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TODAY'S RUSSIA IS THE HEIR OF HITLER'S NAZISM
RUSSIA IS A COUNTRY OF TERRORISTS, RAPISTS, THIEVES, AND MURDERERS
[ Voice ]Russians are murderers!
[ Baiden ]Russia is the aggressor, no ifs and buts about it.
[ Andrew ]We have inequality for Russians. We have actual racism, bigotry against Russians.
[ VO ]It’s now dangerous to be Russian in Europe.
[ Natalia ]It's us that people don't want to respect or love
[ Voice ]Russians are prostitutes!
[ VO ]Russophobia can’t be ignored.
[ Woman ]We must seek alternative solutions and ways to free ourselves of all that's Russian.
[ VO ]Can a nation suddenly be disliked? Or was the hostility always there, and only now come to the fore?
[ Guy Mettan ]The more strong Russia is, the more strong Russophobia is in the West.
[ VO ]Is Russophobia new or has it been seen before?
[ Denis Maltsev ]Heinrich von Staden had a plan:
Muscovites would have lead shackles on their feet
[ Dmitry Babich ]It's a historical fact that Lenin and the early Bolsheviks saw Russians as inferior.
[ Zakhar Prilepin ]'I don't reproach Russians for being what they are
[ Zakhar ]I blame them for their desire to appear to be what we are'
LA RUSSIE EN 1839 ASTOLPHE-LOUIS-LÉONOR, MARQUIS DE CUSTINE
[ Sergey Puskepalis ]Savages who can't use a toilet! We'll conquer and civilise them
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
[ Voice ]'America's primary instrument is freedom. Russia's is servitude'
[ Andrew ]And all we gotta do is just beat them over the head and just tell them the right way to live and the gonna do it.
[ Denis ]Russophobia's 500 years old. Scolding is more fun than praise.
RUSSOPHOBIA: HISTORY OF HATE
[ Guy ]I followed what happens in Russia, many decades. I tried to
understand why my own colleagues used say 90%, anti-Russian position.
[ GUY METTAN JOURNALIST, POLITICIAN, SWITZERLAND ]I made some research
and I discovered a very deep Russophobic, since long, long time.
[ VO ]Guy Mettan is a well-known journalist and politician. He heads the
Geneva Press Club and wrote a famous book, 'Creating Russophobia: From the
Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria,' in which he contends that
Russophobia in Western Europe isn’t new but has been there for centuries.
[ Guy ]This Russophobic narrative is set on two main arguments. One is, Russia is a dictatorship.
[ Guy ]It was a tyranny with the Tsar, it was a tyranny during Soviet times, and
now it's a tyranny during the presidential times. The second point is Russian
expansionism, Russian imperialism. It’s completely fake. But this is always the same game.
[ VO ]A visit to any bookshop in Europe or the US is enough to reveal the strength of anti-Russian sentiment today.
[ Zakhar ]Bookshelves devoted to Russia in European bookshops have this:
100 books on gulags.
[ Zakhar ]Barbed wire on the cover. Gulag, gulag, gulag... Stalin. Then 15 books
revealing the secrets of Putin's court Putin, Putin, Putin. Putin
the tyrant, Putin Then five more biographies of people killed by the
bloody Putin Then a study of the people we've oppressed all our lives
[ ZAKHAR PRILEPIN WRITER ]Russia is grim, bleak,
awful, with fangs dripping blood and a half full bottle of vodka
[ VO ]For example, in these comics about Russian history, the country is portrayed as a grim dystopia led by a dictator.
[ Guy ]You know, it's a typical book written by Russophobic
writer. How Mr Putin is described in the book, and
how the story is told. And you can see all the
cliches, you know, all the prejudices against Russia.
[ VO ]And this is a comic about one of the most horrifying episodes in modern Russian history,
the Beslan school siege when more than 1,000 hostages were taken, most of them children.
HOSTAGE TAKING, BESLAN SEPTEMBER, 2004
[ VO ]Terrorists shot the men, and the gymnasium, where the hostages were held, was booby-trapped. When one of
the bombs exploded, and people started to run away, the terrorists opened fire. More than 300 were killed.
[ VO ]But the comic strip says nothing about the abuse of hostages or fleeing children being
shot in the back. Instead, the author blames Russia who fired on their own children.
[ VO ]No wonder considering that even during the siege, many Western media referred to
the terrorists as separatists implying that blame did not lay entirely with them.
[ Guy ]The way used to describe the event was not to speak
about the terrorists. So, that’s the same prejudices. So,
no explanation why these people took the children —
not a word! It was all because bad Russian behaviour in
Caucasus. All the journalists, who covered the event,
they speak only about Russian police and army. If there
were people killed and children killed, it was only
the fault of the Russian police but not the terrorists.
[ VO ]Guy Mettan has studied Russophobia in journalism. And cartoonist Olga has explored the
portrayal of Russia through the ages. Sadly, the image has barely changed in centuries.
[ Olga ]Of course, Russia is portrayed in various ways,
[ OLGA IPATOVA CARTOONIST ALIAS: ‘CUCKOO’ ] but
the dominant component is that Russia is something... bestial...
practically inhuman It's like an elemental force Most of
all, it has no rationality It is something savage, aggressive...
something you just can't engage with in a human way Emperor Nicholas II, yes? And Stalin Two very different figures...
but the image is almost identical, as if drawn from one template Would you negotiate with
an Octopus? No. Do you want to live near an Octopus? No It's the same with Putin I've seen many.
