#WTH Aleksei Navalny will live on
Plus Putin, Ukraine, Hamas and more with Natan Sharansky
There are people who believe that Putin timed the murder of Aleksei Navalny to happen during the Munich Security Conference, when global leaders were gathered around to talk about international security. They’ll see, one can imagine him thinking, who’s the boss. Maybe. But in another way, it seems clear that Navalny has gone from being a man to being a symbol, a movement… something greater. And while Putin can arrest those who leave flowers, hide his body, fiddle the news, he can’t beat this ephemeral thing — Navalny’s spirit of freedom. Putin will, sooner or later, lose.
In considering whom to talk to about Navalny, Marc and I couldn’t think of a better person than Natan Sharansky. As a Soviet refusenik, he was a hero to both of us, and to the world. He had been in the Soviet gulag, and lived to tell. In 1978, Sharansky was convicted of treason and spying on behalf of the United States, and was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment in a Siberian forced labor camp. After his liberation, he moved to Israel, and was elected to the Knesset. In June 2009, he was elected and sworn in as Chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel, a post he still holds.
Incredibly, when confined to solitary, Navalny was allowed to bring a copy of Sharansky’s memoir, Fear No Evil, with him. Thus began a short correspondence which Natan tells us about in the podcast.
And without appearing to be lazy, I confess to you that I cannot do better than Natan’s own words. Here’s another great line:
…now we can see that how there is real axis of evil, Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, Hamas, and what I was saying in America and what I was saying in Ukraine and what I was saying in Israel — isn't it absolutely ridiculous situation that America is fighting Russia and is appeasing Iran and Israel is fighting Iran and is appeasing Russia. That's what they are doing. So it's wrong.
We ask him about Navalny, about Putin, whom he has met many times, about the importance of the Ukraine war, about Russian claims on Ukraine, and then we talk about Hamas, about Israel and Ukraine, about the war ongoing in Gaza, and more. Some of you are pod listeners; some of you are transcript readers; others just want the highlights (below). No matter what, don’t miss this conversation. It’s a call to action, a call to honor Navalny’s life, a call to support Ukraine, Israel, and the better angels of humanity. Let us know what you think.
HIGHLIGHTS
You knew Alexei Navalny before his death. Talk a little about your letters with him?
NS: First I have to correct you. It was wrong to say death. It was murder. Murder of Navalny by President Putin. Look, of course I followed Navalny's career and his spectacular, I would say, unmasking of KGB's attempt to poison him with a lot of excitement and even admiration, even envy because he really succeeded to stage such a great theater. But the stage of this theater was all the world, and the prize would be his life. But it was really very exciting to see a person with such courage and model of clarity and such great leadership. Then he went to prison, and he went to Moscow. I received some very strange, bewildering, I would say, question of some British journalist. She said, "Explain to me, he doesn't understand what we all understand? He doesn't understand that he will be arrested at the airport?"
I really became irritated and said that, "I think you don't understand what he's doing. That if his struggle was for his own survival, he would never start doing the things that he's doing. His struggle is for the future of his people, and he will not only show the nature of this regime to his people, he also says to his people, 'You should not be afraid, scared. I'm not scared. I'm not afraid to deal with this," and so we also should not be afraid." That's why he felt that his place is there. That's like natural continuation of his struggle. Of course he was arrested, and then I really was excited to receive a letter from him through his lawyer. His lawyer found some rabbi in Israel that knew me, and I was really surprised by the power of the internet that in one day, the day that he gave it to his lawyer in prison, it already reached me in Jerusalem.
Then I answered, and then he wrote another letter which he was writing at the very last moment before he went again to punishment cell. I of course immediately answered, and that's it. After this, communication became more difficult. His lawyer found himself in prison, and that was it. But the main thing is that I immediately felt like this kindred feeling or the free person who enjoys being free the most hard conditions. He wrote being very intrigued or in spite, I would say, by the fact that he's reading my book in prison to find that the reality is absolutely the same. He says like, "what was that is and how we'll make sure that it'll not be." He already is at that moment, like 127 days the punishment cell. It was his first year, and I felt myself as the one who owns the world record.
