Autocracy, Inc.

Autocracy, Inc. Plot Summary

Introduction

When we imagine an autocratic state, we often picture a cartoon villain at the top, controlling everything through brute force. But modern autocracies work differently. Today's dictatorships operate through sophisticated networks of kleptocratic financial structures, security services, and technology experts who provide surveillance and propaganda. These networks extend beyond national borders, connecting autocrats with one another and even reaching into democracies. Unlike the Cold War era, this is not a binary contest between communism and capitalism. Modern autocrats don't share a common ideology – they include self-described communists, monarchists, nationalists, and theocrats. What binds them together is their ruthless determination to maintain power and wealth. They collaborate not through shared ideals but through deals that help them evade sanctions, exchange surveillance technology, and enrich themselves. The dictators who rule Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus and dozens of other countries form what can be called "Autocracy, Inc." – a loose alliance dedicated to repressing democracy both within their borders and around the world. Understanding how this network operates, how it threatens democratic values, and how it can be confronted represents one of the great challenges of our time.

Chapter 1: The Kleptocratic Origins: How Corruption Fuels Autocracy

In the summer of 1967, Austrian and West German business leaders from the gas and steel industries met with Soviet officials at a Habsburg hunting lodge near Vienna. Despite Cold War tensions, they discovered common interests: the Soviets had found gas fields in Siberia, and Europeans wanted that energy. This meeting led to the first gas pipelines from the USSR to Western Europe, beginning a new era of economic ties between communist East and democratic West. For Willy Brandt, then West German foreign minister, these economic relationships would make future conflict unthinkable. His "Ostpolitik" – or eastern policy – became central to German foreign policy. The theory, expressed by his adviser Egon Bahr as "change through rapprochement," held that engaging with communist regimes would gradually liberalize them. This concept later evolved into "Wandel durch Handel" – change through trade – the pleasing idea that commercial relationships would naturally lead to political reform. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, this optimistic view dominated Western thinking. When Vladimir Putin became Russia's president, Western companies rushed in, believing they were helping build democracy. But Putin had different plans. As Karen Dawisha documented, "From the beginning, Putin and his circle sought to create an authoritarian regime ruled by a close-knit cabal... who used democracy for decoration rather than direction." His initial schemes involved stealing from the city of St. Petersburg, where as deputy mayor he issued export licenses for raw materials meant to purchase food. The goods were sold abroad, but the money disappeared into accounts owned by Putin's friends. What's often overlooked is how Western institutions enabled these schemes. Putin's corrupt operations required Western companies to buy the exports, Western regulators to ignore suspicious transactions, and Western banks to accept mysterious cash flows. When Putin later took Russia's oil giant Yukos from its owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky (who was sent to prison), prestigious Western financial institutions helped sell shares in the replacement company, Rosneft, on the London Stock Exchange – despite knowing it was built on stolen assets. The resulting system was neither democratic capitalism nor Soviet communism, but something new: an autocratic kleptocracy designed entirely to enrich its leaders. This model would prove dangerously appealing to elites in other countries, who saw how Putin and his circle maintained the appearance of democracy while concentrating wealth and power. Meanwhile, the flow of illicit money into Western real estate, businesses, and financial systems began corrupting democracies themselves, as anonymous shell companies and offshore accounts provided perfect vehicles for hiding stolen wealth.

