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We have a fair number of Russians and Russophiles in here, so I thought I’d ask for opinions about Alexei Navalny.
He’s the subject of a documentary (one that could win an Oscar next month: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navalny_(film)) which I watched recently, and I followed it up with a video mentioned near the end of the doc that his team made about Putin’s lucrative circle of corruption. As a skeptic, I know not to believe everything I see, hear, and read, but I was wondering if there is a deeper counter-argument to Navalny’s narrative and positions than, “He’s a tool of western governments/the CIA to besmirch Putin and Russia.”
In the documentary about Navalny (on HBOMax), he’s depicted as a jovial but committed critic of Putin, and one who has so annoyed the Russian leader, that Putin won’t even deign to mention Navalny’s name on TV, but refers to him only in the form of “that person.” Navalny is questioned briefly about his past appearances with questionable nationalist/racist political movements and he’s unapologetic, explaining that he’s trying to build a coalition that can challenge the establishment and can’t afford the luxury of turning anyone away (which is similar to how some supporters of Trump’s 2016 campaign explained his flirtations with Alex Jones and some less savory radio personalities). I don’t put much stock in official Russian accusations that its enemies are racists or Nazis, anyway, as I see those as arguments made in bad faith with the sole intention of eroding opposition enthusiasm and not as issues that Putin’s racially diverse and sensitive supporters actually care about. Its arguments-as-soldiers on top of pot-calling-kettle.
The documentary then depicts the aftermath of Navalny’s poisoning with a nerve agent, which hits him while in-flight across Russia, the fatal consequences of which are only averted by an emergency landing and, after some political jostling, his eventual release from a Russian hospital to seek care in Europe. While in recovery, Navalny teams up with a Bulgarian hacker to reveal the identities of the assassins, and they even trick one into discussing the details of the plot over the phone. It’s a bombshell scene, if it can be believed. (The filmmakers contend that the scientist who was tricked by Navalny’s impersonation of a post-mission auditor disappeared shortly after their conversation was made public.)
When Navalny returns to Russia, he is detained at the airport, and has been in prison ever since. But a couple of days after his arrest, his team drops a two-hour YouTube video titled “Putin's palace. The story of the world's biggest bribe” (https://youtube.com/watch?v=T_tFSWZXKN0&authuser=2), which details the formation of Putin's network of graft and embezzlement and how it has poured billions in state funds into the construction of a lavish secluded palace, in addition to providing jobs and housing for Putin’s mistresses and their families. Again, maybe it’s all false, but it’s densely reported and has a sheen of credibility.
So am I a fool falling for wholly concocted neoliberal propaganda besmirching the world’s only remaining champion of traditional values? What’s the direct counterargument to Navalny’s claims about Putin’s corruption or attempt to assassinate a pesky political opponent? I’m certain that Navalny is flawed, as are we all, and I am loath to trust any politician. But I like Navalny – he comes off as a “happy warrior” with a worthy cause – and he seems honest. Without resorting to ad hominem non sequiturs, tell me why I shouldn’t take him seriously? Even if he is a Nazi, is he wrong about Putin?
I've updated my estimates for his poisoning story and other botched poisonings to near 1.0 in light of the war. Main reason to doubt them was not lack of evidence but the prior for FSB, GRU etc. not being staffed by actual retarded mooks from some Austin Powers movie – I've lived my whole life under kakistocracy, but still… – uh, well.
With that out of the way: Navalny is a simple honest guy. He's not a liberal nor a Western agent of influence nor «another Putin». He is an extremely rare sort of a political figure – a Russian ethnic nationalist, with necessary civnat aspects. The notion of Russian Nationalism is, in the corner of the world that @Stefferi speaks from, usually conflated with «Russian Imperialism» and just generally «Russian», which is to say, dangerous scum. There is a difference, however. Nationalism holds that the state exists for Russian people, while Imperialism says, in effect, that Russian people are to be abused and impoverished, so that they seek dignity and livelihood through the collective greatness of the state.
