Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has published his first writing since he was sentenced to 19 years in prison in early August.
A letter delivered from prison published on Navalny’s blog just a week after the verdict was announced.
The letter is the last that Navalnyi will probably be able to send for a long time. He is being transferred to a special prison, where his contact with the outside world will be significantly limited.
The text published on Friday under the title “Fears and my anger” has caused a great uproar among Russia’s liberal opposition. In the article, he barks harshly at some of the opposition and the democratic politicians of the 1990s, whom he says he used to admire.
“We let the goat into the cabbage patch”
In the text, Navalnyi reveals his worst fear, which causes him to wake up “at night in terror and cold sweat”.
He fears that the next time Russia has a chance for democracy, liberal politicians will betray their ideals and let Russia slip into an authoritarian country again.
According to him, this happened in the 1990s.
President Boris Yeltsin and other politicians who called themselves democrats did not reform the judiciary or the security services but resorted to electoral fraud and corruption. Power and money were more important to them than a functioning democracy.
So Vladimir Putin it was easy to seize power after becoming president in the early 2000s.
Navalnyi compares Putin and his henchmen to a goat eating cabbage: “We let the goat into the cabbage country and then we wondered why it ate all the cabbage. It’s a goat, its job and goal is to eat cabbage and it can’t think of anything else. [–] I can’t stand the goat, but I hate those who let it into the cabbage country.”
According to Navalny, part of the current liberal opposition acts in the same way as the democrats of the 1990s. They are already making compromises with the regime and their other opponents if it is beneficial to them.
He barks in the text, mentioning several opposition figures by name, such as a former oligarch living in exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the former editor-in-chief of the defunct Eho Moskvy radio channel Alexey Venediktov.
According to Navalny, there is hope for Russia only when the majority of the Russian opposition does not accept falsified elections, manipulation of the judiciary and corruption, even if it would benefit them.
Researcher: Navalnyi is mostly right
Senior researcher Margarita Zavadskaya The Foreign Policy Institute considers Navalny’s views to be mostly justified. Putin’s predecessors said they supported democracy mainly because it benefited them.
– At crucial moments, they did not commit to democratic values, Zavadskaya says in a phone interview with .
For example, Boris Yeltsin already resorted to violence in 1993 when he defeated the parliament that rose against him, and won the 1996 presidential election by very questionable means.
However, Zavadskaya does not share Navalny’s concern that the events of the 1990s would repeat themselves.
According to him, the liberal opposition has learned from its mistakes. It would no longer make the same compromises as it did before, if it were ever to seek power in Russia.
Navalny is writing his will
According to Zavadskaya, another question is whether Navalny’s criticism was politically wise. He managed to anger many of his allies in the liberal opposition, of which there are only remnants left.
– He needs allies who could support him. In that sense, being pragmatic might not be a disadvantage.
It seems to Zavadskaya that the long isolation in prison has begun to affect Navalny’s thinking.
He does not have access to the internet, and therefore cannot follow the daily political debate.
Navalny no longer uses tactics but says what he really thinks.
– He is turning from a politician into a martyr who suffers. He has moral authority, says Zavadskaya.
Intransigence can turn to Navalny’s advantage, if power in Russia ever changes and Navalny has the opportunity to compete for political power.
At the same time, according to Zavadskaya, Navalnyi may also be preparing with his writing for another option, that is, that he will never get out of prison.
Navalny is ill-treated in prison and Russia tried to poison him three years ago. According to his supporters, Navalnyi has not received the treatment he needs.
– The last years or even months of his life may be at hand. It has a liberating effect on what he says.
The writing can therefore be seen as part of Navalny’s political testament.
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Watch a video of Navalny’s steps: