Putin’s Opposition Ponders a Future Without Aleksei Navalny
2024-02-22 00:34:55
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From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily.
Last week, the Russian authorities announced that Alexei Navalny, the leader of Russia's opposition movement, had died in prison at the age of 47.. Navalny was Vladimir Putin's most audacious and relentless critic. His fight against corruption resonated far beyond liberal Moscow. And his central message to Russians, do not be afraid, because our fear is their power. That was how Navalny lived his life, thumbing his nose at Putin's regime in the face of poisoning, prison, and ultimately, death.
Today, his friend, Yevgenia Albats, on how Alexei Navalny became such a singular political force and what it means for his country that he's gone.
It's Thursday, February 22nd.
Can you hear me?
I can. Can you hear me?
Ah, good. Yes. What's up, you know, lately? How are you doing?
I'm okay. I'm okay. How are you doing?
Ah, I don't know how to answer this question. to be honest with you.
Yeah. After the death of Alexei Navalny, I called Yevgenia Albats, who goes by Zhenia. She's a Russian journalist and academic. She studies political science. She knew and worked with Navalny for decades.
She now lives in exile in the United States.
I'm divided between two languages. I constantly think in English and in Russian, and I constantly listen to podcasts and YouTube shows in Russian and in English. And I think I live more inside Russia than I live inside the United States, except when you have your primaries. And then I'm in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and I'm waiting for the Super Tuesday.
So, Zhenia, tell me about the first time you met Alexei Navalny. Remember back for me, where were you at that moment?
I was in Moscow. It was 2004..
I started teaching at university as a professor of political science. I thought that I was done with journalism, so I decided to collect the group of young politicians, democratically-oriented young politicians, and try to teach them grassroots politics.
And so they started coming to my house in Moscow, on Lesnaya Street each Tuesday. There were some 20 young people. I was cooking them a dinner, chicken and potatoes. And we were sitting around the table, and we were discussing, what can we do?
The people who showed up to Zhenia's apartment, many of them have since gone into exile or been jailed in Russia. But back in those days, they all came to talk about politics and figure out how to do grassroots organizing in Russia, a country that had very little experience with that.
We started preparing rallies, protest rallies.
And one of the people who walked through her doors for one of those Tuesday get-togethers was Alexei Navalny.
And so he came. He was 27 years old. back then. He was tall, handsome. He was slightly stooped.
He had a bad haircut. He had a beer belly.
A beer belly.
Yes, a beer belly.
And Zhenia, what was your first impression of him? What did you think? I mean, remember back for me.
Smart. Very attentive.
Very good in fulfilling tasks and getting things done. But Navalny was not exactly a very good speaker.
When Zhenia first met Navalny, he was working a desk job for an opposition party. Zhenia said he wasn't very happy and he wanted something more. At the time, he wasn't the polished political leader that we know today.
And Navalny mumbled something and I was watching him. I was thinking, God, it's so unfair. He's so handsome, so good looking. He's a pure politician with this beautiful Slavic face. But he's unable to speak.
But she quickly realized he had promise when the two of them went out to canvas on behalf of a friend from those Tuesday dinners who was running for local office in Moscow.
We came to speak to people in the courtyard and they were babushki, you know?
Grandmothers.
Grandmothers, exactly. And we were trying to ask them what are their concerns, and they were resentful. They didn't want to speak to us, you know, asking them all this kind of ridiculous questions. And then I saw Navalny, who came forward and he smiled. And then he said some joke and he helped one grandma to get to the bench and he took another grandma under her arm and he started talking.
And all of a sudden, it was like a miracle. All of them, they were listening to him. They were looking at him. They were totally in love with him. And that's when, you know, the first time when I thought, he's a born politician.
That's his talent, his amazing ability to get people on his side, to talk to them.
So he had charmed these resentful grandmothers.
He not just charmed, you know, he sort of, he became their son, really, who was capable to help them, you know? I think Navalny had a lot of great qualities in himself, but he was lacking education. And he himself realized that pretty early in his life.
