ALTHOUGH I DIDN’T SERVE him a drop of vodka, Zaldostanov left the Kremlin that day in an intoxicated state. What he didn’t know was that after seeing him, I had a meeting with the leader of a group of young Communists, who’d impressed me with their vivacity. Then I met with the intriguing spokesperson for an Orthodox revival movement. After her, I met with the head of Spartak’s ultras. Then with a representative of one of the most popular bands in the alternative music scene. Bit by bit, I recruited them all—the bikers and the hooligans, the anarchists and the skinheads, the Communists and the religious fanatics, the Far Right, the Far Left, and most of those in the middle. Anyone likely to respond in an exciting way to the demand of Russian youths for meaning. After what had happened in Ukraine, we couldn’t allow the forces of anger to go unsupervised. If we were going to construct a truly strong system, it wasn’t enough to have a monopoly on power, we would also need a monopoly on subversion. Once again, it came down to using reality as the raw material for creating a kind of higher-order game. I’d done nothing all my life but probe the elasticity of the world, its inexhaustible propensity for paradox and contradiction. The political theater now taking shape under my direction was the natural outcome of a long trajectory.
I have to say that everyone played the part I’d assigned them willingly. Some even showed talent. The only factions I didn’t approach were the university professors, the technocrats who’d been responsible for the disasters of the 1990s, the flag bearers of political correctness, and the progressives battling for transgender bathrooms. I decided to let the opposition have them. And this was precisely the constituency that we wanted the opposition to have. In a sense, they became my best actors, working for us without ever needing to be recruited. Many were inbred Muscovites, the kind who feel they’re on foreign soil the moment they venture beyond the outer ring road, people who would be incapable of moving an armchair—let alone governing Russia…Every time they opened their mouths, they added to our popularity and put it on a firmer footing. The economists parading their PhDs, the oligarchs who’d survived the 1990s, the human rights professionals, the feminists, the ecologists, the vegans, the gay rights activists—they were manna from heaven as far as we were concerned. When that girl band desecrated the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, yelling obscenities at Putin and the Russian patriarch, we got a five-point boost in the polls.
Then there was Garry Kasparov, the chess champion who founded his own opposition party. I met him only once, at one of those social events in Moscow that seem to gather everything and its opposite. It wasn’t a setting I normally frequented, but you can’t imagine how hard it is to escape the solicitations of a determined hostess. Anastasia Chekhova had ruled over Moscow society for years, combining the cultural aura that came from being the descendant of a great writer with the buying power that came from her banker husband. She lived in a small townhouse that had been built in the early twentieth century by a grain merchant who had managed to enjoy it only briefly.
The entrance hall, lined with turquoise fabric, led to two large mahogany doors with copper handles, sculpted to resemble birds. These opened onto a succession of drawing rooms decorated in the Jazz Age style, their console tables, sofas, and coffee tables forming an intricate geometry that effectively framed Chekhova’s stunning collection of ancient jades. Amid the polished surfaces of the furniture and the mirrors reflecting flowers, one almost expected to bump into Zelda Fitzgerald, or at least Kiki de Montparnasse. Most of the time, though, you would end up talking to a trendy hairdresser or, at best, a correspondent for the New York Times.
These soirees were too choreographed to be much fun, but people attended them all the same for the confirmation it gave to their sense of social importance. In the absence of true gaiety, the guests’ eyes shone with a rapacious desire to get information ahead of anyone else, thus gaining entrance to a dimension where everything happened a little early. This slight advance on the rest of the world could, with a modicum of skill, be converted into precious goods: money, power, prestige.
The mistress of the house planned her receptions like military campaigns. Imperious, she swept through Moscow’s social elite like an icy, variable wind. And while her goal was always social success, she achieved her strategy by mobilizing a variety of different resources. Businessmen provided the foundation and substance of a Chekhova gathering and aristocrats its embellishment. But for the party to be a true success, some rarer ingredients had to be added—a dollop of genius, a pinch of international glamour, and a hint of transgression. Garry Kasparov had the advantage of combining all three attributes in one person. A chess player with a worldwide reputation, he had entered politics by organizing so-called dissident marches in the streets of the capital, immediately lending him a halo of drawing room heroism. The jewel-covered matrons belonging to Moscow’s radical chic clamored around him as if he were the new Che Guevara.
On my arrival that particular night, I found him surrounded by a rapt audience and clearly drunk on his own social glory, and perhaps something else as well. At a certain point, someone must have pointed out to him that I was there.
“Ah, Baranov,” he said, “there you are, the Wizard of the Kremlin, Putin’s Rasputin. Do you know what people are saying about your ‘sovereign democracy’? That it is to democracy what an electric chair is to a chair.”
I burst out laughing. “Well, at least it shows that Russians haven’t lost their sense of humor! But seriously, Kasparov, do you know what’s meant by sovereign democracy?”
—I’m no political theorist, he said, but speaking as a chess player, I’d say that it’s the opposite of a chess match. In chess, the rules are constant, but the winner always changes. In your sovereign democracy, the rules change, but the winner is always the same.
The champion had game, no doubt about it. The socialites around us twitched like groupies at a concert.
“Possibly,” I said. “I know politics is not your area of expertise, but tell me, Kasparov, didn’t the Christian Democratic Union stay in power in Germany for twenty years after World War II? And the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan for forty years? You liberals think that our political culture in Russia is archaic and a product of ignorance. You think our Russian habits and traditions are an obstacle to progress. You want to ape Westerners, but you’re missing the main thing.”
Kasparov was by this time looking at me with a frankly hostile gaze.
“If you want to taste something sweet,” I went on, “you have to eat the candy, not the wrapper. To win freedom, you have to grasp its substance, not its outward form. You repeat slogans you’ve learned in Washington or Berlin, and in the meantime fill our streets with candy wrappers. You’re like the Bourbon dynasty, never forgetting anything and never learning anything—you had your chance, and you left Russia in shreds. Ever since being removed from power, you’ve dreamed of coming back to finish what you started. On our side, we’ve looked into the question thoroughly. We’ve learned what the West has to teach and adapted it to the reality of Russia. Sovereign democracy corresponds to the deepest foundations of Russian political culture. That’s why the people are on our side. You professors are the only ones who haven’t understood this.”
—But I’m not a professor!
—Of course not. You’re a chess champion.
Kasparov grasped the irony, which he didn’t appreciate. A true son of the Caucasus, he pursed his lips in a sign of menace.
“You won’t find a game,” he said, “more violent than chess.”
I gave him a soft smile.
“You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, professor. Politics is infinitely more violent.”
—But politics is not a game, he said.
—Not for amateurs, it’s not a game. But for professionals, believe me, it’s the only game worth playing.
Kasparov looked at me as if I were a madman. At the same time, I thought I saw him repress a shiver.