I would like to ask what the members of this forum think about Russia, and I do not mean only the war in Ukraine, but the overall opinion about Russia as a country in general.

My question arose from the fact that sometimes I review the topics that dominate among the American (and not only) political right (alt-right) and (taking into account the statements of many representatives of this trend - with which I identify myself a greater or lesser extent) I come to the conclusion that that Russia is treated there as a force capable of stopping the left-wing march and introducing some moral and political conservatism. It is true that now praising Russia is quite awkward due to what is happening in Ukraine, but among many statements (e.g. Jordan Peterson) there is undisguised sympathy and hope that Russia will be the moral renewal of the world that will help to win all these negative leftist movements (Antifa, BLM, Gender, LGBT, Feminism etc.).

And so I wonder. After all, intelligent and rational people say it and do not notice the fact that they are just weaving ordinary androns. Russia has never been, is and will never be any moral renewal, any conservative hope, etc. Russia is simply Russia, the country of wealthy oligarchs linked to secret services (the former KGB and today's FSS) and the massive sea of human poverty. Russia is a country where religion and the Church are no longer of any importance, where society has been successfully atheized through decades of communism, and in the times of post-communist Russia (after 1991).



Communism in Russia did a lot of harm, but it should also be remembered that the pre-revolution times for millions of ordinary Russians were not any better. It is true that there was no such terror as under the Bolsheviks, such murder, so many people were not murdered and enslaved en masse, but for many inhabitants of the Russian Empire the order at that time was difficult. The peasants actually ceased to be slaves (and this was true slavery, just like the negro slaves in the USA) only in 1861, but the fact that they gained personal freedom did not mean that they ceased to be economically dependent on their previous owners (admittedly lord now he could not kill or mutilate the peasant, if he tried to escape, but the land was still his property and if the peasant wanted to acquire it, he often had to pay an amount exceeding his income for several years, so he continued to work on the master's land in exchange for food. Alternative for these illiterate, poor people was to emigrate to the city and employment in emerging industrial factories, but there were several dozen or even several hundred people for one place, which meant that these people worked for almost free and received only enough money not to starve to death. but certainly not so much to live.).


Below is a fragment of the film "Promised Land", which shows how workers were employed in factories in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (it is true that this applies to Congress Poland, i.e. the then Kingdom of Poland, which was part of the russian partition of former Poland - Poland did not exist on the map then, but this can also be translated into the situation in other governorates of the Russian Empire):


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5NAAAWd4d4



Many Russians accepted the Bolshevik victory with hope, as the new regime guaranteed them social advancement. Illiterate peasants became political commissars or secretaries in villages and towns.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkRsXLUbVE8



But even they, if they were to blame for anything, were brutally murdered by the Chek (the predecessor of the NKVD and the KGB). In this fragment of the movie "1920. War and Love" there is exactly such a scene, when the political commissioner selects a village secretary to defend two condemned to death - one was guilty of not going to work or to a doctor while being ill, but to churches; and the other was guilty of beating a local representative of the Bolshevik party who had romanced his wife in his absence. When the secretary - being officially selected as the defender of the convicts, said it in their defense, it turned out that he did not do well and was declared an "enemy of the people" and ... murdered, this time without trial. I have titled this passage "Bolshevik justice."










So Russian society was crushed and milled by communism, and today you can see this discouragement in contemporary Russians, this reconciliation with their hard and hopeless fate and the lack of any desire to change their lives for the better. A computer scientist who left Russia in search of a better life (and most of all freedom, which Russia simply does not have), now tells in YouTube videos what life in Russia is like. What apathy prevails, discouragement from any action connected with widespread corruption (because in Russia nothing can be done without paying a bribe - it is as natural as the air they breathe), and at the same time these people ... are satisfied, because it could have been even worse. Look at these decaying houses they live in. The city authorities do nothing about it, they just steal and take bribes. But these people know no other life. There is also widespread media censorship, and few look for information on the Internet on websites other than russian-language. And they are satisfied with their fate, living in dilapidated houses (because all the money goes to Moscow and St. Petersburg). This is life in Russia - this is the spiritual, moral and intellectual desert left after the communist rule. Terrible.











