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The Russia Anxiety: And How History Can Resolve It
Russia is an exceptional country, the biggest in the world. It is both European and exotic, powerful and weak, brilliant and flawed. Why are we so afraid of it? Time and again, we judge Russia by unique standards. We have usually assumed that it possesses higher levels of cunning, malevolence and brutality. Yet the country has more often than not been a crucial ally, not least against Napoleon and in the two world wars. We admire its music and its writers. We lavish praise on the Russian soul. And still we think of Russia as a unique menace. What is it about this extraordinary country that consistently provokes such excessive responses? And why is this so dangerous? Ranging from the earliest times to the present, Mark B. Smith's remarkable new book is a history of this 'Russia Anxiety'. Whether ally or enemy, superpower or failing state, Russia grips our imagination and fuels our fears unlike any other country. This book shows how history itself offers a clearer view and a better future.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published July 4, 2019
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July 14, 2021
Wonderfully complex and nuanced, deliciously intellectual, but at times verging on whataboutism and unfortunately an all-too-high incidence of non sequiturs.
Examining the perception of Russia in the West, the book begins with the assumption that Western perceptions of Russia are defined by a condition the author calls the 'Russia Anxiety', which he suggests is characterised by a cycle of exaggerated fear, disregard and then utter contempt. While he does not, in my view, satisfactorily interrogate the truthfulness of the assumption that so-called Russia Anxiety, undeniably prevalent in our modern world, is a long-standing trend that has defined previous epochs of relations, it is admittedly accurate to suggest that many seminal historical developments - to raise just a few examples, the Russia Anxiety as the proximate cause of both World War I and the Cold War - can be at least somewhat attributed to this unique conception of the Russia Anxiety, making it a condition worth examining. Nonetheless, the book must be read with a little skepticism - the author seems often to propound the view that this Russia Anxiety is a sui generis outlook that countries only employ in their assessment of Russia, yet to give just one example, British foreign policy has long been defined by its continual skepticism of Continental Europe and its mistrust of any dominant continental power.
Admittedly, the author does attempt to evaluate specific reasons that set apart the Russia Anxiety from a more conventional mistrust of other powers that might characterise anarchic international relations. But I'll start from the front of the book! The first three chapters examine the role history has to play in creating the Russia Anxiety, as the author raises the example of the Marquis de Custine, one of the originators of the modern Russia Anxiety. This section of the book is utterly convincing, and I especially enjoyed the way in which the author deliberate unpicks the climate of suspicion that characterises relations between the West and Russia today, emphasizing how overblown some Western reactions are and linking it to his notion of the Russia Anxiety. More conceptually, the author offers two immediate historical causes of the Russia Anxiety - what he terms 'instant history' and 'wilfully misunderstood history' specifically. The latter is more simplistic, merely referring to a mis-interpretation of Russian history that results in mis-analysis and misunderstanding. More complex and important is the former, which refers to history that either 'draws an instant cut-off', heightening fears and anxieties by proclaiming that things are utterly new and unknown when they resemble past occurrences; the convincing example the author raises is that of hybrid warfare. More important to the book, though, is the other kind, where we 'instantly and unreflectively assumes inevitability', ignoring contingencies and unpredictable events and instead assuming that Russian history is defined by a set of circumstances and characteristics that are utterly and uniquely Russian, fostering an assumption of difference and foreignness.
Before delving into these characteristics, however, the author spends two chapters examining specifically certain myths of Russian history (Russian people are particularly prone to, and even welcoming of slavery; Russian society is characterised by an utter disrespect of private rights and property; Russian people welcome and embrace an oppressively centralising power) and proving that they are incredibly short-sighted and parochial, examining, for example, the nuances of serfdom, the role of Russian Orthodoxy in Russian society and the importance of the intelligentsia in Russia. Having disputed these generalisations about Russian history, he then seeks to unpack the assumption of inevitability with what he terms the 'Chernomyrdin Dictum', which points towards the contingency and accidental nature of history which applies universally and no less so in Russia. Following this, he provides a brief 10-part overview of Russian history (I'm not sure I loved this chapter; it wasn't very tightly wound into the text, although I suppose it was necessary for a corrective of Russian history).
Then we get to the meat of the book: the five alleged charges made against Russia: of dictatorial, violent, expansionist and warmongering tendencies, and then most crucially (I felt) the relationship between Russia and Europe. With all five, he successfully shows that the received wisdom is crucially flawed in some way or other, though with a fair share of non sequiturs ("Whataboutism might sometimes be crass, making it easy for the Russia Anxiety to dismiss it out of hand. Yet the history of democracy across Europe is an unlikely story full of cynical subplots rather than an inspiring fairy tale based on the triumph of values.") Nonetheless, insightful points are made: he discusses the unique weakness of both liberal and conservative ideas as an alternative to totalitarianism in Russia, importantly singles out 1904-1953 as a uniquely painful and turbulent period of Russian history ("Tears Without End"), points out the ways in which European ideas have drawn from the Russian tradition, and not just the other way round, discusses the unique nature of the Russian Empire, in which the dominant ethnic/cultural group suffered as much as the minority, peripheral groups and cleverly undermines the traditional assumption of a warmongering Russia by instead pinpointing the Anxiety as the true cause for the emergence of these wars.
Nonetheless, there reeks in all of this a hint of whataboutism himself - though it is inevitable that comparative history forms the main thrust of his argument, since he is suggesting that Russia is normal and like other countries, the comparison is not always fully fleshed out, resulting in a rather tiresome exercise of "Britain and France did this too, and sometimes worse ..." in his every contestation. Perhaps a more effective approach would have been to generalise state theory, and then fit Russia within this framework to prove its normalcy, rather than to undertake the wealth of specific nation-based comparisons the author chooses to.
Finally, the author spends two chapters examining the relationship between firstly, the past and the present; secondly, the present and the future. Specifically, the former deals with the thorny issue of Stalin, and how society might deal with Stalin. I don't feel that he quite handles this issue satisfactorily; as is perhaps befitting of a historian, we get a wonderful look at both Khrushchev's attempts at de-Stalinification as well as the relaxation of social controls under Brezhnev in the 1970s, effectively sweeping aside the notion that Soviet society has simply engineered a massive cover-up. However, little attempt is made to deal with the thorny reality that Stalin has increasingly become an acceptable realm of discussion after the disaster of the 1990s. How does our present deal with the past? In dealing with the Russia Anxiety, our author offers few answers.
More promising is the chapter examining the future - he offers us six maxims that summarise the main arguments of the book and dispel the cycle of fear-disregard-contempt that he contends drives the Russia Anxiety. These are: being modest about using the past to predict the future; remembering the unique tensions in Russia (eg between autocracy and liberalism) that shape its course; remembering that Russia is, after all, normal and human; remembering that Russia, as a historical great power, must be taken seriously; remembering that Russia has in fact more often than not been a key Ally of the West; and finally, remembering that many of the atrocious charges leveled at Russia have been committed equally or even to a greater extent by many Western nations.
A superbly enlightening text on Russia, particularly relevant as an against-the-grain reading of today's geopolitical climate; nonetheless, a few quirks in writing and lacunae in content that prevent a fifth star.
Examining the perception of Russia in the West, the book begins with the assumption that Western perceptions of Russia are defined by a condition the author calls the 'Russia Anxiety', which he suggests is characterised by a cycle of exaggerated fear, disregard and then utter contempt. While he does not, in my view, satisfactorily interrogate the truthfulness of the assumption that so-called Russia Anxiety, undeniably prevalent in our modern world, is a long-standing trend that has defined previous epochs of relations, it is admittedly accurate to suggest that many seminal historical developments - to raise just a few examples, the Russia Anxiety as the proximate cause of both World War I and the Cold War - can be at least somewhat attributed to this unique conception of the Russia Anxiety, making it a condition worth examining. Nonetheless, the book must be read with a little skepticism - the author seems often to propound the view that this Russia Anxiety is a sui generis outlook that countries only employ in their assessment of Russia, yet to give just one example, British foreign policy has long been defined by its continual skepticism of Continental Europe and its mistrust of any dominant continental power.
