Kremlin Overrated Navalny Threat and Navalny His Prospects, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 4 – Both the Kremlin and Aleksey Navalny made serious mistakes in their assessment of the situation, the Kremlin in thinking that the opposition leader posed a serious threat to itself and Navalny in thinking the prospects for a revolution in Russia, Vladimir Pastukhov says.

            And as a result, “Navalny is not in the Kremlin but in prison while the Kremlin is under siege,” at least in its view of what is going on, according to the London-based Russian analyst who argues that Navalny has turned out to be the kind of “black swan” in Russian politics so many have been talking about (mbk-news.appspot.com/sences/fenomen-navalnogo-chernyj/).

            The Kremlin, clearly under the impact of events in Belarus, exaggerated “the destabilizing role of Navalny,” something that led it to try to remove him from the scene by poisoning. But that failed effort set in motion a series of events that the Putin entourage could not possibly have wanted.

            “Had there been no such attempt, there wouldn’t have been a return, had there not been a return, there wouldn’t have been a landing, and had there not been a landing there wouldn’t have been a new wave of protests,” the London analyst says. No one should forget about that series of events.

            Had the Kremlin killed Navalny last August, Pastukhov says, “the effect would not have been as powerful as the unsuccessful attack has been” and as a result, “this time, the Russian God turned his face away from Putin.”

            But at the same time, Navalny, possibly also under the impression of the Belarusian events, “overrated the readiness of society for a revolutionary uprising and committed the classic mistake of the beginning revolutionary: he decided to create a revolutionary situation” where one did not yet exist.

            Navalny showed his courage by returning but Putin showed his continuing power by suppressing the protests and putting the opposition leader behind bars, thus transforming him into “Putin’s hostage” and for a long time to come. But “in this case,” Pastukhov argues, “God has still not said his last word.”

            A decade ago, the Kremlin itself gave birth to “the Navalny phenomenon” when it assumed that it could manipulate such an opponent to its own ends. That phenomenon “is something more than the real Navalny.” It is a combination of the actions of Navalny and the “chaotic” responses of the regime.

            In 2010, the analyst continues, “Navalny became the first major representative of Generation Y (the millennials) in Russia who distinguished himself by his political ambitions relative to the powers.” He rose as the representatives of Generation X (“the generation of Perestroika”), including Khodorkovsky and Magnitsky, were falling.

            In that transition, the Kremlin thought it could handle things better than it had and so brought charges against Navalny but always refrained from imposing real jail terms, something that allowed the opposition figure to remain active and even grow in stature because of his ability to act.

According to Pastukhov, “the Kremlin didn’t pay attention to Church who wrote that for a politician, any mention in the press, other than an obituary is useful.” The Kremlin finally decided to ensure that but failed in its attempt. Now, it has decided to isolate him behind bars, but this is “a forced measure which in fact will decide little.”

“Neither today nor in the coming days is any uprising going to happen,” but this will not significantly “ease the life of the regime.” That is because the Kremlin has put him in a position in which he has been able to complete the desacralization of power in Russia. This means that for the Putin regime, “twenty years has gone down the drain.”

“Now, the regime is a mortally wounded beast,” Pastukhov continues. “It is still strong and dangerous in its anger. He isn’t able to understand how deep its wound are and therefore it rushes about and may destroy many fates and do many terrible things. But it is condemned.” Protests are not going to quiet down until “this Carthage falls.”

The Putin regime isn’t going to survive “a second Navalny,” he concludes. “Beginning in 2014, the Russian educated class has lived in expectation of ‘a black swan,’ an unpredictable and accidental event which will lead to the self-liquidation of the regime. They didn’t know where it would come from.” And when it arrived from Berlin, “they didn’t immediately recognize it.”