When Isaiah Berlin sat down to draft some thoughts about his forthcoming dinner meeting with Vladimir Putin, he contemplated if the focus should be on a single theme (like it was with Xi Jinping when they met), or whether he should let the discussion flow, given the latest geopolitical developments between the US and Russia. At the same time, he was well-aware of the fact that investors are analyzing facts about valuations and seriously reflecting and deliberating if a rotation to international markets – which from a valuation perspective are cheaper than US markets – is appropriate at this level, so the topic could be “why would investors consider investing in Russia nowadays, given the absence of a rule of law, and the economy’s domination by few select oligarchs – formerly associated with the KGB – who have amassed astronomical assets and who are known as Putin’s siloviki circle?”
Berlin kept looking at some revealing statistics for Russia – such as the fact that poverty has risen by more than 20% in the last few years, the fact that GDP per capita has dropped by more than 30% since 2013, and the fact that healthcare and education spending combined could not even dream the amount spent for “internal security” purposes – all of which portray a picture of an insecure and kleptocratic regime (as articulated by Karen Dawisha in her outstanding book Putin’s Kleptocracy) where power carries no authority and the regime has simply become a brutal tyranny that amasses wealth at the expense of the people while annihilating any voice of opposition.
Prior to the dinner, Berlin had sent Putin the book titled Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914, by Frederic Morton. Initially, Putin wanted the dinner at the Russian Embassy, but Berlin politely declined the offer…So as they sat down at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, London and before the hellos, Putin wanted to know if Berlin had anything to add to his previous assessment of the Biden dogma (as conveyed to his dear friend XI “one half realistic liberalism, the other half liberated realism, both halves informed by disciplined faith that guides the politics rather than the other way around”). To the challenge Berlin added, “Maybe the subtitle of the Biden dogma is: Tenure in office is seen as a laboratory of landmark changes in the twilight zone.”
“Did you read, or have you had someone summarize for you the book that I sent you?” Berlin asked. “No time for that. Could you summarize it for me?” Putin replied, only to get Berlin’s polite reply: “I would be delighted to do so, but first let me ask you: Did you ever wonder what was that landmark, watershed, and ultimate turning point in the 20th century as the impact of the end of World War I started taking place?”
“What do you mean?” Putin asked. “Oh, you know, three empires disappeared within four short years. The Russian, the Ottoman, and the Austro-Hungarian Empires were gone, and out of the ashes a phoenix ascended, the United States, that ended up winning three major wars – World War I & II and the Cold War – despite the fact that it was a baby-nation relative to the others,” Berlin answered.
“So, what does it have to do with the book you sent?” Putin asked, only to get once again Berlin’s polite reply: “My dear Vladimir, isn’t it interesting that Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Josip Bro a.k.a. Tito, Trotsky and of course Emperor Franz Joseph, as well as the soon-to-be-assassinated Crown Prince Archduke Franz Ferdinand, all converged in Vienna at the same between 1913 and 1914, i.e. at the twilight of the three major empires that had dominated global geopolitics for centuries? Check it out and you will find the historical record to be so.”
“Dear Isaiah, Russia is moving forward to a bright future inspired by its 19th century traditions founded in its great intelligentsia authors” Putin said and maybe regretted it the moment he finished his sentence. Here was Isaiah Berlin who spent decades of his life studying Russian authors and was now given a green light to articulate his beliefs about Russian authors and Putin’s Russia. Diversification was out and historical political philosophy was in.
“By all means the Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century was sui generis,” Berlin stated, and continues: “Their fervent beliefs and opposition to tyrannical elements that presented an existential threat to Russia, achieved historical significance. However, the grand majority of their ideas were borrowed from the West, were imperfectly understood, and in their fanatical and extreme passion they created ideologies which like Dostoevsky’s devils, blinded the nation to self-destruction, dragging their country and subsequently the world down with them. The Russian revolution and its aftermath have done much to strengthen the belief that a passionate and misconstrued interest in ideologies is a symptom of mental and moral disorder. The fundamental propositions of political philosophy should always come alive as solutions to moral demands.”