Admittedly, the author does attempt to evaluate specific reasons that set apart the Russia Anxiety from a more conventional mistrust of other powers that might characterise anarchic international relations. But I'll start from the front of the book! The first three chapters examine the role history has to play in creating the Russia Anxiety, as the author raises the example of the Marquis de Custine, one of the originators of the modern Russia Anxiety. This section of the book is utterly convincing, and I especially enjoyed the way in which the author deliberate unpicks the climate of suspicion that characterises relations between the West and Russia today, emphasizing how overblown some Western reactions are and linking it to his notion of the Russia Anxiety. More conceptually, the author offers two immediate historical causes of the Russia Anxiety - what he terms 'instant history' and 'wilfully misunderstood history' specifically. The latter is more simplistic, merely referring to a mis-interpretation of Russian history that results in mis-analysis and misunderstanding. More complex and important is the former, which refers to history that either 'draws an instant cut-off', heightening fears and anxieties by proclaiming that things are utterly new and unknown when they resemble past occurrences; the convincing example the author raises is that of hybrid warfare. More important to the book, though, is the other kind, where we 'instantly and unreflectively assumes inevitability', ignoring contingencies and unpredictable events and instead assuming that Russian history is defined by a set of circumstances and characteristics that are utterly and uniquely Russian, fostering an assumption of difference and foreignness.
Before delving into these characteristics, however, the author spends two chapters examining specifically certain myths of Russian history (Russian people are particularly prone to, and even welcoming of slavery; Russian society is characterised by an utter disrespect of private rights and property; Russian people welcome and embrace an oppressively centralising power) and proving that they are incredibly short-sighted and parochial, examining, for example, the nuances of serfdom, the role of Russian Orthodoxy in Russian society and the importance of the intelligentsia in Russia. Having disputed these generalisations about Russian history, he then seeks to unpack the assumption of inevitability with what he terms the 'Chernomyrdin Dictum', which points towards the contingency and accidental nature of history which applies universally and no less so in Russia. Following this, he provides a brief 10-part overview of Russian history (I'm not sure I loved this chapter; it wasn't very tightly wound into the text, although I suppose it was necessary for a corrective of Russian history).
Then we get to the meat of the book: the five alleged charges made against Russia: of dictatorial, violent, expansionist and warmongering tendencies, and then most crucially (I felt) the relationship between Russia and Europe. With all five, he successfully shows that the received wisdom is crucially flawed in some way or other, though with a fair share of non sequiturs ("Whataboutism might sometimes be crass, making it easy for the Russia Anxiety to dismiss it out of hand. Yet the history of democracy across Europe is an unlikely story full of cynical subplots rather than an inspiring fairy tale based on the triumph of values.") Nonetheless, insightful points are made: he discusses the unique weakness of both liberal and conservative ideas as an alternative to totalitarianism in Russia, importantly singles out 1904-1953 as a uniquely painful and turbulent period of Russian history ("Tears Without End"), points out the ways in which European ideas have drawn from the Russian tradition, and not just the other way round, discusses the unique nature of the Russian Empire, in which the dominant ethnic/cultural group suffered as much as the minority, peripheral groups and cleverly undermines the traditional assumption of a warmongering Russia by instead pinpointing the Anxiety as the true cause for the emergence of these wars.
Nonetheless, there reeks in all of this a hint of whataboutism himself - though it is inevitable that comparative history forms the main thrust of his argument, since he is suggesting that Russia is normal and like other countries, the comparison is not always fully fleshed out, resulting in a rather tiresome exercise of "Britain and France did this too, and sometimes worse ..." in his every contestation. Perhaps a more effective approach would have been to generalise state theory, and then fit Russia within this framework to prove its normalcy, rather than to undertake the wealth of specific nation-based comparisons the author chooses to.
Finally, the author spends two chapters examining the relationship between firstly, the past and the present; secondly, the present and the future. Specifically, the former deals with the thorny issue of Stalin, and how society might deal with Stalin. I don't feel that he quite handles this issue satisfactorily; as is perhaps befitting of a historian, we get a wonderful look at both Khrushchev's attempts at de-Stalinification as well as the relaxation of social controls under Brezhnev in the 1970s, effectively sweeping aside the notion that Soviet society has simply engineered a massive cover-up. However, little attempt is made to deal with the thorny reality that Stalin has increasingly become an acceptable realm of discussion after the disaster of the 1990s. How does our present deal with the past? In dealing with the Russia Anxiety, our author offers few answers.
More promising is the chapter examining the future - he offers us six maxims that summarise the main arguments of the book and dispel the cycle of fear-disregard-contempt that he contends drives the Russia Anxiety. These are: being modest about using the past to predict the future; remembering the unique tensions in Russia (eg between autocracy and liberalism) that shape its course; remembering that Russia is, after all, normal and human; remembering that Russia, as a historical great power, must be taken seriously; remembering that Russia has in fact more often than not been a key Ally of the West; and finally, remembering that many of the atrocious charges leveled at Russia have been committed equally or even to a greater extent by many Western nations.
A superbly enlightening text on Russia, particularly relevant as an against-the-grain reading of today's geopolitical climate; nonetheless, a few quirks in writing and lacunae in content that prevent a fifth star.
February 12, 2020
This is a fascinating in-depth examination of Russia, its history and the many ways in which it has been misconstrued over time. The book is highly informative and clearly based on a deep understanding of Russian history and society.
My main issue with this book comes from the way in which the author constructs and deconstructs the arguments of his opponents in a way which feels a little too straw-man-ish
Furthermore, whilst the book is repeatedly critical of the actions of the Russian government, the author sometimes seemed so focused on dispelling myths and explaining the actions of key players that he strayed into the realm of minimising deeply problematic state actions.
However these issues should not detract from the fact that this book is an excellent explanation of Russia's history in a way which actively seeks to demystify and avoid the demonisation of a country often understood in highly simplistic terms.
My main issue with this book comes from the way in which the author constructs and deconstructs the arguments of his opponents in a way which feels a little too straw-man-ish
Furthermore, whilst the book is repeatedly critical of the actions of the Russian government, the author sometimes seemed so focused on dispelling myths and explaining the actions of key players that he strayed into the realm of minimising deeply problematic state actions.
However these issues should not detract from the fact that this book is an excellent explanation of Russia's history in a way which actively seeks to demystify and avoid the demonisation of a country often understood in highly simplistic terms.
September 16, 2019
Mark B. Smith delivers a historically rooted, level-headed blow to the dominant Russophobia that is very much the current view of the 'Russian Bear' on the international stage today; and, as Smith persuasively reveals, an uncritical skepticism and mistrust of Russia has long been the dominant view in the West.
This is a very important book in today's international political climate that urges us to take a historical perspective in judging Russia. In this endeavour, it is, quite simply, a success. It is ironic that there has been some strong, albeit misguided, criticism of The Russian Anxiety from reviewers maintaining the very viewpoint against which Smith cautions; this is regrettable, though not at all surprising. Yet, the historical research that underpins the book's central arguments is sound, as one would expect from a distinguished Cambridge historian. Instead, its critics quarrel not with the evidential foundations but with the possible implications of what is demonstrably a more nuanced historical understanding of Russian history and Russia today, compared with that so often peddled in western news media. In the Russia Anxiety, readers are given far more, not less, understanding both of the West and Russia; and, even those acquainted with the Russian past are sure to gain from the many insights within the penetrating and concise volume.
Neither those seeking confirmation of a Russophobic stance or, alternatively, an apology for Russian wrongdoing will find anything of the sort. Rather, The Russia Anxiety is a composed, rigorous, (though equally fascinating and fluent) and important delving into Russian history to better understand the Russian past, present, and future.
This is a very important book in today's international political climate that urges us to take a historical perspective in judging Russia. In this endeavour, it is, quite simply, a success. It is ironic that there has been some strong, albeit misguided, criticism of The Russian Anxiety from reviewers maintaining the very viewpoint against which Smith cautions; this is regrettable, though not at all surprising. Yet, the historical research that underpins the book's central arguments is sound, as one would expect from a distinguished Cambridge historian. Instead, its critics quarrel not with the evidential foundations but with the possible implications of what is demonstrably a more nuanced historical understanding of Russian history and Russia today, compared with that so often peddled in western news media. In the Russia Anxiety, readers are given far more, not less, understanding both of the West and Russia; and, even those acquainted with the Russian past are sure to gain from the many insights within the penetrating and concise volume.
Neither those seeking confirmation of a Russophobic stance or, alternatively, an apology for Russian wrongdoing will find anything of the sort. Rather, The Russia Anxiety is a composed, rigorous, (though equally fascinating and fluent) and important delving into Russian history to better understand the Russian past, present, and future.
June 17, 2024
Ik leerde hier over de Brits-Russisch inval van Noord-Holland in 1799, wat sindsdien mijn favoriete obscure feitje over Nederland is en het vaak goed doet op feestjes.
February 26, 2022
I have never done this before, but I am going back to rerate this book. The assertion made in this book that the West has an unhealthy and unwarranted fear of Russia has been proven to be a ridiculous position as Ukraine is being taken over by Russia. Putin is a manipulator and like every leader of Russia in the 20th century, there is good reason to retain our Russian Anxiety. I would not recommend this book as the current invasion of Russia has to invalidate many points the author is trying to push.
