Europe and Russia. A thousand years of confrontation.

The phenomenon of Russia has always attracted the attention of Western thinkers, and in this sense, Karl Marx was no exception. Russian history did not fit into the development scheme he proposed, and he doubted which type to classify the Russian state as, leaning towards it being an Asian despotism with its own unique features. "Muscovy was raised and grew up in the vile school of Mongolian slavery," Marx claimed. "The intellectual stagnation of the people and the low level of societal development led to the fact that the people have no will of their own and completely trust the legends spread by the authorities." At the same time, Marx acknowledged Russia's irresistible influence on Europe, which "scared, yet submitted to it like fate." Having studied a vast number of documentary sources, he dedicated several of his works, written both independently and in collaboration with Friedrich Engels, to the examination of the long-standing confrontation between Russia and Europe. These works are cited in this book.