Hello, here is the current version of my essay that is focused on answering a question "How has the legacy of colonialism influenced the development and dynamics of racism in Russia?"

My commets are noted with #, it is also divided into parts. DO NOT DO ANYTHING YET, THIS TEXT IS JUST FOR YOUR INFORMATION

[PART 1]
Russia has an extensive history of imperialism and colonial expansion. The aftermath of the Soviet Union collapse led to the Russian Federation becoming the primary beneficiary, inheriting most of the territory notably Moscow, which, according to Panayi, was the central control point of the USSR (2020). As various states gained their independence in the process, post-colonialism emerged as a prevalent issue. Consequently, with the globalization and dissemination of Western ideas the problem of race-based power dynamics in modern Russia received public attention.

Before delving into discussions on racism, it is imperative to establish a clear definition. For the purposes of this discussion, racism is construed as a form of discrimination against individuals based on their race, typically involving a contrived hierarchy of races. This discrimination encompasses criminalization, everyday social and political pressure, verbal and physical abuse. Logically, it is equally important to establish the definition of race. In the context of this essay, race is construed as a social concept that is used to differentiate people into groups based on a collection of phenotypical traits, such as skin color and facial features. Racial hierarchy, then, denotes an ordering of races in a social structure that elevates some while oppressing others.

The topic of racism towards certain groups in contemporary Russia is a pressing matter. Particularly for migrant workers from Central Asia, who, According to the research of Kuznetsova and Round, grapple with racism as a daily struggle (2018). Researchers claim that the issue extends beyond interactions with citizens, to include encounters with the state institutions and the police. In other words, on top of the constant unpleasant interactions with locals, the victims of racism constantly fear the persecution from the law enforcement agencies based on their appearance and origin. This highlights not only the relevance of the problem, but also deeply ingrained racism in the Russian culture and society to the point that it almost becomes constitutionalized. They argue that this indicates Russia’s “deeply rooted imperial views”, a critical statement that will drive the ensuing discussion.

What distinguishes the Russia’s case is that the racism manifests in Russian views less so as a feeling of superiority and more so as a fear of the “other” (Shnirelman, 2008). The enduring legacy of colonialism in Russia has shaped the development of racism, as the perceived threat to the rights and freedoms of white Russians is rooted in the post-Soviet collapse, where racist notions of "Russianness" emerged as a response and substitute for the lost Soviet identity, exacerbated by general lack of education on the topic and economic dependencies of post-colonial states leading to an influx of migrants. This perpetuation of racism in contemporary Russia is further fueled by political instability and the perceived powerlessness of the population following the collapse of the empire.

[PART 2]
As a solution to the existing national disunity, the Soviet Union attempted to unite the diverse group of people of different races and nationalities through creation of the new “Soviet Identity”.  Ideally, people would identify themselves first as “Soviet” and second as part of some other group. As Zakharov puts it: “Class could be changed, class conscience could be overcome, and nationalities would die out, but partiynost’ [Sovietness] was the human essence that could not be imposed from the outside”. In other words, unlike other identifiers such as class or nationality, the Sovietness of a person was something intrinsic and unchangeable. This, however, did not lead to the disappearance of the aforementioned other identifiers such as race; instead, the Sovietness acted as a veil that served to draw the public attention away from them.   

Contrary to the prevailing belief that the Soviet Union was a raceless society, the idea of “race” did indeed exist within its ideological framework, albeit was not studied extensively. According to Zakharov’s insights, the issue of race was relegated to the periphery of academic discourse, being deemed “of marginal significance” by the scholars of the time (2015). Consequently, This marginalization reached official institutions, where race was not even officially recognized as a classification category for the diverse population of Russia. Effectively, the understanding of race within the Soviet Union was confined mainly to social scientists which represented only a small fraction of the population. This resulted in collective unawareness of racism. 

Interestingly, this situation contradicts the prevalent anti-fascist propaganda of the time. In spite of the demonization of fascism, “racism was paradoxically not presented as a social problem in public discourse” (Zakharov, 2015). It was not necessarily the case that racism did not exist during the times; rather, it was conspicuously absent from public conversations. This neglect of the topic in scientific research perpetuated an educational gap in USSR. To this day, race-related topics in schools of post-Soviet space is taught on a rudimentary level while racism often remains entirely omitted. Zakharov's quoted interview vividly illustrates this unawareness, recounting incidents where individuals could engage in racially motivated physical violence without recognizing the racism inherent in their behavior (2015). This further illustrates the unawareness of racism of the general public. 

In essence, it wasn't that Soviet society was devoid of racial considerations or that racism didn't exist within its borders; rather, the public lacked the means and educational framework to identify and comprehend the issue, leading to a collective obliviousness. 

[PART 3]
This collective avoidance of the concept of race was not exclusive to the educational realm, but also permeated the political landscape. According to Hirsch’s analysis, the notion of race did exist in the Soviet Union, however as opposed to Nazis, USSR did not practice racial politics; rather it was more focused on the politics of nationality (2002). This is where it is needed to draw a clear distinction between nationality politics of the Soviet regime and racial politics of the Nazis. 

