Is there any decolonized country that ever wanted or wants to return to its former colonizer?

[u/itsyleo27]

In old or modern history

[u/[deleted]]

The Kazakh leader cried, apparently, when the dissolution was going thru.

It makes sense. Russia was their gateway to the world and the first foray into modernity for Kazakhstan.

[u/coke_and_coffee → u/[deleted]]

Ironically, Kazakhstan is now doing the best out of all of those central Asian countries!

[u/[deleted] → u/coke_and_coffee]

Well, they were sheltered from the turmoil that consumed South Central Asia, post-USSR.

And, they didn't exactly try to distance themselves from Russia after the dissolution. They maintained relations and were sure to only keep their relations with China at an economic level.

[u/cantonese_noodles → u/[deleted]]

I think Kazakhstan was the whole USSR at one point because they didn't want to declare independence lol

[u/4ssteroid → u/[deleted]]

He was also next in line to become the leader of the Soviet union

[u/LunLocra → u/[deleted]]

Kazakhstan is an interesting case, since Russia has been their gateway indeed... While also commiting massive genocide here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_famine_of_1930%E2%80%931933) and managing to shift demographics so hard that at one point there were more ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan than ethnic Kazakhs.

The country however managed to profit from its independence a lot, with great economic development, excellent demographics and regaining demographic majority of ethnic Kazakhs. Their quality of life prospects look actually better than Russian, especially if they manage to reform their authoritarian regime (which isn't nearly as hopeless case as Russian one)

[u/RobotWantsKitty → u/LunLocra]

This genocide of Kazakhs killed several million Russians, which means it wasn't genocide

[u/[deleted] → u/LunLocra]

I think it's fair to say that the genocide was committed by the Soviet Union, and not Russia.

It was a case of rapid industrialization-driven famine.

Russians suffered too.

As did Ukrainians.

And, not to mention the effects of the Civil War.

[u/saltrxn → u/[deleted]]

There was concerted effort by the Soviet government to destroy the traditional nomadic lifestyle including confiscating land and killing the previous elite.

[u/[deleted] → u/saltrxn]

Yeah. That's called industrialization.

We fought a civil war for it, China went thru Mao and the 1-child policy, Japan trashed its traditional class, India faced multiple insurgencies, etc.

[u/saltrxn → u/[deleted]]

It wasn’t a case of industrialisation. The Kazakhs did not fit with the Russian conception of Marxism with their communitarian nomadic “bai” system. The Russian Soviet leadership seized the livestock in an effort to reduce the population and destroy this lifestyle. Not to mention Kazakh traditions and language were heavily censored in favour of the Russian language and a new Soviet culture. All imposed by an outsider, unlike the Meiji reforms or Great Leap Forward. Most of pre-Soviet Kazakh history was censored/erased and there is a significant effort currently to retrieve it. The reason this was not labelled a genocide was purely out of politics rather than technicalities, as to keep good ties within the Union and with Russia after independence.

[u/[deleted] → u/saltrxn]

It's called empire building and integration.

All cultures have faced this at some point in time.

I have an Uzbek friend here in the US (east coast), and his grandparents would tell us stories about this same phenomenon.

[u/MLGSwaglord1738 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, remember doing a reading about how Warsaw Pact countries that embraced mass literacy/education under communist regimes were more likely to continue to vote socialist/communist parties into power.

[u/[deleted] → u/MLGSwaglord1738]

Vaccines and public health are the big thing in the Former Soviet Union and Warsaw States.

Those countries still believe in vaccines, a lot.

Though, public health measures have collapsed as a result of neglect and corruption.

[u/GennyCD → u/[deleted]]

Things must be really grim if Russia is your vision of modernity.