We feature each fortnight Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.
“THE STORY OF RUSSIA” by Orlando Figes (Bloomsbury /
distributed in NZ by Allen and Unwin, $NZ32:99) ; “FUTURE STORIES” by David
Christian (Penguin-Random House, $NZ40)
Some years
back, while tutoring university students in Russian history, I read Orlando
Figes’ A People’s Tragedy, all
800-plus enthralling pages of it. I came to the conclusion that it was the best
single-volume on the Russian Revolution that has yet appeared. I recommended it
enthusiastically to my students. Since then, Figes has produced a number of
other books on aspects of Russian culture and history, but with his The
Story of Russia he takes a different tack. Now he dares to unravel what
might be called the Russians’ “myth” about themselves. The “story” of the title
has a double meaning. In one sense, a story is simply a tale – an account of
events; and Figes does chronicle the history of Russia over the last
thousand-odd years. But in another sense a story is something made up, and such
made-up stories can shape the way a nation sees itself. In Russia’s case there
are a number of such dominant myths, which Figes examines in detail.
First there
is the myth that Russia has always been Europe’s defender against “oriental
barbarians”, with its claims to have defeated (in the 14th century)
the Tatars (Mongols). But as Figes points out (Chapter 2) the Tatars occupied
much of what is now south-western Russia for about 200 years before they were
beaten back, and in those 200 years the Russians not only often intermarried
with Tatars, but also adopted from Tatars a legacy of autocracy, serfdom and
despotic power. In other words, Russian public norms were in large part shaped
by the Tatars. Related to the idea of protecting Western Europe is the Russian
conviction that they alone liberated Europe from tyrants. Did not Russia
definitively defeat Napoleon? Did not Russia definitively defeat Hitler? (Approved
Russian history books now gloss over Russia’s lamentable record in the First
World War and the two years, 1939-41, of full collaboration with the Nazis.)
Then there
is the myth that, by some mystic and holy process, Russia is the “protector” of
all Slavic peoples, Russian or otherwise. This means a long history of assuming
that Belarus (“White Russia”) and Ukraine (“Little Russia”) and various Balkan
states should always be controlled by, in the “sphere of influence” of, or
directly ruled by, Russia, regardless of these countries’ diverse cultures and
languages. Ukraine, for example, was cut off from Rus for a couple of centuries
by the Tatar incursion and did not consider itself a part of Russia until
Russia used force of arms to annex it. What other Slavic nations think about
this is of little concern to Russian leaders.
There is the problem
of the power of the state being entwined with the Russian Orthodox Church. The
Russian Orthodox myth says it is the purest and most authentic form of
Christianity. The myth says that Rome once was the centre of Christianity, then
Byzantium (Constantinople) took its place as the Second Rome and finally Russia’s
capital became the Third Rome, after which there would be no other because in
Russia was the most authentic Christianity. But in coronation ceremonies, the
Orthodox Church anointed the Tsar as the true voice of God, and therefore the
leader who had always to be obeyed. Church and state were one. Of course in
Western Europe in Catholic and (later) Protestant lands, monarchs were also anointed
by the church and in some cases there were “absolute” monarchs; but it was
always clear that there was a distance between state (the “secular arm”) and
the church. In the West, monarchs might be anointed in the name of God, but
they were not the voice of God.
What was
the result of this in Russia? For centuries, serfdom existed under a monarch who
was literally the voice of God. Therefore peasants learnt to be subservient to
an unchallengeable ruler. There was an interesting sidelight to this. There
were often peasant uprisings against harsh conditions, but in such uprisings
the peasant leaders would always claim that they were rebelling in the name of the
“real” tsar (a pretender), and therefore the ruling tsar must be a usurper and an
anti-tsar. As Orlando Figes puts it “The only way Russians could
legitimise rebellion was in the name of the true tsar. No other concept of the
state – neither the idea of the public good nor the commonwealth – carried any
force in the peasant mind. This was the outcome of a patrimonial autocracy in
which the state was embodied in the person of the tsar.” (p.81)
And, developed
from the myth of the unchallengeable ruler and the culture of mass subservience
in “Holy Russia”, there is the myth of the great leader who is always right and
will always save the nation. Having such a leader is better than having such a
quarrelsome and fractious thing as democracy. Thus the glowing accounts now
given in Russian textbooks to Ivan IV (“the Terrible”), Peter the Great (the
moderniser) and Alexander I (who fought Napoleon)… and increasingly to Stalin.
As it is now taught in Russian schools, instability after 1917 was only fully
corrected by the rule of Stalin and, by implication, instability after the end
of the Soviet Union was only corrected with the advent of Vladimir Putin.
