“RUSSIA'S ORTHODOX JIHAD” AND THE REFLECTIONS OF AN AMERICAN LIVING IN RUSSIA

by Cainus Maxus

“United States of America was established as a state without traditions. It identified itself with a twisted conception of freedom and felt that its enormous power is due to its global mission. Which means nothing else than exporting its “values” to the world, whether or not it is needed. Since usually there was no demand for it, only the violence left of course hidden under the guise of such nice words as world peace, democracy, liberalism.” 

Gábor Vona of Jobbik, Hungarian traditionalist political party

The American Conservative recently published a blog post with the title "Russia’s ‘Orthodox Jihad'." While it is an interesting presentation of views that are rarely heard in the West regarding Russia, it contains a problematic theory, which states that the push-back against the West is bouyed by the idea that Putin is leading an "anti-W.E.I.R.D." coalition. This is an acronym that stands for "Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic."

But the push-back against America has nothing to do with the heart of the west being "more educated," which in itself is patently false (one only needs to take a survey of average Americans and their opinions on world history, culture, and geopolitics to see that this is not the case). This insinuation implies that Russians are less educated than Americans – a statement laughable in the extreme. Russians have a stronger grasp of history, culture and politics than many people from the West, even many other Western countries that are less ignorant than America. Many Russians, like my wife, speak multiple languages (she speaks six, her parents each speak three). Russians have a complex and multifaceted understanding of the history of their own nation and many other nations – Americans barely know where their own country is on the map.

Furthermore, the fact that most Western countries are "more industrialized" or wealthier is also an extremely abstract rationalization for the push-back against the West by Russia and other nations. Russia isn’t some extremely undeveloped nation that is still agrarian like Laos or backwoods India, and many of the other nations on Putin’s side, like Turkey or China, certainly are not without industrialized societies – China’s recent overtaking of the US economy and sliding into first place can easily confirm this.

Ironically this very article points out the real reason why the above points are nonsensical: the West is seen as a decadent empire that brutally installs its ideology on its enemies, and at home it has few values that compare to most of the world, aside from a desire to raise one’s living standards.

Not the West.

The honest truth is that the only parts of the "W.E.I.R.D." designation that propel Russians to fight the United States and the EU are the "Western" and the "Democratic" parts of the "W.E.I.R.D." acronym, and, it must be noted, not because Russians are intrinsically anti-democratic or anti-Western. 

The first reason that Putin and Russia hate the West so much is because of its incredible insistence on pushing "Democracy" through violent revolution, insurrection and protest throughout the world, primarily against geopolitical enemies, while conveniently ignoring other dictatorships that serve its goals. An example of this would be the brutally totalitarian and extremist regime of Saudi Arabia which supplies the West with the bulk of its oil. The West constantly endeavors to describe Iran, Syria, and Russia as extremist countries where citizens are subject to brutal punishment or repression, but let’s compare a few statistics:

Looking good in uniform is not the same as being totalitarian.

Russia, which is portrayed as radically nationalist and religiously extremist, particularly in the American Conservative article, has not executed a single person in 20 years, while the United States… well, you know. Saudi Arabia still beheads people in front of Western spectators and jails bloggers for not being religiously devout or "respectful" enough, whereas the West focused on the "persecution" of a group of punk rock feminists who rushed into a church to insult Putin and and the faith of 85% of the country. 

Unlike in Western countries, Russian anti-hate laws are primarily designed to protect the Russian majority. Pussy Riot violated the hate-speech laws in Russia, which are extremely comparable to the laws in the United Kingdom, where the slur "Faggot" posted on Facebook by one of High Right’s founders got him imprisoned for 17 hours while his wife and children sat outside freezing on a bench waiting for him to be released. 

Countless stories show that people all through Western Europe are arrested on hate-speech violations every year, when they hardly do something as extreme as running into a place of religious worship to insult the faith itself. Usually, hate-speech laws are used to suppress European-descended ethnic majorities and Christians.

The United states has also a long history of propping up Western-friendly dictators in countries like Chile or Egypt who have long oppressed their citizens with brutal repression for opposing the regimes, yet a moderate country like Syria, or a conservative but not extremist country like Iran is often shown on the news as a supreme evil, while Egypt’s human rights violations were rarely mentioned when Hosni Mubarak was in power.

We can already see that the United States’ definition of "Democracy" relies on the regime being Western-friendly first and democratic second. "Democracy" is found as a common slur in Russia comparable to how Americans use the term "Socialism" to describe leftist policies that go too far, whilst Russians use the term to describe mismanagement, corruption and incompetence. (Interestingly, the term “Conchita” is new Russian slang for someone who has completely destroyed himself. Russians use it to refer to something that is “completely fucked”). 

