A FEW DAYS AFTER my trip to the Côte d’Azur, the situation in Ukraine degenerated. Rebels, supported by the Americans, refused to accept the election results. They occupied the main square in Kiev, where they sang, waved their orange ribbons, and chanted pro-Western slogans. Suddenly, international watchdog commissions, delegations of U.S. congresspeople, and European Union diplomatic missions showed up out of nowhere, all of them agreeing that the pro-Russian candidate’s election victory was fraudulent. Elections had just been held in Afghanistan and Iraq, with bombs exploding in the streets and polling places full of American soldiers—but no problem there, clearly everything was aboveboard. Not so in Ukraine, of course. There would have to be a revote, because the result came out wrong. So the Ukrainian government was forced to hold a second election, and this time the pro-American candidate won, the guy who wanted to make Ukraine a NATO member. Ukraine—the birthplace of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, the headquarters of our naval fleet—a part of NATO!
They’d called it the “Orange Revolution.” Precisely, a revolution! It was the final assault on what remained of Russian power. The year before, it had happened in Georgia. There, they’d called it the “Rose Revolution”! In that case, too, the upshot of the revolution, with its pretty girls and noble ideals, had been the installation of a CIA spy to head the government. You didn’t need a crystal ball to imagine where they were headed next: Russia. A big color-coded revolution in Moscow, a new president with maybe a master’s from Yale on his résumé, and the United States’ victory would be complete. Bush Junior could star in another of those masquerades he liked so much. “Mission accomplished!”—but this time coming to you directly from Red Square.
The strongmen all went to work immediately. Their tactic was to put the usual countermeasures in place—expel the Western infiltrators, neutralize the agitators, get tighter control of the media. These were certainly all useful measures, but I personally doubted how effective they would be. In cases of this kind, the use of force is always proof of negligence, stemming from a lack of imagination, and it rarely resolves problems in a lasting way.
My own approach was different. I remembered a strange character I’d met once or twice back when I was regularly seeing Limonov. A colossus of a man, well over six feet in height, always dressed in black leather, with an abundant mane of jet-black hair down to his shoulders, he was known as Alexander Zaldostanov. To all appearances, he was just another biker in the vast gallery of eccentric characters that Eduard liked having around him. He’d caught my attention because once, when we were dining with Limonov and his “people’s commissaries,” while his colleagues stuffed their faces with fried haunches of pork, Zaldostanov was picking at a plate of steamed shrimp with a green bean and pomegranate salad. “My parents were physicians in Kirovograd,” he’d explained, “and I have a medical degree from the Third Moscow Medical Institute. I used to be a plastic surgeon.”
At a certain point, he had realized it was more fun to break jaws than to reconstruct them. But he’d kept a sharpness and a delicacy about him that most of his companions lacked. In the late 1980s, he’d founded one of the first biker clubs in the Soviet Union, modeling it on the Hells Angels. The Night Wolves had started out as centaurs, prowling the streets on their old Sovietera bikes, looking for fights, breaking shop windows, and evading the police—typical, slightly naive rebels of the kind living in our exurbs at that time. After the Soviet Union collapsed, they’d made a qualitative leap and become a criminal gang that lived off racketeering and trafficking of every kind. “It felt like living in a science fiction movie,” Zaldostanov once told me. “Civilization had crumbled away, and we’d inherited the world. Or what was left of it.” The gang included Slavs, Chechens, Uzbeks, Dagestanis, Siberians—all sharing a passion for high-displacement engines and a taste for adventure. Almost all of them had huge tattoos. Imperial eagles, icons of Christ in Majesty, portraits of Stalin. Coherence didn’t count for much, what mattered was that all these images were symbols of Russian greatness. That’s what had drawn them together around Limonov.
Eduard was an intellectual, not stupid at all, and so by definition useless. But that wasn’t the case with Alexander. Zaldostanov was a real patriot, a man of action and a gang leader. Maybe the moment had come to let his rage have full vent. And the rage of all the good old boys around him—not one of whom, if I remember, weighed less than 235 pounds.
I’d arranged to meet him at the office. Zaldostanov showed up in his leather jacket, with a three-day beard, and a faint I-don’t-give-a-damn expression. But he was an intelligent man, he wasn’t indifferent to the setting in which he found himself. Not only had he never set foot inside the Kremlin, the idea that he might do so one day had never crossed his mind. From the way he moved, the furtive glances he darted around him, I gathered that the biker considered this summons a somewhat miraculous event.
Several times I’ve noticed that the fiercest rebels are among those most affected by the pomp and circumstance of power. And the more they piss and moan at the gates, the more they yelp with joy once through the door. Unlike eminent men, who often hide anarchic impulses behind their easy familiarity with gilded rooms, rebels are invariably dazzled, like wild animals caught in the headlights.
Zaldostanov made a show of keeping his composure, but I felt I could read his mind. We spent the first minutes talking about the heroic days of the National Bolshevik Party, avoiding any mention of Eduard, who had just finished his first two-year jail sentence. But there was no time to waste, and I decided to give him the coup de grâce.
“The president has been informed of our meeting and sends you his greetings,” I said.
At this news, the biker’s three-hundred-plus pounds seemed to levitate for a moment above his chair. Zaldostanov was living one of his life’s high points.
“I’ve been following your activities these last few years, and I have to tell you that I’m very impressed, Alexander. You’re phenomenal. You take these youths and you give them a home, a discipline. You turn these strays, these lost souls, into soldiers capable of accomplishing extraordinary things. I see that you’ve set up a real business, with the bar, the concerts, and even merchandizing!”
