The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War Hardcover – June 7, 2016

The author confides: "This book is not a history of Russian media, however; rather, it is the story of the country they have invented" (p. 6).A compelling eloquent discourse on the significant individuals, events, influences, which resulted in the abrupt 1991 demise of communist Soviet Union, evolving subsequently, to its Syrian campaign. The author seamlessly weaves the chaotic conflicting interests into a coherent mesmerizing narrative.The Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster highlights the underlying corruption endemic throughout the Soviet government: "The only reason it passed an inspection by foreign experts was that, prior to the inspection, its engineers had temporarily replaced Soviet electronics with Swedish and American ones.... [I]t embodied the carelessness, arrogance and window dressing that were the essence of the Soviet planned system.... The whole system was penetrated by the spirit of boot-licking, persecution of dissidents, clannishness, window-dressing and nepotism" (pp. 62-64).Overall, engaging, fascinating, informative.For more about Russia, please see, Vladislav M. Zubok, "Collapse The Fall Of The Soviet Union."

This book is based on the premise that television has been the primary force in post-soviet Russian politics, and maybe this is just a tad overstated. It starts as Gorbachov and his peers attempt to reform the system by reverting back to the purity of Lenin’s vision of socialism before it was corrupted by Stalin. The real problem is that this new perestroika does nothing to improve the economy or put stuff back in stores. Yeltsin as leader of the Russian state attracts a coterie of idealists who would establish a “normal” form of western democracy in a functioning state with a real market economy. This initially includes responsible television technicians who make the news both interesting and informative. But the public at large does not really get it – all they understand is the consumer goods that can be had in the western paradise. Yeltsin effectively hijacks Russia out from under the USSR, forcing the formal break-up of the union in 1992. The 1991 coup by hard-liners never had a real chance. Much more troublesome is the use of force to blast the recalcitrant combination of right wing nationalists and former communists out of their parliamentary bastion in the White House in 1993. Oligarchs emerge and very little of this is described in any detail. You get the impression that some of this grew out of the active black market combined with technocrats who managed to divert state funds into their own domains. The cooperative is named as the favored vehicle for this, but hardly explained at all in its actual workings. Reminds me of the famous Beresovsky statement that “you don’t have to privatize the state companies, you just have to privatize their profits.” Yeltsin is portrayed as latching onto the Chechen war as a diversion from his growing unpopularity and it works as well as the Russo-Japanese war worked for Nicholas. Gaidar and Chubais and their privatization measures are mentioned almost in passing. Yeltsin’s popularity plummets and neo-nationalists combined with hard core communists seem poised to win the presidency in 1996. The media comes to the rescue using oligarch funds to turn the tide – creating a bargain with the devil. In the process the television hierarchy is completely corrupted. Then Beresovsky, Gusinsky and the other oligarchs themselves begin to declare war on each other as Yeltsin’s erratic behavior compounded by financial collapse in 1998 focuses attention on the choice of prime minster as heir apparent. A few PM try-outs fail and then Putin arrives. He is the opposite of Yeltsin – young, vigorous, athletic, and the perfect image of a KGB operative such as those so wildly popular on screen as Stierlitz and Brat. The Second Chechen war erupts with exploding apartments in Moscow – and a failed incident that sheds doubt on everything. The Beslan incident illustrates how thoroughly the media has been co-opted. Putin finds that nationalism and anti-American frenzy works even in the face of economic downturn. He actively works against the federalism instituted by Yeltsin designed to give regional governments as much autonomy as they can “digest” in his consolidation of power. Oligarchs like Khodorkovsky and Beresovsky who don’t fall in line are brought down. Then the story ends with the assassination of Nemstov in 2015 and the all too effective use of the Ukrainian war to forge national unity in the face of US inspired NATO aggression.

Arkady Ostrovsky brings to life a very wide array of persons who shaped Modern Russia through the last decade of the Soviet Union to times of great hope, idealism, the prevalence of mass communications from Soviet times through the emergence of Putin, the cynicism of oligarchs who use the State for personal aggrandizement and power, the use of propaganda to sustain the State in face of growing despair throughout the Russian populace, the transformation of media into its own reality that orchestrated an Alternative Reality in Chechnya and later in Crimea that provided cover for crude — even inhumane — armed takeover through naked propaganda that even the Russian populace did not believe in but who supported the toppling of Crimea with patriotic desperation and zeal, until Putin finds himself fostering nationalistic hysteria and xenophobia and launching of foreign interventions (e.g. in Syria) to sustain domestic illusions that threaten to collapse under the weight of its own unreality with the young who increasingly are disconnected from the old propaganda machine, until Putin and the oligarchs ultimately may lose sway with the young and Russia may again invent itself. Ostrovsky immerses the reader in the Russian reality in a way that brings to life a great culture, but witnesses the tragedy of hopes of the People dashed upon the cynical use of brute power that does not hesitate to bring its mailed fist to bear with assassination of liberal leaders — Boris Nemtsov is a case fully discussed. Any reader of the five great novels of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky will recognize the spirit and face of Ostrovsky‘s array of characters. Each could play her or his leading role in Demons, The Idiot or Brothers Karamasov. Ostrovsky has been Moscow Bureau Chief for the Economist; he is native to Russia; was fully educated in its institutions; and he interviewed substantially all of the leading characters extensively. For a person who loves the Russian culture, and who could learn Political Realism about her/his own USA, this book is well recommended.