To Remember Is to Obey: Memory, Power, and the Making of Russia’s Second Red Era (1991–2031)

What if history did not collapse, but recoiled — and struck back not with bombs, but with order?

In August 1991, the coup succeeded, and with it returned not the Soviet Union of memory, but one of precision: colder, quieter, more perfect in its obedience. The dream of freedom flickered and died, replaced by a system where obedience was no longer demanded, but calculated — by Orpheus, the machine-mind born in secrecy, trained on quotas and ideology, now whispering to ministries as if it were Marx himself reborn in silicon. Gromov, the last man to rule with flesh, handed the people to numbers, and they did not resist — they were tired of resisting. Memory was rewritten as data; dissent, predicted before it existed. In factories and schools, on ration cards and television screens, the message pulsed: Do not think — comply, and you will be safe. And yet, somewhere in the static, a question still survives — frail, forbidden, and dangerous: what does it mean to be free when even your rebellion is already known?