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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   21703 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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Navalny is dead.

IMHO it is stupid to seriously discuss the circumstances of his death, especially after Litvinenko, Nemtsov and Navalny himself in 2020. He was killed and many new details that are brought in every hour only prove this more. Prison conditions as a reason are not an excuse, especially when we can see yesterday's Alexei, looking unhealthy, but not at all near death. Prigozhin's fate only further confirms the presumption of guilt.

His death is the right choice for the regime. Navalny posed a much greater threat to them in prison than abroad, and no possible reaction is scary enough to keep him alive. The authorities hope that in the current conditions there will not be a new leader in the opposition who will be able to unite the disparate dissident branches. This is quite likely, especially considering that the deceased did not have a successor (official or informal).

The opposition has lost its head, and the FBK have lost the remnants of their legitimacy. This tragedy for many will be a time of opportunity for others. Surely the next leader is already here, although I hope we wouldn't need to wait too long. In his posthumous address that he recorded for the 2022 film, Alexey asks Russians not to give up and I am sure that no one is going to do this. As a Russian I can say that as long as Russia exists, there will always be people willing to risk their lives for freedom and truth.

I'll confess to being a bit surprised, honestly. As far as being a domestic political threat, Navalny was a non-issue, and in some respects he still had value as a bargaining chip vis-a-vis his western supporters in Europe (and, to a lesser degree, the US).

The question that comes to mind in things like this is 'why now?', as opposed to months ago or some time in the future. I'm not particularly tracking any particular context where Navalny would have been domestically relevant to Russian politics... which doesn't mean there isn't, or that you couldn't have a differing view on what 'relevant' entails, but it could also mean there are other considerations in play.

One thing is the Russian state's medium-term view. There are a number of indications in the annual budgetting and such that Russia is more or less counting on the Ukraine war ending in the next two years or so, with a massive up-front but long-term-unsustainable surge of economic focus on trying to keep the pressure on and present a picture of strength leading up to the next US presidential term, and for some time for negotiations afterwards. In that context, removing Navalny now would let it subside by that point, while negating some potential implications if outsiders thought they could just out-wait Putin and see Navalny in the wings.

Which is another possibility. There are rumors in diplomatic/foreign affairs circles that Putin may not be as healthy as he presents, and that he has some form of old man disease where his tenure may be measured in years, not decades. If this were true, then killing Navalny could be seen as Putin 'cleaning house' so that, when he passes, there's no obvious pro-western potential successor to rise from the inevitable power struggle. It's not a matter of Navalny as a political threat now, but in the future.

There are "elections" in Russia one month from now. Elections are a dangerous time for the power in place, even in Russia, because people can choose this time to protest. Putin just wanted to make it clear that no opposition will be allowed.

I'm not convinced that elections with Navalny dead a month before are going to be a substantially calmer affair than elections with Navalny alive. Nor that Putin would think yet another "sudden" death of someone who was already imprisoned would be a deterrent. He'd be throwing a spark into the crowd, not cowing them.

I give it about 50% "unintentional negligence", 50% "intentional negligence".

Now Dmitri Markov is also dead. The probability thatthey weren't both directly murdered is now very low...

I don't get that impression. There isn't really any speculation or suspicion even from ardent anti-government sources. Based on what I could scrounge up about any possible non-violent death causes, it could have been drugs. He was reported to have overdosed 2 years ago.

Yes he was a drug addict but he had been for years and he dies the same day as Navalny.

And now a pilot who defected to Ukraine and lived in Spain...

Well now that's just sloppy. Surely, if Putin was aiming to show off his power by killing Navalny and a few random minor dissidents exactly a month before the elections, he'd whack the pilot (literally who by the way? You're assuming I know every defector or critic ever by name) on the same day as well, not 4 days earlier?

Markov is known to me to have made exactly one (1) photo that made news as Putin regime criticism. You think Putin has a randomizer with tens of thousands of dissident names, and he just picks a random one when he feels like FSB doesn't have enough to do? I'm sorry, I can't explain your willingness to believe all those deaths have Putin in common in a more charitable way. Large business leaders, sure. Generals, why not (typically done after the war). Virtually no-name defector abroad or a photographer I never heard about? Are you aware there are other big opposition speakers besides Navalny? Why not them?

https://kyivindependent.com/ukrainska-pravda-russian-pilot-who-defected-to-ukraine-found-dead-in-spain/

I think we won't be able to agree but it's still quite weird that 3 people opposed to Putin in a way or another die within a week... what's the probability that it happens at random?

