"Russian idea" against world domination - II. World policy of Russian sovereigns

International relations are going through a very difficult period, and Russia, as has happened more than once in history, found itself at the crossroads of key trends that largely determine the vector of future world development.

In this regard, different points of view are being expressed, including doubts as to whether we are sufficiently sober in assessing the international situation and our own positions in the world. Echoes of the age-old disputes for Russia between “Westernizers” and supporters of their own, unique path are again heard. There are those, both inside the country and abroad, who are inclined to believe that Russia is almost doomed to forever be a lagging behind or “catching up” country, is forced to constantly adapt to the rules of the game invented by others, and therefore cannot declare its own role in world affairs. In this context, I would like to express some considerations in conjunction with historical examples and parallels.

It has long been noted that a well-thought-out policy cannot exist in isolation from a historical perspective. An appeal to history is all the more justified because a number of anniversaries have been celebrated in the recent period. Last year we celebrated the seventieth anniversary of the Great Victory, and the year before last we recalled the beginning of the First World War a hundred years ago. In 2012, the bicentenary of the Battle of Borodino was celebrated, as well as the four hundredth anniversary of the liberation of Moscow from the Polish invaders. If you think about it, these milestones clearly testify to the special role of Russia in European and world history.

Historical facts do not support the popular thesis that Russia, they say, has always been on the European margins, was an outsider of European politics. Let me remind you in this regard that the baptism of Rus in 988 – by the way, the 1025th anniversary of this event was also recently celebrated – contributed to a breakthrough in the development of state institutions, social relations and culture, the transformation of Kievan Rus into a full member of the then European community. At that time, dynastic marriages were the best indicator of the country's role in the system of international relations, and the fact that in the 11th century three daughters of Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise became queens of Norway and Denmark, Hungary, France, respectively, his sister became the wife of a Polish king, and the granddaughter married the German emperor.

Numerous scientific studies testify to the high - often higher than in Western European states - the cultural and spiritual level of development of the then Russia. Its inclusion in the general European context is recognized by many prominent Western thinkers. But at the same time, the Russian people, having their own cultural matrix, their own spirituality, never merged with the West. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the tragic and in many ways turning point for our people, the era of the Mongol invasion. Alexander Pushkin wrote: “The barbarians did not dare to leave enslaved Russia in their rear and returned to the steppes of their East. Christian enlightenment was saved by tormented and dying Russia. The alternative opinion of Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov is also well known that the Mongol invasion contributed to the formation of a renewed Russian ethnos, that the Great Steppe gave us an additional impetus in development.

Be that as it may, it is obvious that that period is extremely important for asserting the independent role of the Russian state in the Eurasian space. In this regard, let us recall the policy of Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, who accepted temporary submission to the generally tolerant rulers of the Golden Horde in order to defend the right of a Russian person to have his own faith, to control his own destiny, despite the attempts of the European West to completely subjugate the Russian lands, to deprive them of their own identity. Such a wise, far-sighted policy, I am convinced, has remained in our genes.

Russia bent, but did not break under the weight of the Mongol yoke and was able to get out of this difficult test as a single state, which later both in the West and in the East began to be considered as a kind of heir to the Byzantine Empire that fell in 1453. The country, impressive in size, spread over almost the entire eastern perimeter of Europe, began to grow organically with vast territories of the Urals and Siberia. And even then it played the role of a powerful balancing factor in all-European political combinations, including the famous Thirty Years' War, which resulted in the formation of the Westphalian system of international relations in Europe, the principles of which, primarily respect for state sovereignty, are still important today.

Here we come to a dilemma that has been making itself felt for several centuries. On the one hand, the rapidly developing Muscovite state naturally showed itself more and more in European affairs, on the other hand, the European countries were apprehensive about the emerging giant in the east and took steps to isolate it, if possible, to prevent it from participating in the most important affairs of the continent.

From the same time - the apparent contradiction between the traditional social order and the desire for modernization using the most advanced experience. In fact, a vigorously developing state cannot but try to make a breakthrough based on modern technologies, which does not mean a mandatory rejection of its "cultural code". We know many examples of the modernization of Eastern societies that were not accompanied by a radical breakdown of traditions. This is all the more true for Russia, which in its deepest essence is one of the branches of European civilization.

By the way, the demand for modernization with the use of European achievements was clearly manifested in Russian society even under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, and Peter I, with his talent and energy, gave this imperative an explosive character. Relying on tough measures within the country, on a resolute and successful foreign policy, the first Russian emperor, in a little over two decades, managed to promote Russia to the ranks of the leading states of Europe. Since then, Russia can no longer be ignored, not a single serious European issue can be resolved without taking Russian opinion into account.

It cannot be said that this state of affairs suited everyone. Over the next centuries, again and again, attempts were made to return our country to the pre-Petrine borders. But these calculations were not destined to come true. Already in the middle of the 18th century, Russia took on a key role in the all-European conflict - the Seven Years' War. Russian troops then triumphantly entered Berlin - the capital of the Prussian King Frederick II, who was considered invincible, - and only the unexpected death of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna and the accession to the Russian throne of Peter III, who sympathized with Frederick, saved Prussia from inevitable defeat. This turn of events in German history is still referred to as the "miracle of the House of Brandenburg". The size, power and influence of Russia were significantly strengthened during the reign of Catherine the Great, reaching a position where, in the words of the chancellor of those times, Alexander Bezborodko, "not a single gun in Europe dared to fire without our permission."

I would like to cite the opinion of the well-known researcher of Russian history, permanent secretary of the French Academy, Helene Carrère d'Encos, that the Russian Empire, in terms of the totality of all parameters - size, ability to manage its territories, longevity of existence - was the greatest empire of all time. At the same time, following Nikolai Berdyaev, she defends the point of view that history has destined Russia for the great mission of a link between East and West.

Over the course of at least the last two centuries, any attempts to unite Europe without Russia and against it have invariably ended in grave tragedies, the consequences of which have always been overcome only with the decisive participation of our country. I mean, in particular, the Napoleonic Wars, at the end of which it was Russia that acted as the savior of the system of international relations based on the balance of power and mutual consideration of national interests and excluding the total dominance of any one state on the European continent. We remember that Emperor Alexander I took the most direct part in the development of the decisions of 1815, which ensured the development of the continent without serious armed conflicts over the next forty years.

By the way, the ideas of Alexander I can in a certain sense be considered a prototype of the concept of subordinating national interests to common goals, meaning primarily the maintenance of peace and order in Europe. As the Russian emperor said, “there can be no more English, French, Russian, Austrian policies; there is only one policy - a common one, which must be adopted by both peoples and sovereigns for the common happiness.

The Vienna system was destroyed again in the wake of the desire to push Russia to the European margins, which Paris was obsessed with during the reign of Emperor Napoleon III. In an attempt to put together an anti-Russian alliance, the French monarch was ready, like an unlucky grandmaster, to sacrifice all other pieces. How did it turn out? Yes, Russia was defeated in the Crimean War of 1853-1856, the consequences of which she managed to shake off after a not very long time thanks to the consistent and far-sighted policy of Chancellor Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov. As for Napoleon III, his reign ended in German captivity, and the nightmare of Franco-German confrontation loomed over Western Europe for many decades.

I will cite one more episode connected with the Crimean War. As you know, the Austrian emperor then refused to help Russia, which a few years earlier, in 1849, came to his rescue during the Hungarian uprising. Felix Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, said on this occasion: "We will amaze Europe with our ingratitude." In general, it can be said that the imbalance of pan-European mechanisms launched the processes that led to the outbreak of the First World War.

I note that even then Russian diplomacy came up with ideas that were ahead of their time. Today, the Hague peace conferences of 1899 and 1907, convened at the initiative of Emperor Nicholas II, are not very often remembered today, which were the first attempts to agree on how to reverse the arms race and prepare for a destructive war.

World War I resulted in the death and untold suffering of millions of people and the collapse of four empires. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall another anniversary, which is coming next year - the centenary of the Russian revolution. Now there is an acute task of developing a balanced, objective assessment of those events, especially in conditions when, especially in the West, there are many who want to use this date for new information attacks on Russia, to present the revolution of 1917 in the form of some kind of barbaric coup, a little whether not pushing the subsequent European history downhill. Even worse, put the Soviet regime on the same level as Nazism, laying on it part of the responsibility for unleashing the Second World War.

Without a doubt, the revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Civil War were the most severe tragedy for our people. However, all other revolutions were tragedies as well. This does not prevent, say, our French colleagues from glorifying their upheavals, which, in addition to the slogans of freedom, equality and fraternity, brought the guillotine and rivers of blood.

