Myth? Legend? Folklore? History? Fiction? This is The Story of Russia, as the title of Orlando Figes’s 2022 book puts it.

Every nation, every country, and, indeed, every empire has a founding myth: some event or figure that is meant to embody the values and origins of the state and unify the people with an overarching narrative of where they came from and where they are going. Figes shows, however, that Russia is a peculiar exception to this norm. For many reasons, when it comes to Russia’s history and origins, there is no true consensus or understanding. Rather, Russia’s history and origins are so deeply intertwined with myths, narratives, legends, politics, folklore, and religion that you must first be willing to dive deeply into all these intricate components and then sift through them to discover even a morsel of truth.

As Figes demonstrates in his work, despotism is one constant truth of Russia over 800 years, from the authoritarianism of Kievan Rus’ (the progenitor of modern Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus) to Putinism. The systems and titles may have changed several times, but the brutal and violent methods of securing and maintaining centralised power in Russia have remained largely unaltered—because, circularly, the belief that Russia can only be ruled by brutality and violence has remained largely unaltered as well.

Russian industrialisation did not even begin until the late 19^th century, partially because of Russia’s reliance on serf labour. Because serfs had no social or economic mobility, and even their physical mobility was restricted to the confines of their village, there was no space for innovators, investors, and entrepreneurs who could revolutionise the system. The natural emergence of capitalism, inextricably connected to industrialisation (like an axle to a wheel), was impossible for a long time in Russia. In Russia, unlike the rest of Europe, the state, in the form of the Tsar, was the sole financier of industrialisation.

During the first half of the 18^th century, the skill of history writing was still emerging in Russia. A German scholar named Gerhard Friedrich Müller outraged the Russian academics at the newly established St Petersburg Academy of Sciences by daring to conclude, based on his research of the Primary Chronicle, that Russia’s origins could be traced back to the Vikings. To say that Scandinavians created Russia was not something to be lightly asserted at a time when Russia had just emerged from victory in one of its many wars with Sweden!

Müller was accused by Mikhail Lomonosov, his rival in the academy, of degrading the Slavs by presenting them as savages who couldn’t organise their state without outside help. The Russians, according to Lomonosov, were not Vikings, but Baltic Slavs, descendants of the Iranian Roxolani people, whose history dates back into the mists of antiquity.

Another fascinating aspect of Russian history that Figes delves into is the notion of Moscow as the ‘Third Rome’, the bearer of the Orthodox Christian flame after the fall of the ‘Second Rome’, Byzantium. This succession—or natural inheritance, as it is viewed by many Russians—means that Russia has a God-given mission in the world, a view that derives in part from the medieval theology it inherited from the Byzantines. The idea that the West is in a state of degeneration and collapse and that Russia is a superior civilisation thanks to its unbending devotion to Orthodoxy is an idea that has recurred again and again in Russian history. Holy Russia, in short, is the true source of humanity’s salvation. This view of Russia as saviour fundamentally influenced both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The sacralisation of power was deeply linked to this because it portrayed the Tsar (or the Party) as the direct manifestation of God’s will on Earth (or the embodiment of the dialectic of history).

This messianic streak is still apparent. Putin’s ongoing war with Ukraine can be understood through this framework: divine right places Putin above human laws, human rights, and earthly realities, and Ukraine, due to its exposure to the degenerate societies of the West, is in need of cleansing by holy war.

Figes skilfully examines the reasons behind Russia’s failure to establish a democratic government over the centuries (contrast with Ukraine) by compellingly illustrating how democratic reforms were consistently hindered by pivotal historical events. These events include the impact of the French Revolution during Catherine the Great’s reign, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia during Alexander I’s rule, the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 (which halted his transformative reforms), the suppression of democratic ideals by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution, and the perpetuation of autocratic tendencies following the fall of the Soviet Union. While Western thinkers have debated, discussed, and theorised about the abstract notions of the state and the people, the role of religion, and the role and structure of the state for hundreds of years, there has been no similar wide-ranging, long-term enquiry in Russia.

Yet another fascinating and critical topic explored in The Story of Russia is Russia’s eastward expansion. As Figes notes, between 1500 and 1917, the territories controlled by the Russian state grew, on average, by a staggering 1,300 square kilometres per day. This expansion, of course, was not merely of land; it also included expansion of control over the indigenous populations the Russians encountered. Russian expansion was, in essence, Russian colonialism. However, unlike in many Western countries, Russia has not reflected on or reckoned with its colonial past. Russian expansion is viewed as a kind of ‘self-discovery’—or, as Figes describes it, as the story of a country colonising itself.

