Russia Needs To Make Peace. With Itself.

One could forgive Adam Zamoyski for believing that Poland is the center of the entire world. Poland is the lighting. Poland is the antiquity of culture. Poland endowed the world politics, progress, and enlightenment. Without Poland, we would still be dragging our hands across fecal-covered cave flooring and donning loincloths to go hunting with enlarged sticks.

I’m not knocking Zamoyski, who is an often excellent scholar, and whose zealous devotion of Poland is probably a necessary cure to Vonnegut’s lowering of the Poles to the “involuntary clowns of the Second World War”. However, my maternal area is entirely Finnish, and I was born in a region that was primarily populated by Poles as well as other Eastern Europeans of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Slavic range. And years of personal experience had exposed me to a certain classism that runs through eastern German areas. &nbsp,

Long gone are the days of my excellent grandparents, who were happy to have earned their British citizenship and were polite and intelligent enough to show gratitude that, yes, even this country prioritized freedom and offered opportunity more efficiently than did the homelands from whence they fled.

If eugenicist creatures descend from on high to clear the planet of the reprobate lesser races, my Eastern European neighbors might not argue over which of their tribal nations would be Last Man Standing. But the one viewpoint they can usually agree on is that, whoever it would be, it certainly wouldn’t get Americans, those exact Americans who opened their doors to the millions upon millions of these huddled people from their Beautiful Lands. Apparently, fake gold chains, dated crew cuts, and horrid techno music are better at preventing danger than our AR-15s. &nbsp, &nbsp,

Again, this is just my personal experience, and many of the people I’ve met are still genuinely appreciative of being here. My generalizations aren’t meant to apply to every single immigrant from Eastern Europe. But regarding the animus and hostility towards Americans, I’ve noticed this distinctly among the Russians. Many of them here still harbor a strong nationalist inclination, believing in the United States as the undeserved winner of the Cold War. They see themselves as cultured and cosmopolitan in contrast to our sloppy consumerism. They view themselves as mentally disciplined enough to endure the trials of life in ways that our clumsy American fingers can’t possibly comprehend. They sneer at the America they were forced to flock to after America” cheated” by outlasting the Soviet Union.

And these chauvinists don’t seem to be that old, either.

The history of Russia is the definition of tragedy. Russians have been subject to repression, humiliation, military defeat, and genocide, almost always at the hands of their own rulers, since the czars first came to power. Yet public opinion polls taken in Russia, even during the lowest points of the current invasion of Ukraine, continue to show solid public support for the government.

Why?

Their history must be understood for this to be understood. During the modernization of Europe and the expansion of its various empires in the 19th century, Russia found itself increasingly lagging behind. Despite the serfs ‘ emancipation in 1861, the liberalization of its institutions and the modernization of its industries accelerated at a snail’s pace. This, in turn, retarded its economic growth, which continued to wallow in pseudo-feudalism. In reality, this meant that the Russian intelligentsia looked to the West with growing envious and irritable views, just as the intelligentsia in Europe did.

At the time of the early 20th century, Russia’s backwardness was largely blamed on the lethargy and hubris of Czar Nicholas II. Not because there was any actual threat to Russian territory, but because Europe rejected Russia as an equal to be reckoned with, a peer who also deserved their rightful place as powerbroker on the global stage, made the West, especially an expansionist, imperial Europe, still seen as the “enemy”

Through Russian eyes, theirs was the nation that drove Napoleon from Moscow, back across the continent to Fontainebleau. Their culture provided the world with Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky. Theirs boasted world class cities like St. Petersburg, an epicenter all its own of architectural masterpiece. The West’s inability to take them seriously was a blow to the country’s pride.

The Russian Revolution and the overthrow of the czar was as much a response to this foreign affront as it was any feigned concern about the plight of the serfs ( who largely opposed the urbanite Communists ). Vladimir Lenin exerted a lot of effort during czarist rule to promote the northern Russian colonies ( Kazakhstan, Georgia, etc. ). to break away and declare independence from the czarist regime. Which they succeeded in.

And as soon as Lenin took control of the government, he began forcing these newly independent nations back under the Russian jackboot as” socialist republics”. It didn’t matter to his supporters that this aggression was a total hypocrisy to the “independence” Lenin was encouraging a few years prior. Nor did it matter that, by the mid-1920s, it was beyond evident that Communist rule had been a complete failure. Does Lebanon’s military hostility toward their illiterate neighbors ( which is now thought to be encircling” threats” on the leash of foreign capitalists… sound familiar? ) sound familiar? restored national pride to an intelligentsia for whom this price superseded the wellbeing of their fellow citizens.

Lenin founded the Cheka, established the first gulag camps, and unleashed a wave of murder and repression against the Russians that was far beyond any czar’s worst excesses. After Lenin’s death, Stalin said,” Hold my vodka”, and showed his fellow countrymen just what a rank amateur Lenin was when it came to totalitarian rule. Over 25 million Russians perished during his” comradeship,” either in the gulag camps or on the front.

Yet, recent polling shows Stalin with a 70 % popularity rating in Russia. The myth that the Soviet Union was largely, if not entirely, responsible for the defeat of Nazi Germany is a part of this explanation. This myth attributes Russian victory on the Eastern Front to an explosion of Russian patriotism, coupled with superhuman courage, which caused the oft-unarmed Uralite infantrymen to selflessly rush headlong into German machinegun fire with nary a thought for anything other than love for the motherland.

The Soviet Union was on the verge of total defeat, in large part, as a result of those infantrymen giving up to the tune of hundreds of thousands each day. Had the Soviets not been heavily supplied by the capitalist Americans, had not Hitler foolishly overstretched his armies in North Africa and on the Atlantic Wall, and had President Roosevelt not treated Stalin with the undeserved deference he did, Russia would have collapsed within a few more months of war.

