Nonfiction book . Guest black square foot of all is an oblique reference to independent square in ukraine in kiev, the site of a huge protest that eventually led to the flight of the then president got a coat which in 2015 on 10 2013 and 2014. Its a reference to the iconic painting which is literally a black square on a white background by the russian painter who was working sort of in the early years of the soviet union and before the revolution. So first of all as a figure he was important to me thinking about the book. He doesnt touch a directly on the events i describe in the book which deals mainly with contemporary ukraine but he is himself as someone who was the child of polish parents, someone was born in kiev, what is now a key ukraine but was part of the russian bar and was again fight as a russian artist, sometimes a soviet artist. Hes an embodiment of the sort of multilingual, multicultural, multinational and sort of multiempire nature of a lot of whats happened on ukrainian territory as well as in the soviet union, in the russian empire and that mixture of culture was something i was thinking about constantly as i read the book, this sort of collation of influences, tension between multiple influences and also efforts by modern ukraine, modern russia, of modern poland to claim certain figures from the past including and yet in fact his work demonstrates influences from all three areas. He cant be boiled down to just a russian artist, just a polish artist. In way we think of those things today. Going back to the actual painting, black square, it was for the very radical theory about the revolution. So for him the black square in some ways represented what we could almost call to use a term that comes from a very different area, field and time, the end of history and his idea was that once the revolution was completely filled, once relish tray goals were reached that almost time which stopped and that would be this emptiness that came after. So for me although he was very different from fukuyama who famously coined the term the end of history after the fall of the soviet union, but in some sense this idea that once you achieve your political goal time will end, i thought was relevant for whats happened in the years after the fall of the soviet union. Because for a while there was this sense that the soviet union is gone, now that the cold war is over this means that all the countries in the world are now on this and notable towards liberal democracy. And, in fact, as we are seeing so much and so often now that isnt the case at all. Sort of development is not linear. We may be going back picking many cases were saying fronts of government we never expected. At one point he describes black square basing it represented what happens in the white emptiness of a liberated nothing. That also evokes maidan in the sense its not necessary that hard to overturn a president , to get a president to leave but whats much, much harder is figure out whats going to come into that space and sort try to remake the government and was in a difficult thats been for ukraine. Host throughout the book you take up these themes of hopes and aspirations, unfulfilled expectations, too. And interestingly enough you start your store not in ukraine but in russia with an experience you have going over there and a lot of what you talk about is society through this lens of Public Health, and Public Health issues, the problems that you observed at the time. Tell us about that experience. How formative was it for you to ask the backlash with these narratives that you are reading about russias postcommunist liberation and this kind of optimistic march 2 sort of free markets and sort of Political Freedom . When did backlash conceptually with what you are seeing on the ground . Guest first of all the book is guided by sort of the logic of my own experiences because it is in part a memoir. My First Encounter with the postsoviet world was not with ukraine but with russia. I went on an exchange program, and Work Exchange program and was placed at the red cross in siberia. Many people know it at the big board game risk. I was in siberia in the middle of winter. It was certainly a very, very dark scene that was not at all in line with the narratives about how now that they are shaken off, cast off the communist yoke, russians are moving towards freedom and democracy. In fact what a find, there was a huge epidemic of injecting drug use, and there was also a corresponding epidemic of hiv. As i spend time and to learn more about the nature of the epidemic of drug use and the nature of the hiv epidemic in russia, i found it was very closely connected actually to the social turmoil of the 1990s. And so this was a huge social rupture obviously many people greeted it with huge amount of excitement and optimism and sort of were hoping for a new way of living. The reality again is that when your system of government, when your state disappears or is radically reformulated, that often leaves a space of chaos. For ordinary people, especially people who dont have a lot of money, people are in provincial areas, back alito really unbelievable amount of a people and stress in their own lives. In the 90s in russia and also in ukraine there was a tremendous amount of violence. Many people were barely surviving are not able to survive. And partly because i think of a huge amount of social stress, partly because of the future seemed so uncertain and also because the borders were open, Law Enforcement was not operating and corrupt when it was operating, there was an unbelievable availability of cheap drugs. Especially