The Foreign Service Journal, May 2007

A Grim Portrait Putin’s Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy Anna Politkovskaya, Henry Holt Company, 2007, $16, paperback, 274 pages. R EVIEWED BY E. M ARGARET M AC F ARLAND Few people better exemplify Rus- sia’s long, proud tradition of dissent, and the price dissidents too often pay, than the late Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Her second book, Put- in’s Russia: Life in a Failing Demo- cracy (originally published in 2004), takes on a grim new significance fol- lowing the author’s October 2006 ass- assination. To be sure, there are no revelations here for anyone at all familiar with the chaotic conditions of New Russia. Nor does the author claim any unique insight into President Vladimir Putin’s secretive government. Rather, the focus of the book is the plight of “Mother Russia” and her people. The individual tales of suffering Politkos- kaya compiles here, meted out by cor- rupt oligarchs and bureaucrats or inflicted during the war in Chech- nya, are as relevant as ever. The Russian language has two dif- ferent words to indicate one’s nation- ality — one connotes citizenship, and the other refers to cultural Russian- ness. The conceptual conflict be- tween the two is a theme that runs throughout Putin’s Russia. The Kremlin is at odds with Russia herself — a circumstance made clear in the story of Navy Captain Alexey Dikiy. Despite poor living conditions in iso- lated Kamchatka, Dikiy refuses to even consider resigning his commis- sion. “I am defending the people of Russia,” he tells Politkovskaya in the book, “Not the state bureaucracy.” The dichotomy between the people and the state has not stopped Putin from exploiting national and cultural identities to suit his aims. Politkov- skaya attributes the rising tide of ra- cism among Russian nationals to Putin- generated propaganda in support of the Chechen War, a conflict which Putin spins as a part of the larger war on terror. In a scene that would seem satirical had it not actually happened, concerned parents at a Russian ele- mentary school lobby for the expulsion 64 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 7 B O O K S