Charisma, authoritarianism and party-building

When the life and limb of Navalny were under threat, many could not but ask: what will happen with what Navalny has built, if anything happens to him? In spite of all the talks about his talent, personality, leadership or charisma, Navalny has turned into something bigger than himself. Navalny has led a number of projects — some defunct — and he is now the leader of an organisation, the Foundation against Corruption (FBK), and the leader of a party that was never allowed to exist. …

Should we doubt it?

When anything bad happens in Russia, you’ll usually find there are two types of Russia-watchers: the ‘believers’ and the ‘sceptics’. The believers will immediately see the hand of Vladimir Putin, his direct, personal involvement, his orders. The sceptics will not rule out his involvement, but like Yana Gorokhovskaya, they’ll argue that Russia is not ‘a highly centralised system that he controls manually’, that Putin is ‘certainly Russia’s most important decision-maker’, but ‘the political system is not his personal well-oiled machine’. …

A few thoughts on Navalny as the ‘leader of the opposition’

I first heard the name of Navalny some ten years ago and I’ve been following quite closely his activity for four years — he became the topic of my PhD. These are a few thoughts on what Navalny means — as I struggle not to use the past tense and as he is now being treated in Germany.

During this decade, he was a fixture of Russian politics, a most familiar character. The journalist Oleg Kashin notes rightly that there was an element of stability, of ‘structure’ in Navalny’s position as the ‘leader of the opposition’. He would be harassed…

C’est donc acquis, « tout le monde » savait que Jean-Luc Mélenchon entretenait une liaison avec Sophia Chikirou. « Tout le monde », ou le « milieu de la France Insoumise » ou, comme il est d’usage en ces circonstances, « le tout Paris ». Je l’ignorais. Et ce n’est pas faute de lire la presse « politique » française. C’est donc acquis, cette relation relève de la vie privée et ne saurait en rien intéresser le débat public. Ou bien, à la limite, et selon les termes de Médiapart, elle ne s’aurait l’intéresser qu’« à la lueur des investigations…

A few thoughts on Sobchak and Gudkov’s new party, and Navalny’s strategy.

In an earlier post, I commented a bit the presidential elections’ results, and the reactions of the liberal opposition to them. I concluded that ‘The future of Russian liberalism is obscure’. While it certainly hasn’t gotten clearer in the last few days, I will try to analyse a bit further the creation of the strategical perspectives of Russian liberals. I will look into the creation of the ‘Party of changes’ by Ksenya Sobchak and Dmitri Gudkov, and reflect on Navalny’s strategy.

What is at stake here?

The struggle…

Translation of Aleksey Navalny’s post, 25 march 2018

Even before Volkov and Pivovarov were arrested, we sat and drank coffee, all four of us: Yashin, Pivovarov, Volkov and me. We discussed the elections and the perspectives of those who call themselves the ‘democratic opposition’. Or the liberal opposition, whatever. Yavlinksy, Sobchak, Titov.

A bit less of a month remained before the elections.

There was different prognostics, and we decided to have a bet. Each of us gave his prognostic and we wrote them down on a napkin. Here it is:

‘Democratically oriented’ Russians had basically three strategies left to them in these elections. To vote for one of the two liberal candidates: Ksenya Sobchak or Grigori Yavlinsky. To boycott the elections. To rally around the main opposition candidate, the communist Pavel Grudinin. The results are in and Max Katz, a political organizer and consultant — known in Russia as a ‘politechnologist’ — has nailed it: ‘Nothing has worked’:

The opponents of Putin have put forward many strategies. And none of them has worked. The boycott hasn’t worked: the turnout is very high and — it seems — will not be…

Traduction d’un article de fond de l’économiste russe Vladislav Inozemtsev, paru dans Snob, le 18 octobre 2016.

Chaque fois que se rassemblent des démocrates ou des libéraux de Russie, la discussion tourne autour de cette éternelle question russe : « que faire ? » Hélas, la réponse est introuvable : ni jouer avec le mécontentement social, ni inventer des slogans attractifs, ni coordonner l’opposition n’a fonctionné. Le pays sombre plus profondément chaque année dans l’isolement et l’obscurantisme, s’imprègne de militarisme et de mentalité impériale. Dans le même temps, les démocrates ne se posent que rarement une question non moins traditionnelle…