Russophobia
Russophobia is the irrational fear of Russia and the Russian people. This piece isn’t dedicated to those people who are overflowing with direct malice towards anything Russian. I am speaking about you. There’s a 99% chance that you have implicit Russophobia. It’s not your fault, as you will soon find out. But if you are a politically minded individual, it may be beneficial to understand exactly why you experience discomfort or disdain at the thought of the world’s largest nation.
Let’s begin with some historical context. The oldest, most quintessential symbol of Russia has been the bear. Of course, this representation was not in any way the choice of Russian people. In fact, the English were the first to attribute the bear to Russia in 1596. At the time Russia was profoundly different in nature from Western Europe. It had only recently recovered from two hundred years of Mongol oppression and had spent the entire 16th century pushing the weakened hordes out of its former territories. The constant fear of raids and heavy taxation imposed by the Mongols left Russia politically disjointed, technologically behind, and socially cautious. In order to survive alongside the eastern hordes, the Russian people had to adopt significantly more militaristic and primitive lifestyles which placed emphasis on strength and individual survival. So, when the English arrived to conduct trade with the Muscovites, they saw Russia as a vast wild land inhabited by seemingly primitive people. Of course, no one has ever heard of the English oversimplifying the culture of another nation and creating unjust stereotypes to justify their dominance over it. Regardless, the image of the bear was introduced and quickly popularized.
That image alone is a perfect embodiment of everything Western Europe sees in Russia: large, disheveled, clumsy, and aggressive. As the thinkers of the West made enormous strides in the fields of nation-building, social interaction, and human rights throughout the 17th and 18th century, Russia continued its practice of serfdom. Over a third of the population was enslaved by landowners and aristocrats until 1861. For a Western Europe with newly created parliaments, republican revolutions and liberal reforms, such policies were a sign of savagery (although of course everyone forgave the US for enslaving people of another race right away).
Prior to the 20th century, Western Russophobia was limited to diplomatic condescension and some tactical tampering with Russia’s position as an imperial power. However, a few key moments changed that relationship drastically. The most important was the continuous World War I/Russian Civil War Era which lasted from 1914–1922. Prior to World War I, the British, French, and Russian Empires formed an alliance. What most people either fail to understand or choose not to, is that Russia was its backbone. Prior to the largest three battles on the Western front, the general staff of France and the UK demanded that Russia strike major blows on the Eastern Front to weaken the German offensives. On each of these occasions Russia upheld its end of the alliance and threw millions of soldiers against superior German artillery. Russia even sent thousands of its troops on ships half way across the world to to fight on the Western Front. Each time, the diversions proved successful and allowed the French to retain control of Paris at the expense of unimaginable losses in men. Each time, the Russians were lauded as the heroes of Paris and all of France. But the typical lack of consideration for Russia as a real power and Russians as real human beings left the UK and France with a long list of demands and very few genuine commitments.
The lack of commitment became a serious issue in 1917. At the beginning of that year it seemed that allied victory was only months away. Russia had finally halted and reversed the German eastern offensive, the German western front was slowly deteriorating due to lack of resources, and the Ottomans were… well the Ottomans were f****d. However, in February the first Russian Revolution occurred. Very quickly, the Eastern Front collapsed with thousands of Russian troops deserting, officers were killed, and the nation fell into relative anarchy as the army elites battled with the newly formed soviets for political control. Due to the inexplicable stupidity of the provisional government, the soviets managed to win. This led to the October Revolution which brought Vladimir Lenin to power. And this is where the fun begins.
The remnants of the Imperial Russian Army declared war on the Soviet regime. They became known as the Volunteer Army or the White Army. According to their agreements, they expected serious military aid from their former allies. Instead the French and British proposed ludicrous contracts which would destroy Russia’s future economic sovereignty. In an act of ultimate disrespect and cowardice, the allies abandoned the only force capable of rooting out the communist cancer. They signed the death warrant of a democratic Russian Republic due to their elitism and political calculations. The result? A giant red mass with an insatiable desire to consume human life.
Up until this point I haven’t given detailed explanations of why the powers involved acted in their respective ways, I simply provided historical background. Now I’d like to start dispelling bullshit.
