The Descent
Witnessing Russia's Spiral into Madness Under Putin
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- 16,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
An extraordinary first-hand account of Russia's descent into totalitarianism, paranoia and madness.
Marc Bennetts, foreign correspondent for The Times and The Sunday Times, moved to Russia in the chaotic final years of President Yeltsin's rule. Twenty-five years later, The Times pulled him out of Russia over concerns for his security following his arrest in Moscow at a protest against the war in Ukraine.
From the "wild" 1990s in Moscow to narrowly escaping death under fire in Ukraine, The Descent is a unique and personal diary of how Russia spiraled into violent insanity. Bennetts witnessed the often-terrifying events in Russia up close, observing how the Kremlin's ubiquitous propaganda warped minds and fomented hatred of Putin's foes, at home and abroad, even among people close to him. After leaving Russia, he travelled in war-torn Ukraine, where he came face-to-face with the appalling consequences of this madness.
Bennetts meets a vast array of characters, from pro-war Russian politicians, influential Russian Orthodox Church officials and aggressive Kremlin activists to opposition figures and a Siberian shaman who tried to "exorcise" Putin, as well as Russians who took up arms to fight Moscow's invading forces. In this extraordinary panorama, Marc Bennetts shows in frightening detail how a society can lose its mind, and how easily a power-hungry leader can reshape an entire country in his own malevolent image.
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Crazed propaganda, brutal repression, and helpless public acquiescence underpin Russian president Vladimir Putin's regime, according to this heartbroken memoir. Bennetts (I'm Going to Ruin Their Live) revisits his 25 years living in Russia and covering it for The Times of London and other media outlets before he fled the country in 2022. He describes how Putin consolidated power by crafting an image as a strong force for order, gaining control of the media, perpetrating massive election fraud, arresting and murdering political opponents, and laying the groundwork for the Ukraine war. Bennetts tells the story through personal observations and interviews, including with newscasters who lied about Ukrainian soldiers crucifying a Russian toddler; his Russian mother-in-law, who believed television propaganda and cut him off; a Siberian shaman who tried to exorcize Putin from the Kremlin and wound up consigned to a psych ward; Ukrainian villagers tortured by Russian occupation troops; and Russian dissidents who volunteered to fight on the Ukrainian side. In Bennetts's vivid rendering, Russia has fallen into an almost medieval mindset, with citizens exerting zero control over an abusive officialdom—at one point, he profiles the burgeoning cottage industry of witches employed to cast spells over unresponsive bureaucrats—while maintaining a peasant-like faith that a distant ruler will intervene in their problems. The melancholy result casts a bleak light on the Russian national psyche.
