Far-left Russian revolutionaries reframed Muslim zeal as anticolonial potential

Evidence

For the Russian revolutionaries on the far left, though, insofar as they thought about Muslims as political actors, they eventually folded Muslims into the wider body of the ‘oppressed’ whose supposed zeal could be unleashed in a broader anticolonial struggle against the tsars and imperial rulers everywhere, and whose faith might be reinterpreted as a prelude to socialism. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 547

Categorization

• XREF: This instrumentalizing-of-faith-for-revolution frame echoes the ‘On Sacrifice’ themes but inverts the direction — here political forces weaponize religious energy rather than religion weaponizing politics. — connects to: Soviet scholars balanced anti-Islamic propaganda with recognition of Islam’s progressive movements