The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

by Masha Gessen

The Bolsheviks placed a premium on the “creative intelligentsia,” as it was termed—writers, artists, and, especially, filmmakers—as well as scholars and scientists. Military officers ranked even higher. But most of all, the Bolsheviks valued themselves: privileges and benefits for “political workers” exceeded those of all other groups.

“The leadership of the Soviet Communist Party has, from its early days, been profoundly elitist in its attitudes,” Mervyn Matthews, a British scholar of Soviet society, wrote in the 1970s. “It has regarded itself as an enlightened band which understands the march of history and is destined to lead the Russian people—indeed the whole world—to communism. In daily life it has always ensured for itself and its close associates privileges commensurate with these awesome demands.”9

the ultimate Soviet privilege: living in material comfort—and watching Hollywood films instead of listening to the leaders’ own propaganda.13

GUDKOV’S AND HIS COLLEAGUES’ RESEARCH suggested that no message about the present and the future

could capture the hearts and minds of Russians, who now had their eyes set firmly on the past.

“Nazism is a psychological problem, but the psychological factors themselves have to be understood as being molded by socio-economic factors; Nazism is an economic and political problem, but the hold it has over a whole people has to be understood on psychological grounds.”16

Back at the beginning of the Reformation, wrote Fromm, the individual gained the ability to determine his own path—and at the same time lost his sense of certainty in place and self. Fromm divided newfound freedom into two parts: “freedom to” and “freedom from.” If the former was positive, the latter could cause unbearable anxiety: “The world has become limitless and at the same time threatening. . . . By losing his fixed place in a closed world man loses the answer to the meaning of his life; the result is that doubt has befallen him concerning himself and the aim of life.” Along came Martin Luther and John Calvin with remedies for this anxiety: “By not only accepting his own insignificance but by humiliating himself to the utmost, by giving up every vestige of individual will, by renouncing and denouncing his individual strength, the individual could hope to be acceptable to God.” In other words, the individual could in one swoop regain his certainty in the future—it would now be in God’s hands—and rid himself of his most unbearable burden: the self.

The authoritarian character survives by surrendering his power to an outside authority—God or a leader—whom Fromm called the “magic helper.” The “magic helper” is a source of guidance, security, and also of pride, because with surrender comes a sense of belonging. The authoritarian character is defined by his relationship to power:

Another key trait of the authoritarian character is his longing for and belief in historical determination and permanence: It is fate that there are wars and that one part of mankind has to be ruled by another. It is fate that the amount of suffering can never be less than it always has been. . . . The authoritarian character worships the past. What has been, will eternally be. To wish or to work for something that

They are told again and again: the individual is nothing and does not count. The individual should accept this personal insignificance, dissolve himself in a higher power, and then feel proud in participating in the strength and glory of this higher power.22

And for the sadistic side of the authoritarian character, the ideology offered “a feeling of superiority over the rest of mankind” that, Fromm wrote, was able to “compensate them—for a time at least—for the fact that their lives had been impoverished, economically and culturally.”23

It all fit. The love of power, the focus on Russia to the exclusion of the rest of the world—with an exception made perhaps only for a Napoleon or a Hitler, whose power trumped even their enemy status but who were made relevant by the fact that they had invaded Russia—this and other survey results added up to a totalitarian mind-set.

The cell is a concrete box about 1.5 meters [5 feet] wide and 3 meters [9 feet] long. It has no windows, no bed or mattress. It’s just a concrete floor, and nothing else.

Dear Russian people! The global American empire strives to bring all countries of the world under its control. They intervene where they want, asking no one’s permission. They come in through the fifth column, which they think will allow them to take over natural resources and rule over countries, people, and continents. They have invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Syria and Iran are on the agenda. But their goal is Russia. We are the last obstacle on their way to building a global evil empire. Their agents at Bolotnaya Square and within the government are doing everything to weaken Russia and allow them to bring us under total external control. To resist this most serious threat, we must be united and mobilized! We must remember that we are Russian! That for thousands of years we protected our freedom and independence. We have spilled seas of blood, our own and other people’s, to make Russia great. And Russia will be great! Otherwise it will not exist at all. Russia is everything! All else is nothing! This chant was picked up by other men on the stage. They pumped their right fists in the air. Russia is everything! All else is nothing! Glory to Russia!28

The word “values” was new, and it was key. The fledgling ideology now had all its components: the nation, the past, traditional values, an external threat, and a fifth column.

It is not enough to fine gays for propaganda to teenagers. We need to ban blood and sperm donations by them, and if they should die in a car accident, we need to bury their hearts underground or burn them, for they are unsuitable for the aiding of anyone’s life.11

From the Kremlin think tank

Gays were shaping up to be the perfect scapegoat: they were spies, they were bad for the army and dangerous to children, and whatever acceptance they had gained was a mistake made in 1993, under pressure from the West. Banning the gays, or at least shutting them up, was a shortcut to health and power, a rebuke to the West, and a guarantee of a populous and healthy nation.

😡