The Man Without a Face by Masha Gessen

As the 2012 Presidential elections are gearing up consider this scenario; the sitting US Vice-President leaves office and is replaced by an obscure government official about which little is known. The President then steps aside and the relatively unknown VP is now sitting on the Oval Office. The new President begins to methodically revert the country back to less democratic days; say by removing women’s right to vote and eliminating the direct election of Senators until more and more power is concentrated at 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Does this sound like the farfetched plot of a bad movie? Unfortunately not. An eerily similar scenario has played itself out in Russia starring Vladimir Putin according to the new book The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen. Gessen, a well-established author and journalist and citizen of both Russia and the United States, has written what is likely her most aggressive and controversial work.

Admitting to myself that I am not at all familiar with the former and now again President of Russia I was interested in learning how unlikely his rise to power truly was. The one shortcoming of the book is that Gessen is not able to fully explain, which is likely due to a lack of clear, reputable information, Putin’s rise from humble beginnings to the leadership of the country. This shortcoming is quickly overlooked because the book paints a very vivid and frightening picture of recent developments in Russia during the Putin regime.


The first part of the book provide an overview of Putin’s youth and early career, including his stint in East Germany working as a KGB spy. As noted in the book, as Putin was entering the public life, his biography was quickly put together through interviews with Putin himself along with close family and friends. What emerged was the image of a thug who never turns down a fight. It is not clear if Gessen was able to obtain background information on Putin outside of this authorized biography, but regardless I am not sure we will ever have a clear picture of his life before becoming President or how he got there. It does become clear that Putin retained his hard-liner philosophy during this rise to power.

It is during the second half of the book that Gessen provides a detailed account, sometimes based on her own experiences, of life within Russia. She includes a re-counting and examination of several terrorist events from recent years that occurred in Russia. First Gessen documents several apartment bombings which seem to officially have been seen as a result of the wars with Chechen. But there is at least one attempted bombing where the source of the bombing is questioned and evidence is presented that the Russian FSB (successor to the KGB) was involved. Just to be clear we are talking about the very serious allegations of the Russian government being involved in the killing citizens.

Gessen also details the several hostage situations; include ones at a Moscow theater and at the Beslan school. In both the result is at the very least the Russian government botched the rescue attempts which increased the number of civilian deaths. At the furthest extreme, the Russian government may have been a more active participant in these hostage situations.

The world needs to be better informed about theses so called terrorists situations. After 9/11 it appeared that Russia was standing on the side of freedom and fighting their own war on religious terrorism, but Gessen leads us to question if this is actually the case and leaves us wondering who the real terrorists are within Russia.

Enter Garry Kasparov, the champion Russian chess master, who quits the circuit to launch a campaign against the Russian Government. Kasparov’s fame and wealth are not enough to mount a serious threat to the Government as evidence shows that police officials escorted youths to Kasparov’s speeches to cause disruptions, at one point pelting the former chess star with eggs.

If all of this were not enough Gessen continues by detailing several cases of poisonings, beatings and killings against several individuals, including Galin Starovoitova a member of the lower house of Parliament and journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who are either working or speaking out against the Russian Government.

Gessen ends the book with her personal accounts of the anti-government rallies which are beginning to attract more participants and provides hope that someday in the near future Russia will expose and topple the Putin regime and restore lost personal freedom and security.

Gessen’s words and stories are extremely well written and if accurately portray the current situation in Russia should lead to many questions from foreign governments, including the United States, to determine if human rights violations and war crimes by the Russian leaders have been occurring.

I have complete admiration for Gessen in her quest to expose the apparent human abuses within Russia and fear for her safety while she is in Russia. This is a very important book and needs to be read by anyone who is concerned with potential abuses of human rights.