Here, then,
is Figes’ thesis about the Russian myth – Russians believe Russia is the historical
defender of the West, the protector of all Slavic peoples, the nurturer of the
purest form of Christianity, and the country that prospers only when it has a
firm and decisive autocratic leader. Forget about the quarrels in Russia between
Slavophiles and Westernisers in the
nineteenth century; forget about Marxism and Liberalism. Nationalism is the core
of Russian belief and the authoritarian leader is always right, regardless of
how many corpses he creates. I must add that Russians are convinced they peacefully
“civilised” all the Asiatic peoples whom they colonised as their empire spread
east through and beyond Siberia. In fact, such expansion was a brutal and often
genocidal process – but of course the same could be said of the European
colonisers of North and South America.
So how
relevant is all this to the present day? Very, argues Figes. When discussing
the medieval boyars who were reined in by various tsars, Figes remarks that tsars
created “a system of dependency upon the ruler that has lasted to this day. Putin’s
oligarchs are totally dependent on his will.” (p.54) Be aware that Figes,
well immersed in Russian culture, writes respectfully and with admiration of
Russian artists, poets, novelists, scientists, engineers and ever soldiers; and
he is clear in saying that, with huge sacrifice and immense loss of life, it really
was Russia that had the greatest part in defeating Hitler. Russians are right
to be offended by American war movies that completely ignore Russia’s role. Be aware, too, that as well as arguing a case,
Figes gives a very detailed history. We go through fine details on
primitive, early Rus; the rise of tsars; the house of Romanov; the split
between the revised Russian Orthodox Church and the “Old Believers”; the
Napoleonic Wars; the Decembrists; Populist and Nihilist groups in the 19th
century; the impact of industrialisation; the revolution of 1905; the first
Dumas; the Stolypin reforms; the impact of the First World War; the two
revolutions of 1917; the civil war; Lenin and his failures; famines; Stalin and
his genocide; and the grey men who followed him. Figes is particularly good in
charting what happened to the hoped-for democracy after the Soviet Union
collapsed and the mistakes made by Yeltsin. The result was Putin.
In Figes’ long last chapter, we
see Putin as a Nationalist first and foremost (forget his Communist and KGB
past); promoting all the myths about Russia that Figes has examined; authoritarian;
suppressing dissenters, opposition parties and a free press; strictly controlling
the dominant media; having textbooks re-written to present all of Russian history
in positive terms only; creating a virtual Praetorian Guard in the form of
oligarchs (many of them former Communist apparatchiks who made themselves
unbelievably rich by buying up essential resources when the USSR was
collapsing); and clearly planning to reclaim much of what used to be the
Russian Empire. And fully supporting this agenda are the patriarchs of the
Russian Orthodox Church, who endorse Putin just as they once endorsed the
tsars. Truly Putin is the product of a long, long history. But – a big caution here - when
Figes finishes with Putin’s current invasion of Ukraine, he rightly condemns Putin’s
actions, but he also shows how complex the underlying factors are and what
blunders NATO has made in its diplomacy.
With a good non-fiction work like
The Story of Russia, I am often tempted to quote at length the wise
things the author has said. But this time I’ll skip that process and rush to a
verdict. If A People’s Tragedy is the one essential book you need to
understand the Russian Revolution, then The Story of Russia is the one essential
book you need to understand the Russian mentality and how it was formed.
*. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *
When I requested
from its publisher a review copy of David Christian’s Future Stories, I knew nothing about
the author. I foolishly assumed that Future Stories would be one of
those popular books that confidently tells us how human affairs will work out
in the next two or three centuries. We’ll all die in a nuclear holocaust. Or
we’ll be exterminated by severe climate change. Or advanced technology will
overtake the human race and we’ll become the slaves of robots. Or we’ll find
ways of colonising other planets when earthly resources have been used up. Or, when
land and sea have been worked out, we’ll find artificial ways of producing nutritious
substitutes for traditional foods. Or new sources of energy will be developed,
cleaner and more efficient that fossil fuels, nuclear plants, solar or wind
power. Etc. Etc. Etc. – all the familiar dystopian or utopian scenarios that
have so often been presented to us.
But Future
Stories simply is not that sort of book. David Christian is not a
pessimistic or idealistic young man. Now in his mid-seventies (he was born in
1946) this Anglo-American, Oxford-trained writer was first an historian, specialising
in Russian history. But mid-career he switched to what he coined “Big History”,
that is, attempting to explain to the general public the whole course of
cosmic, terrestrial and human history – from the Big Bang on. Before he wrote Future
Stories, he had already written three books of “Big History”, the
best-known being Origin Story.
