“The Path to Freedom”: Program Of The Bashkir National Movement

PSCRP-BESA Reports No 198 (April 27, 2026)

A book by one of the leaders of the Bashkir national movement, Ruslan Gabbasov (b. 1979), “The Path to Freedom” has been published. It is stated that it was published in Ufa, the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, but this is undoubtedly nothing more than a declarative gesture, given that the author received political asylum in Lithuania in the summer of 2022, while in the Russian Federation he is officially listed as a foreign agent and an extremist. In 2011, Gabbasov joined the Bashkir youth movement “Kuk Bure,” and in 2014 became one of the leaders of the nationalist organization “Bashkort,” created on its basis, which was banned in the Russian Federation in 2020.

The book “The Path to Freedom,” like Gabbasov’s previous book, is written in Russian (with the exception of quotations from Bashkir authors used as epigraphs to the chapters). This circumstance is due not only to the fact that for a significant portion of young Bashkirs their ethnic language is no longer their primary reading language (if it is at all), but also to the role of the Russian language as a means of interethnic communication among representatives of various national movements struggling for the liberation of their peoples from Russian rule.

Gabbasov’s new book is an extensive programmatic document compiled by a recognized leader of the national movement of one of the largest peoples of the Russian Federation, which has been among the most active in confronting the authorities. Suffice it to recall the mass protests in the Bashkir district center of Baymak on January 15–17, 2024, in connection with the sentencing of the leader of the banned organization “Bashkort,” Fail Alsynov (born in 1986), for his role in organizing environmental protests in Bashkortostan in April 2023 (Fail Alsynov is currently serving a four-year sentence in a penal colony and has been officially recognized by the Memorial society as a political prisoner).

The book formulates the goals and objectives of the Bashkir national movement—namely, the preservation of the Bashkir ethnos through the creation of an independent Bashkir state—but, most importantly, it outlines the methods that, in the author’s view, are appropriate for achieving these goals under various possible scenarios of the development of the current political situation in the Russian Federation as a whole and in the Republic of Bashkortostan in particular. Given the importance of “The Path to Freedom,” it is appropriate to briefly outline its main theses.

In the introduction, Ruslan Gabbasov, based on concrete examples, states that the Bashkir people, like other national minorities of the Russian Federation, are victims of a deliberate policy of forced assimilation and linguicide, the ultimate goal of which is to turn all residents of Russia into Russians and Russia into a Russian national state, despite the fact that it nominally remains a federation. He emphasizes that the number of Bashkirs has been declining from census to census over the past 30 years, and at the same time the proportion of Bashkirs who know their native language has also been decreasing, and that “if such a policy continues, then within 50 years the Bashkirs will cross that existential threshold beyond which it will no longer be possible to recover and exist as a distinct people with their own unique language and culture.”

As the only path to saving the Bashkir ethnos, the author of “The Path to Freedom” sees the creation of an independent Bashkir state. This goal appears to him achievable in principle: “It is necessary to realize that it is our generation that has a unique chance, for the first time in many centuries, to make our Bashkir people independent. And we have no right to miss such a chance.” Ruslan Gabbasov sees this chance in the political crisis into which the continuation of the full-scale war launched by Russia against Ukraine will plunge the Russian Federation.

At the same time, the author notes that the majority of Bashkirs today are, to one degree or another, under the influence of Russian propaganda and do not aspire to independence. He formulates this idea as follows: “Half of the population has been brainwashed by Russian propaganda, while the other part, due to learned helplessness instilled by the colonizers, does not believe that the independence of Bashkortostan is possible.”

In this regard, Ruslan Gabbasov considers it necessary to rely in the struggle for independence primarily on a relatively small ideological and active elite of Bashkir society that adheres to the ideology of Bashkir nationalism. Detailed explanations of the ideology of nationalism, with examples from world history, are, in his opinion, necessary because “in the Russian political tradition the word ‘nationalism’ has an extremely negative connotation” and therefore its use automatically alienates people raised in this tradition, including Bashkirs. Ruslan Gabbasov emphasizes that “nationalism is one of the most influential political ideologies of modern times” and insists that “in the second decade of the 21st century there has been another rise of nationalism as an ideology throughout the world.” According to his definition, “Bashkir nationalism is the ideology of a politicized Bashkir identity.”