The Yeltsin era, hailed in the West as a democratic achievement, was a colossal failure rarely talked about in the West, and Putin’s achievements in stabilizing the country have been glossed over or denied because he does not do what the West wants. Russians remember the pre-Putin era as a nightmarish, poverty stricken time when the Mafia ran everything and killed people openly in the streets. In the 1990’s, none of this was shown on television, instead American audiences were shown agitprop propelling Americans to support action against Serbia for "ethnic cleansing." This is not a denial of Serbia’s actions nor an open support for Serbian actions, it is merely a point to showcase how an enemy of the United States is given prime coverage for its wrongs, whilst a friend is allowed to continue on with business as usual. When Russia started to support Syria and pointedly turned against U.S. geopolitical goals, the airwaves began filling with horror stories demonizing Russia, and in 2014, 3 action films from Hollywood showcased Russian bad guys (John Wick, Taken 3 and The Equalizer).

Hollywood has found its new villains.

As for the "Western" part of the W.E.I.R.D. acronym, this makes up the second primary position against the West, which is due to its imposition of Western cultural habits on countries around the world… which of course, in the case of Saudi Arabia, is not applied due to the importance of Saudi oil. 

We constantly hear about how Westerners should condemn Mr Putin for his "anti-gay laws," which really only ban public displays of ‘non-traditional’ sexual relations. We are told to think this is the worst evil on planet earth, to not allow these cheerfulsexuals to display their deviancy for the public. In any normal culture, this display would be considered at best abnormal behavior, and at worst considered what it is, degenerate. We are told, this is "repression," even though the majority of Americans are Christians, even if only superficially, and we do not appreciate such public displays for the most part. Instead, to be truly progressive, one should make sure that their nation allows Christians to be sued for not making birthday cakes for people who violate what they consider to be an intrinsic religious belief. Essentially, repression is only OK if it is Christians and Europeans who are being repressed.

This man has a few things to say about the West.

Aleksandr Dugin comments regularly on the cultural differences between Russia and the West. He sees American or Anglo-Saxon culture as primarily individualistic compared to Russia’s collectivist nature, with these tendencies providing the basis for Russian conservatism and Western liberalism. I would contest this assertion by Mr. Dugin to a point, because, while it has validity in regard to economics, in regards to culture it is somewhat flawed, because the majority of Anglo-Saxon descendant Americans were, for much of their history, very socially conservative, even if they were also individualistic. In many ways, Russians remind me of how Americans used to be. It is only recently, with cultural elites enforcing the will of social engineers and colluding with soulless politicians, that social liberalism has seeped into American culture and destroyed our will to fight for the right values, tradition, and protecting our culture. We can see from the administrations of presidents like Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton that liberalism often comes as a collectivist imposition along with authoritarian power; you are forced to accept it.

This brings a point that I wanted to mention about the difference in Russian and American psychology. Dugin’s assessment does have some merit, because what has allowed liberalism to take hold, in my opinion, is the American sense of optimism. 

Americans believe that they can create a utopia, that they can overcome any sense of "bigotry," that cultures do not have to matter, that endless swarms of immigrants can be just like us. Americans do not see their country’s failings as the result of a deeply flawed worldview, they see it as the result of bad management. Thus, they eagerly hope for a change in their managers, and look towards the next cycle of elections. The American mindset in addition is also often obsessed with the superficial, the easy to placate, the carnal, the expression of excess. Combine this with extreme optimism and unrestrained idealism and it isn’t hard to see why liberalism imposed with force took hold: most of us accepted it because we wanted it to be true. 

"YAY! WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!" is the common American mindset. Cue mission trips to Uganda, AIDS outreach programs, condoms passed out to teens, and "tolerance" propaganda enforced in all aspects of society. Much like Soviet citizens were encouraged to denounce their fellow countrymen as "reactionaries" or "counterrevolutionaries," Americans are encouraged to denounce their fellow citizens as "bigots," "racists," and "homophobes." When we consider these factors… individualism becomes less of a motivating factor in cultural liberalism, because society pressures those with divergent views to accept their narrative, even if ostensibly, it is in the pursuit of "individualism."

Russians, by contrast, are deeply pessimistic and soulful people who distrust change. Russians are extremely cynical, and thus do not see Utopian designs as possible or even desirable. Russians, like Americans, have a flair for the grandiose and the massive in scale but it is almost always the result of some kind of larger and deeper goal that they find achievable, and it most certainly lacks the unrealistic Utopian factor, even if it manifests as the idea of the mythical "Third Rome" designation that some Russians claim their country to be fulfilling. 

For the Communists, it was economic justice they strove for, which came closest to anything we can compare the United States to. However the communist goal changed towards economic equality rather than a completely classless society (see Stalin’s "socialism in one country"). 

