Illusions Lost in 2022
What I learned in 2022 is that a nation which lets itself be led by a murderer becomes murderous.
A couple years ago, I was approached by a recruiter who offered me a job in Voronezh, Russia. The job was two steps above my grade, with an internationally respected chemical manufacturer. Suddenly, returning to Russia from the US stopped being a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. It became a real possibility: the Russian economy was doing fine, and the chaos of the 90’s was long gone. I was in touch with a childhood friend — and he seemed to be doing well: a promising career and lots of family vacation pics.
I thought about it, read a little about the town. I asked my wife. She was incredulous: “Putin’s a murderer.” I knew Putin was responsible for the murder of Nemtsov, and probably many others. I knew about the wars in Syria, Chechnya… Still, I would not be working for Putin, so… maybe?
I asked my parents what they thought. “No. You would fail”, they said, “You don’t understand the culture”. I thought about that. What was it about the culture that was so prohibitively alien?
At the time, I thought I understood Russia pretty well. From the viewpoint of an immigrant in the US, it seemed a bit like the America of George W Bush: nationalistic, attached to notions of pride and flirting with racism. Like Bush, Putin liked to pose with military jets. Like Bush, he used the boogeyman of the Islamist to rally national sentiment. Like Bush, he was restricting press freedoms. So, from a distance, Russia seemed not too different. And after all, doesn’t the arc of history bend towards justice? One day, a different President would come (like Obama in the US), and things will keep improving? Won’t they?
In 2022, I found out how wrong I was. With the US taking a less globalist posture, Putin’s Russia finally felt able to stretch her wings. As it turned out, Putin was not simply a murderer. He was a tyrant who had gradually consolidated power until, it seems, everyone there indeed works for him. The childhood friend I told you about? He lost his job, and is waiting to be mobilized any day now (ROTC officers are eligible until the age of 50).
A country which lets itself be led by a murderer becomes murderous. It is my fault — for ever having considered taking my job. It’s the fault of every world leader, who, since the murders began, shook hands with Putin, pushed reset buttons, build military training facilities in Russia, and supplied missile parts. You thought Putin was useful to you — a source of natural gas, money, perhaps even military aid to take care of less savory missions. We should have seen it coming. But we didn’t. Only Matt groening saw it coming (Simpsons episode 3G04 “Simpson Tide” 29-Mar-1998, only one year after the publication of Dugin’s Fundamentals of Geopolitics):
Therefore, only Matt Groening (and ok, Gary Kasparov, my wife and some other smart people no one believed) can confidently say, “I did not learn this in 2022. I knew this before.”