My initial review in January follows:
This book is well written and was effective in challenging my perceptions concerning Russia. The book also offers a good history of Russia and the impact that history has on Russia's perspective of the west and the west's view of Russia. In short, Mark Smith argues that the west should experience less anxiety about the Russian government's objectives both historically and prospectively.
The author knows his material and I don't see any reason to disagree with the historical facts presented in the book. I am concerned that throughout the book the author argues there is moral equivalency between the US and western Europe and Russia. The arguments are extensive, but in short, the argument goes to that Russia is not a colonist power and they have not attacked the west on a large scale with a conventional war.
The author doesn't skip or ignore the horrors of Stalin and the millions killed by Russian communists in the 20th century, but it is implied that the millions killed and imprisoned internally are not reason enough for the west to have anxiety about Russia. I disagree, I believe that the attack on liberty and freedom within the borders of a Nation is a good indication of their designs for repression of these same rights at a global level.
I also argue that although Russia is not attacking with conventional weapons, their cyber and information war operations are reasons to remain skeptical about Russia's intent and dedication to weaken the US in order to maintain their relevant power.
Glad I read it, respect the author's efforts to challenge the status quo, but I do believe a certain level of "Russia Anxiety" is still warranted.
My initial review in January follows:
This book is well written and was effective in challenging my perceptions concerning Russia. The book also offers a good history of Russia and the impact that history has on Russia's perspective of the west and the west's view of Russia. In short, Mark Smith argues that the west should experience less anxiety about the Russian government's objectives both historically and prospectively.
The author knows his material and I don't see any reason to disagree with the historical facts presented in the book. I am concerned that throughout the book the author argues there is moral equivalency between the US and western Europe and Russia. The arguments are extensive, but in short, the argument goes to that Russia is not a colonist power and they have not attacked the west on a large scale with a conventional war.
The author doesn't skip or ignore the horrors of Stalin and the millions killed by Russian communists in the 20th century, but it is implied that the millions killed and imprisoned internally are not reason enough for the west to have anxiety about Russia. I disagree, I believe that the attack on liberty and freedom within the borders of a Nation is a good indication of their designs for repression of these same rights at a global level.
I also argue that although Russia is not attacking with conventional weapons, their cyber and information war operations are reasons to remain skeptical about Russia's intent and dedication to weaken the US in order to maintain their relevant power.
Glad I read it, respect the author's efforts to challenge the status quo, but I do believe a certain level of "Russia Anxiety" is still warranted.
May 7, 2024
I grew so tired of reading this book that I couldn’t make it past half way. The author used unnecessarily superfluous language, which rather than aiding the reader’s understanding, making the book difficult to stay engaged or interested. Further, it was clear that the author holds a biased defensive stance of Russia, almost obsessive in his admiration of Russian culture. This writing perspective is sure to alienate most Western readers.
August 19, 2022
Loved it! Was very informative as well as easy and engaging to read and made me re-think some assumptions I had about Russian history. I saw one review claiming that because Putin invaded Ukraine that his whole point is invalid. I couldn't disagree more. Obviously the invasion of Ukraine is awful and shouldn't be minimised, yet the tendency of some see this as proof that Russia as a whole is evil and always has been and always will just proves the Russia anxiety is still very prominent in our culture and it's not going to help when pursuing foreign policy.
I think perhaps at some points Smith does minimise the problems of Russia but I still think his point still stands and is very important for people to hear.
I think perhaps at some points Smith does minimise the problems of Russia but I still think his point still stands and is very important for people to hear.
May 26, 2025
A difficult one to read and rate given the fact that this was published prior to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. I picked this up to deliberately try and challenge myself with something which was a bit more dove-ish towards Russia given it's hardly difficult to find English language criticisms of the country and its leaders, in order to improve my own understanding. I do like the author's overall approach to history, whereby he stresses the often quite chaotic and almost random nature of events and personalities and how that can shape what happens (within a context of broader structural factors which set the parameters of what is possible or likely), and find his criticism of superficial readings of country histories ("instant history") which lead people to claim that they can predict how a certain group will act because of (supposed) historical precedent to be fair. That nothing is inevitable and pre-determined, and that people - and in particular leaders - in the West should make sure they are always being critical and reflective of their assumptions and prejudices I think is always a good case to make, even if, in the current context, Russia maybe isn't the most helpful example to use to make this argument. His overarching belief that history's primary use is to sharpen one's own ability to think critically, rather than to provide universal moral lessons or to nation-build through myth, is also something which I can very much get on board with.
However, the framing of any criticism of Russia by people in the West as being symptomatic of a (unjustified) "Russia anxiety" that sees the country as uniquely irrational and aggressive is pretty patronising and also glosses over a lot of the complex reasons why people might be sceptical of Russian intentions. He treads a quite common line of argument among critics of Western institutions that NATO's expansion to the borders of Russia was a provocation to conflict and implies this should not have happened; not once considering that maybe the reason the Baltic countries and others wanted to join NATO in the first place was because of the historic, oppressive experience of being ruled from Moscow, rather than being part of some Western plot to destroy Russia. There also isn't any consideration given to Russia's role in the lack of a neutral buffer zone; the retention of Kaliningrad and the puppetisation of Belarus go unmentioned.
He doesn't address the invasions of Georgia and Crimea in 2008 and 2014 respectively in too much detail (itself questionable) and borders on apologia when he makes reference to "legitimate Russian interests" - without ever elaborating what exactly those legitimate interests would be. He also suggests that the West excluded Russia as a legitimate international actor in the 90s and 00s which seems to ignore the increased integration that came with the supply of Russian oil into the EU during this time; the increase in wealthy Russian individuals living in London; the involvement of Russia in sporting competitions - and indeed, hosting the 2018 World Cup; the Sochi Olympics; an F1 race etc. etc. - all ways in which the red carpet was rolled out to Russia in ways that wouldn't have happened prior to the fall of the USSR.
At times I question who exactly it is the author is arguing with. He implies several times throughout the book that Westerners have a monolithic view of all Russians and treat them all with contempt and hostility. But I simply don't think this is true. I'm sure there are some people who are just "Russophobic", as there are people who are bigoted against any group of people, but I think most people in the West get that Russia's actions in Ukraine and elsewhere are driven by its leaders, and Putin in particular, and do not think of all individual Russians in this sweepingly prejudicial way. Maybe it's an argument that is more aimed at political leaders in Washington, London and Brussels, in which case maybe it holds more weight. But even then, at least in the UK, our politicians (at least, the ones with any power or credibility) frequently make references to Putin specifically being responsible for the war rather than ordinary Russians.
There are some startling omissions which he also doesn't touch on at all (or only very briefly, in passing) including the use of Russian mercenaries in Africa and elsewhere; Russia's support for the Assad regime in Syria; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and largely implies that Russian interference in Western elections was exaggerated or even fabricated. I actually agree with him when he makes the case to say that people shooting down counter arguments that point to atrocities the United States and Western European powers have committed historically as "whataboutery" is often unfair and that the comparison is often legitimate, but I also think it's strange to write a book about why people in the West are wrong to be anxious about Russia, without pointing to the above events, a bit strange; in the same way as if someone was to write a book about why people shouldn't be anxious about the US simply didn't mention the Iraq War.
Despite all that, I'm still glad I read this and I do think he makes some good "meta" points about how history should be thought about and "used", but I think there's too many omissions and overly one-sided arguments to make a convincing case that the West's anxiety about Russia is unjustified and simply part of a damaging historical prejudice (not disputing that this does play *some* part). Finally - and this isn't the books' fault given it was published before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine - but that context does make these arguments even harder to swallow than they would have been anyway.
However, the framing of any criticism of Russia by people in the West as being symptomatic of a (unjustified) "Russia anxiety" that sees the country as uniquely irrational and aggressive is pretty patronising and also glosses over a lot of the complex reasons why people might be sceptical of Russian intentions. He treads a quite common line of argument among critics of Western institutions that NATO's expansion to the borders of Russia was a provocation to conflict and implies this should not have happened; not once considering that maybe the reason the Baltic countries and others wanted to join NATO in the first place was because of the historic, oppressive experience of being ruled from Moscow, rather than being part of some Western plot to destroy Russia. There also isn't any consideration given to Russia's role in the lack of a neutral buffer zone; the retention of Kaliningrad and the puppetisation of Belarus go unmentioned.
He doesn't address the invasions of Georgia and Crimea in 2008 and 2014 respectively in too much detail (itself questionable) and borders on apologia when he makes reference to "legitimate Russian interests" - without ever elaborating what exactly those legitimate interests would be. He also suggests that the West excluded Russia as a legitimate international actor in the 90s and 00s which seems to ignore the increased integration that came with the supply of Russian oil into the EU during this time; the increase in wealthy Russian individuals living in London; the involvement of Russia in sporting competitions - and indeed, hosting the 2018 World Cup; the Sochi Olympics; an F1 race etc. etc. - all ways in which the red carpet was rolled out to Russia in ways that wouldn't have happened prior to the fall of the USSR.
