Often, a biography is a retrospective project, compiled when the person's life and actions can be viewed through the clarifying lens of history and the passage of time. But "The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin," by journalist MashaGessen, tells the life of one of today's most important political figures in the midst of a turbulent time in Russia.The result is a passionate and vivid yet potentially unbiased account of Mr. Putin's early life and ascent to global prominence.
As a biographer, Gessen struggles to weave the sparsely available details of Putin's life into a coherent narrative. We do know certain facts about his childhood. By his admission, Putin grew up a "real thug," a neighborhood brawler constitutionally unable to back down from a challenge. Even as a child, Putin aspired to join the KGB. Gessen relates that when most Russian children from that era desired to be cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Putin wanted to be the guy who kept tabs on Yuri Gagarin. Putin succeeded and joined the KGB in his early 20s as an operative, rooting out internal dissent. Subsequently, in Dresden, East Germany, he watched the Soviet Bloc unravel around him, leaving him shaken and disgusted by both the disorder and impotence of his own government.
Gessen contends that Putin, upon returning to Moscow, continued in intelligence services even after the break?up of the Soviet Union. Upon being elected in 1999 as Boris Yeltsin's chosen successor, few in the Russian democracy knew much about his origins or fitness for the Russian presidency. Russian power brokers saw him to be "malleable and disciplined," says Gessen, and therefore a good caretaker for the wealthy incumbents from the first decade of Yeltsin's republican Russia. But, she continues, "the people who lifted him to the throne knew little more about him than you [the reader] do," and they were sorely mistaken.
As heroic as Gessen's efforts are, even she admits that it is impossible to firmly know certain facts about Putin's past without access to highly classified information. Thus, the biographical portion of Gessen's work has a highly speculative aspect to it that is more evocative of a tabloid biopic than true biography. After sketching this thin biography, Gessen proceeds to the main point of her book and describes a long series of crimes, most of them well?known. Almost every case sees Putin as either a silent partner in their execution or as solely responsible. None of the accusations are new, but, arrayed here in a series, they portray Putin's government as ultimately evil. These crimes, needless to say, include the beating and murder of members of the anti?Putin press.
Yet the darkest aspect in Gessen's book exists in her psychological profile of the Russian leader. Putin's need for total dominance of others, personally and politically, reaches levels that - if these stories are true - should sincerely frighten. The book is filled with sinister anecdotes, such as the 2005 meeting between Putin and Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots. Putin asked to examine Kraft's diamond?encrusted Super Bowl ring and, saying "I could kill someone with this," pocketed the expensive item. Gessen suggests that when Putin combines pathological covetousness with unrestrained power, the result is the autocratic disaster that is contemporary Russia.
Overall, Gessen's book is rather simplistically written and does not attempt to hide its author's profound distaste for Russia's President and Prime Minister. Mr. Putin comes across as a malevolent and murderous Russian Bismarck, expertly consolidating power after his nation's decade?long anarchic decline under the inept?but?genial and relatively benign Boris Yeltsin. There are certainly books about Putin's Russia that draw more cautious conclusions, given the uncertainty and dearth of evidence surrounding Mr. Putin and his life and actions. There are, however, few as furiously accusatory as this. Rating: **
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James Barasch is a sophomore majoring in history. He can be reached at James.Barasch@tufts.edu.
