Patriots by Peter Morgan

Author:Peter Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

ACT TWO

Scene One

Putin is at his desk in the Kremlin. Boris storms in.

Boris Have you lost your mind?

Putin I don’t believe we have an appointment …

Two guards appear in the doorway. Look to Putin.

Boris In office barely five minutes and you’ve already developed a taste for grotesque symbolism?

Putin indicates the guards can go.

Late last night I get a call from Nemtsov who told me you summoned him, Potanin, Shvidler, Khodorkovsky – and a dozen of Russia’s most powerful businessmen to the outskirts of Moscow, to Stalin’s dacha no less, kept them waiting an hour, then in you trot, or should I say, in trots nobody, literally a nobody, you sit at the head of some huge table, in Koba’s favourite armchair and pronounce …

Putin ‘Gentlemen, the party is over.’

Boris Gentlemen, the party is over.

Putin ‘The State is the State.’

Boris The State is the fucking State!

Putin ‘Business is business.’

Boris Business is fucking business!

Putin ‘And politics is the business of the State.’

Boris You then went on …

Putin ‘I understand that when Russia had an incapacitated, enfeebled President there was a power vacuum into which self-interested businessmen like you could step. Well, that vacuum no longer exists and as of today any businessmen who engage in political interference can expect to be prosecuted.’

Boris So, it’s true?

Putin Yes. And I was surprised not to see you there. You were invited.

Boris I was busy.

Putin It’s a foolish man that is too busy to meet his President.

Boris Not when he created that President.

Putin We might have to disagree about that.

Boris Not when he single-handedly plucked him from some provincial deputy mayor’s cupboard, then placed him in the most powerful office in Russia.

Putin We might have to disagree about that, too.

Boris Fine, this is a game we can play. We can deny the floor beneath our feet and we can deny the ceiling above our heads, too. We can deny the sun and the moon and the tendency of day to follow night. It might pass the time and might even amuse us – but it won’t get us very far. So why don’t we just confine ourselves to the facts?

Putin The fact is I am President.

Boris And I put you there!!

Putin That’s opinion. Not fact.

Boris I found you! FACT! Endorsed you! FACT! Sponsored you! FACT! Introduced you! FACT! Created you! FACT, FACT, FACT!! You are my creation and now you presume to call meetings and call shots with my colleagues without my permission?

Putin The meeting was necessary to make clear the way things are going to be, the way things need to be if this country is to survive. A clear separation of business and politics.

Boris Oh, my God … (Holding head.) Only a former Head of the Security Services could be this naive! You cannot separate business and politics when the State is bankrupt. You need our money. Without the oligarchs you stand no chance.

Putin I see a country that has fallen into the hands of a handful of self-interested crooks. Priceless State assets have

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