if youre thinking siberia, its close to central asia, close to certain header when the producers of the world. I was told not long ago itd been possible to buy heroin in kiosk him on the streets, the same place where you would buy beer or cigarettes and thats, the cost was more or less comparable. Its not surprising a lot of people started using drugs. That was a moment in my life when i became very acutely aware of the ways these large scale political changes which are often presented in the International Media as absolute positives, how in the lives of ordinary people they can often translate into a tremendous amount of stress and physical illness as well. Host so what were you expecting to do in siberia as part of the exchange . What in the end did you actually do . I must say i didnt really what i would be doing. I think in retrospect the program, and now feels unimaginable thing at such a program, i think i stopped having such a long time ago, but it was a volunteer Exchange Initiative for young people from russia and the United States. I was interested in russia. I had an interest in hiv. Ive been involved in sort of hiv advocacy in the United States, but i ended up at this project, drugrelated harm, Needle Exchange and drug treatment. Pretty much arbitrarily. That was my First Encounter with this message. On one hand i was incredibly impressed by the outreach workers who worked at the red cross. They were almost entirely former drug users. Many of them had hiv and then joined the program and ordered to basically help sort of their community, to help others in the same situation as them. We went up in the exchange a band with them to sort of drug dealing areas and watched him do Needle Exchange pick it was clear what they were doing was tremendously important work, and Needle Exchange is critical. But at the same time it was clear the russian government was doing relatively little to deal with this problem. The red cross is a state organization. It was funded by international donors. There was a clear unwillingness to confront the scale of the hiv epidemic, and was also a clear feeling within the russian government that drug users didnt really deserve treatment. Drug abuse didnt need help. Just let them die. Which is what has allowed the hiv epidemic continues to grow. Host where did this attitude come from in the 90s in russia . Just denial of this as an epidemic, as a crisis that had to be confronted. Guest first of all i did say with hiv epidemic emerged in many countries there wasnt an immediate leap to deal with it. Reagan notoriously took a tremendous long time to speak publicly about hiv. The American Government only dealt with it after very intense pressure from activists. But in the case of russia i do think that the denial of the hiv epidemic had quite clear roots in the soviet approach to social problems in general and specifically to hiv. The hiv epidemic started expanding in russia much later than it did in western europe, are relatively much later that it did in western europe or in the United States. It came to russia at a time when the world already knew much more from a scientific perspective about what it was. They knew how it would spread, what its effects were. They had an idea of prevention methods. They were our doing research on treatment but the soviet ad was that if you say they dont exist, they dont exist, and at most lets incarcerate the people who are the problem. And so in the soviet union hiv was treated as a disease that sort decadent capitalists, the third world, but it cant touch us, he cant touch our society. And the same is true of drug use of course. Host one of the most engaging aspects of the book is how you take us through the, your own realizations about your role, whats going on these western interventions which are wellintentioned and wellmeaning but how they are having just sometimes these unintended consequences, sometimes these types of almost absurd effects. I want to just read a passage where you talking about making origami tulips to be sent to moscow, and include in an art exhibit meant to raise awareness about hiv. And so you write we visited a college where using sign language we try to teach students how to make tulips. I could explain how to fold tulips but i could muster enough rush and explain to the students why exactly we were doing it. Then he can they could muster enough english to explain it to myself. Most of the students thought tulips were an arts in class project and the red aids ribbon we gave them were an award. They were enthusiastic and to offer them pamphlets on hiv at which point they recoiled and left without saying goodbye. We didnt give out condoms. The red cross said it couldnt afford them. Guest the are a couple of things going on in that passage, and also with regard to your question. The tulips, the infamous tulips were just spent about a month unfolding to my increasing frustration were not the right ideas. It is important to note they were part of a project is being done throughout russia. It was a very transparent example of the russian government bonnie, this is something he continues to all the time, the russian government being willing to sort of do lip service to the idea of caring about hiv epidemic are wanting to prevent hiv, making the pr display basically a huge art project that had no actual affect on hiv epidemic. People needed treatment. They needed Needle Exchange, drug treatment. They didnt need paper tulips. I think its an example of sort of meaningless pr action. In terms of your earlier question about realizations, i think its really important to sort of now