Chapter 2: The Transnational Alliance: Autocrats Support Each Other

When Hugo Chávez became Venezuela's president in 1998, he promised to create an honest government to replace the corrupt Republic of Venezuela. But within a year, when his own police chief Jesús Urdaneta presented evidence of corruption in the new government, Chávez dismissed him. The message was clear: loyalty mattered more than integrity. Corruption wasn't a bug in the system – it was a feature. Over the fourteen years Chávez held power, Venezuela took in nearly $800 billion in oil revenue. While some funded welfare programs that made him a hero to leftist admirers abroad, hundreds of billions disappeared into overseas accounts. Officials at PDVSA, the state oil company, hid millions in Portuguese, Swiss, and Andorran banks. Even more lucrative was currency exchange manipulation, where regime insiders exploited artificial exchange rates. Jorge Giordani, once Chávez's own finance minister, estimated that around $300 billion was stolen before 2013 when Chávez died. After Nicolás Maduro succeeded Chávez, Venezuela's economy collapsed. The stolen wealth, sanctions, and mismanagement led to hyperinflation and critical shortages. By 2020, people with dollars could buy imported goods in special stores, while those without faced starvation. The Catholic charity Caritas reported that 78 percent of Venezuelans ate less than before, and 41 percent went whole days without eating. As protests threatened the regime, Venezuela turned to fellow autocracies for help. Russia stepped in with arms deals worth billions and investments in Venezuelan oil. Chinese loans came without conditions for reform, allowing the government to postpone financial reckoning. Cuba provided security experts who taught Venezuelan authorities how to use food shortages as political weapons – distributing rations to supporters and punishing opponents by taking food away. Despite having little in common ideologically, Venezuela and Iran developed a particularly close relationship based on oil, anti-Americanism, and the need to evade sanctions. Iran bought Venezuelan gold and sent food and gasoline in return. Iranian advisers helped Venezuela repress dissidents and build military capacity. Venezuela reportedly helped launder money for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group. This pattern repeats worldwide. In Zimbabwe, the regime of Emmerson Mnangagwa has evaded Western sanctions through gold smuggling networks and partnerships with China and Russia. While Zimbabwe suffers economic collapse, the ruling elite thrives. Chinese companies invest in Zimbabwean minerals, while providing surveillance technology to track dissidents. Russia received a platinum mining concession and supplied fighter jets, while Mnangagwa publicly supports Putin's war in Ukraine, declaring: "The victims of sanctions must cooperate." These aren't mere bilateral relationships but an interlocking system where autocracies provide each other material support, technological assistance, diplomatic cover, and economic lifelines. When facing international isolation or sanctions, members of Autocracy, Inc. ensure that no dictator need stand alone.

Chapter 3: Controlling the Narrative: Information Warfare Tactics

On June 4, 1989, two momentous events occurred. In Poland, partially free elections set in motion a series of events that would remove communists from power. In China, the government ordered the military to crush pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. In the aftermath, Chinese authorities realized that defeating democracy required eliminating not just the protesters but their ideas – concepts like the rule of law, separation of powers, and freedom of speech. Even as Western leaders like Bill Clinton confidently predicted that the internet would spread democracy – famously joking that China trying to control the internet would be like "trying to nail jello to the wall" – Chinese authorities were designing what became known as the Great Firewall. This system combined internet filters, surveillance of users, and offline repression. Foreign companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Cisco initially helped build these tools, but China eventually developed its own sophisticated systems. The most advanced version now operates in Xinjiang, home to China's Uighur Muslim minority. Residents must install "nanny apps" on their phones that monitor communications for "ideological viruses," including religious references. The system tracks purchases, location data, and even electricity usage. Voice recognition and facial identification through hundreds of millions of cameras further enable monitoring. These technologies are being exported to other countries, with Chinese companies selling "safe city technology" to Pakistan, Serbia, Turkey, and many others. Rather than promising utopia as Soviet propaganda once did, modern autocratic media aims to create cynicism and passivity. State media in Russia constantly broadcasts stories about the decline, degeneracy, and hypocrisy of Western countries. China emphasizes its own achievements while portraying democracy as chaotic and violent. When Hong Kong pro-democracy protests erupted, Chinese social media highlighted violent incidents and suggested foreign manipulation. After January 6, 2021, Chinese media gleefully portrayed the U.S. Capitol riot as proof of American decline. Autocrats have also mastered social media manipulation. During the Syrian civil war, Russia deployed a "firehose of falsehoods" strategy – spreading so many contradictory explanations for events like chemical attacks that people gave up trying to determine the truth. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, similar tactics were deployed globally, with Chinese state media amplifying Russian narratives about supposed U.S. bioweapons labs in Ukraine. These stories spread through networks of fake "independent" news sites, creating the impression of multiple sources confirming the same false information. Beyond their borders, autocracies have built sophisticated influence operations targeting international audiences. China invests billions in global media through Xinhua, CGTN, and other outlets. Russia's RT (Russia Today) produces content in multiple languages, creating material that can be spread by both authentic and inauthentic networks on social media. Venezuelan, Iranian, and other state media outlets amplify each other's messages, creating a global echo chamber of anti-democratic narratives designed to undermine faith in democratic institutions worldwide.