So what is Future
Stories?
It is a book
divided into four parts.
First comes his
consideration of how philosophers and others deal (or have dealt) with the
phenomenon of time itself and how it is related to the future. So he goes
systematically through “A-Series” time, which sees time as a flowing river
moving forward to a destination; and the concept of “B-Series Time” which sees
all time as one co-existent block. What was still exists and what will
be already exists. Here, then, we have the “arrow of time” concept [time
moving in one direction] pitted against determinism [the atheist version of the
religious idea of predestination] which says certain things are inevitable and already
there in the future waiting for us to acknowledge them. But there is the matter
of causation. David Christian asserts that modern science largely refutes total
determinism because, although time seems directional, it still allows
consequences to follow willed (human) actions. So in some limited sense,
humanity shapes the future even if humanity does not shape the cosmos.
“Perspective-ism” says that time and our experience of it always depends on our
“frame of reference”. This is related to Einstein’s theory that the speed of
light is constant, but our perception of it isn’t. Whether or not the
universe has a purpose, says David Christian, all living creatures act as if
they have a purpose, even if that purpose is simple survival. And part of
survival is attempting to anticipate the future. But how can we anticipate the
future? Christian gives four general principles, the first two of which are: “We
have no evidence from the future, so we cannot expect detailed knowledge of
possible futures except in rare instances such as the prediction of eclipses.” And
“It is the paradoxical idea that the only evidence about likely futures lies in
the past. ”(p.51) In other words, we have to look at trends in the past
(Christian often refers to “trend-hunting”) and we then have to categorise
ideas of the future in terms of what is probable or possible or unlikely or
preposterous.
So much for
general theory.
In the second part
Christian then surprises us by looking at how bacteria, plants and animals deal
with the future. He sees a single-cell bacterium as “predicting” the future by
adjusting and changing itself by “reading” its environment. Ditto larger plants.
In dealing with plants, he indulges in much anthropomorphism making such
statements as “To survive and reproduce, plants have to seek out
information and make probabilistic bets, like all living organisms.”
(p.92) Can one really use such terms or should we credit plants with
instinctive impulse rather than rational betting? True, Christian does note
(p.97) that Charles Darwin was so impressed by the predictive intelligence of
plants that he wondered if they had a sort of brain. Christian refutes this
idea, but his anthropomorphic language continues. Turning to lower animals
(worms, insects etc.) Christian says they have nervous systems, but not brains.
However, like bacteria, their behaviour suggests adjustment to future
likelihood. When he gets to more advanced animals, his language becomes vivid,
almost lyrical, as he considers the brains of larger animals. Take this example:
“Big brains are very good at detailed modelling of present realities and
possible futures. The squishy ball of neurons between the ears of a thirsty
young antelope can turn the millions of signals generated as it walks towards a
water hole into a moving, three-dimensional virtual image, complete with
swaying, sweet-smelling grasses, buzzing insects, lots of other antelopes, and,
yes, the scent and sight of a pride of lions patrolling the water hole. Damn!
Not all these computations go on in the brain, of course. Many occur in
networks of neurons that extend down the spine and throughout the body, which
is why the antelope’s legs are getting ready to run.” (p.103) Neurons give
animals the ability to anticipate. As with human beings, there are both
short-term and long-term types of memory to draw upon when animals attempt to
plot the future. However, it is true that each time we recall past events, we
modify what we “remember”. Christian spends some time considering when animal
“future thinking” became full consciousness.
And so Christian,
in the book’s third part, at last comes to consider how human beings have
attempted, or are attempting, to prepare for the future. He notes that human
beings have an exceptional number of neurons in their frontal cortex, the
region of the brain that specialises in computation and planning. There was an
explosion of thought in the initial development of language. This meant a
greater awareness of past, present and future; but in many ancient cultures,
and especially in the hunter-gatherer phase of human existence, there was a
tendency to see the past in terms of a mythical time which set out moral
imperatives – something like the Aboriginal “dreamtime”. The past was more
important than the future inasmuch as it set up “eternal” codes of behaviour.