At times I question who exactly it is the author is arguing with. He implies several times throughout the book that Westerners have a monolithic view of all Russians and treat them all with contempt and hostility. But I simply don't think this is true. I'm sure there are some people who are just "Russophobic", as there are people who are bigoted against any group of people, but I think most people in the West get that Russia's actions in Ukraine and elsewhere are driven by its leaders, and Putin in particular, and do not think of all individual Russians in this sweepingly prejudicial way. Maybe it's an argument that is more aimed at political leaders in Washington, London and Brussels, in which case maybe it holds more weight. But even then, at least in the UK, our politicians (at least, the ones with any power or credibility) frequently make references to Putin specifically being responsible for the war rather than ordinary Russians.
There are some startling omissions which he also doesn't touch on at all (or only very briefly, in passing) including the use of Russian mercenaries in Africa and elsewhere; Russia's support for the Assad regime in Syria; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and largely implies that Russian interference in Western elections was exaggerated or even fabricated. I actually agree with him when he makes the case to say that people shooting down counter arguments that point to atrocities the United States and Western European powers have committed historically as "whataboutery" is often unfair and that the comparison is often legitimate, but I also think it's strange to write a book about why people in the West are wrong to be anxious about Russia, without pointing to the above events, a bit strange; in the same way as if someone was to write a book about why people shouldn't be anxious about the US simply didn't mention the Iraq War.
Despite all that, I'm still glad I read this and I do think he makes some good "meta" points about how history should be thought about and "used", but I think there's too many omissions and overly one-sided arguments to make a convincing case that the West's anxiety about Russia is unjustified and simply part of a damaging historical prejudice (not disputing that this does play *some* part). Finally - and this isn't the books' fault given it was published before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine - but that context does make these arguments even harder to swallow than they would have been anyway.
September 16, 2020
Smith takes on a monumental task, the dismantling of centuries of prejudice, and succeeds in offering a vision for a more harmonious and realist future. He does this by taking the reader on a broad and deep journey through Russia’s history and refusing to acknowledge false dichotomies of ‘Russia’ versus ‘the West’. Smith succeeds because his unrelenting message is of the ordinariness of Russian history and Russian statehood, particularly as qualities of a large, Western and global country. His book is a refreshing and relatable read for lovers of Russia because it avoids two extremes: an over-intellectualized Russia of arts and letters as the cultural reserve to which Russianists can cling, forgetting the grisly side of history; and a purgatorial dredging of the entire litany of Russia’s sins as the only path to redemption. Russia has more claims to world citizenship than its writers and poets, and needs sackcloth and ashes no more than any other great power.
The structure of The Russia Anxiety focuses on diagnosis and treatment. For Smith, the Russia Anxiety is a problem because it creates a less safe world and a more dangerous Russia. It thus needs to be tackled. In Part I, Smith describes the Anxiety: it is cyclical and rooted in a historical narrative that is often true but also often lopsided. This first section ends with a ‘narrative correction’ designed to place Russian history in the global mainstream. Part II, the longest, microscopically examines key questions about Russia that both passionate Russianists and interested general readers will have pondered: Europeanness, dictatorship, empire, and more. Part III is a reflection on history and its power that ends with tools for ending the Anxiety forever.
Smith explains several aspects of how Russian history is different from other countries’. The secret to the book’s success is in what he does not do with history. He does not use it to justify Russia’s misdeeds or explain a supposed backwardness. Indeed, one of the founding theses of the book is ‘Russia’s “Black Legend”’, a teological reading of Russian history which sufferers of the Russia Anxiety use to doom Russia to eternal villainhood. Instead, history in Smith’s hands is a commodity constantly up for renegotiation by successive generations, both in Russia and outside it. He discusses the alternating remembering and forgetting which societies do and stresses how normal this is. One key observation he makes is on Putin’s re-elevation of the commemoration of victory in the Second World War: ‘By the 2010s, the war helped to provide an historical explanation for people’s lives, to offer patriotic consolations, and to be the justification for foreign policy, but its memorialization seemed, to the Anxious, to be the prelude to a new war’ (p. 347). This is from a chapter entitled ‘The Stalin Inheritance’ that shows how Russians have dealt with that inheritance in complex phases. Putin has not, in Smith’s reading, taken up the mantle of Stalin to justify an aggressive expansionism; instead, the currents of collective memory had, by the 2010s, calmed enough to allow the Russian people to take pride in the Soviet army’s victory.
Unfortunately, the rise in the cult of victory in 1945 coincided with Russia annexing the Crimea in 2014. Smith does not discuss this major stain on Russia’s reputation in recent years to a very large extent, but touches upon it at various points. In keeping with his method of refusing to glorify, justify or praise, he places the event in a period when NATO countries did not seriously consider Russia as having foreign policy interests, particularly on its borders. Smith’s implication is that NATO outlived its purpose when the Cold War ended, and that its continued existence and expansion to Russia’s borders were never accepted as developments Russia might legitimately question. How, for example, Smith asks, was Russia to think of a Sevastopol’ in a Ukraine that was part of NATO? The omission of the Crimean question as a standalone chapter in this book is refreshing: such a chapter would have risked being a Russianist’s show apologia for sins not his own. Smith’s task is not to justify Russia’s normality, in spite of its most egregious failings; it is to use its demonstrable normality, in global terms, to offer tools for approaching Russia as an international player in a realist way. Russia has legitimate foreign policy interests and, though Smith does not go so far as to say so, a sphere of influence, like all great powers. This is not the same as an untamed thirst for expansion.
What remains for the reader to decide is what recipe Smith might offer the international community for returning to some form of normality after the Crimea. Herein lies the great practical value of the book. The final chapter gives six suggestions for thinking about Russia to diminish Anxiety (371–384), but even before that the entire book’s deep and broad survey of Russian history provides food for thought on how the world should include Russia more constructively. Smith takes this further. History is not just food for thought; it is material that we can choose to use as endless whataboutism fodder, but can also choose not to. We can repurpose of the ‘what about…’ questions so beloved of propagandists and Anxious commentators for more serious self-reflection.
The structure of The Russia Anxiety focuses on diagnosis and treatment. For Smith, the Russia Anxiety is a problem because it creates a less safe world and a more dangerous Russia. It thus needs to be tackled. In Part I, Smith describes the Anxiety: it is cyclical and rooted in a historical narrative that is often true but also often lopsided. This first section ends with a ‘narrative correction’ designed to place Russian history in the global mainstream. Part II, the longest, microscopically examines key questions about Russia that both passionate Russianists and interested general readers will have pondered: Europeanness, dictatorship, empire, and more. Part III is a reflection on history and its power that ends with tools for ending the Anxiety forever.
Smith explains several aspects of how Russian history is different from other countries’. The secret to the book’s success is in what he does not do with history. He does not use it to justify Russia’s misdeeds or explain a supposed backwardness. Indeed, one of the founding theses of the book is ‘Russia’s “Black Legend”’, a teological reading of Russian history which sufferers of the Russia Anxiety use to doom Russia to eternal villainhood. Instead, history in Smith’s hands is a commodity constantly up for renegotiation by successive generations, both in Russia and outside it. He discusses the alternating remembering and forgetting which societies do and stresses how normal this is. One key observation he makes is on Putin’s re-elevation of the commemoration of victory in the Second World War: ‘By the 2010s, the war helped to provide an historical explanation for people’s lives, to offer patriotic consolations, and to be the justification for foreign policy, but its memorialization seemed, to the Anxious, to be the prelude to a new war’ (p. 347). This is from a chapter entitled ‘The Stalin Inheritance’ that shows how Russians have dealt with that inheritance in complex phases. Putin has not, in Smith’s reading, taken up the mantle of Stalin to justify an aggressive expansionism; instead, the currents of collective memory had, by the 2010s, calmed enough to allow the Russian people to take pride in the Soviet army’s victory.
Unfortunately, the rise in the cult of victory in 1945 coincided with Russia annexing the Crimea in 2014. Smith does not discuss this major stain on Russia’s reputation in recent years to a very large extent, but touches upon it at various points. In keeping with his method of refusing to glorify, justify or praise, he places the event in a period when NATO countries did not seriously consider Russia as having foreign policy interests, particularly on its borders. Smith’s implication is that NATO outlived its purpose when the Cold War ended, and that its continued existence and expansion to Russia’s borders were never accepted as developments Russia might legitimately question. How, for example, Smith asks, was Russia to think of a Sevastopol’ in a Ukraine that was part of NATO? The omission of the Crimean question as a standalone chapter in this book is refreshing: such a chapter would have risked being a Russianist’s show apologia for sins not his own. Smith’s task is not to justify Russia’s normality, in spite of its most egregious failings; it is to use its demonstrable normality, in global terms, to offer tools for approaching Russia as an international player in a realist way. Russia has legitimate foreign policy interests and, though Smith does not go so far as to say so, a sphere of influence, like all great powers. This is not the same as an untamed thirst for expansion.
