Autocracy Inc: The dictators who want to run the world by Anne Applebaum (Allen Lane 2024)
My first reading of Anne Applebaum was Gulag published in 2003 and my precious copy was signed by her on 11 August 2018 at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It was a towering exposition of the terror inflicted on millions of people by Soviet Russia in its network of camps. My own father survived imprisonment north of the Arctic Circle by the Gulf of Pechora during the Second World War. My second reading was Iron Curtain, an equally monumental book published in 2012 which expanded into the geography of central and eastern Europe and details its subjugation under Stalinist control from 1944 to 1956.
Then a hiatus until 2020 when I read Twilight of Democracy which is a commentary of the current fragility of the democratic world from the starting point of the dawn of the 21st century. The emergence of the forces of authoritarianism challenging democratic norms and the destabilisation of civil society driven by illiberal, anti-competitive and anti-meritocratic power bases alongside the accelerating pace of modern media are based on selective nostalgia to appeal to the disaffected. She sounded the alarm bells and now in 2024 we have the book Autocracy Inc which further expands the geography to the globe and the network of autocratic regimes who share common interests to preserve power and resources and challenge or disregard international institutions, norms and laws. The levers of power include surveillance technologies and media savvy to sidestep and outflank democratic based politics and politicians.
The role of Russia as a key protagonist is critical to the spread of authoritarianism globally but specifically in central and eastern Europe its leadership from Vladimir Putin has extended into direct military force into Ukraine. The sowing of seeds of disaffection based on selective nostalgia are powerful slow burning tactics to destabilise democratic societies however they may be constituted. They promote hopelessness, cynicism and disillusion. No democracy is safe from such tactics. Multipolarity is the new autocratic mantra justifying rule by law of the leader rather than leadership under the rule of law. Thus Zimbabwe supports the Russian “Special Operation “ in Ukraine as a transactional deal rather than following any mutual ideal.
Alongside these political tactics are the unknown consequences of autocratic global networks supporting kleptocracy, corruption and criminality where there are no territorial boundaries and which are enabled by the subservience of vested interests in democratic societies. Anne Applebaum has raised these concerns very lucidly in this book which has now become a catalyst for discussion. It has been dedicated to optimists but I would prefer to consider myself a positive pessimist. My own father told me in 1989, when Poland freed itself from the yoke of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall came down, that Russia would be back in 40 years. That would be 2029. I was optimistic then that he would be wrong owing to the ending of the Cold War and the presumed will of all to pursue peace through co-operation and respect for basic freedoms. I realise now that he knew never to underestimate the forces of autocracy and that democracy and its freedoms can never be assured.
Krystyna Szumelukowa
September 2024