It is certainly not shocking that no such reckoning has occurred or even begun in Russia given that the official narrative on all matters Russian has been crafted by authoritarian regimes, from the Tsars and the Soviets to Putin. But where, then, is the international community? Where are the protests against the bloody past, so common in the West? Where is the holding to account for the cultural genocide, forced assimilation, brutal treatment, and forced imprisonment of indigenous peoples in and along the eastern portion of Eurasia?

Perhaps the only apt comparison is that of the plight of the Uyghur Muslims, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group who live in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, China. Over one million Uyghur Muslims have been imprisoned by the Chinese government since 2017, and those not imprisoned are subjected to intense surveillance, religious restrictions, forced labour, and forced sterilisation. The outcry, protests, and condemnation from the international community on this issue have also been lacking, albeit not totally absent. Similarly, but to a worse extent, the silence on the ongoing plight of the indigenous peoples of Russia is stunning.

Figes’s assessment of the Putin regime’s endorsement of the doctrine called the ‘Russian World’ is particularly valuable. According to this doctrine, Russia is a civilisation characterised by its spiritual values, in contrast to what is perceived as the liberalism and materialism of the West. The ‘Russian World’ includes not merely Russia, but also Ukraine and Belarus, a view supported by Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who believes that all Orthodox believers, whether in Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus, have a common origin and deep connection stemming from the coming of Christianity to Kievan Rus’ in 988. Kirill’s shocking inability to denounce Russia’s war on—not to mention his declaration of holy war against—Ukraine is a direct consequence of this view of history.

Among the many important themes discussed by Figes, one stands out to me as a necessary reminder of the malign uses to which prejudiced historical narratives can be put. That is, in true Orwellian fashion, control over how the past is understood grants control over the present and the future. The current unnecessary and unprovoked war with Ukraine is the result of Russia being detached from its history and at the mercy of an ever-changing narrative that benefits the ruling class and buttresses that class’s hold on power. This war is not just a crime against Ukraine, but also one against the best of Russia, whose literature and art have enriched Europe for centuries, and the people of Russia, whose desire for liberty has, tragically, never been fully realised. This war, in all its aspects, will only continue until and unless Russia is free to understand its own history—and learn from it.

Related reading

A view from Kyiv: Ordinary life during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, interview by Emma Park

Can the ‘New Theists’ save the West? by Matt Johnson

Against the ‘New Theism’, by Daniel James Sharp

What has Christianity to do with Western values? by Nick Cohen

Two types of ‘assimilation’: the US and China, by Grayson Slover

The post Russian history, Russian myths: review of ‘The Story of Russia’ by Orlando Figes appeared first on The Freethinker.

Like the typical visitor to Japan, I initially regarded Shinto as the quaint if not simplistic faith of the Japanese people. However, when placed in its historical context, I realised that Shinto was one of the last remaining major expressions of a much older faith, namely animism (typically described in Western countries as ‘paganism’).¹ Further study led me to the realisation that animism, with its panoply of mostly nature-affiliated deities like a sun or a rain god(dess), was in fact the oldest form of religion about which, today, we have any trace. That is to say, animism is now widely acknowledged among scholars as the oldest form of religion, practised universally by our ancestors for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years.

Inasmuch as survival plus reproduction is generally recognised as the fundamental purpose of all life forms, the creation of sun god(s), rain god(s), fire god(s), etc. is unsurprising. For just as the creation of stone tools enhanced the evolutionary fitness of hunter-gatherers, the presence of nature-affiliated deities offered the possibility of controlling (and benefitting from) natural phenomena that were beyond any other method of control. In short, what we today identify as religion resulted from the fundamental human need to survive, though it should be noted that religion at this stage was centred on the needs of the entire tribe—to ensure plentiful water and animals to hunt and so on—rather than the spiritual needs of the individual tribal member. Today, we now have examples of tribal religious practices involving nature-affiliated deities dating back as far as 70,000 years ago.   

Yet, if tribal-oriented, animistic religions can be traced back tens of thousands of years, if not longer, how does one account for the personal faiths we have today? For this, we are indebted to the insight of a German-Swiss philosopher by the name of Karl Jaspers (1883–1969). Jaspers noticed the broad changes in religious and philosophical thought that occurred throughout the entire world from about the 8th to the 3rd century BCE, now known as the Axial Age. He noted that the present-day spiritual foundations of humanity were laid nearly simultaneously and independently in China, India, Persia, Judea, and Greece. Among the key thinkers of this period, he identified Confucius and Lao-Tse in China, the historical Buddha and Mahavira in India, Deutero-Isaiah in ancient Israel², and Socrates and Plato in Greece.