What remains for the reader to decide is what recipe Smith might offer the international community for returning to some form of normality after the Crimea. Herein lies the great practical value of the book. The final chapter gives six suggestions for thinking about Russia to diminish Anxiety (371–384), but even before that the entire book’s deep and broad survey of Russian history provides food for thought on how the world should include Russia more constructively. Smith takes this further. History is not just food for thought; it is material that we can choose to use as endless whataboutism fodder, but can also choose not to. We can repurpose of the ‘what about…’ questions so beloved of propagandists and Anxious commentators for more serious self-reflection.
August 31, 2020
Unconvincing and rambling and not academic. I certainly have an open mind as regards Russian history and politics, but not based on the arguments set out in this very long exposé.
August 14, 2022
Review of the Russia Anxiety
Russia as a people and nation deserve unconditional respect and esteem from the West, indeed as any country and people do, but also in particular for how Russia has contributed so much to the world, in basically all fields, but most famously in terms of literature, science, and aerospace engineering, with writers like Tolstoy, scientists such as Mendeleev, and great projects like the Soviet space programme. In particular Russia is due all respect from the West for also having done the heavy lifting in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II and in this removing its wicked ascendancy from Europe. For the Soviet Union largely was the power that won the war in the European theatre, in that it was on the Eastern Front that the outcome of this war was decided, and this it is fair to say is not properly acknowledged by the West, or indeed perhaps at all. Eighty percent of the German army was on the Eastern front in the latter war years, and so by contrast the western fronts in France, the Benelux and Italy, were, while not sideshows, not nonetheless where the main brunt of the action was actually taking place. The largest battles by far with the most planes, tanks, guns and people, were always fought in the East, with the immense battle of Stalingrad being the decisive moment of the whole war. As such, the end of Hitler’s regime was for sure guaranteed by its defeat on the Eastern Front, but if rather the Nazi state had succeeded in swarming all the way up to the Urals, no Western Allied expeditionary force of any size could have plausibly made way against the resources of the entire European continent thereby assembled in such a malignant form. In this way, Russia is surely Hero of the nations on account of WWII, as the one who bore the weightiest burden and through whose especially tenacious agency a terrible dark age was averted.
Of course, this debt arising from the liberation of Europe owed to the USSR and its successor states is very much complicated by the character of the Soviet Union for much of this time as having been a Stalinist dictatorship, the governance of which, while actually better than Nazism (as even Churchill admitted), would of course involve an exercise in understatement in writing that there was room for improvement. Indeed, the imposition of that form of total state on Eastern Europe in the postwar era very much soured this part of the continent’s experience of being so liberated. The peoples of the former ‘People’s Republics’, who having been involuntarily held in Marxist-Leninist captivity, do not generally look back fondly on their countries’ experience of that. For while the book describes how the character of the Soviet Union and most of its puppet states changed very much with destalinisation, with the Khrushchev thaw, such as to allow for example some ‘permitted dissent’, yet this thaw was not so warm as to spare Hungary and Czechoslovakia Warsaw pact invasions, nor indeed to save the people of Berlin, and the rest of Eastern Europe, from the enjoyment of being walled into their far-left paradise. To be sure, the consent of the governed was obviously not felt to be necessary, neither in the USSR nor in its satellites, and so that fanciful experiment in utopianism continued for its unenthusiastic passengers for all-too long in the decades following World War II.
Now the Russians didn’t have a great time either under Stalin, and much Russian personal, familial and intellectual thought has been devoted to processing the various purges, gulags and deportations which occurred during this period, as the book makes clear. Yet more recently, it seems after the miseries of the 1990s, Stalin’s legacy to Russians has it seems become ‘complicated’ (and the book doesn’t actually cover this) in that he is now often remembered for the crash industrial development programme that turned the USSR into an industrial great power such that with this all the Soviet republics, including the Russian, managed to withstand the Nazi war of extermination, and indeed to emerge from World War II as one of the world’s two superpowers, and in this to have finally caught up with the West as very definitely its equal in strength and prestige. In this way, the state of things at the beginning of Stalin’s personal dictatorship was very different from the end, in that the USSR had become an industrial and military power of the first order, while for sure dispatching many millions of its own people along the way, in the manner of breaking lots of eggs to make the cult of personality omelette. Yet these basic facts, turning the Soviet Union from a backward largely peasant-agrarian economy into a modern industrial and military superpower, such that they could face off against Germany and practically all of Western Europe and in this emerge victorious, was obviously not a guaranteed nor an inevitable result, but rather only made possible, in part, by Stalin forcing the pace of things, to say it in euphemistic terms. That is, without this compelled development of extreme proportions, there would actually be no Russia today at all, in that Nazi Germany would have conquered the whole territory of European Russia and have then quickly exterminated all its Slavic inhabitants, to be replaced by Hitler-worshipping Lebensraum colonists. Quite naturally then, the means by which Nazi Germany was defeated do feature in the present day consciousness of Russia.
Now, such industrial development within the territory of the Soviet Union was in part a result of the Stalinist ‘Socialism in One Country’ policy, which prioritised building up the economy of the Soviet Union, as the world’s first socialist state, so that it might be defended from the capitalist powers, and therefore in this rejected the Trotskyist ‘Permanent Revolution’ plan which advocated fomenting worldwide Leninist revolution straight away, with the latter proposed as the only viable means of establishing the security of the Soviet state. As we know, the former strategy did work as it turns out in WWII, and not just in the minimal terms of preserving the revolution in the territory of the old Russian empire, but of exporting it further west into central Europe as well. So from the point of view that Russia exists at all today, Stalin’s legacy can be seen in this way as a complicated mixture of bad with some good, whose correct ratio has not been settled in Russia.
The book claims that the internal development tendency of the Soviet Union described above demonstrated an inherently irenic intention towards and desire for comity with the capitalist liberal democratic states. This however is clearly false in that the objective in either direction remained the eventual conversion of nothing less than the whole world to communism, which would very often involve the use of force whether by ‘vanguard’ revolutionary parties or simple invasion, since the class enemy, the international bourgeoisie, in principle would and could never voluntarily give up on their own expired and superannuated occupation of history. Yet, this was of course a similar version of the opposite grand desire resulting from the West’s faith in its own political philosophy and wish that all the world would become liberal democratic and capitalistic, which it is true was also aided by military intervention and subterfuge here and there (though it would very much seem that there was quite a lot less coercion employed by the liberal democratic world). However, while the means used by both sides were not always lofty, both worldviews could yet, and did, describe their purposes in exalted terms. As in, when the ascent of liberal democracy and capitalism almost happened in the lands of the former Soviet Union at the end of the 20th century, it did indeed seem as if liberal history might have come to a rapturous close, in just the same way as that if Communism had somehow triumphed in Western Europe and North America it would have appeared as if the Marxist-Leninist scheme of history had been completed and perfected. Yet, in seeing that both sides of the Cold War were not always above using violence to achieve their ends, this is not to equate them in magnitude in this respect, for the Leninist project was the one of revolutionary violence by self-appointed coteries, and having attained power, the forceful suppression of ‘counter-revolutionary’ dissent. To this must be added the unhappy custody of the peoples of Eastern Europe both in Moscow’s sphere of influence and in its kind of statecraft. As such, it seems quite fair to characterise the Soviet Union as not quite so peaceful nor pleasant to those within it and in proximity to it, and in truth as not the moral equivalent of the western alliance.
Yet, the book convincingly shows that Russia, in its many versions, has been and is no more congenitally or inevitably aggressive, expansionist or amenable to autocratic government than any other European or non-European country. Rather it is the one actually who tends to get invaded, such as by the Mongols in the middle ages, the Swedish Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period, Napoleon’s invasion at the start of the 19th Century, and the two most serious German invasions of the 20th Century. With this history, and such a long border with so many other states, along with no natural features that afford geographic defence along the frontiers of or within its home, which is the great Eurasian steppe, a certain amount of anxiety and paranoia seems to be a permanent condition of whoever is ruling from either the Winter Palace or the Kremlin. This is only made worse by having generally been historically behind the rest of Europe in economic and technological development and power, combined also with a sometime inferiority complex in high cultural matters, to such a degree that Russia or its associated states have felt under assault just by mere proximity to its richer and more confident cousins. One possible, and antisocial, Russian state policy response to this predicament then has often been operate on the basis that if there are to be invasions directed at Russia it would be much better if rather they were to occur outside the lands of Russia, ideally by such hostile powers trying to get through a ring of ‘friendly’ states whose happy function would in this be to absorb the firepower of the invader so as to allow Russia enough time and space to later retake these now devastated lands and to perhaps then help bury the dead afterwards, if it felt that way inclined. Yet naturally the non-Russian states who are pressed into such a sphere of influence of a latterly risen imperial Russia will not obviously be enthusiastic about becoming the expendable punching bags that this new Russia will bravely hide behind.