more than ever to not allow yourself to be driven entirely by ideology or driven entirely by what youve been told is true and what you like to be true in some way. I think its really important to keep on sort of observing what you see around you and being ready to adapt your understanding of the world based on what you actually observe and what people actually tell you. Thats quite simple but i found that in many of the rounds in which i worked its more difficult than it sounds. Host i wanted to talk to you about that specifically in the realm of ngos. You returned to new york, start working for a foundation that are involved in the region. Its foundation that promotes projects. It has partners which are other ngos that believe in this idea that the transnational sector is quite distinct from the private for Profit Sector and the government sector can make a difference, right, can improve civil society. Tell us a little bit about this juncture between how these kind of interventions are drawn up and thought about in places like new york or washington, d. C. And brussels, and added that operate on the ground in a place like russian or ukrainian or another poor transitioning country where pretty much everything is uncertain and up for grabs. Guest first of all i would say i think that private foundations and multilateral aid organizations especially in the realm of Public Health were often what people need is just medications. They just need someone to buy medications that will keep them alive. I think these organizations do very important work. I think they should buy medications is a peoples lives other than outline medications. In the case of russia id no interviews ive done over the years ive often heard especially from the russian intelligence yes, that private donors basically saved a whole sphere of russian culture and prevented it from being lost or even in terms of preserving documents but also in terms of allowing people to keep doing their work. That said, i think there are a lot of problems in such a way that that kind of eight is conceived of because its done as a discretion him especially if youre talking about private foundations, is that at a at a discretion of philanthropists. And your philanthropist . People have become tremendously wealthy doing something, right, but are not elected representatives. So there are some thinks undemocratic about philanthropy, and then on the other hand, this is something i really thought about a lot in the years that it worked in the field. Its difficult because i think private foundations and also multilateral aid organizations often tend, they tend to be centralized for sort of practical reasons but they are often quite centralized and they tend to use a sort of onesizefitsall approach. They write their strategy documents in whatever western capital. Their Central Office is based in, and they have their idea of what is right to do and whats the right way to do it. This is very technocratic model. In Public Health i think it is especially obvious but its striking to what extent thats true also of political advocacy although they vary hugely. In both cases, i became certain more and more acutely aware in my years of work in Public Health to the extent to which both sort of Public Health interventions and also advocacy efforts were most successful when they were tailored to very local circumstances. And often success i thought really boil down to relationships at the local level and organizations directors, you know, contacts in the local Government Health agencies. I heard a lot of frustration expressed by people who worked at ngos and these are often sort of the most talented and the most highly motivated ngo workers, leaders at the back that they were being told what to do by people who lived in a foreign country, often didnt speak the local language and that there wasnt very much room for them to say i dont want to do this this way, please let me use this grant for a different purpose that i know will be more effective. But because of a bureaucratic way that most aid organizations operate, donors are often, or the people who work for donors to speak more correctly, are often sort of unable or unwilling to adapt to local needs. I think thats something that should be taken more into account in eight efforts. Host one of the criticisms often of ngos operating in this part of the workers they also create this new kind of profession, working for ngo and vending associate with that Transaction Network and having stronger ties to networks in new york or overseas and actually to those communities. I dont know if you think thats there but tell us a little bit about how you saw the ngo as a profession operating in these countries, and what kind of social acceptance do they have . Of course another of the problems of the sort of aid that comes from a foreign country, especially in countries like russia that are more inclined towards paranoid about foreign aid, and, of course, it is essentially impossible to give grants to organizations in russia at this point because of various Foreign Agent laws. China has passed a similar law. So there is a paranoia and it opens up ngos to accusations that they are foreign agencies, that they are fomenting color revolutions and, of course, this is been host what are color revolutions . Guest color revolutions is a term that emerged in the sort of early 2000 to describe the way of revolution and postcommunist and postsocialist states that involve mass protest and war, mass protest in support of more democratic leadership. And so there was the orange revolution in ukraine in 2004. There was