Why not them?

I guess he cannot just choose to kill anyone, there are practical limits. They must have searched for the pilot since he defected.

More comments

The question that comes to mind in things like this is 'why now?', as opposed to months ago or some time in the future. I'm not particularly tracking any particular context where Navalny would have been domestically relevant to Russian politics... which doesn't mean there isn't, or that you couldn't have a differing view on what 'relevant' entails, but it could also mean there are other considerations in play.

The timing might not be intentional. Depending on the conditions in his gulag (pretty bad by the sound of it) it might just be that this is when his body gave out, or a guard got too enthusiastic with a beating. Not that I want to be glib about it.

To use a video game euphemism, transferring him to an arctic circle prison is like throwing someone into the Oubliette in Crusader Kings 2. Basically it's a death sentence eventually due to the conditions, but you don't know exactly how or when. That can give you plausible deniability in some cases. See political prisoners historically being sent to Siberia etc.

Precisely.

Is there any good explanation of why the hell he went back to Russia? I sense something extremely fishy there.

The Russians could get him anywhere except the US (they could get him there, but it would be a major escalation and the FSB has resisted assassinations on US soil for the most part). If he fled to the US his political future in Russia would be nil. Also, I think (and I don’t really mean this pejoratively) he probably wanted to be - or had at least made peace with being - a martyr.

He knew he was going back to die, and that takes both a brave man and a pigheaded one. In few other states, even those much poorer and more violent than Russia, is the life of political opponents as cheap.

Was utterly baffled he went back at all given what Putin was doing out of Russia. He knew what he was dealing with.

Patriotism, I guess.

Navlny never seemed to have any ideology and seemed like a perfect example of a CIA stooge. Usually when there is an opposition, there is a much clearer agenda. The actual opposition groups have more policy that they want to implement. Navalny had no real ideology, he was just generally anti regime while being the darling of the western media. Color revolution leaders seldom seem to have an actual agenda before they take power. They will at best be "pro freedom" or some other empty epithet in order to get broad support.

Sometimes people just get fed up. Maybe some minor flunky of the regime did something to him once, or failed to do something, or he just got sick at the way Russia was declining. Not everyone needs an ideology to justify their disaffection.

Navalny’s ideology was generic center-ground nationalism, but his main focus was opposition to the Putin regime, which seems reasonable. Any successful Russian opposition would have to appeal to a number of different ideological currents in any case.

Of course, Putin’s ideology is also similarly void and incoherent.

Funny how the western media loved a supposed nationalist. If Navalny's critique of Putin was that he wasn't nationalistic enough he would have gotten zero-support for Navalny. At best it would be like Ukrainian nationalism where they get to wave WWII paraphernalia while the government rams through neoliberal and culturally leftwing policies.

At best it would be like Ukrainian nationalism where they get to wave WWII paraphernalia while the government rams through neoliberal and culturally leftwing policies.

I'm fairly sure current Ukrainian nationalism revolves around the extremely hands-on theme of keeping their country from being occupied by a hostile other nation.

Navalny’s goal was to maintain the support of both westernized liberals and disaffected nationalists. His “politics”, such as they were, reflected that.

The issue is that would be like trying to maintain the support of Likud voters and Hamas.

It’s more like Bibi trying to maintain the support of a wide faction of secular nationalists, religious Zionists and Chareidim.

Being pro freedom in a dictatorship without much of a broader platform is fine with me. It's the most pressing issue, so it's the one to focus on.

To use a somewhat goofy example, if there's an asteroid heading for earth, and some politicians are in favor of the asteroid, it's fine to just be anti-asteroid and nothing else. Anything else would just be a distraction until the asteroid is done with.

I like your pragmatism. There is a related argument: once there is democracy, the opposition candidate policy doesn't matter much, because you can choose another one if you want to.

It's interesting to see a certain weird tic that's become common in various American stories make its way into this one:

Western officials paid tribute to his courage as a fighter for freedom. Some, without citing evidence, bluntly accused the Kremlin.