I was 405, but I was 405 days in nine years, so it's clear that I will lose this battle. I said, "Look, I want to keep my record. I don't want you to win." It was all black humor, which happened to be even more black because at the moment of his death, he already had 307 days in punishment cell in fact rather in three years. Of course it's extremely difficult. We don't know whether he was poisoned, whether he was killed by the fists or whether simply the result of this long torture of the punishment cell, which was such intensity. I don't remember anybody who was spending 300 days for three years in punishing cell. As they said that my 400 years are in nine years. But in general, it was good to have a kindred spirit, that from one free person to other free person, he continues this tradition of if you want to be free in Russia, you have to be in prison and you have to refuse to cooperate, then you are really free.
Navalny is gone. Is his message, also?
NS: Well, look, very important in this struggle and that what happened with Navalny, with Kara-Murza, with me. Very important to understand at a very early stage that the aim of your life, of your struggle, cannot be survival. When I am arrested, KGB threatening me with capital punishment. At the same time, explains all the time that your life is in your hands and so on. If you will really feel that your aim is your survival, then you'll be broken by KGB because it doesn't depend on you. Or in the case of Kara-Murza and Navalny, they shouldn't even start the struggle if their aim is physical survival.
But let's say very early in my being in prison, I understood that I really have to replace the aim, how to survive. Because it doesn't really depend on me, it depends on KGB. Had to replace it with the aim how to remain a free person in prison. That depends all on you that to the last of your day to be a free person. Navalny and Kara-Murza, everybody in their way had to decide, had to feel that this struggle against the regime for freedom, that is what's really important, and that that what makes them participate in the struggle, make them feel free people and they're enjoying this being free. And the victory is not [to] deprive your opponent of the opportunity to kill you physically. The victory is that there is territory of freedom which they cannot conquer. That you are keeping this territory, and that's what you are saving for the continuation of the struggle.
And I think that in terms of physical survival, Navalny failed, but it wasn't his aim, or Putin won. But I think even for Putin it was the aim, as I was told many times about KGB, we are not bloodthirsty, we don't want your life, we want you to cooperate. For Putin it could be thousand times more important if Navalny would accept and say that he's really sorry, but that even if we don't agree everything, but Putin has his case, and it is important for Russia to listen to what Putin... Something like this. If he would say it, that could be a huge victory for Putin.
And he killed him because of he is revengeful person, but also because he lost hope to reconquer the territory of freedom which Navalny was keeping and continues to keep. So, I think in terms of historical struggle, Navalny is the winner.
Why were you spared, and Navalny was not?
NS: I have to tell you, Navalny, in his letter in that quote that you gave, is very optimistic. But if you read, it's not optimism about his own fate. It's not that it's optimistic because, "You went out of prison, so I will get out of prison." It's not about this, he said, "But because that regime failed, so we have serious hope that this regime also will fail, because it's based on the same principles." And that is the base of his optimism. And this optimism stays with us, and with his people and with the world.
Now the difference is, I don't think... Almost tactical. The thing is that we were lucky, we were in the last years of the Soviet regime, which was becoming weaker and weaker. And though many Sovietologists believed in the power of Soviet Union, even some weeks before the failure of Soviet Union was predicting long life to this country, we dissidents knew very well how weak it is and we were predicting its failure. And Soviet leaders understood that they need urgently to mobilize the world, first of all for economical cooperation. And second, they were scared to death by competition, so-called Star Wars and possible competition, high-tech competition in arms races.
And so, when the West, the free vote succeeded, even under Carter, but mainly under President Reagan, to link all the interests of Soviet Union in cooperation, or in a restricting competition with the West, with the question of human rights it was a huge leverage. That's why, by the way you can read now, I am reading some archives of White House, because after 35 years something they are raising the documents, and you can see how the question of human rights always was an agenda of President Reagan.
