Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia by Joshua Yaffa
In 2000, The year Vladimir Putin ascended to the presidency, the sociologist Yuri Levada published an essay titled, The Wily Man, “an attempt to work though what for him had become a frustrating mystery: the persistence of the Russian personality type he had spent so much time coming to understand.” In his essay Levada identifies this new species of post-Soviet Russia as one that “not only tolerates deception, but it is willing to be deceived, and even requires self-deception for the sake of its own preservation.” It is clever and resourceful creature. “He adapts to social reality, looking for oversights and gaps in the ruling system, looking to use the ‘rules of the game’ for its own interest, but at the same time–and no less important- he is constantly trying to circumvent those same rules.”
Fast forward twenty years, Joshua Yaffa, a correspondent for the New Yorker in Moscow for a decade. His new book, Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia, offers a rich and fascinating look at the impact that the Putin era has on Russian psyche, and the struggles that many Russians confront.
He describes the lives of individuals who have built their careers and constructed their identities in the shadow of the Putin system. These are men and women who struggled to balance the strict and often arbitrary demands of an authoritarian regime with their own personal desires and consciousness. They managed to adapt to an oppressive system by compromising to extract benefits and privileges with mix results.
It’s not easy to portray the characters in the book as good or bad people. Even after finishing reading the book and thinking about them it was difficult for me to decide if they are to be commended or criticised for their actions. It’s this seemingly “grey” area that make them so interesting, both psychologically and socially.
This not a phenomenon unique to Russia, it happens in other countries too, not necessarily authoritarian. The United States, during the Trump presidency, is such an example. I suppose the big difference between Russia and other countries is the singular role that the state plays in Russia, and that makes the question of compromise more inevitable.
This book a superb portrait of contemporary Russia.