The first most painful misconception is that Russia equals the Soviet Union — or even worse that Russia equals communism. Russians fought communism with guns, knives, and bare hands with more fervor than any other nation. And, by the way, their idea of fighting communism wasn’t dropping napalm on Vietnamese women and children. Boys aged fifteen left schools to join the volunteer army so they could defend Russia from the soviets. You may be thinking, but the White Army lost. Doesn’t that mean the Russian people chose communism in the end? If you know anything about communism, then you know that choice isn’t really their thing. In order to ensure their victory over the White Army, they drafted millions of peasants and forced them into battle at gunpoint. They instituted policy of Prodrazvyorstka which was direct theft of food and goods from all Russian people. This ensured that the peasants lost their independence as basic entrepreneurs. This also gave the soviets full control over all food in the nation. In order to receive it, the Russian people had to join the Communist Party or face starvation. So let’s dispel the myth that Russians wanted communism. Russians wanted change and peace. Most people were either on the front line or in secluded rural areas while a group of terrorists and sociopathic criminals usurped the government. They were forcefully enslaved by a system that took away their basic human decency and replaced everything with the state.
In 1921, all of Europe was engulfed in pro-soviet and pro-communist rallies and meetings. Germany was on the verge of becoming a communist state. Hungarian communists proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Within the Soviet Union, most of the leaders were not Russian. In fact, looking into the future, the USSR was led by ethnic Russians for only 10 years out of its 70 year history. The rest were either Georgian or Ukrainian. The belief that the incorporation of Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucuses was an act of Russian imperialism that sought to enslave those people is simply unsupported by fact. The founding fathers of the Soviet Union came from every republic and are just as responsible for their actions as leaders of Russian descent. In fact, in order to retain control over rebellious areas like the North Caucuses and Central Asia, the Soviets struck deals which granted greater autonomy.
All the horrible things the Soviets did that Russians have to take the hit for seem to always overshadow the fundamentally good things that came about as the result of the USSR’s existence (as much as it pains me to say it). For example. I don’t hear historians or politicians discussing the undeniable involvement of Russians in the billions of dollars that were spent funding independence movements in Africa and Asia. I don’t see any thanks in Russia’s address over its historical investment into humanitarian, medical, educational, and infrastructural projects in Africa. It seems that those things just slip people’s minds when they are bashing Russia for being a militaristic villain.
Also, stating that Russia was the oppressor state within the Soviet Union is frankly offensive. As someone who has family and friends currently living in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Latvia, and Azerbaijan I have a very personal understanding of how the Soviet system worked. Throughout the second half of the 20th century Russia was by far the most productive of all the Soviet Republics. Due to Russia’s immense size and resources, the only other republic that could compete with its productivity was Ukraine. However, because of the extremely broken and corrupt system of central planning, the amount of goods allotted to tiny republics such as Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia far exceeded their needs. As a result, speculators and vendors would buy Russian-produced goods for pennies, due to their surplus in the small republics, and return to Russia to sell the goods there for many times over the price due to deficits. As a result it became common knowledge that people from the Caucuses were always able to afford far more than Russians. Although Ukraine was not as blatant of an example of corruption and failed planning, it almost always had a greater variety of goods and foods than Russia itself.
I think pretty good evidence of Russia’s marginalization within what seems to be its own system is the fact that in the 1991 more Russians than any other ethnic group voted to disband the Soviet Union. Pretty strange for an oppressor, right? Anyways, how did it get to half of the former Soviet Republics hating the nation that fed their economy for half a century? Well the answer is simple. Hating communism for ruining your nation and creating a system of incurable corruption is difficult, because communism is gone. But using ignorant nationalistic claims to ascribe the evil of a group of multi-ethnic terrorists to a single culture and to a single nation is very easy because Russia still exists.
The Russian government today is a direct continuation of its Soviet past. Its leaders are either former KGB agents or oligarchs who had close relations with the former communist party. And I would gladly join in with the crowds who smear Putin with dirt and who want that government gone. But those crowds don’t hate Putin’s soviet background. They hate his ethnicity. They hate my ethnicity. It may be because of the historically fearful and elitist attitude of western nations to Russia or it may be because they have been brought up believing that Russians ruined their country. Regardless, Russia is a nation that like any other has gone through tumultuous times. Its people have suffered arguably more than any other in the world. But behind that suffering and war is a rich culture — a culture that has been relegated to the back shelf of our global society for no reason beyond ignorance of facts.
The repercussions of collective world hatred of Russia are very logical. Today, a generation of young adults is maturing in Russia that has unprecedented levels of anti-Americanism, expansionism, and militarism. The despicable ring of thieves and executioners in the Kremlin are sitting more comfortably in their thrones than ever before. Patriotism is becoming associated with revanchism and militarism. The new generation is very quickly occupying the mold that we have shaped with our own hatred. So if you think that the “horrible” Russian people with their “evil” Russian leader today are bad, wait until what happens when a whole new set of brainwashed and pissed off voters hit the polls. Because believe me when I tell you, there are far scarier things in Russia than Vladimir Putin.