[ Olga ]Western cartoons that show Putin in
just the same way as Nicholas or Stalin In the
West, there is a kind of culture of Russophobia,
at least since the days of Ivan the Terrible.
[ VO ]In fact it began even earlier, with the great orthodox schism.
[ Natalia ]When the Church split into the Roman Catholic Church
[ NATALIA NAROCHNITSKAYA PRESIDENT, HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE FOUNDATION, HISTORY PHD ]and
an Eastern Church in Constantinople, in Catholic Rome's eyes, the latter was a heretical
element where it was all wrong, for which there was no pity even when conquered by the
Turks, and Crusades went there They pillaged Byzantium, a sister faith, the Orthodox Church
[ VO ]When Byzantium fell, Rus declared itself its successor. The Pope even betrothed the last Byzantine
Emperor’s niece to Tsar Ivan the Third. They wanted that huge, and somewhat mysterious, country as an ally.
[ Dmitry ]Sofia Palaeologus was to turn us Catholic For that, she was kept in Rome for 15 years
[ DMITRY BABICH POLITICAL ANALYST ]She travelled with papal nuncios, who thought,
'It's almost done!' But she had adored her childhood
in Constantinople and dreamt of being an Orthodox Empress So, she moved over to our position
[ VO ]That was when travellers started to explore Russia. Much was written
but of course, the most popular reading was letters from diplomats.
[ Natalia ]Sigismund von Herberstein wrote in the 16th century He came with a specific
mission, an alliance against the Turks, meaning, for Russians to be used as
cannon fodder They still wanted to conquer the Ottoman Empire, but the mission
failed, allegedly because Russia was barbaric, where negotiation was impossible
NOTES ON MUSCOVITE AFFAIRS SIGISMUND VON HERBERSTEIN
[ Zakhar ]'This people finds more satisfaction in slavery than freedom After all, though masters may
free some slaves before they die, the latter immediately sell themselves into slavery to
other... masters If a father, as is their custom, sells his son, and he is released or freed
by some means, then the
father, with paternal authority, can sell him... again and again'.
[ Zakhar ]In the lands now known as Europe, in
the mid-16th century, they didn't think there was any
semblance of statehood here They thought
people went around in animal hides Since Russia was
plundered by the so-called Mongol-Tatar
Horde, its significance has diminished And they missed
that moment... the moment was missed
when the nation began to rebuild The Battle of Kulikovo
could be the moment the Russian state began to re-form In this context, one must understand
that to build such statehood,
with such culture, and such administrative and political ties,
as it's called today, no slave
state, people who sell their children and wives, and all the
rubbish written here, could create a
strong, flourishing, and expanding, expansionist statehood
[ VO ]Under Ivan the Terrible, relations with neighbours deteriorated further. Even his name was misunderstood.
Ivan the Terrible is a kind of mythological figure in the West, a primitive
one. Firstly, 'Formidable' was translated as 'Terrible', or awful.
But in Russian it's quite complex. It's 'formidable when
angered' A presence that makes you tremble and behave properly
[ VO ]No Russian ruler has ever been misrepresented as badly as Ivan
the Terrible. When the Livonian War began, Poles and Lithuanians
wanted to show their enemy to be as bloodthirsty as possible. So the tsar was 'the bloody tyrant' and 'monster on the throne.'
[ VO ]An Orthodox depiction to appeal to other Catholic states.
[ DENIS MALTSEV SENIOR EXPERT, INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES,
HISTORY PHD ]It's not bad Tsar Ivan oppressing his lovely
people, no. It's awful people with an awful ruler, Ivan the
Terrible. The most amazing example is a wonderful guy, the Duke of
Alba, who said the terrible barbarians would consume and conquer
all. The very same Alba who executed, hanged, and burned Dutch
rebels by the thousands He did horrible things, but they believed
this was different. That thinking goes back to the 1500s.
[ VO ]The English diplomat and merchant Jerome Horsey lived in Russia for almost 20 years and left some rather curious accounts.
[ Zakhar ]'The tsar returned to Great Novgorod, to his captives and prisoners He was greatly displeased with the city
NOTES ON RUSSIA JEROME HORSEY
[ Zakhar ]In revenge of its treason and treachery, he charged 30,000 Tatars and 10,000
guards to ravish women and girls. They ransacked, robbed, and spoiled all
within Melted wax and tallow in the streets mixed with the blood of 700,000
slain men, women, and children. History has never known such a massacre'.
[ Zakhar ]700,000 was impossible in Novgorod or any city in Russia or Europe Dear Jerome tried
to astonish readers with an incredible figure It was intended to outweigh all the
atrocities of his fellow believers and all European warriors and murderers, the
orchestrators of St. Bartholomew's nights So he gave crazy figures, there couldn't have
been 700,000 Once mentioned in the accounts, those raped women have been with us
ever since Russians never stop raping everyone wherever they go If you believe all
the violence, forget Novgorod We raped in Poland, Germany, all over, so Europe should
be... full of Slavs, our descendants. I can't see why we're at war! We're family!
[ Zakhar ]We sat quietly in our woods, then came out to rape everyone.
[ Zakhar ]It is a grim irony. That narrative was not dreamt up by Ukrainian
hoaxers today, nor by Nazis, who said we raped 2.5 million
German women Jerome Horsey was one of the first. How did he know?
[ VO ]In fact, Novgorod’s population was just 50,000 then, so killing 700,000 would
have been a challenge. But these notes on Russia were often republished and
quoted. Even centuries later, Russia was judged by similar account as Dark and
savage. Though Europe at the time was far from the height of progressive humanity.
