My thoughts on Alexei Navalny:
While Navalny is being praised as a liberal hero and the face of the opposition against Putin by a Western media which prides itself as progressive, the person that they are defending and revering has a worldview dominated by Right-wing ideology. In the late 2000s Navalny declared himself a nationalist and partook in far-Right rallies against immigration and called for Russia to stop supporting the much poorer Caucasus regions of the country as part of a campaign he founded called “Stop Feeding the Caucasus”.
In 2008 Navalny wrote on his Live Journal page about Central Asians who “beat with sledgehammers on some pieces of iron with a hellish roar.” He then concludes: “And then we wonder where Tajiks with broken skulls are found under the bushes. … another attack by skinheads”. Navalny is here really providing a justification for violence against Central Asians, stating that because of the behavior of a few it is no wonder that skinheads murder them. This sort of violence has been a real phenomena in Russia. Take, for example, a story in 2007 in which a video was released showing the “execution of a Tajik and a Dagestanian” by members of the skinhead group, Format 18.
In 2007, Navalny cofounded the nationalist political party, PEOPLE. In the manifesto of the party it reads: “The main task of the Russian state is to stop the process of degradation of the Russian civilization and create conditions for the preservation and development of the Russian people, their culture, language, historical territory.” This is referring to immigration and the preservation of the Russian people as a ‘pure’ race. This is common rhetoric for racialist populists. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to preserve culture, but what we must come to grips with is the reality that those of an ethno-centric and racialist agenda will use this sort of rhetoric to gain leverage for themselves. We cannot look at Navalny’s statement here and just isolate it, but rather we must see it in light of his overall paradigm and actions.
In the late 2000s Navalny attended the “Russian March”, an annual rally in which far-Right nationalists and nazis gather together in Moscow. In response, the liberal Yabloko party — of which Navalny was a member — expelled him. But in 2007, under the banner of the National Russian Liberation Movement, Navalny described himself as a “certified nationalist”. In fact, six years later Navalny admitted that he had participated in every Russian March since 2007. He wrote on his blog in 2013: “I have participated in each since 2007, I have not been to the last one – I was lying with a fever”. The writer and blogger Eduard Bagirov, who has known Navalny since 2001, speaks of him as a man “with the manners of the Fuhrer, who is ready to jump over his head.” Begirov goes on to describe Navalny as “the most natural fascist. …He went to the “Russian Marches”…Then these were real Nazi gatherings, where they zigged, carried a swastika on themselves and chanted the appropriate slogans. For example, “Stop feeding the Caucasus!” – this was his (Navalny’s) program. “ This statement is not an exaggeration. We looked at two videos each of which showing two separate Russian March events, one from 2012 and the other from 2013: both had many waving flags bearing the image of the Slavic swastika (the kolovrat):
Russian March, 2012. You can see clearly the Slavic swastikas present
Russian March. 2013
The 2012 event — swastikas and all — was attended by Navalny, the supposed martyr that Western media forces are praising. And isn’t it interesting that regardless of Navalny’s neo-Nazi history that was he getting bankrolled by a wealthy Jewish businessman during his most recent exile in Germany? As we read in Reuters:
Boris Zimin, the son of a former Russian telecoms magnate, confirmed to Reuters that he paid for Navalny’s medical evacuation to Germany, a cost of 72,000 euros. Navalny has said previously that Zimin, who lives in Israel, pays him an annual salary for legal work. This makes up most of Navalny’s 5,440,000 roubles ($73,500) annual income, Navalny has said.
“It’s important that Alexei has a legal and clear income,” Zimin said of the arrangement, likening it to a citizen paying taxation. “Society gives politicians funds to allow them to work. I don’t have close relations with him. We’re not close friends. He doesn’t owe me anything.”
You can argue that Zimin does not know about Navalny’s involvement in far-Right rallies, but according to Reuters “Zimin first met Navalny more than a decade earlier.” A decade ago Navalny was attending the Russian March rallies. That a Jew would finance a far-Right nationalist is of no surprise to us, and for this I would recommend that you read our article on the Jewish support for Nazism.
In one Youtube video Navlany compares illegal immigrants to cavities who need to be ‘sanitized’ out of the country: “I recommend full sanitization … Everything in our way should be carefully but decisively be removed through deportation.” Navalny has definitely moderated his rhetoric, but the underlying ideology in regards to immigration is certainly within his paradigm. “The basis of my approach is that you have to communicate with nationalists and educate them,” Navalny said. “I think it’s very important to explain to them that the problem of illegal immigration is not solved by beating up migrants but by other, democratic means: a return to competitive elections that would help us to get rid of the crooks and thieves getting rich off of illegal immigration.”When asked in a recent interview with Der Spiegel on his nationalist roots, Navalny affirmed: “I adhere to the same views as at the very beginning of my political career … I see no contradiction between promoting trade unions and calling for a visa regime for migrants from Central Asia.”