It is impossible to deny that the Russian revolution was the greatest event in terms of impact on world history, and the impact is ambiguous and multifaceted. It became a kind of experiment in putting into practice the socialist ideas that were then widespread in Europe, and its support from the population was based, among other things, on the desire of a significant part of it for social organization based on collective, communal principles.

For serious researchers, the enormous impact of the transformations in the Soviet Union on the formation of the so-called welfare state or "welfare society" in Western Europe in the period after World War II is obvious. The governments of European states went to the introduction of unprecedented measures of social protection precisely under the influence of the example of the Soviet Union and in an effort to cut the ground from under the feet of leftist political forces.

It can be said that forty years after the Second World War became an amazingly favorable period for the development of Western Europe, which was spared the need to make its own major decisions and, under a kind of “umbrella” of the US-Soviet confrontation, received unique opportunities for peaceful development. Under these conditions, the ideas of convergence of the capitalist and socialist models, which were put forward by Pitirim Sorokin and other outstanding thinkers of the twentieth century, were partly realized in Western European countries. And now, for a couple of decades now, both in Europe and in the United States, we have been observing the reverse process: the reduction of the middle class, the increase in social inequality, and the dismantling of the control mechanisms of big business.

The role that the Soviet Union played in questions of decolonization and in reaffirming in international relations such principles as the independent development of states and their right to independently determine their future is indisputable.

I will not dwell on the moments connected with Europe's slipping into the Second World War. It is obvious that here again the anti-Russian aspirations of the European elites, their desire to unleash the Nazi war machine on the Soviet Union, played a fatal role. And once again, the state of affairs after this terrible catastrophe had to be straightened out with the key participation of our country in determining the parameters of both the European and now the world order.

In this context, talk about the "clash of two totalitarianisms", which are now actively introduced into the European consciousness, including at the level of school textbooks, is groundless and immoral. The Soviet Union, with all the flaws of the system that existed then in our country, did not set itself the goal of destroying entire peoples. Let us recall Winston Churchill, who was a principled opponent of the USSR all his life and played a big role in the turn from the World War II alliance to a new confrontation with the Soviet Union. He, nevertheless, quite sincerely admitted: "The concept of good morality - to live according to conscience - is in Russian."

By the way, if you honestly look at the position of small European states that used to be part of the Warsaw Pact, and now - in NATO and the EU, it is obvious that we should not be talking about the transition from subordination to freedom, which Western ideologists love to talk about, but rather a change of leadership. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this well recently, and the representatives of these countries admit behind closed doors that they are not capable of making any significant decisions without a signal from Washington and Brussels.

It seems that in the context of the centenary of the Russian revolution, it is very important for us to deeply realize the continuity of Russian history, from which it is impossible to erase any individual periods, and the importance of synthesizing the entire array of positive traditions and historical experience developed by our people as a basis for vigorous advancement and assertion by right. our country's role as one of the leading centers of the modern world, a supplier of the values ​​of development, security and stability.

The post-war world order, based on the confrontation between the two systems, was, of course, far from ideal, but it nevertheless made it possible to preserve the foundations of international peace and avoid the most terrible thing - the temptation to resort to the massive use of weapons of mass destruction that fell into the hands of politicians, primarily nuclear weapons. . The myth of victory in the Cold War, which took root in the West in connection with the collapse of the Soviet Union, has no basis. It was the will of the people of our country to change, multiplied by an unfavorable set of circumstances.

These events led, without exaggeration, to tectonic shifts in the international landscape, to a major change in the entire picture of world politics. At the same time, the exit from the Cold War and the irreconcilable ideological confrontation associated with it opened up unique opportunities for rebuilding the European architecture on the principles of indivisible and equal security and broad cooperation without dividing lines.

There was a real chance to decisively overcome the split of Europe and realize the dream of a common European home, which was supported by many thinkers and politicians on the continent, including French President Charles de Gaulle. Our country was completely open to such an option and came up with numerous proposals and initiatives in this regard. It would be perfectly logical to create new foundations for European security through strengthening the military-political component of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Vladimir Putin, in an interview with the German publication Bild, recently cited a statement by a prominent German politician, Egon Bahr, who put forward such ideas.

Western partners, unfortunately, took a different path, chose the option of expanding NATO to the East, approaching the Russian borders of the geopolitical space controlled by them. This is precisely the root of the systemic problems from which Russia's relations with the United States and the European Union are suffering today. It is noteworthy that George Kennan, who is considered one of the creators of the American policy of containment of the USSR, at the end of his life called the decision to expand the North Atlantic Alliance a tragic mistake.

The deeper problem associated with such a Western course is that it was designed without due consideration of the global context. But the modern world in the context of globalization is characterized by an unprecedented interdependence of various states, and today it is no longer possible to build relations between Russia and the EU as if they were still at the epicenter of world politics, as during the Cold War. One cannot ignore the powerful processes that are taking place in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

The main sign of the current stage is the rapid changes in all spheres of international life. Moreover, they often take an unexpected direction for everyone. For example, today the failure of the popular in the 1990s is obvious. the concept of the “end of history”, the authorship of which belongs to the famous American sociologist and political researcher Francis Fukuyama. She assumed that the rapid development of globalization marks the final victory of the liberal-capitalist model, and the task of everyone else is only to quickly adapt to it under the guidance of wise Western teachers.

In fact, the second edition of globalization (its previous wave happened before the First World War) led to the dispersal of global economic power and, accordingly, political influence, to the emergence of new major centers of power, primarily in the Asia-Pacific region. The most striking example is the dramatic leap forward of China, which, thanks to unprecedented rates of economic growth over the course of three decades, has taken the position of the second, and in accordance with purchasing power parity calculations, already the first economy in the world. Against this background, one can perceive, as they say, as a "medical fact" the plurality of development models, which excludes the dull monotony within the framework of a single - Western - coordinate system.

Accordingly, there has been a relative reduction in the influence of the so-called "historical West", which for almost five centuries has been accustomed to seeing itself as the arbiter of the fate of mankind. Competition has intensified on the issue of shaping the contours of the world order of the 21st century. Moreover, the transition from the Cold War to the new international system turned out to be much longer and more painful than it was seen 20-25 years ago.

Against this backdrop, one of the basic questions in international affairs today is what form this generally natural competition between the world's leading powers takes. We see how the United States and the Western alliance led by it are trying by all means to maintain their dominant positions or, to use the American vocabulary, to ensure their "global leadership". A variety of methods of pressure, economic sanctions, and even direct military intervention are used. Large-scale information wars are being waged. Technologies of unconstitutional change of regimes have been worked out through the implementation of "color revolutions". At the same time, for the peoples who are the objects of such actions, democratic revolutions turn out to be destructive. And our country, which has gone through a period in its history of encouraging artificial transformations abroad, firmly proceeds from the preference for evolutionary changes, which should be carried out in forms and at a speed corresponding to the traditions and level of development of this or that society.

In Western propaganda, it is now customary to accuse Russia of “revisionism”, of our alleged desire to destroy the established international system, as if we bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 in violation of the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act. As if it was Russia that ignored international law by invading Iraq in 2003 and perverted UN Security Council resolutions by forcibly overthrowing the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. These examples can be continued.

Arguments about "revisionism" do not stand up to criticism and are essentially based on a simple to primitive logic, which assumes that only Washington can "order the music" in world affairs today. In accordance with this approach, it turns out that the principle once formulated by George Orwell has moved to the international level: everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. However, international relations today are too complex a mechanism to be managed from any one center. This is confirmed by the results of American intervention: in Libya, the state essentially does not exist, Iraq is teetering on the verge of collapse - and further down the list.

A reliable solution to the problems of the modern world can only be ensured through serious, honest cooperation between leading states and their associations in the interests of solving common problems. Such interaction should take into account the multicolored nature of the modern world, its cultural and civilizational diversity, and reflect the interests of the main components of the international community.

Practice shows that when these principles are applied in practice, concrete, significant results can be achieved. I will mention, in particular, the conclusion of an agreement on the settlement of issues related to the development of the main parameters of a global agreement on climate. This demonstrates the need to restore a culture of compromise, relying on diplomacy, which can be difficult, even exhausting, but which remains, in fact, the only way to ensure a mutually acceptable solution to problems by peaceful means.

Such our approaches are shared today by most of the countries of the world, including Chinese partners, other countries of the BRICS, SCO, our friends in the EAEU, the CSTO, the CIS. In other words, it can be said that Russia is not fighting against anyone, but for resolving all issues on an equal, mutually respectful basis, which alone can be a reliable foundation for the long-term improvement of international relations.

