For a long time I worked in a business that was often a handmaiden to rampant capitalism and I often saw in those I rubbed up against— and I must confess, myself— a greedy fascination with money and material gain.
For a shining hour I seemed to surf on a tidal wave of the stuff but by the mid-noughties this had turned into a trickle and I took a lot of directing assignments in Europe, primarily in the former Soviet bloc countries and many times in Russia to pay the bills.
The advertising industry in Moscow, while not in its infancy, was still finding its feet and home-grown directing talent was thin on the ground so agencies would insist on directors being brought in from the West.
I had grown up during a time when the Iron Curtain was still very much still in place and thought that perhaps the country still had echoes of this anti-materialistic time but it turned out the place was just as venal, if not more so, than the West.
Whilst I am far from being a ‘die in a ditch’ creative warrior, I found the general lack of any sense of caring for the creative product difficult. All anyone seemed to care about was how to extract as much money as possible out of the whole process. Moscow seemed to be a city totally in thrall to Mammon. All anyone really cared about was money.
The only person who seemed different (apart from a few ex-pat buddies who struggled valiantly to do good work) was a driver who’d grown up during Soviet times and was a little wistful for an age when everyone was guaranteed a place to live, a job, an education and healthcare— no matter how substandard those things were— and bemoaned the current age when life seemed a permanent struggle and a sense of security and community had been replaced by a yearning need.
What had changed? Why had an entire country performed a profound volte face? He explained that since the fall of the Soviet Union the country had been sold off to an elite handful of oligarchs who, in league with the country’s administration, had absolute control over its vast material resources.
Some of this wealth ended up in a brand spanking new Russian Middle Class. But most of it found a happy home in the West where, of course, Mammon worship was in full effect, and had been since the Thatcher and Reagan years.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that those years coincided with the fall of the Soviet Union, which, malign as it was in many ways, acted as a kind of balance on the West: the fact that everyone there had a place to live, a job, enough to eat, healthcare and an education meant that western administrations felt obliged to make sure their citizens had the same.
But when the Berlin Wall fell all bets were off, that uneasy balance was lost— and replaced by a fierce venality which Russia, ironically, became the poster boy for. And everyone— from Moscow to Manhattan— seemed enamored with the new President: Mr Putin.
For a long while, as oil prices firmed and the place was awash with money, things seemed to work and Russia seemed to thrive. But as oil prices started a secular decline, Russia followed it. This was exacerbated by sanctions imposed by the West on Russia after the annexation of Crimea and Georgia and— coupled with corruption, lack of internal investment, an aging demographic, and an increasingly autocratic administration— the country became increasingly desperate.
But Mr Putin had a plan: crush dissent at home, undermine democracy in the West, and procure a friend in the White House who could be persuaded to undermine NATO so that, when Ukraine was invaded, no one would go to its aid. It would be a walkover, and Russia would be saved by an enlarged territory, deep water ports, 45 million extra citizens, vast new resources, and a buffer zone between itself and the unfriendly end of Europe.
The plan seemed to be working very, very well until July 2019 and a call between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During this call Mr Trump threatened to withhold $400 million in military aid from Ukraine unless President Zelenskyy agreed to go after Joe Biden.
Zelenskyy refused and the aid was not forthcoming. And maybe, just maybe, this had a material impact on Mr Biden getting elected…. and thank God, because look at where we are.
The invasion went ahead, but hasn’t gone according to plan-- largely because of the bravery of the Ukrainians, the leadership of President Zelenskyy, and the galvanizing effect that this has had on the West and the rest of the world.
Things undoubtedly would’ve been very, very different if Trump had been reelected.
It’s my belief that Ukraine will prevail and that this is the end of the road for a brutal dictator and a renewed confidence in free institutions, solidarity, and the things that no amount of money can buy.
And what is happening now might signify the first major cracks appearing in the world’s overwhelming obsession with Mammon.
I believe that President Zelenskyy is central to this because a man that has no price is literally priceless; he cannot—as he showed during his conversation with Trump-- be bought.
Maybe this is why this moment is being embraced by so many. The uneasy feeling we have all had for so long is being replaced by an ancient stirring; that some things are priceless and impossible to commodify.
I believe President Zelenskyy will come to be seen as a very major figure in the 21st century.
The man who helped the world relocate its moral center.
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