How to Let Go of Fear and Loathing of Russia. . . with History and Poetry.

Russia, Russia, Russia! How can you detach from the fear and loathing of Russia that has spread virally over the last decade in the West?

My recommendation is to read Mark B. Smith, The Russia Anxiety: And How History Can Resolve It. It was the focus of the last leg of the world history tour on that controversial great power or civilization state, Russia. But I also recommend a bit of poetry.

Since I ran out of time at the end of 2025, I had to shave off two weeks from the full eight week tour. In this recap post, I make up for short-changing you, and share some highlights of my writing and discussion of Russian and Russian world (e.g. Soviet) history over the last few years.

So this essay has the following elements:

• The Gorbachev Inheritance or the Long-Term Consequences of Collapse (Week 7)

• The Putin Prospect or Russian Restoration After the 1990s (Week 8)

• Principles of How History Can Resolve Fear and Loathing of Russia

• Recap of the Russia World History Tour (Weeks 1 to 6)

• Highlights of My Writing and Interviews on Russian History

And an apology to regular. I have deferred my YouTube mini-series on Gorbachev and the Soviet Collapse till the end of February. This post, however, kicks off with reflections on that topic.

This week on YouTube,

• Ten History Books To Read With Me in 2026

• Why We Quit Social Media

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The Gorbachev Inheritance or the Long-Term Consequences of Collapse

Mark B. Smith, The Russia Anxiety is not kind to Mikhail Gorbachev. “Thanks to Gorbachev,” Smith released the barb, “the Soviet Union committed suicide by accident.” I am rather kinder, and perhaps more curious. Having studied suicide prevention and response as a government official, and studied my Durkheim long, long ago, it turns out suicide is one of the most fundamental problems of social thought.

So too is the Soviet Collapse one of the most fundamental problems of modern history. Smith’s penultimate chapter on the question, “Should Russians Remember the Past or Forget It” does not concern Gorbachev or Collapse, but rather the Stalin Inheritance.

The Stalin Inheritance

In his farewell speech as President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev referred to our country’s “tragic history”