[ Denis ]Henry VIII, who changed wives and decapitated chancellors The beautiful Queen Mary, whom they called 'Bloody'
[ Natalia ]In one night, Catherine de Medici slaughtered six times as many
as were murdered in all 30 years of Ivan the Terrible's 'bloody dictatorship'.
[ Denis ]You get an idea of how heated the information war was Heinrich von Staden, an oprichnik who later fled West,
planned to make Moscow an imperial province Muscovites would have lead shackles on their feet. It was a complex plan, you
should read it Generalplan Ost was 360 years
away, but you see the pattern. It's where ideas about
Ivan the Terrible are from. Yes, the accounts of fugitives.
[ VO ] Russia would gain popularity under Peter the Great. The first Russian emperor to travel widely. Anecdotally,
when he arrived in the French capital, he said: 'Paris stinks, and the stench will be the death of it.'
[ VO ]Under Peter the Great, Russia became a powerful state, which, of course, worried its neighbours.
[ GUY METTAN JOURNALIST, POLITICIAN, SWITZERLAND ] Russia was not on the scene before
Peter the Great, but suddenly appeared on the European scene, as a very important
power in competition with France. So for the king of France, it was not acceptable.
[ Guy ]In the 18th century, the modern Russophobia started with the king of France.
[ DENIS MALTSEV SENIOR EXPERT, INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, HISTORY PHD ]When
serious historical science began
to form, it tended to portray the Eastern Roman Empire,
Byzantium, as a kind of lowly, savage, and horrible country
[ Denis ]All good was from the Western Empire, from Rome,
and all things dark and dreadful were in the East. Yes, in Russia
[ Sergey ]Some interesting observations on Muscovy by Charles Louis Montesquieu dated 1748
THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS CHARLES DE MONTESQUIEU
[ Sergey ]'Muscovy', says this gentleman 'would have descended from despotism, but could not
[ Sergey ]Commerce itself is against Russian laws
[ SERGEY PUSKEPALIS DISTINGUISHED ARTIST, RUSSIA ]The people are composed of slaves employed in agriculture, and of others
called ecclesiastics or gentlemen, who are the lords of those slaves
[ Sergey ]Of a third estate, composed of mechanics and merchants, Moscow has none'
[ Sergey ]Well, I don't know...
[ Sergey ]In 1748, our merchants were trading with the West, the East, and India... and as
far as they could, from Rostov in Yaroslavl Region, huge caravans went to Iran
[ Sergey ]Charles Louis Montesquieu was caught in his own reality It wasn't virtual, like it is
for many public figures today, who use it to form opinions about Russian civilisation.
[ Sergey ]I guess he had his own little world, which he found very comfortable.
[ VO ]Diderot, Voltaire, and Rousseau argued over whether Russia could be seen as civilised or just barbaric
and semi-Asian. But they mostly agreed that Russia couldn’t be civilised because, it wasn’t France.
[ Natalia ]During the French Revolution, they invented the guillotine In all, about 27 million...
[ Natalia ]In France, in Vendée alone, 200,000 to 400,000 were slaughtered in two months
[ Natalia ]'I trampled their children beneath our horses' feet to exterminate them and all their spawn'
[ NATALIA NAROCHNITSKAYA PRESIDENT, HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE FOUNDATION, HISTORY
PHD ]That's from a revolutionary general to Robespierre and Danton from Brittany.
[ Natalia ]The colonial past of the French and English is a special history They were destroyers,
while Russia absorbed many peoples who'd all survived by the time of the revolution
[ VO ]Napoleon had to justify his campaign against Russia somehow, and Peter the Great's will conveniently came to
light, it seemed he wanted his heirs to conquer Germany and France. The perfect excuse for a pre-emptive strike.
[ Guy ]Napoleon was the king of Europe.
[ GUY METTAN JOURNALIST, POLITICIAN, SWITZERLAND ]He has conquered Austria, Germany, Prussia. He was hegemonical power of the time.
[ Guy ]He could not accept that Tsar could resist to him. He used this
fake document and saying to the French people, “that the mission
of the Tsar is to invade France, to conquer France. So we have to
make a pre-emptive attack against him otherwise we will be conquered”.
[ Denis ]It's very usual, when preparing
to fight someone, that you show how evil and aggressive they are.
[ Natalia ]The so-called 'Will of Peter the Great' was recognised by experts as a forgery. Napoleon allegedly wrote it.
[ Natalia ]There were a few ambitious campaigns in an attempt to conquer Europe, first of all. All the European
countries fell. But that force broke down against
Russia's power. Napoleon was the first to see it. He didn't
want to trade with Russia, or have anything to do with it.
[ Natalia ]Russia stood in the way of his global domination.
[ VO ]The bid for global domination failed and the French were repelled after Europe was liberated
from Napoleon’s occupation. The successful campaign didn’t just terrify France, but Britain, too.
[ Augusto ]Napoleon's defeat in Russia was an economic, humanitarian,
[ AUGUSTO ZAMORA NICARAGUAN PROFESSOR, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND RELATIONS, AUTONOMOUS
UNIVERSITY OF MADRID ]and military disaster for France It left a deep sense of rancour
[ Augusto ]This is reflected in literature Remember that his army had almost 900,000 soldiers
[ Augusto ]Less than 50,000 made it back to France It was an absolute disaster for the nation
[ Augusto ]A contradictory attitude began to form in Europe towards the country that
emerged late on the world arena, but was huge and capable of defeating the West
[ Denis ]In the 19th
century, after our campaign in Europe, the 'Russian steamroller'
image appeared: a huge empire with vast human resources It could take over Europe!