a tulip revolution in pakistan. There are some others and interesting by russia as conspiracies essentially. Russian of course was not happy about having new leaders taking power in these countries. It had a negative effect on russias regional influence and the fact that they were ngos involved to some extent organizing revolutions that were getting funds from foreign donors including american donors made it very easy for russia to do that and an easy pretense in some cases for arresting activists or passing for agent laws but another problem i think is that ngo workers, people are dependent on ngos, and this is very clear in the case of health especially, it is awfully to the creation of parallel systems that are probably not sustainable. If you have very essential Health Services that are being provided not by the Government Health system but by inches that usually funded based on one over two year, maybe fiveyear grants if they are lucky, thats very precarious. If these are lifesaving services, essential services, especially in a country where the government probably can afford them, these should be integrated into Government Health systems and should be operating in a sustainable way. For ngo employees this is a huge problem for a lot of people i knew. Its difficult because its a precarious way of living. You are existing grant to grant you dont know if funding will be cut and your organization will stop existing. A lot of the people i worked with were passionately devoted to the organizations at times when funding was cut off, they would pay out of their own pocket to keep the Organization Going into it restarted. Of course a lot of people end up leaving the field and often its very gifted and very effective because they want to have it work and a place with a they will have a job in five years. Reasonable certainty. So thats certainly another flaw in the model, unfortunately. Host you mentioned in one revolution, ukraine 2004. So lets fastforward 10 years to street protests on my dont square against then president vicki on a what were these protesters, what were the argued against what do they want and how did you view these demands and how do they turn out . Well, when the protests started in november of 2013 and my don they were in response to something very specific, which was then president trent is better to site and Association Agreement with the eu. And in itself this was a pretty minor issue. It wouldnt have had a completely transformational host so this wasnt joining the European Union. Guest its important to know it wasnt joining the European Union. It would have involved sort of trade relations and requirements that ukraine tried to move up to europeans that in some areas but it wasnt European Union membership. It was an Association Agreement. And yanukovych indicated he would be signing the agreement and then pretends apparently under pressure from russia, he didnt sign at the last minute. This prompted protests, largely of students. But then the protests were violently dispersed. They were quite small at the time selected would probably drop out on their own but they were violently dispersed. By police and he was captured on camera. The footage was shown around ukraine, and this provoked sort of much, much larger protests which were sustained over time. So people were protesting about the cessation agreement but also protesting the governments use of violence towards protesters and they were also i think more generally expressing a desire to break away from russia, for ukraine to have a more independent identity and also indicates that many although not all of the protesters to sort of move towards europe, to be, as people often said, a normal european country. Of course at that time the eu is already beginning to experience varies crises, and it wasnt quite clear what a normal european country would look like going forward. Host quite an aspiration. A lot of the Media Coverage of maidan seemed to frame the whole protest as concerned citizens reacting against a repressive and corrupt government who had impeded this european vision and dream and, of course, the protests start. And then we start getting to the point where law and order itself starts a breaking and we get takeovers of different stations across the country and set into motion a chain of events that you describe geopolitically. One line im struck with its again this other moment of Self Realization that you have, that this conventional narrative of young street protesters on maidan, that wasnt the whole story. You say, i realized there were many virgins of maidan. What was a different version of maidan . Why do we only get one or two of them . Guest this goes back to what weve discussed before about people seeing what they wanted to see. I think a lot of western observers, especially given the crisis in europe that was already starting, a lot of western observers were overjoyed at this image of large numbers of ukrainians demonstrating in favor of europe and against putin, construction, against russian influence. Host yanukovych is close ties with putin and seemingly being under the thumb of putin. Guest absolute addressing that the demonstrators wanted a democratic country that was closer to the European Unions, rather than a authoritarian country that was almost a state of russia. So this was seen again i think a sort of a last gasp of this and have a Movement Towards liberal democracy. It was seen as a sort of late confirmation of the validity of the project of sort of the European Union, and also of the move towards democratization. There were very many protesters on my dan who