From the first Tsars of the sixteenth century to the notoriously repressive Soviet regime to the contemporary mafia state of Vladimir Putin, Russia has long been a bastion of autocracy in Eastern Europe. Even the 1990s-era democratization attempt under Boris Yeltsin’s rule cannot be deemed truly democratic, let alone successful: Yeltsin enabled extreme oligarchic corruption, crushed a 1993 parliamentary uprising with military force (after overstepping his constitutional presidential powers), and ultimately catalyzed the consolidation of power under Putin and his KGB allies. Thus, it increasingly appears that Russia is eternally married to authoritarian rulers, a sentiment echoed by Putin himself, who maintains that “Russia needs a strong state power and must have it” to reinforce its national pride and stance as a global power. Is Russia truly doomed to perennial dictatorship?
In my previous Phoenix article, I asserted that Russia may soon become highly susceptible to regime change due to the elites’ allegiance to Putin overwhelmingly outweighing that to the seat of the “president,” which might ultimately engender a power vacuum following Putin’s eventual demise. After all, Putin’s United Russia party has yet to designate a successor, who nonetheless won’t retain the economic or political dominance Putin exercises over the ruling class. On the other hand, the liberal (anti-Putin) coalition of Russian activists increasingly aligns behind dissident Alexei Navalny, who has spent his political career exposing and combatting Putin’s rampant corruption and human rights violations and recently commenced a two-year sentence in a dismal penal colony for his insubordination. Many optimists have proclaimed Navalny as the exemplar of Russian democratic aspirations on the basis of his outspoken anti-Putinist and anti-corruption convictions. Unfortunately, this is a blithe misconception of Navalny’s true character. Between his political history of egregious ultra-nationalism and his bafflingly pacifist stance on the handling of criminal Putin-backed oligarchs, he does not embody the liberal contrapositive to Putin.
“[Navalny]’s not Nelson Mandela. He’s Aung San Suu Kyi.”
– Eliot Borenstein
Before Navalny amalgamated Russian liberals behind his movement, he instead based his platform on unapologetically nationalist and xenophobic ideals. His most egregious statements surfaced in the late 2000s, when he equated Muslims with cockroaches that must be exterminated and called for all Georgians (the country, not the voter-suppression one) to be expelled from Russia, while shamelessly aligning with ultranationalist groups at the annual “Russian March.” As his past has undergone intense scrutiny, he has largely softened his tone pertaining to immigration and security issues, even apologizing for select statements, while accumulating support through a focus on anti-corruption and light liberalism. Though Navalny has vocally shifted his stance, it remains a genuine question where his true convictions now lie.
Although racism is unconditionally intolerable, it is fair to ponder the correlation between his appalling statements and his true politics. After all, while the dismantling of Putin’s corrupt mafia state has remained Navalny’s overarching goal and top priority throughout his activist career, anti-Putin opposition has remained extensively divided between skinheads, liberal democrats, communists, and various interspersed groups. As such, Navalny’s rhetoric may have been born out of necessity to build as large a coalition as feasible to legitimately challenge United Russia. There are numerous accounts of liberals like chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov uniting with the National-Bolshevik Party, under the impression that “only a united front could overthrow the Putin regime, and only after that should pro-Western liberal democrats … hash out their differences with the ethno-nationalists.” It is conceivable that Navalny subscribed to this same ideology to an extent, and has meandered between the political boundaries solely as a means to unite against Putin. This makes it difficult, however, to wholeheartedly accept Navalny as an authentic liberal politician at heart despite the trend of his public rhetoric.
In fairness to Navalny, some of his economic policies are drastically more geared towards the lower and middle classes than those of his predecessor. He often touts the need for a national monthly minimum wage of ₽25,000 ($324) (as opposed to the current ₽12,792 (~$167) minimum), which, though certainly no panacea for Russia’s economic stagnation, is nonetheless nearly double the previous value and about 25 percent larger than that of Moscow. He further advocates for trade unions and a general rise in wages. Whereas such promises often manifest as hot air from politicians, Navalny is uniquely situated to deliver. He can facilitate the acquisition of such financial means via his expansive anti-corruption campaign, through which he aims to funnel Kremlin-laundered cash back into the hands of the public. Navalny supplements this particular aspiration with his desire to privatize Russian companies. While this move is not guaranteed to eradicate income inequality, it will diminish the control of the executive branch over enterprise operations, including cash flow. Bar the latter, these headline policies have earned him much of his widespread support amongst younger voters (akin to Bernie Sanders’ appeal to that demographic in the US from “$15 minimum wage” and “healthcare for all” slogans), who are three times more likely to support Navalny than Russians aged 55 or higher.
“Everyone says corruption is everywhere, but for me it seems strange to say that and then not try to put the people guilty of that corruption away.”