Comes the agrarian ages, when human beings had learnt to farm, raise crops and
breed animals, and the future became more important. Divination began with
seers, prophets, tohunga and shamans. Important questions were asked, such as: Will
the weather be good for growing crops? Will there be a drought? Will our land
be flooded in a deluge? How likely is it that another people will take over our
land? And later, when trade between peoples became more established, there were
questions such as: Will I get a fair price for my goods? Will my journey be
prosperous? Will I return home safely? Of divination in the agrarian ages,
Christian says: “In its time and place, popular future thinking offered
powerful and credible forms of consolation and some hope of empowerment to the
vulnerable, and it still does today for many [who live in a state of
anxiety]” (p.174)…” He notes that many cultures, especially the Chinese, relied
on astronomy and astrology for divination. And he also notes the tricks of the
trade practised by seers. As for “modern” future thinking, Christian notes that
everything changed with the rise of science. Now future thinking involved
consideration of causation, data collection and some form of computing. In the
16th and 17th centuries, future thinking was based on
averages and statistics, often assuming mathematical projects without
considering human contingencies, such as in the rational writing of Condorcet.
From the 19th to the 21st century, and especially with
the advent of modern computers, there has been a huge collection of data for
attempts to predict the future. It is noted, however, that weather forecasts
are always more reliable than economic forecasting because economics involves the
human element. The least likely of predictions have to do with human behaviour.
Christian imagines Cicero (who wrote about predictions) transported to the
present age and says “he would be impressed by the remarkable successes of
future thinking in such fields as medicine and science. But he would also note
(perhaps with some glee) that the track record of future thinking in politics
is dismal, hardly any better than that of Roman diviners and augurs.”
(p.211)
So at last, in the
fourth and last part of his treatise, Christian deals with modern prediction, “human,
astronomical and cosmological”. For the “near future” in human affairs
(that is, the next hundred years) he sees a continuation of globalisation,
perhaps (only perhaps) leading to a greater global consensus. He is tentative
about this, however, because of that human factor. He quips: “Where people
are involved, there are many known unknowns. Sir Isaac Newton, who lost money
he had invested during the South Sea Bubble in 1720, ruefully comments, ‘I can
calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men.’ ” (p.232). Even
within the last half-century, assumptions about the future have changed
radically. After the Second World War, economic growth was seen as the way to a
prosperous and happy future. But from the early 1960s on, there was the
realization that there were limits to growth, limited natural resources and a
growing population. However, some people concerned with population were
completely wrong in their predictions. “[In 1968] two modern Malthusians,
Paul and Ann Ehrlich, published a bestseller called The Population Bomb,
warning of the immanent global collapse due to overpopulation. Their bad timing
should remind all would-be futurists how easy it is to get things spectacularly
wrong! Today, most demographers expect human populations to peak later this
century, at a number between nine and twelve billion, before starting a long
slow decline…” (p.238) What with advances in scientific and medical
knowledge, globally more people have been lifted out of poverty than ever,
population growth has slowed and age expectancy has been raised. Yet there are
still anxious scenarios of the future concerned with anthropogenic climate
change, wars, nuclear and other massively-destructive weapons and inequitable
distribution of sources. Thus for the near future.
For what Christian
calls the “middle future”, he says that in thousands or millions of years,
species will evolve, perhaps including human beings. There might be
“transhumanism” in the modification of human beings – and perhaps “artificial
human beings” (the super-robot scenario). He speaks of nanotechnology (huge
power and knowledge in tiny frames), and the greater harvesting of the sun’s
energy. These things are at least plausible. Will we terraform other planets?
Possibly. But equally plausible is a total collapse of the human species and of
other species as we know them.
As for what he
calls “remote futures – the rest of time” he remarks “… sometimes you get
the spooky feeling that we can see the shape of the remote future more clearly
than that of the next few centuries or millennia.” (p.285). With a degree
of certainty, he considers the movement of tectonic plates and therefore the
realignment of the continents and probably the emergence of totally different
continents; the likelihood that in billions of years, the sun will boil away
the Earth’s oceans as it turns into a red giant; and, inevitably, the collapse
of the universe as we know it. In his very last pages he mentions the modish
idea of a “multiverse” – that is, that there are many universes separate from
the whole universe as we know it. But he sensibly states that as yet there is
absolutely no empirical evidence to support the “multiverse” theory.
Will Future
Stories disappoint you? Only if you were expecting something glib or
sensational. Christian has avoided wild predictions, expressed caution about
even plausible futures and at the same time given us a whole history of
prediction and attitudes to time. His tone is very measured and it is wise to
accept the paradox that it is more credible to predict the far future of cosmic
events than to predict the near future of human affairs.
Christian opens
his Introduction with a quotation from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where
Banquo says to the witches “If you can look into the seeds of time, / And
say which grain will grow and which will not, / Speak then to me…” To which
I am inclined to quote the song in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: “What’s
to come is yet unsure.”
