On August 11, an article titled “My fears and hatred” appeared on the website of the purported main Russian opposition figure, Alexei Navalny. He referred to this article as a sort of “confession,” given after receiving a new court sentence of an additional 19 years of imprisonment, now under even stricter conditions.
The inspiration for Navalny’s lengthy column came from a recently read book by Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, titled “Fear No Evil,” who spent a total of nine years in Soviet prisons. According to one of the leaders of the Russian opposition (often seen this way due to the absence of significant active opposition forces in Russia and because of the well-known reputation of this political prisoner), very little has changed from the 1980s (the time of Sharansky’s imprisonment) to the present day in Russian detention facilities — both in terms of the conditions of confinement and the attitude (read as mistreatment) of prison authorities towards detainees.
Navalny’s reflections on the legacy of Yeltsin’s era
Interestingly, in this state of affairs, Navalny attributes blame not to the judges who have been corrupt for decades and excessively subservient to state power (not functioning as the third branch of government, and answering not even to the legislative, but to the Kremlin), not to law enforcement agencies (referred to as “thieving cops” in the text), not to the FSB operatives who coordinated it all, and even not to Putin.
No, for Navalny, all these mentioned elements are not the causes of modern Russian woes but the consequences of the actions of those whom, as the article’s author claims, he once loved, “for whom he was passionate, with whom he argued to hoarseness,” and in whom he became so disillusioned that today he hates himself for having once loved them.
This isn’t about some Russian nationalists of the 1990s, whom young Alexei might have admired, immersing himself in their literature somewhere in suburban Butino or attending their rallies in Moscow (he still considers himself a supporter of the nationalist wing in Russia’s political field). This is about the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, and his associates who took over Russian power in the wake of the collapse of the USSR.
It was Yeltsin and his associates (“Tanya and Valya” — Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana and her husband Valentin Yumashev, the ideologist of Russian liberal economic reforms Anatoly Chubais, the rapidly enriched oligarchs — products of the “wild privatization” in post-Soviet times, and former “Komsomol-party members” who suddenly became reformers), according to Navalny, who were the ones who “sold, squandered, and wasted that historic chance” that Russia had in the early 1990s. In Navalny’s view, they laid the foundation for the dictatorship in the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Firstly, due to the lack of effective judicial reform. Secondly, due to the de facto subordination of the Russian parliament to the president after the October 1993 events. Thirdly, due to the introduction of the practice of blatant election fraud in favor of the ruling authorities after 1996. And fourthly, the convergence of the security structures with the former KGB (and the active FSB) with the oligarchy and the state apparatus.
The complex views of Navalny and Putin on Russia’s past and present
In the end, as Navalny asserts, it no longer mattered who would become Yeltsin’s successor. The dictatorship was already secured! And the desired pro-Western path for Russia during this period was exchanged for various exotic islands in the middle of oceans, thousands of kilometers away from the Russian Federation, acquired by the Yeltsin “Family.”
Evidently, such revisionism by the most well-known contemporary Russian detainee didn’t start yesterday. Do you recall his solemn return on the Pobeda airplane (the Berlin — Moscow flight of the Pobeda airline, a notable detail, of course) from Germany to Russia in January 2021? And his wife Yulia with that infamous “Boy, bring us some vodka. We’re flying home.”
For someone unfamiliar (perhaps, even for the better) with the civilization-cultural discourse in Russian society over the last 25 years, this phrase might not mean much. However, those who are “in the know” understand that it’s actually a quote from the once-legendary film for Russian youth (and partially for post-Soviet society as a whole), Aleksei Balabanov’s film Brother 2, which came out in 2000, following the first part released in 1997. It’s with this very phrase that Darya Lesnikova’s character Dasha, a Russian woman who once flew to the United States to seek a better life and ended up working as a prostitute, addresses the flight attendant on an Aeroflot flight. She and Sergei Bodrov’s hero, Danila Bagrov are returning to Moscow after various adventures on American soil.