Despite the fact that at this stage the Bashkir national movement is built on an ethnic basis, he declares that, in principle, “a Bashkir nationalist is not necessarily an ethnic Bashkir. It can also be a Tatar, a Russian, or a representative of any other nationality. The main thing is that he is devoted to the idea of building an independent Bashkir state with a single state Bashkir language and to the construction of a Bashkir political nation within its territory.”

As a model, Ruslan Gabbasov primarily looks to the Turkic post-Soviet states—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan—which, in his opinion, “can confidently be classified as successfully constructed states. The economies of these countries are developing, the size of the indigenous population has increased several times, and native languages are reclaiming their dominant place in all spheres of the state.” He is particularly impressed by the example of Kazakhstan, where at the time of the collapse of the USSR the titular nation was, as in the present-day Republic of Bashkortostan, a minority: “According to the last Soviet census of 1989, the number of Kazakhs was 6 million 496 thousand people, which amounted to 39.6% of the total population of the Kazakh SSR. As of 2024, the number of the Kazakh population has grown to 14 million 220 thousand people. As of the beginning of 2024, the share of Kazakhs in Kazakhstan was about 71.3% of the country’s total population.”

To achieve such impressive results, according to the ideologue of Bashkir nationalism, at a certain stage of development of a national state, autocracy is necessary in a form that could be described as ethnocracy (although Ruslan Gabbasov himself does not use this term).

“Many will say that in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Azerbaijan there is no democracy, that there is authoritarian rule, but in my opinion this is the correct policy of the state in the conditions of modern geopolitics,” he writes. “(…) Being in a geographical position between such giant states as China and Russia, which have strong influence over them, it was necessary to build a balanced policy, where on the one hand one could not quarrel, and on the other, fall into complete dependence. In such a situation, one has to rely not on democratic institutions, but on authoritarian rule within one’s country. (…) If in Kazakhstan, immediately after gaining independence, a parliamentary system had been established, where the party that gained the majority of votes (…) governed the country, (…) Moscow would constantly interfere in Kazakhstan’s internal politics through its influence on pro-Russian politicians (…), and a strong pro-Russian party would have been created, given the size of the Russian population.”

The ideal model of a Bashkir national state ultimately appears to Ruslan Gabbasov to be Western-style democracy, the construction of which, according to his logic, will become possible only after Bashkirs become the majority in that state. “In Kazakhstan, the consolidation of society strengthened after the share of Kazakhs reached about 70%. When the number of other groups exceeds the number of the titular people, the likelihood of competition for influence and special rights increases,” he writes.

At the same time, being aware of the imbalance of forces between the Moscow imperial center and the Bashkir national movement, Ruslan Gabbasov emphasizes that the only chance to achieve independence for Bashkiria lies in close cooperation with the national movements of other non-Russian peoples, as well as with regionalist (ethnically Russian) movements of the Russian Federation.

The book examines four possible scenarios for the development of events in the Russian Federation after Vladimir Putin leaves power for one reason or another:

1. The security-service elite regime remains in power.
   “Under such a scenario, it will be difficult for the Bashkirs to break away from Russia. Most likely, they will have to wait until the regime reaches its logical end,” Ruslan Gabbasov states.
2. The return of liberals.
   According to Ruslan Gabbasov, “there is a possibility that they will let Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, and Tuva go, as regions inhabited by populations hostile to them, which they have failed to assimilate over many years within the empire. (…) But they will cling with a death grip to Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Sakha-Yakutia, Buryatia, and other national republics.”
   He allows that both systemic and non-systemic Moscow liberals, having come to power, may grant national republics real autonomy and freedoms, as was the case in the early 1990s, but he is convinced that sooner or later Russia will again become imperial, and therefore independence must be pursued at the moment when it is weak.
3. “Great Turmoil.”
   By this term, Ruslan Gabbasov refers to a situation “when, in Moscow, as a result of Putin’s departure, a complete absence of power, a collapse of governance, and a subsequent struggle for power among various clans and groups from today’s силовики, Kremlin officials, and oligarchs will occur.”
   It is precisely such a situation that, in his opinion, will become the “moment of truth” for the Bashkir national movement and for the national movements of other peoples of the Russian Federation seeking to leave it.
4. Civil war.
   Ruslan Gabbasov considers this “a scenario that no one needs, but a very possible one for the post-Putin regime in our republic,” if the “Great Turmoil” in Moscow develops into direct armed clashes, which will lead to the complete collapse of central authority. He analyzes in detail the balance of forces in the Republic of Bashkortostan and the actions that Bashkir nationalists should take in the event of such a war.

