Masha Gessen

To Be, or Not to Be

Choice is a great burden. The call to invent one’s life, and to do it continuously, can sound unendurable.

Our Moral Corrosion

Consider three stories of alliances—or misalliances—unfolding in three different important institutions in this country. We ought to consider all three situations as distinct symptoms of the moral corrosion caused by the Trump presidency.

Trump’s Hoodlums

Autocrats frequently rely on delegating violence to extralegal actors or on the willingness of law enforcement officers to carry out extralegal violence in exchange for the promise of impunity.

Fear of LGBT Rights

With few exceptions, countries that have grown less democratic in recent years have drawn a battle line on the issue of LGBT rights.

A Trumpian Farce

Trump openly invited the Russian government to hack Hillary Clinton’s email—which is far more than Donald Jr. welcomed in secret. And still, the revelation is shocking.

Russia's Rising Youth

There is a feverish tone to Russian blog posts in the aftermath of Monday’s protests, a sense of hope struggling to defy fear.

The Autocrat’s Language

Donald Trump has an instinct for doing violence to language. He is particularly adept at taking words and phrases that deal with power relationships and turning them into their opposite.

Poisoned by Putin?

The Russian journalist and pro-democracy activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has been a vocal proponent of individual sanctions—and therefore has a record number of enemies among the people who run Russia—was poisoned for the second time in early February.

The Styrofoam Presidency

Many hoped Trump’s aesthetics were not a reflection of his entire political self, but merely a style that could be dropped when the occasion demanded it. But when the inauguration came, Trump trampled on some of the most hallowed public rituals of American power.

Moral Authority vs. Trump

Trump’s instincts are guiding him into a confrontation that is hardly new: his response to Representative John Lewis is representative of what happens when an autocratic leader is challenged by the voice of moral authority.

Putin's World

Both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump share a primitive idea of power. Trump will tweet nuclear policy again, and Putin will not be as accommodating in the future.

The Putin Paradigm

To what extent can Putin provide insight into Trump’s understanding of power?

Trump: The Choice We Face

We cannot know what political strategy, if any, can be effective in containing the threat that a Trump administration poses to democratic principles. But we can know what is right.

The New Politics of Conspiracy

Our allegiance to a fact-based reality has been constantly challenged during this presidential election. But conspiracy theories work on a different level than mere lies. They are impossible to disprove.

The Trump-Putin Fallacy

The idea that Putin is somehow controlling Trump is a work-around for the inability to imagine that the Republican Party’s nominee is acting of his own accord.

The Terrorism Trap

Vowing to fight international terrorism will not prevent future attacks. But changing the terms of the public conversation would be a step toward a less grand violence.

Soviet Stories Redrawn

The Italian graphic novelist Igort went to Ukraine in 2008 and stayed for nearly two years. He met people at marketplaces and on country roads, and drew their lives.

Putin's 'Goodfellas'

Is Russia a fascist state? A totalitarian one? A dictatorship? A cult of personality? A system? An autocracy? An ideocracy? A kleptocracy? The best description of the Russian state is a mafia state.

Visible and Vicious in Russia

In Putin's Shadow

Listening continuously and predominantly to sources in and around the Kremlin has produced a number of widely accepted but uncorroborated stories.