In its efforts to justify Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has introduced new history textbooks portraying the country as a long-suffering victim of Western hostility. But President Vladimir Putin’s promotion of this narrative has failed to heed a crucial lesson from the Soviet era.
As Vladimir Putin sits thinking in his bomb-proof office, he may come to regret the fact that the entire world is sure that he ordered the death of the mutinous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Kremlin is a Camorra, a mafia style parliament, running a gangster operation to fill Putin’s pockets and those of his oligarchs and elites. But as the Japanese found in Burma in 1944, if you prosecute a war with terror you will likely come unstuck against a well led, motivated and moral organisation like General ‘Bill’ Slim’s ‘Forgotten Army’.
Putin may in fact have signed his own death warrant. His fingerprints may not have been on the firing button when Prigozhin’s jet was brought down, and may not have been on the Polonium or Novichok which killed some of his other opponents, but his DNA is all over the orders. He now has two very powerful groups to worry about – quite apart from the International Criminal Court, which no doubt has so much evidence that if he ever gets to the Hague he will never leave.
Firstly, Putin must worry about his oligarchs who have now been holed up in their dachas in Moscow for over 18 months, unable to use their superyachts or villas in the Mediterranean. As their leader is further vilified around the globe over this latest murder, the oligarchs may come to see that their only chance to break out of Russia, now so diminished economically and socially, is to dispose of Putin.
Secondly, the Wagner Group might have lost their ‘cowboy’ leader and his deputy, but they remain a large force of thugs and murderers. Prigozhin was no military commander, but the Wagner Group is the most successful military outfit that Russia has managed to put into the field, no matter that they are paid mercenaries, many of them recruited out of Russian jails. To control such a rabble, you need some very hard ‘lieutenants’ running the show and these men will now be considering the future in Belarus and Africa. How ironic it would be if somebody showered them with riches to go and create mayhem within Russia. My experience of mercenaries is that they are not too picky about whose money they take.
It’s unlikely to be a coincidence that the final dismissal of ‘General Armageddon’ Sergei Surovikin was announced on the same day as Prigozhin was taken out. Putin has now disposed of his most effective military commanders and is left with desk jockeys like Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov to run the battles in Ukraine and the defence of Moscow. These men might have chests full of medals, but these medals are for ‘needle work and cookery’, not for fighting as Surovikin’s and Prigozhin’s were. A poorly led army is a rabble which will likely turn and run, and this is now what Putin has created.
I imagine that over the next few days we are also likely to be treated to a flood of “kompromat” which the late Yevgeny Vitorovich will have gathered on Putin and his baleful regime, for release in the event of his death. This could mean further pressure on an increasingly beleaguered Kremlin.
In the cold light of day, when Muscovites yet again have to dive for their shelters as Ukrainian drones approach, and reflect that their young men are coming home in boxes rather than in triumph, they will surely start to realise that Putin’s ‘special military operation’ is a complete disaster. But I expect it will be the oligarchs and Wagner who finish Putin before he completely destroys the Russian state.
What comes next cannot be worse or more evil; we’ve seen hell on earth in the last 18 months. What is certain is that the next Russian leader will not have a useable army or effective generals to command it for a generation.
Things are likely to get messier before they get better, but after the demise of Surovikin and Prigozhin, Putin’s coffin won’t require many more nails.
The priciest regulation is a child-to-staff ratio requiring one caregiver for every three or four infants, depending on the state. That’s a lot of employees, and it explains why quality care for one baby costs more than many families can afford. Cheaper options are often unlicensed and unregulated, and parents have no guarantee their kids are secure.
OpinionColumnist
A Sickly Ruble Reveals What Putin Will Not
Sanctions have not breached
Russia’s economic fortress, but they have put a time bomb under its
foundations.
Don’t look too closely.
Photographer:
ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/AFP
August 17, 2023 at 5:00 AM GMT+1
Listen
6:54
In the 18 months
for which Russia has been waging war against Ukraine, Western countries have
imposed more than 13,000 sanctions on Russia — yet the Russian economy shows no
sign of collapsing. On the contrary, the International Monetary Fund forecast for the
country is for 1.5% growth this year — more than the economies of Germany or
the UK.