This distinction may be hard to parse for Russian neighbors, because 1) they live in nation states or indeed ethnostates, and 2) their political culture is democratic – putting it bluntly, attuned to sensibilities of a humble xenophobic peasant. That implies absence of reciprocity, game theory, or any other nerdy high decoupler shit we indulge in here. The late Krylov, a more extreme nationalist than Navalny but of the same basic mold, had spent his life trying to explain to Russians why this is the way to go. His quote comes to mind:
A typical Westernist in Russia is someone like the social anthropologist Alexandra Eikhenwald, who has said just a month ago that «The Eichenwald family has contributed enough to Russian culture and we don't belong here any more». What contributors does she include in her boast?
Uncle-in-law Semyon Brudnik, commissar of the 3rd Insurgent Regiment of Bogun, the first Ukrainian division of the Red Army, commanded by Shchors, which was particularly cruel to Russian officers and intelligentsia. «Was head of the finance department at Mosfilm», together with her aunt actually raised her. Grandfather Alexander Eichenwald who scientifically justified collectivization – «He had a paradoxical way of thinking, and tried to get to the bottom of everything. He stood for social justice, joined the Bolshevik Party at 16, was a member of the Bukharin School and authored the first monograph on the Soviet economy» – which contributed to a famine and several million deaths under Stalin. Got purged. And another grandfather, the most fondly remembered, Moysey Gorb - NKVD Senior Major, Molchanov's loyal aide. Purged too. Wiki about Molchanov: «1931-1936. - Head of the Secret and Political Department of the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) under the SNK - GUGB NKVD of the USSR, Commissar of State Security of the 2nd rank. As head of the key department of the GPU-NKVD of the USSR he was engaged in arresting all real and imaginary opponents of the Soviet power - peasants who opposed collectivization, Trotskyites, supporters of «rightwing opposition», clergymen, monarchists, ex-activists of minor parties, national movements, members of foreign communist parties, etc». Her parents already regressed to the mean: «dissident, poet, translator, critic», «teacher, human rights activist». All those names are mentioned as victims of oppression and great noble souls, with the quiet dignity of a lineage that has left an indelible mark in the history of Russian people.
But I digress. Hopefully you can understand, if not endorse, the fact that such candidates are non-starters in any sort of a democracy that asks Russians; and their friends too. Navalny is not a Westernist in this sense. Thus he is popular, yet harassed both within and without Russia. I suspect he came back after his poisoning precisely to avoid getting killed by some zealous «anticolonial» activist.
His position is unapologetically pro-Russian and pragmatic. Wars of expansion are bad because Russians die in them for no gain; some purported greatness of the Empire does not matter more than this toll. This calculation could have been different in another age; we should be content with how much was recognized after ages have changed. (The implication that things could conceivably change once more is not lost on readers seeking to find fault). Liberal parliamentary democracy is good: it allows for easier development and removal of corrupt parasites. Wokeness and anticolonial apologetics are bad because they get easily exploited by e.g. tribalist peoples from Caucasus. Racism bad: leads to delusions and precludes the possibility of cooperation with non-Russians who are amenable to that. Deportations of illegals and criminals; concerns about demographic replacement due to an open border with Muslim states; all that stuff. And so on and so forth – a systemic application of a position of a right-wing European politician who has a shot at winning, someone like Orban, Meloni or Zemmour. Even Trump, perhaps. That thread of his of his linked by @sliders1234, and the original Russian text, are both written from this perspective, and thus concede: commitment to 1991 borders, non-intervention in Ukrainian affairs, reparations, for the Russian benefit.
But consider QTs. «your country shouldn’t be developing. It should be paying for the development of the countries it hurt.» «The world needs sanctions to be sure russia doesn't have a possibility to start the war again» . «no no no. You guys have no say in it. You will pay reparations whether you like it or not. We don't care what is acceptable to you.» etc. This is a popular sentiment. Think of this for a moment, can you imagine an electable politician in any Western country – strike this, any country – being expected to cheer for his country' loss in a war? However, what is expected of Navalny is not that but unconditional submission and kowtowing. This is clearly a politically suicidal attitude, unless imposed by outside force; which is also admitted by some as the goal.
