Russia and the World
This is the final chapter of the Russian Empire
Says Masha Gessen
Hardly anyone knows Russia and its history as well as Masha Gessen, who was a guest in the series “Europe in Discourse” in Vienna’s Burgtheater to discuss the war in Ukraine. I listened in.
Masha Gessen is a journalistic luminary. In their book The Future is History, which won the National Book Award, Gessen traced the transition from the Soviet Union to the Putinian mafia state, showing why the brief hope for a democratic Russia was not fulfilled. Furthermore, Gessen is a Russian-American essayist, and journalist on the New Yorker’s permanent staff and has written books on Putin and Trump that also unravel the systematics of these newer autocrats.
Some of what Gessen says is summarized and partially paraphrased by me as one wasn’t allowed to tape. I took notes.
Totalitarian Societies
Gessen explains that we tend to overestimate the role of ideologies in totalitarian societies. There are several reasons for this: one of them is the way history is made. It is text. The other reason is that we see totalitarian societies as ideologically driven, but ideologies are mostly cobbled together. And often only afterward. What changed in the February 23 speech — just before Russia invaded Ukraine — was that Putin made it clear that this idea of a unified empire is the only legitimate way for him to think about Russia. And that the invention of the Soviet Union as a kind of anti-imperial empire was illegitimate. Now that must be thrown on the garbage heap of history. What Putin wants to restore is Russian greatness, and Russian greatness is amorphous and geographically ambiguous.
On the war in Ukraine and why Putin invaded
It was never a war about territory. For Putin, Ukraine must not exist because it is anti-Russian. He sees Ukraine not as a former colony, but as a part of Russia that experienced the same tragedies in the 20th century and now aspires to a different future. The latter boils down to the fact that history is not destiny. And that thought is absolutely intolerable for totalitarian leaders. Putin wants to enforce this law of history. It would be wrong to frame the conflict as “about Western liberal values versus Putin’s traditional world civilization.” The basic idea is that Russia wants to impose its history on Ukraine.
Putin feels the West betrayed Russia
For Putin, the great event of Russian history is the “Great Patriotic War”. Victory in World War II was a gift from the Russians to the world, which, showed itself to be ungrateful, according to Putin. Russia felt betrayed. And secondly, it was a means of excusing the terror of the Soviet Union, because that terror was precisely the price of Russian greatness. And thirdly, that win back in WWII gave Russia the right to be a superpower. For all eternity. And the US wrested this right from Russia. That is in Putin’s eyes, unforgivable.
Will the sanctions work?
Most people say sanctions are imposed to bring about regime change. But when has that ever worked? People organize in response to economic hardship only when they perceive it as a direct result of government policies. If this is credibly presented as external pressure, it fails — not to mention that Putin is so paranoid that people get arrested just thinking about protesting.
Then there is the notion that sanctions could lead to a palace revolution. And that’s even worse than a lie — it’s just plain lazy thinking. Due to the country’s mafia structure, it’s extremely unlikely. Oligarch Vladimir Potamin became even richer as a result of the war. The oligarchs push each other out of the way. And thirdly, it is about weakening the Russian economy so that it becomes more difficult for Russia to wage war. Well, it’s not McDonald’s job to ruin, or at the very least, weaken Russia — only an oil embargo can do that. We don’t know if it would end up affecting Putin, but the argument that it would make war more difficult is valid.
Europe at a crossroads?
We don’t know what will happen. We do not know if it will be a huge, protracted conflict, with different countries gradually destroying the European consensus, which is not entirely unlikely. Hungary is starting to do this, and the longer the war goes on, the darker it could get. If the war ends in the best possible way and Ukraine becomes part of Europe, we will have a completely different geography of Europe. The catastrophic possibility of nuclear war is also not entirely improbable. So there are at least three possibilities.
People are afraid of war, and they should be. However, the view that escalations must be prevented at all costs is reprehensible. The West must step up and help Ukraine with all means necessary and possible. Otherwise, one could think that “As long as Ukrainians are killed, it’s fine. We just have to make sure that no Western Europeans are killed.” This is a fundamentally amoral way of thinking and the opposite of solidarity. Then this idea circulates that the war that Russia is waging is an anti-imperial war because it is against Western hegemony.
Boycotting Russian Athletes and Cultural Figures
Gessen has some sympathy for the boycott of athletes because sports are tainted with such strong national symbols. They say, and I agree, that one shouldn’t allow the sports spectacle outside of Russia.
On whether one should boycott conductor Teodor Currentzis because he had his orchestra financed by a state bank: Gessen says quite correctly, that Currentzis had received Russian state funds for years and they have no problem with him or any other Russian artist or organization being punished for it. Gessen wishes the cultural community would finally make clearer provisions for artists who act immorally and pretend they can exist outside of politics. Gessen went on to say that ‘if you sleep with criminals, take their money, and think you’re smarter, then you will be disappointed.’
I have a moral right to say that because I lived there and took no government money. I paid for it and had to leave the country with my family. What I mean by that is that you can choose differently. And these decisions are not only evident in hindsight but already when you make them. And they were as clear as they could be because the state specifically asked artists to put on a good face. People were okay with that. They were basically collaborators.
What civil structures are left inside Russia?
There are still people who are arrested every weekend for anti-war actions. People are still being arrested for allegedly spreading fake news. Is there a public sphere? Putin destroyed it years ago. But there were those bubbles of civil society, and there’s still some left of that. Russia has been a terrible experiment in attrition for more than a hundred years. While it is a testament to human capacity that there are still people trying to do something, we also see that you can destroy a country.
What comes next for Russia?
On the one hand, this is the last chapter of this regime. It ends here. However, it can be a very long final chapter that can get ugly and take a long time. It is doubtful there will be a Russian Federation after this — this is the last chapter of the Russian Empire. Gessen hopes to live long enough to at least visit Moscow when it’s over. So do I.