And here is shown how Putin came to power and how the Second Chechen War began. In short, the authorities began blowing up houses in Moscow (December 1999) to then accuse "Chechen terrorists".










Man in Russia is garbage that can be removed if the authorities so wish - so much on the topic of Russia as a renewal of conservatism.




But I would like to add that this apathy and discouragement that characterizes Russian society did not come from the communist era. On the contrary, the same was written about Russians in the 19th and 17th centuries. I am going to quote here the opinion of general Jan Jacyna who fought in the Russian army during the First World War. He compared Poland with Russia, writing:


"From the end of the 18th century, Poland was under annexation and it ceased to exist politically, but it did exist spiritually constantly, without interruption. The banners of national ideals with great sacrifice and self-denial were raised for almost 140 years by: a Polish woman, a Polish priest, and numerous ranks of ideologists, who were often divided by social positions and political views, and always shared a common feeling for their homeland. These were lacking in Russian society guilds already before the (bolshevik) catastrophe. (...)

Historical and ethnographic conditions were unfavorable for the flourishing of culture in Russia. Intimidating ignorance prevailed in the wider layers, not only of peasants, but also of bourgeoisie. (...) By making an attempt to sketch the Russian society, I set myself the task of possible impartiality, because I consider it my duty to better capture the events that took place in the territory of former Russia to sketch a background on which mass psychosis and the entire nation could have reigned relatively so quickly could literally be controlled by a handful communists. (...) There were actually no social in Russia organized. People - standing on very low cultural level was neglected by governments in every respect and exploited by the dynasty, bureaucracy and nobility, and not the one with centuries-old traditions that other European countries and Poland, but mostly newly created nobility from a group of bureaucracy and military, without past and traditions, without attachment to the motherland and spiritual threads connecting it to the people. (...) I have met many among the Russian intelligentsia, many who lived day by day without any spiritual aspirations either chauvinists or fanatics Orthodoxy, but very few ideological patriots and conscious citizens with the due sense of duty. Over time, I had the impression that the more subtle Russians sensed our superiority in this respect and, in a way, envied us these spiritual treasures, taken from the silence of home fires, from the freshness of forests and family meadows, from village churches, from low old manor houses, from our literature, heard for the first time from the mother's lips. (...) The famous Russian writer - Tolstoy, describes the ideology of the Russian people in two words: "not resisting evil", and even before him, the German chancellor - Bismark, after returning from Russia, closed the ideology of the average Russian in one word "spit". In my opinion, the average Russian soul is lazy by fatalism and apathy taken over from the East, which explain the passivity of this nation, humbly bearing the Tatar yoke, then for three centuries the burden of the despotic rule of the Romanov dynasties, and now the fetters of the communist government. Of the peculiarities of the Russian people. I will also point out the lack of tradition in the higher spheres and a lack of love for land among the nobility, They all cultivate self-criticism together, advanced to excess".





I would also like to add that if Poland had not stopped the Red Army in 1920, this Ruthenian apathy, combined with the Bolshevik bloodthirsty, would have reached Paris, Rome, Brussels, The Hague, Madrid, and perhaps also London. Europe would turn into one big Mordor.










What do You think about Russia?

I'd like to put it very simply - Russia is and always has been a dictatorial state, the average Russian has known nothing else and therefore it's no exaggeration to say they're only happy when they're being oppressed, it gives them a sense of living under a strong government. 
They had a brief opportunity to break the cycle under Yeltsin in the early 1990s, but the economy tanked and it was back to the old ways. 
Bolshevism was far worse than the Tsarist regime, but that's often the case with revolutions, they end up more oppressive than the one it overthrew.

