Navalny’s friends knew he was willing to become a martyr if that’s what it took to stand up to Putin.

Alexei Navalny’s long struggle against President Putin began with a humorous blog and culminated in repeated demonstrations of his willingness to risk his own life. According to the Russian authorities on Friday, he has now died in prison.

Russia’s leading opposition voice has been silenced.

Other dissident figures went into exile or died in mysterious circumstances over the past decade, leaving Navalny as the last national figure with a dedicated following.

Though he had been arrested many times before, Navalny’s defining moment in the eyes of many Russians came after the attempt to assassinate him with Novichok. He recuperated in the sanctuary of a German hospital but chose to defy Putin and return to Russia in January 2021, knowing full well he would end up in prison.

  • rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Man, Lenin set fire to a good chunk of his own dreams during the Civil War.

    The betrayal of the SRs and Makhnovists, the butchering of Kronstadt, the subjugation of local soviets and trade unions to centralized top-down rulership, and nationalization of previously independent cooperatives all helped bring down the dreams of equality and liberty. Lenin created all of the infrastructure that Stalin then used to horrifying ends. IMO this is an inevitable outcome of vanguardism and a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, but that is a topic for another day.

    Some of the things mentioned above did manage to survive post-Stalin. There was immense scientific progress in the USSR and the education was the best in the world. Everyone got food, though it was poor-quality and standing in line for it was universal (again, post-Stalin).

    • mellowheat@suppo.fi
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      8 months ago

      Homelessness wasn’t a thing.

      Homelessness was illegal in Soviet Union. USA has plenty of problems that are objectively worse in this area, but I’m not sure if just declaring it illegal and sending vagrants to labor camps is a very good solution either.

      • rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Point taken. I will revise my original post. You’re right, man. Further reading supports your view. It seems that they just weren’t very visible.