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Alexei Navalny Sacrificed Himself to Show Russia That Putin Is a Monster

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.

PoliticallyIncorrect ,
@PoliticallyIncorrect@lemmy.world avatar

A self-made martyr?

Gooey0210 ,

Who’s not happy can go here neputin.orgAnd maybe even here shtab.navalny.com

ahriboy ,

Navalny was xenophobic. You can’t replace far-right with another far-right, it will still be worse.

The only option is to pick someone who is inclusive of multiculturalism and LGBT people.

TheEighthDoctor ,

He also believed Crimea should be Russian, so I’m not happy he is dead but I’m sure as hell happy that he is not Putin’s replacement.

ahriboy ,

Crimea is and will be always Ukraine.

gianni ,
@gianni@lemmy.ca avatar

This is a mischaracterization of his statements and lacks nuance.

You can read more here: nytimes.com/…/navalnys-comments-on-crimea-ignite-…

TheEighthDoctor ,

“I think that despite the fact that the Crimea was seized with outrageous violations of all international norms, nevertheless, the realities are such that Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation,”

Seems pretty clear.

uis ,

The only option is to pick someone who is inclusive of multiculturalism and LGBT people.

There is small problems with “inclusive of multiculturalism” part: namely Bashkirs, Buryats, Yakuts, Udmurts and others. Russia IS multicultural.

You can’t replace far-right with another far-right, it will still be worse.

24 years of “not getting worse”. Oligarch’s yachts are not getting worse for sure, but what about citizens?

American “left” says they will ask for partial debt relief maybe eventually, while Russian right demands increase funding of education, healthcare, social welfare and scientific research, tenfolding wages of teachres, doctors, feldshers, nurses, peofessors and public transit drivers. Along with providing students food, housing, decent stipend, decent pension for retired and more because if state can afford to pay endless hoard of polizai it sure can pay all mentioned before. And always-present anti-corruption stance because he was investigating it for last 10 years.

His presidency campaign also had redusing presidency term back to 4 years, full transition from conscript army to contract army, declassifying everything FSB did and lustrations, reducing president’s power, increasing parlament power, nationalization of assets of oligarchs that participated in loan auction or corruption.

Finally stopping paying Kadirov, returning army from Syria and other far-right isolatioanism stuff.

Shenanigore ,

Like we didn’t know that

maness300 ,

Did he really need to sacrifice himself for that?

Is there seriously anyone who was in denial until they learned about Navalny?

JustMy2c ,

Villaviciencio here in Ecuador also sacrificed himself. Yes, people do that…

maness300 ,

Yes, but this is Navalny in Russia.

Krzd ,
@Krzd@lemmy.world avatar

Sadly, yes. Russian State Media is the only source of information for a lot of “normal” Russians. Although that sadly also means that his sacrifice most likely won’t have a large impact on the Russian political landscape.

maness300 , (edited )

Then it’s worse than I thought.

Kind of strange that a culture with so many pariahs seems to also have a stranglehold on any dissent.

I guess China is the same way, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

profdc9 ,

Sergei Magnitsky already did this in 2009, but I suppose we needed a reminder.

federatingIsTooHard ,
@federatingIsTooHard@lemmy.world avatar

oof

Arcity ,
@Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

Why the fuck are we celebrating this fascist?

CultHero ,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    The fuck makes you think i’m supporting russia?

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    Should I feel bad for Wagner because they opposed Putin?

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    Your name suits you, brain dead cultist

    CultHero ,

    I hope you’re dead.

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    Nah, sorry man. You must be severely mentally challenged to respond to a months old comment that no longer exists. Hope you get well soon fascist.

    uis ,

    Hey!

    He is not russian sock puppet. I’m against such definition. He is Putin’s sock puppet.

    Iceman ,

    Him being the opposition was apparently good enough. Never mind that he was a Russian nationalist that definitely supports the annexation of Ukraine and the ethnic cleansing of Caucasians. A real meat old boss, same as old boss situation.

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    Finally a sane take. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend. I hate how western media is whitewashing the likes of Kissinger and Navalny.

    uis ,

    Under what rock did you live for last 10 years? This doesn’t look like support.

