All these circumstances have influenced the Russian national character, remarked by many eminent personalities. “Russian soul is infinite generosity’, said Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader. “Russian people work diligently and gratuitously as long as there is a moral idea, righteous objective in the society’, to quote Friedrich Hegel. Winston Churchill believed, “The concept of good nature – living in accordance with one’s conscience – is very Russian, indeed’26. And this has always been the attitude to Russian people. “And asked Andrew John, his disciple: “Rabbi! To which peoples should we bring the good news of our Father in heaven?” And Joshua replied: “Go to the people in the east, and to the people in the west, and to the people in the south… But you need not go to the pagans from the north, as they know not sins and vices of the House of Israel’ (Apostle Andrew, Apocryphal Acts). However, “when they entered [the fold of] Christianity, the faith blunted their swords, the door of their livelihood was closed to them, they returned to hardship and poverty, and their livelihood shrank’27 (Marvazī). But at least the Byzantine Empire gave a sigh of relief.
The severe environment typical of the Eastern Europe made it difficult to survive on one’s own, people needed support and mutual assistance. That is why they tended to live in communities, clans and tribes, and to join effort to resolve common problems. The informal relations between the members, based on the notions of truth and justice, has a higher value than formal relationships. This, in turn, influenced the family and economic relations and the entire everyday life.
In the West, the situation was quite different: the environment and the climate allowed people to live successfully on their own. The only thing required was legalizing the relationships between them. That is why the ideologic system of a rule-of-law state flourished there, imposing unconditional rule of rights and of law: “Let the world perish, the law will triumph!”, “Law is strict but it is law’, etc. In Russia, the notion of “law’ is understood in a broader manner. There is definitely a need for order in the world, however “Only the law that views itself as an obligation is efficient’ (M. N. Katkov, Russian government official of the twentieth century). Russia believed that “custom is more binding than a law: a law can be made up; a custom is formulated by life itself’ (Val. Ivanov). It is not a seemingly egalitarian law invented by people that should form a basis for the life of the human beings, but God’s laws of truth, conscience and justice.
All the obscure in other peoples seems intriguing to Russians and ugly and nasty to Europeans. “He who thinks or teaches ‘otherwise’ is sinful, a backslider, a foe, and he is fought down without mercy’ (O. Spengler)28. For this reason, “Great Britain has no constant enemies or friends but rather constant interests’ (W. Churchill). Western business ethic is unfamiliar with the notion of gratitude. “One would search in vain higher moral impulses in European politics. It is solely driven by the thirst for profit… informed people claim that at present only eccentric men with old-fashioned views pay the debts of honour, while enlightened nations do not’29 (P. N. Wrangel, the last Commander-in-Chief of the White armies in the south of Russia [22]).
Summarizing the above, Europe has chosen a different path of development. Its spiritual culture started its decline in the twelfth century, when “a germ of the new, completely different principle emerged that consisted in… only attributing sense meaning to what one sees, hears, touches, feels and perceives through the senses’30 (Pitirim Sorokin [23]). This has given rise to the infinite European pragmatism that has become the basis for Europe’s material prosperity, though not for spiritual prosperity. As opposed to Russia who glorifies justice, the West proclaimed “Vae victus!”31 (Woe to the vanquished). The pagan cult of power and financial prosperity has subordinated Europe and the rule of force prevailed the force of law. The mentality of wild freedom and of relentless fight for existence prevails the principles of Truth and Justice.
This explains why in Europe primary importance has always been assigned to personal well-being. The supreme valour of the western hero resides in being strong and inflicting suffering and grief on the others: “The world belongs to those who are braver and stronger. We do not ask when we want to take somebody’s life or property. We do not rob, we take away. We have faith in nothing but in our arms force and our courage’ (from Scandinavian sagas). “Is it the oar of galley moves among the shadows and ice floes, or the propeller froths the sea? The Waves and the Time echo each other: woe to the weakest one, woe!” (R. Kipling). “The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad, for all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad’ (H. Chesterton)32, etc.
Needless to say, Russia has never known any such beliefs, tales, poems, national epic, songs or legends. In the existing folklore battles are not described as a process of physical elimination or enslaving of the enemy, but as a hard labour, a spiritual and moral fight against injustice, sacrilege and global evil.
The cruelty celebrated in the western literature and art is more than a lyrical exaggeration. It determines the motives and the behaviour of western people, it is conditioned by their lifestyle, and history and armed with their ideologic and religious dogmas. The image of the foe was as essential for western man, as bloody flesh is for a wild beast. The West cannot survive without a foe and the social adrenalin he generates. This is why the West keeps making foes, real and invented ones. To vanquish them and feed its prosperity with their ashes.
A good example of this attitude is the fate of the North American natives, all of them either exterminated or locked up in reservations. The “civilized’ US authorities would pay generously for each scalped Indian, be this a warrior, a woman or a child. Besides, entire populations of unique animals, such as American buffalos, jaguars, white elks, dodos and others, were wiped out. And these excessive measures were not applied only once. Europeans have completed the “civilizing mission’ of the West by destroying, with a sword and a cross, the ancient cultures of Yucatan, Mexico and Peru, by annihilating the Incas and the Aztecs. Similarly, they have enslaved millions of Africans, making them work for western people. Benin, one of the most powerful and developed African states that once existed on the territory of modern Nigeria, has successfully fought the enslavers back until the nineteenth century, when the English colonizers gave it over to fire and sword.
It is interesting to point out that in Siberia, which was being conquered by Russia around the same time, not a single ethnic group perished, even among the smallest ones, and all animal populations were preserved. Siberia never knew any reservations, deportations, slavery of the natives or their total extermination.
This has been true throughout the course of history. It was not by chance that British historian Stuart Laycock entitled one of his books All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded and the Few We Never Got Round To. Out of 193 UN member-states, 171 have been attacked by Anglo-Saxons. This estimation does not cover the numerous hybrid and information wars that are waged all over the planet. In 2004, the Congressional Research Service made an attempt at assessing the total number of military conflicts that the US has ever participated in. The result was the astronomic figure of 261 acts of aggression or “actions to defend democracy’ across the world. Furthermore, the majority of these attacks were launched against known weak adversaries, which makes it evident with whom the initiative lies.
“Since 1945, the US has attempted to overthrow more than fifty governments, most of them democratically elected, and rudely intervened in democratic elections in at least thirty countries. Question: what do American leaders mean by “democracy’?