Though their teachings varied, all these thinkers shared three basic elements in common. First, ‘truth’ was universally valid, and its existence was no longer confined to one’s tribe. Second, morality/ethical conduct, too, was universal. While it had long been wrong, or taboo, to steal from or injure a fellow tribal member, the rule for members of other tribes was ‘anything goes’, especially when the latter posed a threat or possessed something coveted by one’s own tribe.  At least in principle, those outside one’s tribe were now recognised as fellow human beings. Finally, the myths that had explained natural events like the eclipse of the sun, or the creation of the world, were no longer accepted uncritically. Slowly, haltingly, the search for rational answers to natural phenomena and life’s questions took root, eventually leading to the birth of science.

One good example of this change in mentality is provided by the historical Buddha in regard to the doctrine of karma. In Sanskrit, the word ‘karma’ originally meant no more or less than an ‘action’ of some kind. Later, in the Vedas, which initially presented an Indian form of animism, ‘karma’ came to mean action associated with properly conducted ritual sacrifices to the gods. It was only later still, with the advent of the Buddha, that karma acquired an ethical connotation. The Buddha ethicised the meaning of karma by identifying it with intentional actions on the part of the actor. Thus, when actions were undertaken with wholesome intent, this was good and proper, reaping positive rewards. However, when actions were conducted with harmful intent, this was wrong, and those who did so would suffer the negative consequences of their actions.

Not only did the Axial period mark the beginning of religion for individuals, but it also prepared the way for the emergence of all the major, universal religions we have today, whether Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism. That is to say, while there are major doctrinal differences between these faiths, they all share the same three basic characteristics born during the Axial Age. Thus, if there is hope for mutual religious understanding, if not religious tolerance, it is to be found in the fundamental tenets underlying them all.

However, given the copious amounts of blood that have been shed in conflicts between post-Axial faiths, it is readily understandable that readers may think I have a Pollyannaish view of religion. However, such is not the case, for I have long realised that the Axial Age did not bring an end to a tribal religious mentality. Instead, the Axial Age functioned to add something like an additional universal layer on top of limited tribal religion, the latter concerned first and foremost with the wellbeing of one’s ‘in-group’, whether defined by a common religious faith, ethnic and racial grouping, or simply membership in the new tribal grouping we call ‘nations’.

The ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza are classic examples of this religious ‘layer cake’. Prior to the war, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), while it enjoyed a degree of autonomy, was part of the Russian Orthodox Church. After the invasion in February 2022, the UOC declared its independence from Russia. (The Orthodox Church of Ukraine—a separate church—had already gained independence in 2018.) Since then, the independent UOC has attempted to cut all ties with Moscow, dismissing pro-Russian bishops and having its head, Metropolitan Onufriy, publicly condemn Russia. For its part, in April 2024, the Russian Orthodox Church proclaimed that Russia was engaged in a ‘holy war’ with Ukraine. Although they shared the same God, the same faith, the split between them clearly came about due to their allegiance to the contending warring tribal entities we today call ‘nations’.

As for the current war in Gaza, it is, if anything, an even clearer example of the conflict between universal and tribal religion. For example, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not hesitate to invoke the Biblical image of the Jewish tribal battle against the Amalekites.³ Last year, he said that Israelis ‘are committed to completely eliminating this evil [Hamas] from the world… You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.’

Netanyahu’s reference was to the first Book of Samuel in which God commands King Saul to kill all the Amalekites. God, says the prophet Samuel, has told the Israelites to ‘go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.’ (1 Samuel 15:3).

Likewise, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant claimed that ‘We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.’ While Gallant may have initially been referring to Hamas fighters, he went on to call for the collective punishment of all Palestinians in Gaza, stating, ‘We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed.’ The tribal nature of Netanyahu and Gallant’s comments, and their complete dismissal of the shared humanity of Israelis and Palestinians, could not be clearer.

That said, it is important to acknowledge that there are Jews, including in Israel, who do recognise their shared humanity with Palestinians. Organisations like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow share post-Axial universal values of caring for the poor and oppressed, pursuing justice, and treating others with compassion based on their shared humanity.  

If this analysis is correct, readers may be thinking that this tribal way of thinking is not unique to some adherents of Judaism, and they would be correct. One Christian example particularly relevant to the current situation in Israel/Palestine is the role played by ‘Manifest Destiny’ in American history. First coined in 1845, this term represented a collective mindset that viewed the expansion of the US as both necessary and ordained by God. As the US gained more territory, proponents of Manifest Destiny used it to justify the forced removal, enslavement, dehumanisation, and even elimination of Native American tribes, as well as the expansion of slavery into newly acquired territories.