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    "The oppositionist added that if Crimea is annexed, the Russian economy will weaken, and this, in turn, may lead to the desire of some subjects of the Federation to secede from the country. " - your source Ah yes, what a sweetheart. He doesn’t think it is good to annex Crimea. Yet he wants to continue using the Black Sea and I assume the military bases in Crimea and use it to keep Ukraine out of NATO. So same goal as Putin, just thinks annexing was a mistake strategically not morally.

    rottingleaf ,

    Yet he wants to continue using the Black Sea and I assume the military bases in Crimea

    Well, that was the situation after the dissolution of USSR. Makes sense preserving it.

    and use it to keep Ukraine out of NATO

    Where did you get that?

    In Russian-speaking Web the only relatively recent quote by him people accusing him can find is “Crimea is not a sandwich to be given or taken”. Especially Ukrainians clutch to that to the end.

    Well, see, Crimea is really not a sandwich, it’s a piece of land inhabited by people, and yes, a real referendum is more important than Ukrainian laws.

    I was disgusted by that “referendum” because it was fake, while many Ukrainians on the Web because they are against referendums they don’t like. Well, too bad.

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    I love how everyone is dogpilling without giving any arguments.

    uis ,

    Explain your point

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    I must have dreamt up the neo-nazi, 2006 Russian march and the far-right, National Russian Liberation Movement.

    rottingleaf ,

    No, you haven’t. Nobody cares what was in 2006.

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    Go ahead and gaslight me that he is actually progressive.

    CultHero ,

    Fuck your mom amerikkkan cunt.

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    I’m not american imbecile

    mellowheat , (edited )

    If I may quote aljazeera.com/…/obit-navalny-putins-archenemy-and…

    Beginning in the late 2000s, Navalny used racial slurs when describing ethnic Georgians, called for the deportation of Muslim migrant workers and delivered speeches at Russian Marches, annual rallies of far-right nationalists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

    “It was a long time ago,” Alexander Verkhovsky, head of the Moscow-based Sova hate crimes monitor, told Al Jazeera in 2021, describing Navalny as “a different man now”.

    www.rightsinrussia.org/aleksandr-verkhovsky/ doesn’t seem like a pro-fascist (although I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody made such a story up, now that he has defended Navalny), so I’m supposing his opinion in this is good enough. Calling Navalny a fascist at this point seems like a tankie talking point specifically designed to denounce the message he was putting out in his last years.

    “We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.” – Aristotle

    Arcity ,
    @Arcity@feddit.nl avatar

    So your argument is that he was fascist but not anymore?

    Iceman ,

    Call me a cynic, but that just screams “I am in Russian prison, my hopes for a Russian uprising uprising didn’t happen and my only hope is appeasing the west”. No world leaders have made such drastic changes in ideology over merely a decade.

    mellowheat ,

    I guess that’s possible, but also possible that your own country poisoning you and then imprisoning you can do wonders for your nationalistic tendencies.

    cosmicrookie ,
    @cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

    Everybody know that Putin is a monster, except for the Russians. They need a revolution!

    ccunix ,

    That didn’t end well last time though

    Phegan ,

    I mean, they deposed a monarch, so that’s good.

    uis ,

    It sadly did end. Now another fucking imperialist is in charge.

    mellowheat ,

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_empire

    At its peak, their empire was roughly the same size as the British Empire, 35 million square kilometers. Slightly more than half of it was just Russia, though, of course, which makes this a bit of an orange vs apples thing. But USSR definitely had an empire-like thing going on.

    rottingleaf ,

    But USSR definitely had an empire-like thing going on.

    … important parts of which were (declared and even attempted) meritocracy, scientific and social progress, and a promise (which seemed realistic enough) for the future of the whole world.

    This doesn’t have anything in common with any big state’s ideology now.

    mellowheat ,

    I suppose originally it was, and I do think original goals are important to consider.

    Stalin brought an early end to many progressive dreams, though, and it doesn’t seem like Soviet Union ever really recovered from his regressive regime.

    rottingleaf ,

    I meant 60s and 70s.

    The point is that even aggressive attitudes of Soviet leadership were constructed very differently.

    Politburo really made collective decisions.

    The Communist party and the ministries and local councils and all that could function in obscure, weird and undocumented ways, but they did generally follow laws and rules.

