Mondays With Murray: Rothbard on Russia

With Russia once again a hotbed of military activity as Putin continues to escalate its involvement with the Ukraine, the U.S. finds itself posturing like mad against the great red menace, just like in the olden days.Why not use this recent impasse to look at Rothbard's take on Russia from the Cold War Era? His thoughts then still echo now in various applications politically and via extension of state power over the populace in the name of protection.Originally published as “The Editor Rebuts,” in the February 1973 edition of The Libertarian Forum

Indeed, what in the world the Russian Question has to do with whether or not the FBI should prosecute the drug traffic, or wiretap, or whether the police should remind accused persons of their constitutional rights, passeth understanding. Are we going to be like the typical Conservative, who drags in the Russian Threat like King Charles’ Head to justify any and all acts of government tyranny? Once we go that route, once we begin to justify a loss of liberty now in order to “defend” that liberty later, we are not only abandoning liberty itself: we are justifying every act of statism, from the draft to oil proration laws. Indeed, every such act has been justified by conservatives in the name of the Russian Threat and of national defense.” And in these justifications, we can see how the State has for centuries used the “foreign threat” to aggrandize its power over its deluded subjects.But to get to the Russian Question. In the first place, whether or not Russia constitutes a critical military threat is strictly an empirical question, and therefore not a question that can be resolved in a few pages of philosophical or political controversy. For example, it is logically conceivable that Great Britain constitutes an imminent military threat to the U.S., and that Edward Heath is planning a sneak atomic attack on New York in 48 hours. Logically conceivable, but of course empirically laughable—even though we could make out a case of sorts, citing the fact that we were twice in grave military combat with Great Britain, and so on.Since it is an empirical question, I will have to be a bit high-handed and say flatly that it is my considered view that there is not a single shred of evidence of any Russian aim or plan to launch a military attack upon the United States, either in the past, present, or future. In fact, the evidence is all the other way, even in the time of Lenin, and certainly in the time of Stalin and his successors. Since the time of Lenin and his magnificent (from a libertarian, pro-peace point of view) conclusion of the “appeasement” Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, the Soviet Union, vis-à-vis the other Great Powers, has consistently pursued a policy of what they have long termed “peaceful coexistence,” in fact often bending over backwards to pursue a peaceful foreign policy almost to the point of national suicide. I am not maintaining that the motivation for this unswerving course was any sort of moral nobility; it is the supremely practical one of preserving the Soviet State at all costs to other aims and objectives, buttressed by the Soviets’ firm Marxian conviction that, since capitalist states are doomed anyway, it is foolhardy in the extreme to court or risk war. The Soviet policy has always been the defensive one of hanging on to what they have and waiting for the supposedly inevitable Marxian revolutions in the other countries of the world. Lenin’s adherence to that policy was only confirmed by the “socialism in one country” doctrine of Stalin and his successors.

There is much more to it, as one would imagine. For those interested, the full article is available here. If you're craving more Murray, you can read all of the previous editions of Mondays with Murray by visiting the full archive page!Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!