The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “nihilism” thus:

• a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless.
• a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths;
• a doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility;
• (capitalized) the program of a 19th century Russian party advocating revolutionary reform and using terrorism and assassination.

Other definitions are, simply, “total rejection of established laws and institutions,” and “anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.”

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Russia was the birthplace of the first nihilist movement. One need only read the works of such Russian authors as Dostoevsky, Turgenev, and Chernyshevsky . . . or the 19th-century poet Vladimir Pecherin, who famously wrote:

“How sweet it is to hate one’s fatherland and eagerly anticipate its annihilation, and to see in the destruction of one’s fatherland the dawn of worldwide rebirth.”

It is that quotation — paraphrased by the character of Dante in the film version of John Le Carre’s The Russia House — that brings to my mind the similarities of those pre-revolutionary days in Russia and today’s political climate . . . not only in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but, terrifyingly, also in Donald Trump’s vision for America.

Think about the hatchet job he and his administration have done in just four months on our legislature, judiciary, military, media, beloved cultural institutions, environmental and health agencies, international relations, and the most basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution itself.

And then tell me whether you hear echoes, not only of the lead-up to the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, but to the growth of Hitler’s Nazi party in 1930s Germany as well.

Perhaps I’ve read one (or several) too many volumes of Russian history and literature. But I’ve also read far too many recent news stories not to see a parallel.

And it’s keeping me awake at night.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
5/22/25