    I mean … it really was an empire. Very inefficient and it eventually failed, but still.

    Today’s Russia is just an entity of a lower order.

    mellowheat ,

    Today’s Russia is just an entity of a lower order.

    Indeed it is, but in many ways it’s just a legacy (even if a deeply warped one) of the earlier. Putin was a KGB man, and repeatedly mentions how he thinks the fall of USSR was one of the greatest geopolitical tragedies.

    rottingleaf ,

    Anything is a legacy of what was before. I’m just saying that it’s not a rebuilt and changed USSR or even its part, it’s something new built from the same bricks.

    Putin was a KGB man,

    Not of the “expected to be anywhere near leadership by intelligence” kind from what I’ve read.

    and repeatedly mentions how he thinks the fall of USSR was one of the greatest geopolitical tragedies.

    He repeatedly mentions anything he thinks will make him popular. Loved a few antifascist, centrist and legalist lines too.

    BTW, he himself apparently still thinks his power is somehow dependent on popularity, while in fact it’s dependent on apathy only at this point.

    He worries about what people will think, however weird that may sound.

    rambling_lunatic , (edited )

    Man, Lenin set fire to a good chunk of his own dreams during the Civil War.

    The betrayal of the SRs and Makhnovists, the butchering of Kronstadt, the subjugation of local soviets and trade unions to centralized top-down rulership, and nationalization of previously independent cooperatives all helped bring down the dreams of equality and liberty. Lenin created all of the infrastructure that Stalin then used to horrifying ends. IMO this is an inevitable outcome of vanguardism and a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, but that is a topic for another day.

    Some of the things mentioned above did manage to survive post-Stalin. There was immense scientific progress in the USSR and the education was the best in the world. Everyone got food, though it was poor-quality and standing in line for it was universal (again, post-Stalin).

    mellowheat ,

    Homelessness wasn’t a thing.

    Homelessness was illegal in Soviet Union. USA has plenty of problems that are objectively worse in this area, but I’m not sure if just declaring it illegal and sending vagrants to labor camps is a very good solution either.

    rambling_lunatic ,

    Point taken. I will revise my original post. You’re right, man. Further reading supports your view. It seems that they just weren’t very visible.

    buddascrayon ,

    They know. They just don’t care because he’s “their” monster. Nothing will change in the wake of Nelvany’s death.

    This is a harsh lesson in allowing the cult of personality into a democratic election. Everyone should have learned from Hitler’s example but memories are apparently short lived. Now we have people like Netanyahu, Putin, and Trump and a world war is inevitable.

    rottingleaf ,

    “They” do not hold any particular position. That would be because “they” hold a multitude of positions, at its extreme as many as there are people in the particular society we refer to as “they”.

    And lose the drama, because:

    1. There are always such people.
    2. Putin became president in 1999 and the last arguably democratic election in Russia was in 1996.
    3. About Hitler - I think somebody skipped their history and doesn’t know that European states didn’t immediately cease to be colonialist just cause WWII ended and the new reality ensued. And Europeans would behave pretty hitleresque in colonies, think of French in Algeria or maybe Indochina.
    4. It’s spelled Navalny.
    maness300 ,

    Russians know it to, they just can’t do anything about it.

    Sylvartas ,

    Unfortunately I don’t think his sacrifice is gonna achieve much. I’d love to be proven wrong though.

    maness300 ,

    It will teach people not to do the same thing in the future.

    “Bravery” points on reddit-like forums don’t mean much in the real world.

    mellowheat , (edited )

    I think a good analogy is Claus von Stauffenberg. A german army colonel who in July 1944 tried to assassinate Hitler and very nearly succeeded.

    He was not a great person given his position, but did a very brave thing eventually and is now revered as somebody who at least tried.

    RememberTheApollo_ ,

    If Russia is like the US with trump, then there’s the active population who are supporting Putin, because even if he’s a bastard, at least he hurts the right people. Then there’s an apathetic horde, who don’t care or are too beaten down to do anything. Then there’s the group that know what’s up and wants change.

    The question is if Navalny’s death meant anything. The people who care are already at a disadvantage because of the authoritarian State, the supporters aren’t going to change, and the apathetic don’t have time to care. IMO he would have been better off, alive, outside of Russia and criticizing Putin.

    scemmy ,

    What you said could be true of any event, but reality is, each of these events influence apathetic people to either become supporters of the regime or anti-establishment.

