Errol Musk Goes to Moscow. So Will I One Day. But for Sanity, Not Soft-Power Safari

IOL News

17-06-2025

In response to Errol Musk's recent visit to Moscow, Gillian Schutte reflects on her own desire to explore Russia as a sanctuary for ideological clarity, contrasting it with the complexities of post-apartheid South Africa.
Image: IOL / Ron AI
Errol Musk, father of Elon, carrier of colonial affectation, and unwitting ambassador of cringe, has just returned from Moscow where, against all odds, he was granted a platform at a high-level Russian forum on geopolitics. Flanked by intellectuals like Jeffrey Sachs and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Errol stood up, gazed out over the sea of Slavic stoicism, and declared that Russia was 'very civilised,' and 'not as dangerous' as he'd assumed — unlike Johannesburg, which, in his fevered imagination, remains a warzone patrolled by EFF ground forces with redistribution pamphlets.
Yes, Errol survived Moscow. And now, I'm planning a trip of my own to Russia — not as a bemused colonial tourist, but as a fellow sanctioned entity seeking brief sanctuary in a place where ideological clarity still lives and being labelled 'Leninist-Stalinist' is not a grounds for character assassination, but potentially a conversation starter.
In truth, I've become somewhat of a human embodiment of Russia in post-apartheid South Africa. Sanctioned by the NGO complex. Misrepresented and smeared by mainstream media. Caricatured by white liberals who read one William Gumede book on democracy and now host democracy panel tours in Constantia with titles like 'From Struggle to Strategy to Dinner at the Vineyard Hotel'.
Like Russia, I'm accused of being 'dangerous' — by which they mean unmanageable by donor expectations or Daily Maverick editorial lines. Like Russia, I'm punished for resisting ideological capture. Like Russia, I am cast as 'monstrous' simply for refusing to perform the rituals of submission while empire repackages itself in rainbow fonts.
In this sense, I feel a profound and unapologetic kinship with Vladimir Putin — a man of exceptional intellect, measured strategy, and sovereign clarity. He is no fool. He doesn't outsource his thinking to Twitter/X consultants or ask NATO for moral permission before defending his country's sovereignty. And for all the liberal hysteria painting him as some 'tsar of terror,' he remains one of the last standing global defenders of African self-determination. He has defied the World Bank, the IMF, and the revolving door of Western-sponsored 'development.' He doesn't lecture Africa; he collaborates. He doesn't fund coups; he funds sovereign alternatives.
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Back in South Africa, meanwhile, I live surrounded by bourgeois mayhem disguised as democracy. Where soapie actors infiltrate my X account to perform investigative theatre on a death they never witnessed — and then pronounce my revolutionary husband guilty, because it's easier than confronting the blunt truth that one of their own was responsible. And when that truth was proven, did they go after the guilty party? Of course not. That would have required integrity — and less time on Instagram.
Where Daily Maverick sock-puppet journalists implicate me in spy plots with names such as Jacob Zuma and Julius Malema, or work overtime to hopefully get me prosecuted without actually writing my name — because 'no platforming' the Stalinist GS has become a psyop.
Where one of my supposed handlers, Julius Malema, marches for Palestine by day and clinks glasses with Zionist billionaire Ivor Ichikowitz by night, proving that internal contradictions are no obstacle to televised revolution.
Where John Steenhuisen flies the LGBTIQ+ flag not out of solidarity but as a soft coup smoke signal for Western intervention — a rainbow flare in the sky that reads: Washington, it's time.
Where the so-called left is littered with tight-arsed Trotskyite disciples, moonlighting as interns for the National Endowment for Democracy or Chapter 9 orgs while performing 'regime change' under the guise of human rights and internationalism. They hate Stalin more than they hate inequality, and they have more contempt for Lenin than for load shedding. They whisper freedom, but what they really want is regime-managed democracy with a side of donor compliance.
And through it all, I remain trapped in a 'democracy' that starves the majority with austerity, criminalises dissent with PR and special ops, and rewards betrayal with book deals.
And I live with the constant fear that somewhere, in some dusty Freestate dorpie, I'll look up from my coffee and find myself suddenly surrounded by Steve Hofmeyr and his band of Boeremags, rifles ready, guitars out, softly humming the 'big surprise' they've been promising me on X for weeks. And I'll be caught there — mid-latte, mid-ideology — without even a Molotov cocktail of irony to defend myself.
Even Adam Habib, that towering figure of institutional centrism, once referred to me as a 'Marxist malevolence who was not even born while he was in the struggle.' A curious claim, considering I'm a full year older than him — which only goes to show that genuine left ideology is a serum for youthful projection. Frankly, I'll take the insult. It's the closest I've come to being complimented for my enduring revolutionary vitality.
So yes, I am going to Russia one day. To walk where ideology is preserved, not defanged. To stand under monuments not to commerce, but to resistance. To sip vodka without wondering if I'm being monitored by a Stellenbosch think tank. To feel — even for a week — what it's like to be in a country that has not forgotten its revolutionary spine. Where Stalin isn't a swear word, and where Lenin still looms large, not just as a statue, but as a warning to Western hegemony and Ukrainian Nazism.
Yes, it is a mixed economy — I'm not going to romanticise it — but it is unapologetic in its memory. Its revolutionary backbone has not been turned into a lifestyle brand. Its contradictions are not hidden behind rainbow banners and fake unity. It doesn't outsource its history to NGOs.
I'm not going to Russia for nostalgia. I'm going because the lies are deafening here. Because I want to be somewhere, if only for a short while, where I am not the enemy simply for refusing to betray my comrades, my politics, and the dead.
So I'll practise saying, "do svidaniya, democracy". I'll be off to breathe in a place which proves nationalism works far better than Western 'democracy,' where ideological integrity still breathes, and not every leftist is an earnest Trotskyite slash anarchist with a trust fund and superiority complex.
* Gillian Schutte is a South African writer, filmmaker, and critical-race scholar known for her radical critiques of neoliberalism, whiteness, and donor-driven media. Her work centres African liberation, social justice, and revolutionary thought.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.