Regarding the territorial claims of Bashkir nationalism, it can be said that Ruslan Gabbasov presents both a maximum plan and a minimum plan. The maximum plan can be understood as establishing control by the future Bashkir state over all territories where, in the historical past—prior to Russian and Tatar colonization—a Bashkir majority existed.
“All of Chelyabinsk Oblast, parts of Orenburg, Kurgan, Sverdlovsk oblasts, Perm Krai, and the Republic of Tatarstan are historical Bashkir lands,” the book “The Path to Freedom” states. However, the author immediately rejects maximalist demands, noting that “today it is unrealistic to reclaim these lands. There are neither the opportunities, nor the strength, nor the demographic advantage for this.”

Ruslan Gabbasov considers it necessary to concentrate main efforts on establishing control over the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan within its current borders. At the same time, he allows for the possibility that at the initial stage the Bashkir national movement may fail to achieve this due to the fact that in the western districts of the republic Bashkirs are a minority. In that case, in his opinion, Bashkir nationalists will have to limit themselves to implementing the minimum plan: creating an independent Bashkir state only in the Trans-Ural, eastern part of the Republic of Bashkortostan, where Bashkirs constitute the majority population.
“Such a republic will consist mainly of a mono-ethnic Bashkir population, and the territory itself will be more than 100 thousand square kilometers, where there will be cities, infrastructure, and rich natural resources,” Ruslan Gabbasov reassures Bashkir nationalists. At the same time, he emphasizes that it was precisely on this territory that in November 1917, under the leadership of the then leader of the Bashkir national movement, Akhmet-Zaki Validi (1890–1970), the “First Bashkir Republic,” also known as the Republic of Bashkurdistan, was created.

Special attention is paid by Ruslan Gabbasov to Bashkirs living in the Chelyabinsk region located east of the Republic of Bashkortostan, specifically the Argayashsky and Kunashaksky districts, the overwhelming majority of whose population consists of Bashkirs and closely related Tatars.
“Representatives of these districts constantly ask questions about their future in an independent Bashkortostan,” he writes. “I will say right away that the issue is very complex and will largely depend on the situation at that moment. It is complex because today these two districts are separated from the territory of Bashkortostan by a large number of other districts of the Chelyabinsk region, where the Bashkir population is clearly in the minority.” In other words, if an independent Bashkortostan has sufficient strength to establish control over a corridor connecting its main territory with these two districts, the issue may gain practical meaning; otherwise, Bashkir nationalists will have to abandon them.

Ambivalent relations connect the Bashkir national movement with the Tatar one. The chapter devoted to these relations opens with the words: “Tatars are our closest and main allies in the cause of gaining independence. Among Bashkirs there are some hotheads who consider Tatars to be enemies.”

This seeming paradox is explained by several factors: the Tatar and Bashkir languages are mutually intelligible without any prior preparation. Essentially, literary Tatar and literary Bashkir can be considered two literary variants of the same literary language. Until the 1920s, the Bashkirs had no written tradition of their own and used Tatar as their literary language. After the emergence of Bashkir literature in the Soviet period, Tatars—who often wrote in both Bashkir and Tatar—played a very prominent role in it. Even today, the Tatar language often appears more prestigious than Bashkir for many Bashkirs.

From census to census, a significant percentage of Bashkirs who identify Tatar as their native language is recorded. The population of the Republic of Bashkortostan is about 4 million people, of whom, according to official data (considered by Tatar activists to be inflated in favor of the titular nation), 29.49% are Bashkirs, 25.39% Tatars, 36.05% Russians, 2.7% Chuvash, 2.61% Mari, and more than 1% Udmurts and Erzya. Tatars numerically dominate in the western districts of the Republic of Bashkortostan adjacent to the Republic of Tatarstan. Among local Tatars and many representatives of the Tatar national movement, the idea of annexing these districts to Tatarstan is popular, which irritates Bashkir nationalists, who regard them as “originally Bashkir,” and the local Tatars as descendants of migrants from Tatarstan or assimilated Bashkirs. In addition, in the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa—where half of the population is Russian—there are more Tatars than Bashkirs.