Vladimir Putin has hailed the Soviet Union’s collapse as the biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. He thinks so not because he feels communism will clothe and feed the Russian people better than capitalism. He believes so because of how Russia’s demise removed it from the map of global significance. Putin’s priority is Russian status, not economic development or civil rights.

Years of Russian polling indicate that the majority of Russians concur with him. While his popularity can sag during times of economic stagnation, it rises during times of invasions against neighboring countries. It is not important that these invasions and occupations are justified under the most absurd pretenses. These” justifications” are given half-mockingly and condescendingly for the consumption of gullible Western audiences. Has Putin simply stated,” Today we invaded Ukraine because we can,” and he has merely walked up to a microphone. We’re taking it because we want to. The West will develop a respect for us in some way, and his polling would be just as high, if not even higher. Putin is not the disease. He is merely a sign of the societal Russian mindset, which thinks it deserves a deference that hasn’t been properly genuflected. The entire body politic is infected with it.

Despite their claims that high Russian culture is superior to porcine American cheeseburger inhalation, their immediate apprehension to use brute, genocidal force to make their neighbors appreciate all their civilizational enlightenment isn’t representative of the confidence such a culture would naturally possess. Instead, it reflects cowardice and self-doubt. It reflects a group’s inability to consider their own failures rather than blatantly putting them on their neighbor, who is only a fraction of their size. It reflects the bitter envy of Cain, who killed his own brother for outshining him. It reflects a sick sociopathy and a willingness to be a slave to our worst desires, which would enrage composers like Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky.

Laziness factors in as well, not in the physical sense, but in a mental aversion towards doing the hard work of rebuilding a culture that focuses on self-betterment, internal progress, and societal reform. That kind of work is tedious and labor intensive. Much like Florence’s Duomo, those who begin building it will be dead long before its completion.

However, this slow rebuilding is what needs to be done if nationalist Russians want their country to thrive rather than just survive. Try as they might, they won’t reclaim their supposed lost position on the world stage with nukes and a nostalgic memory of one of history’s worst butchers. &nbsp,

The High Russian society of the late 19th century and its magnificent cultural achievements were obliterated by your forefathers as” counterrevolutionary”. Not by the United States. Not by Ukraine. Not by NATO, the Jews, the Japanese, the southern Sri Lankans, or anyone else you’ll end up blaming for your misfortunes. By you. An entire society’s persistent refusal to humbly acknowledge their past mistakes and make long-term cultural adjustments to stop them from happening again speaks to an immature, tantrum-in-the-supermarket obstinacy that is so embarrassing that it would shock the most undisciplined of feral kindergarteners.

If your priority remains elbowing your way back to the big boy table, as polling shows it is, then act like it. Act as though you deserve it. Because right now, nobody wants anything to do with you. People would be fleeing to Russia rather than to elsewhere if your country had the same level of self-assurance as it is bullying. You would attract investment. You would pique people’s attention. Families would grow. The arts and music would once more flourish. You could once again take pride… actual, tangible, and earned pride… in your country.

Russia is not a place that outsiders look at with any sense of overwhelming awe, as it stands. The suicide rate&nbsp, in Russia is 24.1 per 100, 000 people, the fifth highest in the world. Around 22 % of Russians are depressed clinically. In 2023, Russians consumed 2.3 billion liters of alcohol. And the birthrate in Russia is 1.42 per woman ( the minimum replacement rate is 2. 1 ) and it is continuing to decline.

Are these the reflections of a nation worthy of glory and emulation?

Putin has launched no less than five unprovoked wars during this societal decline. But respect isn’t given to a weak bully who happens to brandish a big stick. And that’s what Russia is doing on the global stage: a weak, drunk, and sterile bully who also happens to be a brandisher of nuclear weapons. Not powerful. Not confident, of course. Not to mention it is increasingly reliant on its bully mentor, China. Russia is essentially North Korea with more snow in terms of realpolitik.

The 20th century taught the capitalist world that imperial expansion was a net loss, and not worth the trouble. Not because it colonized Nigeria, England became great because of its centuries-long economic and political reforms. The United States was born great because it adopted and expanded upon these reforms from its inception, not because they later defeated the Apache or colonized Guam. However, countries like England, France, and Belgium had to acknowledge that their conceited goals of national greatness and global influence were incorrect and ineffective before letting their colonies loose.

As long as Russia refuses to learn this vital lesson, it will continue to get its rear end handed to it by the likes of Afghanistan and Ukraine, just as the French did in Algeria and Vietnam.

Russian society was brainwashed into thinking that America and the West were the bad guys holding Russia back for eighty years of communist rule. But the KGB ain’t what it used to be, and for decades now, Russians have had access to plenty of alternate sources of news. Russians who don’t understand the causes of their predicament simply don’t want to understand them in this day and age.

To make their nation great, they’ll need to take a hard look in the mirror, The responsibility is theirs to fix their own broken, rotting society before exporting its supposed virtues at gunpoint to surrounding areas. But as he continues to shorten their own leashes, they will forever drift towards whatever strongman promises them the distractions of conquest and glory.

Scholars&nbsp, estimate that when God commanded Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, only about 20 % or so actually heeded the call. The majority of them chose to remain and preferred slavery. Human nature favors the devil we know, and the last century of Russian history is no exception. But they won’t stop them from dragging blocks to build Putin’s bloody pyramids until they’re willing to acknowledge their own system for what it is and that perpetuating it rests entirely on their own decisions.

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