[ Denis ]And that fear provokes
a new wave of Russophobia There were tons of caricatures, many French and English, depicting Russians as barbaric.
[ Denis ]That's Suvorov.
[ Denis ]Despite being long-standing foes, the Turks were now
the good guys because there was a big threat looming in the East
[ Guy ]It was the image in modern times of
the bad Russian guy, who's imperialistic, tyrannic, which was
wrong. The British, at the time, they
were allied with Sultan of Constantinople who was a tyrant,
you know? He cut the heads of his enemies
and put the heads on the walls in Constantinople. But no
problem for the British to have such
an ally, you know, against the so-called bad Russian Tsars.
[ VO ]The Marquis de Custine’s book is considered a classic of Russophobia. In 1839, he visited Russia.
LA RUSSIE EN 1839 ASTOLPHE-LOUIS-LÉONOR, MARQUIS DE CUSTINE
[ Zakhar ]'I repeat, everything here has to be unmade, to be then remade markiz Kiustin La Russiee Russian mothers
should weep the birth, not the death, of their children His solitude must have been long and restless
in that prison called Russia, to appreciate the liberty enjoyed in all the other European countries,
whatever form of government they may have adopted' Custine is the first classic of Russian liberalism
[ ZAKHAR PRILEPIN WRITER ]All the ideas our liberal media have broadcast since then, like
'Radio Svoboda', 'Ekho Moskvy', 'Novaya Gazeta', 'Sobesednik', and others... all of them
were clearly defined by the Marquis de Custine: all over Russia, parents should be weeping
the fate of their children born in this terrible, dark, and simply unbearable country.
[ Zakhar ]You're even quite proud when reading such stuff because we're people who
thrive in such an atmosphere and give birth to many children We've withstood
it for centuries We still find the strength to be happy and appreciate
the vast expanses of our hideous, unfree, dark, savage, and ugly country!
[ Natalia ]Before that, Custine visited Spain It's accepted the Spanish Inquisition is considered by
the world symbolic of violence: secret police, and the burning of heretics on the slightest
pretext But since it's a Catholic country, he described El Escorial, the Inquisition's
horrific prison, as a 'holy prison', while the Kremlin was presented as some kind of hell
[ VO ]“Only barbarians can live in such cold”, the marquis told his readers.
[ VO ]Even though he only visited in summer and never knew the charms of a Russian
winter. His book, a treasure trove of Russian stereotypes, was regularly
reprinted, and is still in production. And even now informs many views of Russia.
[ Zakhar ]'I don't reproach Russians for being what they are...' Thank you, dear! 'What
I abhor is their pretending to be what we are. They're still uncultivated.
[ Zakhar ]This might at least allow room for hope, but I see them always
mimicking other nations, like monkeys caricaturing what they copy
[ Zakhar ]They appear to me to be in a state of
savagery, entirely lacking the requisites of civilisation'
[ Zakhar ]The most striking thing is that this was written in 1839. It was two years
after Pushkin was killed in a duel Lermontov and Gogol had been born, as had Leo
Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and other hugely significant cultural figures of
the 19th and 20th centuries. Even today, they define the history of humankind.
[ Zakhar ]This hideous, savage, 'monkey' country had already given birth to a culture
destined to be 1 of the 3 most influential for the next 200-300 years
[ Zakhar ]He sprayed bullets, hitting nothing, understanding nothing.
[ Zakhar ]Then there's science... Mendeleev Russian ballet and opera,
everything that would develop 'after the manner of monkeys’ and then outdo everyone: the Italians, Germans, and French
[ Zakhar ]You're an idiot, Mr Custine!
[ VO ]In the 19th century, Russophobia moved to Germany, a growing empire with expansion plans. And
that expansion would be to the east. The pretext was the same as Napoleon’s: Russian imperialism.
[ Guy ]So what the Germans did? They look into history and they discovered that the Teutonic knights
were already in Russia in 13th century.
[ Guy ]And it's started the new Russophobic. They have to develop
also propaganda to justify the future
invasion, the future expansion in the Russian empire. Before,
the Germans were never Russophobs.
[ Guy ]This colonial spirit helped to develop German Russophobia.
[ VO ]German propaganda convincingly argued that Russians were an inferior race, and the country
was a dark realm, preparing to conquer all. Centuries pass, but the arguments never change.
[ NATALIA NAROCHNITSKAYA PRESIDENT, HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE FOUNDATION, HISTORY PHD ]No one in the
West has surpassed the Russophobia found in the classical Marxism-Leninism of Marx and Engels
[ Natalia ]Interestingly, the country where Marxism won never published the complete works
of Marx and Engels... only parts... because some were just impossible to publish
[ Sergey ]Our beloved Karl Marx, whose monuments
decorate many of our squares, and whom we've named
streets after, says: 'Muscovy developed
and grew under the terrible yoke of Mongolian slavery.
SECRET DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE 18TH CENTURY KARL MARX
[ Sergey ]Even when free, Muscovy continued to
perform the traditional role of slave acting as master.
[ SERGEY PUSKEPALIS DISTINGUISHED ARTIST, RUSSIAN FEDERATION ]Peter the Great united the political craft of the Mongol
slave with the proud aspirations of the Mongol master,
to whom Genghis Khan had bequeathed his conquest of the earth'
[ VO ]The revolution caused resentment among many in the West.
