History and Future: Power Vertical podcast on ‘The Ghosts of Crackdowns Past’

• Mark Galeotti
• 4 years ago
• Categories: Russian History, Russian Politics, Soviet History

On a day when Russian Patriarch Kirill warned of a new Time of Troubles, when “treason” was cloaked in the rhetoric of the “modernization of the country” as a “great and holy mission” then it seemed wholly fitting that the RFE/RL Power Vertical podcast, The Ghosts of Crackdowns Past, should feature Brian Whitmore, Sean Guillory and me discussing historical parallels for the present drift towards repression and what lessons this might offer for the future. Admittedly, none of us went four centuries back (though I have paralleled Putin with Ivan the Terrible here), but still I thought it was a great discussion about what such historical episodes as the late 19th retreat from reform, Stolypin’s post-1905 crackdown, Stalinism and Brezhnev’s era may tell us about modern Russia.

This also raises questions about the use of history in politics, the way real (and more often mythologized) events are mobilized to legitimate particular narratives. Putin’s, on the whole, has rested on more recent history — beware a return to the terrible, anarchic 1990s — but as this loses its force, maybe they will try to use deeper history, instead. Of course, these appeals to historical authority are always contested, opportunities for different people and interests to put their own meaning and spin on the past. So maybe we should leave the last word to Kirill:

“So, too, today we must first and foremost make sure we prevent this ‘time of troubles’ from taking hold in our consciousness, in our minds… Today there are people, like the Boyars of Muscovy, who present unacceptable recipes for the modernization of our lives and improvement of our people’s living standards.”

After all, we wouldn’t want the modernization of Russians’ lives and the improvement of their living standards to be considered worthy ends in themselves, now, would we?