We believe that the most important task is to unite efforts against not far-fetched, but absolutely real challenges, among which terrorist aggression is the main one today. Extremists from ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and others like it managed to take control of large territories in Syria and Iraq for the first time, they are trying to spread their influence to other countries and regions, and they are committing terrorist attacks around the world. The underestimation of this danger cannot be regarded otherwise than as criminal myopia.

The President of Russia called for the formation of a broad front to inflict military defeat on the terrorists. The Aerospace Forces of Russia are making a significant contribution to these efforts. At the same time, we are energetically working in the interests of organizing collective actions for the political settlement of conflicts in this region, engulfed in a deep crisis.

But let me emphasize that long-term success can only be achieved on the basis of progress towards a partnership of civilizations based on the respectful interaction of different cultures and religions. We believe that universal human solidarity should have a moral basis formed by traditional values ​​that are largely common to the world's leading religions. In this regard, I would like to draw attention to the joint statement of Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis, which, in particular, expresses support for the family as the natural center of human life and society.

I repeat - we do not seek confrontation with either the United States, or the European Union, or NATO. On the contrary, Russia is open to the broadest interaction with Western partners. We still believe that the best way to ensure the interests of the peoples living on the European continent would be to form a common economic and humanitarian space stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, so that the newly formed Eurasian Economic Union could become an integrating link between Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. We are striving to do everything in our power to overcome obstacles along this path, including the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis on the basis of the Minsk agreements, provoked by the coup d'état in Kyiv in February 2014.

I will refer to the opinion of such a wise politician as Henry Kissinger, who, speaking recently in Moscow, said that “Russia should be considered as a key element of any global balance, and not primarily as a threat to the United States ... I speak,” he emphasized , - for the possibility of dialogue in order to ensure our common future, and not to deepen conflicts. This requires respect on both sides of the vital values ​​and interests of each other. We follow exactly this approach. And we will continue to uphold the principles of law and justice in international affairs.

The Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin, reflecting on the role of Russia in the world as a great power, emphasized that “great power is determined not by the size of the territory and not by the number of inhabitants, but by the ability of the people and their government to take on the burden of great international tasks and creatively cope with these tasks. A great power is one that, asserting its existence, its interest, ... introduces a creative, arranging, legal idea into the whole host of peoples, into the whole “concert” of peoples and powers. It's hard to disagree with this.

On January 21, 1933, in No. 4690 of the French magazine L "Illustration", a remarkable article was published by the Italian historian Guilelmo Ferrero, who spent the last part of his life in Geneva and died there in 1941.

The article entitled "The Former Russia and the World Equilibrium" expresses a number of true and just thoughts about the world politics of the Russian Sovereigns in the 19th century. These thoughts sounded in Europe as in a country of the deaf and dumb and, of course, did not have the slightest influence on the public opinion that had taken root here. Europe does not know Russia, does not understand its people, its history, its socio-political system and its faith. She never understood her Sovereigns, the immensity of their task, their policy, the nobility of their intentions and the human limit of their capabilities ...

And, strange to say, every time someone who knows tries to tell the truth and correct the cause of general ignorance, he encounters evasive indifference and unfriendly silence. They don’t object to him, they don’t refute him, but simply “keep their own way”. Europe does not need the truth about Russia; she needs a untruth that is convenient for her. Its press is ready to print the latest nonsense about us, if this nonsense has the character of blasphemy and reproach. It is enough for any hater of Russia, for example, among the “Grushev Ukrainians”, to spread about the notorious fake “testament of Peter the Great”, about “Muscovite imperialism”, allegedly identical with the communist world conquest, and about the “tsarist terror”, and European newspapers accept this false chatter in earnest, as a new excuse for their old prejudice. It is enough for them to pronounce this politically and philologically false word "tsarism" - and they already understand each other, hiding behind it a whole nest of bad affects: fear, arrogance, enmity, envy and ignorant slander ...

We need to understand this attitude, this unwillingness to tell the truth, this fear of reality. All the apparent reverence of the European for "accurate knowledge", for "encyclopedic education", for "reliable information", in a word - the whole ethics of truth - falls silent as soon as it touches Russia. Europeans "need" bad Russia: barbarian, in order to "civilize" it in their own way; threatening with its size, so that it can be dismembered; aggressive, in order to organize a coalition against it; reactionary, in order to justify the revolution in it and demand a republic for it; religiously corrupted in order to break into it with the propaganda of reforms or Catholicism; economically untenable to claim its "untapped" spaces, its raw materials, or at least its lucrative trade deals and concessions. But, if this “rotten” Russia can be used strategically, then the Europeans are ready to make alliances with it and demand military efforts from it “to the last drop of its blood”…

And so, when in such an atmosphere one of them says a few truthful and just words about Russia, then we must single them out from the general chorus of voices.

Ferrero, like others, does not know the history of Russia and does not understand either its fate, or its system, or its tasks. For him, as for all Europeans (oh, how rare are the exceptions!), Russia is a "remote, semi-barbarian empire", "an oligarchy of eastern satraps", a country of "despotism that has subjugated one hundred million people," a huge military state founded and controlled by a sword, eccentric, half-Europeanized”… Apart from these dead platitudes, he knows nothing about Russia. And therefore - to understand and explain the world policy of its Sovereigns - he cannot. But he honestly pronounces this: “This policy, which stubbornly and hereditarily sought a “stable balance” in Europe and Asia, is for him “one of the great secrets of the history of the 19th century,” which “it would be important to study and understand.” And now Ferrero has the courage to recognize this policy, to formulate precisely its essence and its significance for the whole world, and with the greatest anxiety will note its forced termination. Let's give him the floor.

The nineteenth century brought to Europe “very few wars”, “few bloody and few ruinous, except perhaps the war of 1870. Germany, France, England, the United States - until 1914 were proud of the order and peace that dominated the universe for a whole century, of the wealth that they managed to extract from this order and world, and the corresponding progress. All these "miracles that blinded the 19th century" they considered their business and their pride. But now we know that we had nothing to do with it, that it was an almost free gift presented to Germany, France, England, the United States, the entire West - the last heirs of Byzantium, that is, the Russian Tsars.

"After 1918, we forgot too soon that from 1815 to 1914, for a century, Russia was the great balancing force in Europe." “From 1815 to 1870, Russia supported and reinforced the German peace, helping it directly and indirectly. In 1849, she saved Austria by sending her army to Hungary to put down the Magyar revolution. Bismarck was able to unify Germany and create an empire between 1863–1870 because the Petersburg government gave him freedom, if not directly encouraged him. Then in St. Petersburg they wanted to strengthen Germany, so that it would be a counterweight to England and France, Russia's enemies in the Crimean War. But after 1870 the German world quickly assumes gigantic proportions and habits. And now Russia is gradually separated from him and goes to another camp. In 1875, she prevented Germany from attacking France. After 1881”… “Russia is getting closer and closer to France. Why? Because German power is ever growing.” Finally, in 1891, a real alliance with France is concluded, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, "England and Russia, two rivals, unite against the German danger."

No matter how the secret of this “seasoned, century-old policy of European balance” pursued by the Russian Emperors is explained, “it is indisputable that if Europe enjoyed peace for a whole century, only with a break from 1848 to 1878, then it owes this to a large extent to such a Russian policy . For a century, Europe and America were at the welfare banquet - guests and almost hangers-on of the Russian Tsars.

But this "paradox is not exhausted: this huge military empire" ... "was also the guardian of order and peace in Asia. The hurricane that has been ravaging Asia for more than 20 years now (now 39 years!), began only in 1908 with the Turkish revolution, and in 1911 with the Chinese revolution. From 1815 until these revolutions, Asia was in a comparative order, which Europe widely used to spread her influence and to arrange her affairs. But this order was maintained mainly by fear of Russia. In Turkey, in Persia, in India, in Japan, there were Anglophile parties. Everyone yielded to the intrigues or even to the domination of England, because England seemed to be a defense against the Muscovite empire and a lesser evil. Thus, “both powers helped each other, waging a struggle against each other; and their Asian rivalry was the most paradoxical collaboration in world history." It is clear that the "collapse of tsarism" in 1917 "was a signal for Asia to revolt against Europe and against Western civilization."

Now "everyone is busy with the new government that has taken over Russia", trying to unravel its intentions, and "forgot about the empire of the Tsars, as if it had disappeared altogether"; meanwhile, "the consequences of its collapse are only just beginning to be felt." “The tsars of Russia no longer give gifts of peace and order to Europe and Asia every day,” and “Europe and America find nothing that could replace this policy of equilibrium, which has been regulating the life of the universe for a century.”