For the new Russia, it is safeguarding their culture and faith, within preserving tradition. For Eurasianists and Russian imperialists, it is often the "Third Rome" prophecy (fulfilling Russia's historical destiny as the third successor to the Roman empire). 

Sometimes, Russians, like Americans, are given to designs of empire, but unlike Americans, it is not with the intent of bringing a Utopian sense of "democracy," where no hate, violence or "bigotry" exists and everyone can own a pair of Nike shoes and drink coca cola in addition to obsessing over the abstract ideal of humanism. Even the Soviet goals were not anywhere near as idealistic as the American goals, save for orthodox Marxism, which significantly differs from Leninism and Stalinism, both of which were more realistic and achievable societal goals than orthodox Marxism which sought to install a purely classless society devoid of any and all capitalism. 

In Soviet times, the U.S.S.R. sought to bring economic justice for the working class, peasants and serfs, as Lenin and Stalin realized that the Marxist goal of a classless society was not achievable, at least within the time frame in which the old Bolsheviks were operating. I explain this not to excuse or tolerate Marxism, but rather to take a balanced view of its effect on history, particularly Russian history. 

One could claim that the "Third Rome" prophecy is just as grandiose as Marxist idealism or American democracy, but most Russians and the current administration of Putin’s government do not propagate this claim or goal of the Third Rome. By contrast, the ruling elite of America do propagate their Utopian claims of worldwide democracy as actually achievable and something they are actively pursuing, which is a marked difference. 

In addition to this, Americanism and it’s globalism are significantly different and arguably more radical and destructive to culture than Communism ever was. After all, the Soviet Union criminalized homosexuality at one point and treated drug dealers with extreme punishments. When one speaks to those who lived in those times, it is a complete shock to realize that Soviet communism was far more culturally conservative than western liberalism or globalism has ever been, perhaps owing to the lack of economic liberalism, which is often the bringer of destruction to culture due to it’s consumerist effects on society.

The Russian mentality is profoundly stubborn and unchanging; it can also be fatalistic at times. What moves the Russian soul is the spiritual and mystical in the quest for continuity, not the ideal in the quest for the Utopian. Americans, by contrast, have very idealistic tendencies, owing to their ingrained positivity and tendency to distrust mysticism and grandeur of the Russian type in favor of abstractions like "rights" or "freedoms." To Russians, who have a deeply cynical view of the world, one does not need to obsess over "rights" or "freedoms." They simply find a way to make manifest what they desire. Pragmatism therefore rules before idealism. This is the real thing I think that separates Americans from Russians, and helps to explain the spread of liberalism more than the collectivist and individualist characterizations Dugin often mentions.

Russians strongly support Putin because they’ve had far worse. Therefore, when a man does a competent and good job of maintaining stability, they support him. Putin is a strong and able leader, so Russians think "Why bother to change the management for someone we can’t rely on?" Americans however think "We can do better, can’t we?"  Russians are very resistant to change; Lenin himself proclaimed that the Russian people were too "backward" (read: conservative) and were too resistant to change to institute "true" communism, thus communism became state capitalism that was militantly secular, eventually incorporating nationalistic elements.

Russian "backwardness." 

Is there a deep hatred of all things "Western" and "democratic" at the heart of Russian opposition to Western cultural designs? Far from it. I can’t tell you how many people are curious about America, and how many Russians ask me about it. Many Russians love our movies and television, many love our clothing products, cigarettes, whiskey, and more. They find fascination with unique American cultural time periods, such as the cowboy and Indian tales of the Old West. The opposition lies in the fact that the United States uses force and subversion to impose its designs on Russia and other countries. In reality the motive behind it is far less ideological, and far more geopolitical.

We know that the United States sees Russia’s foothold in the oil and gas industry as a serious threat to U.S. influence in Europe and elsewhere, and it is not unthinkable that the real reason Syria is condemned by the U.S. is that the Syrian government stands in the way of the Saudis building oil pipelines reaching into Europe. Conveniently, Saudi-financier-backed Salafists and Whabbists and other extremists want to firstly destroy Syria and oust Assad, but they are oddly silent about Israel, which is often posited as the great enemy of Islamic radicals, along with the United States.

If Russia supplied the United States with oil, let the US bomb Syria and oust Assad, and supported U.S. geopolitical goals, Putin would find himself conveniently allowed to get away with far more in the U.S. media. Not so long ago, Putin was strongly supported by President Bush. This fact is not lost upon the Russians, who see their culture and their very existence threatened by the spread of U.S. backed "democratization." They are unwilling to trust a regime that supported such a failure as Yeltsin, but which is busy denouncing the man who helped Russia stand up again, just because he refuses to let them have their way in everything.

Not built by abstract principles.

