‘We’re seeing the flip side of globalisation’: Anne Applebaum

In a chat with Amritesh Mukherjee, historian-journalist Anne Applebaum discusses how modern autocracies function and why they are no longer about dictators.

The world seems to be circling back to the age of authoritarianism it promised to turn its back on, not many decades ago. From history to modern politics, Anne Applebaum’s books are a brilliant way to understand this world, forever in flux, forever the same. In a chat with DHoS at the Jaipur Literature Festival, she graciously spoke about the difference between the world today and then, the need of the hour for anyone who cares about democracy and a lot more. Excerpts

In Autocracy, Inc., you describe modern autocracies as networks driven by self-enrichment. Is this model new, or an evolution of the economic logic Naftaly Frenkel introduced to the 1920s’ Gulag system?

There is a difference between the 20th- and the 21st-century versions. The Soviet Union wasn’t trying to create an international web of interconnected companies, financial schemes, and money-laundering opportunities. The Gulag was a system of using slave labour inside Russia.

Modern autocracies function differently. It’s not just one dictator with collaborators, dissidents, and police. It’s a network connecting the state and quasi-state, quasi-private companies in one country with quasi-private, quasi-state companies in another. They share information about policing, share surveillance technology — China sells its surveillance technology all over the world — and sometimes work together on military operations.

In Russia’s war in Ukraine, North Korean soldiers, Iranian drones, and Chinese money have helped the Russians stay on the battlefield. This is something new. It’s the flip side of globalisation. Globalisation linked together the democratic world, companies, and people. It also linked together people who have a very different vision of society.

You trace the evolution of the German concept ‘Wandel Durch Handel’ (change through trade) into a kind of strategic corruption. Did the optimism that trade would export democracy blind democracies to importing authoritarianism?

Yes. Outreach to Russia and China in the 1990s and 2000s began from a belief that if we are interconnected, we won’t go to war with each other. These were idealistic ideas. Companies could work together, build prosperity together, we would become richer, and that was good for everybody.

The reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War was about interconnection, joint institutions, working together, and everybody getting richer. It was a deep belief across a broad range.

What ended it was that, around 2010-13, leaders of autocratic societies, especially Putin and Xi, who had grown powerful through state capitalism and control of their economies, began to fear the language of liberal democracy because it inspired their own opposition. The Hong Kong democrats and the Navalny movement were about rights, anti-corruption, and transparency. This is when they began to push back. 

Has the definition of the enemy in autocratic systems narrowed to those who demand accountability, like journalists/activists, or is the net widening again to include entire social classes, like in the 1930s?

It depends on the country. If you look at the United States right now, the Trump administration talks about radical left activists, by which it means Democratic politicians. Sometimes it talks about fighting immigrants. It depends on the moment.

Seeking to stay in power by creating enemies is the oldest political tactic, going back to ancient Rome. It’s nothing new. The modern version feels more immediate because of social media. We can read it, see it, and feel it in real time.

In Red Famine, you discuss Raphael Lemkin’s broad definition of genocide. In Autocracy, Inc., you note China and Russia are rewriting international law to replace human rights with sovereignty and win-win cooperation. Are we losing the semantic battle Lemkin started?

Countries that still believe in universal rights need to keep using that language. Russia and China don’t want to use it, and the United States administration is fighting against it. If you care about that language and think it’s important, find allies, form a coalition with people around the world who care about it, begin using it, and push hard.

What are you reading currently?

I’ve just finished Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know, a new favourite. The novel is partly about how you can never really know about the past, which made me think about things I’ve written and wonder whether they were true.