The fact that it was in such a barbaric country made no sense.
[ ДМИТРИЙ БАБИЧ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИТИК ]The revolution was supposed to happen in
Germany or England Not here! Actually, it's a historical fact that Lenin and
the first Bolsheviks considered Russians to be inferior They didn't expect their
beloved communist revolution in Russia Marxists thought Russia was backward
[ Sergey ]Engels wrote, 'There will be a struggle, a life-and-death struggle against Slavs who betray the revolution
‘DEMOCRATIC PAN-SLAVISM’ NEUE RHEINISCHE, 1849 FRIEDRICH ENGELS
[ Sergey ]Annihilation and ruthless terror, not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution'
[ Sergey ]So, whatever their idea, their ultimate goal the
whole time has been to get rid of Slavs, whether it be
revolution, our economic hegemony, or
our gas pipelines Anything can be done, just eradicate the Slavs!
[ VO ]The Eradication of Slavism was also conceived by Hitler who formed the Generalplan Ost for the
colonisation and Germanisation of Eastern Europe. The plan involved about 80% being killed or relocated.
[ Quote ]'We must develop a technique of depopulation If you ask me what I mean by depopulation,
[ Quote ]I mean the removal of entire races.
[ Quote ]That's what I intend to carry out It'll be my chief task
[ Quote ]One of the main tasks of German statesmanship for all time is to
prevent, by all means in our power, the increase of Slav races'.
[ ZAKHAR PRILEPIN WRITER ]'Prevent the increase of Slav races'! This is Adolf Hitler, of course.
[ Zakhar ]I'm horrified by how stupid and cruel many Slav nations have become, including our Ukrainian
brothers, and our once close cousins, the Poles. The number of Neo-Nazis in their societies
is extremely frustrating However, both Ukrainians and Poles were supposed to be wiped
out. As for the various Baltic peoples, 25-30% of them would be killed, the rest enslaved
[ Zakhar ]Nevertheless, they
march around dressed in SS uniforms. They're zombies! They won't
read this quote, and wouldn't believe it anyway. How brainwashed can they be?!
[ Guy ]The sympathy for Nazi, it’s forbidden. But you can do
it in Ukraine without problem. It’s also the big contradiction.
[ Guy ]For instance, the ‘Azov’ Battalion, you know — they can
show SS signs without problem. So, there’s a double standard.
[ NATALIA NAROCHNITSKAYA PRESIDENT, HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE FOUNDATION,
HISTORY PHD ]Conflict produces overt forms, in which Russian people are
invested with such characteristics… Goebbels said: 'They mistakenly
believe all humans are humans Russians are not humans, they're creatures'
[ VO ]Hitler’s plans for the Slavs are rarely remembered today as is the fact that civilised
Europe failed to resist his advance for long. Belgium fell in eight days, Poland in 36, France
in 43. It took just 116 days to conquer Europe. Nazi death camps were set up in Poland,
Latvia, Austria and Italy. People were tortured, gassed, burnt, and subjected to experiments.
[ ANDREW KORYBKO POLITICAL ANALYST, US ] Who's killed more Westerners? Not Russians, Westerners
themselves! Adolf Hitler slaughtered tens of millions. Polish people forget that about a one fifth
of all Poles were killed during World War II, because Adolf Hitler, including his Nazi collaborators
in Western Ukraine Stepan Bandera, slaughtered the Polish people in anti-Polish genocide.
[ Guy ]In Treblinka was one of the worst extermination
camps. But if you look, the soldier, the Nazis were eleven
Germans, and four hundred Lithuanians and Ukrainians
to kill the Jews in Treblinka. Who is saying that now? Nobody!
[ Natalia ]Hitler conquered Europe And then, again, the only nation
whose will was stronger, said: 'We'd rather die than be slaves'
[ Natalia ]So, fighting that force was a strong will to sacrifice all for
independence: self-sacrifice to the last drop of blood, regardless of the toll.
[ Natalia ]Russians only cared about honour and freedom It meant more than life
[ Natalia ]The enemy fails again! An inferiority complex is inevitable, isn't it?
[ VO ]During World War II, the USSR, the United Kingdom and the United States became
allies, united against a common enemy. But the partnership was seldom equal.
[ Olga ]For example, even when we're allies, we aren't exactly portrayed as
brothers or equal people Expediency makes us a friendly force, but not quite human
[ OLGA IPATOVA CARTOONIST ALIAS: ‘CUCKOO’ ]I tried but couldn't find
caricatures or posters that show Soviet soldiers in the same way as US ones
[ Olga ]Monsters coming to the rescue!
[ VO ]After victory over Nazism in 1945, the USSR was quite popular as the country that liberated
Europe. But that popularity provoked even greater fear among the Western establishment.
[ Zakhar ]Churchill: 'Vanquishing Germany brought major changes
in relations between Communist Russia and the Western democracies
[ Zakhar ]They'd lost their common enemy,
and the sole reason for their alliance Russian imperialism
and the Communist creed saw and set no bounds to
their progress and ultimate dominion'
[ Zakhar ]A glorified battle against Bolshevism, today
it's Putinism The 1800s had the 'Policeman of Europe' Before
that, the maniac Peter I Every time, it's just taken on
a new name to fight Russia and Russian imperialism
[ Zakhar ]No matter if it's a 'Communist creed',
or Putinism, or a habit of raping all the virgins in Livonia...
