In late October, while much of the world was focused on the buildup to the U.S. elections, President Xi Jinping of China was issuing a call for global resistance to the American-led world order.
Speaking in Kazan, Russia, at the summit of BRICS nations, he told the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, Iran, Egypt and several other countries that the world had entered a pivotal new era “defined by turbulence and transformation.”
“Should we allow the world to remain turbulent or push it back on to the right path of peaceful development?” Mr. Xi asked. He invoked, as a spiritual guide for the task ahead, an 1863 Russian novel that glorified revolutionary struggle and inspired Vladimir Lenin.
Mr. Xi has frequently drawn on Russia’s historical and literary tradition to convey his intent to undermine — and ultimately displace — Western ideas and institutions. But by urging a spirit of revolutionary sacrifice within BRICS, a group that is expanding to include new member-states, Mr. Xi is signaling an intent to rally the developing world for an intensified struggle against American power.
The obscure and radical novel that the Chinese leader cited as his inspiration offers a glimpse into Mr. Xi’s mind-set as he prepares to test Donald Trump’s commitment to the institutions and alliances that underpin the U.S.-led order.
The book, “What Is to Be Done? Tales of New People,” was written by Nikolai Chernyshevsky in a prison cell in 1862 and 1863, after czarist authorities jailed him for “an evil intent to overthrow the existing order” because of his alleged connections to subversive organizations. The novel is little known in the West, perhaps because its meandering, confusing account of a love triangle in a utopian sewing cooperative is a tough read. The Russian poet Afanasy Fet said that Mr. Chernyshevsky’s real crime was “premeditated affectation of the worst sort in terms of form” and that reading the book was an “almost unbearable” task. One of the authors of this essay can attest to that, having tried and failed to complete it several times while stationed as a journalist in Beijing.
The book’s appeal for Mr. Xi lies in its protagonist, Rakhmetov. The scion of a princely family, Rakhmetov rebels against his domineering father at age 16, strengthens his body through hard physical work and moves to St. Petersburg, where he is recruited into an underground group and reborn as an “extraordinary man” — the ultimate revolutionary.
Rakhmetov renounces good food, wine and women. He reads the classics of philosophy, literature and science. He eschews a mattress and even spends a night on a bed of nails to test himself, leaving his body covered in blood. He is “completely impervious to personal emotion, possessing no personal heart” and focused purely on doing whatever it takes to achieve his aims.
The book’s radical utilitarian ideology roused Lenin, who borrowed the title “What Is to Be Done?” for his own landmark 1902 essay in which he broke with pacifist social democrats in favor of forming a vanguard of aggressive professional revolutionaries.
It also inspired many of Mao Zedong’s radical Red Guards and the urban youths who answered Mao’s call to live with Chinese peasants in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Among these so-called sent-down youths was Mr. Xi. He first read the book as a teenager while living in a cave in rural Shaanxi Province, according to his own account. He was “shocked” by Rakhmetov’s ascetic ways but saw them as ideal for toughening one’s will. Mr. Xi has said he emulated Rakhmetov’s example by removing his mattress, taking cold showers and exercising outside in the rain and snow.
Mr. Xi invoked precisely this ethos of sacrifice and fortitude at the BRICS summit, telling other leaders that Rakhmetov’s “unwavering determination and ardent struggle encapsulate exactly the kind of spiritual power we need today. The bigger the storms of our times are, the more we must stand firm at the forefront with unbending determination and pioneering courage.”
Perhaps tellingly, China has downplayed the radical nature of Mr. Xi’s program for Western consumption, airbrushing his reference to Rakhmetov out of official English transcripts of his remarks.
Mr. Xi has been steadily raising the pressure in his effort to undermine U.S. power. In 2022 he declared a “no limits” partnership with Russia and aligned with President Vladimir Putin on his war in Ukraine. He has also been advocating something he calls the “Global Security Initiative,” which serves as the rhetorical and philosophical framework for his plans. It espouses ideals such as “common security” and the protection of each country’s “legitimate security concerns.” But its real purpose seems to be to provide cover for those who would challenge U.S. strategic interests (it has been invoked by China to justify Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine) and, ultimately, protect the interests and political systems of China and its partners from U.S.-imposed constraints.
The Chinese leader wants more nations under this banner. In Kazan, he and Mr. Putin repeatedly stressed the importance of security as BRICS welcomed new members such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates — and applicants and observers such as Cuba, Venezuela and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Many of these have their own revolutionary or Leninist roots and need little encouragement to rally against America. As the president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, said en route to the summit, “BRICS can be a way out of American totalitarianism.”
Mr. Xi recognizes the importance of geopolitical leverage and is weaving together a coalition of authoritarians. He has entrenched China’s partnership with Russia, strengthened support for Iran during its proxy wars with Israel and refrained from criticizing China’s sole official ally — North Korea — over its deployment of troops to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. China has worked to repair previously frayed ties with countries such as India, Vietnam and Brazil, and is strengthening other relationships across the developing world.
Mr. Xi appears to believe momentum is on his side. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, comes into office with U.S. capabilities stretched by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. He has surrounded himself with a mix of isolationists and China hawks while sowing doubt about America’s commitment to allies and partners such as Ukraine and Taiwan.
Mr. Xi previewed his stiffened posture at an Asia-Pacific summit in Lima, Peru, last month in comments that were clearly aimed at the incoming U.S. president. He listed a series of “red lines” that “cannot be challenged,” including staying out of Beijing’s territorial disputes in the South China Sea and insisting that Washington “support” China’s goal of unification with Taiwan — wording that goes well beyond what the United States has committed to for decades.
Mr. Putin remains an essential partner to Mr. Xi. Russian state media reported this year that Mr. Putin planned to give the Chinese leader an old copy of Chernyshevsky’s book for his birthday in June, and he staged the BRICS summit in the Tatarstan region, Rakhmetov’s ancestral home. The two men met in October at the Kazan Kremlin, which sits at the end of what was once named Chernyshevsky Road.
But there is no mistaking who is in charge here. It is Mr. Xi who is assuming the mantle of Rakhmetov — the “extraordinary man,” the agent of history — and believes his iron will and visionary leadership will deliver the world from American turbulence.
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