– Alexei Navalny
In addition to a less oligarch-centric economic system, Navalny advocates for a plethora of political liberties denied by the Putin regime. Russia’s courts are notoriously corrupt: the judge of Yeltsin-era oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s mid-2000s tax-fraud trial was hand-picked by the Kremlin to bias the proceedings towards the prosecution, permitting illegally obtained evidence and other due-process violations, and providing a five-star hotel for the judge as state-sponsored bribery for a guilty verdict. Khodorkovsky ultimately suffered nearly a decade in a glorified Gulag. Whereas Putin stacked federal courts with United Russia loyalists, and rewarded them with luxuries for their obedience, Navalny has advocated for a fair judicial system. As he is a repeat victim of rigged court proceedings — and currently serves a two-year prison sentence as a result — an overhaul of Russian courts remains among the most personal missions of his agenda. Navalny has long been an exemplar of free speech and expression, even throughout his ethno-nationalist phase, and he has evolved into a proponent of LGBT rights within the past decade. Although the extent of democracy is unclear under a hypothetical Navalny presidency, there is little doubt that his era would see far more political autonomy and justice than did that under the incumbent United Russia regime.
As the Kremlin obsessively obstructs Navalny’s access to political platforms, the public has scant information on Navalny’s international relations policies, particularly those regarding China and the United States. Nonetheless, a multitude of factors contribute to optimism pertaining to his alleged U.S. policies due to his values aligning more closely with the democratic American sect. A Navalny presidency would most likely open U.S. and Russia to more numerous and amicable negotiations over nuclear, economic, and other IR policy issues, and an ameliorated trust could inhibit the need for overt espionage and ultimately reduce mutual economic trade barriers. Contrarily, Russia under Putin had struggled to negotiate a nuclear weapons freeze with the U.S. in late 2020, and much of its ruling class remains penalized with sanctions for meddling in the 2016 U.S. general election. And finally, democracies simply tend to get along better with each other than with autocracies; it’s no coincidence that Yeltsin-era Russia dwarfed all other eras in terms of American influence and diplomacy. Navalny’s nationalism may inhibit truly cordial relations with the U.S., however, as the legacy of the Cold War leads Russians to base much of their identity on anti-Western sentiments.
Unfortunately, I am unable to find any information on Navalny’s alleged China policies nor am I knowledgeable enough about Sino-Russian history to make an educated prediction. He would certainly condemn the Uighur concentration camps, but I can’t confidently predict how that would sway his overarching policies. And, judging by his reluctance to return Crimea to Ukraine if elevated to the presidency, I expect he would more willingly condone the forced integration of Hong Kong than would most other “liberals.” Bar these issues, I can’t predict how Navalny might handle either economic or encompassing diplomatic relations with the rising superpower.
Nonetheless, the prospect of improved Russia-West relations has led countless journalists to speculate that Russian aristocrats are secretly siphoning cash to Navalny so he can optimally subvert his statewide media ban. The legitimacy of this conspired elites-to-Navalny pipeline is reinforced by Navalny’s documentary exposé of Putin’s billion-dollar “palace,” which some call the largest bribe in history (note that Putin’s salary generally hovers under $300,000). Navalny would certainly not have obtained access to this highly secretive mansion without support from any Putin allies. Whereas the evidence has proven substantial, the true incentives of Navalny’s rebellious financial benefactors remain ambiguous. Although the primary incentive is certainly economic — using regime change as means to shed sanctions — it could also be a hedge to mitigate correlation with the Putin regime in the case of a Navalny rise, or even a genuine yearning for a successful democratic transition. Regardless, the ramifications of their investments would most certainly ameliorate relations between Russia and the West, and there is no dearth of such understanding on the aristocrats’ front.
Navalny was and remains an unabashed nationalist, while seemingly supplementing his political identity with a charismatic spark of democratic liberalism. As he faces increasingly unrelenting criticism for his chauvinist past, public doubt of Navalny’s true aspirations continues to accumulate. Most recently, Amnesty International recently rescinded Navalny’s “prisoner of conscience” distinction, an honorary title bestowed upon political prisoners incarcerated for nonbelligerent activism. From the controversies a critical question arises: must nationalism and democratism be mutually exclusive? Lech Walesa, who once served as a secret police informer and later cozied up with right-wing populists, nonetheless proved instrumental in the Polish revolution against communist dictatorship and won the first free and fair election in Polish history. Russia’s own Boris Yeltsin coalesced his democratic vision with obsessive support for non-violent Russian nationalist/anti-separatist movements in post-Soviet states, no far cry from Navalny’s “Russian March” appearances. Both leaders were woefully imperfect, but made substantial contributions to their nations’ liberal frameworks and foundations, albeit temporarily. Russians have retained admirable pride throughout their dark history; perhaps the optimal path towards democratizing Russia is the incorporation of liberal ideology into the national identity. As far as I’m concerned, Navalny’s distinctive history of nationalism alongside his contemporary liberalism makes him the perfect candidate for this arduous task.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not reflect the views of The Phoenix Editorial Board.
