putin for corruption and they think that they can fix the problems with money, but they overlook the violence. Navalnaya even said, “We will find all of them,” meaning those who speak of decolonization, and she used this sentence as a threat. She used the same rhetoric as Putin when he first became president and started the war on Chechnya—with the sentence “We will find them…”
Recently, the Kremlin had this idea for restructuring the Russian Federation, where they would eliminate all of the republics and divide Russia not according to ethnic groups but introduce instead a grid, like in the United States. And some Russian liberal intellectuals endorsed the same plan. They want to redraw the map of the Russian Federation to eliminate national republics, because they fear the national republics’ claim to independence. They aim to maintain the Russian Empire and have Moscow as the centre that dictates. We can observe this from the fact that the Russian opposition never meets and shares any platform on equal footing with representatives from national-minority opposition groups—like the Tatar, Chechen, or Kalmyk opposition. They are not interested in an actual federation, which can only be built on equal dialogue. From what I have observed, the dissidents and opposition activists from the federation’s national republics have realized that the Russian opposition based in metropolitan Moscow is imperially minded.
The Russian opposition has the colonial point of view that the national republics’ voices are all arguing for separatism, nationalism, and so on. The same was done under Stalin, when the intellectual elites of those Soviet national republics were murdered and suppressed for sovereign thinking.
Pankieiev: In those Russian Federation republics right now, I understand that it is almost impossible to voice any resistance, and that is why, from the outside, you can hardly see these movements. Do you think there is any real possibility for the awakening of national movements in those republics? Because right now, they are so strongly disputed and manipulated. Not only is the Russian opposition afraid, but sometimes even Western leaders are afraid. When the USSR collapsed, the West was actually against the independence of some of the national republics. The West believed such a process could destroy the global order and create challenges for dealing with independent republics that controlled certain critical resources.
Kassymbekova: This is a very good question. It is different for different regions, but there is an awakening taking place. Networks have been established, and there has been a huge change in the political imagination. For example, when the Sakha people first arrived in Central Asia—which they had never before visited—the first thing that they said was, “Oh, we didn’t know that we can live in dignity.” They started imagining a trajectory of independence for their republics. Currently, Russian illiberal and liberal discourse states that national republics cannot become independent because the so-called titular nationality (a Soviet colonial category for the indigenous people) are a minority. But Kazakhs were also reduced to an ethnic minority in Soviet Kazakhstan, and still independence was possible. It is a big surprise for many of them, and they talk to their friends and relatives back home about it.
Pankieiev: You mentioned that before February 2022, you had some hesitation about discussing the notion of decolonization. After 2022, to what extent did Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine spark these movements and conversations? And if Russia actually achieves some of its goals in this war, to what extent will it affect the decolonization movement?
Kassymbekova: It will directly affect the situation. Just as it did in 1991, Ukraine shall decide the fate of the whole region—Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Federation’s colonized national republics. There was a widespread hope that Ukraine would win. For example, Central Asian states and their officials became emboldened and, to an extent, contested Putin. However, they became silent once the battlefield was no longer in Ukraine’s favour. Everything on the battlefield has so many repercussions for the whole region, and, of course, if a kind of Cold War situation emerges, people who are now activists will all simply be marginalized and pushed into the underground, as past dissidents were after the Second World War. The future of this movement is directly connected to the outcome in Ukraine.I was at the ASEEES conference at Stanford, where a very well dressed person complained throughout the conference about there being so much “Russia-bashing,” yet nobody could identify him. It is interesting how this idea of “Russia-bashing,” which is Kremlin-tailored disinformation and a marginalization strategy, has penetrated academic circles. Some excellent scholars whom I greatly respected told me privately, “There is so much Russia-bashing. We need to talk about how great Russia is or how wonderful people are there.” It intrigued me. I responded, “Do you understand that this is a propaganda technique to suppress critical thinking?” Being critical of dictatorship and colonialism is not “bashing.” Does academia have a concept of Hitler-bashing? Do we have colonialism-bashing? It does not exist. Germans themselves are the most critical of Germany right now. In the year 2024 there was not even a single book that was very critical of Russian society or Russian colonialism