Compare these actions with the words from Leviticus 19:33-34 that both Christians and Jews claim to believe in:

And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

These examples point to an unresolved split in all religions, i.e. between their tribal nature, based on tens of thousands of years of history, versus their post-Axial awakening occurring less than three thousand years ago. This awakening was of profound importance in that it led, at least in principle, to a recognition of the universal nature of their religious teachings based on their shared humanity. This in turn led, at least some of the time, to a feeling of mutual compassion in which people recognised others as extensions of themselves, extensions who had the same human needs and fears as they themselves had.

The struggle between a narrow tribal mentality versus a truly universal mentality accepting of others is one that transcends all ethnic, racial, national, and even religious boundaries. Nevertheless, in the US, for example, the slogan ‘America First’ is embraced by millions, demonstrating that for many the tribal mentality remains firmly in place.      

On the one hand, as brutal and destructive as religion-endorsed tribal warfare has been in the past, humanity as a whole was not endangered. Today, however, things are different. For the first time in the approximately 300,000-year history of Homo sapiens, we have the capacity to destroy each other not only in the tens of thousands, or even the millions, but totally, without exception. This is because of the very real possibility of ‘mutual assured destruction’ in the form of a nuclear-induced winter, not to mention the ever-increasing dangers resulting from phenomena like global warming. None of the deadly serious problems facing humankind as a whole can be solved by one or even a group of nations. They require the concerted efforts, and necessary sacrifices, of all the world’s nations and peoples.

Thus, adherents of all the world’s religions, and even those who identify with no faith, share a common challenge. Can we Homo sapiens collectively awake to, and transcend, the tribal religious mentality of our past or are we bound to continue to fool ourselves into oblivion, believing that we are pursuing universal truths even as we betray such truths in practice? In Ukraine, Gaza, and beyond, we live in a world characterised by the ongoing threat of thermonuclear warfare, global warming, and many other deadly challenges.

Can religion save the human race?

As an adherent of religion, I sincerely wish I could answer this question in the affirmative. However, in light of the above examples, and many others like them, I cannot. What I can say with confidence is that postaxial religion has the largely unrealised potential to prevent humanity from destroying itself. Yet, all too regrettably, this potential is far, far from being realised even though pockets of universal good will do exist.  A positive outcome for humanity, let alone all life forms, requires that we undertake concrete actions based on the realisation that the continued existence of our species is, in fact, dependent on the success of a truly universal struggle, by the religious and nonreligious alike, for human equality, dignity, and justice.

Will we be successful? Among many others, the answer lies with each reader of this article.

1. As a foundational aspect of various ancient and indigenous religions, animism is based on the belief that all things, animate and inanimate, possess a spiritual or animating force. ‘Paganism’ describes the same phenomena but the word as used to describe this belief system has pejorative overtones and is therefore no longer widely used. ︎
2. Deutero-Isaiah is the name given to the anonymous author of chapters 40–55 of the Book of Isaiah. He (it was most likely a ‘he’) is believed to have lived with the Jewish exiles during their Babylonian captivity (c. 597 BCE – c. 538). Because this prophet’s real name is unknown and his work has been preserved in the collection of writings that include the prophecies of the earlier, or first, Isaiah, he is usually designated as Deutero-Isaiah—the second Isaiah. Deutero-Isaiah was a pure monotheist who rejected the idea of Yahweh as the exclusive god of the Jews. Instead, he proclaimed that Yahweh was the universal, true God of the entire universe. ︎
3. The Amalekites were a people of the Negev and adjoining desert who were regarded as a hereditary enemy of Israel from wilderness times to the early monarchy. Amalek, a son of Esau’s son Eliphaz, was presumably the eponymous ancestor of the Amalekites. ︎

Read Part Two here.

Related reading

The rise and fall of god(s) in Indian politics: Modi’s setback, Indic philosophy, and the freethought paradox, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Religion and the decline of freethought in South Asia, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Can sentientism save the world? Interview with Jamie Woodhouse, by Emma Park

The Highbrow Caveman: Why ‘high’ culture is atavistic, by Charles Foster

‘The Greek mind was something special’: interview with Charles Freeman, by Daniel James Sharp

Image of the week: Anaxagoras, by Emma Park

‘The real beauty comes from contemplating the universe’: humanism with Sarah Bakewell, by Emma Park

Reading list against nuclear war, by Emma Park

Atheism, secularism, humanism, by Anthony Grayling

Morality without religion: the story of humanism, by Madeleine Goodall

The need for a new Enlightenment, by Christopher Hitchens

Can the ‘New Theists’ save the West? by Matt Johnson

Against the ‘New Theism’, by Daniel James Sharp

What has Christianity to do with Western values? by Nick Cohen

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Israel’s war on Gaza is a war on the Palestinian people, by Zwan Mahmod

Is the Israel-Palestine conflict fundamentally a nationalist, not a religious, war? by Ralph Leonard

Young, radical and morally confused, by Gerfried Ambrosch

Britain’s liberal imam: Interview with Taj Hargey, by Emma Park

White Christian Nationalism is rising in America. Separation of church and state is the antidote. By Rachel Laser

The post Can Religion Save Humanity? Part One appeared first on The Freethinker.

