The People Are Speechless: Russia, the West and the Voice of the Subaltern

This chapter comes back to the issue of the representation of the subaltern, which was formulated in the beginning of the book. Empirically, I illustrate this problem by analysing the most recent developments in Russian politics, both at the domestic and international level. The phenomena I am primarily interested in are the dramatically intensified securitisation of the West in the aftermath of the 2011–12 political crisis and the intervention in Ukraine after the Euromaidan revolution of February 2014, which inter alia resulted in the annexation of Crimea. My argument is that, firstly, all of these developments are driven by the same logic — the logic of subaltern empire that is going through a period of instability and insecurity. As a subaltern, it feels threatened by what it perceives is an expansion of the Western empire, which through a series of ‘colour revolutions’ is consolidating its hegemonic position in world affairs. This feeling of insecurity provokes a series of defensive moves, some of which have already been described in the previous chapter. Indeed, the conservative turn in Russian politics can be read as an attempt to seal off the domestic ‘cultural space.’ from Western intervention. Apart from that, it translates into repressive measures against ‘the fifth column’ — those groups who are identified as representing the dangerous Western Other in the domestic political space.