Revolution

R.Kh.: ... Revolutions and social revolts are the direct product of the policy of the ruling circles, and therefore it is senseless and simply foolish to engage in a fight against revolutions. In order not to allow them - it is necessary to see the basic purpose of state administration, for example, not in the creation of business, the appeasement of bureaucracy, the suppression of opponents, etc. (these are all just instruments) – but in service to the PEOPLE as the highest purpose of state and government, in a continuous improvement of its material and cultural conditions. If we treat the people as "cattle", who will “swallow anything”, get the offshore accounts ready - the revolution will come as suddenly as a mountain avalanche. The revolution does not ask politicians for "permission".

Russia's rulers need to think about this, too. To be less fascinated by propaganda, judgments about some "caliphates" or other, planned by Russia’s enemies, or in connection with "the global threat from the Wahhabis". In their intrigues the ideologists invent any nonsense, which the representatives of the ruling bureaucracy willingly swallow (obviously because of their corresponding level of intellect). Religion is a form of consciousness, and any dissatisfaction of people is expressed through a specific form – an ideology, a religion, an ethnic or regional factor. When there are no other suitable unifying ideas (and leaders), or political-ideological views - for the expression of mass protest, then politicized religious consciousness appears on the scene, based on the idea of justice. And it transforms itself into a terrible force, the most various kinds of people rush into it, including the non-believers, who have completely different aims. It seems to me in general that, for example, the leaders of the most important states of the world are making tragic errors in placing the emphasis on the struggle with Islam. Though they present it as allegedly a fight with "bad Islam - Wahhabism". It should be noted that religious consciousness is quite closely related to the original socialist ideas. Crusades should be left to the epoch of the middle ages, and contemporary world problems must be solved not by force and by propaganda, but by economic prosperity, by humanism and by the development of man.

O.Sh. Are you referring to Islamic consciousness?

R.Kh. Not only Islamic, but also Christian - all the basic ideas of these religions rest on the principle of justice. They proceed from the rejection of the exploitation of man by man; the need for honest labor and for obtaining subsistence for oneself and one’s family by means of that labor alone, from the equality of the members of society. The famous ten commandments – they are the same in all of the world religions.

Ruslan Khasbulatov, talking to Olga Shlyakhtina about Chechnya: the Unfinished Tragedy.

[my tr.]
(Via Marius)