The Kremlin likes
to boast that
sanctions don’t work, and similar reservations are increasingly being expressed by
Western observers. Yet the rapidly depreciating ruble, which in August became
the worst-performing
currency among developing countries, suggests otherwise. The Bank of Russia was
even forced to hike the key rate to 12% from 8.5% in one day during an
emergency meeting on Aug. 15. This move is likely aimed at taming inflation
that will be fueled by the ruble’s weakening.
While one
shouldn’t expect this to force Vladimir Putin to stop his disastrous war,
sanctions pressure has proven efficient for at least one goal: reducing the
flow of funds to the Russian economy. The Kremlin has no other option than to
divert money to the war machine, putting the economy on increasingly
unsustainable footing. So the West should continue to go after the Kremlin’s
revenue sources, including by lowering the oil price cap, introducing similar
measures on other Russian exports, and closing sanctions loopholes.
The fluctuating
ruble rate (from 53 to the dollar in June 2022 to 100 a year later) is indeed
an indicator of deeper problems. The immediate trigger for the ruble’s nosedive
in July was almost certainly the brief mutiny staged in late June by Yevgeny
Prigozhin and his mercenary army, Wagner, which added internal instability —
something that hadn’t seriously impacted the ruble exchange rate since the mass
street protests of 2011-2012 — to the risks facing Russia and impacting on the
rate.
But the fundamental
reasons for the fluctuating ruble rate are linked to changes in the structure
of market demand, above all reduced revenues from exporting oil and gas due to
the EU embargo on importing Russian oil and oil products, the price cap imposed
by the G7, and the subsequent rerouting of those commodities to different
destinations.
Although Russia
has managed to redirect significant volumes of its oil from Europe to Asian
markets, the transactional costs have increased, and there is no substitution
for the European gas market. The likelihood of the price cap being lowered even
further and stricter enforcement of sanctions compliance means the prospects
for Russian exports are dismal. Even if the Russian economy looks confident
right now, in the medium-term, the decline in export revenues will lead to an
even greater weakening of the ruble and, as a consequence, inflation.
The ruble is
replacing foreign currencies in export revenues, and now accounts for 39%,
reducing the net inflow of foreign currency into the country. There is also an
imbalance in demand for currencies: exporters need Chinese yuan, while
importers want dollars and euros. In previous years, when the ruble dropped
significantly in value, foreign funds and global investment banks sprang into
action to profit from the situation. Their presence also evened out market fluctuations.
Now they are gone, and that means future swings in the exchange rate are
guaranteed. This increased volatility weakens the currency's payment and saving
functions: People and businesses will cut costs and postpone investments.
Of course, Putin
can always resort to his previous tactic of calling Rosneft Chief Executive
Officer Igor Sechin and other exporters and demanding that they repatriate hard
currency. But manually managing the ruble rate will not fundamentally resolve
the situation.
The ruble’s main
adversary is the Russian state itself, which is actively spending budget funds.
Its high volatility and the fact that it halved in value in less than a year
are consequences of the new economic policy forged by the war and sanctions.
What the Kremlin calls the “structural transformation of the economy” is more
commonly known as military Keynesianism: boosting economic growth through
increased military spending.
The “structural
transformation” of the economy effectively amounts to a huge increase in defense
spending. As in Soviet times, war has engendered entire groups of
beneficiaries: the military-industrial complex and related manufacturing, as
well as military personnel and their families, who are part of the state
sector.
Defense spending
rose 9.2% in 2022 to $86.9 billion, according to estimates by SIPRI. In this
first half of this year, it was already way over budget,
standing at more than $72.2 billion. Combined with social spending (for which
over $75 billion was budgeted this year), that makes up more than one-third of
all state spending — twice as much as before the war.
The defense
industry is pulling other industries along with it, propelling demand for
imports, sustaining GDP and putting money in ordinary Russians’ pockets. Real
incomes increased in regions that are home to military manufacturing, according
to the state statistics service, and where there are reportedly high numbers of
professional soldiers, such as Chechnya. The defense industry is working around
the clock, luring personnel away from the civilian sector with high salaries
and exemptions from being mobilized. To retain personnel, other sectors are
also having to raise salaries. The groundwork for runaway inflation has been
laid.
A significant
part of both state and individual spending is on imports, and the return of
Russian imports to their pre-war
level is stimulating demand for hard currency. Until the
government cuts or slows down spending that stimulates imports, the ruble
exchange rate will remain weak.
