From Dostoyevsky to Putin, from Solzhenitsyn to Gorbachev: who defines Russia’s love?

What Russia’s most revered writers reveal about the nation’s internal struggle between the love that controls and the love that liberates, and why it still matters.

By Sean Ash

In December 1849, a young Fyodor Dostoyevsky stood blindfolded before a firing squad. The sentence: death by execution for “anti-state activities.” His crime? Reading banned philosophical texts and daring to discuss reforms. Just moments before the bullets were meant to fly, a messenger arrived with a pardon from the Tsar. The whole thing had been staged. A performance. A mind game. And it worked.

Those final minutes before what he thought was certain death, changed him. Not just because he saw how fragile life is, but because he learned what it meant to be dominated, not only by governments, but by fear itself. That experience, followed by years in Siberian exile, shaped everything he wrote. His work wrestled with guilt, redemption, conscience and suffering. Not from an ideological stance, but from a deeply human one. An inner war between light and darkness.

Decades later, another Russian would experience that same transformation through suffering. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, like Dostoyevsky, endured prison, exile and spiritual disillusionment. He too was punished not for violence, but for thoughts. He dared to ask questions, the kind that make those in power uncomfortable. But unlike Dostoyevsky, who returned to literary fame in St. Petersburg, Solzhenitsyn came back to a Russia that no longer wanted his truth.

He had spoken too plainly. Too painfully. He had written about the Gulag system not just as history, but as a mirror. And societies often punish those who hold up the mirror too clearly.

And then there’s Vladimir Putin. A man who has publicly admired Dostoyevsky, quoting him often, referencing his reflections on national destiny, Russian identity and the power of suffering. But there’s a danger in how he’s interpreted Dostoyevsky’s work. Love, in those novels, is rarely free. It’s tethered to guilt, fear, even a kind of submission. And in modern Russia, that same kind of love, the one wrapped in fear and control, has become political doctrine.

It’s not just literary anymore. It’s a worldview.

The kind of love Putin demands from his people, from Ukraine, even from the world, isn’t voluntary. It’s commanded. It’s laced with threat. And love that’s forced isn’t love. It’s obedience. And obedience isn’t freedom. It’s fear with a mask on.

Now compare that with Mikhail Gorbachev. Arguably one of the most misunderstood leaders of the last century. He wasn’t trying to win the Cold War. He was trying to end it. He looked around and saw a country where people were starving while the army grew fat. He saw a government that demanded loyalty through fear. And he dared to ask: what if people loved their country not because they were told to, but because they chose to?

Because love that’s forced isn’t love. It’s obedience. And obedience is just fear, dressed up to look polite.

Gorbachev’s reforms, glasnost and perestroika, weren’t designed to destroy the Soviet Union. He actually wanted to modernise it. To open it up. To shift the foundation from fear to responsibility. But the cracks were already showing. The structure was collapsing long before he arrived. He simply refused to hold it together with blood. When republics called for independence, he let them go. That, more than anything, is what separates him from so many others in Russian history.

And for that, he was condemned.

In the West, he was celebrated. At home, many called him weak. A traitor. The man who “lost” the empire. But the truth is, he saw that the empire had already lost itself.

This isn’t new. There’s a pattern here.

Russia has a history of turning on its truth-tellers. It used to stage executions and call them acts of mercy. It now invades neighbours and calls it protection. It accuses NATO of expansion, as though sovereign nations don’t get to choose their own path. It claims to be defending traditional values, while silencing anyone who speaks of love and freedom.

We hear Russian officials say the West is trying to control the world. But let’s ask honestly. What does control look like? If people are allowed to vote freely, to protest, to love who they love, to criticise their leaders, to worship or not worship in peace, isn’t that freedom?

And when people are given the choice, across Europe, Asia and around the world, they don’t choose gulags. They don’t choose censorship, secret police or state-run propaganda. They choose human rights. They choose to live and love without asking for permission.

But history has a dark sense of humour.

We say “never again,” and yet gulags could creep back in new forms. We say “never again,” but concentration camps, fences, secrets and poisons could one day reappear. We say we’ve learned, but we haven’t learned enough. Not really.

Truth is, we’re never more than a generation away from forgetting what freedom costs. And never more than one autocrat away from giving it all up in the name of order.

So we have to remember.

We don’t want the swastika. We don’t want the hammer and sickle. We don’t want barbed wire, gulags, secret trials or poisoned tea.

We want love. But only if it’s free.

That’s what Gorbachev understood. That’s what Solzhenitsyn warned us we could lose. And I don’t know, call me an ‘idiot’ but maybe, the struggle Dostoyevsky never quite escaped.

You can silence a voice. You can exile a soul. You can imprison a body. But truth, real truth, remembers. And freedom always finds a way back. Even if it must pass through fire to get there. 

A lot of us thought the Cold War ended in 1991. But look closer. There’s still a candle burning in the dark. And its flame is reaching too far. People are getting burned. Countries that broke free, Hungary, Romania, the Baltics, they ran from something. Not because they hated Russia, but because they’d lived through the kind of love that chokes.

And here’s the thing. Russian people aren’t the enemy. They’re not bad. They’re like Ukrainians, like Poles, like anyone else. It’s the ones in power who’ve poisoned the water.

So I want to say this, to Russians reading this. Is this really what you want? Is this your choice? Or have you simply never had the freedom to make it?

Because we know what happens to those who stand up against Putin. We know what happens when they try to run for office or raise their voice. And we don’t blame you. But we will always stand for love and for freedom. Because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t.

And some Russians might still believe the West loved Gorbachev because he destroyed the Soviet Union. But that’s not it. We respected him because he didn’t force people to stay. Because he gave them a chance. Maybe the first real chance, to choose.

And not everyone was saved. He knew that. But he gave people hope. He gave them dignity. Can the same be said for Putin?

The Russian government keeps insisting this war is about security. But how has it helped? Russians are dying. Ukrainians are dying. Cities are in ruins. And for what? Do they truly believe that if Ukraine joined the EU or NATO, the whole world would declare war on Russia? That we’d nuke Moscow?

No. No one wants that. No one is coming for Russia. We’ve moved on. We’re building bridges. They’re trying to build empires.

And now we’re seeing something truly disturbing. The way leaders like Donald Trump speak about Ukraine. The way they tell Zelensky to stop whining. To obey. To accept terms. To bow.

It’s like telling a battered spouse to just go home. Be quiet. Do what they’re told.

But Zelensky isn’t just one man. He’s the voice of a people who want the same freedom you and I have. The same peace. The same rights.

And if we won’t stand for them, if we won’t defend their freedom, then maybe we don’t deserve ours.

Because freedom has to be for everyone. Or it’s not freedom at all.