For decades, we believed that the fall of the USSR marked the triumph of liberal democracy and the “end of history.” But now we know that story was only half-told.
In this talk, I explain why the collapse of the Soviet Union wasn’t the end of the Cold War but the beginning of its next act. I explore how the ideals of Gorbachev and Sakharov — who dreamed of a free and open Russia — were gradually replaced by a new wave of nationalism and imperial nostalgia. I also reflect on the paradox of Solzhenitsyn, who started as a dissident hero and ended up inspiring the modern illiberal right.
But this book is not only about Russia in the 1980s and 1990s. It is also about the United States today — about how some of the same ideological battles that defined the late Soviet era have reappeared in the West. It’s a story about how democratic societies lose faith in their own values, how nostalgia becomes a political force, and how the myths of the past continue to shape our present moment.
This conversation was recorded on the launch day of my new book, The Dark Side of the Earth. It’s a project that took me more than six years and over 200 interviews to complete — an attempt to tell a new story of the Soviet collapse.