I myself live in Russia, and no one hates me because I am Western or come from the West. No one hates me because I had more fortunate economic origins than they did. No one speaks about how they hate Westerners, only that they hate the sexual liberalism and cultural liberalism that America seems eager to push around the world, along with their "democracy." They, of course, despise the coalition of freaks and degenerates and ethno-masochists that have infested America like bedbugs, but it’s hardly due to some intrinsic idea that the West is some kind of unremitting evil. It’s only due to what they see and observe for themselves, witnessing the United States destabilizing countries at whim because of oil interests or ridiculous ideals.

Instead of turning more liberal, Russia is turning more traditional, and it is very much the will of the people. In America, by contrast, the government is positing designs for the population that the people do not want – I can assure you of this having lived in America most of my life. This does not mean that the Russian government is some kind of holy savior for the people – but it does mean that they care enough about their culture to emphasize its traditional aspects and implement policies that have changed life for the better for Russians, instead of ramming tolerance propaganda down their throats. It may be because Putin knows that the Russian national character would simply reject it, or it may be, shockingly, that perhaps it is because he rejects it as well.

Can we have some more tradition, please?

The American Conservative article also mentions this amusing quote from John Schindler, the main source of the information presented in the article: 

“Of course, this also happens to explain why some Westerners who loathe post-modernism positively love Putin, at least from a safe distance.”

This would imply that no American paleoconservatives or traditionalists want to live in Russia under Putin’s system, as if they are armchair fascists of some kind who are too afraid to put their money where their mouth is. It implies that American rightists are too cowardly to willingly go to live in Russia under Putin, and that their admiration of Putin is due in part to not having to actually experience life in Russia.

The reality is that I know countless people who wish they had the money or resources to leave America and visit Russia and even live here. I managed to do it because I married a Russian woman and I had the luck to meet the right people who could employ me and give me ample means to support myself as a teacher. It is hard to come to Russia due to Visa restrictions, but I do know a handful of Western conservatives who have moved to Russia and absolutely love it. Also, if you can prove you have valid employment and are of real use, it is not difficult to enter Russia and stay. 

Many of my fellow Western expats and myself are thriving here due to the fact that learning English is in high demand, and the beauty and traditional values of Russian women, who respect themselves, makes it easy to find a high quality bride. I know dozens of men from the West who long to visit Russia and who long to move here to meet good women and enjoy the beauty of the culture. The reason many do not come here is because they have firm roots, family and ties to their own culture, and many perhaps would not enjoy the cultural differences of Russia – of which there are many.

Possible point of cultural confusion.

However, Russia is not some kind of ultra poor tin pot dictatorship where people are killed by the police in the streets – in actuality, this describes my life in the USA as an unemployed college professor who saw daily stories of police shooting people in the streets for minor offenses. The irony of this situation is that for me and many other Westerners, Russia has become the promised land where we are thriving, working, loving our families, and enjoying a beautiful culture where we can be actually free. 

The country, also is largely free from the same amount of liberal vices in public, except for drug and alcohol abuse, which is still less noticeable than in America, where people spill out of bars on Friday nights to vomit all over the streets, and where drug deals happen in front of everyone’s eyes. In Russia I’ve seen only a few obvious drug addicts, and only a handful of men drinking in public, who were all on their way to some other place. Most Russians drink at home, particularly drunks. I was shocked to find how clean much of the streets were and by the surprising lack of bums. I had imagined Russia as a place where practically everyone was drunk all the time.

Russia is not a Utopia – but for white conservatives, it’s the closest you will ever get. If you are single, socially conservative, masculine, and want to marry a good woman; if you are pessimistic and cynical by nature, want to eat fresh food without GMOs, and want true friends who would die for you; if you do not work in a highly profitable career and are a native English speaker who wants to teach people to speak your native language for a good wage; and if you like to drink and smoke a bit, then Russia could be your idea of heaven. For me, it certainly is. 

There are many things about Russia which could be highly unnerving for westerners, and many will not fit in. In any case, come visit and see it for yourself – but come to the real Russia, not just some city. You may be surprised and delighted in what you can find here. It is a beautiful place and has a wonderful culture, and you can find yourself breathing a sigh of relief in not having to tailor every word you say to fit the needs of totalitarian humanists and obnoxious liberals. You can have a better life and a bright future, and, oddly enough, it can be found in Russia, the country we have all been told is so horrible, poor, and oppressed. It’s not. Russia can show you how to live a true life once more, if you have traditional values and can fit in culturally with the Russian character. Come and find out for yourself! 

Let the good times roll.

The drinks are cold, the women are warm, and the soul is deep in the motherland. Sick of America? Sick of the decadence? Sick of the plasticity? Sick of the fake veneer that covers everything? Visit Russia. You may not want to leave.

Cited in The International Alt-Right: Fascism for the 21st Century? by Patrik Hermansson, David Lawrence, Joe Mulhall, Simon Murdoch