So, while the book is called ‘The Russia Anxiety’ and goes on a lot about this putative concept, whose validity I will now begin to question and then reject, clearly Russia is just as much prone to a ‘West Anxiety’ as well. In general, I think the title of the book is not at all apt, not just by ignoring the anxiety and paranoia that Russia directs ‘our’ way (if Russia be fully excluded from the concept of the West), but also by its dressing up this ‘Russia Anxiety’, with capital letters, as though it were a unique and singular occurrence, which is, by even the most cursory sampling of history, shown to be more than a little ridiculous. For example, Ancient Egypt and the Hittite empire were uneasy neighbours, alternating between peace and war; Rome and Carthage did not much enjoy each other’s proximity and could well see the threat that each posed to the other, and so they dealt with each other by invasions; the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Sassanian empire raged against one another; the Ottoman Empire terrified Christian Europe at the height of its power and extent; again the Ottomans and the Safavid empire intimidated each other; France faced off against the Habsburg world empire, and was in this very concerned that it would be pushed off the stage as a front rank power; and later France had quite the anxiety about the German Empire from the moment of its creation in 1870 up to World War I and further on in the lead up into World War II naturally; England/Britain always acted in such a way as to keep France in particular, and continental powers generally, relatively manageable, and so warred often to keep Europe disunited; the present day Arab states would seem to be quite wary and indeed anxious about the whole West because of its various spiky interventions over the years and of the possibility of more to come; Russia itself had tremendous concern in relation to China after the Sino-Soviet split, inasmuch as there was more apprehension on the Soviet side of a Chinese invasion rather than a NATO one; and indeed as already mentioned, Russia itself very much can have a ‘West Anxiety’ itself in terms of being either invaded, infiltrated, undermined, broken up, dismissed, disrespected or in imagining wild conspiracies where there is felt to be some grand and intricate plot that coordinates all of the above from a central source. There are of course plenty of other examples of such interstate anxieties in history; suffice it to say that where there are states that have not settled into a stable equilibrium with one another, there will as a consequence be anxiety about how these states cannot but help threaten each other by their simple existence and proximity.
So, the evolving rivalries between established powers, or where new powers arrive on the scene and in this upset the balance of power, will all necessarily lead to a lot of anxiety about how the established order of things might become very much rearranged and remade, even to such a degree that certain states may go under in extremis. This is not a reaction based on xenophobia and lazy prejudice, but rather good perception and judgment about how new actors or actors who have developed certain powers could, if they so decide, seriously destabilise the basis of the state system or even end the statehood of certain nations as such, given that this has actually repeatedly happened in history, such as with the suppression of Poland and Ireland for hundreds of years, and indeed in what Russia is now trying to do to Ukraine. Given the possibility of deploying such powers in a situation where trust has broken down because of the evidence of malign intentions, it follows that there will ensue a lot of legitimate anxiety. As such, in enumerating all the pairings of mutual anxieties above between rival and threatened powers, this is not and cannot be such as to dismiss these concerning historical interstate situations as merely the paranoid fixations of those with active imaginations and a predisposition to impute to outsiders malevolent designs. As such, to name or focus on one existing interstate anxiety, namely the ‘Russia Anxiety’, such as is attempted in this book, is not in the mere act of its being stated to in this magic away its real basis given that the context in which this is done is of a Russian government that has made it its business to destabilise the democratic societies of the West and to invade its former ‘sphere of influence’, so that the Russian state might once again become an empire and the entirety of the European continent made ‘friendly’ to its scheming autocracy.
For clearly, in response to the chaotic first decade of Russia’s being a nation-state and the general predicament that the Russian people found themselves in after the break-up of the USSR, the current Russian government and state have plumped for the bizarre and very atavistic let’s be an empire again ‘solution’. That is, with, it seems, the bewilderment in Russian society about its latterday place and purpose in the world, in having lost a prime position and the respect that came with the Tsarist and Soviet versions of itself, along with indeed the raw memory of its violent ejection from the Soviet Union in terms of the economic and societal collapse in the 1990s, comparable to the miseries of the Weimar Republic, the ‘solution’ chased after was and remains to turn this reduced and lately born Russian nation-state, into something more traditional and yet grander, namely a ‘great’ empire that governs its near and its abroad primarily by way of the gun and the jackboot, to which fanciful notions about its place in the world are tacked on also.
For with the chaotic destitution that seemed to many Russians to have been caused by the adoption of western style liberal democracy and market capitalism in the 1990s...
Because Goodreads has a character limit and because this review is long, the rest of the review is on my new blog, at: https://lukebrennanblog.blogspot.com/...
Russia as a people and nation deserve unconditional respect and esteem from the West, indeed as any country and people do, but also in particular for how Russia has contributed so much to the world, in basically all fields, but most famously in terms of literature, science, and aerospace engineering, with writers like Tolstoy, scientists such as Mendeleev, and great projects like the Soviet space programme. In particular Russia is due all respect from the West for also having done the heavy lifting in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II and in this removing its wicked ascendancy from Europe. For the Soviet Union largely was the power that won the war in the European theatre, in that it was on the Eastern Front that the outcome of this war was decided, and this it is fair to say is not properly acknowledged by the West, or indeed perhaps at all. Eighty percent of the German army was on the Eastern front in the latter war years, and so by contrast the western fronts in France, the Benelux and Italy, were, while not sideshows, not nonetheless where the main brunt of the action was actually taking place. The largest battles by far with the most planes, tanks, guns and people, were always fought in the East, with the immense battle of Stalingrad being the decisive moment of the whole war. As such, the end of Hitler’s regime was for sure guaranteed by its defeat on the Eastern Front, but if rather the Nazi state had succeeded in swarming all the way up to the Urals, no Western Allied expeditionary force of any size could have plausibly made way against the resources of the entire European continent thereby assembled in such a malignant form. In this way, Russia is surely Hero of the nations on account of WWII, as the one who bore the weightiest burden and through whose especially tenacious agency a terrible dark age was averted.
Of course, this debt arising from the liberation of Europe owed to the USSR and its successor states is very much complicated by the character of the Soviet Union for much of this time as having been a Stalinist dictatorship, the governance of which, while actually better than Nazism (as even Churchill admitted), would of course involve an exercise in understatement in writing that there was room for improvement. Indeed, the imposition of that form of total state on Eastern Europe in the postwar era very much soured this part of the continent’s experience of being so liberated. The peoples of the former ‘People’s Republics’, who having been involuntarily held in Marxist-Leninist captivity, do not generally look back fondly on their countries’ experience of that. For while the book describes how the character of the Soviet Union and most of its puppet states changed very much with destalinisation, with the Khrushchev thaw, such as to allow for example some ‘permitted dissent’, yet this thaw was not so warm as to spare Hungary and Czechoslovakia Warsaw pact invasions, nor indeed to save the people of Berlin, and the rest of Eastern Europe, from the enjoyment of being walled into their far-left paradise. To be sure, the consent of the governed was obviously not felt to be necessary, neither in the USSR nor in its satellites, and so that fanciful experiment in utopianism continued for its unenthusiastic passengers for all-too long in the decades following World War II.
Now the Russians didn’t have a great time either under Stalin, and much Russian personal, familial and intellectual thought has been devoted to processing the various purges, gulags and deportations which occurred during this period, as the book makes clear. Yet more recently, it seems after the miseries of the 1990s, Stalin’s legacy to Russians has it seems become ‘complicated’ (and the book doesn’t actually cover this) in that he is now often remembered for the crash industrial development programme that turned the USSR into an industrial great power such that with this all the Soviet republics, including the Russian, managed to withstand the Nazi war of extermination, and indeed to emerge from World War II as one of the world’s two superpowers, and in this to have finally caught up with the West as very definitely its equal in strength and prestige. In this way, the state of things at the beginning of Stalin’s personal dictatorship was very different from the end, in that the USSR had become an industrial and military power of the first order, while for sure dispatching many millions of its own people along the way, in the manner of breaking lots of eggs to make the cult of personality omelette. Yet these basic facts, turning the Soviet Union from a backward largely peasant-agrarian economy into a modern industrial and military superpower, such that they could face off against Germany and practically all of Western Europe and in this emerge victorious, was obviously not a guaranteed nor an inevitable result, but rather only made possible, in part, by Stalin forcing the pace of things, to say it in euphemistic terms. That is, without this compelled development of extreme proportions, there would actually be no Russia today at all, in that Nazi Germany would have conquered the whole territory of European Russia and have then quickly exterminated all its Slavic inhabitants, to be replaced by Hitler-worshipping Lebensraum colonists. Quite naturally then, the means by which Nazi Germany was defeated do feature in the present day consciousness of Russia.