Lately, there has been much talk of a Christian revival and the rise of a so-called ‘New Theism’, whose chief tenets seem to be that Christianity underpins everything good and fluffy in the world and that we need it to combat ‘wokeism’, China, Russia, and sundry other threats. New Theism is epitomised by the likes of Jordan Peterson and Tom Holland and was most dramatically illustrated by the conversion of former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Christianity last year.

I am, to understate matters, unconvinced by all this, as are many of this magazine’s contributors. I imagine that we shall be hearing a lot more about the New Theism in the future, so I thought it would be worthwhile to compile a list of Freethinker articles which deal with, or are in some way relevant to, the subject. When and if we publish new pieces about New Theism, this list will be updated.

I would also like to take this opportunity to echo G.W. Foote’s offer to debate his opponents. As he wrote in 1881, in the first edition of the Freethinker:

‘Any competent Christian will be allowed reasonable space in which to contest our views; and if fuller opportunity is desired, the editor will always be ready to hold a public debate with any clergyman, minister, or accredited representative of the other side.’

Similarly, I would be happy to discuss or debate New Theism and all related questions with anyone, whether from ‘the other side’ or not. Just get in touch via our contact form. (More generally, I am open to discussion and debate on all matters that I have written about, in the Freethinker and elsewhere, both as the editor of this magazine and as an individual. In the latter capacity, you can contact me through my website.)

For now, and in chronological order, a reading list against the New Theism:

• ‘The Greek mind was something special’: interview with Charles Freeman, by Daniel James Sharp (17 November 2023)

• Consciousness, free will and meaning in a Darwinian universe: interview with Daniel C. Dennett, by Daniel James Sharp (18 December 2023)

• ‘We are at a threshold right now’: Lawrence Krauss on science, atheism, religion, and the crisis of ‘wokeism’ in science, by Daniel James Sharp (10 January 2024)

• What has Christianity to do with Western values? by Nick Cohen (12 January 2024)

• Do we need God to defend civilisation? by Adam Wakeling (30 January 2024)

• The Enlightenment and the making of modernity, by Piers Benn (23 February 2024)

• The case of Richard Dawkins: cultural affiliation with a religious community does not contradict atheism, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid (8 April 2024)

• ‘Nature is super enough, thank you very much!’: interview with Frank Turner, by Daniel James Sharp (9 April 2024)

• New Atheism, New Theism, and a defence of cultural Christianity, by Jack Stacey (16 April 2024)

• Against the ‘New Theism’ by Daniel James Sharp (19 April 2024)

• The need for a new Enlightenment, by Christopher Hitchens (26 April 2024)

• Can the ‘New Theists’ save the West? by Matt Johnson (30 April 2024)

• White Christian Nationalism is rising in America. Separation of church and state is the antidote. By Rachel Laser (6 May 2024)

• Donald Trump, political violence, and the future of America, by Daniel James Sharp (15 July 2024)

• Can Religion Save Humanity? Part One, by Brian Victoria (19 July 2024)

• How the Roman Empire became Christian: Catherine Nixey’s ‘The Darkening Age’ and ‘Heresy’ reviewed, by Charles Freeman (22 July 2024)

• The Enlightenment paradox: review of ‘Dark Brilliance’ by Paul Strathern, by Adam Wakeling (30 July 2024)

• Can Religion Save Humanity? Part Two: Killing Commies for Christ, by Brian Victoria (2 August 2024)

• ‘Project 2025 is about accelerating the demise of a functioning democracy’: interview with US Representative Jared Huffman, by Daniel James Sharp (3 August 2024)

• Russian history, Russian myths: review of ‘The Story of Russia’ by Orlando Figes, by Mathew Giagnorio (13 August 2024)

• Why I am a ‘cultural non-Christian’, by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (18 September 2024)

List last updated 18 September 2024.

The post A reading list against the ‘New Theism’ (and an offer to debate) appeared first on The Freethinker.

