Russophobia, Traditionally Thought of | Mises Institute

Professor Glenn Diesen of Norway just lately had his video channel expunged from YouTube, and two days later it was restored at YouTube, all with no actual rationalization. 

One video at his channel is a dialogue of Richard Cobden’s 1836 pamphlet, which bore the secondary title:

In the video, I interview Professor Diesen in regards to the lengthy historical past of Anglo hatred towards Russia, a hatred which began up within the 1830s and has continued ever since. I sought to interview Professor Diesen as a result of he’s the writer of Russophobia: Propaganda in Worldwide Politics (2022). We talk about the historical past of Russia-hate, right down to immediately.

Phobia means worry. Professor Diesen and I mentioned whether or not worry of Russia is actually the issue. At present’s escalations have been catastrophic and danger nuclear alternate. Maybe there has not been sufficient worry of mutual destruction. Hatred of Russia, quite than worry, appears to be the issue. That mentioned, the expression ‘Russophobia’ has a historical past, and we should always perceive that it’s a couple of propagandistic worry.

Within the 1830s, Cobden was appalled by the anti-Russian propaganda, and he fought it proper as much as the top of his life in 1865. 

What’s fascinating about Cobden’s 1836 pamphlet is that the Russia-hate propaganda then sounds a lot just like the Russia-hate propaganda now. 

And the counterarguments that Cobden made are very like the counterarguments now made by Diesen, John Mearsheimer, Scott Ritter, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, Benjamin Abelow, Alexander Mercouris, Alex Christoforou, and will others.

Close to the top of the video, I ask Professor Diesen to record issues which have been blamed on Russia. He doesn’t know the place to start! 

He begins to make an inventory, and it retains rising, and the objects on the record turn into more and more humorous, right down to bedbugs in France.

I additionally requested Professor Diesen: Is it attainable that the Anglo-led hatred of Russia within the nineteenth century had the impact of turning Russia away from the West, and therefore away from its classical liberal heritage, and, due to this fact, making the Russian soil extra fertile for anti-liberal concepts like Bolshevism? 

Cobden’s pamphlet from 1836 reveals that the Western custom will not be inherently hypocritical, expansionist, and anti-liberal. In reality, Adam Smith was anti-imperialistic. 

At present’s anti-liberal expansionist Western hypocrites give the West a foul identify. No matter nook of the world a folks inhabits, that individuals will not be its rulers. Russians and People could be of mutual goodwill, even when their respective rulers refuse to be.