Chapter 4: Undermining Democracy: Dismantling the Rules-Based Order

After World War II, the newly created United Nations established a Commission on Human Rights, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. Representatives from around the world drafted what became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaiming that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world." This document and the treaties that followed formed the basis of what is sometimes called the "rules-based order." In practice, these documents have always described how the world ought to work, not how it actually works. The UN Genocide Convention didn't prevent genocide in Rwanda; the Geneva Conventions didn't stop torture in Vietnam or Iraq. Nevertheless, these principles have influenced behavior. When Americans mistreated Iraqi prisoners, they were court-martialed. When the UN reported on China's persecution of Uighurs, it created international pressure. When the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and others for kidnapping Ukrainian children, it limited the Russian president's ability to travel. Unable to completely ignore these institutions, autocracies are now working to rewrite the rules. For more than a decade, China has made this a central pillar of its foreign policy. At a Communist Party congress in 2017, Xi Jinping declared this a "new era" for "taking an active part in leading the reform of the global governance system." In practice, this means removing human rights language from international institutions. Instead of human rights, which can be monitored against international standards, China emphasizes the "right to development," which only governments can define and measure. China and Russia also stress "sovereignty," which in their usage means freedom from criticism of internal policies. Rather than "human rights" or "rule of law," they promote vague concepts like "win-win cooperation" and "mutual respect" – language designed to block accountability for abuses. These efforts have real-world consequences. In 2021, Belarus's dictator Alexander Lukashenko demonstrated his contempt for international norms by forcing a Ryanair plane flying from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk. Using a false bomb threat, Belarusian authorities diverted the plane to arrest Roman Protasevich, an exiled journalist and opposition blogger. This hijacking of a European civilian aircraft crossing between EU countries showed Lukashenko's confidence that his autocratic allies would shield him from serious consequences. Autocracies also reach beyond their borders to silence critics living abroad. China tracks democracy activists in the United States and Canada, sending agents to pressure them to return home. Russia has used radioactive poisons and nerve agents against enemies in London and Salisbury. Iran has killed or attempted to kill exiles across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. This "transnational repression" has been documented by Freedom House in more than six hundred cases across dozens of countries. The war in Syria demonstrated how far autocracies would go to break international norms. When the UN provided coordinates of hospitals in Idlib province to protect them from airstrikes, Russian and Syrian forces used that information to target them directly. As UN official Joanne Liu noted: "Today in Syria, the abnormal is now normal. The unacceptable is accepted." This normalization of lawlessness has spread, emboldening autocrats worldwide to ignore rules they find inconvenient and to create alternative institutions reflecting their values instead.

Chapter 5: Targeting Dissidents: How Autocracies Silence Opposition

In 1994, American academic Gene Sharp published "From Dictatorship to Democracy," a handbook on nonviolent resistance that begins: "In recent years various dictatorships – of both internal and external origin – have collapsed or stumbled when confronted by defiant, mobilized people." Sharp argued that dictatorships survive not because of dictators' exceptional powers but because most citizens are apathetic or afraid. If people overcome this fear and refuse to cooperate, the regime cannot stand. Sharp's ideas spread worldwide, often through underground channels. His appendix listing 198 nonviolent tactics – from protest songs to boycotts to general strikes – circulated among activists in Cairo, Belgrade, and Kyiv. Democratic movements developed their own strategies too, learning from one another's successes. Poland's Solidarity movement created a distinctive logo that became a symbol of resistance. Later, Serbian activists opposing Slobodan Milošević designed their own fist-in-a-circle symbol, which inspired similar visual identities for movements in Georgia, Ukraine, and elsewhere. These movements succeeded when they created bonds between different social classes and regions, uniting workers with intellectuals, rural with urban populations. They needed ideas powerful enough to overcome social divisions – principles of freedom, justice, and accountability that could inspire mass participation. In 2019-2020, Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters demonstrated remarkable sophistication, avoiding single leaders who could be arrested, using apps to coordinate movements, and adopting flexible tactics that surprised authorities. But autocracies have studied these movements too, developing countermeasures to neutralize them. When Evan Mawarire, a Zimbabwean pastor, posted a powerful video in 2016 of himself wrapped in the national flag speaking about the country's decline, it went viral with the hashtag #ThisFlag. As the movement grew, the regime responded not just with arrests and torture but with sophisticated smear campaigns portraying Mawarire as corrupt, foreign-funded, and unpatriotic. Modern autocracies have learned that killing critics can create martyrs. Instead, they use legal harassment, financial investigations, and character assassination to destroy opponents' credibility. Russia charged opposition leader Alexei Navalny with "fraud" rather than political crimes. Venezuela barred popular opposition figures Leopoldo López and Henrique Capriles from office using corruption allegations. These charges, even when fabricated, create doubt about dissidents' integrity. Autocracies have also mastered online harassment campaigns, often combining state-directed trolls with genuine supporters. When critics of Saudi Arabia speak out, they face the "army of flies" – thousands of accounts posting identical messages to overwhelm rational discourse. Venezuelan authorities transfer small payments to citizens who repost government propaganda. The Mexican president López Obrador regularly attacks journalist Denise Dresser in morning press conferences, prompting waves of misogynistic harassment from his supporters. These tactics work even in democratic societies. In Poland, a government-sponsored smear campaign against the mayor of Gdańsk ended tragically when a man who had been watching state television in jail stabbed the mayor to death at a public event. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has similarly directed anger at election workers, judges, and political opponents, encouraging harassment and even violence against them. As these authoritarian techniques spread to democracies themselves, the line between autocracy and democracy grows increasingly blurred.