“How then should we live and conduct our politics?” Putin asked. “I am glad you asked,” Berlin replied, only to add: “Dehumanizing visions of persons as instruments of abstract historical forces, have led to criminal perversions of political practice. There is a deep metaphysical need that creates a void and people yearn for a mythical lost wholeness trying to cover the void through the exercise of tyrannical power, which if complemented with kleptocratic practices creates an oppressive reality, whose ending always lead to tragedies.”
“Are you then advocating pluralism as political philosophy?” Putin asked, only to get a direct response. “Listen, if you mean misconstrued pluralism as it is unfortunately sometimes practiced in the West, always looking for a compromise and a golden medium, having a mind so open that everything falls out, the answer is no. Social harmony, prosperity, and the good life doesn’t imply the adoption of extreme positions in a synthesis that ends up undermining the essence of politics and of choices either at the personal, corporate, or government level. Freedom is the necessary condition of a moral order when making hard and agonizing choices,” Berlin replied.
“There are periods of crisis when people need to see strong leadership,” Putin stated with force only to get Berlin’s reply: “At times of historical crisis, when the necessity of choice generates fears and neuroses, people are eager to trade the doubts and agonies for determinist visions, conservative or radical, which give them the false delusions of peace of imprisonment and contended security. They resemble investors who panic when the markets drop and want to jump from the train while it is going through a dark tunnel. These are the twilight moments that could undermine their historical trajectory.”
“Bakunin is famous for denouncing the tyranny of his time and still serves as an inspiration,” Putin proudly proclaimed, only to hear Berlin saying, “That’s utterly nonsense. Bakunin renounced the tyranny of dogmas but ended up demanding total adherence to his own dogma which led the nihilistic iconoclasts of the 1860s to accept the absurd and crude dogma of dialectic materialism. Belinsky is the arch-example of the intelligentsia’s inhumane fanaticism where despotism is admired as the expression of cosmic harmony.”
“Do you condone then the West’s behavior?” Putin asked. Berlin answered, “That’s not the issue. You brought up the issue of conducting policies based on the ideals of the 19th century Russian authors, and when I tried to respond to your questions, you are changing the subject. Have you ever read the writings of your own Russian author of the 19th century, by the name of Alexander Herzen? He – like the revolutionaries of the 1840s – was attracted to the idea of negating the outworn dogmas, traditions, and institutions of that era. The reality is that he discovered the bankruptcy of all deterministic political philosophies of progress and he is one of the few who articulated that one of the greatest failures of a system is to transfer moral responsibility from its own shoulders to an unpredictable future order, in order to sanctify monstrous crime by faith in some remote utopia.”
“You are biased,” Putin said in an obvious agitated voice. “Am I?” Berlin replied. “Would you say that Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky are also biased? Their aversion to the intelligentsia is frequently quoted and they emphasize the gulf that separated those truly great writers and your heroes who were only concerned with the exploitation of the people. I encourage you to read my own pieces on Tolstoy’s view of history, published under the title ‘The Hedgehog and the Fox’ as well as my essay ‘Tolstoy and Enlightenment’ where you can clearly see – if you are willing to see – Tolstoy’s vision and preaching as a titanic struggle between the monist and pluralist visions of reality. Tolstoy’s ‘lethal nihilism’ led him to denounce the pretensions of all theories, dogmas and systems to explain, order or predict the complex and contradictory phenomena of history and social existence. However, the driving force of such nihilism was a passionate longing to discover a liberating truth that gives him a moral stature apparent even to those most mystified by him and his calls – along with Turgenev – that the injustices of a tyrannical regime where crimes are masquerading as sobriety will ultimately be addressed by the historical necessity echoed in Chaadayev’s pronouncement that Russian tyrannical regimes meet their maker at the twilight zone when free people rise up convicted by their thirst for truth and liberty.”
Putin abruptly left the dinner table.
