Peter Pomerantsev

Punks vs. Putin

Maria Alyokhina joins a grand tradition of Russian dissident writing with her bold, and at times even humorous, prison diary

issue 09 September 2017

What makes for meaningful political protest? In regimes where ideology was taken seriously (such as the Soviet Union or America during the Cold War), dissidents and dissenters could target rulers’ political ideas, whether communist or capitalist. But in regimes where ideology is used more to distract than indoctrinate (such as Putin’s Russia or Trump’s America), directly opposing the leaders’ ‘narrative’ (one which can change, depending on political expedience) risks playing right into their game.

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