Da Russophile focuses on Russia’s economy, demography and the Western media’s biased coverage of it. I was inspired, or rather provoked, to create the original Da Russophile in response to what I saw as the consistent and almost systematic defamation of Russia in the Western media. Is this because of unpleasant memories of the Soviet Union? A search for new enemies? A barely repressed fear of the East and the barbaric hordes that its vast plains harbor, buried deep within the Western psyche?
Whatever the reason, Russia has suffered greatly in her history from these salesmen of hatred and I am determined to right this informational injustice. As Putin said, the “strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism”; by smearing its government as a neo-Soviet authoritarian revanchist regime, Western elites give themselves the moral justification needed to stymie Russia’s integration into the world system, aggressively intrude on its security space and arrogantly dismiss its protestations.
The agitprop drums on. Is Russia’s economy nothing more than an oil bubble? No. The economy is driven by retail, construction and manufacturing. Is Russia blighted by endemic corruption on a scale comparable to Zaire under Mobutu? No. Russia’s level of corruption is comparable to that of the Czech Republic. Has Putin clamped down on democracy and human rights? Only a negligibly small percentage of Russians would agree.
More insidiously, Russia is represented as the aggressor rather than the victim whenever it decides to reduce gas subsidies to Ukraine, draws attention to anti-Russian discrimination in the Baltic states or is forced to take military action to defend its citizens and (UN-mandated) peace-keepers from unprovoked, criminal attack by Georgia.
Do you have a hard time coming to terms with the above claims? Yes? I’m not surprised, given the degree of consent the Western media has successfully manufactured about Russia. However, they are all well-documented.
Please consult the articles from the Best of Da Russophile and Core Articles pages, which can be said to form a basis for the “Russophile” worldview. Also take a look at the page Russophibe Myths in which I seek to disprove some common myths about Russia in the West, or at least force a debate on the topic.
One major and valid objection you may have at this point is that I am too one-sided and uncritically supportive of the Russian government. However, I explicitly admit my partisanship in my Creed, where I urge you to reach your own synthesis by taking into account many other different (and biased in their own way – though they won’t admit it) points of view. Say what you will about me, but what other blogger is idiot enough to confess to being a propagandist?
Some Relevant Quotes
The fledgling Russian democracy is still, of course, far from perfect, but its existence and its successes cannot be denied. – Alvaro Gil-Robles, then Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe.
The truth is like a quantum superposition state: it is not one version or the other, but a strange combination of all them. – Gideon Lichfield, former Economist journalist.
I’m amazed by their skills at seeing black as white, of portraying aggressors as victims and of blamimg the real victims for the consequences of the conflict. – Vladimir Putin (on Western media and Ossetia War).
One must soberly look at what is happening in the media, and analyze…We all know that, definitely, a monopoly exists in the world (mass media) in some countries and, of course, political centers in these countries are trying to use these channels to influence our population, the population of European countries and the North American continent…Various means are being used in the world to attain one’s political or economic goals…A discussion is on democracy in Russia. What’s the idea of heeding Russia’s opinion on Kosovo, some argue, if Russia herself is not a democratic country? We must understand for what purpose all this is being done…What’s the big idea listening to what these Russians think about missile defense? They cannot be trusted, because they have problems with democracy there. – Vladimir Putin.
You can’t be neutral on a moving train. – Howard Zinn.
Демократия, либерализм — это все слова на вывеске, она правильно сказала. А реальность похожа, извините за выражение, на микрофлору кишечника. У вас на Западе все микробы уравновешивают друг друга, это веками складывалось. Каждый тихо вырабатывает сероводород и помалкивает. Все настроено, как часы, полный баланс и саморегуляция пищеварения, а сверху — корпоративные медиа, которые ежедневно смачивают это свежей слюной. Вот такой организм и называется открытым обществом — на фиг ему закрываться, он сам кого хочешь закроет за два вылета. А нам запустили в живот палочку Коха — еще разобраться надо, кстати, из какой лаборатории, — против которой ни антител не было, ни других микробов, чтобы хоть как-то ее сдержать. И такой понос начался, что триста миллиардов баксов вытекло, прежде чем мы только понимать начали, в чем дело. И вариантов нам оставили два — или полностью и навсегда вытечь через неустановленную жопу, или долго-долго принимать антибиотики, а потом осторожно и медленно начать все заново. Но уже не так. – Victor Pelevin.
