Spencer’s Reviews > The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia > Status Update

"It was the oldest trick in the book--a constant state of low-level dread made people easy to control, because it robbed them of the sense that they could control anything themselves. This was not the sort of anxiety that moved people to action and accomplishment. This was the sort of anxiety that exceeded human capacity."

Gessen points out that Russia lacks social and cultural institutions that help process feelings.

In the 1999 Russian election, Gessen points out, the scope of acceptable political positions was incredibly narrow. The public political imagination had been starved by 70 years of totalitarianism.