Trust in the
Russian financial system is dwindling fast, as evidenced by the constant
outflow of capital. Hard currency deposits into Russian banks fell by $9.1 billion
to $152.4 billion in June, while from the beginning of 2022 to May
2023, the volume of deposits abroad made by Russians (mostly in Armenia,
Georgia, and Kazakhstan) grew by $43.5 billion.
There is no help
forthcoming for the ruble. The central bank’s freeze on buying
hard currency from August through the end of the year is more of a palliative
measure than anything else.
.
Putin’s
disastrous war against Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions have not breached
Russia’s economic fortress, but they have put a time bomb under its
foundations. Any decrease in market demand looks unlikely while the war rages
and the country is gearing up for presidential elections. Thanks to sanctions,
the country is unable to produce certain complex hi-tech goods itself, meaning
that far from becoming more self-sufficient, Russia’s dependence on imports
will only grow.
The volatile and
weakening ruble exchange rate is testament to just how imbalanced the Kremlin
has allowed the economy to become, and that it is already barely coping. When
the war ends, the sudden switch in demand from the inflated defense sector back
to the civilian sector will be a powerful shock that will be impossible to
absorb painlessly. As we know from history, it also proved impossible for
Russia’s predecessor, the Soviet Union.
More From Bloomberg Opinion:
Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN <GO>. Or you can subscribe
to our daily
newsletter .
— With assistance
by Elaine He
This column does
not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and
its owners.
--With assistance
from Elaine He.
To contact the
editor responsible for this story:
Nicole Torres at ntorres51@bloomberg.net
Alexandra Prokopenko is a non-resident scholar at
Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, visiting fellow at the German Council on
Foreign Relations and research fellow at the Centre for East European and
International Studies. She was previously an adviser at the Bank of Russia.
Dr. Pippa Malmgren brings intrigue and insight to every conversation. That’s why I’m thrilled to welcome her to Global Macro Update this week.
As you’ll hear in the video, we discuss a wide spectrum of political and economic hot points—from the invisible tools of modern warfare, to Taiwan’s role in the global chess match, to the possibility of a Democrat “Trumper” taking the Oval Office.
Pippa thinks World War III is already here. We just can’t see the action because the battlefield has moved to space, where global superpowers are racing to control what’s orbiting our planet.
If that sounds a little, well, out there, remember that we live in a GPS-dominated world wholly reliant on satellites. If an adversary knocks out the right satellite—which some have the capacity to do—our world could grind to a halt.
Pippa also talks about America’s festering political angst and how it might shape the next election… and throw open the door for the lone Democrat “Trumper,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I’m always struck by the breadth of Dr. Malmgren’s expertise. In our conversation, we also cover:
The real story behind the failed coup in Russia.
The one thing essential to Russia and Ukraine reaching a peace settlement.
Why a little-known land gap could expose NATO’s Achilles heel.
The sources of rising distrust in politicians and our political system.
The fading outlook on President Biden.
You can see our conversation on YouTube by clicking the image below.
A full transcript of our conversation is available here.
Dr. Pippa Malmgren is a prolific writer, author of several important books, an economist, and has advised everyone from policymakers to presidents around the world. You can follow her work on Substack here.
Thanks for joining me this week at Global Macro Update. Please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel. It helps us attract new viewers.
You can send me your comments on Twitter @EdDAgostino.