It's worth pausing on Galeev's tactics. Here he frames Navalny's old gun rights ad as part of a campaign advocating violence. It is unseemly, but the situation with guns in Russia is that they're mainly owned by cops and [ethnic] mafia. The video about deportation of illegals that he opens with is supposed to enrage the same crowd that hyperventilates on Twitter about genocidal Trumpists; it explicitly denounces violence of the sort that Galeev seeks to pin on Navalny for the rest of the thread.
Navalny of that era is a shitposter and an equal opportunity dehumanizer – calling Georgians during the war «rodents» (it's a one letter substitution), depicting ethnic criminals as the Men in Black cockroach, labeling Russian Neo-Nazis «Caries», with solutions being respectively: an HQ missile strike, legalizing guns, and «sanitizing». But also, arguably, he was a deradicalizing force. This trend persists: he offers Russians a way to step back and make amends with a semblance of self-respect.
But that is no good to «Russia experts» from Baltics or Poland who drive these decisions in Washington, nor to peoples near the border. Russia is a historical threat. Therefore, no positive – for Russians – movement ought to be supported, while separatism and all harmful tendencies – including tyranny, corruption, militarism! – aided and exploited. Helping the enemy die is worth the temporary pain, they think.
So even if Navalny miraculously took power and proved to be the opposite of Putin in all ways that matter, he'd still be decried as a tyrant, and likely a worse one. The only good Russian is a dead one; the only good Czar is one who presides over Russian deaths.
Well, this could be a short post – the earlier sentence does explain the latter one, doesn't it? Non-imperial Russian nationalist is, indeed, a rare figure, and a consistently non-imperial one is even rarer. As such, it makes perfect sense in our corner to, indeed, conflate the types. I'm not sure if I remember correctly that you yourself have talked about the marginality of Navalny in current Russia, bu many other Russians certainly have.
However, to start riffing on some other stuff I’ve been thinking about lately… (what else is this forum for than using posts made by others to riff on stuff?), that Krylov quote exactly shows what the problem is. If you're trying to analyze, say, Finnish nationalism, point 1, at least, is flagrantly, fundamentally wrong, or perhaps I just misunderstood it somehow.
Finnish nationalism precisely revolves around the idea that we are on the fringe. The Finnish self-conception, often to the point of ridiculousness, is that we are on the northernly fringe of the world, strange (due to our language, our autistic culture, our peculiar natural features like the nightless night and long winters and cities that look like forest if you fly over them), remote and unimportant. The country that foreign bands pass up when they do their Copenhagen-Stockholm-Oslo tours.
The central point of Finnish nationalism is specifically; we are small, remote, strange and weird but that’s all right, we want to stay that way, that’s what we’ve ever wanted; that is precisely why Finnish nationalism is needed, because if it’s not us working to maintain the existence of the Finnish nation, then who else? Famous former (now-deceased) infantry general Adolf Ehrnrooth put it as “Finland is a good country, it is the best country for us Finns”, and there really is something to that statement, in the sense that that is all that is necessary, nothing more is needed.
I’m not sure if this applies the same way to Baltics (well, Estonians are as fringe as us linguistically, at least), but there’s probably something similar. Just yesterday, I saw (yet another) tweet from Big Serge. I’m not sure if Serge is Russian or a Russophile, but it doesn’t matter, I’ve read the same sentiment from online Russians hundreds of times before. The quote by Kaja Kallas that he’s commenting on appears to be fake, but exactly this sort of shit can’t help but make me momentarily think that maybe it should be a true quote and, moreover, what West ought to be doing.
