NAVALNY'S ODYSSEY: A WIND FROM THE WEST? CLAIRE RHEA & ANJOU KANG-STRYKER

Over the last decade, Alexei Navalny has appeared to maneuver towards a captaincy of the Russian opposition movement. In the West, the lawyer-turned-politician is best remembered as the survivor of an assassination attempt by the FSB in August 2020, becoming the recognizable name of the Russian struggle against authoritarianism. The murky circumstances of this event—namely, the involvement of an arcane nerve agent, Novichok—were particularly illustrative of the violence and underhandedness that has proved characteristic of Putin’s march towards dictatorship. Navalny’s plight would remain in the spotlight: his arrest in January 2021 on his return to Russia from Germany provoked the largest anti-government protests yet observed under Putin’s tenure. Public outrage was further compounded by the release of Navalny’s documentary Putin’s Palace scheduled shortly after his arrest, which shed light on government corruption and exposed the construction of an extravagant palace complex to Putin’s name on the shores of the Black Sea. For his contumacy, Navalny was sentenced to a two-and-a-half year prison sentence in February 2021, supplemented by an additional nine years in March 2022 through a judicial process described as “illegitimate” by Amnesty International (Haski). Though Navalny remains imprisoned, his associates uphold his political efforts via his online platforms.

While we must naturally concede Navalny’s vital role in laying bare the deceits of Russian politics domestically and internationally, critics have raised questions concerning his efficacy as the face of the Russian opposition. His bids for presidency through the conventional channels of electoral politics have seemed a naïve gesture towards change, while numerous lacunae—if not controversies—have undermined his campaign. Can a middle ground be found?

Certainly, in the grand scheme of things, the failure of Navalny’s efforts has stimulated controversial debates regarding the longevity of his influence. Despite the scale of the 2021 protests and his ensuing international notoriety, this period of mass demonstration ultimately remains a short-lived episode when set aside recent developments. The protest movement proved incapable of dissuading the government from its persecution of Navalny– likely the opposite. Observers of the situation are no strangers to the difficulties of facing the deeply entrenched structures of state censorship and political repression, which have proved nearly impenetrable for effective forms of opposition over the last decade. The mass detention of protestors and the use of violence by state authorities were once again customary recourses against dissent. In one illustrative statistic, the Russian human rights project OVD-Info demonstrates that an average of around one in five protestors fell under detention during the early months of 2021 (OVD-Info). This crackdown was further cemented by the arrests of journalists and political figures deemed disloyal. We must not forget Putin’s habit of green-lighting political assassinations organized against dissidents of his regime—with a nod here to the fates of Politkovskaya, Nemtsov or Maganov. Political repression ratcheted up with the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. On March 4, 2022, Putin’s government passed censorship laws which provide imprisonment for up to 5 years for “discrediting” military operations and up to 15 years for disseminating “unreliable” information (Oremus). These measures seem to have curbed any traction of an effective antiwar movement.

With such a bleak portrait of Russia’s political landscape, it is tempting to question the impact of Navalny’s efforts. However, we must be equally weary of discrediting the signifi cance of his activism. It is likely that Navalny’s actions in exposing corruption, which goes back to 2013, have fostered an irreversible political awareness amongst Russians. According to one study, the Russian public is consistently more engaged with politics, specifi cally the younger generation, who appear more critical of Putin’s regime, willing to acknowledge their lack of civil rights and the superfi ciality of their country’s electoral politics (Kennan Institute). This development is demonstrated by the unprecedented scale of protests during recent years and the mounting social tensions which have surfaced through the claws of Russia’s state censorship. Navalny’s use of online platforms and expository fi lms has proved to be a groundbreaking strategy for raising public awareness in an age where representation and mass media are paramount in mobilizing political action. However, this has also worked to his detriment—Navalny has often been subject to accusations of xenophobia, in part due to a 2007 video where he is seen to depict Muslim militants as “cockroaches” needing to be exterminated, as well as his sympathetic comments made to the anti-immigration movement in recent years (Haski; Starr).

Those hoping for more radical change will consider Navalny, at best, a meek compromise. Self-characterized as a “nationalist democrat” and candidate on the centre-right, some have noted how Navalny’s devotion to exposing corruption has left considerable lacunae in his preparations for an attractive political agenda (Coalson; Lane). His rhetoric can also be said to tread a fi ne line of personalized politics, at times exhibiting a populistic undertone refl ective of his lack of a coherent political model for the future. Furthermore, his bid for presidency in 2018 demonstrated a tepid adherence to the conventional channels of electoral politics in Russia, failing to mobilize any considerable political support.

On the other hand, groups such as Voina or Pussy Riot—feminist protest and performance art groups—have offered hope of an opposition which transgresses the traditional protocols of political activism, rejuvenating the very fabric of protest in Russia. Of course, their shock acts also run the risk of alienating large segments of the population from opposition movements. Yet the former chess superstar and political activist Garry Kasparov urges us to look beyond the personalities which may incarnate anti-government action in Russia, arguing we must instead focus on the universal democratic struggle against authoritarianism (Vindman; Kasparov). In this way, Kasparov also refutes Western scruples into the controversies of Navalny’s ethno-nationalist comments as a diversion from the fact of his resistance, something he warns plays into the hands of Putin’s smear campaigns of his opponents (Hounshell).

Regardless of the position we take, the future of the Russian government seems uncertain. With a continuous effusion of rumours concerning Putin’s declining health and troubling reports of disunity amongst Russia’s war effort, we may be arriving at a critical juncture for the opposition. As we may see, despite Putin’s imprisonment of Navalny, it appears he may never be able to fully rid himself of the key.