Behind his diplomatic talk one can read between the lines: Navalny has not changed; he is the same person he was when he began his Right-wing radicalism. Moreover, his promotion of trade unions in conjunction with his nationalism is not shocking, given that Mussolini’s fascist syndicalism was centralized around the idea of trade unions. Navanly’s own political ideology is not new; the fusion between trade unionism and nationalism is an integral part of fascism. Yet the Western media apparatus, the US government and the EU have been constantly invoking sympathy for Navalny without any sort of warning of his history. The media was nonstop on analyzing the nationalism of Trump and how it parallels with the fascism of the past, but no such analysis has been done on Navalny with the same energy and scrutiny. What is the agenda of the US and the EU in backing this rebel? Its about sparking a revolution in Russia which would destabilize the country. It is obvious that Navalny’s followers want to topple the Putin regime. This is why (in February of 2020) thousands of Navalny’s supporters took to the streets of Moscow and cried out “Russia without Putin!” Whats interesting is that after Navalny was (allegedly) poisoned, he was carried out to Germany where a Jewish Israeli businessman (Boris Zimin) financed him. The German government provided the propaganda to further boost the image of Navalny as a martyr. He then returns to Russia where riots broke out in support of him. Was it not the Germans who supported Vladimir Lenin in returning him to Russia where they financed his Bolshevik revolution? Was it not numerous Jews who supported and did the Bolshevik Revolution? Is it not the Germans today who are and who have been supporting Navalny? And is it not a Jewish financier who has funded Navalny? History does not exactly repeat itself, but it sure rhymes. Rebels, be they Bolshevik or populist or nationalist, will always use truth to bolster and justify their existence. Numerous of Navalny’s projects over the years have appeared noble and for the people. Navalny’s fame began around a decade ago when he started a blog and wrote an article on how $4 billion was stolen during the construction of an oil pipeline in China. The blog exploded in popularity and reached first place on the top blogs for Yandex (Russia’s main search engine). In 2011 Navalny’s site became the number one blog amongst blogs ran by politicians and public figures.
He became a major face for a form of popular activism in which he would be a whistleblower against corruption at both the state and corporate level. His strategy was shareholder activism in which Navalny would purchase a small amount of shares in order to access private information about a company. He then began to whistleblow against the corporations and their connections with government and cultivated a very popular audience. Navalny later shifted his position to a more Left-wing appearance, even stating in 2020 that he was in favor of Bernie Sanders. He founded the Anti-Corruption Foundation and is the face of the rebellion against the Putin regime.
Navalny has done numerous things to gain people’s trust. For example in 2018 Navalny and his team commenced the start of a website called pensiya.org. On this website every Russian who disagrees with raising the retirement age can submit an application and in return will receive a list of all the politicians who support the raising of the retirement age. Another one of Navalny’s projects is “Smart Voting” by which voters who don’t like Putin’s party, United Russia, are directed to opposition parties to vote for. In December of 2018 the website for Smart Voting was blocked by Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) because it had been processing personal data of users without their consent. But Smart Voting already made an effect when numerous opposition parties won seats for the 2019 election for the Duma (parliament) of Moscow City.
Also in 2019 the project, “Navalny’s Trade Union” was launched. The website for this project allows voters to see the salaries of state employees. If one notices on the site that an official’s salary is higher than what has been stated, an application can be made through the website for filing a complaint to the government. This project was actually supported by the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation.
But we must be discerning. Because before Navalny became a political activist pop star, he was using his position to coordinate and network with radical nationalists. In 2009 Navalny got a position as an advisor for the governor of the Kirov region, Nikita Belykh. His job was to make connections with local party and public figures. But instead he was coordinating with Right-wing radicals. Sergei Karnaukhov, former deputy of Kirov, recounted:
“In 2009, I received a call from the center for countering extremism in the Kirov region. It turned out that Alexei Navalny, instead of starting to establish relationships with large party structures, took up radicals, including local nationalists … He had a meeting with them, offered to unite efforts, to unite. …Then the Center for Combating Extremism expressed concern about this. The very contact with these radicals could discredit the entire team of the governor … But Belykh didn’t pay any attention to this fact, he said that Navalny was working on a voluntary basis, which meant that he could not be prohibited from anything.”
In the early 2000s Navalny worked as the deputy director for an advertisement company called Allekt LLC (Аллект). Business was lacking, until 2007 when the Union of Right Forces, a far-Right nationalist party, hired Allekt for advertisement services for its Duma (parliament) election campaign. Allekt got paid 99,000,000 rubles for its services, from which Navalny received a commission of 5,000,000 rubles.
Valeriya Novodvorskaya, a politician who was once an anti-Soviet activist, warned about Navalny’s populism. She made the observation that Navalny’s call to protect Russians from minorities does not make sense because Russia is a majority Russian country, and thus such rhetoric had an insidious motive. If, she warned, Russians follow Navalny, fascism will also become popular:
“If in Russia, where Russians make up at least 80 percent, Russians need to be protected, then, apparently, these Russians should not even live on earth if they need to be protected in their own country, with such an overwhelming majority. Anyone who speaks about the protection of the Russians in Russia is likened to those who spoke about the protection of the Germans in Germany. This is an absolute taboo for a decent politician, and in general, for a decent person.
This is Nazism and nothing else. Protection of Russians, on the territory of Russia, from arrogant national minorities, who either come in large numbers here, or have no right to settle here. There will be enough to feed the Caucasus. If the crowds follow Navalny, the country in the future will face fascism. And I am very afraid of this wave, which is now rising. Because it is not only rising against Putin. She rises for the undemocratic future of Russia. It rises for the past communism or for the future fascism. And Navalny is one of the potential leaders of this new destruction.”
There is a dark spirit lingering in the current world political atmosphere. Rebellion has become mainstream; the entire media apparatus is supporting a fascist and condemning a country for suppressing a subversive within their own society. Revolt brings about chaos, and if chaos be uplifted, then chaos shall become the god of this world and will reign supreme.
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