It starts out with the dramatic poisoning in 2020 where he fell unconscious on a plane and recovered gradually over a number of months. In this section he touches on how he was monitored and highly likely poisoned by agents of the FSB. As one of the most prominent opposition leaders to the ruling party he drew lots of attention and popularity through exposing corruption by government leaders to enrich themselves and abusing their positions for their own benefit. This didn’t earn him any friends and there were significant efforts to silence him with it eventually leading to his imprisonment and murder while in prison.
It is telling when one political party so fears an opposition leader that rather than engage with them on the issues they resort to imprisonment and poisoning them. If they were morally in the clear and didn’t fear the truths the person was challenging them with they would have no need to resort to this and could instead triumph with force of argument and superior ideas. Instead it shows weakness to abuse their power and lie to prevent their corruption from being brought to light.
Nalvany comes across as highly intelligent, well read, a deep thinker on policy and how it impacts countries and the world, a skilled debater, but also has a great sense of humor and is up to speed on pop culture. It is a shame that the world lost him in the prime of his life. Throughout the book I was impressed by the vision he cast for what Russia could become and how its people could thrive in the absence of corruption and oppression and with free speech and free association as protected rights. He described it as the Beautiful Russia of the Future.
In any political system it’s healthy to have leaders with opposing viewpoints to test their own ideas against. The people they lead should benefit from diversity of perspectives and the best ideas should prevail over time with the pendulum swinging back and forth. In the absence of checks and balances and independent judiciaries, authoritarian leaders don’t permit dissent or anything that resembles a real challenge to them instead threatening, imprisoning, and killing those they deem as challenging their own power.
When Navalny is arrested immediately following his return to Russia from recovering in Germany, it is highly publicized and based on farcical charges that made no sense. How can you comply with requirements to appear before a court while recovering from being poisoned by government agents? After being in jail for a day, they set up a sham “trial” inside of the jail. His lawyer was informed of it only 3 minutes before when she was allowed to enter the jail. He subsequently is falsely charged with numerous other crimes as the government became increasingly frustrated with his calling them out for hypocrisy and abuse of power. Much of this occurred while he was in custody and/or in solitary confinement.
In parts of the book, Navalny gets into the intricacies of the Russian political system and the various players involved so it can take a bit of work to keep up with all the pieces if unfamiliar with Russian politics. The key theme of his political work was fighting against corruption and for the freedoms of the Russian people. He paints a beautiful picture of what Russia could be without all of the corruption and how government and business leaders could actually help people rather than simply enriching themselves.
Early in the book he tells the story of growing up in the USSR and how he got started as a lawyer eventually moving into focusing on politics, exposing business and government corruption, and how he utilized the internet in its early days to galvanize the public and bring transparency to underhanded dealings and in businesses and the government. He garnered such support that he became a strong opposition leader who the ruling political party worked diligently to sideline and keep him from running for elections due to direct interference by hired thugs, or charging him fallaciously, threatening his family, and putting him in prison on trumped up charges.
The longer that an authoritarian regime is in power, the more they will suppress the opposition to stay in power whether illegal, immoral, or ethically objectionable. History has shown though that regimes don’t last forever and while they may rule for a time, if they do not ultimately primarily serve the people that they lead, eventually they will dwindle in influence on a global scale and the country’s people will advance other leaders.
Only time will tell but it’s possible Alexei Navalny will go down in history as a groundbreaking martyr in turning the tide from corrupt authoritarianism designed to protect and enrich the powerful rather a government designed to benefit the average person.
In his “final words” at each of the bogus trials that he was subjected to, he shares insightful thoughts on freedom and designing policies and systems where regular people can thrive and benefit from the resources of a country rather than those benefits accruing to only a few corrupt people. The quality of the speeches and writing in the more philosophical passages is at the level of Martin Luther King’s a letter from a Birmingham jail. In many ways King and Nalvany had similarities in crusading for freedom, against tyranny, and for truth. Those in power imprisoned them and they were both ultimately assassinated.
The last section of the book focuses on Navalny’s time in prison and reads much like a prison diary with both the indignities, and pettiness of rules. Deprived of medical care and sleep through psychological pressures and “routine checks” he eventually went on a hunger strike for almost a month. Overall he has a really good sense of humor despite the situation.
There were many great quotes throughout the book but one that I thought was especially insightful was: “Life works in such a way that social progress and a better future can only be achieved if a certain number of people are willing to pay the price for their right to have their own beliefs. The more of them there are, the less everyone has to pay. And the day will come when speaking the truth and advocating for justice will be commonplace and not dangerous in Russia.”
From a faith perspective Navalny came to be a follower of Jesus as an adult after growing up as an atheist and leaned into his faith throughout his experience fighting for the truth and for freedom in Russia. A favorite quote of him speaking about his faith was: “My job is to seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and leave it to good old Jesus and the rest of his family to deal with everything else. They won’t let me down and will sort out all my headaches.”
To get a real understanding of what goes on in Russia I would hope anyone involved in or interested in international politics or diplomatic relations would read this book. It is eye opening and provides lots of color on the machinations going on behind the scenes. Hopefully Navalny’s cause will be carried on by others and the Russian people and the broader world will benefit.
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