Balls of Steel

It has been one year since Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison. I wrote this the day of his death, but I’m re-posting now. I just think it’s important that he be remembered.

If there were Vegas odds on the country most likely to be responsible for bringing about the end to humanity, I would bet it all on Russia.  I would have made that bet when I was ten years old, and would definitely make it now that I’m almost 50.  Admittedly, even if I won, I’m not sure how I would collect. 

Russia has all the fixins: historical trauma, a messianic complex and an inferiority complex, an authoritarian system that dabbles in totalitarianism, a casual disregard for history, a penchant for state violence, collective paranoia, and the regard of each human life solely as a means towards national ends, all led by a dictator who embodies each and every one of these pathologies and who appears to have near total personal control of all apparatus of power.  Did I mention the thousands of nuclear warheads?   

Today is as good a day as any to contemplate the future of Russia, and, by extension, humanity.  This morning it was reported that the Russian dissident politician, Alexei Navalny, was found dead in the Arctic prison where he was serving a 19 year sentence for various “crimes” against the Russian state.  Is there anything that evokes the spirit of Russia more than an Arctic prison?      

At the time of this writing, hours after his death was first reported, the New York Times has not yet published his official obituary.  This amounts to journalistic malpractice.  They should have had that written up and ready to print years ago.

This is because over the past decade Navalny had been earnestly engaged in one of the most dangerous pastimes humanly possible, namely waging a high profile campaign to embarrass and expose the corruption of Vladimir Putin and his cohorts.  There are two aspects of this campaign in particular that significantly raised the risk for Navalny.

The first is that he was really good at it, masterfully using the levers of social media to tell his story. More importantly, he’d been doing it all largely from inside Russia.  Just because the Russians don’t kill everyone like they used to does not mean they won’t make the occasional exception.  Let’s face it, if you’re not going to kill a guy like Navalny, who are you ever going to kill?   

Just last week, my wife and I watched the riveting documentary about Navalny, which documents his last moments on Earth as a free man.  I don’t want to give the whole movie away, but since you already know how the story ultimately ends, there should be no spoilers.

Alexei Navalny made a name for himself as a political figure in Russia by making speeches and videos criticizing Putin and the regime.  His goal was to build up political support so that he would ultimately replace Putin as President.  He stirred up a following and predictably drew the ire of the authorities.  What’s an authoritarian state without authorities, after all?  Predictably to everyone except Navalny, they eventually tried to kill him, poisoning him with the greatest sounding nerve toxin known to man: Novichok (which would also be a great name for a rock band or a sports team, think the Sandusky Novichoks, two-time youth hockey champions).  He survived, and this is where the movie begins.

The fascinating thing about the movie is that, even if Navalny used to believe they wouldn’t try to kill him, he is now under no delusions about the ultimate intentions of the Russian regime.  Yet the movie is centered around several post-poisoning decisions made by Navalny, each more daring than the next. 

First, while recovering in Germany, he teams up with a dogged investigative reporter to investigate his attempted murder. Using data buried deep in the interweb, the investigators quickly identify each and every person likely responsible for the poisoning, but at first all they have is circumstantial evidence and no firm details on the actual plot. 

The key scene is when Navalny himself decides to personally make a phone call to each of the people suspected of trying to poison him, including several secret police operatives and chemical weapons experts.  Navalny refers to these as prank calls, but when you watch him in action, you realize that he is not a prankster. 

He calls each suspect, in some cases pretending to be an assistant to one of their secret police bosses.  After a few hang-ups, Navalny actually induces one of the plotters, a chemist, to unwittingly provide the details of the whole operation.  The assassins, it turned out, put the deadly poison on Navalny’s underwear (in the “codpiece”—he literally calls it that), but Navalny’s airline flight was able to land too quickly and Navalny was saved.  Navalny not only records the phone call, but packages it into a video and releases it to the world.  It is here where you start to get a sense of who the real assassin is.        

The brilliance of this scene is juxtaposed by Navalny relating the story about how a top Russian intelligence officer once kept getting his computer hacked.  His password used to be Moscow1, but after he was hacked, he changed his password to Moscow2.  You can see where this is going.  After three hacks, his current password is now Moscow4.  This is the code word Navalny uses for the idiocy and incompetence of those officials who run the current system in Russia.

After Navalny hangs up with the chemist who just inexplicably divulged the whole murder operation, Navalny shakes his head in disbelief, “Moscow4.”

(Moscow4—as if we needed another feature of Russia that might one-day lead to Armageddon. Add it to the list.)

If the movie ended there, it would be an emotionally satisfying thriller.  The victim trolls the would-be murderer and exposes the story to the whole world, in the process embarrassing one of the most powerful and ruthless people on Mother Earth.

At this point in the movie, my wife picked up her phone.  I asked her what she was doing.  She said she couldn’t wait—she needed to know whether Navalny was still alive.  I watched her face drop as she looked it up, but I already knew that nothing involving Russia ever ends in any way except tragedy. 

It is Navalny’s final decision that ultimately seals his fate.  Seizing upon the momentum of exposing his would-be murderers, he decides to return to Russia.  He does this despite there being outstanding (made-up) criminal charges against him and there being no means of receiving justice in the system that will weigh and assess those charges.  Objectively, when you see a person doing things that are clearly going to get him imprisoned or killed, you call that person either stupid or insane.  The Alexei Navalny that we meet in the movie, however, is not only brilliant, but he has absolute clarity on what he’s doing.    

When you watch Navalny in action, you realize you are watching a man who sees right through the rot of Russian political life, describes it unflinchingly, and by doing so makes it impossible for others to choose to see the lie instead of the truth.  Yes, he is self-promoting—he is a politician trying to build a following and become President—but he is doing so not as an act of the self, but for a cause outside of and larger than himself. Given the grave personal risks he takes, it is difficult to regard this any other way.  The next time you see some jackass pick up a bullhorn and read a speech from their phone, what some may describe as being an “activist,” ask yourself whether that person is risking anything. Would you follow that person? Would anyone?       

There is a real possibly that Navalny’s death in prison will soon be forgotten, cynically chalked up to a modern world that eventually grinds up every person, the weak and strong alike, a cautionary tale.  But there is also a chance that his story becomes one that does not shrink, but grows. Genuine sacrifice tends to have a long shelf-life. 

In the movie, when you see Navalny get on the plane back to Russia – willingly – to dive right into the maw of the ruthless corruption that he knows awaits him, you are dumbstruck.  When you see him confronted by the faceless authorities at the airport, your heart breaks.  But that’s just you.  Navalny always seemed to have other, bigger, ideas.