Navalny grew up in a military town outside of Moscow. Zhenia says that the schools he attended there were pretty bad, with a narrow Soviet curriculum. But Navalny was hungry to learn. If he was going to have a real political future in Russia, he needed to do more than just charm grandmothers in courtyards. And so in 2009, he had an idea.
Navalny came to my office and he said, Zhenia, I want to go to Yale University. I really think I need to spend a year in the good university, take classes. And he got into this world's latest program at Yale University. And first and foremost, he studied all things related to American party politics. It was very important to understand for him what kind of system of checks and balances was built in this country, the role of the Supreme Court.
But also, how do you win elections? That's what he was looking for first and foremost.
So it was important for his political education.
Exactly. He was looking and he had to learn how to do it, how to win.
Zhenia says he became a voracious consumer of all things politics.
But also, you know, this famous TV series, Wire, The Wire.
Even TV shows.
Remember, you know, season three and four, there are election campaign for the mayor of Baltimore. Everything that had to do with politics, he was watching or reading and he was picking up different tools.
And he started trying out some of the things he was learning.
He told me that he put chairs for the elderly people who came to his rallies precisely so that, you know, they could sit comfortably. And he said, you know what, Zhenia, I saw it in the House of Cards. I saw it in the House of Cards and I thought that's a great idea.
So he saw in the House of Cards, the television show with Kevin Spacey, he saw that political leaders would put chairs for elderly people, because, you know, that was something you were supposed to do as a politician. Navalny did that.
Yes.
Meanwhile, he wasn't just studying up on American politics. He was also teaching himself how to use YouTube, building a following online. And he was studying public speaking.
And he came up on the stage and that was brilliant speech.
And his political activity and his speeches started getting more polished. Who is in power here?
We are! Who is in power? here? We are!
Asking this hundred thousand strong crowd standing in front of him, who is a real power in this country? We. Are we going to give up our inspiration to take our country back? No.
There was huge energy. Which was coming out of him. He was very sincere and you felt like he was talking directly to you.
OK, so Navalny is getting a political education. He's becoming a more polished speaker. And he starts to run for office. So he runs for mayor of Moscow in 2013.. He gets a pretty significant share of the vote, by Russian standards, right?
27 percent.
27 percent. OK. And then, in 2018, he makes a big move. He takes on Putin himself. Tell me about that.
Navalny decided to run for the presidency. By then, everybody in Russia already recognized that the only guy who was capable to challenge Putin was Alexei Navalny. And Navalny started traveling around the country. Russia is a huge country. It's the biggest country in the world.
11 time zones. So he was going from Ural Mountains to the Russian Far East. From the Far East to Magadan. From Magadan to the Whites and etc. And he was running a campaign pretty much the way that campaign is run in the United States.
And Navalny spoke from the roof of the garages. From the stairs of different buildings. He spoke from the roofs of the apartment buildings. You know, he would speak from the lampposts. We should, we must live better.
But we don't, because they've stolen everything from us and they steal from us every day. He said, let's go to the Kremlin and get our power back. Power should be in our hands, not in the hands of those crooks, of those cheaters, of those people who stole the wealth of the country.
He called the people in the Kremlin, crooks and cheaters, and said, they had stolen your money. In fact, Russia's money, that they were thieves, basically.
Exactly. And people were coming by thousands to listen to him.
And a friend of mine wrote to me that he was impressed to see how people who were pretty much resentful about Navalny, who considered him to be a populist and was afraid of his populism, at the end of the meeting, they gave him a standing ovation. They were so impressed. And so it was important to bring politics from Moscow down to the provinces, to the regions of the Russian Federation, and bring people there to recognize that they need him as a president because he was going to make life of their city, their town, their region, better, more democratic, more prosperous.
And Zhenya, what were you thinking as you were watching all of this unfold? I mean, he's doing this very unusual thing for Russia, right? This thing that to an American audience, is just sort of meat and potatoes, political campaigning, but in Russia was kind of a revelation.
Yes, I was thinking that I was afraid that they were going to kill him.
It was already after Boris Nemtsov was killed back in 2015..
This is another important opposition leader who was killed not far from the Kremlin, actually, in a political assassination.