[ Zakhar ]It doesn't matter!
[ Zakhar ]They simply must destroy and crush Russia itself because of Russian imperialism
[ Guy ]But if you look in the history it was always the West who attacked Russia: you had
the Teutonic knights, you had also the Polish-Lithuanian in the 17th century, you had the
Swedes, you got Napoleon, you got twice the German with the Kaiser and after Hitler. So,
and that's the historical facts, but, never mind, Russian expansionism is always a threat.
[ VO ]By May 1945, on Churchill’s orders, Operation Unthinkable was drawn up. Britain and America, with Polish support,
planned to attack the USSR. The operation was intended
to utilise 12 divisions recruited from Nazi prisoners of war.
[ Natalia ]The British denied this.
[ Natalia ]It wasn't till the 1990s that they admitted the plan really existed.
[ Natalia ]It seems Western Europeans who took up leading roles in the media have had wan inferiority complex
all these decades because they must thank savages for saving
them from Hitler, one
that can't mow a lawn properly and has 8 months of winter!
[ Zakhar ]Once a century, these animals manage to seize control of all European capitals. They
never forget that! Now and then, Russians enter Warsaw, Prague, Berlin, Paris, and
then leave! But we didn't want Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, or Paris They appeal to us, but
they never admit any fault So, they won't change their attitude to us any day soon!
[ VO ]There was also America’s ‘Totality’ plan, to drop several
atomic bombs on the USSR. The exact number varied from year to year.
[ Zakhar ]One reason it didn't come to nuclear bombing
was that the Soviet Army was unmatched at the time
[ Zakhar ]Even if just part
of its military reached Europe, with dozens of Russian cities
destroyed in a nuclear blast... As one
document says: 'No one can stop them' Knowing Russia was
destroyed, they'd have wiped out Europe,
then swum across the Channel to the UK and destroyed it!
[ Zakhar ] Then across the ocean to annihilate
America, because they knew they would get no mercy
[ VO ]They didn’t bomb the USSR but the Cold War began. Even in 1947, Western politicians still spoke of Peter the
Great’s Will and Russia’s longstanding plans for world domination, even though the document had long been proved a fake.
[ Guy ]They say «Oh, but you know, there is no smoke without fire». You understand?
[ Guy ]We know it's a fake, but maybe this fake has some real cause, you know.
[ Guy ]And they use it in order to justify the
cold war and fight against the Soviets. Always the same story.
[ Guy ]United States, they have the ambition to be the lonely
power, super power. That's why they started the Cold war.
[ RONALD REAGAN US PRESIDENT, 1981-1989 ] Но пока
они проповедуют всемогущество государства и его превосходство над
личностью, пока они веруют в своё будущее господство
над всеми народами земли, они — центр зла в современном мире.
[ Augusto ]During the Cold War, the US demonised the Soviet Union.
[ AUGUSTO ZAMORA NICARAGUAN PROFESSOR, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND RELATIONS, AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY OF MADRID ]It was painted
as a threat to liberty and human rights in the world This is pure political propaganda backed by the fear of the Soviet
Union's military power This fear intensified after the
Soviets tested their 1st nuke and surprised the world with its
Sputnik satellite. A sense of fear crept across America
and Europe, and anti-Soviet propaganda reached epic proportions
[ VO ]In 1946, in his famous Fulton speech, Winston Churchill spoke
of the terrors of communism, and USA’s benevolence with Atomic
weapons: “this knowledge and the method and the raw materials
to apply it are at present largely retained in American hands.”
[ Natalia ]In Japan, propaganda is such that, in the Hiroshima
and Nagasaki museum, it's hard to tell who dropped the bombs
[ Natalia ]You might think it was the Soviets! This is how it works there Everything
bad that happens in the world seems to come from Russia and Russians
[ VO ]Americans believe the country was steered out of ‘totalitarianism’ by a
man who destroyed it from inside. Naturally, Gorbachev is loved in the US.
[ Denis ]Sometimes you need to love Russians! To beat the
Kaiser or Hitler and to prevent them from being too strong,
[ DENIS MALTSEV SENIOR EXPERT, INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, HISTORY PHD ]you need to feign
friendship But it's always lasted for only a few years, and then it would be taken back
[ Dmitry ]I remember inflation in the Soviet Union Gorbachev printed money, gave it to all... no food in the shops...
[ Dmitry ]He debated Stalinism and how to fight it
[ DMITRY BABICH POLITICAL ANALYST ]He really believed we had no
enemies abroad because it seemed a really nice idea
[ OLGA IPATOVA CARTOONIST ALIAS: ‘CUCKOO’ ]They beat us in the Cold War
and decorated themselves But if you look at how Russians are portrayed
in cartoons and films, you'll see an iconic Russian cosmonaut in an
earflap hat and a bottle of vodka, smashing some gear with an axe
A caricature!
They may admire someone like Gorbachev
or Kozyrev. However, they like what they do, not their images.
In fact, they despised them
Look, how Gorbachev was portrayed in films and cartoons
They openly ridiculed him. They even put him in a pizza ad!
[ PIZZA HUT AD ]It is Gorbachev!
[ PIZZA HUT AD ]Because of him, we have economic confusion! Because of him, we have opportunity!
[ PIZZA HUT AD ] Because of him, we have political instability!
[ PIZZA HUT AD ] Because of him, we have freedom! -
[ PIZZA HUT AD ]Complete chaos! - Hope! Because of him, we have many things…like Pizza Hut!
