Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future? by Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet and Ben Noble

A fascinating account of Russia's famous dissident and the politics he embodies. Who is Alexei Navalny? Poisoned in August 2020 and transported to Germany for treatment, the politician returned to Russia in January 2021 in the full glare of the world media. His immediate detention at passport control set the stage for an explosive showdown with Vladimir Putin.

But Navalny means very different things to different people. To some, he is a democratic hero. To others, he is betraying the Motherland.

To others still, he is a dangerous nationalist. This book explores the many dimensions of Navalny's political life, from his pioneering anti-corruption investigations to his ideas and leadership of a political movement. It also looks at how his activities and the Kremlin's strategies have shaped one another.

Navalny makes sense of this divisive character, revealing the contradictions of a man who is the second most important political figure in Russia – even when behind bars. In order to understand modern Russia, you need to understand Alexei Navalny.

FIVE MINUTES WITH Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet and Ben Noble

INTERVIEW FOR PUSHKIN HOUSE BY ANDREW JACK (@AJACK)

How did you come to write your joint book?

Ben: When Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021, I found the media commentary on him to be quite black and white. But he is a more complex character. A colleague asked if I could recommend an English-language book on Navalny, but I couldn’t think of one. I knew Jan and Morvan were doing research on Navalny, so I contacted them on Twitter. I said if there isn’t a book, let’s write one – and they agreed. We got an agent, a contract, and had a first draft ready in eight weeks. We divided up the chapters by our different areas of expertise and wrote multiple book-length comments in our WhatsApp group. Although we’ve had endless Zoom calls to discuss and re-write the text, we haven’t yet had an argument!

How important a figure is Navalny?

Morvan: If you look at the Russian opposition with its very diverse competing individuals, organisations and ideologies, it’s quite obvious he is above his peers. The public persona, how he’s built organisations and is able to set the agenda puts him clearly in another league. When he was poisoned, he acquired global name recognition. Before then he was mostly known by Russian- watching audiences. We ended up writing a book placing Navalny the man in the context of his team, the movement he built with them, and the opposition more broadly.

How did you carry out your research?

Jan: The three of us have different approaches, and we pooled them. I did mainly interviews and surveys with supporters and activists. My dissertation was on local protests in Russia after 2011-13 in Russia’s regions. I happened to be there when Navalny was setting up his 2018 presidential campaign. The contacts I established were helpful later. Some have since emigrated, but I was able to trace them. Morvan drew from his history of Russian opposition from materials including excellent but fast disappearing Russian journalism.

Did you interview Navalny himself?

Ben: We used Russian journalists’ reports and Navalny’s own words in his blogs. But we made a conscious choice not to interview members of his team. Partly that was logistical: if we spent lots of time conducting interviews, it would have delayed the release date beyond the September 2021 Duma elections. We also wanted to make clear that this was not a proxy “team Navalny” book that might gloss over the trickier moments in his past. We have the luxury of being external observers, drawing on all existing information. We say things Navalny and his team won’t necessarily like. 

What is your analysis of his past nationalistic statements?

Morvan: They came in a specific context, when many people were looking at nationalism as an ideology that could be helpful in fighting the authoritarian regime in Russia. Navalny is not the only person who expressed them – other liberal politicians did too. We don’t try to get into his head. There was an opportunistic element but he felt strongly about immigration, Chechnya, and the war against Georgia. He doesn’t advocate these policies anymore, but he hasn’t rejected completely that moment in his political career. He has apologised for some statements about Georgians, not others. 

What will readers find surprising in the book?

Ben: We thought it would be refreshing to include a focus on activists and Navalny’s supporters in the regions – an important dimension people sometimes miss. The western media was trying to make sense of Navalny as a very brave man, peerless in his ability to stand up to Putin. But to understand why the Kremlin has taken the steps it has, you have to look at his team and his network across the country.  That was why the Kremlin thought enough was enough and moved from managing him to trying to crush him.

Do you see parallels in other countries?

Jan: On one hand the conditions under which Navalny is operating are pretty specific to the Russian context of authoritarianism. At the same time, his movement has similarities to other places including in western Europe and the US. That’s his conscious choice: he wanted to model himself on US presidential campaigns with branding, easily identifiable slogans, and speeches across the regions. The values and motivations of his activists do not have much in common with the Navalny who supported Russia’s war against Georgia in 2008. 

How is his movement changing?

Ben: Navalny always said he was using his anti-corruption work for political ends. But many people who engaged most with these investigations have left the country and polling shows the topic of corruption has less of an impact now. Navalny said it did not make sense for his supporters to be locked up – that they should feel free to go abroad and carry on the struggle. So his team has set up an office in Vilnius from where they’re broadening their activities from anti-corruption work to setting up an independent investigative journalism outlet. But the challenge now is getting this information from outside of Russia to those in Russia who might see Navalny as an agent of the west, following years of Kremlin propaganda.

What chance does he have of surviving prison?

Jan: If we believe the Navalny team’s own investigations, there was an attempt to take him out – and it was perhaps not the first time. If that is true, I’d think it’s still an option. For now, the regime has decided to use methods from the past – to not use more repression and drama than necessary – so keeping him behind bars is the preferred option. But knowing how the Russian political system functions, we also know this stance can change at any time, and decisions can be reversed. People try things out and see what works. So I wouldn’t say he’s in safety now.

What are the prospects for Russia’s opposition?

Ben: Very bleak, and bleaker now than when we finished the first edition of the book. The Anti-Corruption Foundation has been re-registered in the US, and the Vilnius office exists, but domestically, given what’s happened since the invasion, it is difficult to see the opposition re-emerging in the medium term. Even the Communists have been repressed and this is only likely to increase.

Is there scope for a return to greater influence?

Morvan: What makes it so difficult to answer is that the situation now is so cataclysmic. We also don’t know the wider economic and social effects of the sanctions and the war on the Russian population and how it will react. Will people protest against inflation? Will people blame the West instead? Navalny started as a pro-market right-wing liberal but now he’s trying to have a more social agenda. There are different ways in which the situation could change.

Jan: The experience of all these people has not gone away, and the networks they have built up and everything they have learnt can be reactivated if repression reduces. There are examples of semi-authoritarian regimes brought down through elections. But the more repressive and less competitive Russian institutions become, the less the chance that they can be challenged through institutional means. The alternatives are violent revolution and an elite coup. Neither are things Navalny or much of the opposition have been working towards, so most are entirely unprepared for these scenarios. And even if the rumours about Putin’s illness are true, any kind of realistic successor would probably continue in his footsteps. There isn’t really a short-term solution. It’s pretty bleak.