MarkUK wrote:

They had a brief opportunity to break the cycle under Yeltsin in the early 1990s

Boris Yeltsin once said something along the lines of Russia being the largest country on earth but that there wasn't a square inch of territory which Russia didn't need. And it is the size of Russia which is its most striking feature. Russia is indeed the world's largest country and by some margin. Not only is it huge in itself but so too are the other ‘Russias’, the Ukraine and Belarus. Ukraine alone is geographically huge and is the largest country in Europe after the Russian Federation itself, while Belarus (White Russia) is more than 3 times the size of neighbouring Lithuania. Even the Kaliningrad exclave, which is tiny by Russian standards, is larger than either Corsica or Northern Ireland.
 
Russia is colossal. Siberia on its own would still be the largest country on earth while European Russia covers about 40% of the landmass of the continent of Europe and is 6 times the size of France. The scale is mind-boggling. Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea coast is closer to New York heading west than it is to Vladivostok heading east. Similarly, the distance from Novorossiysk on the Black Sea coast heading south to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, is less than the distance from Novorossiysk heading north to Murmansk. Russia includes the highest peak in Europe (Elbrus) in the Caucasus mountains and also the deepest lake in the world (Baikal) in Siberia. It has more trees than Brazil and Canada combined, has more coal than Germany, Ukraine and Poland combined, more oil than America, Qatar, Algeria and Azerbaijan combined and more gas than Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq and Kazakhstan combined.  

Yet for all its size, Russia has a relatively small population. It’s about double that of the UK. European Russia is much less densely populated than Western Europe while Siberia is incredibly sparsely populated. There are more people, for instance, living within a 60-mile radius of central Tokyo than there are living in the whole of Siberia. The population of Russia (i.e. its people) is also an enigma. Russia has produced some of the greatest names in the history of the arts, particularly in music and literature. These include Fyodor Dostoevsky, Igor Stravinsky, Mikhail Lermontov, Sergei Prokofiev, Cherubina de Gabriak, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Leskov, Dmitri Shostakovich, Alexander Belyaev, Maxim Gorky, Ivan Turgenev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Elena Guro, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Goncharov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Ivan Bunin, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Yulia Zhadovskaya, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Modest Mussorgsky, Zinaida Hippius, Alexander Pushkin, Vladimir Nabokov, Mikhail Glinka, Alexander Borodin and Boris Pasternak to name just a few. That represents a tremendous portfolio of ‘soft power’ to rival that of any country. Yet it is in the realm of ‘hard power’ where Russia’s image is ambiguous. The Russian state, whether that be the Tsarist empire or the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation has always had a problematic geography pulling it in several different directions and over huge distances. On the one hand Russia is admirable for having weathered the Mongol storm from the east, endured centuries of foreign rule before throwing off the Tartar yoke and then also having seen off invaders from the west such as Napoleon and Hitler. On the other hand, however, Russia (despite its already huge size) has shown a propensity to seek ever more territory and transgress the borders of and oppress its smaller neighbours.

As part of the part-time history degree I am taking, I have recently finished a module on Empires 1492 to 1975.  The block that looked at how some empires began included a unit was on the eastwards expansion of the Russian empire 1500 to 1725.  As to why Russia got to be so big, the conclusion was that there was a lot of territory to the east of it that none of the other empires were that interested in.  They did though have to reach an agreement with the Qing Chinese.

Tim of Aclea wrote:

As to why Russia got to be so big, the conclusion was that there was a lot of territory to the east of it that none of the other empires were that interested in.  They did though have to reach an agreement with the Qing Chinese.

Russia managed to conquer Siberia and other eastern states because Russia stood culturally higher than those countries, and this was related to the acquisition of Western military technologies (Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible brought specialists from Italy - "How the Italians built the Kremlin"). Moscow built its superpower position not from Peter I, as is usually assumed, but even under Ivan III the Stern in the second half of the 15th century, on relations with Europe, and so it is to this day.


