Ilya Yablokov: Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World

From the moment that the idea of this book was conceived to the day the final version of the manuscript was sent to my editors, eleven years have passed. Throughout this long and eventful period there were many people who helped me design the arguments, change my views, dig deeper and think more critically. Firstly, this project would never have been realized without the advice of Viktor Muchnik, my mentor and academic guru at Tomsk State University. His suggestion of looking more closely at conspiracy theories, made over a cup of coffee, turned out to be decisive and laid the groundwork for past and future achievements. Rashid Kaplanov, Viktoria Mochalova, Semion Goldin and all of the staff at ‘Sefer’, the Moscow centre for Jewish studies, were the first to support me financially and helped me begin collecting the resources for this project. Daniel Romanovsky and Viktor Shnirel’man gave advice for my first academic steps. Oleg Khazanov at Tomsk State University, Michael Miller at Central European University, Michael Tuval at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Rani Jaeger in Stockholm showed me how academic research could actually be fun. Gevorg Avetikyan, Istvan Pal Adam, Sanja Tepavcevic, David Karas, Anastas Vangeli, Vadim Nigmatov and Yulia Likhacheva-Kuzmane were always there (mainly in Budapest) to run by me many ideas that later appeared in the book.

The key person who made the production of this book possible is Vera Tolz, who had faith in this project from the very first day we met. Vera’s knowledge and academic achievements, as well as her critical and thorough analysis of texts, have provided me with academic inspiration and a scholarly role model. Her kindness and willingness to help in every possible situation greatly contributed to the successful completion of this book. She taught me how to be a teacher and mentor, which I shall always remember. I am indebted to Peter Knight for his extraordinary help in developing the conceptual framework required to approach such a peculiar topic. As a student in Tomsk, Peter’s book on American conspiracy culture was the first that I read on the subject and indeed it was sheer luck and, of course, an absolute privilege to have him as second supervisor of my project. As a young scholar, I am also indebted to Stephen Hutchings for providing invaluable academic opportunities. Stephen’s critical comments, a deep understanding of Russian culture and readiness to share knowledge helped me look at my project in a different way and has laid the foundations for future research. Lynne Attwood was extremely helpful during the work on my project in Manchester and, at a later stage, was a key figure in turning my often unbearably academic language into a (hopefully) fascinating read. Luke March’s opinion on the PhD dissertation and the further evolution of the text have been crucial in turning what was a postgraduate thesis into a proper book.

A friendly and creative atmosphere at the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at Manchester also contributed to the outcome of the book. Elizaveta Alentaeva, Elena Simms, Paul Richardson, Svetlana Rapin, Kenzie Burchell, Alistair Dickins, Jan Gryta, Piotrek Andrzejewski, Marina Henrikson and Ana Barazal Barreira were at every moment very supportive of my work on the book, both in the office space and at our house in Victoria Park. Of all people in Manchester I am especially indebted to Alistair, who was very kind in sharpening my skills as an entry-level writer. Manchester was also the place where I met my co-author and close friend Elisabeth Schimpfossl. Since then we have shared the happiness and sadness of our first steps in the field while working in parallel on our first books and numerous fascinating projects about Russian media. I am very lucky to have a colleague and friend from whom I learn every day.

The final part of the book has been written in Leeds where my colleagues/friends, James Harris, Natasha Bogoslavskaya, James Wilson, Pavel Gudoshnikov and Robert Hornsby, have done everything within their powers to ease the teaching workload, inspire me with new ideas and challenge me at every turn.

The young generation of scholars in Russian studies has not only provided me with feedback and useful criticism of my ideas, but also has become a source of inspiration and support in all the possible circumstances that face the young academic in Britain. Arsenii Khitrov, Olga Zeveleva, Tom Rowley, Nathan Brand, Vsevolod Samokhvalov, Jon Roosenbeek – these words are dedicated to you.

I should like to thank my colleagues and friends around the world – Vasily Gatov, Alexey Kovalev, Alexander Etkind, Peter Pomerantsev, Viktor Vakhshtayn, Marlene Laruelle, Mark Bassin, Samuel Greene, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, Peter Rutland, Steve Norris, Alexey Miller, Peter Duncan, Andrew McKenzie-McHarg, Sergei Samoilenko, Eliot Borenstein, Joe Uscinski, Mark Fenster, Tigran Amiryan, Samuel Volfson, Anastasiya Stepanyants, Irina Baulina and Andrey Goryanov. Their words of advice have been extremely well received during the work on the book and helped me navigate through the murky waters of Russian politics, which is full of conspiracies – real and imagined.

I am grateful to John Thompson and the team at Polity Press, who were very supportive during the book production process, from the first email to the final editing.

Finally, the two people without whom this book would never have been produced are my parents, Olga and Aleksandr. The unreserved encouragement, patience, love and time they have invested in making me a better man was a key factor in my personal development. No words will ever be able to express my gratitude to them. I am sure my father would have been very proud to hold a copy of this book in his hands.

The attempted coup in August 1991, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in December of that year, produced a sense of bewilderment in Russians, from top-ranking politicians down to ordinary Russians. One explanation crops up again and again: conspiracy. Understood as a malevolent plot underlying historical and current events, the conspiracy theory has become a popular tool for interpreting the social and political realities of post-Soviet Russia. Its essential element – that there is an omnipotent secret group of people plotting to increase their own power at the expense of ordinary people – is espoused by people in all walks of Russian life.

In the post-Soviet period, the West, which is very often seen by Russians as a single entity, has emerged as an essential protagonist in conspiracy discourse. However, in 2016 and 2017 the West began engaging in its own conspiracy theories. The spirit of the Cold War and the witch-hunt for Russian agents both made a comeback. Today, the Kremlin is portrayed as the global puppet master who has successfully managed to appoint a loyal man to deal with the White House. ‘Russiagate’ and the media hype which surrounds it – that is, the Kremlin’s alleged meddling in the US elections, and its attempts to influence elections in the UK and France – revived the old fear of Russian spies. Hysteria about the Russians became a central element of the US domestic political agenda, and an almost mythologized Russia became the source of many of the troubles plaguing the American people (Beauchamp, 2017). Russian hackers were found to be behind the worst cyberattacks (Calabresi, 2017); indeed, who but Russians could cause such havoc? Foreign intelligence officers shared with journalists, albeit anonymously, the claim that Trump’s aides had contacts with Kremlin envoys (Schmidt et al., 2017), and that experienced villain Vladimir Putin was sending killers to neutralize all witnesses who could testify about Russian plots against the West (Bearak, 2017; Blake et al., 2017). Russian politicians and journalists loyal to the state have tried to convince the public that Russia’s very existence is dependent on Putin. The wave of Western conspiracy theories about Russia’s intrusion into US and European politics, in turn, made Russian politicians proud of ‘hacking the States’ (Cohen, 2017). The fears of Americans thus nurtured the feelings Russians had of being superior to their geopolitical enemy, and encouraged them to believe that they had, indeed, conspired to hack America.