Yes.
Did Navalny himself worry about being killed? Did he talk about this with you?
No, I wouldn't say that he talked.
But, you know, whenever I was bringing about the question of his, you know, security or getting people who would at least protect him, he kept saying that basically it's impossible. I think, you know, he just didn't allow himself to think about that.
Zhenya, did you have any personal conversations with him about why he wanted to run against Putin in the presidential election, why he wanted to do that?
Because we knew that Putin was very dangerous, that it was important to stop him, because already the majority of democratic institutions in the country were subverted. Courts didn't exist. Judiciary didn't exist. Putin's subordinates from the FSB and all these checkers, they were grabbing people's property, kicking out people, you know, putting them in jail, making them to go in exile. So it's already, you know, it was clear that Putin was preparing for some awful development and he had to be stopped.
And it was clear that the only one who was capable to stop Putin was Navalny. Nobody else had balls to do that. As simple as that. It was not that we discussed whether he should or should not. It was clear that he had to.
We'll be right back.
This podcast is supported by Disney. As a kid, I wanted to be an artist.
I was obsessed with Star Wars. My dream was to be a Disney performer.
When you work at Disney, dreams can come true. The Disney Aspire program will help cover the cost of education for eligible employees and cast members.
I get to work at Disney while pursuing my degree in graphic arts.
Hospitality. Because at Disney, we turn dreams into reality, academically, professionally, and everything in between. Learn more at Aspire.Disney.com.
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Election officials in Russia have banned opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running.
for president. The country's election commission has barred the Kremlin critic from standing in the March vote, citing a controversial embezzlement conviction Navalny says was politically motivated.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has called for a boycott of next year's election after the country's central election commission rejected his bid to take part. Well, Alexei believes that if he ran against Vladimir Putin in what he deemed would be a free and fair election, that he could beat Vladimir Putin. And he actually thinks that Putin is afraid of him, afraid of.
Alexei Navalny.
When the effort to get him on the ballot failed, what was Navalny's reaction?
He was extremely upset. He was very, very angry.
But he doesn't relent in his political activities, right? He continues to speak out against Putin. And eventually, Putin tries to take Navalny out. He poisons him. And Navalny ends up convalescing in Germany, where he recovers.
This is a very dramatic part of his life. And he makes at that point, an interesting decision, which is that he's going to leave his family in Germany and return to Russia, where it seemed like he was pretty much certainly going to be arrested and put in prison.
And yet, he goes back.
So why? Why? To be honest with you, I think that he didn't have any other option to return back. You cannot ask people to be brave and to resist and to reject the regime sitting in the luxury of the European capitals. You have to be with your people.
And that's exactly what he said. I'm a Russian politician, so I have to be in Russia, he said. And he had to demonstrate to people that it was possible to overcome any fear. When he was on trial, he had a piece of paper and he wrote on it, I am not afraid, and you shouldn't be afraid as well. When he gave his interview to the director of this documentary, Navalny, and he was asked, what's going to happen?
What people should know if you get killed?
And his answer was, if I get killed, my only message to you, and he said this in Russian, don't give up.
Don't give up. That was his slogan. That was the main principle of his life. Don't give up. Don't be afraid.
It's important, Sabrina, to understand that Soviet KGB, and now this Putin's FSB, this political police, which are running the country, its power is based on people's fear. They're capable to control the country because people are afraid. And so Navalny was trying to send this message. Don't be afraid. We have to fight these people.
This is our country.
And that's what we have to do. So, really, more than any other political issue, his fundamental message was, our fear is their power. Don't allow them that. Don't give it to them. That's what he was saying to people.
Exactly. 100%. And I realize it sounds like, Zhenya, he didn't think he had any other option. You don't think? potentially he had any other option.
He had to go back because that's who he was. But I wonder if you think now, was that the right decision to return to Russia?
Yes. It was the right decision.
to return back to Russia. Yes, he gambled. Yes. He thought that Putin, he wouldn't dare to kill him because he was well too famous. And he returned back after he exposed Putin's hegemony.