want to move towards maidan award and western Democratic Society but there are many other currents on maidan also. There were many different sort of types of protesters and, of course, one type that ended up getting huge amount of press in russia because it was a great propaganda for russia but relatively little especially in the beginning in the u. S. Was the sort of far right nationalist movement in ukraine. This was a very small number of people, proportionally, but as we have seen so many times the past century and a half, a relatively small group of radical armed protesters or militia members or what have you can exert a disproportionately strong effect on political events. It has become fairly clear although things are still pretty murky, that that far right protesters did play a role in escalating the maidan protest into the violence that we saw as the protests continued, they were involved in violent conflicts with the police, possibly initiating them, bringing guns to maidan and so on. And watching maidan, part of my book is about this, about sort of being a spectator and trying to make sense, trying to interpret different media narratives. I think this has an obvious relevant to whats going on in the United States today. Its really hard to navigate sort of conflicting, conflicting heavily politicized narratives in the media. Even if youre actually in a place, theres relatively little you can see firsthand. If you are an average citizen you have very little access to the internal workings of power which are often hidden and quite mysterious. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of energy to try to pull out the truth from these very, very aggressive and politicized narratives. Host the russian perspective on my maidan is very different than the western world but also russia generated this i think quite intense Media Coverage about what was going on. Some call it propaganda, fake news events that were going on. Tell us a little bit about the psychological power of that, about those narratives. What exactly is the russian perspective on what happened . Emissioyou mentioned the right g element. What is moscows perspective on the events . Guest moscows perspective was that the maidan government, the maidan revolution was a cia backed fascist punto which is obviously a distortion of the truth. Theyre feeding was it was essentially an american conspiracy to overthrow a prorussian government and replace it with an antirussian government. And that this was just another act of aggression by the left against russia, another effort to encroach on russias sphere of influence. Russia was very angry and fought back both with sort of intense fake news which helped to sort of cement the rise of separatism in Eastern Ukraine of course, and also to generate Popular Support for russias annexation for crimea which happened just a couple of months after maidan. By really persuading people who were reliant on russian news and a lot of those people in ukraine, especially in crimea and especially Eastern Ukraine, that the newcomer was out to kill everyone who spoke russian, that they were fascists, that they were all neonazis and so on. These things are just false, patently false but they cleared about the they had a real political effect. And in ukraine there was a sense that russia was almost sort of eliminating the truth and were hearing a lot about this of course now in this post truth era that we live in, although nonfactual political propaganda of course is quite old. Its not a new phenomenon. Its probably just easier to spread and there are more channels now because of the injury. There was a lot of fear that russia was sort of controlling and was creating its own reality almost and that this was actually creating war, riding off a chunk in ukraine. But ukraine responded in part by generating its own propaganda and by being really unwilling to ever concede to any criticism, a special of the war effort once they started having a war with separatist in the east. And i think in many ways the information war as people call in ukraine has had a profoundly negative effect on sort of open discussion of real problems. There are a lot of things that happened in ukraine politically that should be open to sort of, a heated but civil debate, how to treat the regions that are being taken by the separatists and whether to try to negotiate a peace treaty. But everything now is reduced or too often is reduced to the idea that anyone who criticizes ukraines actions is a kremlin agent that this is something where seeing now in the United States as well. That has very Chilling Effect on meaningful debate of real questions. Host i find her discussion of the different frames that are being applied, the different lenses on just what kind of war, what kind of conflict is this post crimea and then the separatists in ukraine and essentially to set the complex at one point you were critically about western media. You say the western media, which are virtually knew nothing about ukraine, spoke casually about a deeprooted conflict between ethnic russia and ethnic ukrainians evoking the balkan wars, ignoring the fact cultural linguistic and political identities in ukraine were far too complex to be reduced to a simple eight compatible western groups. Not as a peoples uprising but as russian ponds, this narrative fit well with the logic of the new cold war as people started calling it a fight between justice loving westerners and barbarian tyrants from the east. What was the uk and conflict . Was it an uprising . Was it a civil war . Was it an invasion, and annexation . It seems as if