Today at this moment, if Putin five years ago also would be very interesting, but he burned all his bridges the moment he decided to build empire, he decided that it's more important than recognition by the West, because all his first years were about recognition, then he decide why he has to run after Bush and Merkel, and all the others, that they all recognized he was a superpower.
They are coming and leaving, and he's the only one who is forever. So, he is the most strong leader, because he's eternal leader. And then he has the aim, which is worthy of such a leader, to bring back the Russian Empire. And in the process of rebuilding it, he in fact burned all his bridges with the free world. Well, maybe he hoped that the free world will not do it, will be scared so on. And during the war with Ukraine rather quickly the free world understood that they cannot be permitted to be blackmailed by Putin.
So, now no Jackson Amendment, not even Magnitsky Law can help because there are no economical relations. There are no flights. All the people are putting already in sanctions.
There is an opportunity for democracy in Russia, how do we capitalize on it?
NS: Putin has to see that the more he is distrusted, the more the free world is mobilized -- you should approve immediately, immediately, the request for military assistance to Ukraine, to Israel I think you will approve anyway. Maybe you should propose to Ukraine and to countries who are on the border, I don't know, Lithuania, Poland, whatever, additional money. Because America in the free world is very concerned with the behavior of Putin, you understand that he's unpredictable, and that's why you decide to raise your level of military support.
And of course, everybody who is involved, it will become known with the time that's involved in the killing of Navalny. And it's many people you have to say, that the ones who gave the order, gave to understand that he wants to see him killed, it's Putin. But then there are people at KGB, after the local head was in the prison, the local head of KGB, there are dozens of people, all of them immediately have to be under... Let's say you can broaden this Magnitsky Law to sanctions not only on the accounts, but also they cannot travel abroad. They cannot move.
Again, you cannot put Putin in prison. You can't really stop Russia from cooperation with China, and whatever. But whatever can be done, they'll feel that the pressure on them will grow. And after all the free world, and America has a more heavy than Soviet Union, so if the pressure grows, they will feel it. It can be felt that with every step like this, like killing of Navalny, they're becoming bigger and bigger outcasts.
Conservatives that stood with you during the Soviet Union — why should they stand with Ukraine today?
NS: I think they stood with me because they felt that we are fighting for the same ideals, that people want to be free and people don't want the other people or the state will tell them what to do. And they understood that Soviet Union is the threat to their freedom too, meaning that when they are defending us, they are defending the free world.
So the struggle or the fight of Putin against Ukraine, it's not fight about the piece of land, whether it is Crimea or whether it be Donbas or whether ... It's the fight for the future of free world. Putin decided to rebuild the empire. He cannot rebuild empire if the world will be guided by the laws established after the Second World War, all these rules of behavior. He has to take us back to the world where if the country is weaker than its neighbor, it should be concerned about its survival.
So he really sincerely believed that he can destroy resistance of Ukraine in one week and to be in Kyiv. And if he would have succeeded, at this moment the free world would be fighting in Warsaw, definitely in Riga, Tallinn and so on. And what's more important that all the rules, how we coexist and how we enjoy our freedom without being endangered, that will be destroyed. And I think that the world of freedom is something which has to be very important to conservatives.
So they should feel lucky. All of us should feel lucky that Ukraine is ready to fight for our interests without asking us to send our own troops doing it on ... They say give us army. We with the life of our soldiers will fight against Putin. So I think if you will not help Ukraine, you'll have in the end to fight with your own soldiers.
I don't say that you don't have to, but it's better to stop Putin earlier and to be involved less. That what I would say to our conservative friends and to my liberal friends, that I don't know whether they're liberal or conservative. I feel myself belonging to both camps.
But liberal camp has a problem, and that's why it's difficult to feel as I belong to them, that they think that progressives is part of liberal world and progressives are Neo-Marxists. They're against freedom. They're against liberty. So I think that there really must be serious camp between liberals and between conservatives who believe in personal freedom, who believe in human rights. Human rights are not left and right.
How does Israel think about Russia right now?
