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in composition, and one of Razin's slogans ran, "ForGod and the Prophet, for the Sovereign and the Host"(i.e. the Cossack 'host'). Thus the great peasant revoltswere in part also colonial rebellions, the continuation ofthe long struggle against the Russian mastery of theVolga and the Urals.In this respect, however, the attitude of the non-Russians was broadly speaking the same to all classesof Russians, even though their relations with the Russiancommon people as individuals were generally none toobad. The Russian serf or petty trader or garrisonrank-and-file spelt Russian penetration just as much asthe Russian serf-owner or wealthy merchant or officer.The Bashkirs were specially stirred to struggle againstthe rapid intensification of Russian pressure on themwhen Peter the Great and his successors forced the paceof mines and factories in the Urals (cf. p. 18). Theirattitude to the Russian peasants ascribed to the worksis typical. "Go home, ,, they said (1773), "your termis done: our fathers, who gave you land, are dead, andwe don't want any more to let you have it." And theyburnt and pillaged to their hearts' content. Pugachovvainly attempted to limit depredations against theRussians, especially since he wanted the works to supplyhim with arms. During that revolt half the works inthe Urals were more or less seriously damaged and ittook half a dozen years before output reached theprevious level of production.The religious division between non-Russians andRussians was a further hindrance to common actionbetween the two peasantries, and also a link pullingthe non-Russians together. The mullahs, powerfulamong the Kazan Tatars and the Bashkirs, maintainedintermittent connexions with the Crimean Tatars andConstantinople, "for we are of one family and spirit withthem." Communication, however, became increasinglydifficult, and what was later to be called panislamismwas never a very serious force in these parts, though inthe nineteenth century it became so in the Caucasus andlater in Central Asia. In the eighteenth century massconversions to Orthodoxy (due to the tax exemptions and164

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