Unlike Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union “did not brand particular nationalities as biological inferiors or degenerate races” (Hirsch, 2002). The goal of the nationality politics was not to pose a group of people as the superior nor it was to use nationality as a sole justification for genocide. Instead, the state persecuted people of nationalities that “could not be "re-invented" as Soviet nations” (Hirsch, 2002). Here, Hirsch explains the core idea of the practices of ethnic cleansing performed in USSR: to develop the Soviet identity and to hinder the growth of national consciousness that was seen as the driving force of Nazi Germany. This means that even though on the surface level it may seem that the outcomes of both were similar, the message that these politics conveyed differed drastically. The racial explicitly targets groups because they are lesser and inferior, while the national targets people because they are a threat to the status quo, without any implication of a hierarchy. This is supported by Panayi who labels these measures as “acts of persecution against those perceived as treacherous…” (2020). This further highlights the motive of protection against traitors behind the national politics. The distinction is crucial, therefore, to understand how this policies affected the views of the people of modern Russia. The practices of the Soviet regime translated to the views of “other” nations and their consciousnesses as a threat to the Russian population.

[PART 4]
Despite all of the efforts, the Soviet Union eventually collapsed. The carefully crafted and curated Soviet identity followed the USSR and ceased to exist. As a result, the post-Soviet space had to face a large-scale identity shift to replace the missing Sovietness. The consequent “search for new identifications” is regarded as one of the main facilitators of the racialization processes in the Russian Federation (Zakharov, 2015). Even though it is evident that the Soviet Union attempted to dissolve the common identifiers such as nationality, ultimately the territory of the former Soviet state was divided into nation-states.

Even though from one side nationalism became the solution for the tough times of the unfolding identity crisis, on the other one it turned into the main driving force of the perpetuation of racism inside Russia. In these circumstances, nationalism in the weakened nation-state began to transform from a progressive force into a reactionary one, filled with the spirit of xenophobia and racism (Shnirelman, 2008). Shnirelman calls this phenomenon a “postcolonial syndrome”. One of the symptoms of this syndrome is the rise in popularity of the racist movements such as skinheads. Membership of skinhead racist gangs in Russia is estimated to be half of the total skinhead movement worldwide (Zakharov, 2015). #finish the paragraph about the racism in common population

In Russia, migrants are viewed as a threat to so-called ethnodemographic balance. In the eyes of the society of Russia, the image of migrants is inextricably linked with “strangers” or “foreigners”, despite the fact that in actuality a significant portion of the migrants are ethnic Russians (Shnirelman, 2008). In other words, the prejudice is aimed not to the temporary workers specifically, but to the representatives of other nations and cultures that come to Russia in their search for jobs. However, when asked about the reasons behind such views, people commonly reply with answer related to the collective and not the individual (Shnirelman, 2008). This may be one of the legacies of the collectivistic Soviet identity that was carried out to the contemporary Russia. Surprisingly, the idea that non-Russians are a threat is not only a notion that is popular among common folk; it is a prevalent idea in the federal state too. According to Shnirelman, the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma argues that migrants threaten to dilute Russia’s ethnodemographic portrait (that presumably must have a dominant ethnic Russian population) (2008). It is important to note that the deputy describes the mass migrations as “migration deluge”, “army of barbarians”, “aggression of the alien South,” and “aggression against the White man”. These descriptions demonstrate the racial prejudice aimed at the non-whites. As the racialization became more widespread in the public views, the idea permeated both horizontally and vertically, affecting all parts of the state.

Another concern floating in Russian society about representatives of other races, i.e. people who do not look Russian, is the public safety. Fear of persecution is one of the main manifestations of racism that immediately affects migrant workers (Kuznetsova and Round, 2018). In their research, Kuznetsova and Round discusses laws that on paper “seem a natural response to a chaotic migration regime” in reality illustrates the “racist nature of the Russian state” (2018). The state attempts to further marginalize already politically vulnerable migrants through administrative laws. Although it may seem that there is no racialization and targets of the laws are not determined by law, the prejudice and this “racist nature” just moves further to the executive state representatives, the police. In her paper *“Instrumentalising racism in Russian policing: everyday interactions between police officers and migrants”*, Khodzhaeva describes the degree of racizalization in the police. According to the researcher, twice a year Central Office of the Ministry of Interior in Moscow undertakes special campaigns during which “each member of the guard service and local police must register one violation of migration legislation per day” (Khodzhaeva, 2023). So, police routinely is required to find migrants that are breaking the law and police workers are essentially tasked to target certain group of people. The main method used by them is ethnic profiling: they categorize people based on their phenotype and those who have features of foreigners are the ones being targeted (Khodzhaeva, 2023). This ethnic profiling is in line with the established definition of racism. As a result, the people who are supposed to protect the population also use racism as a tool of differentiating of who deserves the protection and who deserves to be questioned.

[PART 5]
When discussing racism towards migrants we cannot focus solely on internal relations and it is imperative to take into account the economic situation in the post-Soviet space. The economic dependencies that formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union may have been the major contributing factor to influx of migrants as well as their dependence on the employers for work. As Kuznetsova and Round put it, the Central Asian countries are  “forced into colonial (Soviet) style subservience through their dependence on the Russian economy” while for an individual it “translates into precarity, at best, as the employer knows that they, and their family, are dependent on them for work” (2018). #Add the interpretation of the quote and finish the paragraph

[PART 6]
# Write the conclusion