| NOTHING IS TRUE AND EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE The Surreal Heart of the New Russia Peter Pomerantsev New York: PublicAffairs, November 2015 |
Rating: 4.5 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-61039-600-4 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-61039-600-6 | 243pp. | SC/GSI | $16.99 | |
It seems that when a Mafiya1 oligarchy replaced the nominal Communism of the old USSR, the Russian Federation became a haven for obscene wealth and glitzy decadence. Enter one Peter ("Piitrrr") Pomerantsev, expatriate from London, the Russian-born son of dissident parents who fought against communism, determined to document the seductive swirl of life in the New Moscow.
"The Russians were the new jet set: the richest, the most energetic, the most dangerous. They had the most oil, the most beautiful women, the best parties. From being ready to sell anything, they became ready to buy anything: football clubs in London and basketball clubs in New York; art collections, English newspapers, and European energy companies. No one could understand them. They were both lewd and refined, cunning and naive. Only in Moscow did they make sense, a city living in fast-forward, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality, where boys become billionaires in the blink of an eye." – Page 3 |
It is a surreal world he presents to us: one where gangsters become the respected leadership of towns in the hinterlands, while one makes his own films starring himself and his associates, with real fistfights and real gunfire; where an obese seven-year-old2 is a local hero; where law-abiding business owners3 are arrested, convicted, and jailed solely because someone well-connected wants their company; where Moscow's historic buildings are demolished in a frenetic race to erect yet more glass-and-steel towers; and where young women (mainly those who grew up without fathers, it seems) exchange the rough life in the provinces for the capital, where academies teach them to be gold-diggers.
"Today we will learn the algorithm for receiving presents," the instructor tells her students. "When you desire a present from a man, place yourself at his left, irrational, emotional side. His right is his raational side: you stand to his right if you're discussing business projects. But if you desire a present, position yourself by his left. If he is sitting in a chair crouch down, so he feels taller, like you're a child. Squeeze your vaginal muscles. Yes, your vaginal muscles. This will make your pupils dilate, making you more attractive. When he says something, nod; this nodding will induce him to agree with you. And finally, when you ask for your car, your dress, whatever it is you want, stroke his hand. Gently. Now repeat: Look! Nod! Stroke!" – Page 13 |
And over and above all these bizarre characters loom the Kremlin and the President, one V. Putin.4
"Now, Russia does have elections, but the 'opposition,' with its almost comical leaders, is designed and funded in such a way as to actually strengthen the Kremlin: when the beetroot-faced communists and the spitting nationalists row on TV political debating shows, the viewer is left with the feeling that, compared to this lot, the President is the only sane candidate. And Russia does have nongovernmental organizations, representing everyone from bikers to beekeepers, but they are often created by the Kremlin, which uses them to create a 'civil society' that is ever loyal to it. And though Russia does officially have a free market, with mega-corporations floating their record-breaking IPOs on the global stock exchanges, most of the owners are friends of the President. Or else they are oligarchs who officially pledge that everything that belongs to them is also the President's when he needs it: 'All that I have belongs to the state,' said Oleg Deripaska, one of the country's richest men. This isn't a country in transition but some sort of postmodern dictatorship that uses the language and institutions of democratic capitalism for authoritarian ends." – Page 42 |
Essential to this are the media productions managed by the state TV company Ostankino, which turn the President into a mythical hero and Russia into a heroic homeland under siege by the West. Its best known propaganda channel, RT (formerly Russia Today), manages to recruit foreigners from Europe and even the U.S. to bolster its messaging — though many of them tire of being manipulated and bail out, replacements are always waiting.
In addition to making TV documentaries like the one about the obese child for TNT, a smaller outfit, Pomerantsev directed a reality TV series for TNT in Russia. Called Hello–Goodbye, it portrayed lovers meeting and parting at Domodedovo, Moscow's newest airport. It flopped; viewers tired of lies refused to believe it was real. A more recent job is as a consultant to a new media house called SNOB which he describes thus:
"It is meant to foster a new type of 'global Russian,' a new class who will fight for all things Western and liberal in the country. It is financed by one of Russia's richest men, the oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, who also owns the Brooklyn Nets. I have been hired as a 'consultant' for one of SNOB's TV channels. I write interminable notes and strategies and flowcharts, though nothing ever seems to happen. But I get paid. *
* * The employees are the children of Soviet intelligentsia, with perfect English and vocal in their criticism of the regime. The Deputy Editor is a well known American Russian activist for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and her articles in glossy Western magazines attack the President vociferously. But for all the opposition posturing of SNOB, it's also clear there is no way a project so high profile could have been created without the Kremlin's blessing. Is this not just the sort of 'managed' opposition the Kremlin is very comfortable with? On the one hand allowing liberals to feel they have a free voice and a home (and a paycheck), on the other helping the Kremlin define the 'opposition' as hipster Muscovites, out of touch with 'ordinary' Russians, obsessed with 'marginal' issues such as gay rights (in a homophobic country). The very name of the project, 'SNOB,' though meant ironically, already defines us as a potential object of hate. And for all the anti-Kremlin rants on SNOB, we never actually do any real investigative journalism, find out any hard facts about money stolen from the state budget: in Russia you are allowed to say anything you want as long as you don't follow the corruption trail." – Page 68 |
It all adds up to a depressing picture of total nihilism, in which reality is unimportant and all that matters is the official doctrine of the moment — and at the moment the official doctrine is that viciously corrupt Western forces are seeking to undermine the resurgent Russian state. After ten years, Pomerantsev can't abide the schizophrenic state any longer and retreats to London — only to find ill-gotten Russian wealth pouring into the city, subverting its culture with the willing acquiesence of local authorities. In the end, he leaves us with the impression that he will go along with the creeping cultural subversion, hoping perhaps to outlast it.
I don't doubt the accuracy of his reporting, the depth of his insight into the New Russia, the urgency of his warning, or the sincerity of his angst over the situation. He mentions William Browder and Jamison Firestone, seminal figures in the dispute between Russia and the U.S., and reports Firestone's call for a European Magnitsky Act. But this is in some sense a sad narrative of a town ravaged by a series of disease outbreaks, which concludes by noting the scourge has cropped up in a distant city that should have been prepared to handle it but apparently is not. The book has neither endnotes nor index. There is a page of "Extra Reading" with seven sources. I don't think this is nearly extensive enough. I'll give him a 4.5 for effort and rate his book a must read, but not a keeper.
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.