Summary of Timothy Snyder's The Road to Unfreedom

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The politics of inevitability is the idea that there are no alternatives. To accept this is to deny individual responsibility for seeing history and making change. It leads to economic inequality that undermines belief in progress, and as social mobility ceases, inevitability gives way to eternity.

#2 After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American politicians proclaimed the end of history, while some Russians sought new authorities in an imperial past. When founded in 1922, the Soviet Union inherited most of the territory of the Russian Empire.

#3 The Russian political class followed Putin’s example, and his propaganda master Vladislav Surkov adapted Ilyin’s ideas to the world of modern media. Ilyin’s name was on the lips of the leaders of the fake opposition parties, the communists and the far-Right Liberal Democrats, who played a part in creating the simulacrum of democracy.

#4 Ilyin was a Russian philosopher who believed in the politics of the world to come. He was impressed by Adolf Hitler, and saw the Nazi leader as a defender of civilization from Bolshevism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669382898

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on Timothy Snyder's The Road to Unfreedom

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The politics of inevitability is the idea that there are no alternatives. To accept this is to deny individual responsibility for seeing history and making change. It leads to economic inequality that undermines belief in progress, and as social mobility ceases, inevitability gives way to eternity.

#2

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American politicians proclaimed the end of history, while some Russians sought new authorities in an imperial past. When founded in 1922, the Soviet Union inherited most of the territory of the Russian Empire.

#3

The Russian political class followed Putin’s example, and his propaganda master Vladislav Surkov adapted Ilyin’s ideas to the world of modern media. Ilyin’s name was on the lips of the leaders of the fake opposition parties, the communists and the far-Right Liberal Democrats, who played a part in creating the simulacrum of democracy.

#4

Ilyin was a Russian philosopher who believed in the politics of the world to come. He was impressed by Adolf Hitler, and saw the Nazi leader as a defender of civilization from Bolshevism.

#5

The idea of eternity politics is that the only good is what exists within us, and the only policy is to protect that innocence regardless of the costs. It begins by making an exception for itself.

#6

The philosopher Ivan Ilyin believed that Russia was an organism of nature and the soul, and that its purity was more important than anything Russians had done. He believed that Soviet power concentrated all of the Satanic energy of factuality and passion in one place, and yet he argued that the triumph of communism showed that Russia was more rather than less innocent.

#7

Ilyin turned Christian ideas of sacrifice and redemption towards new purposes, turning against legal reform and announcing that politics must follow the caprice of a single ruler.

#8

The world was sinful and God was absent, so Russians needed a redeemer to emerge from some uncorrupted realm beyond history. The redeemer suppressed factuality, directed passion, and generated myth by ordering