—When they come to us, they find the two things they’re looking for: brotherhood and strength, said Zaldostanov gravely.
—Exactly, I said, brotherhood and strength. And if I read this right, you’re not just a biker gang. You’re really a group of true Russian patriots.
Zaldostanov assented: “Faith and the fatherland, Vadim Alexeievich. We turn from Satan and go toward God, against the current. We’re ready to knock heads, but not for a kilo of cocaine. We have other values.”
—Quite so, Alexander. Wolves aren’t just predators, they’re also guardians of the forest.
The biker looked at me, mildly perplexed. Was I laying it on too thick? I decided to get down to business. “Have you seen,” I asked, “what’s happening in Ukraine?”
—Sure, they’re having a revolution.
“That’s not quite accurate, Alexander. A revolution comes from below, it gives power to the people. What happened in Ukraine was a coup d’état. And who do you think came into power?” Zaldostanov was listening to me with an air of intense concentration, but said nothing. “The Americans, Alexander. The Orange Revolution didn’t start on Maidan Square, it started in Langley, Virginia. But you have to give it to them, the CIA did its work well, not like in the past. In the old days, they would pay off the generals. And if you triggered a military coup at the right moment, the thing was in the bag. They did that for years, and it worked very well. But nowadays it’s more complicated. There’s the internet, cell phones, cameras. So, guess what? They changed their playbook. In fact, they turned it on its head: instead of starting at the top, they started at the bottom. It was a case of power embracing antipower. They studied their enemies’ techniques. Guerrillas, pacifists, the youth movement. And they understood how it worked.”
Or at least that was the tsar’s deeply held conviction.
“Look at Ukraine, Alexander. They created a young people’s organization, they held concerts on Maidan Square, they set up an NGO to monitor elections, so-called, and media that they claimed was independent, though it was controlled, as it happens, by the most anti-Russian oligarchs in existence. Even the orange ribbon. I’ll bet they had a poll to choose the color. Everything is calculated, just like when they launch a new detergent. Or better, a new drink for teenagers. Because the main ingredient is energy, the frustration of the young, their desire to change the world. The Americans understand this, and they’re making the most of it.
“Basically, Eduard was right. There’s an existential question underlying everything, the question that torments every young person. What should I do with my life? How can I make a difference? It’s not a political question. But there are times in history when, if a system can’t return a satisfactory answer, it will get swept away. It’s perfectly normal for the most enterprising young people to want to do things, to look for a cause. And for an enemy. What we have to do is give them that cause and that enemy—before they choose one themselves.
“But unfortunately we’re not in a position to do that. Look around you, Alexander. Nothing here but bureaucrats in suit and tie, politicians, party representatives. We represent the power structure, we’re like the guy in that movie Eduard is always talking about, the one who says ‘Plastics!’ to the college grad who asks him what he should do with his life. We’re the grownups, the enemy.”
—Whereas I’m…
—You’re an adult too, Alexander. But you’ve taken a different path in life. You haven’t made any compromises. You represent freedom, adventure. Your vital energy is still intact. A person only has to look at you to know it. Young people sense that straight off. And you understand them. You know what they want. You know how to talk to them and what to say. You can guide them so they don’t fall into the trap the Americans have set for them. You can lead them toward real values. The fatherland. Faith.
—Possibly, but working all alone, you know…
—You won’t be alone, Alexander. The tsar will be behind you, and he’ll protect you. He’s not like us, here in the Kremlin. He’s not a bureaucrat, a suit. The tsar is like you. He belongs to the order of conquerors. He was made to be your leader, the leader of all the true patriots in this land. Didn’t he set Russia back on its feet? And why do you think the Americans want to get rid of him? Because they find Russia bearable only when the country is on its knees, they can’t accept anyone challenging their supremacy. And also, he’s just like you. Physical exercise is his religion, competing. He practices judo, he hunts, he loves driving at high speed…
—Do you think he’d come to one of our meets?
—Of course, he’s dying to! And it won’t take much persuading once he learns that you’re all on his side, that you want to help him fight for Russia’s greatness. Our country has always successfully fended off attacks, from Napoleon, from Hitler. Now it’s our turn to do our duty.
Zaldostanov had by this point stopped listening to me. Already, he saw himself astride his bike, hair flying, shoulder to shoulder with the tsar, a kind of post-atomic Cossack.
“But we’ll do more than that,” I said. “We’ll organize the Russian version of Maidan Square, a gathering for all the young patriots in the country, a place where they can see each other face-to-face. And we’ll take the battle to our real enemy, Western decadence and its false values, with all the divisiveness and frustration that it’s brought!”
—Right, the Russian Maidan Square, that’s huge…
Zaldostanov was starting to get excited. It was slowly dawning on him that my plan would allow him to reconcile the dreams of glory he’d had as a twenty-year-old with the legitimate pecuniary ambitions of the fortysomething he’d become.
“We’ll organize other gatherings, too, and concerts, summer camps,” I said. “Then we’ll need schools for special training, newspapers, internet sites—everything that goes into making a new generation of patriots. We’ve got to lead an attack on the mediocrity of everyday life, Alexander! Offer our youngsters a real alternative to Western materialism. Russia has to become a place where you can vent your anger against the world and still be a faithful servant of the tsar. The two things aren’t contradictory, quite the opposite.”
—In practical terms, said Zaldostanov, what you want to do is make revolution impossible.
Though carried away with enthusiasm, the biker had lost none of the solid good sense I’d detected in him from the start.
“Let’s just say we want to remove the need for it,” I said. “Why start a revolution if the system already incorporates it?”