In Poland, it was often said that we were the "Bulwark of Christianity" and the mainstay of Western civilization, which in our country was effectively connected with Eastern civilization (the Polish poet - Józef Ignacy Kraszewski illustrated it beautifully, writing:

"WE HAVE TAKEN AROUND, OFTEN WITHOUT CHOICE, TENTLY, OBEDIENT TO OUR NATURE, DRINKING AS A SPONGE ON ONE SIDE OF THE EASTERN NECTAR, FROM THE SECOND ELIXIRS OF THE WEST, BUT THERE ARE BOTH OUR WAYS OF POLAND, WE ARE BOTH US. THEY ARE THIS FIGHT, THIS PROCESS OF RECONCILING TWO OPPOSITE ELEMENTS "


Thus, for centuries Poland was this mainstay, protecting the West from the invasions of barbarian peoples. In 1846, Victor Hugo stated:

"Two nations out of all for four centuries have played a disinterested role in European culture - these nations are France and Poland. Remember now! France dispelled the darkness, and Poland fought back the barbarians. France spread ideas, and Poland stood guard over the border defense. The French nation. he was a missionary of culture in Europe, and the Polish nation was its knight. "


Louis Michelet wrote similarly in his book "La Pologne martyre" ("Martyr's Poland"):

"Poland placed itself on the bridgehead of Europe, saved humanity. While the idler Europe talked (...) lost herself in trifles, these heroic guards protected her with their lances. For the women of France and Germany to be able to quietly spend their frivolities (...) it was so that a Pole, his whole life at the post, two steps from barbarism, would stay awake with a saber in his hand."




King Stefan Batory near Pskov (1581-1582)






Poles in Moscow (1610-1612)








Tribute Tsar Vasyl IV Szujski at the Seym in Warsaw before the King of Poland - Sigismund III (1611)



https://0.allegroimg.com/original/0197b2/e3a90e4148bba5eb596e5017c290/HOLD-RUSKI-MATEJKO-OBRAZ-NA-PLOTNIE-W-RAMIE





Russia used the same mechanisms in contacts with eastern peoples, and when the power of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (due to internal disagreements) weakened, it was Russia that took the position of the "Bulwark of Christianity" in the East and this was for the Western countries for most of the 18th century, the entire 19th century with a short break during the Soviet Union and again after 1990.


But Russia is a colossus on clay legs (as proved by little Japan, defeating the Russian Empire in the war of 1904-1905) and without the help of Western technologies and Western ideas, only blunt despotism remains. All great wars were won by Russia thanks to the open support of Western countries (whether in the times of Peter the Great, in the Napoleonic period or World War II), but sometimes even this was not enough (as evidenced by Russia's defeat in World War I).



I also say that Russia exists, because many countries of the world (especially Germany, France, Italy, Spain), with the USA at the forefront, care about it. But will it continue like this? The war in Ukraine has clearly shown that Russia is a dwarf on clay legs, and the only thing the world may fear is the number of nuclear warheads in squalid silos that may soon pose a threat to the Russians themselves.

I'll see your Russo-Japanese War and raise you one Khalkhin Gol. Russia (or the Russian Empire) was able eventually to resist two of the mightiest armies of their time but scarcely emerged from the Winter and Continuation Wars smelling of roses. I'm not sure I understand that paradox.

From my memory of long ago A level history lessons, the prevalent school of thought seemed to be that the sheer size of Russia along with the biting cold of a Russian winter had ultimately defeated the invasions of Charles XII of Sweden and of Napoleon.

If I'm honest I do worry when Putin makes threats regarding nuclear weapons though I think use of them would be counter-productive because nuclear fall out might affect Russia even if another country were attacked.

Just as Russia was technologically ahead of the peoples of Siberia etc, so France was technologically ahead of the peoples of North America.  However, there were other nations also interested in North America, the British to name but one, and North America did not end up French.

However, as J.Gibson sets out in his paper 'Russian imperial expansion by context and contrast' (2002); one of the main reasons for the vastness of the Russian Empire was that there was a huge amount of land to the east of Russia in which no other imperial power (including Qing China) was interested.  

Where the Qing were interested, Russia was forced to pull back signing the Treaty of Nerchinsk with the Qing in 1689.  C. Chant 'The Expansion of Russia 1500-1725’ (2008).

Russia, however, fared better than the Zunghar Mongol state which was destroyed by the Qing in a series of campaigns conducted over huge distances (Qing armies had to march further than Napoleon did to reach Moscow). P. Perdue ‘Military mobilization in seventeenth- and eighteenth century China, Russia and Mongolia’ (1996).