Chapter 6: Democracies' Response: The Fight for Freedom in a Connected World

Vladimir Putin's Black Sea palace has a hockey rink and a hookah bar. Xi Jinping lives in what was once an imperial garden. But while dictators meet in rooms with gilded chandeliers, democracy activists gather in modest surroundings. In 2022, the first World Liberty Congress brought together people fighting autocracies around the globe – from Russia, Zimbabwe, Iran, Venezuela, and beyond – to share experiences and strategies. These activists understand that autocracies don't view the world as a series of separate issues but as an interconnected battlefield. When Putin backs extremist movements in Europe, deploys mercenaries in Africa, and disrupts energy markets globally, he's pursuing a unified strategy. When Iranian-backed militants attack Israel while Iranian-linked Houthis fire on ships in the Red Sea, they're creating synchronized crises that divide democratic attention and resources. To counter these threats, democracies must reframe their approach. Rather than viewing Russia, China, Iran, and others as isolated challenges, they need to recognize the common patterns of behavior that link them together. The fight isn't against specific countries but against autocratic practices wherever they appear – including within democracies themselves. First, democracies must end transnational kleptocracy. Anonymous shell companies, secretive trusts, and permissive real estate markets allow dictators to hide billions in democratic countries. These systems could be dismantled through transparency requirements, beneficial ownership registries, and coordinated enforcement. Though powerful interests will resist, an international coalition of finance officials, journalists, and activists could drive meaningful reform. Second, democracies must counter information warfare more effectively. Simply fact-checking is insufficient when autocracies spend billions on propaganda and exploit social media algorithms to spread division. Democratic governments, media companies, and technology platforms need to collaborate to expose influence operations before they take root. The U.S. State Department's Global Engagement Center has begun "pre-bunking" Russian disinformation campaigns by revealing them in advance – a model that could be expanded. Third, democracies must reduce their dangerous dependencies on autocratic states. The European reliance on Russian gas proved catastrophic after the invasion of Ukraine. Similar vulnerabilities exist in supply chains for critical minerals, electronics, and medicines. As U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has argued, democracies need to "de-risk" these relationships without completely decoupling global trade. This means developing alternative suppliers, protecting key industries, and identifying where autocracies might weaponize economic ties. Finally, citizens of democracies must recognize their shared fate with democracy activists worldwide. Americans who believe their democracy is exceptional and Europeans dreaming of a "Fortress Europe" must wake up to reality: autocratic influence campaigns are already shaping their politics. When Belarus hijacks a plane or Russia poisons a dissident in London, it's not just a distant concern but a direct challenge to democratic principles everywhere. The survival of freedom depends on democrats uniting across borders, just as autocrats have already done.

Summary

Throughout history, dictatorships have evolved from brute-force regimes to sophisticated networks operating across borders. Modern autocrats in Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and elsewhere don't share an ideology but rather a common interest in maintaining power and wealth. Their collaboration – from evading sanctions to sharing surveillance technology to amplifying each other's propaganda – forms what can be understood as "Autocracy, Inc." This network is sustained by the enormous wealth that kleptocratic rulers have accumulated and hidden in democratic countries, creating a corrupting influence that extends far beyond their borders. The democratic world has been slow to recognize this threat, often viewing each autocracy as a separate challenge rather than understanding their interconnected nature. Confronting Autocracy, Inc. requires a fundamental shift in approach: transparency laws to end anonymous ownership of assets; coordinated efforts to counter disinformation campaigns; reducing dangerous dependencies on autocratic states; and recognizing that all democracies share a common fate. The struggle isn't between East and West or particular countries, but between systems that empower citizens and those that repress them. Only by uniting across borders and addressing autocracy as a global phenomenon can democracies hope to preserve the freedom, accountability, and rule of law that are increasingly under assault worldwide.

About Author

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Anne Applebaum

Anne Elizabeth Applebaum is a Polish-American journalist and writer. She has written extensively about Marxism–Leninism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has worked at The Economist and The Spectator, and was a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post.

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