these terms have real meaning in the way we understand aggressors and victims and all dynamics of the conflicts. Guest i think the case in ukraine was quite a mixed with an quite a complex one. In criticizing the western media, thats a criticism of the interpretations and, of course, there are a number of a very knowledgeable and very talented correspondence at very western newspapers, but you know we live in an era where the media often becomes reduced to the sort of quick headlines that leave very little room are really no room for nuance and complexity. I think the truth in what happened in ukraine was that there were several things going on at once, right . It wasnt sort of, there was a one answer to any of these questions except maybe did russia annex crimea. They did and it was illegal. It remns illegal. I think in the east there was a lot going on at the same time. Russia was actually supporting the eastern separatists and they probably wouldve been defeated longer go if russia had not intervened at key moments. The separatists would been defeated it probably after only a few months if russia had not intervened and, of course, it was very easy for rush to to intervene because of the geography. There was a huge shared border with russia. It was easy to send supplies, troops. Russia denied it pretty much everyone knew it. Knew that it was happening. Its a russia was playing a huge role. At the same time do a lot of things going on internally in ukraine that also had made the situation possible. I think if russia had tried to support separatist republics in the place where citizens felt that they were fully integrated into the west come into the rest of ukraine and that they sort of fully identify themselves as ukrainian citizens, if theyve been more or less happy with their lives they would never embrace this, it would never supported it, right . Part of it was russian propaganda but for a long time long before maidan there had been problems of identity formation in ukraine. I felt especially critical of media narrative that reduced it to a ukrainian versus russian speaker conflict, because if you live in ukraine you know that russia, ukraine has really an extraordinarily fluid way of using language. And to say that one person is a ukraine and one person as an ethnic russian, its ready you can make those lineal distinction but i think media narratives like that serve to increase division while also not being inaccurate depiction of reality. Host. And so there were a lotf problems with Eastern Ukraine is stealing there were not fully citizens. A lot about had to do with certain versions of history of ukraine history and with ukrainian nationalist interpretations of history that aggressively rejected the soviet experience, aggressively rejected identification with russian culture of the language. Those are very divisive. Host so wars of all sorts of impacts, and they also social impacts. This conflict that happen in ukraine, what did you observe, what kind of effects to that upon ukrainian society, upon identity formation, maybe among some of your friends and colleagues . How were they changed by what happened . Guest well, i think its important to speak first, in some ways its very troubling as this is spoken very rarely at this point. The suffering of people in Eastern Ukraine. They lived in a war zone. Especially most poor and most vulnerable when not able to lead. They are still stuck their or their sort of in temporary settlements on border attempts and its agonizing for them. There are also nearly 2 million displaced people in ukraine. So their lives have been completely torn apart, right . And they respond to that emotionally in a wide variety of ways because theyve lost their home. Theyve been injured. Their families have been killed. Its devastating. As far as people who didnt live in the zones that were taken by russia by the separatists, i did see a very dramatic transformation in a lot of the people who i knew. Almost a point id known, and i was in ukraine for several years and the most everyone i knew from the time has been involved in the maidan protests one way or another, virtually everyone i knew supported them with a couple of exceptions. But once yanukovych fled and once the war began and it came to be this atmosphere of very intense fear and in many cases of sort of hatred towards russia and also sometimes toward Eastern Ukraine is. The separatists at sometimes toward Eastern Ukraine in general. So some people i know sort of became much more nationalistic than they had been before. Others became just very disillusioned by what they felt had been sort of a lost promise of maidan, that failure of maidan to end corruption. The fact that what had seemed initially a moment a huge hope and optimism had ended and this cute dissection of war and then, of course, they very serious economic problems. The currency collapse a lot of people are suffering at an economic level. Host one other recurring calls in ukraine site as a deal with the west sometimes is we share your values. We want to be a normal european country as you were saying that, how does europe, perhaps how does the United States look for ukrainians now . Is there still that sense of optimism, this ideal, these ties of all liberalism that we see both in the europe and the u. S. Also altered the kinds of aspirations and goals that the ukrainians themselves hold . Guest i think that ukrainians have sort of the scrambled to readjust to the shocking victory of trump, but i think the fact that he won the election but even the fact that he won the primary, that he became a viable candidate has