Now let me give you some good advice. In fact, this is the question I get asked most often, and the request I hear most often too. So I’ll do it for everyone at once: I’m going to recommend some books.
As a rule, in any confusing situation it’s worth reading a smart book—and especially now. So I’m not even recommending just one book, but a small series of good, useful reading. Just don’t roll your eyes and run away right away. I know the phrase “useful reading” sounds like horror and boredom, but the books I’m recommending are excellent, engaging, and easy to read. I guarantee you’ll have a wonderful time with them, and afterward you’ll say to me: “Thank you, Alexei, for your advice.”
Why is this reading so relevant? Because of the political situation, the upcoming elections, and Putin.
We are constantly arguing about how to bring about the end of this regime. It rests on lies, rigged elections, repression, corrupt judges—but also, in part, on its supporters. Real people who vote for Putin. I have no doubt you’ve often heard, and told yourself, the story of someone perfectly normal, educated, even intelligent, but “can you imagine, he supports Putin, a stubborn Putin loyalist, there’s no point trying to persuade him.” That is the value of this reading: to better understand why these people think the way they do.
This is by no means reflection on the past or some philosophical exercise. Politically speaking, there is nothing more relevant you can do right now than read these four books.
Take a look at the country’s age structure:
In Russia, all election outcomes are decided by people over 50. That is simply a fact. It is not necessarily a bad one. For example, in 2013, a large share of the 30% of votes cast for me in the Moscow mayoral election came from pensioners.
People a few years older than me (I’m 47) will definitely dominate the electorate for another 20 years or so.
That age group contains the core of support for our Koschei (the deathless villain from Russian folklore), and that is also where the needle that holds his death lies. We can break that needle only if we understand very well the chain of events that shaped the political views of this group of voters. Even if you are 50+ yourself, you still absolutely need to read these books, because your personal experience has had a very strong influence on what happened—both on the facts themselves and on how they are judged.
Four books: one very short, one short, and two long ones—and the order in which to read them.
My Testimony — Anatoly Marchenko (you can buy the e-book here). The Oligarchs — David Hoffman (you can buy it in English here, and you can probably find it online in Russian as well). Everyone Is Free — Mikhail Zygar (you can buy it here). The Successor — Mikhail Fishman (you can buy it here).
With Marchenko—the unbending and most untypical of Soviet dissidents—you will find yourself in the 1970s and understand (or remember) how people in that country lived, and why the changes of the mid-1980s were greeted with such enthusiasm. It’s a very slim little book. You can also go straight on to read Live Like Everyone Else, Marchenko’s unfinished book.
Then, through the impartial yet still astonished eyes of Washington Post Moscow bureau chief David Hoffman, you will see Soviet socialism turn into something that, in the minds of the Soviet nomenklatura, counted as capitalism. This is a long book.
Then, with Mikhail Zygar, you will examine in detail that moment in recent history when everything started going in a direction from which it would never return. A short book.
And then, with Mikhail Fishman, you will travel the whole road again and come almost up to the present moment, following the fate of Boris Nemtsov.
I consider Zygar and Fishman great devotees of their craft for writing books like these. I hope they will help establish in Russia this genre, so successful in the West: deeply engaging yet meticulous, fully sourced writing about people and events. The fact that the authors seem to have actually made money from these books is very good—and a wonderful example.
Two mistakes it is important not to make:
You may not want to read *The Successor* because you are not interested in Nemtsov’s biography. But first, the biography is interesting, and second, this book is not really Boris’s biography at all, but an excellent account of the evolution of the country he lived in.
(This would be a catastrophic mistake.) You may think: “Why the hell should I read *The Oligarchs* if Hoffman finished it back in 2001? Why do I need outdated biographies of oligarchs?”
Let me put it this way. All four books are excellent, but The Oligarchs is an absolute must-read. I made the same mistake myself, and although I think very highly of Hoffman—and his The Billion Dollar Spy is one of my favorite books—I only read The Oligarchs in prison (on Fishman’s recommendation, by the way; he called it “an absolute classic”). And even though I thought I already knew and remembered all of this well, the book stunned me.
On top of everything else, Hoffman is simply a very good and very engaging writer. He is, after all, a Pulitzer Prize winner—enough said. It is a little frustrating, yes, that the best book about why things in Russia turned out this way was written by a foreigner.
But perhaps that is exactly why he did it so well: an independent observer can sometimes see more clearly.
So there you have it. Do read them, and let me know what you think.