Tim

I am afraid that Sigbert81 who started this thread has not posted recently.

In my retirement I am taking a history degree and my current (and last) course is on Europe 1914 to 1990.  Recently I have been looking at the Soviet invasions of Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968.  Below is part of the 'Brezhnev Doctrine' used to justify the 21st August 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.  Part of it is below, I wonder if Putin has ever expressed an opinion on it?

'The might of the socialist camp today is such that the imperialists fear
military defeat in the event of a direct clash with the chief forces of
socialism. Needless to say, as long as imperialism exists, the danger of war
that imperialist policy entails can on no account be disregarded. However, it
is a fact that in the new conditions the imperialists are making increasingly
frequent use of different and more insidious tactics. They are seeking out the
weak links in the socialist front, pursuing a course of subversive ideological
work inside the socialist countries, trying to influence the economic
development of these countries, attempting to sow dissension, drive wedges
between them and encourage and inflame nationalist feelings and tendencies,
and are seeking to isolate individual socialist states so that they can then
seize them by the throat one by one. In short, imperialism is trying to
undermine socialism’s solidarity precisely as a world system.
[…]
Socialist states stand for strict respect for the sovereignty of all countries.
We resolutely oppose interference in the affairs of any states and the
violation of their sovereignty.
[…]
It is common knowledge that the Soviet Union has really done a good deal
to strengthen the sovereignty and autonomy of the socialist countries. The
CPSU has always advocated that each socialist country determine the
concrete forms of its development along the path of socialism by taking into
account the specific nature of their national conditions. But it is well known,
comrades, that there are common natural laws of socialist construction,
deviation from which could lead to deviation from socialism as such. And
when external and internal forces hostile to socialism try to turn the
development of a given socialist country in the direction of restoration of the
capitalist system, when a threat arises to the causes of socialism in that
country – a threat to the security of the socialist commonwealth as a whole –
this is no longer merely a problem for that country’s people, but a common
problem, the concern of all socialist countries.
It is quite clear that an action such as military assistance to a fraternal
country to end a threat to the socialist system is an extraordinary measure,
dictated by necessity; it can be called forth only by the overt actions of
enemies of socialism within the country and beyond its boundaries, actions
that create a threat to the common interests of the socialist camp.
Experience bears witness that in present conditions the triumph of the
socialist system in a country can be regarded as final, but the restoration of 
capitalism can be considered ruled out only if the Communist party, as the
leading force in society, steadfastly pursues a Marxist-Leninist policy in the
development of all spheres of society’s life; only if the party indefatigably
strengthens the country’s defense and the protection of its revolutionary
gains, and if it itself is vigilant and instills in the people vigilance with
respect to the class enemy and implacability toward bourgeois ideology; only
if the principle of socialist internationalism is held sacred, and unity and
fraternal solidarity with the other socialist countries are strengthened.'

The opinion has been expressed by western historians that the invasion marked the death nell of any attempt for eastern European Communism to reform itself and that things would only change is there were to be a 'Dubcek' in the Kremlin.

Tim

Russia is the largest country in the world by land area and is located in both Europe and Asia. It has a rich history and culture, with contributions in fields such as literature, music, and art. Russia is also a major player in the global economy and is home to many multinational corporations.
In recent years, Russia has been in the news for a number of reasons, including its involvement in conflicts such as the war in Ukraine and its alleged interference in foreign elections.

One of the key documents of the Cold War, written by George F. Kennan in
the US embassy in Moscow, and forwarded to Washington. (part of it below)

At the bottom of the Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional
and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was insecurity of
a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in
neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia came
into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more
powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. But this latter type of
insecurity was one which afflicted rather Russian rulers than Russian people;
for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively
archaic in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable
to stand comparison for contact with political systems of Western countries.
For this reason they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct
contact between Western world and their own, feared what would happen if
Russians learned truth about world without or if foreigners learned truth
about world within. And they have learned to seek security only in patient
but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts
and compromises with it.