"They could curl up into total passivity or they could join a whole that is greater than they were."
Reading The Future is History by Masha Gessen
In “The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” Masha Gessen delivers a remarkable and thought-provoking examination of Russia’s post-Soviet landscape. It offers a fascinating and illuminating analysis of the country’s complicated journey and a deep understanding of the events and forces that have ravaged Russia in recent times.
The book follows the lives of seven people, four of whom were born at what appeared to be the dawn of democracy and each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations. Gessen provides valuable insight into the mechanisms of authoritarianism and its impact on society by drawing on a wide range of sources, interviews and personal narratives and by putting together the dynamics that have shaped modern Russia, particularly through her examination of the concept of “Homo Sovieticus,” which has been introduced by the sociologist Yuri Levada.
The term “Homo Sovieticus” refers to the social and psychological characteristics of individuals who grew up and lived under the Soviet system. The successful member of Soviet society suggested Levada, believed in self-isolation, a key strategy for both the state and the individual, state paternalism, and what he referred to as “hierarchical egalitarianism.” Levada also suggested that “Homo Sovieticus” suffers from imperial syndrome.
Gessen contends that the deep state never really went away and that the country is still struggling to free itself from the psychological subjugation fostered during the long decades of Soviet rule. The book is a superb, disturbing depiction of an authoritarian regime that exercises outsize influence in society, at significant human cost. “The format,” writes Gessen, “harked back to Soviet tradition, in which it was always the imaginary ‘ordinary people’ who supposedly begged the Party forever restrictive and punitive laws, but its main purpose was to maintain a constant pitch of high anxiety.”
“What options did this frightening country offer its intolerably anxious citizens? They could curl up into total passivity or they could join a whole that is greater than they were. … They could fully subscribe to the paranoid worldview in which everyone, led by the United States, was out to weaken and destroy Russia. Paranoia, offered a measure of comfort: at least it placed the source of overwhelming anxiety surely outside the person and even the country. It was a great relief to belong and the entrust authority to someone stronger. The only thing was belonging itself required vigilance. One had to pay attention: one day Ukraine was where the important war was being fought, the next day it was Syria. In the paranoid worldview, the source of danger was a constantly moving target. One could belong, but one could never feel in control. “
Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist, author, and activist who has been a longtime outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, and the former president of the United States, Donald Trump.