 |
Good morning! Goldman Sachs says that Zero-Day Options are fueling the recent S&P 500 selloff. Are they right? Yes. I’ll take it a step further, though. Zero-Day Options have destroyed price discovery, made market manipulation easier, and should be banned immediately to protect individual retail investors. Here’s the skinny. Zero-Day Options are exactly what they sound like… options tied to the S&P 500 that have a maturity of less than 24 hours. Hence “Zero Days to Expiration,” or “0DTE” in Wall Street speak. Professionals argue that 0DTE Options are a tactical alternative to trading equity futures because they allow traders to capitalize on positions quickly while limiting the amount of money needed to do it. Retail investors love the idea that they can place highly leveraged bets on very sensitive options with no overnight margin risk because they expire at the end of day. They’re both right. What I have a problem with is the way Wall Street is rigging the game at the expense of individual investors, most of whom are totally unaware that they’re being played like a $2 fiddle. Zero-Day Options are binary, meaning you win or you lose, depending on where the underlying security settles. They are no different than betting “red” or “black” at the roulette table. Standard Black-Scholes pricing models used for normal options calculations don’t apply. Trying to hedge ‘em or use more sophisticated position control is nucking futs, despite what legions of erstwhile furus would have you think. The only way to price 0DTE Options and calculate the corresponding probabilities properly is to understand how price moves and by how much it moves when it does. If the probability of a move higher or lower is p and magnitude of the move is m, the anticipated fair value of a binary 0DTE Option should be p*m. Here’s where Wall Street has the upper hand and, unfortunately, the game gets downright nasty. 0DTE Options introduce noise into the system where there otherwise isn’t any. Practically speaking, they’re like handing out firecrackers at a party, then telling everybody with matches to be quiet. Wall Street’s big money traders and market makers live and die by “hedge ratio,” which is best described as how much of a given stock or security you’ve got to buy or sell, depending on where the price of that stock is related to the strike of the option—meaning, is it higher or lower than the strike. Very simplistically for purposes of our discussion, this is equal to the probability of finishing ITM or “in the money.” The trick is that the number—the hedge ratio—shifts violently at the strike, particularly as the end of each trading session approaches. If you’re hedging calls, you need 100% of the underlying security on hand if the price closes higher than the strike. So you’ve got to buy and, often, very quickly. You don’t need anything if it’s lower than the strike and closes underneath the strike. If you’re trading puts, that’s reversed. Experienced options traders will recognize this as “infinite” gamma because the delta can go from nothing to 100%, even with a minuscule move. If you’re not an options trader, here’s what you need to know. Gamma and delta are options “Greeks”—a set of mathematical measures used to measure the sensitivity and risk of options positions to changes in underlying market factors, including asset prices, time to expiration, volatility, and interest rates. Delta measures the rate of change in an option’s price in relation to changes in price of the underlying asset. It’s usually expressed as how much an option’s price will change for every $1 change in the underlying asset’s price. Gamma measures the rate of change of an option’s delta. Functionally speaking, it represents how sensitive an option’s value is to changes in the price of the underlying security, which, for the purpose of our discussion today, is the S&P 500. Gamma is highest “at the money” and decreases as options move farther in or out of the money. The reason this is a problem is because Wall Street’s big money traders have figured out that if there is enough buying activity in specific options—either puts or calls—”buying” the hedge can effectively move the option toward the strike while overwhelming demand for otherwise normal market liquidity. In other words, they’ve figured out how to move prices practically at will by creating enough “demand” in the options chain because they know market makers and other traders will be required to keep up, meaning buy or sell shares to maintain an appropriate hedge ratio. Put options are particularly thorny because huge demand from put buyers will generate increased shorting activity in the underlying security. That then forces more selling and creates a negative feedback loop. The situation reminds me very much of Black Monday in 1987 when computerized trading—then in its infancy—executed larger and larger sell orders in an effort to keep pace with price drops that grew more intense as the negative feedback loop formed. Ironically, the very computers that were placing huge orders in an effort to limit losses actually wound up magnifying the selloff and accelerating the decline. I have never forgotten what it felt like when panic took over the exchanges. But that’s a story for another time. I recall a similar transition when the CME first introduced S&P 500 e-minis in 1997 and were billed as a way to allow traders to speculate or hedge the S&P 500 Index without having to trade the much larger, full-sized S&P 500 contracts. Then, as now, the smaller contracts were also touted as a way to make ‘em more accessible to individual investors and traders. Big traders figured out very quickly that they could manipulate prices by “hedging” and speculating in those same contracts. Effectively, driving gamma. You’d think regulators would learn, but Wall Street doesn’t work that way. Changes are viewed as “modernizing” markets and carefully protected