Many Imperialists in Russia are Russophobes with Only Contempt for Russian People, Telegram Channel Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 28 – Many of the imperialists in Russia today are Russophobes who believe that Russians “are incapable of anything without some strong hand and the threat of death to force what they believe is a lazy and narrow-minded people to do great deeds,” according to the Naïve Political Science telegram channel.

            That Russian imperialists believe this, the channel argues, is “quite natural” given how recently Russians escaped from serfdom – in the 1950s and not in the 1860s as some imagine – and how easy it is for some in Moscow to convince themselves that only a cargo cult that relies on outsiders rather than the people itself will work.

            “But as the patriotic public acquires self-awareness outside this propaganda paradigm,” it continues, “there is a strengthening of a competing national idea of a civil society, not democratic but rather republican in its nature: conservative, anti-vaccine and demanding more rights to self-defense, limits on immigration, restrictions on corruption, and political representation” (rosbalt.ru/posts/2022/07/28/1967990.html).

            Such trends point to “the maturation of Russian society, its recovery from the trauma of serfdom,” and an escape from the imperialist notions of those who rule it now and out of contempt for it feel there is no other way for Russia to be organized, the Naïve Political Science telegram channel concludes.