Without citing evidence. Without. Citing. Evidence. Are you people fucking kidding me? Who is doing the editing for this that they feel the need to inject that phrase into every claim that isn't bibliographically footnoted and addended with appropriate Bayesian odds? Yeah, when the leader of political opposition to an autocrat dies in a prison colony at 47 years old, the default is that they were murdered by the regime. Even in the event that they didn't do anything in particular to him that day, any reasonable person looking at the basic facts would conclude that the regime is responsible for his death, because that's the whole point of sending to him to a Russian prison colony in the Arctic Circle called the Polar Wolf.

On the flip side, I had assumed that this stupid editorial tic was mostly just directed at the American right, but it seems that it's now standard practice.

It's a weird bit of gertruding but ultimately comes down to - most statements, even official statements are made without evidence. The choice to highlight this in this situation is made, I think, thoughtlessly - it's appropriate to describe it as a tic.

It has absolutely lost its original propagandistic edge and become all-purpose filler. A recent NYT article about a scandalous Russian party made me laugh out loud:

The suggestive photos and videos that surfaced on social media soon after were unremarkable. Yet the blowback was immediate and severe.

“The country is at war, and these scum, beasts, are putting on this,” one of the country’s most prominent propagandists, Vladimir Solovyov, wrote on his Telegram channel hours after the event. “Cattle who don’t give a damn about what’s happening.”

Some prominent conservatives went further, claiming, without offering evidence, that the party was a satanic ritual because it occurred, according to their calculations, on the 666th day of the war in Ukraine.

Perhaps it was a joke? Is anyone here willing to own up to entryism at the New York Times?

[Edit - instead of being so snarky, I feel like I ought to give more weight to the opposite interpretation, that it was an occult signal, a quiet protest or a cry for help from within.]

Yeah, when the leader of political opposition to an autocrat dies in a prison colony at 47 years old, the default is that they were murdered by the regime.

I agree this is by far the most likely explanation but it's still a good practice for a newspaper to avoid "everyone knows what really happened" style of citation.

I think that it's better expressed just by saying "we are unable to confirm this claim".

They can just say that people accused the Kremlin, that's a factual statement about what transpired. Nothing meaningful is gained by inserting "without citing evidence" in that statement.

I agree, I'm not a fan of that kind of cursory disclaimer. I probably would've phrased it as this but it adds to the wordcount: Western officials paid tribute to his courage as a fighter for freedom. Some bluntly accused the Kremlin, referencing the history of suspicious deaths of opposition leaders, but citing no direct evidence.

Most western leaders did not explicitly reference the history of suspicious deaths of opposition leaders (and the fact that Navalny was poisoned once). It's just obvious to everyone

I think it’s a CYA phrase. This way if it turns out he was eaten by a bear or had bad genetics or was shivved by a druggie they don’t have to issue a retraction and be wrong. It has nothing to do with politics, it just makes the paper look bad when they make a naked claim accusing someone of something and get it wrong.

Here, though, the paper isn’t making any claim. They’re just reporting what Western officials said. They could remove “without citing evidence” without impacting the paper one bit.

As a Russian I can say that as long as Russia exists, there will always be people willing to risk their lives for freedom and truth.

Not a Russian, but the history of Russia seems to be that all such people lose their lives in vain.

Solzhenitsyn made it, somehow.

Actually compared to Eastern and Central European neighbors Russian Empire wasn't particularly bad, and there were a number of improvements, in no small part thanks to the some in the past that were similar to Navalny. Of course after First World War and revolutions everything went to shit for the next century.

Actually compared to Eastern and Central European neighbors Russian Empire wasn't particularly bad

which ones?

Uh, I don’t know that that’s true. Austria and Germany were both meaningfully freer(although less free than the Anglosphere) in the run up to the Great War; Austria had to make real concessions in the ‘48 revolutions and Bismarck eventually backed down on his kulturkampf program without executing or imprisoning very many people. The ottomans might have been as bad as tsarist Russia, but they’re a non-central example; Russia has much more in common with its Eastern European neighbors than with Turkey.

At the start of the 20th century, if you were forced to pick a country that you think would carry out a Holocaust-level atrocity in the next fifty years, everyone would have picked Russia. (Not necessarily with Jews as the target, they were just the most obvious target). No other state in Christian Europe was nearly so repressive.

And they were right! Maybe not by the path anticipated but it did happen!

You mean that German SS entered territory of former Russian empire and killed Jews there?

I think he’s referring to the holodomor, which was indeed on the same scale as the Holocaust.

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