Now, such industrial development within the territory of the Soviet Union was in part a result of the Stalinist ‘Socialism in One Country’ policy, which prioritised building up the economy of the Soviet Union, as the world’s first socialist state, so that it might be defended from the capitalist powers, and therefore in this rejected the Trotskyist ‘Permanent Revolution’ plan which advocated fomenting worldwide Leninist revolution straight away, with the latter proposed as the only viable means of establishing the security of the Soviet state. As we know, the former strategy did work as it turns out in WWII, and not just in the minimal terms of preserving the revolution in the territory of the old Russian empire, but of exporting it further west into central Europe as well. So from the point of view that Russia exists at all today, Stalin’s legacy can be seen in this way as a complicated mixture of bad with some good, whose correct ratio has not been settled in Russia.
The book claims that the internal development tendency of the Soviet Union described above demonstrated an inherently irenic intention towards and desire for comity with the capitalist liberal democratic states. This however is clearly false in that the objective in either direction remained the eventual conversion of nothing less than the whole world to communism, which would very often involve the use of force whether by ‘vanguard’ revolutionary parties or simple invasion, since the class enemy, the international bourgeoisie, in principle would and could never voluntarily give up on their own expired and superannuated occupation of history. Yet, this was of course a similar version of the opposite grand desire resulting from the West’s faith in its own political philosophy and wish that all the world would become liberal democratic and capitalistic, which it is true was also aided by military intervention and subterfuge here and there (though it would very much seem that there was quite a lot less coercion employed by the liberal democratic world). However, while the means used by both sides were not always lofty, both worldviews could yet, and did, describe their purposes in exalted terms. As in, when the ascent of liberal democracy and capitalism almost happened in the lands of the former Soviet Union at the end of the 20th century, it did indeed seem as if liberal history might have come to a rapturous close, in just the same way as that if Communism had somehow triumphed in Western Europe and North America it would have appeared as if the Marxist-Leninist scheme of history had been completed and perfected. Yet, in seeing that both sides of the Cold War were not always above using violence to achieve their ends, this is not to equate them in magnitude in this respect, for the Leninist project was the one of revolutionary violence by self-appointed coteries, and having attained power, the forceful suppression of ‘counter-revolutionary’ dissent. To this must be added the unhappy custody of the peoples of Eastern Europe both in Moscow’s sphere of influence and in its kind of statecraft. As such, it seems quite fair to characterise the Soviet Union as not quite so peaceful nor pleasant to those within it and in proximity to it, and in truth as not the moral equivalent of the western alliance.
Yet, the book convincingly shows that Russia, in its many versions, has been and is no more congenitally or inevitably aggressive, expansionist or amenable to autocratic government than any other European or non-European country. Rather it is the one actually who tends to get invaded, such as by the Mongols in the middle ages, the Swedish Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period, Napoleon’s invasion at the start of the 19th Century, and the two most serious German invasions of the 20th Century. With this history, and such a long border with so many other states, along with no natural features that afford geographic defence along the frontiers of or within its home, which is the great Eurasian steppe, a certain amount of anxiety and paranoia seems to be a permanent condition of whoever is ruling from either the Winter Palace or the Kremlin. This is only made worse by having generally been historically behind the rest of Europe in economic and technological development and power, combined also with a sometime inferiority complex in high cultural matters, to such a degree that Russia or its associated states have felt under assault just by mere proximity to its richer and more confident cousins. One possible, and antisocial, Russian state policy response to this predicament then has often been operate on the basis that if there are to be invasions directed at Russia it would be much better if rather they were to occur outside the lands of Russia, ideally by such hostile powers trying to get through a ring of ‘friendly’ states whose happy function would in this be to absorb the firepower of the invader so as to allow Russia enough time and space to later retake these now devastated lands and to perhaps then help bury the dead afterwards, if it felt that way inclined. Yet naturally the non-Russian states who are pressed into such a sphere of influence of a latterly risen imperial Russia will not obviously be enthusiastic about becoming the expendable punching bags that this new Russia will bravely hide behind.
So, while the book is called ‘The Russia Anxiety’ and goes on a lot about this putative concept, whose validity I will now begin to question and then reject, clearly Russia is just as much prone to a ‘West Anxiety’ as well. In general, I think the title of the book is not at all apt, not just by ignoring the anxiety and paranoia that Russia directs ‘our’ way (if Russia be fully excluded from the concept of the West), but also by its dressing up this ‘Russia Anxiety’, with capital letters, as though it were a unique and singular occurrence, which is, by even the most cursory sampling of history, shown to be more than a little ridiculous. For example, Ancient Egypt and the Hittite empire were uneasy neighbours, alternating between peace and war; Rome and Carthage did not much enjoy each other’s proximity and could well see the threat that each posed to the other, and so they dealt with each other by invasions; the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Sassanian empire raged against one another; the Ottoman Empire terrified Christian Europe at the height of its power and extent; again the Ottomans and the Safavid empire intimidated each other; France faced off against the Habsburg world empire, and was in this very concerned that it would be pushed off the stage as a front rank power; and later France had quite the anxiety about the German Empire from the moment of its creation in 1870 up to World War I and further on in the lead up into World War II naturally; England/Britain always acted in such a way as to keep France in particular, and continental powers generally, relatively manageable, and so warred often to keep Europe disunited; the present day Arab states would seem to be quite wary and indeed anxious about the whole West because of its various spiky interventions over the years and of the possibility of more to come; Russia itself had tremendous concern in relation to China after the Sino-Soviet split, inasmuch as there was more apprehension on the Soviet side of a Chinese invasion rather than a NATO one; and indeed as already mentioned, Russia itself very much can have a ‘West Anxiety’ itself in terms of being either invaded, infiltrated, undermined, broken up, dismissed, disrespected or in imagining wild conspiracies where there is felt to be some grand and intricate plot that coordinates all of the above from a central source. There are of course plenty of other examples of such interstate anxieties in history; suffice it to say that where there are states that have not settled into a stable equilibrium with one another, there will as a consequence be anxiety about how these states cannot but help threaten each other by their simple existence and proximity.
So, the evolving rivalries between established powers, or where new powers arrive on the scene and in this upset the balance of power, will all necessarily lead to a lot of anxiety about how the established order of things might become very much rearranged and remade, even to such a degree that certain states may go under in extremis. This is not a reaction based on xenophobia and lazy prejudice, but rather good perception and judgment about how new actors or actors who have developed certain powers could, if they so decide, seriously destabilise the basis of the state system or even end the statehood of certain nations as such, given that this has actually repeatedly happened in history, such as with the suppression of Poland and Ireland for hundreds of years, and indeed in what Russia is now trying to do to Ukraine. Given the possibility of deploying such powers in a situation where trust has broken down because of the evidence of malign intentions, it follows that there will ensue a lot of legitimate anxiety. As such, in enumerating all the pairings of mutual anxieties above between rival and threatened powers, this is not and cannot be such as to dismiss these concerning historical interstate situations as merely the paranoid fixations of those with active imaginations and a predisposition to impute to outsiders malevolent designs. As such, to name or focus on one existing interstate anxiety, namely the ‘Russia Anxiety’, such as is attempted in this book, is not in the mere act of its being stated to in this magic away its real basis given that the context in which this is done is of a Russian government that has made it its business to destabilise the democratic societies of the West and to invade its former ‘sphere of influence’, so that the Russian state might once again become an empire and the entirety of the European continent made ‘friendly’ to its scheming autocracy.
For clearly, in response to the chaotic first decade of Russia’s being a nation-state and the general predicament that the Russian people found themselves in after the break-up of the USSR, the current Russian government and state have plumped for the bizarre and very atavistic let’s be an empire again ‘solution’. That is, with, it seems, the bewilderment in Russian society about its latterday place and purpose in the world, in having lost a prime position and the respect that came with the Tsarist and Soviet versions of itself, along with indeed the raw memory of its violent ejection from the Soviet Union in terms of the economic and societal collapse in the 1990s, comparable to the miseries of the Weimar Republic, the ‘solution’ chased after was and remains to turn this reduced and lately born Russian nation-state, into something more traditional and yet grander, namely a ‘great’ empire that governs its near and its abroad primarily by way of the gun and the jackboot, to which fanciful notions about its place in the world are tacked on also.