There is a pattern that usually occurs when a senior politician resigns or is chucked out of their job. First comes the emotion-laden speech, during which they will wax lyrical about the privilege of serving in public office. Second, the much-needed sabbatical, where they can spend time with the spouses and families they have barely seen since they were elected. And lastly, the lucrative deal with a publisher to write and publish the memoir of their time in office. 

The political memoir is the most sordid literary genre out there. Disgraced and failed politicians are given exorbitant advances by publishers to write, or have written for them, mediocre and self-serving memoirs that few within the public will read—or have even the faintest desire to read. The memoir is the ultimate payday for the disgraced politician who has to put themselves out there in the market again to secure their professional future. A memoir ought to be fascinating, insightful, even moving. It should give readers an insight into the character and personality of the person behind the public persona, as well as just telling the author’s side of the story. And, of course, political memoirs should reveal the inner workings of politics: the backroom deals, the sandbagging, and the scandals. Except, most of the time, such memoirs are public relations exercises in which insight is scarce and cheap score-settling is rife. Their authors usually care only about downplaying their failures and claiming they were misunderstood and undervalued all along.

‘This book is not a traditional political memoir,’ opens Liz Truss in her recently released contribution to the genre, Ten Years to Save the West. In one way, she is correct: this isn’t a typical political memoir, since Truss received a paltry £1,500 advance compared to the £500,000 and £1,000,000 advances that Boris Johnson and David Cameron received, respectively, for their memoirs. In other ways, it is all too typical. Truss’s retelling of her 49-day stint as Prime Minister is narcissistic, with the usual pointless score-settling, whether against Nick Clegg or Polly Toynbee. Moreover, there is virtually no self-reflection and she indulges in a nauseating amount of self-pity. 

‘Saving Western civilisation’ has been a sub-genre unto itself, especially on the right, for a long time, and Truss has ticked all the usual genre conventions. Truss argues that ‘the West has lost its way’ and long since become ‘decadent’ and ‘complacent’; the education system has been colonised by  ‘wokeism’, making us hate our own heritage; big business is enthralled by ‘“wokenomics,” where they are more focused on so-called environmental, social and governance objectives than making money’; and anti-capitalist leftists and environmentalists with their Net Zero obsession threaten future prospects of economic growth and progress. She doesn’t forget to name-drop Michel Foucault as supposedly being the godfather of identity politics, even though anyone who seriously knows anything about Foucault would understand that he saw identity politics as a form of ‘essentialism’—i.e. turning something that is a social and cultural construct into an ontology—and opposed it for that reason. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, Prime Minister Truss was going to stop the rot and save the West with a radical programme of supply-side economics but was undermined and overthrown by the ‘economic establishment’, the administrative state, and her rivals within the Tory party who didn’t accept her as leader. 

The subtitle of the book is ‘leading the revolution against globalism, socialism, and the liberal establishment’, which clearly shows that she is trying to pivot to a radical right audience. Yet this new animus towards globalism is a baffling triangulation. For most of her career, Truss has been advocating for what many would call a neoliberal form of capitalism. She was originally for the UK staying in the European Union. Even when she became a Brexiteer, it was so that Britain would become more ‘global’. She has always been a partisan of free trade. As Prime Minister, she even moved to liberalise immigration rules to grant more VISAs to newcomers. In her memoir, she defends her policy ideas, from education to the economy, by saying that she wanted to make Britain more ‘competitive’ in the global marketplace.  

On foreign policy, she is a thorough Atlanticist. She is firm in her support for arming Ukraine against Russian aggression, advocates a ‘restoration of British and American exceptionalism’, and wants to see a new  ‘coalition of the willing’ against rogue states such as China, Iran, and Russia. Isn’t this Atlanticism an example of the globalism that her desired allies on the radical right would detest? 

When Truss calls herself a ‘conservative’, she really means that she supports a conservative form of liberalism: low taxes, free trade, and the downsizing of the state against progressive liberalism, which is based on higher taxes and more state intervention in the economy. What she seeks to ‘conserve’ is the post-Cold War world order based on Anglo-American hegemony that has been in crisis for the past decade. This isn’t the radical, anti-establishment politics she portrays herself as representing. 

For someone who is supposed to be an avid defender of capitalism against anti-capitalist leftists, she doesn’t get how much of the big government and the administrative state that she lambasts is actually essential to the functioning and management of capital accumulation and the capitalist system as a whole. What she calls ‘socialism’—overbearing statism that intervenes invasively in people’s lives—is already served up to us by contemporary capitalism. Think, for example, of the ‘nanny state’, so detested by Truss. You don’t have to be a Marxist to understand this point. 