done huge, huge damage to the international image, which was already tarnished but i think especially in come ukraine side a lot of currency, an image of america as of this democratic model, also as this savior. Theres a tendency in parts of Eastern Europe i think as those elsewhere in the world to feel that may be the u. S. Will be the one to defend us. If they are resisting russia and we are prodemocracy, if we are fighting for a liberal democracy maybe the u. S. Will help us because the u. S. Is the ultimate model of liberal democracy. The u. S. Is the worlds policeman. Some people want the u. S. To be the worlds policeman. Even under obama, the u. S. Did not sort of take Decisive Action to intervene in ukraine conflict, and now it certainly or probably will not under trump but just trumps election has been unbelievable damage. Host one of the big knocks that moscows had a special under putin about this u. S. Led liberal, democratic and sort of free market aspirations is that the u. S. Is hypocritical. It practices double standards. It tells countries to do one thing and then it does Something Else. With the election, a pretty selfdeclared ill liberal president , right come in that we see with the trump hes not going to tell other countries what to do. He doesnt seem to particularly believe in kind of a liberal democratic order and so forth. On the one hand, this seems to provide russia was sort of a much more natural partner than they had before, someone whos not going to lecture them. On the other hand, theres a think and uncertainty in the relationship precisely because they dont have this constant printable that they can point to inconsistencies of and say, the u. S. Is acting selectively and hypocritically again. How do you see the relationship now . Guest i think the u. S. , and a lot of people who will agree with me, i think the u. S. In many reasons are more useful in any for russia more that it is a friend. I think sort of tension with you is especially for putin as an individual, authoritarian leader and authoritarian leaders have to continually find new sources of legitimacy and power, social power. But putin prominence in the headlines as this super villain he was meddling here and meddling there and sowing chaos with the sake news around the world. I think his headlines serve to make putin seem much more important than he actually is i have heard, quite persuasive, especially now that russias economy is that doing so well and theres a lot of discontent among the russian people that the Economic Situation can a lot of resentment of the lower levels of government, just outrageous corruption and abuses. So for putin has managed to keep himself above that. I think thats partly due to the fact he is seen as this National Hero who is keeping russia great, is keeping russia sort of relevant and who is making russia seem like it still is a superpower. Perhaps more than it actually is. So i think if russia lost that in and it could be quite damaging for putin and could cause difficulties in the russian government. One thing that i think is really sad with the Trump Administration people his name so far is to see how much comes to what it extent it is seen, its actually the United States trying to look more like russia, right, with essentially sort of oligarchs occupying central roles in the government. It seems that it will really ultimately be sort of feeding to come it to the interests of big business while maintaining this veneer of sort of nationalist tribalism which, of course, is totally false. Host this is an interesting morning sounded by scholars and writers like yourself of the postcommunist region, sort of seeing some of these trends in the United States and u. S. Politics. Warnings about possible rising authoritarianism or a new kind of media environment, or this interconnection between personal ties and business ties and political power. Which of these trends as a seasoned observer of the postcommunist sphere do you find the most alarming that you have observed over the last few weeks . Guest this is not at all the phenomena of the last few weeks. To some extent this is how weve gotten into the mess were in now in u. S. Politics. I think the most disturbing because its the most profound and as its deepest roots and is the most difficult to root out is the very, very intimate relationship between big business, especially when it is these megacorporations like exxon mobil that function almost as states at this point. When business interests and sort of government power are so closely intertwined i think thats huge. I think thats a huge threat to the interests of ordinary people, to the environment, especially relevant where oil is concerned as it is so probably in the u. S. I think thats the most profound problem. But more recently in the last few months and especially in the last few weeks, ive been really alarmed by the ways that the American Media seems to be taking on a tone for people who specialize in Eastern Europe is sort of alltoofamiliar, this absolutely hysterical sort of witchhunt tone, the endless affording, the endless promotion of the sort of questionable narratives. Of course we have our fake news problem and theres this panic about russia planting fake news that americans are great at making their own fake news. We have loads of it, and it has very damaging influence on politics. But i also think its really important to sort of not follow russia in getting into this conspiratorial thinking, everything is a plot of our foreign enemies and sort of jumping to conclusions without any evidence. I think we should look at the Russian Media and try to be as unlike them as possible. Host you mentioned the op the outset of your book that you were i think seven years old when the berlin wall fell, and that you were, you know, not really aware of living memories of communism and its significance and so forth big you really are a scholar and observer of the postcommunist era. What you do in the book is recount the tension, the contradictions of that come the unexpected circumstances. 