Muscovitism Must Be Rooted Out if Russia is to Cease to Be a Threat to Itself and Others, Eidman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 7 – Those who believe in “a beautiful Russia of the future” often cite the case of Germany after 1945 when its defeat in war did not lead to its disappearance, Igor Eidman says. But they ignore that the allies liquidated the source of German militarism– Prussia – and that Russia which has its own Prussia – Muscovy – must undergo something similar.

            By eliminating Prussia, the Russian analyst now living in Beelin, the World War II allies also eliminated “the spirit of Prussianism: chauvinism, imperialism, militarism, and authoritarianism” and as a result the new Germany could become a democratic and genuinely federal state (t.me/igoreidman/1722 reposted at  charter97.org/ru/news/2024/9/8/609857/).

            Russia to this day has “its own Prussia and Prussianism: Muscovy and its spirit of Muscovitism,” a fact of life which reflects that Russia was formed around the Muscovite principality just as Germany was formed around Prussia in the 19^th century. As a result, Eidman says, “present-day Russia is a broadened variant of the Muscovite principality.”

            Muscovitism is “not the log of Muscovites alone, but rather of all those who associate themselves with the Moscow empire of the Russian Federation. In short, its entire ruling elite. Putin and most of his circle “aren’t Muscovites – just as Hitler was not a Prussian.” But they are “infected with the spirit of Muscovitism.”

            That set of ideas involves “imperial pride and unrestricted territorial expansion, contemptuous xenophobia, a primitive morality in which my seizure of the territory of others is good but their seizure of mine is evil, legal nihilism, contempt for human rights and freedoms, slavery from top to bottom, police brutality, systemic corruption and theft.”

            Eidmean concludes that “if the contemporary Moscow-centric empire and the spirit of Muscovitism aren’t destroyed along with the Putin regime, then, the global threat of Muscovite expansion will remain in place and Moscow will remain a source of war and aggression toward its neighbors.”