Once upon a time, we could have a chat about sensitive subjects without anyone getting their knickers in a twist. But after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and their crackdown on anyone not blindly following orders, it’s not so easy peasy lemon squeezy. For example, the Carnegie Moscow Center, where I used to work and shoot the breeze with the ruling elite, got the ol’ heave-ho from the authorities last spring. Most of the clever folk have jumped ship and are now setting up shop in Berlin.
Those still stuck in the Motherland can no longer have a chinwag about what’s in store for Russia’s future. But the massive interest in “The End of the Regime” shows that people aren’t being swayed by the state propaganda brainwashing. They’re still thinking about what’s coming next. And judging from the book’s title, they’re not exactly keen on the status quo.
For many people, buying the book is a way of sticking it to the man. Bookshops have been sneaking it onto their shelves to let the world know just where they stand. One place near the infamous Lubyanka, which used to be the KGB headquarters and now belongs to the FSB, popped copies of “The End of the Regime” next to a book grovelling at Putin’s feet and another one about Stalin. Subtle.
Unlike *yawn* authors from Soviet days or old-timey czarist Russia who had to dance around their country’s problems by writing about other people and places, I didn’t write a book about Putin in drag as a story about Spain, Portugal, and Greece. But unlike the millions of Western books about the same topic, I wrote this bad boy specifically for citizens of an autocracy. I’m one of you, my comrades. Let’s overthrow the bourgeoisie. Or something like that.
Most importantly, the book gives you a fresh take on the Duma, the Kremlin, and all those slick politicians. Anyone who knows their onions can tell that comparing Russia to Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union is like trying to squeeze a bear into a tutu. Sure, it’s difficult to picture Russia going down like the Reich, but that doesn’t mean they’re in the clear. The end of the Soviet Union didn’t happen because everyone was singing Kumbaya around the campfire. It was because the economy was in the toilet and people were too hungry to care about communism anymore.
Serious News: nytimes
