The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

Behind Masha, behind a ring formed by the riot police, fighting seemed to continue. In front of her, four rows of interior troops— eighteen-year-old conscripts in gray uniforms—stretched across the bridge that led over the Moscow River to the Kremlin. Behind them, orange street-washing vehicles formed another barrier. They were so afraid of the protesters in the Kremlin apparently that they thought they needed to wage war just to protect themselves. Masha walked toward the interior troops, holding up her iPhone to film them as she got closer.

"Russia has a constitution," she said to the conscripts. "You are violating it. The orders you've been given are criminal. After the Nuremberg trials, generals who gave criminal orders were hanged.

And our soldiers hanged German soldiers who had followed criminal orders. That's what happens to people who commit crimes."

"Orders are not to be discussed," said several of the conscripts in unison.

"Oh yes they are," said Masha. "They are too to be discussed, if they contradict the law of the land."

"No talking!"

The voice came from Masha's left. The conscripts visibly clammed up. She was now just a few steps from the front row of soldiers. She stopped and held her iPhone above her head, and kept filming.

"Step forward!" the invisible voice commanded.

The conscripts, arms linked, about 150 across, took a step toward her. Then another. Masha kept talking.

"You are violating your oath. You are just like the czar over there."

Masha became aware that she was being filmed by someone else, apparently a journalist. She could not see him, but she could hear his voice. He was worried for her. "Don't," he was saying. "They won't understand."

She kept talking.

"You guys are so young, much younger than I am, though I am not that old yet. You have no idea how frightening it is to live in this country, with that czar that you are guarding now, when you have a child."

"Step forward!"

"One more!"

Masha still had her arms up in the air, holding the iPhone aloft, and the boys' shoulders were now brushing her bare underarms. She could feel their titillation. She kept talking. She talked for another four minutes straight. The boys stood still and silent. Finally, a lieutenant came up, a blond guy with a heavy jaw, scarcely older than his soldiers.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Where do you get your information?" Masha asked what seemed at the moment a logical question.

"There," said the lieutenant, and he nodded at the pavement for some reason. "Television," he added a moment later.

"Who controls the television?" This was the journalist with the video camera speaking.

"The authorities do," said the lieutenant.

Masha tried to point out to him that getting information about the authorities from the authorities might not be wise. After a few minutes, he asked the journalist to turn off his camera. Then he told Masha that the truth was found in the book Blows from the Russian Gods, the screed that had been recommended to Masha once before. It purported to "uncover the real crimes of the Jews," who had taken over the world. One subsection was called "The Sexual Traits of the Jews." It began with homosexuality: "Not only was homosexuality widespread among the ancient Jews but it was known to take over entire cities, such as Sodom and Gomorrah, for example." The lieutenant told Masha that every soldier in his platoon had received a copy of this book.³

may 6 was a long day. It began with being dragged in to the police for praying for the wrong things, continued with an intimate conversation with six hundred interior troops, and went on to another police station, where Navalny and Nemtsov had been taken. Some people from the protest had walked here on their own and were milling around outside. One had a megaphone: the Protest Workshop had bought more than a dozen of them at one point. Masha took the megaphone, fished a copy of the Constitution out of her shoulder bag, and began declaiming, starting with Article 31. She was carried right into the station. Nemtsov and Navalny were in the holding cell, and Masha was instructed to wait outside it, in what might have been called the lobby. She put the Constitution back in her bag, fished out a copy of Time magazine's "World's Most Influential People: 2012" issue,⁴ opened it to the page with Navalny's picture on it, handed it to him, and told him to look serious. It was a good photograph, with Navalny's forearm stuck through the bars, his hand holding the magazine, his face somber and a little wistful. She e-mailed it to her boyfriend, who was a photographer with the Associated Press. The following day the picture was published all over the world.⁵