An entertaining adventure in avoiding the tyranny of big men with small minds.
We’re in the process of another Thanksgiving/Black Friday ritual in our house. Saving some money by canceling entertainment streaming services and resubscribing via Black Friday deals. It’s a good time to save a few bucks going forward into the new year and to take inventory on what’s worth continuing or needs discarding.
One of the things we do as a part of this tradition is make sure we catch up on things we’ve delayed watching on the services we won’t renew, so this week we’ve finally tuned in to A Gentleman In Moscow on Paramount/Showtime. The show is quite a delight, as was the original book by Amor Towles. As I am enjoying viewing, I can’t help but notice many moments that should serve as a warning for us here in America for what’s most likely to come in our near future.
Before the warning, first a quick summary of the show.
A Russian aristocrat, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, sent away from his home country after wounding another in a duel, returns home to a chaotic Moscow after the Bolshevik Revolution. He takes up residence at the grand Hotel Metropol and is seized, like so many of the aristocratic class, by forces now in control. Some government officials believe a revolutionary poem attributed to him, mark him as a hero of the revolution and spare his life, but sentence him to house arrest in the Hotel Metropol. If he walks out of the hotel, he is to be arrested and shot.
Throughout the remainder of his life and internment, he meets and befriends residents and staff of the hotel and begins a surprising alliance with the Russian agent assigned to his case, while constantly being dogged by the spies placed in the hotel to watch him and other residents, including a smarmy government collaborator who uses his new found power to rise to the position of manager of the hotel.
The story is told very romantically, with wistful nods to traditions lost and crushing change constantly in conflict. He finds himself at the center of adventures and intrigue throughout. In and of itself it is excellent viewing. Watching the characters learn to navigate the whipsaw changes Russia was undergoing, trying to survive while maintaining some sense of dignity and purpose, is the signature joy of both the book and the series.
That also leads to the warning I mentioned earlier that feels perhaps a bit too contemporary.
When you boil it all down all revolutions are essentially the same, regardless of the big ideas that motivate the change. In the case of Russia in 1917, it was the Bolshevik/Communist revolution. In this country it was the fight for American Independence from Britain. France, Russia again in the 20th century, the list goes on. As it appears at the moment, it is certainly possible years from now that we might look back on the events of 2024 as another such revolution if those on the winning side of the election fulfill promises made during the campaign. Very few such revolutions are bloodless. All are messy. Prices are paid.
What will happen, regardless, is that small men with small minds following big men with equally small minds, engorged with some self-serving sense of righteousness, will exact a toll on too many once in power. The Elon Musks, Tom Homans, Stephen Millers of the incoming administration are quite gleeful about causing pain with their plans for devastation. If you haven’t been paying attention to that, shame on you.
History and literature tell us this is feature of all revolutions. Once the worm turns, some of those who helped turn it can’t wait for their turn at the wheel. Once power is achieved, those who want to succeed, or in some cases, merely survive, will do anything to keep themselves on course, and in some cases prosper. And then there are others who merely surrender their principles or morality in order to go along. All become prey to those who crawl into the light to seek their moment in the sun.
When watching A Gentleman In Moscow, there are numerous examples of this, most tellingly the waiter who rises to hotel manager by reporting all he sees to the government security forces. Loyalty and betrayal are two sides of the same coin, too easily spent by those with small minds and big dreams. While big ideas always crush some going forward, big ideas don’t work without these small men doing the work. Note how ironically the MAGA dream of draining the swamp is filling up every available piece of dry land with swamp creatures of their own. Revolutions always target the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats on their way to becoming the same. Without them, the new system can’t bring down the old.
In an essay entitled MAGA’s Downward More Spiral, Damon Linker says: “Trumpism is seeking to advance a revolutionary transvaluation of values by inverting the morality that undergirds both traditional conservatism and liberal institutionalism. In this inversion, norms and rules that counsel and enforce propriety, restraint and deference to institutional authority become vices, while flouting them become virtues.”
And then the circle begins again because the wheel always turns.
Certainly the big ideas between the Russian revolution of 1917 and what’s just happened in the United States are different, but only through ideology, if that. In Russia those at the top were on the way out in favor of “the people.” In our America, we’re just replacing one group of penthouse dwellers for another, with both sides being propped up by “the people.” For some twisted reason, “the people” who propelled Trump to victory haven’t yet grasped the roles they’ve been assigned and probably never will. Those at the top throughout history have always known “the people” are always ripe for the picking.
This has strayed far from just a recommendation for A Gentleman in Moscow, but contemporaneous events kept making small moments throughout the excellent series strike me with both sadness and trepidation as it presages what’s to come while feeling wistful for what we’re about to lose. The wheel does always turn and for a time the good guys can come out on top. But there are always those crushed as it churns ever onward. I highly recommend the series (and the book) as entertainments themselves, but also for what they presage.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 