Opinion | This Unreadable Russian Novel Drives Xis Struggle Against America

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”...