NS: Well, first of all, I have to say that I am strong critic of our government's appeasing position towards Putin. But it's not position of one government. The previous government, when the war started against Ukraine, Bennet was prime minister, and the position was absolutely the same as it was with that government.
The reason, let's say rational explanation, and then there is some serious argument in which our military leaders and our political leaders believe that after all, as our leading general was telling me, we, the state of Israel exists or Israel army exists in order to protect Jewish people from annihilation, from new Holocaust. And that's why the task number one is to fight Iran. And Iran has its base now on our border in Syria. And what to do, it is weak America. It is Obama who because of their weakness, permitted Putin to conquer Syrian skies to create the biggest military base in Syria. And the Israelis accepted it. And then we are left alone with the radar systems of missiles of Putin and we have to fight Iran.
So yes, we have a strategic understanding with Putin that he's not interfering in our struggles. He could stop all of our airplanes the moment they start from our airfields and go to Syria and he is not doing it. And that's the most important thing. That is argument. And I have said, I'm not military man. I disagreed strongly on my political understanding of Putin, and I met with Putin many times in his first years. When I stopped meeting with him when I understood that it's justifying dictatorship. But until 2006, I met him a number of times.
It was so clear, there was reported to our government “he's not Antisemite. He loves Jews. It's such a rare thing that the leader loves Jews and he loves Israel because Israel is a Russian speaking Jewish country. He likes all this.” But his real aims are how to force America to accept him into the club of superpower. And for this he stick against America Iran and his hope to go back to Middle East and Syria. And that's why always in the real time, the moment of the conflict, he'll be on the side of Iran and he will be giving weapons to Syria, that means he'll be giving weapons to Hezbollah. Then we were not speaking about weapons to Hamas.
So it was clear 20 years ago, and of course it's true now. And now we can see that how there is real axis of evil, Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, Hamas, and what I was saying in America and what I was saying in Ukraine and what I was saying in Israel isn't it absolutely ridiculous situation that America is fighting Russia and is appeasing Iran and Israel is fighting Iran and is appeasing Russia. That's what they are doing. So it's wrong. And I think after what happened with Hamas and when it is so clear that Russia is the biggest benefiter of this war, which we have, Iran benefits and Russia benefits. So I hope now our position about Ukraine becomes much more special.
And you have to understand, public opinion and even politicians, all the sympathies are on the side of Ukraine and all non-military assistance was always given to Ukraine from the very first days. But this fear of irritating Putin and him undermining our fundamental interests was very big. I hope now we are taking all of the things in better proportion.
WTH is happening on college campuses? The return of Neo-Marxism?
NS: Even I was shocked how deep these progressive Neo-Marxist view is that all the world is divided between oppressors and oppressed, and the oppressors are always wrong and the oppressed are always right.
And if it's all happened that the man who is rapist, he's oppressed and the one who is raped is oppressor, then everything depends on the context. That's exactly what the leaders of the universities reminded us. By the way, said that we really have to pay them. The way how they explained to the world the reality of the progressive ideology, the campus is much more successful than all we who tried for 20 years to explain because they, in fact, why they said, well, they're not anti-Semites. They think the Jews have to be killed? Of course not. But they have to go back to the reality of their campus where their best professors and their best students are explaining that is the beginning of the liberation. So if it is in the context of liberation, it depends on the context. And I know this philosophy very well from the Soviet times when it was clear that to kill people simply is bad. But if it is proletariat who was suffering for so many hundreds years, that now is killing capitalists, as Leon was saying, what to do, that the happiness of the world can be brought on through such an awful blood of things. But you are not real liberal when you are deep, deep in this critical theory where if you instead of critical race theory, put the word critical class theory, it simply Marxists, Leninism, God by God. And it becomes so popular in academy and that goes to the social life and you, the president of the university, you are simply afraid to say that in all situations Palestinians should not kill Jews.
No, it depends even if it is pogrom, it's not good. But even it is part of the liberation, it has to be accepted. And that simply shows how far the success of Neo Marxist series, how deep it went to American society.