For with the chaotic destitution that seemed to many Russians to have been caused by the adoption of western style liberal democracy and market capitalism in the 1990s...
Because Goodreads has a character limit and because this review is long, the rest of the review is on my new blog, at: https://lukebrennanblog.blogspot.com/...
March 28, 2021
The Russia Anxiety is, above all, a much-needed perspective especially for myopic Westerners. Even for those who do not suffer from the 'Russian Anxiety', this book presents a well-researched history of the Russian nation, from the Rus to the Russian Empire, from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the present-day Russian Federation. Smith's thesis is, I believe, that the Russians should not be defined in contradistinction from the West/Europe (which isn't even that homogeneous to begin with) as they have historically contributed to Wester/European development and benefited from it; Catherine the Great's rule was characterised by Enlightenment ideals, Alexander I's participation in the Congress of Vienna underscored Russia's importance in maintaining continental peace, Alexander II's reforms coincided with the abolition of slavery in the USA, etc. What causes the West to look at Russia with such fear, contempt, and disregard, however, is a confluence of factors: orthodox Russia's inherent differences from Catholic/Protestant Western Europe, unhelpful portrayals of Russia as an "other" by writers and politicians, Russia's history of expansion along its borders. The last point is perhaps the most striking because while the British Empire was about the same size as the Russian Empire, no one remembers the British as an expansionist power that threatened peace; this arguably points to the Eurocentric discussion of geopolitics such that a power is only a menacing threat when European interests are directly at stake. Such misguided and simplistic portrayals of Russia's legitimate security interests have not only provoked military conflict (Germany was particularly keen to attack the Russian Empire pre-emptively before WWI) but also limited Western foreign policy options to unwise though democratically palatable choices. Take the expansion of NATO and the imposition of 'Shock Therapy' after the fall of the USSR -- first, there was simply no need for NATO where there was no longer a geopolitical enemy (indeed, George Kennan called it the worst error the US made in the post-Cold War world); second, economic reforms were implemented on the basis that the Russian state was in no position to resist and that democracy would inevitably flourish where a free market is established. Unfortunately for the West, Russia now is neither free politically nor economically. It is not that the Russian people are genetically predisposed to autocratic rule -- there have been instances and possibilities of democratic reform (most notably during Alexander II's rule) as well as a common understanding of social rights and welfare (e.g. under Soviet rule). How do we curb the Russian Anxiety? By viewing the Russians not as an adversary with a dark history but a fellow member of the global community with a history that is as normal as, and perhaps even less bloody than, the histories of the Western nations. Pragmatically speaking, treating Russia, and by extension China, as hostile enemies of liberal democracy will simply push their politicians closer to each other and make their peoples more resentful and defensive. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There is nothing inevitable about the triumph of liberal democracy. For every thing that we criticise Putin or Xi for, there is bound to be a counter-argument for similar atrocities committed by Western countries in the past.
In the final chapter, Smith mentions the 1938 Munich Conference and connects it to events in the 2010's, such as Russia's annexation of Crimea. Yes there should be consequences for such acts of aggression but perhaps it is time for the West to stop seeing its rivals as neo-Third Reichs; other than engaging them in a spirit of diplomatic goodwill, the West ought to reflect on whether they are still truly the standard-bearers of decency, liberty, and democracy, that they think they are.
There is nothing inevitable about the triumph of liberal democracy. For every thing that we criticise Putin or Xi for, there is bound to be a counter-argument for similar atrocities committed by Western countries in the past.
In the final chapter, Smith mentions the 1938 Munich Conference and connects it to events in the 2010's, such as Russia's annexation of Crimea. Yes there should be consequences for such acts of aggression but perhaps it is time for the West to stop seeing its rivals as neo-Third Reichs; other than engaging them in a spirit of diplomatic goodwill, the West ought to reflect on whether they are still truly the standard-bearers of decency, liberty, and democracy, that they think they are.
Read
September 8, 2023Mark Smith has written a fluent meditation on Russian history, a gallant attempt to reason with those who believe that Russia is condemned to an endless cycle of failed reform and resurgent authoritarianism because Russians have despotism and imperialism ‘in their genes’.
He offers two central propositions. The first is that the Western world (not Asia, Africa, or Latin America, where perceptions are quite different) has, for perhaps 500 years, been gripped by what he calls ‘The Russia Anxiety’ – a cycle of fear, disregard and contempt.
It is entirely understandable that Russia’s neighbours fear a country which has so often invaded and occupied them. It is harder to explain the near hysteria of a distant country such as Britain, which has only twice encountered Russia on the battlefield – and then as the invader, not the invaded.
Russians point out that their country, too, has often been brought close to collapse by invasion: by the Poles and Swedes in the 17th century, the French and Germans in 1812 and 1941, after the Revolution in 1917. Each time foreigners wrote an apparently prostrate Russia out of their calculations, as they did after the Soviet collapse in 1991. That casual dismissal was a mistake: each time the Russians demonstrated their determined ability to get back on their feet.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.
Rodric Braithwaite was British Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1988-91) and is the author of Armageddon and Paranoia: the Nuclear Confrontation (Profile, 2017).
He offers two central propositions. The first is that the Western world (not Asia, Africa, or Latin America, where perceptions are quite different) has, for perhaps 500 years, been gripped by what he calls ‘The Russia Anxiety’ – a cycle of fear, disregard and contempt.
It is entirely understandable that Russia’s neighbours fear a country which has so often invaded and occupied them. It is harder to explain the near hysteria of a distant country such as Britain, which has only twice encountered Russia on the battlefield – and then as the invader, not the invaded.
Russians point out that their country, too, has often been brought close to collapse by invasion: by the Poles and Swedes in the 17th century, the French and Germans in 1812 and 1941, after the Revolution in 1917. Each time foreigners wrote an apparently prostrate Russia out of their calculations, as they did after the Soviet collapse in 1991. That casual dismissal was a mistake: each time the Russians demonstrated their determined ability to get back on their feet.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.
Rodric Braithwaite was British Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1988-91) and is the author of Armageddon and Paranoia: the Nuclear Confrontation (Profile, 2017).
September 18, 2025
Felt like I was reading Russian Propaganda.
The author seems to really like Putin, I'm not sure he ever explains who the Cossack's are, but he did let the reader know what Mrs Putin was up to when they lived in Germany.
It was written before the full scale invasion of Ukraine, but after they forcefully seized the Donbas region so clearly the rest of Europe has a reason to be Anxious.
The author also used The Russia Anxiety the way MAGA use Trump Derangement Syndrome, which really rubbed me the wrong way.
The author seems to really like Putin, I'm not sure he ever explains who the Cossack's are, but he did let the reader know what Mrs Putin was up to when they lived in Germany.
It was written before the full scale invasion of Ukraine, but after they forcefully seized the Donbas region so clearly the rest of Europe has a reason to be Anxious.
The author also used The Russia Anxiety the way MAGA use Trump Derangement Syndrome, which really rubbed me the wrong way.
April 24, 2024
A tremendous treasure trove of Russian history with a depth i have not seen in other titles thus far.
An example of this is the role politicians like Chubais & Gaidar played in the crumbling of Russian perception of democracy.
Just a truly stellar piece of work!
An example of this is the role politicians like Chubais & Gaidar played in the crumbling of Russian perception of democracy.
Just a truly stellar piece of work!
April 3, 2025
An intellectual and nuanced take on many clichés related to Russia's past, with much attention to the role of contingency in history. At times goes slightly into whataboutism, but overall a rather enjoyable read. Would be curious to know the author's take on events of the past few years.
June 5, 2025
Terrible! While he does criticise the West and point out the West's hypocrisies in relation to Russia, the author lavishes praise on Russia while simultaneously denouncing imperialism, conveniently forgetting that Russia itself is an empire. Naïve at best, stupid at worst, a waste of paper!
May 24, 2020
One of the best books on Russian history that you can get your hands on.
December 25, 2020
An excellent book. The author analyses how myths and unfounded animosity define the perception of Russia in the rest of Europe and the US. A really pertinent book for the world we're living today.
March 9, 2021
A masterclass in learning and diplomacy.
I think there would (should) be a market for a condensed version.
I think there would (should) be a market for a condensed version.
April 3, 2022
One of the best books about Russia.
September 17, 2023
A very enjoyable geopolitical interpretation of Russian history in context of today’s issues. However fails to sufficiently give essential issues such as theology and Putins personality enough weights. Any attempt at understanding Russia under Putin that does not address Moscow’s Third Rome theology and their ethno-phyletism and Putins dreams of emulating Peter the Great (see Harald Malmgren articles on this) is unfortunately incomplete.
February 17, 2021
Deeply researched, dense and difficult. One for the specialists.
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