All this was written in 1933. Since then, a lot has happened that confirmed the predictions and fears of Ferrero. Peace-loving Russia still lies in prostration, in ruin, humiliation and torment. Its place is occupied by the Soviet Union encroaching "on everything". This new pseudo-state, fundamentally non-Russian and hostile to national Russia, was a revolutionary and military aggressor unprecedented in the history of mankind - and the world trembles in anticipation of a new destructive war. The United States had to become the regulator of the world balance.

But let's go back to the past, to the "unsolved mystery" put forward in Ferrero's article.

The first thing that needs to be established in order to clarify the problem put forward by the Italian scientist and the political “secret” is that there was a spiritual-organic connection between the Russian Sovereigns and the Russian people. This connection was interrupted very rarely; and sovereigns who did not know how to establish it (Anna Ioannovna under the influence of Biron, John the Sixth due to childhood and Peter III due to foreign lands) passed through Russian history like shadows. The foreign blood that poured into the Russian dynasty (due to “equal” marriages) was usually overcome in the next generation. Deep spiritual circumstances contributed to this: 1. The originality of the Russian spiritual way of life, which is not compatible with the Western European way of life and imperiously requires assimilation. 2. The Orthodox faith, which draws into religion the main sensibility of the human soul and does not put up with formal rituals and conditional bigotry. 3. The peculiarity of the Russian state fate, tragic in its very essence: it must be understood with the trembling of the heart and accepted by conscience and will. 4. The power of moral radiation emanating from a monarchically feeling and willing people, directed towards the Sovereign and his House. 5. The sensitive talent of the Russian Sovereigns, who religiously comprehend their service and were inspired by faith in the Russian people, and also, in particular, by love for them. By virtue of all this, the precious bond between the monarch and the people was established quickly and permanently. This gave the Russian Sovereigns the opportunity to feel and contemplate their country, live in the mainstream of its history and think from its tragic fate. They, so to speak, "grew" into Russia, which was greatly facilitated by the artistic talent of the Russian people. The Russian people, contemplating their Sovereigns with their hearts, involved them (already in the rank of heir!) in reciprocal contemplation of the heart, and the Sovereigns, instinctively and intuitively, revealed the most essential: the spiritual and spiritual way of the Russian people, their historical destiny, their future paths and especially its dangers. They remained human and could make mistakes (underestimate one thing and overestimate another); this placed on the Russian people the duty of truth and direct standing before the Sovereign. But mostly they rarely doubted.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian people needed, first and foremost, peace. He fought, according to the exact calculation of General Sukhotin and the historian Klyuchevsky, literally two-thirds of his life - for his national independence and for his place in the sun, which was disputed by all his neighbors. For centuries, these wars squandered his best strength: the most loyal, the bravest, the strongest in spirit, will and body perished. These wars delayed its cultural and economic growth. They needed to end. Meanwhile, since the Seven Years' War (1756-1762), Russia has been involved in Western European tensions and wars: she became a member of the "European concert" in the position of a great power and could no longer abandon this path. Following it brought us a number of the greatest state harmful complications: the divisions of Poland, the Suvorov campaign and protracted wars with Napoleon, which ended, as you know, in the devastation of a number of provinces, the burning of Moscow and the liquidation war outside Russia. In general, a lot of glory, a lot of unnecessary burdens and huge losses.

After the Napoleonic wars, the position of Russia became clear. Diplomatically and strategically, “withdrawing from Europe” would mean leaving the European powers ahead of us to conspire freely against Russia, plotting evil against it, while themselves passively waiting for a new invasion of “twelve languages”. This outcome would be tantamount to self-betrayal. Technically, economically and culturally, this withdrawal would be an even greater mistake. But, remaining in the "European concert", one had to reckon with the inevitability of new strategic involvement in Western affairs and rivalry. There was only one thing left - wise and true: - to steadily and skillfully maintain in Europe and Asia the balance of power and a long-term reconciliation.

And so, starting with the first French revolution, which for the first time showed the Europeans the full extent of this contagious mental disease of the masses, Russia had to reckon with two bloody dangers coming from Europe: war and revolution. This was already understood by Catherine II and Paul I. What a European war could give Russia was then shown by the Napoleonic campaigns. What could cause a mass uprising in Russia was shown by the Razin rebellion, the archery conspiracies under Peter the Great and the imposture of Pugachev. The Russian sovereigns of the 19th century saw both of these dangers, which did not in the least disturb the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia. Therefore, they sought to protect Russia - both from unnecessary wars and from revolutionary madness. They wanted to lead the people, as far as possible without wars and definitely without revolution, onto the path of reforms, far-sightedly prepared by Emperor Nicholas I and superbly carried out by Emperor Alexander II.

Now history has confirmed their political line: to build Russia by the world balance of forces; not allow it to fall into the element of rebellion; and raise the level of its culture and sense of justice. At the beginning of the 20th century, when Russia most of all needed peace and loyal progress, it was war and revolution that brought her an unprecedented collapse in history and turned her into a hotbed of world infection ...

During the entire 19th century, Europeans did not believe - neither in the peacefulness of Russia, nor in the wise and progressive plans of its emperors. They assured themselves that Russia was striving for territorial expansion and wished to conquer all its neighbors. Of course, fear has big eyes; but after all, the power of judgment, called in the hostel "mind", is given to a person for something ... The Europeans have made something like a "scarecrow" out of Russia. This is explained, among other things, by the provincial nature of their political horizon: they could never imagine the space with which Russia is already fertilized, and at the same time burdened; they all imagined that Russia, with its low population density, needed their overcrowded patches of territory; they did not understand that expansion makes sense only towards less populated countries and that Russia, with its Orthodox faith and its expanses, could never reach the monstrous German idea - to exterminate the population of a conquered country in order to give it to its inhabitants ... In fact, In fact, it was not the Russians who were drawn to conquer Europe, but the Europeans of different states dreamed (following the Swedish king Gustav Adolf!) to push Russia to Asia and take away its “front” European lands from it. The last half century has clearly confirmed this desire - both from Germany (two campaigns against Russia, the Baltic states and Ukraine right up to the Volga and the Caucasus!) And from Poland, which definitely motivated its expansion to the east by the "need to provide its future generations" with native Russian lands and still inhabited by the Russian people.

All this makes us recognize the peace-loving and balanced policy of the Russian Sovereigns in the 19th century as rationally correct, far-sighted and wise. It is the direct opposite of the Soviet revolutionary conquest and can only seem "imperialistic" or "mysterious" to an ignorant European who is once forever frightened of the "Russian colossus" and exults every time he is given a reason to proclaim that this colossus is "on feet of clay." And if European newspapermen knew and understood what political stupidity is needed in order to repeat their identification of the Russian national policy of "balance" with the Soviet policy of revolutionary conquest of the world, then many of them would have pulled out the last hair on their heads ...

World self-deception

Thirty-two years have passed since the communists took over Russia and turned it into a springboard for the world revolution, and during this time, it would seem, the so-called "world public opinion" could and should have considered what happened to national Russia and what constitutes a newly emerged, national Russia hostile and different from it in all its purposes and means, a new state. Of course, cultural Western Europeans, with their egocentrism and chess thinking, could not immediately comprehend this government, unprecedented in history, of a state unprecedented in the world. They understood "Bebel", and "Lenin" ascended; they hoped for a democratic harvest, but totalitarian despotism grew. However, from the very beginning, the Bolsheviks made no secret of their goals, their plans, their tactics, or their attitude towards the rest of mankind; everything was said loudly and everything was done almost openly. The communists "believed" that economic "anarchy", economic crises and bourgeois imperialism were undermining and would very soon destroy the "capitalist" countries; and by virtue of this stupid and short-sighted doctrine, against which, in vain and for a long time, Varga's "Compromise" tried to argue in vain and now finally heard, did not hesitate to speak loudly in the presence of the supposedly "half-dead" old man about how best to kill him and how to deal with his inheritance .

Already Lloyd George saw that he was dealing with "cannibals", but decided to "trade with them." Already the Social Democratic government of Germany (Noske!) figured out the question of what to expect from the Comintern, and decided not to let him in, but for now to play "pseudo-friendship" against the Entente (Rapallo). Since then, the Comintern, its Executive Committee, its Politburo, its Council of People's Commissars, its Cheka-Gepeu - have acted everywhere in the open: they developed detailed plans for propaganda, the organization of a world war: they set out these plans in resolutions, translated these resolutions in volumes into all languages ​​​​and everywhere openly sold them; carried out these resolutions and taught the universe with their parties and "actions", shaking Italy (1920), then Bulgaria (1923), then Estonia (1924), then England (1926), then Austria (1927), then China (1928), then Germany (1929), then Spain (1931-1935), then France (1934) and the United States (1934), etc. And all this was constantly illuminated and explained by serious and responsible anti-communist literature published by Russian emigrants in all European languages. The Stalinist terror of the thirties (collectivization of peasants, party trials and executions, the "purge" of the Red Army, Yezhovshchina, concentration camps) was described in detail and discussed in the entire world press. It would seem that Europeans and Americans, at least the most far-sighted and sensitive of them, could understand what was the matter and what Soviet power was ...

