Dr. Ben Noble and Nikolai Petrov write that, like his life’s work, Navalny’s death demonstrates the corrupting brutality of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Alexei Navalny has been Vladimir Putin’s main opponent in Russia. He was even placed behind bars, and often in solitary confinement.
When he was a free man, he made a name for himself by exposing the true nature of the regime through exposes of corruption and protests, and by trying to become a ‘normal’ politician in a system ruled by others.
Navalny’s death provides yet another powerful testament to the system Putin built – a murderous individualist dictatorship that continues to spread destruction and misery in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
We may never know the details leading up to Navalny’s death on February 16 in the ‘Arctic Wolf’ prison colony in the Arctic Circle.
Regardless of whether his own death was ordered by the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin is credited with attempting to kill Navalny along with Novichok in 2020, building a system that violently tolerates dissent, and creating an alternative vision for the country’s future. We are directly responsible for the imprisonment of those who dared to present their vision. .
The importance of Navalny
Many people ask whether Putin was afraid of Navalny, whose name he has not yet revealed.
Putin did not fear Navalny as a realistic winner in an election whose freedom and fairness have been systematically undermined by the Kremlin over the years.
A poll by the independent Levada Center put Navalny’s approval rating at 20% in September 2020. This is a significant figure for a man who has been denounced by state media as a traitorous agent of the West.
By January 2023, that number had fallen to 9%. This is perhaps a sign that people have lost hope in the opposition figure being jailed.
Or that even though eloquent critics of President Putin and his war in Ukraine have alienated many Ukrainians, including comments about the future of annexed Crimea in the past, people feared the outcome.
Navalny’s importance was never a matter of whether he had broad support from Russians. The Kremlin has so devastated the political landscape of meaningful, autonomous opposition that even figures with a minority of support in society are seen as existential threats.
And the Kremlin may have been concerned that Navalny’s support would grow. Especially considering his willingness to change tactics and his team’s mobilization skills.
As he attempted to run for president in 2018, Navalny and his team created a network that energized and united activists and supporters across Russia. This showed that Navalny’s influence has always been greater than the man himself.
Authorities have repeatedly refused to register Navalny’s ‘Russia of the Future’ party, but the regional network in fact party.
This allowed Navalny and his team to break out of the big city bubbles and reach out to a variety of socioeconomic groups. This alarmed the Kremlin and also explains the complete destruction and imprisonment of Navalny’s organization in 2021.
The fact that Navalny has been able to remain an enemy of Putin while imprisoned speaks to his unique combination of characteristics: charismatic, defiant and optimistic.
His tireless optimism was an encouragement to some and a source of criticism to others. The latter group saw him as either stubborn or hopelessly naive in an increasingly authoritarian Russia.
And this is one of the reasons why Navalny’s legacy is mixed.
For some, he will represent the possibility of another Russia forcibly cut off by the Kremlin. To others, he will represent another dictator-in-waiting. Anyone who promises to overthrow President Putin is simply imposing their vision on others rather than building a true democratic system.
Navalny was a complex figure. But that shouldn’t stop us from condemning the system that killed him.
Many who disagree with him over his past nationalist and racist comments expressed outrage when he was detained after returning to Russia in January 2021.
These acts of solidarity demonstrated that it is possible to separate one’s feelings about a person from one’s feelings about the state’s treatment of that person.
future
Navalny, 47, spoke of a ‘beautiful Russia of the future’. This language stands in contrast to the dark tone of the authorities’ crackdown on dissenting voices, especially after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This was also a language of sharp opposition to 71-year-old President Vladimir Putin’s obsession with the past.
When asked what message he would send to the Russian people if he were killed, Navalny’s answer was simple. ‘Don’t give up.’
Navalny’s team, based in Vilnius, said it would continue its research. But it remains to be seen how successful they will be without a leader.
Russia’s fragmented opposition was met with statements of sadness and anger. But it is doubtful whether Navalny’s death will be enough to provide a source of long-term unity.
If the murder of Boris Nemtsov, Russia’s other leading opposition figure, is anything to go by, we should not expect long-lasting change.
The Russia that Navalny created himself is gone. He proved adept at leveraging greater media and political freedom to build his brand, team, and movement in the 2000s and 2010s.
By contrast, today’s Russia has dramatically less room for independent figures to emerge and criticize the system.
This means that there is no clear figure to fill the role of Vladimir Putin’s main counterpart, which Navalny has created for himself. There will be no Navalny 2.0, at least in the short term.
But Russians don’t have to wait for one individual to assume his role.
One of Navalny’s hallmarks has been inspiring change in others – making people believe that what they thought was impossible was actually possible.
We will never know what politician Navalny could have become in post-Putin Russia. But his influence can be sustained by those who boldly imagine a better future in a system obsessed with the past.
Dr Ben Noble is Associate Professor of Russian Politics at University College London (UCL SSEES) and Associate Professor at Chatham House.
Nikolai Petrov is a Consulting Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House, London, and Professor of Political Science at the Moscow Higher School of Economics.
This article was first published by Chatham House.
Featured image by Nikita Pishchugin on Unsplash
memo: The views expressed in this post are those of the author and not those of the UCL European Institute or UCL..
