Deconstructing Russophobia
Imagine that Vladimir Putin were not a murderous autocrat and kleptocrat who has spent his fourteen years in power living up to his KGB past and dragging Russia ever back towards Communist autocracy, illiberalism, and expansionism. Imagine that instead he were the one of the greatest leaders that Russia has had, whose policies have helped produce a massive rise in living standards and life expectancy, recuperation of national pride, and enforcement of the rule of law, who has tackled kleptocrats and gangsters wisely and well, whose foreign policy has on balance been realistic, diplomatic, and conducive to peace, who has presided over a country of which the human rights record is considerably better than that of the United States and in which civil rights are improving, and who richly deserves the steady support of 65% – currently at a Ukraine-related high of 83% – of the population that he possesses. It is my understanding that the reality is closer to the second scenario than the first – and I may note that I say this as someone with no ethnic, financial, professional or political ties to Russia whatsoever. It follows that I am not a Russian expert – but nor am I, on the other hand, parti pris. I am a friendly, distanced observer of the country.
Let me start by explaining the history of my connection to the country. When I was a teenager my somewhat timid and unimaginative school uncharacteristically decided to organise a trip to a wacky place such as Russia, where, as it seemed, considerable political change happened to be taking place. So it was that I visited the Soviet Union during the last month of its existence, whilst myself having almost as little conception of what the Soviet Union was, as of what might be about to replace it. Some years later, in my year, so-called ‘out’, before university, I found myself living on the Danube’s South bank in Ruse, Bulgaria, learning some Bulgarian but telling myself that if ever I properly learned a Slavic language it would be one that would allow me to converse with hundreds of millions not just seven million users. After a degree in English I made a diagonal move into an MSc in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at the London School of Economics, where it was abundantly clear that Britain’s finest kremlinogists had had very little idea that or when the Soviet Union was going to end – and who, tsarist nostalgists and Soviet nostalgists alike – were dismayed at what was happening in the country at the time. The worst time was already over when, in 2002, I moved to Moscow to improve my book-learned Russian, and to teach English. I became amongst other things an Anglo-Russian literary comparatist, and have visited the country at least annually since then.
The Moscow I remember of 1991 was febrile, almost but not quite panicked, and throngingly poor. The Moscow I remember of 2002 can best be summarised with the word ‘rough’. Though safe in ways in which London isn’t – I often used private cars as taxis, alone, at night – there were also several obvious ways to die which London lacked. Open manhole covers, slipping drunk in the snow, crossfire. This was ‘diky capitalism’ – wild capitalism, with its gloves decidedly off. Legless – literally – Afghan vets pushing themselves through the snow, their torsoes balanced on makeshift skateboards. Families camped out singing for their supper. Concert-quality violinists busking. Professional gymnasts stripping in nightclubs. Makeup stores where Western brands were sold at what I at first thought were ruble prices but were in fact hugely inflated and illegal US dollar prices. My employer at a private English school wasn’t paying tax, on the grounds that he couldn’t both do that and be solvent. Police one crossed the street to avoid – both because one’s own affairs would inevitably involve some illegality, and because they were underpaid and relied on bribes.
