What about this year’s wave of anti-Putin protests? They were widely attended by Russian teenagers who were born and raised during Putin’s 18 years in power. As the protests died down in 2012, there was no contradiction for them in returning to their regular lives and finding nothing about the regime objectionable. For most people these awakenings are very short-lived. I’m pessimistic about such political awakenings. How important is this form of political awakening in Russia today? In Russia, this something has been postulated as faith and traditional values.Īt least one of the characters in your book also mobilized against Putin during the protests in 20.

Scholars of totalitarianism talk about the importance of this constant movement, this forever war, this need to do battle on behalf of something that needs protection. Because of its history with totalitarianism, Russian society responds with mobilization. In Russia the dog whistle does not elicit cries of protest. And in America the response comes from both sides of the debate, often with people showing solidarity with each other, like the athletes taking a knee.īut Russian society responds to such signals in a very different way. He sends out these signals to his supporters. Trump did this after the violence in Charlottesville and after the athletes began kneeling during the national anthem. The Kremlin just sends out signals that are actually not that different from Trump’s dog whistling to his supporters, to the people who share his idea of this imaginary past. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.So Russian totalitarianism comes from the grassroots, not from the top down? Gessen charts their paths not only against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, but also against the war it waged on understanding itself, ensuring the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state.

In The Future Is History, she follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy.Įach came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own - as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Hailed for her 'fearless indictment of the most powerful man in Russia' ( The Wall Street Journal), award-winning journalist Masha Gessen is unparalleled in her understanding of the events and forces that have wracked her native country in recent times.

Masha gessen the future is history