And he wrote to me in one of his letters, I know that I'm going to sit in jail as long as Putin is alive. He knew that. You know, it's very difficult to get into someone else's head. But, you know, I just think that he felt humiliated to be afraid of Putin or anybody else. He had the sense of mission.
He was running a good fight.
And he had all the intention to win this fight. And if you think that you're going to get killed or you're going to start to pity yourself, you know, like he wrote to me, stop being upset. Everything is OK. It's just a historical process. Russia is going through this historical process and we are going along with it.
Everything is going to be OK. And even if everything is not going to be OK, we can console ourselves. We will get consolation in the fact of having lived honest.
lives, of being honest people. Zhenia, it strikes me that Navalny's true superpower was that he was not afraid. He had this kind of incomprehensible lack of fear, this confidence that he could win, despite what it looked like from the outside, and that that gave him this ability to kind of thumb his nose at the system, right, to sort of make fun of it and show people that in the end, it's just a bunch of idiots trying and failing to poison his underwear, right? Like the system was nothing, but that. It wasn't that scary.
But now that he's dead, it's like that magic trick, it disappears. And the death itself seems to teach a different lesson, that people should be afraid, that the.
system. is that scary. What do you think of that?
I'm not afraid. And, you know, if you look at in Russia, thousands and thousands of people come and, you know, they mourn and grieve Navalny. Almost 400 people were arrested. People were beaten by the police. But people keep coming and coming and coming.
And when you look at their faces, you see that these are predominantly young people. He presented the future to them. Are they going to give up on their future? Are they going?
to go into exile, all of them? It's not possible. But they may stay quiet and do nothing, which is what he advised against, right? I mean, you know, you say, Zhenia, you're not afraid, but you're in the US in exile, right? It's frightening, this regime.
And it's a natural response to be afraid of it. So I guess I'm just wondering, what is his legacy? Like, what's left? You know, he's gone.
Is there anything that survives him?
I think his legacy is his belief that Russia is not doomed. I think that Russia will become a normal, civilized, democratic, free, peaceful, and prosperous country. And I think that his belief and his courage, and the fact that he sacrificed his one and the only life for the future of Russia, that's what will become an inspiration for millions of young Russians. I cannot stand the thought that his death was in vain. And I think that his wife, Yulia Navalny, she's going to defend and to carry on the kind of fight that Navalny tragically failed to accomplish because he was killed.
Zhenia, what are you going to miss most about your friend, about Alexei?
His smile. I'm going to miss his smile. I'm going to miss our conversations. I'm going to miss the friend who was ready to give his hand, even from jail. I'm going to miss a politician who was capable to turn my country into a normal, democratic, free, and peaceful country.
Sometimes I just walk around my apartment and I say out loud, Alesha, where are you?
It's still hard to comprehend that he's no longer with us.
And I'm going to miss my friend. That's why he was my friend of 20 years. You know, the last time I saw him, it wasn't in his penal colony. It was in the summer of 2022..
And he came and he hugged me. And I told him, don't worry about your parents. I'm taking care of them. And then I saw how, you know, he walked out of this hole. He was getting into the door that led to this prison barrack.
And, you know, a minute ago he was smiling and he was, you know, saying something funny and encouraging, etc. And I saw how his face became dark. And I was thinking, God, you know, what are they doing to this brilliant human being? How long will he be able to withstand all the torture and humiliation? And now, of course, I think how he died.
And it makes me sick to think that he died alone, surrounded by all these dirty little people. And I'm so sorry for him. He was just 47 years old. And I think that it is so unfair that an evil guy, an evil person,
he lives in comfort, even though he brings no good to anyone around him.
And Navalny is laying somewhere in the morgue in the Arctic Circle.
And there is no sun.
Shania, thank you for talking to me.
Thank you, Sabrina.
Good night, Jane.
Good night.
The Russian authorities have yet to give Navalny's body back to his family. On Tuesday, his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, stood in front of the Arctic prison, where he was being held, to demand her son's release.
She said, quote, I ask you, Vladimir Putin, let me finally see my son. The decision is entirely in your hands.
We'll be right back.
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