Things Worth Remembering: The Last Words of Alexei Navalny ‘If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong.’ By Douglas Murray
The word historic is overused. It is often deployed for something people will forget within a cycle of news. But sometimes, in these modern times, somebody does something that can genuinely be seen as historic. Something so brave, and so actually stunning, that it will inspire people for generations.
Alexei Navalny’s decision to return to Russia in January 2021 was just such a moment. By then, he had become one of the most open and daring—some might say reckless—critics of Vladimir Putin. And the previous time he had flown to Moscow, he had collapsed midair, poisoned by the deadly nerve agent, Novichok. He had recovered from this assassination attempt in Germany, before boarding the flight home. It was an act of extraordinary courage. I almost wrote that it was suicidal courage, but that term is too loaded. Perhaps better to say fatalistic courage.
The world knows what happened next: Navalny was arrested before he could make it through customs in Moscow, one final time, and charged with various crimes. He was ultimately taken to a remote penal colony in the Arctic Circle, and in true Stalinist style, the Russian authorities announced in February of this year that he had died, at the age of 47.
But Americans could be forgiven for not registering, in the weeks leading up to the recent, febrile elections, the posthumous release of a memoir penned by this brave man. Patriot is a journal of sorts, begun during his recovery in Germany and continuing through his Siberian internment. In it, he explains why he returned to Moscow in 2021.
“I have my country and my convictions. I don’t want to give up my country or betray it. If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary,” he writes.
Navalny lived by this belief, and died by it.
Born in 1976 in a small community outside of Moscow, Navalny was 15 years old when the Soviet Union disintegrated in December 1991. He lived through both the dire economic straits of Boris Yeltsin’s regime, and then Putin’s gradual crushing of civil society and any political opposition.
After earning a law degree, Navalny became a thorn in the side of Russia’s oligarchy, which is indistinguishable from its political establishment. In 2011, he founded the Anti-Corruption Foundation; investigating state-run companies, he saw how, as he would later say, “These people steal billions.”
Navalny understood that “my anti-corruption work is a threat.” Sure enough, in 2012, the state charged him with embezzlement. Navalny said this was “weird.” That same year, his allies had established a political party, then called The People’s Alliance. Navalny originally declined to join it—concerned that the criminal case against him would undermine the project. But on this very day in 2013, November 17, he was elected its leader. A few months later, he was put under house arrest for almost a year.
Navalny continued to campaign for reform, while pursuing legitimate paths to power. The Kremlin, meanwhile, intensified its efforts to silence him. In 2019, Navalny was serving a 30-day sentence for allegedly planning a protest in Moscow, when he found himself in the hospital. The Russian media said it was an allergic reaction; Navalny, then 43, said, “I have never had an allergy.”
The 2020 Novichok poisoning was more brazen, still. Like the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, and the Salisbury, England, poisonings in 2018, it had Putin’s fingerprints all over it. Indeed, Putin clearly wanted his fingerprints to be detected. But if the president had thought this would silence Navalny, he had not understood Navalny.
In 2021, he released the documentary Putin’s Palace on YouTube, which exposed the vast wealth that Putin and his cronies had accumulated for themselves. I remember watching it at the time and being stunned by one thing in particular: The fact that Navalny was so openly and flagrantly hitting Putin where he knew it would hurt. Among Putin’s critics abroad, it had been received wisdom for a long time that Putin had drawn certain lines. Some criticism of himself and the system could be tolerated—just. But any claims that came directly for him, and the vast resources he had accumulated, were a no-go.
Navalny not only went there, but went as far as it was possible to go.
The documentary was precise, specific, and devastating. It had soon been viewed millions of times. Inside Russia, people were horrified by some of the revelations, such as the fact that a building on one of Putin’s properties had a guest bathroom with a golden lavatory brush that alone cost more than the average Russian worker earns in a year. Of course, Putin and his people cracked down on what internal dissent began in the wake of the documentary’s release. People were arrested for even sitting on a park bench in areas where pro-Navalny protests were expected; any demonstrations that started were swiftly crushed.
You can still watch the documentary here. But the speech I’d like to draw attention to today is from another, produced around the same time but released in April 2022. Named simply Navalny, it was filmed in Germany, before the subject’s final flight to Russia. At one point, director Daniel Roher asks Navalny, point blank, if he had a message for Russia, in the event of his death.
Navalny chuckles to himself slightly, as he answers in English—giving the viewer a glimpse of how he managed to maintain the courage of his convictions: good humor. “My message,” he says, “for the situation that I am killed is very simple: not give up.”
Roher then asks him to answer the question in Russian. It’s a powerful suggestion; in Navalny’s native language, he is even more earnestly animated, his love for his country obvious.
Here is an English translation of what he said next:
“Listen, I’ve got something very obvious to tell you. You’re not allowed to give up. If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong.
“We need to utilize this power to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes. We don’t realize how strong we actually are. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good people to do nothing. So don’t be inactive.”
Click below to listen to Douglas reflect on Alexei Navalny’s last message for his people:
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