as such by vested interests. What’s happening now is NOT a coincidence. I believe that there is an excellent case to be made that Wall Street’s biggest, most sophisticated traders are once again—and very deliberately—manipulating the system at the expense of individual investors who, unbeknownst to them, are playing right into the traders’ hands. Nomura Securities International recently compiled data showing that 1.86 million 0DTE Options contracts—or roughly 55% of the S&P 500’s total volume—changed hands on Thursday, August 10, when the S&P 500 shot higher, only to close sharply lower. That figure was routinely 10% or less as recently as 2019. That wouldn’t be so bad if it were an isolated incident. But it’s not. Nomura’s data also show that 4 of the top 10 most-traded 0DTE sessions have happened this month, just halfway through August. The news headlines and legions of well-intentioned but clueless economists and market watchers are describing what’s happening as the summer doldrums or relating price action to Fed-related fears. I’ve got a bridge to sell you if you believe that. The data very clearly show that 0DTE Options are changing market behaviour. What’s more, they’re changing market direction. S&P 500 Futures have wiped clean session gains of at least 0.9% several times in the past few weeks alone, effectively breaking the rally that has been in play since last October. You’re not imagining things if you’ve ever wondered why intra-day volatility continues to climb, the indices seem to reverse more violently, and the markets seem drawn to specific price points. The average S&P 500 high-low swing ratio was just 1.6 from January to July but has now jumped to 2.2X its daily move on a closing basis this month. Citigroup’s head of equity trading believes that traders are also using low-cost 0DTE Options to position around key economic data report releases like, for example, monthly payroll and CPI readings on August 4 and 10, respectively. I agree. Moreover, the situation is so predictable that you can tell who controls which side of the tape based on where the open interest is stacking up. For instance, 0DTE calls have generally outnumbered puts since last October, which effectively “pulled” the S&P 500 higher. However, 0DTE puts have dominated options flow since late July this summer, effectively pushing markets lower. Now what? Puts dominated the tape again Thursday. The largest block sat at 4350 as I prepared the first draft of this article late Thursday evening, which is why I am not surprised to see pre-market S&P 500 futures falling to 4355 as I type ahead of the opening. Both are roughly in line with the longer-term support levels I highlighted late in the day during an appearance on Making Money with Charles Payne yesterday. (Watch) Traders I’m familiar with suggested yesterday that dealers may have been -$58B short for every 1% SPX move. My quick back-of-the-envelope math this morning makes me think the figure is probably closer to -$60B short this morning as prices get “pulled” lower. What’s Next I’ve been tracking related changes in liquidity for our consulting clients for the past few weeks, and what I see is actually good news. There’s still plenty of money on the move. Yes, it’s undeniably scary, volatile and downright uncomfortable, but—and this is vitally important to understand—what’s happening now does NOT disturb the longer-term business case for owning stock in the world’s best companies. It’s purely technical, short-term price action, nothing more. What to Do Right Now If you’re a trader, putskies or bearish spreads are your play as long as the 0DTE crowd is playing to the put side. Index options, in particular. If you’re an investor, now’s the time to do three things:
And if you’re a regulator, please do something about this before it really gets out of hand… like outlawing daily 0DTE Options entirely… while there’s still time. In closing, stuff like this sounds a lot scarier than it is. Take a deep breath. We’ve seen this playbook before, and we know what’s needed to win. Remember, chaos creates opportunity. |
MOSCOW – A revanchist agenda, driven by the desire to rectify perceived historical wrongs, lies at the heart of Russia’s foreign policy and provides the rationale for its war in Ukraine. But what Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have forgotten is that rewriting history to serve the interests of those in power tends to invite dissent and often backfires.
Russia’s new history textbooks for tenth and eleventh graders are prime examples. Authored by former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky and Anatoly Torkunov, rector of the once-renowned Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the textbooks reflect Russia’s “new approach” to history, emphasizing the need to reclaim the country’s lost “historical territories” and praising the “special military operation” in Ukraine.
But Russia’s turn toward revanchism predates February 2022. State propaganda has long portrayed Russia not as a colonial power but rather as a “unique civilization” that must maintain its singular essence and whose demise could trigger global chaos.
To be sure, Russian culture has frequently indulged in grandiose imaginings, and the collapse of the Soviet Union has intensified Russians’ longing for less chaotic, more dignified narratives, giving rise to a cottage industry of alternate histories. Under Putin, however, these embellished narratives have taken center stage.
Mathematician and conspiracy theorist Anatoly Fomenko’s so-called “new chronology,” for example, claims that major events that occurred during the ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian empires actually occurred during the Middle Ages and revolved around Russia. Fomenko’s claims about a vast conspiracy to falsify global history fill his books, which were prominently displayed in Russian bookstores during the early 2000s.
