RUSSIAN WORLD Naval’nyy’s Russia without Naval’nyj

Many people in Russia wanted to honor his memory on June 4, his birthday. And his Anti-Corruption Fund remains an important legacy, beyond the skills of his followers or the prestige of his wife Julia, and may still have a role to play even in a Russia now locked in neo-Soviet totalitarianism.

June 4 marked 48 years since the birth of Aleksej Naval’nyj, the first without the physical presence of the martyr of dissidence against Putin’s Russia. His wife Julia, along with several friends and collaborators of the Anti-Corruption Fund, attended a Panichida, a funeral liturgy celebrated by a Russian Orthodox priest in a Berlin evangelical church dedicated to Our Lady, in an ecumenical inclusion of the “free Christianity” of the late hero of the resistance to the new totalitarianism. Many people in Russia have tried to honor his memory, visiting the Borisovo cemetery where he is buried, or placing flowers at the monuments to the victims of political repression, such as in Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Khabarovsk, trying to avoid the police cordons in front of these memorial places. anti-soviet. In Perm, a city near the lager where Naval’nyj died, any public demonstration was prevented.

Naval’nyj voluntarily surrendered to martyrdom upon returning to Russia three years ago after suffering poisoning, from which he had miraculously survived thanks to the treatment received in Germany. He was convinced that he could sacrifice himself in the name of a change that he believed was possible before the “special military operation” began in Ukraine, which he called the “wonderful Russia of the future”, despite all indications that already in 2021 the The hopes of the opponents of the regime of “orthodox patriotism” were dashed. The leader of the protest movement was an optimist by nature, and he continued to express himself with positive irony even during his 37-month ordeal in the various fields in which he was buffeted, from the Vladimir region near Moscow to the deadly cold of the Great North, smiling and joking even in the last session of the court, on February 15, a few hours before his final surrender due to a mysterious “detention thrombosis.”

Today it is easy to say that Naval’nyj was wrong to return, especially to believe so much in his people, that he left them in the clutches of hell without any reaction. His followers who were released from exile denounce the betrayals of the politicians of the 90s, without being able to imagine any “Russia of the future”, and they fail to create a true opposition movement from abroad, according to Russian tradition, because the Russians cannot unite without a true leader. Aleksej had entered politics in 2000, when he joined the liberal Yabloko party, attempting to advance towards a candidacy in the Moscow electoral contests, only to be unexpectedly excluded in 2007 for “nationalist tendencies” by the same secretary Grigory Javlinsky, a survivor of the damned 90s who still preaches his idea of ​​a democratic Russia out of nothing.

It was the time of Russia’s conversion to the ideal of its own national specificity, after the decade of opening to the West and globalization, and in a certain sense Putin and Naval’nyj represented two variants of the same trend. It is no coincidence that Putin persecuted the opposition leader in an apparently tolerant manner, letting him in and out of prison and allowing his street demonstrations without ever demonstrating in an excessively violent manner towards him, and that upon his death he hinted that he had basically sought after, given that he had survived poisoning in Siberia and could bask in the glory of Western exile. The same attitude was reserved for the other great opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky, pardoned after ten years of lager, who now launches proclamations of revolution from Berlin, without creating any problems for the Kremlin caste.

Naval’nyj’s “nationalism”, which had excluded him from “presentable” oppositions and attracted criticism inside and outside the country (for example, he has always been very indigestible in Ukraine), was a very contradictory search for an adequate image of Russia, which would distinguish it from the stereotypes of the East and the West, and in this sense Putin and Naval’nyj are really expressions of the same need, now resolved in a military and imperial way, but which could have been different and more conciliatory. It was and remains a common aspiration of the Russian people, who have always been convinced of the need to express their own “idea”, an alternative variant capable of influencing and modifying the global geopolitical framework, be it the “multipolarism” that they boast about in world conflicts together with China, or rather a different “brotherhood of peoples” inspired by great Russia, as was indeed Naval’nyj’s vision. In the early 2000s he attempted to create a new organization called Narod, “the People”, together with the now ultra-Putinist writer Zakhar Prilepin, who escaped an assassination attempt by Ukrainians a year ago by sitting behind the wheel while the bomb of his car exploded on the passenger side, in that case his driver.