Yes, if you look at it from the point of view of some supposed greater world-historical purpose, Baltic states are “bereft of a raison d’etre” (lol), but that’s not their point. They very much have a raison d’etre – the existence of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians as a nation. And that’s enough!
This is a hard mission enough as it is because they are, as said, weak – and it requires nimble maneuvering, which explains the transience. Likewise, since maintaining the existence of small nations is historically rather an uncertain a thing – as we can see from the fate of most of the Fenno-Ugric nations inside Russia, for instance, a number of them dead and others dying – there must sometimes, indeed, be close cooperation, indeed subservience to, larger nations. Russians always talk of this like it’s some sort of an own. It’s just a fact of life.
For instance, if one looks at Finnish historiography, it involves Finland being a part of Sweden, a part of the Russian Empire, several co-operations with Germany with varying levels of adviceability and now an oncoming NATO membership. All of these had their positive and negative sides. However, in the end, the Finnish nation has survived, indeed thrived, so in some sense, a mission has been accomplished. None of these eras were sufficient to destroy the Finnish nation, and at time tactical side-switching saved the nation.
What makes Russia so dangerous, from our perspective is precisely the idea that Russian nationalism (imperialism, whatever – there really is little difference, there’s so many times that scratching a Russian communist or a nationalist or a liberal demonstrates the same thought pattern) seems almost completely unable to accept or even conceive of this idea – that some nation might not be part of some great world-historical mission and might just be concerned with existing.
There’s no other way to explain why the mere existence of Baltic states seems to turn so many Russian nationalists so mad. Why would they want to be so puny and small? It’s just about wanting to feel powerful, isn’t it? Why are they so eager to cooperate with the United States, even though United States is also a big, and has messianic mission to match? (Well, duh, if there’s some state you need to co-operate with, why not choose the top dog? Especially when it’s far away, but still close enough to the closer aggressive middle dog for the middle dog to be scared enough to keep from doing some things?)
Of course, America has a messianic mission of its own, and that’s not unproblematic. For the time being, though, this messianic mission involves maintaining the current world-order, with its commitment (at least nominally) to things like small nations existing and borders of the nations not getting moved against their will and so on. The current world-order might be unfair and based on smoke and mirrors, but it’s still the best one we’ve got, as far as our national mission of survival is concerned. It allows for the normal, ie. current, ie. the one we like, state of affairs to continue.
There’s a lot of Russians (and others) who claim that this is all just stupid, naïve, ignorant, not the way the world works, the strong shall still continue to eat the weak etc. Let’s just say that the people saying this stuff, like Serge, haven’t had a particularly good track record in predicting how things have been turning out lately.
I guess that more than anything, we’d want Russia to be “normal” the same way. Democratic and liberal, yes, would be nice, but above all just a country that is content just being a middle-strength power that respects the borders of the other countries and where even a country with a large Russian minority on its borders might relax for a moment and not be on a constant lookout.
The 90s might have been shit for Russians, but they at least represented an effort by the national leadership to present an image of such normality, if one squinted a bit, at least. The Russian liberals have generally been the faction most likely to claim this is what they want –they’re very inconsistent about it, even the consistent ones don’t the impression they still quite get why this is important, but it’s a start. Navalny’s 15 points were good, we’ll see if he continues on the same lines.
Of course, expecting Russian liberals to get stronger – or promising Russian types to not fall to the familiar imperial patterns at a moment’s notice – has not typically led to joy and satisfaction, and it’s that crushing of expectations, again and again and again, which makes supporting separatism more attractive. The thought just comes to mind – maybe Russia just is too big. Like, too big on the map. Maybe it’s impossible for a country that big to really understand smaller countries. One looks at a globe, one sees all that landmass, one starts getting ideas. Maybe, eventually, a new Muscovy – without Siberia, without Caucasus, without a bunch of other regions – might understand.
I think this is foolish and a total Russian collapse would contain eminent dangers for Finland, Europe and the world (and, goes without saying, untold human damage to Russians themselves), but I understand where the thinking comes from.
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