As Putin and his security-service allies (siloviki) consolidated power, fantastical narratives of imperial grandeur, replete with time-traveling historical figures restoring Russia’s honor, burst into the mainstream. These tales, many of which originated during the tumultuous 1990s, often depict democracy as a Western plot designed to destabilize Russia. Authors like German Romanov have cast eighteenth-century czar Peter III – famously overthrown by his wife, Catherine the Great – as a time traveler who returns to the past, thwarts Catherine’s rebellion, and transforms Russia into a new Byzantium. Other popular narratives involve Stalin traveling to the future to prevent the USSR’s dissolution.
Subscribe to PS Digital now to read all the latest insights from Nina L. Khrushcheva.
Digital subscribers enjoy access to every PS commentary, including those by Nina L. Khrushcheva, plus our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content, including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More.
For a limited time, save $15 with the code KHRUSHCHEVA15.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
In Russia, culture often serves as a political barometer. Amid the prolonged deadlock in Ukraine, narratives have become more important than facts. But literary fiction and TV propaganda can do only so much. Thus, the new history textbooks aim to indoctrinate the country’s 17-year-olds into believing that Russia had to invade Ukraine to fight Nazis and defend itself from an encroaching West. But the Kremlin’s promotion of this narrative has failed to heed a crucial lesson from the Soviet era.
When I was growing up in Leonid Brezhnev’s Moscow, textbooks were constantly rewritten to reflect the ever-changing political climate. Under my great-grandfather, Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s brutal legacy – particularly the wrongful deaths and incarceration of millions of people – was heavily scrutinized. During the tumultuous 1930s and 1940s, my grandmother Nina painstakingly removed the images of friends, now branded “enemies of the state,” from family photographs. When Khrushchev was ousted by Brezhnev in 1964, he too was scrubbed from official histories.
Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost (openness) exposed these historical distortions, but Putin has revived the practice. Much as in Stalin’s era, the gravest offense in Russia today seems to be perceiving reality as it is, rather than adhering to the Kremlin’s approved narrative.
Last November, as Ukraine successfully reclaimed the city of Kherson from Russia – just months after the Kremlin declared, “Russia is here forever” – Vasily Bolshakov from Ryazan joked about the Russian forces’ retreat on social media. He was subsequently fined and now faces up to three years in prison. In Putin’s Russia, openly acknowledging reality is tantamount to “discrediting the Russian armed forces, reducing their effectiveness, and aiding the forces opposing the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens.”
In his efforts to justify the war, Putin has set the Kremlin propaganda machine to full throttle. In the revised history textbooks, Russia’s use of force is portrayed as a necessary response to national-security threats. Such narratives frame Russia as a perpetual victim of Western hostility, shifting blame away from the Kremlin to external adversaries. The subtext is clear: regardless of one’s opinion of Putin, he is protecting Russia, much like Stalin did during World War II.
In fact, Putin’s regime is now in a more precarious position than the Soviet Union was in its final days. While an unwavering official commitment to communism animated the USSR for more than seven decades, contemporary Russia’s belief system is a hodgepodge of conflicting “values”: Christianity amid a war cult, Stalinism coexisting with contempt for Lenin (who sought to accommodate Ukrainian identity), and anti-Western sentiments alongside conspicuous consumerism. From the outset, Putin has encouraged this postmodern pastiche, reviving the Stalin-era national anthem, flying Soviet army flags, and comparing himself to Peter the Great.
Medinsky and Torkunov’s textbooks embody this incoherence. In addition to literary heavyweights like Mikhail Sholokhov, they incorporate works critiquing Soviet injustices, such as Yuri Trifonov’s The House on the Embankment, and, astonishingly, even poignant novels about contemporary Russia, such as Vladimir Sorokin’s Ice Trilogy. In Soviet times, I would have interpreted this as a clandestine attempt to undermine the Kremlin by subtly introducing oppositional perspectives. Today, I see it as a testament to the regime’s blatant cynicism and delusional hubris.
Trifonov’s novel, for example, is about high-level party apparatchiks suddenly sent to the Gulag – the very people my grandmother was cutting out of her photographs. How does such a story align with the official claim that Russia has waged only defensive wars and never persecuted individuals based on religion, ideology, or ethnicity?
It doesn’t. And Russia’s students, unable to dissect these contradictions in class, will likely discuss them at home, just as their parents and grandparents did.