And the thing now we have to thank these leaders of the university because 1 billion people, 1 billion people in the world saw this clip and their hesitation, and they're saying that it all depends for the context, but because it depends whether there's fight for liberation or not. And that's how suddenly death to Jews, death to Israel goes together.
The White House is feeling pressure from the Left, so is pressuring Israel. What is Israel’s move?
NS: We are all very appreciative of the fact of how Biden administration helps us from the very first moment. We'll compare it how Nixon-Kissinger administration behaved for 50 years in the war. So you have to accept it. Democrats are much better than Republicans on the thing. When we had Yom Kippur, when the government tried to exploit or to blackmail us and in order to get from us very serious concessions on building peace in the Middle East, the way how they saw it, even risk for us it was desert life question. And how Biden, without any conditions, immediately from the very first day said Israel has nowhere to go. It has to defeat Hamas. We will help him. And it continues until this day. On the other hand, and that's why by the way, we have to be very open to discuss with them many things and their problems.
And so on the other hand, when they're coming with demands that everybody on the right and the left understands we cannot exist as a state. It'll leave Hamas at power. Simply Jews will run away from here. There is no chance to survive in the Middle East if somebody does to you what Hamas did, and you leave them to stay in power. And definitely that's why what it means not to go to Rafah, it means that to accept that part of Gaza will be under the control of Hamas.
But today, as the result of this war as American centers, this war creates great opportunities for solving of the Palestinian problem by creating Muslim state. It means to give by far the biggest award to the terror which it ever got in the history of Israel's existence. So there is nobody in Israel who is really seriously ready to accept this idea.
So I hope that Biden administration, in spite of all its demands or election demands, will not go ahead with this because it cannot be accepted by Israel. In the practice, it'll not change anything. Israel will continue to fight and we can finally to learn from the lessons of war disengagement. So you cannot simply now create a new dictator who will be strong enough to regain control in Gaza, and he will be our dictator because he will give him a lot of money. These types of illusions that I always was against it. I resign twice from the government because of this, but I think, I hope, we are finished with these illusions.
We didn’t root out Marxism the way we did with Nazism. Was that a mistake?
NS: It's one of the reasons why Marxism came back so easily. But to think that it'll come so easily into America, into American Academy that will conquer the American Academy and then we'll go to the social life. Well, I didn't see it happening so quickly when Soviet Union fell apart. I started being alarmed by this 20 years ago when the first... With anti-colonialism theory, suddenly the great idea to fight against colonialism turned into Marxist idea or Marxist to kill all the colonialists.
And then it went to the other fields and the other fields. And today, we have all this neo Marxist world and they were saying many times you will be probably disappointed. But I believe that main struggle in America is not between Republicans and Democrats, though it's very polarized. The main struggle is between liberals and progressives. And it is liberals who have to realize what a huge enemy to liberalism progressives are and then they have to reconquer their power in the Democratic Party. And then maybe we in America, you in America, we in the world will be less dependent also on those crazy people on the right who think that Putin is a great guy and we can always make a deal.
Full transcript here.
SHOWNOTES
Exclusive: Navalny’s Letters from the Gulag (The Free Press, February 19 2024)
The Evil Empire collapsed. Putin’s regime will, too. (Natan Sharansky and Carl Gershman, Washington Post, February 17 2024)
Our False Partners (Natan Sharansky, Tablet, December 18 2023)
A Refusenik in a Country at War (WSJ, October 27 2023)
Review of Fear No Evil in NYT, June 2 1988
Memorial – a human rights organization that tracks the arrests of dissidents
OVD-Info – a Russian NGO that tracks detentions
Alexei Navalny death latest: Putin critic’s wife says Kremlin ‘waiting for novichok poison’ to leave his body (The Independent, February 19, 2024)
‘It’s Not Difficult to Win an Election When Your Opponents Are Not on the Ballot’ (The Dispatch, April 19 2021)
Does Biden Even Have a Russia Policy? (Foreign Policy, February 13 2024)