The memoir by Alexei Navalny deals a lot with the question posed in the title of this post. Navalny recovered in Germany from his 2020 poisoning, and he elected to return to Russia, against the advice of many people, such as Angela Merkel. When she visited him in the hospital and heard about his plans to return to Russia, she responded, "There's no need to hurry" (p. 23).
I previously mentioned that the best chapter in the book is the out-of-chronological-order ch. 8, written from prison shortly after he was arrested in the Russian airport in January 2021. This chapter reveals that he and his team did not necessarily think he would get arrested straightaway; they gamed out several scenarios for how Putin might greet Navalny's return to Russia (pp. 137–41). Before he left Germany, the bevy of questions from reporters about whether he intended to return to his home country annoyed him.
How do you like that, I thought irascibly…. You work for twenty years in the full glare of publicity, you write hundreds of articles, every day you back up your words with actions, and they still imagine I might be too scared to go back. (p. 131)
This response suggests that part of the reason for his return was—to put it cynically—to make a show of his bravery. I think a better and truer way of putting it: to provide an example for others, to provide hope. This interpretation is supported by an incident narrated later in the same chapter. Outside of a police station waiting to be transported to prison, he encountered some supporters.
They took me outside and people started yelling. Unexpectedly for me, I yelled back to them, “Don’t be afraid of anything!” That was an important moment, the kind when you feel at one with your supporters. They are thinking about you and want to show they are with you. You are thinking about them, and that the regime needs this arrest to frighten them, and you do your utmost to help them not to be afraid. You keep your back straight and shout, “Don’t be afraid of anything.” (p. 162)
In a sense, bravery is the point. When the regime lives on fear, courage is resistance.
A later chapter (ch. 15) prints Navalny's speech at the Yves Rocher trial. Now, this Yves Rocher case—in which Navalny and his brother, Oleg, were accused of, I think, embezzling funds—dragged on for years. I think this particular speech was delivered in court probably in 2015 or thereabouts. He repeatedly mentions how the judges and the prosecutors stare down at the table, which he interprets as an attempt to ignore all the evidence of corruption in the system, to render the verdict that the Kremlin expects. Toward the end of the speech (p. 240), he divides Russian society into a few categories. The whole system is a junta, controlled by about twenty billionaires. There are about a thousand people, but no more, “who are feeding at this junta’s trough,” and these people are “state deputies and crooks.” “There’s a small percentage of people who don’t agree with this system. And then there are the millions who are simply starting at the table. I’ll never stop my fight with this junta. I’m going to continue fighting this junta, by campaigning and doing whatever it takes to shake up these people who are starting at the table. You included. I’m never going to stop.”
About halfway through the speech, he says:
Why do you put up with these lies? Why do you just stare at the table? I’m sorry if I’m dragging you into a philosophical discussion, but life’s too short to simply stare down at the table. I blinked and I’m almost forty years old. I’ll blink again and I’ll already have grandchildren. And then we all will blink again and we’ll be on our deathbeds, with our relatives all around us, and all they’ll be thinking about is, It’s about time they died and freed up this apartment. And at some point we’ll realize that nothing we did had any meaning at all, so why did we just stare at the table and say nothing? The only moments in our lives that count for anything are those when we do the right thing, when we don’t have to look down at the table but can raise our heads and look each other in the eye. Nothing else matters. (p. 239)
The last chapter before the memoir becomes a prison diary (ch. 18), Navalny reflects on why he doesn't protect himself more.
I have always tried to ignore the idea that I could be attacked, arrested, or even killed. I have no control over what might happen, and it would be self-destructive to dwell on it. Should I think, What are the chances that I’ll survive this morning? I don’t know; six out of ten? Eight out of ten? Maybe even ten out of ten? It’s not that I’m trying not think about it, closing my eyes and pretending the danger doesn’t exist. But one day I simply made the decision not to be afraid. I weighed everything up, understood where I stand—and let it go. I’m an opposition politician and understand perfectly who my enemies are, but if I were to worry constantly about them killing me, then it’s not worth my while living in Russia. I should emigrate or change what I do. (p. 271)
So, why doesn't he emigrate or change what he does? Navalny doesn't say so explicitly, but I believe the one action implies the other: emigrating entails changing what he does. What he did could only be done in Russia, because part of what got attention was the audacity of the bravery. Another way of saying it is that exile is a good way to make yourself irrelevant. While I don't remember Navalny in this memoir framing his return in that way, various things he says touch on the same idea, as we've seen. While reading Navalny's memoir, I couldn't help but think of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who also (by his own choice) found himself in safety away from his home country and the brutal dictator in charge, and he also made the choice to return to his home country despite the dangers. In June 1939, Bonhoeffer, in New York, wrote to his friend Reinhold Niebuhr:
Sitting here in Dr. Coffin’s garden I have had the time to think and to pray about my situation and that of my nation and to have God’s will for me clarified. I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people. My brothers in the Confessional Synod wanted me to go. They may have been right in urging me to do so; but I was wrong in going. Such a decision each man must make for himself. Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make that choice in security. (DBWE 15, #129, p. 210, or here, or here)
"I cannot make that choice in security." Why not? He says he would "have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people." I think he means that he would feel himself unworthy, a carpetbagger of sorts. I don't think he means that the German people after the war would not respect him, would view him as a carpetbagger if he tried to claim a leadership role in Germany after spending the war years in America, but I think that is another way one might look at it. Living in safety while others are suffering is a good way to make yourself irrelevant.
That was not something that Navalny (or Bonhoeffer) was willing to do. In an Instagram post from prison on Navalny's 47th (and last) birthday (June 4, 2023), he wrote:
But life works in such a way that social progress and a better future can only be achieved if a certain number of people are willing to pay the price for their right to have their own beliefs. The more of them there are, the less everyone has to pay. …
But until that day comes, I see my situation not as a heavy burden or a yoke but as a job that needs to be done. Every job has its unpleasant aspects, right? So I’m going through the unpleasant part of my favorite job right now.
My plan for the previous year was not to become brutalized and bitter and lose my laid-back demeanor that would mean the beginning of my defeat. (p. 459)
He saw it as a personal defeat if the regime cowered him or embittered him—and in that way controlled him. No doubt Navalny faltered at times, but he provides a compelling example.
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