Russia is not a modern authoritarian autocracy (whatever that is supposed to be). The most appropriate characterisation might see it as an evolving, post-totalitarian democracy, which unsurprisingly continues to suffer from the baggage of its difficult history. – Vlad Sobell.
At present, all we see is chaos, struggle, economic collapse, ethnic disintegration – just as the observers of 1918 did. How could they have foreseen then that a decade or so later the USSR would have begun to produce chemicals, aircraft, trucks, tanks, and machine tools and be growing faster than any other industrialized society? By extension, how could Western admirers of Stalin’s centralized economy in the 1930’s know that the very system contained the seeds of its own collapse? – “Preparing for the Twenty First Century”, Paul Kennedy (1993).
In talking with people in France and America I was impressed by the interest in the Soviet Union and the widespread misinformation about Russia and all things Russian. Everyone I met was opinionated [aren't we all lol!]. The Communists and their sympathizers held Russia up as a panacea…Other people were steeped in Eugene Lyons’ stories and would not concede the possibility that Russia had produced anything during recent years except chaos, suffering and disorder. They dismissed the industrial and material successes of the Russians with an angry wave of the hand. Any economist or businessman should have been able to see that the tripling of pig-iron production within a decade was a serious achievement, and would necessarily have far-reaching effects on the balance of economic and therefore military power in Europe. – “Behind the Urals”, John Scott (1941)
Умом Россию не понять, | You can’t understand Russia with intellect,
Аршином общим не измерить: | You can’t measure her with a common scale,
У ней особенная стать — | She has a special kind of grace,
В Россию можно только верить. | You can only believe in Russia. - Fyodor Tyutchev.
Русский интеллигент” – это человек, решающий свои проблемы за счет того, что он доставляет обществу неприятности, хотя и не оружием, а словами. Интеллигенция ведет себя по отношению к русскому обществу (и тем более к государству) примерно так же, как скандалист в очереди: он непрерывно оскорбляет всех присутствующих, и ждет, что его пропустят вперед просто затем, чтобы он, наконец, замолчал. Именно такую цель имеет тотальная критика интеллигентами всех аспектов русской жизни и целенаправленное внушение русским людям чувства иррациональной вины … Как правило, эта “критика” использует ряд идей, созданных на Западе (например, либеральных социально-экономических теорий), причем ссылающиеся на эти идеи лица обыкновенно не понимают смысла того, о чем они говорят: это еще один случай использования орудий, созданных цивилизацией, для борьбы против цивилизации. Поэтому не следует удивляться тому, что вполне конструктивные западные идеи приобретают в России некую “разрушительную силу”: они используются для заведомо деструктивных целей. – Konstantin Krylov.
There is one thing of which the Great Russian is sure − that a sunny summer day is valuable, that nature would allow little time convenient for agricultural work and that a short Great Russian summer can be shortened even more by a sudden untimely turn of bad weather. This would force the Great Russian peasant to hurry up and toil in order to achieve as much as possible over a short while and take the crop in good time… In this way the Great Russian would learn to take an extraordinary but short effort, would learn to do rush, hasty work and then take a rest during forced idleness in autumn and winter. No other nation in Europe is capable of such short extraordinary effort; but, on the other hand, such lack of habit to regular, moderate, constant work is unlikely to be found anywhere in Europe. – Kluchevsky.
“…all that part of Asia which lies any considerable way north of the Euxine and Caspian seas, the ancient Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, seem in all ages of the world to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilised state… The Sea of Tartary is the frozen ocean which admits of no navigation, and though some of the greatest rivers in the world run through that country, they are at too great a distance from one another to carry commerce and communication through the greater part of it.” – “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, Adam Smith.