Truss’s chief complaint about her failed tenure as premier is that unelected officials and bureaucrats failed to respect her mandate. This only begs the question: what mandate? She wasn’t voted in democratically by the British public, nor was she even supported by most Conservative MPs in her bid to take over after the implosion of the Boris Johnson administration. Truss became Prime Minister because she was selected by the Tory membership in an internal, closed-off party contest. Then she banked on the markets instead of the British public to support her programme and the markets did her in. That’s the entire story of her premiership (admittedly, it wouldn’t make for a very long or a very interesting memoir). 

Ten Years to Save the West is the work of a failed politician whose historical legacy will be the unprecedented shortness of her premiership. She is now pivoting to the next stage of her career and trying her luck as an anti-establishment populist. Except she is repackaging very established ideas as ‘radical’ and ‘anti-establishment’. It is true that Western economies have been in a rut and that we desperately need a radical programme to generate more wealth and greatly improve people’s standards of living. But we didn’t need Liz Truss to tell us that. She was never the saviour of the West. Her policy ideas did not have democratic legitimacy and would not have worked. While Britain is still not in a good way politically and economically, it is no worse off than if Liz Truss was still in power—or had never existed at all.

Further reading

‘This rebarbative profession’ – Rory Stewart’s ‘Politics on the Edge’, reviewed, by Daniel James Sharp

The post Liz Truss, the nobody PM: review of ‘Ten Years to Save the West’ appeared first on The Freethinker.

Below are edited extracts from the interview. Nehrych describes what it was like to hear the bombs falling on his city and how people there have responded. He also explains why Ukraine, for him, is culturally European, how young Ukrainians are keen to change their country for the better, and why it is important not to fear death.

Freethinker: What was your experience of the beginning of the invasion?

Nehrych: I woke up when they started bombing Kyiv. That was at 05:00 a.m. on 24th February. And that was a real shock. I can’t even explain it to you, I can’t even find words for what I felt at time. It was horrible. I was prepared for it – I knew that Russia would attack us, but I didn’t know when. But they did it in the morning, just like Hitler did. In the morning, they were bombing all infrastructure, airports, warehouses, et cetera. They came close to Kyiv in a few days.

I lived in a district called Vynohradar – it was pretty close to the battle. On the day of the invasion, my friend called me up and said, “Andrii, it’s easier for us to live together for now.” So I moved to the apartment he shares with his girlfriend in the Obolon district on the edge of the city. Here we cook together, buy food together. It was much easier for us to survive this way.

The second day, my friend went to our local territorial defence office and took me with him. There were a lot of men there who wanted to get guns and defend the city. But the office told us, “we have a lot of people who have experience, so no need for you here.” I had never served in the army, and they told us that we could make things worse. So instead we helped at centres here in the Obolon district, sorting clothes, food, carrying all this stuff to people who couldn’t come to the centres.

Freethinker: What was the most difficult period for you?

Nehrych: The most difficult was the first month when Russian Army was around Kyiv. They didn’t surround us from all sides, but they did reach the northern left bank, on the edge of the city. That was horrible. We couldn’t sleep because we were hearing those bombs all the time. Each minute – each minute – each five minutes. But then we got used to it. There were two air bombs close to us – one about 700 metres from our house and another 300 metres. But still we were lucky, because not even our windows were broken.

When Ukraine was in the USSR, air raid shelters were built under each apartment block. So the first time when we heard air defence siren, we went to the shelter. It’s not very safe, but it’s much better than being on, say, the 16th floor. But maybe after the first week, we just felt like – it’s okay, and stayed in our apartments. We understood that if the bomb goes straight into our place, we would not be alive. So then we reached an acceptance of this: either we survive or we die. No other option here.

We have friends who are in the territorial defence. They described us how the different bombs sound. Before the invasion, I couldn’t have imagined that I could become some kind of expert in artillery and bombs. But this is life. We saw rockets launched into the sky. It was like in some Hollywood movie, except that I saw it with my own eyes. I can’t tell you what I felt at that time. It was a mixture of feelings. It was scary, but I was also happy that we had some guys who could defend us. If they hadn’t defended us in Kyiv, we could have suffered the same fate as in Bucha.

The first week, it was also hard to find food, even bread. But there were some funny and warm moments. Maybe 200 metres from us, near the underground station, there is a Georgian restaurant. From the beginning of the invasion, they were cooking special Georgian bread and distributing it to all the people who wanted it.

From around 29th-30th March, the Russian army moved out from the Kyiv region, and they have stopped bombing us. Now everything is okay. All our stores, food shops, they are full of food again – for the moment.

Freethinker: Did you ever consider leaving Kyiv and going somewhere safer?