See also: The rise and fall of Putinocracy. How much of the future does the Kremlin’s master have?
Undoubtedly, for many Russians of the 1990s-2000s transition era, Danila Bagrov is a symbol of the times. A simple Russian guy who fought in Chechnya, his father is a repeat offender, and he still has a mother and an older brother. The latter, of course, is a criminal, a “new Russian” involved in extortion, but Danila loves him. At least, he doesn’t show direct hatred towards him.
And furthermore, Danila is a fighter for truth. “Where is the power, brother?” became the rallying cry of Russian youth for a whole decade after the impactful release of the second part of the film. In a world seemingly consumed by “wild capitalism” and “privatization,” which, besides Russia, also affected other former Soviet republics, Danila’s thesis that “strength lies with the one who has truth,” and not with those who possess wealth, became a true balm for the souls of those who were born in the Soviet Union, witnessed its collapse, and experienced the systemic crisis of the 1990s.
Further post-Soviet democracy during President Yeltsin’s time became increasingly associated with not the attempts to democratize Russia but with Yegor Gaidar’s “shock therapy,” accompanied by rapid impoverishment of the population against the backdrop of the emergence of the “new Russians” for whom the law was either not applicable or helped by money and useful connections within law enforcement agencies. It was a time of privatization vouchers (which many in provincial Russia perhaps still don’t fully understand), the perpetually smiling and often inebriated president, the first Chechen war, and ultimately, the 1998 default. Therefore, amid the decline in the number of supporters of Russia’s liberalization, who stood alongside Yeltsin in 1991 to oppose the “putschists” from the State Committee on the State of Emergency and who joined the assault on the White House in 1993, by the end of the 1990s, the proportion of those who were not against returning to a “strong hand” in Russia significantly increased. This was associated with economic stability, social mobility, social justice, and most importantly, the restoration of Russia’s status as an influential and decisive geopolitical player in the region. It’s for these reasons that Vladimir Putin was elected as the Russian president in 2000. And they adored Danila Bagrov, the cinematic fighter for justice and truth.
Clearly, Navalny’s family too, idolized him during his youth, as its young adulthood coincided with those pivotal times. It perceived the 1990s as a period of opportunities that many Russians did not take advantage of.
About this, the modern Russian “prisoner of conscience No. 1” writes in the mentioned article. About this, another influential figure in Russia often talks over the past decade — President Putin. For both, this period signifies a time of a weakened Russia. For Navalny, it’s primarily within the state itself. For Putin, it’s on the external arena, where Russian geopolitical positions have significantly wavered, and on the contrary, NATO has expanded to the East, coming close to Russian borders.
Is the difference too substantial to assert that the first is fundamentally not the same as the second? The question is clearly rhetorical.
But what’s noteworthy is this: In his confessional article, Navalny mentions that he is waiting for the time when a “new chance — a window of opportunities” will appear in Russia to transform into a truly just and therefore strong state. And he fears (here comes the passage about fear) that this time it won’t turn out like it did three decades ago.
However, in doing so, he does not specify how this Russia will be establishing relations with the West in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Moreover, there is no mention of the Ukrainian state itself in the article. The war in Ukraine is more of a side note than a central theme. Not to mention the issue of temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories by Russia.
Both Putin and Navalny dislike the Russian 1990s. But do they assess the present differently? Critics would say that yes, in February 2023, Navalny advocated for the territorial integrity of Ukraine within the borders of 1991. However, remember who among the politicians of the post-Soviet space spoke the most about the “brotherhood” of the Ukrainian people and the need to preserve Ukraine’s unity (even through negotiations with the so-called DPR and LPR) even from the high tribune of the UN General Assembly? And who in October 2022, in the midst of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, declared that Russia is the “sole guarantor of Ukraine’s sovereignty”?
Remember? Well then.
Originally posted by Pavlo Artymyshyn on Zaxid.net. Translated and edited by the UaPosition – Ukrainian news and analytics website
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