But then the Second World War began and found that mental laziness, long-standing prejudice against Russia, economic and commercial interests, complete ignorance of Russian history and secret pro-communist propaganda carried out everywhere (both by the communists and semi-revolutionary "behind the scenes"), overshadowed political farsightedness, prevailed over sober mind and led great and small powers to a whole series of gross (political, economic and strategic) mistakes. Neither the Germans, nor the British, nor the French, nor the Italians, nor the Americans – did not “realize” with imagination and thought a new phenomenon in world history and the fate of national Russia; and failed to draw strong-willed and practical conclusions from this. Neither the heroic Churchill, nor the sly Roosevelt, nor the self-confident Mussolini, nor the stupid fanatic Hitler understood the nature and intentions of Stalin, did not understand the difference between national Russia and the Soviet Union, did not comprehend the fate and originality of the Russian people and made the greatest historical mistakes. Hitler started to fight immediately with the communists and with the Russian people - and died. Mussolini understood the communists, but did not know Russia at all and succumbed to Hitler's hypnosis. Churchill and Roosevelt "agreed" with their fierce enemy in Tehran, in Yalta, in Potsdam, and out of political naivety and "allied loyalty" gave him all the small states of Eastern Europe and Manchuria with China in Asia; gave, and their successors clutched their heads when it was too late.

Have the great powers and their governments now understood the world conjuncture? Has world “public opinion” now figured out past mistakes and future dangers?

Unfortunately - not yet. There are individual sharp-sighted politicians and clear-thinking strategists who see both mistakes and dangers. Their names should not be given out of caution. But along with them, the pro-communist press and semi-revolutionary behind-the-scenes organizations continue their propaganda and do everything possible to “mix the cards”, to avert the eyes of influential politicians, pass off lies as truth and, on the one hand, facilitate its work for world communism, and on the other - make it difficult for non-communist states (both politically and strategically) - reasonable and successful resistance ...

And the first thing they are trying to do is to confuse the Soviet state with Russia: everything is done to pass off the policy of the communists as the cause of the Russian people, and even worse, even more stupidly, to pass off the entire Soviet revolution as an insidious villainous reception of "Russia" , allegedly thirsting for world conquest and therefore "pretending" to be communist. Such articles are now being sent out, for example, by the so-called Committee for the Struggle for Democracy (the "behind the scenes"!) to all the countries of the Western bloc.

About the dismemberers of Russia

National Russia has enemies. They do not need to be called by their names: for we know them, and they know themselves. They have not appeared since yesterday, and their deeds are known to all from history.

For some, national Russia is too big, its people seem too numerous to them, its intentions and plans seem to them disturbingly mysterious and, probably, "conquest"; and its very "unity" appears to them as a threat. A small state is often afraid of a big neighbor, especially one whose country is too close, whose language is alien and incomprehensible, and whose culture is foreign and peculiar. These are opponents - due to weakness, fear and ignorance.

Others see national Russia as a rival, however, who does not encroach on their property in any way, but “may one day want to encroach” on it, either by too successful navigation, or rapprochement with eastern countries, or trade competition! These are unkindness - in maritime and commercial rivalry.

There are also those who are themselves obsessed with aggressive intentions and industrial envy: they are envious that the Russian neighbor has large areas and natural wealth; and now they are trying to assure themselves and others that the Russian people belong to an inferior, semi-barbarian race, that they are nothing more than "historical manure" and that "God himself" intended them to conquer, conquer and disappear from the face of the earth. These are enemies out of envy, greed and lust for power.

But there are also old religious enemies who find no peace for themselves because the Russian people persist in their "schism" or "heresy", do not accept "truth" and "submission" and do not yield to church absorption. And since crusades against him are impossible and you cannot set him on fire, then one thing remains: to plunge him into the deepest confusion, decay and disaster, which will be for him either a “saving purgatory”, or an “iron broom”, sweeping Orthodoxy into garbage pit of history. These enemies are out of fanaticism and ecclesiastical lust for power.

Finally, there are those who will not calm down until they manage to take possession of the Russian people through the subtle and infiltration of their soul and will, in order to instill in them under the guise of “tolerance” - godlessness, under the guise of a “republic” - obedience to behind-the-scenes manoeuvres, and under the guise of "federation" - national impersonality. These are evil-wishers - behind the scenes, going "on the sly" and most of all sympathizing with the Soviet communists, as their ("somewhat overdoing"!) avant-garde.

We should not turn a blind eye to human enmity, and even on a historical and global scale. It is foolish to expect goodwill from enemies. They need a weak Russia, languishing in unrest, in revolutions, in civil wars and in dismemberment. They need a Russia with a declining population, which is what has been happening over the past 32 years. They need a weak-willed Russia, immersed in unimportant and endless party strife, eternally stuck in discord and multi-will, unable to either improve its finances, or conduct a military budget, or create its own army, or reconcile the worker with the peasant, or build the necessary fleet. They need a Russia dismembered, naively “loving freedom” agreeing to dismemberment and imagining that its “good” is in disintegration.

But they do not need a united Russia.

Some people think that Russia, having split into many small states (for example, according to the number of ethnic groups or subgroups!), will cease to hang as an eternal threat over its “defenseless” European and Asian neighbors. This is sometimes spoken openly. And just recently, in the thirties, a neighboring diplomat assured us that such a self-dismemberment of the "former Russia" into ethnic groups had already been prepared by underground negotiations in recent years and would begin immediately after the fall of the Bolsheviks.

Others are sure that a fragmented Russia will leave the stage as a dangerous competitor - commercial, maritime and imperial; and then it will be possible to create excellent "markets" (or markets) among small peoples, so responsive to foreign exchange and diplomatic intrigue.

There are also those who believe that the first victim will be a politically and strategically powerless Ukraine, which at a favorable moment will be easily occupied and annexed from the West; and behind it the Caucasus will quickly ripen for conquest, fragmented into 23 small and eternally warring republics.

Naturally, the religious opponents of national Russia expect complete success from the all-Russian dismemberment: in many small “democratic republics”, of course, complete freedom of religious propaganda and confessional perversion will reign, the “primary” confession will disappear, disciplined clerical parties will arise everywhere and work on confessional conquest "former Russia" will boil. For this, a whole bunch of sophisticated propagandists and a heap of untruthful literature are already being prepared.

It is clear that the behind-the-scenes organizations expect the same success from the all-Russian dismemberment: among the impoverished, frightened and helpless Russian population, infiltration will spread uncontrollably, all political and social heights will be seized on the sly, and soon all republican governments will serve "one great idea": an unprincipled obedience, non-national civilization and non-religious pseudo-brotherhood.

Who among them needs a united Russia, this great "scarecrow" of centuries, this "pressing" state and military array, with its "outrageous" national egoism and "generally recognized" political "reactionaryness". United Russia is a nationally and state-strong Russia, guarding its own special faith and its own independent culture: all this is absolutely not necessary for its enemies. This is clear. This should have been foreseen long ago.

It is much less clear and natural that this idea of ​​dismemberment, weakening and, in essence, the liquidation of historically national Russia, now began to be spoken by people who were born and raised under her wing, who owe her all the past of their people and their personal ancestors, all their spiritual way of life and their culture (since it is inherent in them in general). The voices of these people sometimes sound simply blind and naive political doctrinairism, because, you see, they have remained “faithful” to their “ideal of a federal republic,” and if their doctrine is unsuitable for Russia, then so much the worse for Russia. But sometimes these voices, no matter how scary to say, are imbued with a real hatred for the primordial historically formed Russia, and the formulas uttered by them sound like an irresponsible slander against her (such, for example, are the articles of the "federalists" published in the New York "New Journal", articles for which both the editorial board and the main group of its employees are fully responsible). It is remarkable that the opinions of these latter writers are essentially very close to that "Ukrainian propaganda" that has been cultivated and paid for in the greenhouses of German militarism for decades and continues to pronounce its program with great bitterness.