Nehrych: A lot of young people, families, ran away from Kyiv when the war started. My mum and grandma live in the western part of Ukraine. From the beginning, they were asking me to come back to a safer place. But I didn’t run. I told them, if I run, if we lose here in Kyiv, then we will lose there too. Putin will not stop at Kyiv. So I decided it was better to remain and help people here.

Freethinker: When you go out on the streets, can you see how the city has been affected by the conflict?

Nehrych: I went to see the flat where I lived before the war. Some of the apartment blocks in that area are ruined – you can’t live there anymore. You would have to build them from scratch. But it’s not a problem – they can be rebuilt. What is horrible is that people have died.

In our district, through all Kyiv, we have a lot of roadblocks, a lot of anti-tank constructions, where the army and territorial defence are making preparations. They also check your documents, check your luggage, check all your things, all the possessions you have with you. This is because during this month in Kyiv, some collaborators – in Ukrianian we call them diversante (‘saboteurs’) – were caught filming and photographing the places where our army have their positions and sending them to the Russians for money.

Right now, maybe in the last ten days, a lot of people are coming back to Kyiv. From my window, as I’m talking to you, I can see a lot of cars outside. Shops, cafés, restaurants are opening back up. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, but it’s good for the economy.

Freethinker: How have people in Kyiv responded to the invasion?

Nehrych: When the invasion happened, everyone was shocked. A lot of people didn’t know what to do, but it makes me proud that maybe half the population of the city, from the first day of the invasion, started helping the army and the territorial defence. We were digging special trenches. We were helping with the sandbags so that they could make defences around the city. All the people started doing what they could.

Even old ladies, like 80 years old, who were pretty poor, were going to the shop buying bread and other food, taking it to the army, saying, guys, please take it. And the soldiers, said, no, leave it for yourselves. And then one old lady told them, no, if I don’t help you, then the Russians will come and kill me.

I’m happy that I’m Ukrainian because I’ve seen such things done by our people. Even our IT guys, who don’t know how to handle a gun, started working on the internet to gather money to make attacks on Russian government websites. Some entrepreneurs who were supplying food reorganised their factories to help to make helmets and gilets.

Freethinker: How much support has there been for Russia in Ukraine, in your experience?

Nehrych: Before the war, there were many more people who were supporting Russia than there are now. But even some of them have finally opened their eyes and understood that we are not friends. For centuries, the Russians have been saying that we are brothers, because we are Slavic – but so are the Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Belorussians. They tell us that we are brother nations, and then they come and kill us.

Because human life, for the Russian regime, has no cost – they can kill thousands, millions. The Holodomor of 1932-33 killed around seven million people, they took all their food. We still have that memory in our DNA. [Nehrych refers to the Great Famine in Soviet Ukraine.]

A lot of young people, we don’t tend to watch TV or listen to the radio. We are mainly on social networks, which we can filter. But sometimes we read Russian propaganda channels to see what they say. Russian propaganda is very strong – if you’re a weak person, it could work on you very easily. It could break you.

Freethinker: Culturally, in your opinion, where is Ukraine in relation to Europe and Russia respectively?

Nehrych: We are Europeans. We are closer to Europe than to Asia. In the 1990s, Ukraine was a poor country. But in the last two decades, a lot of Ukrainians, especially the younger population who had started businesses and made some money, visited Paris, Rome, Berlin, and began to ask, “Why do we live like this in a shit country? We can make it much better.” And they started asking the same question of politicians. Ukraine requires changes and it will be done, because young people want it to change.

Freethinker: Do you think Zelensky is a good leader?

Nehrych: It is good that he didn’t run away – he could have done. He stayed here. Right now we are very happy that he is not a coward. That doesn’t mean that we want to make Zelensky emperor, or a king who will sit in office until he dies. But right now we don’t discuss anything except the war. We’re all in this together.

Freethinker: Is that something that you are afraid of, that Russia will use a nuclear weapon? Is the fear still there?

Nehrych: We have no fear. Many Ukrainians, especially men who are defending our country, are ready to die. Whether it’s a nuclear weapon, whether it’s artillery or air bombs, it doesn’t matter. We are ready for this. It’s better when you are ready and when you’re not scared. Had we been scared, we would have been defeated in the first week.

Freethinker: What are your plans for the immediate future?

Nehrych: A week ago, when I was still looking for new job, I was almost about to give up the search and join the army as well, because for people like me who have no experience in it, there is a fast track in the army. You are taught how to handle a gun, how to fight in city combat, forest combat, et cetera. For the last month and a half I got used to ‘doomscrolling’ on social networks – but it’s a really bad addiction. Right now I have just got a new position, so I am trying to focus on normal life.

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