Abstract
Russia, no longer a superpower, today has a population less than half that of the former USSR. Its gross national product (GDP) is smaller than Canada’s or South Korea’s. But Vladimir Putin seems consistently to punch above his weight. Rejecting liberal democracy and market capitalism, his government has expanded its country’s borders and helped undermine the freer economies and polities of the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom, and the United States. Timothy Snyder attempts to explain how democracy is being eroded around the world, and what role the Russians have played.
His argument is based on two paradigms or world views. He introduces, first, the politics of inevitability, a Whiggish belief that the future will bring further elaboration of eternal truths already manifest in the present age. Americans’ vision of the “end of history” as a world triumph of free-market capitalism is a prime example. Such an outlook can produce complacency and encourage ignorance about the true state of the world.
He juxtaposes this with the politics of eternity, which views international relations as a zero-sum competition among nations. Each asserts “greatness” at the expense of others, often emphasizing past suffering and victimhood—real or imagined—at the hands of enemies external and eternal. Such an outlook can be found in more than one post-communist state, but also in President Donald Trump’s America and in Brexit.
Neither vision, the author suggests, offers a good guide to policy. Blinded by an imaginary future or an imaginary past, both ignore the complexities of the present, with potentially disastrous results. The George W. Bush administration’s delusional faith that “democracy” would erupt in the Middle East if Saddam Hussein was overthrown illustrates the perils of inevitability. Eternity is exemplified by the Putin government’s focus on past greatness and foreign threats, sweeping current domestic problems under the table.
Snyder’s antidote to both paradigms is to think historically: “to see the limits of structures, the spaces of indeterminacy, the possibilities of freedom” (p. 112). I take this as a call for an evidence-based, impartial approach to events past and present. To get beyond the myths, half-truths and outright lies that dominate so much of public discourse, sunlight is generally the best disinfectant. Unfortunately, the author’s account of recent events, incomplete and sometimes one-sided, does not quite live up to this ideal.
He first describes fascistic trends in Russia, as epitomized by the millenarian and xenophobic mystic philosopher Ivan Ilyin (1883–1954) as well as latter-day neo-fascists, such as Alexander Prokhanov. Snyder’s description of a rally in Sevastopol in 2014, staged by the Night Wolves motorcycle club to a text by Prokhanov, is blood-chilling: Virginal Russia was depicted confronting the “black penis of Satan” (p. 184). The question that Snyder does not address is whether this rhetoric has actually inspired the regime’s antidemocratic and nationalistic course: is it, perhaps, a post-hoc justification for actions that have other roots? To evaluate Putin’s policies, geopolitical factors, including the behaviours of the United States and its allies, also deserve attention. How, for example, was Putin’s strategy affected by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization expansion, or by the United States war in Iraq? Why did he and his oligarchic cronies feel threatened by Russia’s feeble democratic stirrings in 2011 and 2012? Is fascism a goal or a by-product of his policies?
Also missing from Snyder’s history are the numerous factors that predisposed many ordinary Russians—including some who previously supported liberalization—toward Putin’s slogans. It is no accident that the vast economic abuses of the 1990s were termed wild west capitalism. And the enthusiastic support that Americans provided to the false democracy of Boris Yeltsin has not been forgotten.
Fast-forward to 2014. Pro-democratic crowds in Kiev’s Maidan Square challenged Moscow and its values. The Russian propaganda machine went into high gear. Insisting that Ukrainians and Russians had for a thousand years been a single spiritual nation, Russia’s media portrayed Ukrainian protesters and their United States and EU supporters first as fascists, and, second, as an international homosexual conspiracy.
Snyder’s account of this story is accurate as far as it goes, but it downplays or omits important elements. Ukraine no less than Russia embodies the nationalist politics of eternity. Burdened by its own mythical past, it is also a divided nation: west versus east, Greek Catholic versus Orthodox, and (sometimes) Ukrainian speakers versus Russian speakers. Moscow has exploited these fault lines. In particular, divisive nationalist initiatives of the post-Maidan parliament played straight into the hands of Russian propagandists, causing dismay among many Russian speakers who, until then, had considered themselves loyal Ukrainians. Snyder ignores them.
Americans, meanwhile, were not just carrying cookies to Maidan. Special envoy Victoria Nuland was secretly recorded in conversation with the United States ambassador, apparently planning who should head the new government. The two also expressed uneasiness about Oleh Tyahnybok, one of several prominent right-wing nationalists whom journalists (including non-Russians) suspected of inciting violence. Neither Nuland nor Tyahnybok is mentioned by Snyder. At the very least, their conduct provided more grist for Moscow’s mill, more fuel for Russian leaders’ paranoia.
Russia’s next step was to invade and annex Crimea and promote establishment of independent Russian-speaking “republics” in Donetsk and Lugansk. A central role was played by “little green men,” ostensibly volunteers and patriots but often Russian soldiers out of uniform. In Crimea, a hastily-organized plebiscite produced an overwhelming but unbelievable 97% majority favouring integration into the Russian Federation. Unconvincing, but one should still ask what result a free vote might have produced. Some independent polls suggested that a majority supported association with Russia.
In Donetsk/Lugansk other questions arise. Why did Moscow, possessing a preponderance of military force, rely on proxies to carry out these actions? And why did it not try to absorb the two breakaway “republics,” as was done with Crimea, insisting instead that they seek reintegration (on Moscow’s terms) into Ukraine?
On the shooting-down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 15, Snyder reviews available evidence, making a persuasive case that a Russian missile fired from Russian soil was the culprit. He enumerates the preposterous explanations put forth by Russian officials (e.g., that the United States Central Intelligence Agency “had filled the plane with corpses and sent it over Ukraine to provoke Russia”) (p. 181). To Snyder, these were lies not meant to be believed, but designed as “implausible deniability” (p. 163)—to so muddle the story as to destroy any semblance of truth.
The flight may, as Snyder implies, have been shot down on Moscow’s orders so as to blame Ukrainians for an atrocity. But the plethora of mutually contradictory lies could support an alternative explanation: what if the shooting was a catastrophic mistake by ill-disciplined irregular troops—an incident that caught propagandists flat-footed, leading to wild improvisation to deny Russian responsibility?
Snyder’s account also covers cyberwar against the EU, Brexit, and the rise of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, not all of these can be scrutinized within the word limits of a short review. Arguably the Russians, and Putin personally, played a negative role throughout. But to understand how and why they so often succeeded one must interrogate their actions within a wider context. Putin is a practitioner of judo, a sport that teaches players to manipulate adversaries’ strengths as well as their weakness against them. Without evaluating those strengths and weaknesses, we cannot begin to understand the outcomes. Snyder’s provocative book leaves too many questions unasked or unanswered.