Reading such articles, one involuntarily recalls one pre-revolutionary assistant professor in Moscow, an unambiguous defeatist during the first war, who openly declared: “I have two homelands, Ukraine and Germany, but Russia has never been my homeland.” And you involuntarily oppose him to one modern Polish figure, wise and far-sighted, who told me: “We Poles absolutely do not want the separation of Ukraine from Russia! An independent Ukraine will inevitably and quickly turn into a German colony, and we will be taken by the Germans in pincers - from the east and from the west.

And so, having in mind the Russian dividers, we consider it necessary to draw the attention of our like-minded people to the problem of federation in essence. And for this we ask for attention and patience; for this question is complex and requires from us close consideration and irrefutable argumentation.

Russia haters

We must never forget them. We should not imagine that they have “calmed down” and “are inactive”, content with the fact that they planted communists on us, others have been supporting or playing them in their favor for 36 years ... This is not enough for them: they still need to humiliate and denigrate Russian culture, portray the Russian people as a slave people worthy of its slavery, it is necessary to prepare for the dismemberment of the Russian state and the conquest of Russian territory, it is necessary to distort, humiliate and subjugate its Christian Orthodox confession. Efforts in this direction did not stop during the entire time of the Bolshevik revolution. They continue even now. Moreover, one of the favorite forms of this propaganda is to lure purely Russian or under-Russified writers into their nets and encourage them, as supposedly “experts” on the issue, to appear in the press with articles or with a whole book of denigration and slander. For this, scientists are promised (and sometimes actually arranged!) Departments; writers open "secret doors" and sources, the path to radio broadcasting, passport relief, rewards and lecture tours. Let's face it: whoever wants to make a career in exile should go to the enemies of Russia and join their ranks with an innocent face. The author of these lines knows this method of “inviting” both from others and from his own experience, because similar (sometimes completely detailed!) proposals have been made to him more than once. He also knows "Russian" people who, discovering in themselves a Polish, or Swedish, or Baltic, or at least Turanian nature, embarked on this path and made a career in exile.

We by no means want to say by this that anyone who criticizes Russia, the Russian people and Russian culture has "sold out" and is deliberately slandering. No, there are people who hate Russia and are ready to say any nonsense and any abomination about it without being bribed: what to do with them if they do not like Russia (for example, Catholics; however, not only them!). Consider, for example, an obscene pamphlet published by a certain Mrs. Bertha Eckstein, in 1925, under the pseudo-English pseudonym "Sir Galahad". The pamphlet was called "Idiot's Guide to Russian Literature". Everything here is sheer ignorance, everything is distorted, scolded, distorted and, moreover, with some kind of aplomb of cheeky omniscience!.. Here the Russians (literally!) are likened to dirty dogs, lining the wall and squealing in advance with fear that they will be poked with their noses into what they have done (28 ). The Russian is a cruel, vicious, stupid, devoid of dignity, sexually perverted "exhibitionist" (29); non-musical, anti-poetic (51.88–89.111, etc.) “all-kretin” like Kutuzov and Platon Karataev (44), incapable of any kind of creativity (47), always ready for destruction (38), it doesn’t matter if it is “Tatar Turgenev” (102. 142), "Ivanushka the Terrible" (99. 101) or "Vankya the Gatekeeper" (50. 61). In a word: Russia is a creative “emptiness” (47.109.119), and the Russian people are “spring mob” (100). Isn't it enough? – Let us immediately recall the book about Russia by the Catholic Gurian, which was published a few years later in Germany shortly before Hitler was installed as support for Reich Chancellor Brüning and Prelate Kaas with their pro-Soviet policy. He, by the way, portrayed Lenin as a great educator in the history of mankind ... And we have no evidence to suspect him of "insincerity": who knows, maybe he and his predecessor believed in their temptations and were "staunch supporters" their blind and vicious follies? Does human stupidity have its measure? All blindness and all ignorance cannot be confidently ascribed to the deliberate deceit or corruption of the author! It is also possible a simple lack of power of judgment, poverty of spirit, fanaticism of heterodoxy, or, finally, “confessional discipline”…

However, it is much more difficult for us to believe that those heaps of lies and slander about Russia, about the Russian Sovereigns and their national policy, which are published in the book of the Russian professor Gogel (1927, in German) and in the articles of Mr. A. Saltykov (1938 in Belgium) testify precisely to their spiritual blindness and low power of judgment, because they, like people (I won’t say “Russians”), but who grew up in Russia and made their entire career there, could and should have known where truth ends and where truth begins. False.

We will not object to Mr. Gogel, who until 1912 was Assistant Secretary of State of the State Council, to his antics against the Russian Sovereigns and Grand Dukes, against the Russian bureaucracy and the Russian people as a whole, especially against the Great Russians. But when, for example, he reports about Emperor Alexander III, as if he “always had a bottle of vodka sticking out from behind the top of his boot” (p. 42. 51); when he talks about the unprecedented "binge drinking" of Emperor Nicholas II (p. 53); when he invents that the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army, "worked with a whip" (117), and that the Russian army generally held on to "the discipline of a whip and a stick" (135); when he characterizes the Russian bureaucracy as a "pack of wolves", as an unscrupulous "gang", as a "creeping cancer" (59.107.34.125.49.120.126), as a sect of spiritual eunuchs (66.114); when he refuses to speak in general “of the Great Russians as of a people” (139. 143, etc.), then, reading all these false obscenities, one involuntarily asks oneself where he is leading and for what he is trying? And only gradually do you begin to understand the hidden tendency of this whole “composition”: only people of a different blood can give true discipline and state form to Russian chaos ... Faith in Russia is lost; she needs a foreign master ... in the person of a German. Probably, this book came out because in a series released by the “German Society for the Study of Eastern Europe”, one of the chairmen of which, Professor of Russian History in Berlin, Hötsch, provoked Professor S. F. Platonov in a “confidential” conversation in the twenties and then betrayed him Soviet Ambassador Krestinsky.

Saltykov came after Gogel with his teaching that Orthodoxy did not awaken in the Russian people neither love, nor a thirst for truth, nor a sense of beauty and rank: our people remained the offspring of non-existence, eternal death and chaos; the Russian soul is nihilistic, alien to order and hierarchy, and hates state authority; she is “devoid of love” and “hates every form”… But it was precisely these words of public self-spitting placed in the Catholic press that made us doubt the independence of Saltykov’s judgments and recall his main predecessor, Chaadaev… and where to expect them far

But it is not precisely this civilization that they want to transfer to us, Fyodor Mikhailovich! - I could not stand it, I remember, I inserted.

Yes, definitely the same one! - with bitterness he picked up. “Because there is no other ... This transplant always begins with slavish imitation, with luxury, with fashion, with various sciences and arts, and ends with Sodomy sin and general corruption ..”.

And it is worth remembering what the Russian classics said on the same occasion.

Ivan Ilyin in the article "The World Policy of Russian Sovereigns" very accurately noted:

“Europe does not need the truth about Russia, it needs a convenient untruth about it. Europeans need a bad Russia: barbaric in order to “civilize it in their own way”, threatening with its size so that it can be dismembered, reactionary in order to justify a revolution for it and demand a republic for it, religiously decaying in order to break into it with reformation propaganda or Catholicism, economically untenable to claim its raw materials, or at least lucrative trade contracts and concessions.

A century and a half ago, N.Ya. Danilevsky noted this feature of Europe:

"Hanging men, daggers and arsonists become heroes as soon as their heinous deeds are turned against Russia. The defenders of nationalities fall silent as soon as it comes to protecting the Russian people."(Danilevsky N.Ya., Russia and Europe. M., Book, 1991. P.49).

I.S. Aksakov, 1882:

“... falsehood and arrogance of the West in relation to Russia and Eastern Europe in general, there is no limit, no measure. In the enlightened West, a double truth has long been created: one for ourselves, for the Germanic-Roman tribes or those who spiritually gravitate towards them, the other for us Slavs. All Western European powers, as long as it is about us, about the Slavs, are in solidarity with each other. Humanity, civilization, Christianity, all this is being abolished in relation to Western Europe towards the Eastern Orthodox world.”

Mankind needs to be saved from the evil spreading in the world - the fundamental Russian formulation of the problem of peacebuilding.

We continue the publication of chapter 2.8 "Russian idea" against world domination" of the fundamental collective monograph, ed. Sulakshina S.S. .

WESTERN THREAT TO RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

The history of Russia is the history of incessant wars. According to S.M. Solovyov, from 1055 to 1462, Russia suffered 245 invasions. During the period from 1365 to 1893, Russia spent 305 years in the war. When hostilities were not directly fought, the sword of Damocles of military threat actually always hung over Russia.

The forms and technologies of warfare in the modern era have changed significantly. Wars of a new type are characterized as information-psychological. But the essence of the threats against Russia does not change this.