25 years after the soviet solution, have we reached the end of that era cracks how would we know . What is your view about how our assumptions have changed and where we are going now . Guest returning to what we talked about earlier, i do think we are reaching sort of the end of the postsoviet, post postsoviet or maybe will think of a new name, but i think its very clear that the idea that communism has been now will be liberal democracy. Its become clear that will befall him if enough historical distance now on the fall of the soviet union to be able, to try to see why we were so willing to believe that our problems were solved, whether there was sort of a lack of watchfulness or whether, which are the factors have led to what we are seeing now, which is a rise of authoritarianism and nationalism. Host right. Certainly this could be a populist sort of next 25 years, we will have to and see on that. What we see in Eastern Europe, what we see in western europe, there are all a certain kind of flavor. Guest i think thats important to note that its the worst kind of populism. Its often just the most superficial kind of populism also. Its just making into promises in a lot of cases and appealing to the sort of low nationalist, often racist or xenophobic sentiment while on a higher level often just sort of telling off the government, big business or uniting government and big business. Host do you see your types of scholarly opportunities then if we are in a disparate which have similar dynamics going on in the quoteunquote west versus post comments era . Traditionally, in the academy anyway and in journalism we divide up countries as over there and over here, and we give them categorizations and labels. Is there a Silver Lining cracks are the new kind of studies or connections that we can make at a time like this . Guest i think its an interesting, i think were finally being forced to abandon the sort of unilateral model in which the u. S. Is the model of liberal democracy, everyone else is supposed to be copying. Its been interesting over the last two weeks in the u. S. Hearing perspectives from people from eastern or southern europe, or people from post communist countries because i think in many ways they are more prepared for the reality that we are facing. A lot of americans have sort of just resorted to this pump is hitler comparison, which are problematic. I think it shows in the way our limited political vocabulary. And i think people from postcommunist countries are familiar with many flavors of authoritarianism, and much more modern flavors that authoritarianism, and once that exploit for example, the power of the internet. I think theres an opportunity here, and this is a Silver Lining in the sense, there is an opportunity to try to look at the expertise that people develop in those places or in someone like turkey come in many countries have seen the rise of authoritarianism and try to learn from them as well and is sort of year their on whats going on in the u. S. Host should the u. S. Itself establish a government run sort of propaganda channel . Thats been one of the proposals. How do you counter russian propaganda . You set up your own sort of propaganda mechanism and you push back and you challenge. Whats your view on this . How does the media come out of this kind of propaganda fake news kind of spiral that we seem to be in right now . Guest i am not a fan of governmentsponsored propaganda. I think governments have always produced political propaganda and always will, but i dont want to read government propaganda personally. I certainly dont think, if we are self righteously criticizing the russian government for disseminating what is essentially political propaganda or fake news, whatever it is, propaganda, i dont know that a great solution to the problem is just for us to ramp up our own propaganda efforts. I would say that with fake news, with propaganda, with just very, very distorted media narratives, which often have elements of the truth, i think propaganda is more effective when as something true in it. First of all i think those have been able to expand because people feel, dont feel content with what theyre saying and sort the mainstream narrative. They feel there is Something Else going on. I think ignoring fake news is always the best method and trying to produce really substantive, meaningful, actual factual journalism. Guest host thank you so much for this and good luck with the book. Guest thank you so much. Cspan, where history unfolds a daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas cabletelevision companies and is brought to you today either cable or satellite provider. Heres a look at some authors recently featured on both tvs after words. He had an ambitious structural agenda that he wanted to tackle. Climate change and Health Care Reform but also education and some other areas and then he comes in office and all of a sudden this is the greatest emergency and 35 years and 10 diners telling telling him forget all that other stuff. The houses on fire. We will put out the fire and thats it and thats all you were going to do
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