I've been looking for answers on this for awhile and I'm hoping this sub can help. In the link below there's an old Firing Line from 1990 with William F. Buckley and Christopher Hitchens debate whether or not "England Still Influencing America." Great conversation overall, but here's my question:
At the 3:10 mark, Buckley says John Lucas (guessing on the spelling) is quoted as writing "The most important fact about the first half of the 21st Century, future historians will note, is that Americans speak English. And the most important fact of the second half of the century may prove to be that Russians are white. Now, that's a form of reductionism..."
Does anyone know the subject at hand here well? I'm looking for any leads on finding source material, and/or delving into the larger argument here. I would appreciate any help.
Full link if the hyperlink isn't working: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUH4RzAofv8
I can speak to your second question.
Russian "whiteness" matters a great deal in what we can call "modern" white-euro-centric narratives of world history. A long standing teleological narrative in the history of world powers, European colonization and to an extend, rationalizations for oppression has been framed within the context of Great Powers and major colonizers as being "white". Of course, the work of deconstructing what it means to be "white" and "colored" and how nonsensical this distinction is has been done many times over by historians, sociologists, biologists etc, but it is important for hegemonic narratives of why Europe dominated and oppressed large chunks of the world for as long as it did. I can expand more on this with specific works and writing but I want to address the idea of Russian "Whiteness" or more specifically "Europeness", because in the context of your video they are synonymous.
Why does Russian whiteness matter? Well as I alluded to before, the historiography of colonialism and later great power status for a large part of the 19th and 20th came to the wide spread consensus that being white was essential in a countries ability to be colonial and world power, specifically euro-american white. Russia has long been seen as the frontier of Europe, and detached from shared cultural signifiers of "European" or "white" identity" because of its size, distance from "Western" Europe, its religious identity, and perceived backwardness. Russia was seen as isolated, barbaric, and backwards, and was not considered part of what would be considered White European pantheon of "Civilized" nations. We can see these perspectives from such countries as France where Gustave Doré's (1832–1883) History of Holy Russia, a fascinating comic book-esque book compiles standard European perspectives of Russia, despotically autocratic, arbitrary policy state, limitless violence, oppressive lack of freedom, culturally infantile, and a great number of other pejoratives, all implying a lack of civilization and culture indicative of "Europeaness" and "whiteness". These perceptions of Russia, which was still considered a great power, and despite the attempts by some of its Monarchs to modernize, persisted, and would be seemingly proven correct in the context of the 1905 Russo-Japanese war. Russia, ostensibly a European country, was defeated by a country that in no way could be considered white or European, Japan. Reactions to this ranged from attempting to elevate the Japanese to some sort of back handed honorary whiteness, such as this quip from noted German Colonial Ruler and "Explorer", Carl Peters in the context of this war:
" ......therefore, the Japanese were being regarded as an equal antagonist of the white race"
To further efforts to push the popular narrative refuting Russian "whiteness", which would be an adequate explanation for European Imperialists to why exactly Russia lost to an East Asian, completely non-"white", non-Christian nation.
This narrative makes its conclusion within its own logic in individuals such as Adolf Hitler, who he and his völkisch ilk saw Russia as a nation of Asiatic sub-humans, fit for slavery, subjugation and colonization. (This narrative continues to this day in German-centric American and European historiography of the Eastern Front of the Second World war, with popular proliferation of tropes such as the use of blocking detachments, human wave attacks, the poor outfitting of soldiers, and needlessly cruel and wasteful tactics of Soviet Generals.)
The end of the Second World War saw the Russians, specifically the Soviet Union enter the stage as a preeminent world power. Those who still wished to pursue a teleology of whiteness being a necessary perquisite of Modern Empire then adapted their views to those expressed in your video, the Russians where white, despite centuries of European thought saying otherwise.
I hope this answered your question.
Sources:
Aust, Martin. "Russia and Europe (1547–1917)", European History Online, Published: 2016-03-10.
Carl Peters, “Der Ostasiatische Krieg und Europa,“ in Carl Peters, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 3 (Munich: C.H. 70 Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1944), 345-346.