The main threat to Russian civilization throughout its entire historical existence has come from the West. Even during the periods of invasions of nomads from the East, it was the West that represented the main danger for Russia. The aggression of the West was a civilizational challenge. The very existence of Russian (Russian) civilization was at stake.

The fact that it was the West that acted as the aggressor in relation to Russia, and not vice versa, is recognized by many Western thinkers. Among them, A.J. Toynbee is one of the founders of the civilizational approach. Scientific honesty did not allow him to support the popular theme of "Russian imperialism" in Western propaganda. It was the Western danger, according to A.J. Toynbee, that civilizational challenge, which, as a response, determined the mobilization of Russia in its great historical achievements.

"In the West," he wrote, There is a notion that Russia is the aggressor. And if you look at it with our eyes, then all the signs are there. We see how in the XVIII century. during the division of Poland, Russia absorbed the lion's share of the territories, in the XIX century. she is the oppressor of Poland and Finland, and the arch-aggressor in today's post-war world. In the Russian view, everything is exactly the opposite. The Russians consider themselves the victims of the incessant aggression of the West, and, perhaps, in the long historical perspective, there are more grounds for such a view than we would like ... An outside observer, if there were one, would say that the Russian victories over the Swedes and Poles in the 18th century. - this is just a counteroffensive ... in the XIV century. the best part of the original Russian territory - almost all of Belarus and Ukraine - was cut off from Russian Orthodox Christianity and attached to Western Christianity ... The Polish conquests of the original Russian territory ... were returned to Russia only in the last phase of the world war of 1939-1945. In the 17th century the Polish invaders penetrated into the very heart of Russia, right up to Moscow itself, and were driven back only at the cost of colossal efforts on the part of the Russians, and the Swedes cut off Russia from the Baltic, annexing the entire east coast to the northern limits of the Polish possessions. In 1812 Napoleon repeated the Polish success of the 17th century…. The Germans, who invaded its borders in 1915-1918, captured Ukraine and reached the Caucasus. After the collapse of the Germans, it was the turn of the British, French, Americans and Japanese, who in 1918 invaded Russia from four sides. And finally, in 1941, the Germans again launched an offensive, more formidable and cruel than ever. It is true that the Russian armies also fought in the western lands, but they always came as allies of one of the western countries in their endless family quarrels. The chronicles of the age-old struggle between the two branches of Christianity, perhaps, really reflect that the Russians turned out to be the victims of aggression, and the people of the West were the aggressors ... The Russians incurred the hostility of the West because of their stubborn commitment to an alien civilization ”.

Russiaphobia is a historically stable basis for the image of Russia constantly formed by Western propaganda. Of course, Russophile-oriented figures, such as W. Schubart, were often found among European and American thinkers. But the trend that produces phobias against Russian civilization has always been dominant in the West. The leading motives of anti-Russian propaganda were ideologemes about barbarism, slavery, the imperialism of the Russian people. The idea was carried out about the innateness of these qualities, the fundamental non-restructuring of Russia.

I.A. Ilyin emphasized that the West was fighting not against autocracy or communism, but against Russia itself.

Does the Western project of world domination really exist (exactly as a project - with subjects of implementation and a program of action)? Perhaps what is meant by the Western project is nothing more than an objective, in view of the expansion of intercountry communication, the process of globalization?

VALUE HETEROGENEITY OF GLOBALIZATION PROCESSES

Globalization relatively long ago moved from the category of challenges to the category of real environmental conditions of social life. However, the attitude towards it still remains somewhere at the level of ideomythological constructions. On the one hand, the idea of ​​the “free world” is being actively introduced into the mass consciousness, the demonstration of loyalty to which is presented as an indispensable condition for gaining material well-being (entering the circle of respectable civilized countries).

At the other pole of ideomythological constructions is the infernalization of the globalization process, which claims that it brings nothing for humanity except enslavement under the yoke of the "golden billion". But in practice, anti-globalism turns into militant lack of culture, migrant phobia, and various forms of social deviation. Anti-globalists in many of their features go back to the archetype of Ned Ludd, the first conscious machine-breaker who gave a name to the movement of English workers who associated the deterioration of their social position with the introduction of machinery. Modern neo-Luddites, fighting globalization, mix its two heterogeneous components - expansion and communication. Rejecting American mondialism, they often deny together with it the entire potential of communication interaction accumulated by mankind. A clear differentiation is needed between the combined and structurally mixed phenomena under a single terminological designation (Fig. 2.8.8).

Rice. 2.8.8. Paradigms of globalization

COMMUNICATION GLOBALIZATION

The process of globalization as a type of process affecting all of humanity, as the formation of a single communication space, was born long before the modern civilization of the West. The first wave of globalization in history was the Neolithic Revolution. Having arisen once in a certain local ethnic focus, the productive type of management (agriculture and cattle breeding) spread with amazing speed throughout the world. According to the globalization type, there was also a transition from the Stone Age to the age of copper and iron. The theory of "cultural diffusionism", and in essence primitive globalization, is currently a recognized explanatory model of the universal logic of the development of the Ancient World.

It is true that it is the Western community that has been the main carrier of innovative technologies over the past few centuries. It is the West that is the accumulator of world scientific and technical thought. But it was not always so.

In ancient times, Greek (meaning European) thinkers learned the highest wisdom from the priests of Egypt. Advanced for its time, Chinese thought predetermined the subsequent course of the development of the world with the invention of paper, gunpowder, compass, ship's steering wheel, clockwork. Originating in the Celestial Empire, the Great Silk Road was the most important communication artery of the world. The implementation of sciences in the previously unenlightened life of medieval Europe was carried out thanks to contacts with the Arab caliphates. It was from the Arabs that algebra, chemistry, optics, and astronomy came to Europeans. The discovery of America, as is known, led to the transformation of the agricultural image of the European continent.

The role of Russia in this model of globalization was also not limited to borrowings. During the time of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, it was one of the most important subjects of the globalization export of cultural samples, ideas and inventions. There is no reason to believe that the role of the intellectual leader in the world cannot change again. Breaks have already been outlined in the West's holding on to the burden of leadership. Japan's innovative breakthrough was the first symptom of the geopolitical modification of global configurations. The East, represented by the rapidly developing national economies of various regions of Asia, is rapidly advancing, increasingly closing the gap on the main economic indicators from the gold-billion cohort of the West. If things go on like this, the direction of world communications can take on a fundamentally different shape.

Attempts to isolate themselves from globalization trends are well known. This is how Japan acquired in the 30s. 17th century status of a "closed country". In practice, this turned into a long stagnation in development. As a result, the reopening of Japan, accompanied by the signing of unequal treaties, was carried out by force. Cruised in 1853-1854. off the Japanese coast, an American military squadron under the leadership of Commander Peri forced the shogunate into an extremely unfavorable contractual relationship. Isolation, thus, delaying the globalization process only for a while, turned around for Japan due to its technical backwardness aggravated during the isolation period by more severe forms of manifestation of globalization. According to a similar scenario, there was a consolidated "opening" of the Chinese economy by Western countries. The once advanced in scientific and technical terms, the country did not even try to provide adequate resistance.

EXPANSIONIST GLOBALIZATION

Expansive globalization has a completely different functional meaning. It is nothing but the aggression of one civilization against others. Expansion paths, as you know, can be different. The mechanisms for its implementation are not limited to direct military intervention. Known, for example, are variants of demographic and propaganda expansionism. The "trading civilization" of the West has historically chosen the economic sphere as one of the main niches of its expansion.

However, the "free Western world" does not shy away from armed civilization. The planting of democracy in Iraq is in a continuous series of examples of direct military aggression on the part of Western civilization. In itself, the emergence of "white America" ​​was associated with the ethnocide of the indigenous Indian population.

It is characteristic that the classic of civilizational analysis A.D. Toynbee, when considering Russia-West relations, attributed the role of the aggressor to Western civilization. It is no coincidence that the holy Reverend Prince Alexander Nevsky, assessing the scale of the threats coming from the West and the East, considered the expansion of the Crusaders to be undoubtedly more dangerous for Russia. The Tatar aggression, which caused significant demographic damage, did not affect the civilizational foundations of the existence of the Russian people. The Orthodox Church even received some preferences from the Golden Horde khans. Another thing is the expansion of the West. Once under the crusaders, Russia, as a specific civilizational organism, would most likely cease to exist. .

TO BE CONTINUED

NOTES

Toynbee A. Civilizations before the court of history. M., 1996. S. 106.

Ilyin I. A. World policy of Russian sovereigns // Ilyin I. A. Sobr. cit.: in 10 tons. T. 2. Book. 1. M., 1993. S. 118–119.