At that time an attempt was made to compose the National Bolsheviks nostalgic for the past regime, the movement against illegal immigration and the representatives of the liberal-democratic camp, including the Yabloko youth disappointed by Javlinsky’s too soft leadership. The Narod’s motto was “stop feeding the Caucasus!” and it was soon forgotten, as the attempt failed. Since then, Aleksej has only dedicated himself to street protests and denouncing caste corruption, attracting the resentment of all other oppositions, which makes the relationship between the various exponents of the Russian diaspora in the West especially complicated even today. . In reality, no one has demonstrated as much charisma and organizational talent as the martyr of Kharp lager, who has stamped on the Putinist United Russia party the label of “thieves and scoundrels”, from which he cannot free himself in any way, not even with operations cleaning such as those currently being carried out at the Ministry of Defense in Moscow. The last great Navalnista initiative was the “useful vote” in the elections, which created so many problems in various administrations, and which is now being liquidated by increasingly controlled and false systems of electoral mechanisms such as those of the “unanimous presidency” in the Putin’s fifth term, exactly one month after Naval’nyj’s death.

In reality, the highest electoral result was obtained back in 2013 in the Moscow municipal elections, where even the official results gave Naval’nyj more than a quarter of the votes, probably many more in reality; If a second round with trusted Putinist Sergei Sobjanin had been allowed, the story could have been very different. Since then, the Anti-Corruption Fund has dedicated itself to investigating the “good lie detector”, as he called it, attracting millions of users until today, when his disciple Maša Pevčik has unmasked the Predateli, the “traitors” of the nineties . More than one hundred publications and videos have been edited, technologically surpassing any partisan expression in Russia, even that of state propaganda. His Fbk fund remains an important legacy, in Russia and around the world, beyond the capabilities of his followers or the prestige of his wife Julia, and he may continue to have a role to play even in a Russia now locked in the neo-Soviet totalitarianism.

While it is true that with Naval’nyy’s funeral the illusion of the wonderful Russia of the future was buried, it is no less true that the Russia of the present is so sunk in the anti-utopia of war against the entire world that conscience popular may wake up sooner or later. Certainly not through an improbable pacifist regurgitation, since the eschatological conflict is now engraved in the souls not only of the leaders, but of the entire Russian people. At the same time, the war economy, sanctioned by the appointment of the Orthodox banker Andrei Belousov as Minister of Defense and imposed by the guillotine of the new tax reform, does not arouse any enthusiasm among Russians. It is said that the most read book in Russia this year is 1984, by George Orwell, written in 1949 still under the catastrophic impression of the world wars, which demonstrates its extraordinary relevance. The Russian political scientist based in Moscow Denis Grekov speaks of a “psychoeconomy” in which “the standard of living becomes an element of manipulation of the masses”, because it is easier to control those who cannot satisfy all their needs, as was the case in the Soviet regime, which in fact is being restored in an increasingly blatant way, with a narrow oligarchic caste that is increasingly richer, and a mass of the population reduced to a rather distressing and reducing life, especially in the provinces.

The “slavery of credits and taxes,” as Grekov calls it, makes it increasingly difficult for Russians to find any way out other than submission to the established order, or perhaps voluntary conscription for war, the only way to get rich rewards. However, we are no longer in the Brezhnev era, nor even in the jungle of the 90s, and ideal or religious motivations are not enough to silence the desire of Russians to enjoy true material well-being and to travel freely around the world. world, not just to the beaches of Bali or Colombo, perhaps sending their children to see the “wonders” of North Korea, according to recent vacations organized from Eastern Siberia. Russians continue to dream of the wonder Naval’nyj spoke of, which even from the grave can inspire improbable and indefinable changes, as befits the true Russian soul.

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