Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "Fear is the new normal in Russian politics" video.

@MrJdsenior Compliment his on his excellent copypasta.
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@lorenzcassidy3960 Tolstoy wrote in the 19th Century, but he was noting a condition that goes back much further, to the time (12th and 13th Centuries) when the warlords of Moscow were under the thumb of the Mongols. After the Golden Horde (the Mongols) burned Moscow to the ground twice, the “princes of Muscovy” submitted to them and became their tax collectors and enforcers. The Mongols were not interested in direct rule. They just wanted to be paid a yearly tribute. So the Golden Horde put the pimps, thieves, and slave holders in charge. As the Golden Horde began to expand further westward, they fought the Poles, the Lithuanians, and the Hungarians. Part of the Mongol forces was a Russian army commanded by these Russian criminals, essentially a mercenary army using forced conscription from the Russian peasantry and serfs. So you see how far back this tradition goes. The Rus switched eventually switched sides to the Lithuanians and Poles (as mercenaries often do) when those kingdoms gained the upper hand. This is the ignominious beginning of the criminal empire known as Russia. Thus endeth the history lesson. When Tolstoy calls the Russian army “a horde of slaves” he’s referring to the period when the Muscovites were subservient to the Golden Horde. He’s packing a lot of history into that sentence. He was saying that the Russian Empire still operated in the corrupt style of the Mongol Khanates.
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