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I have my country and my convictions. And I don't want to give up on either. I can't betray either one. If your convictions mean anything, you must be ready to stand up for them. And, if necessary, make sacrifices [for them]. If you're not ready [to do that], then you have no convictions. You just think you do. But those aren't convictions or principles; they're just thoughts in your head.
It so happens that in today's Russia, I have to pay for my right to have and to openly express my convictions by sitting in solitary confinement. And, of course, I don't like being in prison. But I won't renounce my convictions or my homeland. My convictions aren't exotic, sectarian, or radical. On the contrary, everything I believe in is based on science and historical experience. Those in power must change. The best way to elect leaders is through honest and free elections. Everyone needs a fair court. Corruption destroys the state. There should be no censorship. The future lies with these principles.
Alexey Navalny, Russia's most famous dissident, has died. (4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024).
Returning to Russia in 2021, after having been treated in Berlin for novichok poisoning, Navalny was immediately arrested on arrival at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. Since then, he has been in and out of (but mostly in) solitary confinement all over the country, with his final station being the Polar Wolf penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Siberia.
On Monday, he had been visited by his parents. In reacting to the news of her son's death, his mother reacted:
"I don't want to hear any condolences. We saw our son in the colony on Feb. 12th. He was alive, healthy, cheerful."
More info here.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday February 18 2024, @06:32AM (11 children)
When somehow the leader of the Russian Communist Party (2nd largest party and the only serious competitor to Putin, who is himself vehemently anti-Communist) does not wind up on a gibbet somewhere, I find it hard to believe that a minor gadfly was worthy of such attention.
At the time there was some pretty serious speculation that MI6 may have had a hand in the earlier incident.
And no, the fraud conviction was not bullshit; at the time I read several reports about it, and concluded the guy was scum. As noted, he wasn't jailed for fraud; he was jailed for skipping out on the court-mandated restitution.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 18 2024, @06:44AM (4 children)
I see neither the competition or the vehement anti-communism (recall Putin has waxed poetic about Stalin before). With the gadfly, there was actual threat.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday February 18 2024, @07:05AM (3 children)
Didn't look like a threat to me. If he was, why let him persist so long? Why let him generate bad press when he could have been quietly disappeared a long time ago??
And I've been paying attention for a lot of years, and have not seen Putin "wax poetic" about Stalin. He is circumspect how he speaks of the USSR, as there is still a USSR-nostalgic faction that he needs to not offend. But he has said flat out that Russia must never return to that past. (He mentions in his autobiographical interview of ~2002 that as a KGB clerk in East Germany -- he was a lawyer, not a field agent -- he was shocked that the East Germans actually believed in Communism, which Moscow had given up as a bad job years before, despite still using the label.)
Side note: Russia's latest award for meritorious public service is for LOCAL service, which is not exactly the soul of centralized planning.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday February 18 2024, @04:17PM (2 children)
How could he be "quietly disappeared"? It wouldn't to be any quieter than this.
Here's your opportunity to pay even more attention than you usually do. A typical example [reuters.com]:
What happened to a historian [themoscowtimes.com] that was documenting Stalin's crimes:
And you even wrote:
Notice the key words "in ~2002". It's twenty years later and the times changed. You acknowledge that Putin is "circumspect" in his pandering to the Communists. But it's definitely has changed from when he was just starting to solidify power. We have Putin lauding Stalin and an inconvenient historian getting repeatedly tried for heinous crimes.
As to Putin's assertions about what sort of jobs he did in the KGB or what East Germans allegedly believed, keep in mind that it was a tale for public consumption not truth. I doubt East Germans were any more committed to Communism than the Russians were, for a glaring example, but they had to drink the kool aid because they were the subordinates in that relationship. We also don't know how committed Putin was either, but he was a member of the Communist party through to 1991.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday February 18 2024, @04:35PM (1 child)
Everyone who wanted a decent job was a member of the Communist party through 1991.
And yes, from the Russian POV, Stalin led them to victory in the Great Patriotic War. Who exactly else would you point at??
Also, from what you linked to:
===
"The positives that undoubtedly existed were achieved at an unacceptable price. Repressions did take place. This is a fact. Millions of our fellow citizens suffered from them," Putin said.
"Such a way of running a state, of achieving results is unacceptable, this is impossible. We have not only lived through the personality cult but also witnessed mass crimes against our own nation."
===
Lauding? Seriously??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 18 2024, @06:06PM
There wouldn't be a decent job in the KGB. In any case, I don't see the reason that Putin would move against an ally when he's in such an insecure situation. A firm political enemy would be different.
The Russians who actually fought that war. Even the US with lend-lease. Stalin just raised the body count and was more a German ally than foe.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday February 18 2024, @10:15PM (5 children)
I'm going to need something stronger than "I seem to remember reading something a few years ago". Navalny was a very effective opposition leader and Putin has wanted to disappear him (in the right manner) for years now. It's also in form for Putin, who has arranged for the disappearances / tragic accidents of hundreds of people who publicly disagreed with him over the years.
You might want to offer some evidence about Putin being anti-Communist too. After all, he did call the fall of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th Century [politifact.com]. Doesn't sound very vehemently anti-Communist to me. Strictly speaking though, I agree that Putin is not technically a Communist. Modern Russia is actually a Kleptocracy.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday February 19 2024, @12:06AM (4 children)
Everyone likes to stop after the first sentence, and further to misquote it, but the complete and accurate quote is right there in the article you linked:
"Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself."
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday February 19 2024, @03:31AM (3 children)
Yes, exactly. Putin wants his empire back, and he intends to do this by force rather than invitation. See: Chechnya, Crimean Peninsula, Ukraine, Belarus (don't think for a minute that they are actually independent).
The "disintegration" that "infected" Russia that he refers to is democratic choice by the people.
Exactly how do you think he is being unfairly portrayed?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday February 19 2024, @03:45AM
I think there's not a lot of point arguing if you haven't looked into the background far enough to realize there's more to it than what is popularly known. Especially the case with Chechnya. John Mearsheimer has a couple of lectures on the Ukraine situation that are worth a listen; one is called something like "how the west created Putin".
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Monday February 19 2024, @05:19AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday February 19 2024, @07:31AM
I hadn't heard that term before - learned something today!
You could be right - Reziac might be trolling for lulz. Or he could be getting paid by the FSB. Or he could genuinely believe that Putin has been hard done by and that he's really not such a bad guy. I guess we'll never know which one it is.