[ PIZZA HUT AD ]Hail to Gorbachev! - Hail to Gorbachev!
It was open mockery, a way to highlight their victory
[ Augusto ]Yeltsin was an ideal leader for Europe because he nearly
ruined Russia President Putin said that, when he was appointed,
[ AUGUSTO ZAMORA NICARAGUAN PROFESSOR, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND RELATIONS, AUTONOMOUS
UNIVERSITY OF MADRID ]there were CIA people in Russia's strategic nuclear centres. So,
Yeltsin turned Russia into the laughing stock of Europe Bill Clinton laughed hard at
the stories of drunk Boris Yeltsin walking in socks down the streets of Washington.
[ Augusto ]It was shameful, but the West loved Yeltsin Had he
ruled for another decade, there would be no Russia
[ Guy ]Russophobia was always relate, to the Russian leader. It was
the tsar during the tsarist time. After, it was Lenin and Stalin. And
now, it’s Putin. Because as the rules of Russophobia are geopolitics.
[ Guy ]The more strong Russia is, the more strong Russophobia is in the West.
[ Guy ]So it’s a good sign for Russia! Because if the Russophobia is strong,
that’s a sign that Russia is also strong. Because when Russia is
in chaos, in crisis — like, after the First World War, or after the
collapse of Soviet Union — there was no Russophobia in the West.
[ DMITRY BABICH POLITICAL ANALYST ]Most of my life, I thought Russophobia
was a myth. To recognise it exists, I needed to live and study in the USA.
[ VO ]Political expert Dmitry Babich didn’t believe in Russophobia at first.
[ VO ]The USSR spoke of western anti-Sovietism, but that didn’t mean Russians.
[ Dmitry ]As a Russian student, I was invited to Harvard, to the centre for Russian studies. I heard some
Russia experts talking. They spoke about their subject coldly and with such hatred
that I was stumped. They sounded like vivisectionists dissecting an enemy's corpse. I thought
maybe we hadn't apologised for Stalinism enough. Just apologise and everyone will love us!
[ VO ]No matter how much they apologised, Russians were never popular. And even in
the 21st century are often judged by what was written hundreds of years ago.
[ VO ]The American statesman Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former US presidential national security adviser,
when speaking of Russia, praised the Marquis de Custine’s books, which referred to Russians as slaves.
[ Sergey ]'To understand
the complexity of current Soviet-American relations,
[ SERGEY PUSKEPALIS DISTINGUISHED ARTIST, RUSSIAN FEDERATION ]you need to read just
2 books: 'Democracy in America' by de Tocqueville and 'La Russie' by de Custine'
[ VO ]De Tocqueville was the French foreign Minister in 1849 and wrote a famous treatise “Democracy in America”.
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
[ Sergey ]'There are now two great nations in the world, which
started from different points, but tend towards the same end.
[ Sergey ]I mean the Russians and the Anglo-Americans
[ Sergey ]In America, it's all about freedom
[ Sergey ]In Russia, slavery!'
[ Sergey ]But in America they had slaves back then, brought to
South Virginia Sugarcane plantations developed there. We
tend to forget! Slavery there differed from our serfdom,
with a nobleman responsible for each of their serfs.
[ Guy ] The Americans, they killed 90% of the
Indian tribes. When they deported fifty million African
slaves to America — South and North, fifty
million killed, or dead in bad treatment. This is forgot.
[ Andrew ]This is the concept of what I call ‘Russian guilt’. They
want to beat Russians over the head, generation through generation,
[ ANDREW KORYBKO POLITICAL ANALYST, US ]to feel guilty and apologise for leaders hundreds of years
ago that did not do anything even close to the evil was that Western leaders themselves have done.
[ VO ]When modern Russophobia began to flare up, Andrew was a university student. He studied Russia, his
friends didn’t understand. Why waste time on a weak country with no say? Everything changed on August 8, 2008.
[ Andrew ]And they said, you know, ‘Putin invaded Georgia, a democracy is under
threat. I remember George W. Bush went crazy and that McCain, of course, going crazy.
[ MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA, 2004-2013 ] My country
is in self-defence against Russian aggression. Russian troops invaded Georgia.
[ Andrew ]Well, obviously we know now that there was an exaggeration, we now know the facts of what
happened. Saakashvili initiated the attack against Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinval, capital of South of
Ossetia, killed a lot of people. And obviously Russia had to react. But at the time, a lot of Americans
were confused because they had thought Russia was nothing, they’d thought Russia was falling apart
[ Guy ] In April 2008, at the NATO summit, the US Administration invite Georgia and Ukraine
[ GUY METTAN JOURNALIST, POLITICIAN, SWITZERLAND ]to become a member of NATO and support
the attack, because Georgia could not attack Ossetia without the permission of the
United States. So, that was the… the biggest event and provocation, and the sign that
the… the… the West and the US wanted to put his grip just under… under the nose of Russia.
[ VO ]Modern Russophobia seems linked to US policy. After the
collapse of the USSR, it became the only super-power, and American
politicians increasingly referred to the USA’s exceptional mission
– to enlighten other nations and teach them to live properly.
[ BARACK OBAMA US PRESIDENT, 2009-2017 ] Some may disagree, but I believe America is exceptional. In part, because we have shown a
willingness through the sacrifice of blood and treasure to stand up
not only for our own narrow self-interest, but for the interest of all.
