The Bookmonger
Episode 513: 'Never Speak to Strangers' [Vol. 2], by David Satter
[MUSIC] Hello, and welcome to the Bookmonger. I'm John J. Miller of National Review, thanks for listening. This show is a production of National Reviewing or recording from the studio WRFH, the campus radio station of Hillsdale College. Our guest is David Satter, author of Never Speak to Strangers and other writings from Russia and the Soviet Union, volume two. David, welcome to the Bookmonger. >> Thank you, John. >> You've covered the Soviet Union and Russia as a journalist since 1976. So for most of your life, what's in this new collection of your work? >> Well, this is the second volume act, and there was the first volume which contains a lot of my articles. It was almost a chronicle of my engagement with Russia. These are articles that attempt to make sense of a lot of things, including things that are happening in the US. The book includes a lot of interviews, speeches, as well as articles, for example, for National Review and the Wall Street Journal. But the second volume is, to a much greater extent, an attempt to conceptualize. And to just look at the overall history and understand why we got to where we are. Why we ended up being involved in a war that we could have easily prevented. And what the future is likely to hold. >> This new book includes a piece from earlier this year in 2024. Marking a century since the death of Lenin. And you wrote that, quote, his evil legacy lives on, unquote. Remind us, what is his legacy? And how does it live on even after the fall of the Soviet Union? >> What Lenin did, what the Bolsheviks did, was that they broke with the consensus of Western civilization. The idea that there's such a thing as transcendent universal values. That apply equally to everyone. They denied the fundamental conception of right and wrong. If people up until that time assume that what was right was right for everyone. Lenin established the idea that what was right was whatever was right for the working class represented, of course, by the Communist Party. Represented, of course, by the Communist Party bureaucracy. Represented, of course, by the Communist Party ruling committee. Represented, of course, by the single absolute ruler. I mean, there have been absolute rulers in history before. But no one explicitly rejected the very idea of right and wrong. And in fact, that virus which then spread to Nazism, world terrorism, is the danger even today we see it with totalitarian terrorist groups. For example, Hamas in Palestine Israel where they have no hesitation whatsoever about attacking a rock concert and massacring people or using their own people as human shields. We see it in the case of Russia itself. Where the rulers came to power by blowing up their own people in 1999. And have waged war with total disregard for human life ever since. So what started with Lenin and what was reflected in 20th century totalitarianism still affects the modern world today, even though the Soviet Union and many other communist regimes. And of course, the Nazi regime in Germany have all fallen. >> After Lenin, of course, comes Stalin. Then there are a series of Soviet leaders and Russian leaders. But is Putin the logical successor to Lenin Stalin and Soviets? >> Well, he adopts the same mentality. Which is the idea that human beings have no independent value that they're just raw material for the realization of the objectives of the state, whatever those may be. And in the case of Putin, of course, he and his corrupt cronies identified the state with themselves. So what is ever in their interest? The point is that there are no moral limits and there cannot be with that mentality. And that mentality was greatly strengthened and passed down to us by the experience of totalitarianism, by the experience of Lenin, by the experience of the Soviet Union. >> Some conservatives are drawn to Putin. They see him as a strong leader. He has the appearance of defending traditional values. What do you make of that phenomenon on the American right? >> I think that many people on the American right have simply lost, I don't want to say anything harsh. They've lost any perspective as a result of their hatred of the woke phenomenon. Therefore, they can be easily fooled if Putin pretends to be a religious leader. If he says he's against LGBTQ plus whatever it is, they immediately assume that he's a Christian leader without really understanding anything about him. Without being aware that a Christian leader doesn't murder his own people to come to power. He doesn't organize human wave attacks. He doesn't carry out aggression against a sovereign nation, whose sovereignty that Russia has in fact recognized in hundreds of treaties over the last 30 years. What we're seeing on the right is the reaction. On the one hand, the educated class, the chattering class in the country, has simply gone off the deep end and insulted the common sense of millions of ordinary Americans who generally speaking have good instincts. The problem is that once that takes place, then the right and conservatives and even middle-of-the-road people have themselves a tendency to go off the deep end. They do a lot less in the way of reading, a lot less in the way of thinking. Their strength is common sense. Once they get started, of course, they come up with ideas that are even wilder and more superficial and uninformed. That's why you have too much in the way of conspiracy theories now on the right, because the mainstream press has so discredited itself. But it's a sad situation, and the epitome of stupidity and uninformed talk is the idea that a murderer like Putin is some kind of Christian leader. Of course, nothing of the kind. They celebrate all of the religious holidays very ostentatiously in Russia, but that doesn't mean that they believe in anything. They dress up. It's like going to a custom store and buying clerical robes and crosses and gas ox. It has no meaning to tell that to people who are far, far away from Russian realities and who have lost their faith in the government's institutions because of so much of this woke stuff is very difficult, but it's taking a toll. In any case, that's one of the things that I try to deal with. My hope is that people will become better informed, but of course, it's oftentimes an uphill battle. Putin won't rule forever. He is 71 years old. What do you think might come after him? A lot will depend on what happens in the war and how successful they are. Russia is on a path to its own destruction one way or the other, but what's really important is whether we're going to see the destruction of the nation or the destruction of the regime. A victory by Ukraine would have a tremendously positive effect on Russia itself and would definitely undermine the regime. Russia's history is paradoxical in that the good things in Russian history have often taken place after defeat in war. After the defeat in the Crimean War, the Russians are made the Alexander II, the decision to free the slaves, the Serbs. That was in 1861. After the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, Russia got its first constitution. If they're defeated in the Russian-Ukrainian War, it could have a serious effect on changing the mentality, the imperial mentality of the country, and paradoxically creating conditions for democratic development there, at least for an improvement in the situation. Let's wrap up with one more question, a personal one. David, you've devoted so much of your life to the study of Russia. You know the language. You lived over there until the Russian government kicked you out. How does an American boy from Chicago devote his life to that subject? What interested you in Russia? Why did you do it? Well, I grew up at the time of the Cold War. Until today, I don't realize the extent to which the conflict with communism dominated the political dialogue in the US. At that time, and we're talking about the '60s, even the '50s, of course I was a really young boy in the '70s, the confrontation with the communist bloc was really the confrontation that determined the future of the world. I coincidentally had the opportunity to study Russian in the high school I went to in Chicago was just a fluke, but it was offered in the high school I attended, and I took the language. Then I went to Oxford years later, and I was close to geographically close to the Soviet Union. So all these factors came together, and I developed a fascination for the country and for the people and the culture. The authors, David Satter, the book is "Never Speak to Strangers" and other writings from Russia and the Soviet Union, Volume 2. David, thanks for joining us on the Bookmonger. Thank you, John. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to leave a review. Your reviews help new listeners discover us, and that helps us keep this show going. We'll be back next week, for an episode of The Bookmonger.