When Isaiah Berlin Dined with Vladimir Putin: International Diversification and Intelligentsia at a Time when Dreams of Subjugation Converge in the Twilight Zone
Author : John E. Charalambakis
Date : March 23, 2021
When Isaiah Berlin sat down to draft some thoughts about his forthcoming dinner meeting with Vladimir Putin, he contemplated if the focus should be on a single theme (like it was with Xi Jinping when they met), or whether he should let the discussion flow, given the latest geopolitical developments between the US and Russia. At the same time, he was well-aware of the fact that investors are analyzing facts about valuations and seriously reflecting and deliberating if a rotation to international markets – which from a valuation perspective are cheaper than US markets – is appropriate at this level, so the topic could be “why would investors consider investing in Russia nowadays, given the absence of a rule of law, and the economy’s domination by few select oligarchs – formerly associated with the KGB – who have amassed astronomical assets and who are known as Putin’s siloviki circle?”
Berlin kept looking at some revealing statistics for Russia – such as the fact that poverty has risen by more than 20% in the last few years, the fact that GDP per capita has dropped by more than 30% since 2013, and the fact that healthcare and education spending combined could not even dream the amount spent for “internal security” purposes – all of which portray a picture of an insecure and kleptocratic regime (as articulated by Karen Dawisha in her outstanding book Putin’s Kleptocracy) where power carries no authority and the regime has simply become a brutal tyranny that amasses wealth at the expense of the people while annihilating any voice of opposition.
Prior to the dinner, Berlin had sent Putin the book titled Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914, by Frederic Morton. Initially, Putin wanted the dinner at the Russian Embassy, but Berlin politely declined the offer…So as they sat down at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, London and before the hellos, Putin wanted to know if Berlin had anything to add to his previous assessment of the Biden dogma (as conveyed to his dear friend XI “one half realistic liberalism, the other half liberated realism, both halves informed by disciplined faith that guides the politics rather than the other way around”). To the challenge Berlin added, “Maybe the subtitle of the Biden dogma is: Tenure in office is seen as a laboratory of landmark changes in the twilight zone.”
“Did you read, or have you had someone summarize for you the book that I sent you?” Berlin asked. “No time for that. Could you summarize it for me?” Putin replied, only to get Berlin’s polite reply: “I would be delighted to do so, but first let me ask you: Did you ever wonder what was that landmark, watershed, and ultimate turning point in the 20th century as the impact of the end of World War I started taking place?”
“What do you mean?” Putin asked. “Oh, you know, three empires disappeared within four short years. The Russian, the Ottoman, and the Austro-Hungarian Empires were gone, and out of the ashes a phoenix ascended, the United States, that ended up winning three major wars – World War I & II and the Cold War – despite the fact that it was a baby-nation relative to the others,” Berlin answered.
“So, what does it have to do with the book you sent?” Putin asked, only to get once again Berlin’s polite reply: “My dear Vladimir, isn’t it interesting that Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Josip Bro a.k.a. Tito, Trotsky and of course Emperor Franz Joseph, as well as the soon-to-be-assassinated Crown Prince Archduke Franz Ferdinand, all converged in Vienna at the same between 1913 and 1914, i.e. at the twilight of the three major empires that had dominated global geopolitics for centuries? Check it out and you will find the historical record to be so.”
“Dear Isaiah, Russia is moving forward to a bright future inspired by its 19th century traditions founded in its great intelligentsia authors” Putin said and maybe regretted it the moment he finished his sentence. Here was Isaiah Berlin who spent decades of his life studying Russian authors and was now given a green light to articulate his beliefs about Russian authors and Putin’s Russia. Diversification was out and historical political philosophy was in.
“By all means the Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century was sui generis,” Berlin stated, and continues: “Their fervent beliefs and opposition to tyrannical elements that presented an existential threat to Russia, achieved historical significance. However, the grand majority of their ideas were borrowed from the West, were imperfectly understood, and in their fanatical and extreme passion they created ideologies which like Dostoevsky’s devils, blinded the nation to self-destruction, dragging their country and subsequently the world down with them. The Russian revolution and its aftermath have done much to strengthen the belief that a passionate and misconstrued interest in ideologies is a symptom of mental and moral disorder. The fundamental propositions of political philosophy should always come alive as solutions to moral demands.”