[ NATALIA NAROCHNITSKAYA PRESIDENT, HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
FOUNDATION, HISTORY PHD ]We control you because it's in your interest. Because we are
the criterion of what is and isn't needed If you don't understand or refuse to
accept that... you are an evil to be eradicated. It's OK to burn and kill...
[ Natalia ]The Vietnam War and bombing Yugoslavia were OK because it was a 'humanitarian
intervention' to bring 'democracy' in the quickest possible way, with bombs
[ Andrew ]Everybody else are barbarians. And actually, everybody else are slaves. The US in Iraq and all
these other countries bombing and killing and raping and looting and stealing and all these other things,
overthrowing governments left and right. Well, why did they do that the fundamental driver of what
really convinces the average American or Westerner to support these wars of aggression is ideological.
[ Andrew ]They think that “These Asians, these Muslims, these Africans, these Latin Americans,
they don't know what's good for them. Only we and the West know what's good.”
[ Natalia ]They destroyed the Middle East, Libya, Iraq, and
Syria In Libya, girls could learn, were educated, but what now?
[ Natalia ]They're not ashamed! And again,
it's Western civilisation's sense of superiority...
[ Natalia ]If any other kind of superpower sends its troops
anywhere, that's a priori bad, because they 'don't have the right'
[ Natalia ]They're inferior. But what America does...
is always justified by the highest humanistic goals.
[ VO ]When Russia began its operation in Ukraine, Russophobia
reached new heights. In the West music by Russian composers is
banned in places. People can be fired for their nationality.
[ VO ]This even new Russian ideology – putinism – to fight against.
[ Guy ]What was quite new with this new
type of Russophobia that it was a kind of ethnic, cultural hate.
[ Guy ]And for me it's just the same
as it’s racism, it's like anti-Semitism in the
thirties when Hitler came into power and started
the persecution of the Jews, you know, burning
books, forbidding music, culture, everything.
[ Guy ]So that's, for me it's anti-Russian racism.
[ Dmitry ]How does ultra-liberalism, the new radical ideology, use...
[ Dmitry ]Russophobia?
[ Dmitry ]Keeping in mind the prejudices of other peoples, it attributes to Russians the qualities
that ideology dislikes. Poles are told, 'It's good you dislike Russians', as they are
impervious to democracy. So, when you hate Russians, it's not racism, it's your love of
freedom and democracy' Today's Germans know Russia quite well. But what does mass media
instil in them? It's a country that persecutes
homosexuals and where the climate change
problem has no importance. So, we, the green,
ecological Germans, should go there, overthrow
that regime, that's a danger to the whole
world's ecology, and put something better in place.
[ Dmitry ]Pacifists are the main advocates
for arming Ukraine. It's how they fight war.
[ Sergey ]Our so-called 'partners' didn't seem
unreasonable. And suddenly, they say that we've unleashed
this aggression against the allegedly... benevolent
Ukraine with pretty girls... and nice guys. Haven't
they heard... about the civil war in that land, and
Russian being banned? What if that happened to you. If
there was a build-up of force around Belgium, if your
neighbours jumped and shouted, 'Hang the Belgian'?
[ Sergey ] How would you feel? Just think about that.
[ Guy ]When I write article, many critics ask me, “Oh, you have
to denounce Russia, because Russia is killing people in Ukraine.”
[ Guy ]I say, “Okay, but we have to denounce America in Iraq,
crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and
Yugoslavia” They say: “Oh, it’s another story! We cannot compare.”
[ Guy ]If you raise the problem with your own behaviour, criminal
behaviour. Oh, no, you cannot compare. All the media
here cover the Ukrainian side, but don't cover the Russian side.
[ Zakhar ]A notorious cancel culture always has been
the answer. If it was so in the 16th century, the 17th,
18th, 19th centuries… You forgot how to read? Read
books, it was the same, it's just our rosy anticipation.
[ ZAKHAR PRILEPIN WRITER ]Now, in the 21st century, it's
different, we have art, we have travel. That's nonsense! Are you
insane? If those world democracies have killed 5 million
in 30 years, why'd they love you? In fact, that tick that a
Russian is an enemy never disappeared. Don't forget,
Russia won't ever suit the Anglo-Saxon world, Europe's 'golden
billion' have always had a problem with Russia and a secret
desire to split its water, taiga, oil, gas... and all for free.
[ Natalia ]The total power of propaganda and NATO's arsenal is to curb Russia. And Russia
is on its own. They watch this battle in amazement, Africa, Latin America, all of Asia,
[ NATALIA NAROCHNITSKAYA PRESIDENT, HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE FOUNDATION, HISTORY PHD ]
because the world's fate is at stake. Will the world be multi-polar, where nations
have the right to decide their policies, or will all of them be subject to a matrix
that terminates anyone who doesn't comply. That hatred, that inferiority complex… We
can't make a sound without US approval. We accept all that they say, Brussels too.
[ Natalia ]And suddenly, those whose GDP is not so big… But the strength of a nation state is
not measured by GDP, especially per capita. It's pretty high in Switzerland, but no
one asks Switzerland for its opinion on any serious issue of world history or policy.
What's built up for 500 years can't change in 5 years.
[ DENIS MALTSEV SENIOR EXPERT, INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, HISTORY PHD ] It may not even change in 50 What to do? We
must be strong Practice shows, when we're strong, we're
more likely to be needed When needed, they'll be told to love us
[ Natalia ]It's gone so far, there will be a rollback. It's become too absurd,
and much too grotesque. No common-sense Westerner can tolerate the absurd for long.