Bezymensky L.A., Falin V.M. Who unleashed the "cold war ...". (Documents testify) // Opening new pages… International issues: events and people. M., 1989. S. 109.

Brzezinski Z. How new enemies are made / The New York Times. USA. October 26, 2004 // inosmi.ru; Brzezinski Z. The world has lost confidence in US policy / The Washington Post. USA, November 11, 2003 // inosmi.ru; Brzezinski Z. America is in disaster // Los Angeles Times. USA. October 11, 2005 // inosmi.ru

Parashchevin M. Sociocultural measurements in the context of global processes through the eyes of the population of Ukraine // Sociology: theory, methods, marketing. 2005. No. 3. S. 194–206.

Anti-globalism and global governance. Reports, discussions, reference materials. M., 2006.

Frumkin S. Luddites of the 21st century // Vestnik Online. 2004. March 17. No. 6 (343); Chernyakhovsky S. New Luddites or "Afro-Nazis"? Revolts in France and the barbarization of Europe // New Politics. 2005. November 7.

Culture: the diffusion controversy. L., 1928; Smith G.E. h e Diffusion of Culture. N.Y., L., 1971; Winkler G. Babylonian culture in its relation to the cultural development of mankind. M., 1913; Artanovsky S. N. The historical unity of mankind and the mutual influence of cultures. L., 1967.

Watt W. M. The influence of Islam on medieval Europe. M., 1976.

Lunev S. I. Socio-economic development of the largest countries of Eurasia: civilizational context // East - West - Russia. M., 2002. S. 161–185.

History of Asian and African countries in modern times. Moscow, 1989, part 1, pp. 71–72, 85–87.

Toynbee A.D. Comprehension of history. M., 1991. S. 142.

Gumilyov L. N. From Russia to Russia. Moscow, 2003, pp. 119–121.

On January 21, 1933, in No. 4690 of the French magazine L "Jllustration, a noteworthy article was published by the Italian historian Guilelmo Ferrero, who spent the last part of his life in Geneva and died there in 1941.

The article, entitled "Former Russia and World Equilibrium," expresses a number of true and just thoughts about the world politics of Russian Sovereigns in the 19th century. These thoughts sounded in Europe as in a country of the deaf and dumb and, of course, did not have the slightest influence on the public opinion that had taken root here. Europe does not know Russia, does not understand its people, its history, its socio-political system and its faith. She never understood her Sovereigns, the immensity of their task, their politics, the nobility of their intentions and the human limit of their capabilities ...

And, strange to say, every time someone who knows tries to tell the truth and correct the cause of general ignorance, he encounters evasive indifference and unfriendly silence. They don’t object to him, they don’t refute him, but simply “remain with their own”. Europe does not need the truth about Russia; she needs a untruth that is convenient for her. Its press is ready to print the latest nonsense about us, if this nonsense has the character of blasphemy and reproach. It is enough for any hater of Russia, for example, from the "Grushevsky Ukrainians", to spread about the notorious fake "testament of Peter the Great", about "Muscovite imperialism", supposedly identical with the communist world conquest, and about the "tsarism terror" - and European newspapers accept this false chatter in earnest, as a new excuse for their old prejudice. It is enough for them to utter this politically and philologically false word "tsarism" - and they already understand each other, hiding behind it a whole nest of bad affects: fear, arrogance, enmity, envy and ignorant slander ...

We need to understand this attitude, this unwillingness to tell the truth, this fear of reality. All the apparent reverence of the European for "accurate knowledge", for "encyclopedic education", for "reliable information", in a word - the whole ethics of truth - falls silent as soon as it touches Russia. Europeans "need" bad Russia: barbarian, in order to "civilize" it in their own way; threatening with its size, so that it can be dismembered; aggressive, in order to organize a coalition against it; reactionary, in order to justify the revolution in it and demand a republic for it; religiously corrupted in order to break into it with the propaganda of the Reformation or Catholicism; economically untenable to claim not its "untapped" spaces, its raw materials, or at least lucrative trade agreements and concessions. But if this "rotten" Russia can be used strategically, then the Europeans are ready to make alliances with it and demand military efforts from it "to the last drop of its blood"...

And when, in such an atmosphere, one of them says a few truthful and just words about Russia, then we must single them out from the general chorus of voices.

Ferrero, like others, does not know the history of Russia and does not understand either its fate, or its system, or its tasks. For him, as for all Europeans (oh, how rare are the exceptions!), Russia is a “remote, semi-barbarian empire”, “an oligarchy of Eastern satraps”, a country of “despotism that has subjugated one hundred million people”, “a huge military state founded by and ruled by a sword, eccentric, half Europeanised”... Apart from these dead platitudes, he knows nothing about Russia. And therefore - to understand and explain the world policy of its Sovereigns - he cannot. But he honestly pronounces this: “This policy, which stubbornly and hereditarily sought a “stable balance” in Europe and Asia, is for him “one of the great mysteries of the history of the 19th century,” which “it would be important to study and understand.” And now Ferrero has the courage to recognize this policy, to formulate precisely its essence and its significance for the whole world, and with the greatest anxiety to note its forced termination. Let's give him the floor.

The nineteenth century brought to Europe “very few wars”, “few bloody and few ruinous, except perhaps the war of 1870. Germany, France, England, the United States - were proud until 1914 of the order and peace that dominated the universe for a whole century, of the wealth that they managed to extract from this order and world, ”and the corresponding progress. All these “miracles that blinded the 19th century, they considered their work and their pride. But now we know that we had nothing to do with it, that it was an almost free gift presented to Germany, France, England, the United States, the entire West - the last heirs of Byzantium, that is, the Tsars.

"After 1918, we forgot too soon that from 1815 to 1914, for a century, Russia was the great balancing force in Europe." “From 1815 to 1870, Russia supported and reinforced the German peace, helping it directly and indirectly. In 1849, she saved Austria by sending her army to Hungary to put down the Magyar revolution. Bismarck was able to unify Germany and create an empire between 1863-1870 because the Petersburg government gave him freedom, if not directly encouraged him. Then in St. Petersburg they wanted to strengthen Germany, so that it would be a counterweight to England and France, Russia's enemies in the Crimean War. But after 1870 the German world quickly assumes gigantic proportions and habits. And now Russia is gradually separated from him and goes to another camp. In 1875, she prevented Germany from attacking France. After 1881”... Russia is getting closer and closer to France. Why? Because German power is ever growing.” Finally, in 1891, a real alliance with France is concluded, and at the beginning of the 20th century, "England and Russia, two rivals, unite against the German danger."

No matter how the secret of this “seasoned, century-old policy of European balance” pursued by the Russian Emperors is explained, “it is indisputable that if Europe enjoyed peace for a whole century, only with a break from 1848 to 1878, then it owes this to a large extent to such a Russian policy For a century, Europe and America were guests and almost hangers-on of the Russian Tsars at the welfare banquet.

But this "paradox does not end there: this huge military empire" ... was also the guardian of order and peace in Asia. The hurricane that has been ravaging Asia for more than 20 years now (now 39 years!), began only in 1908 with the Turkish revolution and in 1911 with the Chinese revolution. From 1915 until these revolutions, Asia was in a comparative order, which Europe widely used to spread its influence and arrange its affairs. But this order was maintained mainly by fear of Russia. In Turkey, in Persia, in India, in Japan, there were Anglophile parties. Everyone yielded to the intrigues or even to the domination of England, because England seemed to be a defense against the Muscovite empire and a lesser evil. Thus, “both powers helped each other, waging a struggle against each other; and their Asian rivalry was the most paradoxical collaboration in world history." It is clear that the "collapse of tsarism" in 1917 "was a signal for Asia to revolt against Europe and against Western civilization."

Now "everyone is busy with the new government that has taken over Russia", trying to unravel its intentions, and "forgot about the empire of the Tsars, as if it had disappeared altogether"; meanwhile, "the consequences of its collapse are only just beginning to be felt." “The tsars of Russia no longer give gifts of peace and order to Europe and Asia every day,” and “Europe and America do not find anything that could replace this policy of equilibrium, which has been regulating the life of the Universe for a century.”

All this was written in 1933. Since then, a lot has happened that confirmed the predictions and fears of Ferrero. Peace-loving Russia still lies in prostration, in ruin, humiliation and torment. Its place is occupied by the Soviet Union encroaching "on everything". This new pseudo-state, fundamentally non-Russian and hostile to national Russia, has become a revolutionary and military aggressor unprecedented in the history of mankind - and the world trembles in anticipation of a new destructive war. The United States had to become the regulator of the world balance.