    At least, that’s my theory. If not, there would never have been any progress in human society, if things are as static as you theorized.

    Jax ,

    I think progress comes from young people, not apathetic people who have had changes of heart.

    Apathetic parents lead to angry kids, angry kids look for answers. Some of them will find the right ones.

    cosmicrookie ,
    @cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

    Apathy is not age related; it is a state of mind. You have very energetic grown ups, and very apathetic youth and visa versa.

    RememberTheApollo_ ,

    I don’t imply society is in a permanent static state, my question is if Navalny’s demise would effect any meaningful change to the status quo.

    cosmicrookie ,
    @cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

    I think the point is, that he might have been able to influence more, if he was alive, and maybe even free, outside of Russia

    rambling_lunatic ,

    Russia is not like the US under Donald John. There are indeed rabid supporters of Putin and Russian imperialism (“vatniks”), but the regime functions regardless of popular support.

    You are right about what groups of people exist. You are, however, completely mistaken about their importance if you compare Russia to the US under Trump.

    My understanding, which is based in large part on my personal experience and observation of the size of protests (statistics suck when dictatorships are involved), is that the vast majority of Russians dislike Putin, but they believe that there is nothing that can be done at the moment.

    Doomerism is very strong in Russia. Our prevailing mentality is to suck it up and keep going. It pains me to say this, but in the current conditions of Russia, the doomers have a point.

    Prandom_returns ,

    Not a care in russia. As long as there is some vodka and sausage, nobody’s moving a finger.

    ItsAFake ,

    As long as there is some vodka and sausage

    Huh, Guess I’m Russian then.

    uis ,

    Guess I’m not then

    uis ,

    There are wives protests with slogan “I’m tired, return my husband”. But yeah, no big protests in Moscow. Only police closing brony convention.

    Linkerbaan ,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    I don’t understand why he returned to Russia just to get killed.

    It doesn’t seem to have achieved anything. Did he think the rigged Russian courts would save him?

    Snowden and Assange doing everything they can to stay out of the claws of their fascist overlords, but Navalny just handed himself over to his…

    rdri ,

    Those who don’t understand that paid little attention to his life and his fight. I suggest you checking out the Navalny documentary at least.

    Chocrates ,

    Got a title or a link for the uninformed?

    rdri ,

    It’s called Navalny. They made it available for free here though not sure if proper subtitles are included navalny-film.io

    Otherwise it’s on streaming platforms and torrents.

    Chocrates ,

    Awesome thank you

    preludeofme ,

    That’s called dedicating your life to a cause. He knew he was going to be killed and was willing to give up his life to hopefully bring down Putin at some point hopefully in the future

    summerof69 ,

    I don’t understand why he returned to Russia just to get killed.

    Because in Russia you have to sacrifice yourself and suffer to be “real” politician, and not “stay in cozy Germany”, “preaching from abroad”. Navalny and other imprisoned politicians believe this too, they’re the product of the same society after all.

    rottingleaf ,

    Actually true. If you remember the “Inception” movie (with di Caprio, but a good one), there’s one thing I’d really want to plant into most Russian-speaking people’s brains.

    That they don’t owe anyone suffering or proof or other such things.

    And also that when you concentrate on proving that you are true to some goal, you lose the goal. It doesn’t matter how much you sacrifice proving, you may even die, because you still divert from the goal of doing X to the goal of proving that you really want to do X.

    thesporkeffect ,

    Don’t idolize people, especially don’t idolize politicians. He died for a generally pro-social cause but that is the extent of the take-away here

    thedeadwalking4242 ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    federatingIsTooHard ,
    @federatingIsTooHard@lemmy.world avatar

    well he’s a fucking nazi so maybe we stop valorizing him.

    thesporkeffect ,

    Say what you will about hitler, but he DID kill hitler

    thesporkeffect ,
    1. Fuck Putin to death
    2. Explain to me why it’s good to idolize a public figure, you cowards
    Flumpkin ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    ghostdoggtv ,

    Please correct me if I’m wrong but Assange held back dirt obtained on Republicans and only passed out information damaging to Democrats. It’s been a long morning.

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