Navalny’s friends knew he was willing to become a martyr if that’s what it took to stand up to Putin.
Alexei Navalny’s long struggle against President Putin began with a humorous blog and culminated in repeated demonstrations of his willingness to risk his own life. According to the Russian authorities on Friday, he has now died in prison.
Russia’s leading opposition voice has been silenced.
Other dissident figures went into exile or died in mysterious circumstances over the past decade, leaving Navalny as the last national figure with a dedicated following.
Though he had been arrested many times before, Navalny’s defining moment in the eyes of many Russians came after the attempt to assassinate him with Novichok. He recuperated in the sanctuary of a German hospital but chose to defy Putin and return to Russia in January 2021, knowing full well he would end up in prison.
The sacrifice was in vain, we know Putin is a shithead.
Which “we” are you talking about? Because a lot of Russians vote for him (and I don’t mean just the fake votes, but the real ones as well).
The Russian ballot box is a paper shredder that increments “Putin” by 1.
Votes don’t matter in Russia
They matter. You vote Putin or you vote Putin but the government notes your impropriety. Voting is a purity test.
They may not matter in a sense that you can’t elect anybody but Putin.
But they do matter in a sense of showing the incumbent they aren’t stable.
After successful re-election of incumbent, they fall into a sense of euphoria. This leads to creation of some absolutely horrific and unjust laws.
However, when the re-election is deemed unsuccessful (say 55% voted for “the right candidate”, but the second place got scary high 30-35%), they become timid.
That’s how informational autocracies work. And that’s why elections there absolutely do matter, as they directly affect quality of life. It’s the safest and loudest way of showing the government your middle finger.
The Other Mr. President - by This American Life did a really great episode interviewing Russians on their thoughts and feelings on Putin.
And did he change their opinion?
There’s only one name on the ballot.
You are a Westerner.
You live after the beginning of the Ukrainian War.
In Russia, for the longest time, dislike of the regime was primarily limited to the youth. The average person had a vague understanding that there was a lot of corruption. However, they did not understand just how deep it went. The average person understood that there was some enrichment going on, but they thought it was mostly local and small-scale. People seldom had personal experience with the repression of dissidents, nor did they know much about the opposition movement.
Navalni opened people’s eyes. He revealed the palaces of the deputies, ministers, and Vladimir Vladimirovich himself. He revealed how corruption was horrendous on every level of government. He revealed the absurdly close ties between the oligarchs and government. He made the repression visible too, thought this was a much more minor part of his project.
On the back of all of his investigations, he built a mass movement. Individual, fractured discontent just leads to depressed people who believe themselves to be isolated, the sole sane man in a sea of nutcases. He united people. He organized demonstrations. He made discontent public and visible, thus opening the eyes of even more people.
The modern opposition movement would not exist were it not for Navalni.
That being said, there were two main issues with Navalni’s work. First, he wasted a lot of energy telling people to vote, and came up with the Smart Voting scheme to vote out URers, even though he himself acknowledged the lack of fairness in the elections. This was a colossal waste of time, energy, and resources. It changed nothing. You cannot vote out a dictatorship.
Second, he was a nationalist, especially early on. Later on he became more of a typical liberal, but his years as the sort of guy to yell “Russia is for Russians” have been harmful to the opposition.