“How then should we live and conduct our politics?” Putin asked. “I am glad you asked,” Berlin replied, only to add: “Dehumanizing visions of persons as instruments of abstract historical forces, have led to criminal perversions of political practice. There is a deep metaphysical need that creates a void and people yearn for a mythical lost wholeness trying to cover the void through the exercise of tyrannical power, which if complemented with kleptocratic practices creates an oppressive reality, whose ending always lead to tragedies.”
“Are you then advocating pluralism as political philosophy?” Putin asked, only to get a direct response. “Listen, if you mean misconstrued pluralism as it is unfortunately sometimes practiced in the West, always looking for a compromise and a golden medium, having a mind so open that everything falls out, the answer is no. Social harmony, prosperity, and the good life doesn’t imply the adoption of extreme positions in a synthesis that ends up undermining the essence of politics and of choices either at the personal, corporate, or government level. Freedom is the necessary condition of a moral order when making hard and agonizing choices,” Berlin replied.
“There are periods of crisis when people need to see strong leadership,” Putin stated with force only to get Berlin’s reply: “At times of historical crisis, when the necessity of choice generates fears and neuroses, people are eager to trade the doubts and agonies for determinist visions, conservative or radical, which give them the false delusions of peace of imprisonment and contended security. They resemble investors who panic when the markets drop and want to jump from the train while it is going through a dark tunnel. These are the twilight moments that could undermine their historical trajectory.”
“Bakunin is famous for denouncing the tyranny of his time and still serves as an inspiration,” Putin proudly proclaimed, only to hear Berlin saying, “That’s utterly nonsense. Bakunin renounced the tyranny of dogmas but ended up demanding total adherence to his own dogma which led the nihilistic iconoclasts of the 1860s to accept the absurd and crude dogma of dialectic materialism. Belinsky is the arch-example of the intelligentsia’s inhumane fanaticism where despotism is admired as the expression of cosmic harmony.”
“Do you condone then the West’s behavior?” Putin asked. Berlin answered, “That’s not the issue. You brought up the issue of conducting policies based on the ideals of the 19th century Russian authors, and when I tried to respond to your questions, you are changing the subject. Have you ever read the writings of your own Russian author of the 19th century, by the name of Alexander Herzen? He – like the revolutionaries of the 1840s – was attracted to the idea of negating the outworn dogmas, traditions, and institutions of that era. The reality is that he discovered the bankruptcy of all deterministic political philosophies of progress and he is one of the few who articulated that one of the greatest failures of a system is to transfer moral responsibility from its own shoulders to an unpredictable future order, in order to sanctify monstrous crime by faith in some remote utopia.”
“You are biased,” Putin said in an obvious agitated voice. “Am I?” Berlin replied. “Would you say that Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky are also biased? Their aversion to the intelligentsia is frequently quoted and they emphasize the gulf that separated those truly great writers and your heroes who were only concerned with the exploitation of the people. I encourage you to read my own pieces on Tolstoy’s view of history, published under the title ‘The Hedgehog and the Fox’ as well as my essay ‘Tolstoy and Enlightenment’ where you can clearly see – if you are willing to see – Tolstoy’s vision and preaching as a titanic struggle between the monist and pluralist visions of reality. Tolstoy’s ‘lethal nihilism’ led him to denounce the pretensions of all theories, dogmas and systems to explain, order or predict the complex and contradictory phenomena of history and social existence. However, the driving force of such nihilism was a passionate longing to discover a liberating truth that gives him a moral stature apparent even to those most mystified by him and his calls – along with Turgenev – that the injustices of a tyrannical regime where crimes are masquerading as sobriety will ultimately be addressed by the historical necessity echoed in Chaadayev’s pronouncement that Russian tyrannical regimes meet their maker at the twilight zone when free people rise up convicted by their thirst for truth and liberty.”
Putin abruptly left the dinner table.