Alexei Navalny interviewed by Between the Lines

- Alexei, you often mention Uralvagonzavod in your speeches. Since 2012 it has become known as a pillar enterprise of the current government. As a representative of a Tagil media outlet, I have to ask: what can you offer the average UVZ worker? - First of all, I’m very glad that a Nizhny Tagil media outlet is interviewing me. I really want to come to Nizhny Tagil. We’ve long had the idea of speaking to the workers there. I don’t know how many people would come and want to listen to me, but I do have something to say to them. Since I have the chance, I want to say something important through you. Putin used Uralvagonzavod to scare the whole country and the Muscovites who took to the streets. Five years have passed, and in that time we’ve seen that he had nothing to offer those Uralvagonzavod workers. The average salary of a molder at UVZ is 30,000 rubles. You can’t live on that. But when I see how much money the state spends on defense procurement, I understand that the money is simply being stolen and never reaches the enterprises. So here’s what I want to offer an ordinary mechanic: he will do his job properly, and the state will pay him more. Salaries at Uralvagonzavod should be twice as high, and there is more than enough money for that. I will make state companies like Rosneft pay proper dividends. I intend to fight corruption in state defense procurement, where 1 trillion rubles are stolen every year. A trillion! I intend to fight corruption in the procurement of state corporations like Rosoboronzakaz, where 25 trillion rubles are spent annually and at least 5 trillion are embezzled. As you can see, we’re already talking about sums that show that simply fighting corruption would double that mechanic’s salary. And right now we see that despite various cash injections, Uralvagonzavod’s debt in 2014 stood at 4.5 billion rubles. I read in the arbitration court records—and it made me furious—that Alfa-Bank had filed to bankrupt Uralvagonzavod. That may be the perfect illustration of the madness that is going on. This is the biggest enterprise, the one they flaunt politically, the super-important foundation of the country’s defense capability—and the workers there get next to nothing, the enterprise itself is on the brink of bankruptcy, and the third headline is that CEO Oleg Sienko is celebrating his birthday for 10 million rubles. - But as you know, Uralvagonzavod is not just tanks. There is also railcar production, for example, and no one is buying those railcars. Experts have long been saying that in a market economy, perhaps Uralvagonzavod should be allowed to go bankrupt, 15,000 people should be laid off, and only the tank shop should remain. There are many such inefficient enterprises that the state keeps afloat primarily because of the people involved—AvtoVAZ, for example. As a market liberal, would you begin this kind of “shock therapy” if you became president? - That’s an important point, an excellent question. There is no need for any kind of “shock therapy.” This is not the 1990s, oil is not $12 a barrel, there is plenty of money in the country now! There is no need to fire anyone. These are basic laws of market economics: if we lay off 15,000 people in Nizhny Tagil, we will not reduce state costs. Because there is nowhere for them to find work there—it’s practically a monopoly labor market. Someone might say: let’s fire them, and they’ll cleverly find other jobs or move somewhere else. That won’t happen. Population mobility in Russia is minimal. They’ll end up out in the streets, and they’ll still have to be paid somehow. The dire situation at Uralvagonzavod, like at many enterprises, like AvtoVAZ, is in some sense tied to monopolization across the whole country. Who can buy railcars now? There is the monopoly of Russian Railways, which also devours tens of billions of rubles every year and still cannot function properly. What we need is demonopolization of industry in principle. The state now directly or indirectly controls 84 percent of the economy, and every day we get news that they are buying something else again. Rostelecom is buying Tele2 for God knows what reason, Rostec, which owns defense plants, spends all day buying things. Buying, buying, buying... Where to? Why are you buying all this? We need to create a market structure in the economy, and within that structure enterprises like Uralvagonzavod will be in demand. Sooner or later. There will be a period of difficulty, but excuse me—is this some kind of period of prosperity now? - People are afraid of that period of difficulty. That brings us back to the notorious stability that Kholmanskikh and UVZ stood for. They fear that under Putin they have 30,000 rubles, but if Navalny comes, they won’t even have that. - Let me say this very clearly through you: this stability of poverty that Putin has given them could be guaranteed by anyone. I will make sure they earn more. No “shock therapy” is needed because, according to modern economic thinking—not what Gaidar had in mind—we understand that mass layoffs and lockouts in a noncompetitive labor market lead nowhere. We have enough money now to implement a long-term program of proper enterprise restructuring, so that people keep getting paid, some transition period takes place, and by the end of it they are earning more. - Your program says a lot about the economy and domestic policy, but little about foreign policy. Yet if you became president, you would get the nuclear briefcase, you would be able to pick up the phone and call Trump. You would have to face that side of the Russian president’s challenges as well. Have you ever thought that those patriotic activists now standing outside your headquarters may be right—that Russia isn’t very well liked? That Putin may be right in his military rhetoric—that when he came to power in 2000, he also wanted to be friends with the whole world, but was offered the role of a raw-material appendage... - And unfortunately, he accepted that role, because the share of budget revenues from raw-material exports is higher in Russia now than it was in the Soviet Union. It’s not that Russia isn’t loved; it’s just that everyone else loves themselves. It would be strange if France, the United States, or the United Kingdom put Russia’s interests above or even equal to their own. This is the natural competition that exists in the world, competition for wealth for one’s own citizens. We need to be part of that competition—that’s important. What is Putin doing now? He says: let’s rebuild Palmyra, let’s invest in Aleppo, let’s rebuild southeastern Ukraine, and so on. And I say to him: let’s rebuild Nizhny Tagil and Yekaterinburg. There isn’t even enough money here to repair roads; the standard budget allocation for road maintenance shrinks every year. And at the same time, the deployment of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to the Syrian coast—they sailed there, showed off—cost 7.5 billion rubles. Presumably, that 7.5 billion rubles is more needed inside the country. So of course I have no illusions. Every country fights to make its own citizens richer. And Russia should enter that competition with exactly the same goal. First we become rich, then we spend money elsewhere. As it stands, we recently paid Bosnia and Herzegovina $190 million in Soviet-era debt. At the same time, we have forgiven billions of dollars to everyone—Cuba, Mozambique, Vietnam. - But they’re our friends, aren’t they? - Okay, but are we supposed to feed them now? They’re our friends, we love them, but let’s spend money on ourselves first. When the moment comes that the average salary in Nizhny Tagil is 100,000 rubles, that is exactly the moment when we can raise the question: maybe we should give money to Cuba? - So President Navalny would not defend the thesis that “Russia is a great power”? - Russia unquestionably is a great power, and Russia should be the leading state in Europe. But for me, a country’s greatness comes from the wealth of its citizens. When our GDP per capita is the same as in the United States, then we will surpass them in greatness. There is no other way to do it, because we don’t have the money to maintain an army. Our navy is outdated, and the defense enterprise Uralvagonzavod is on the brink of bankruptcy. If we look at the world, we see that Russia accounts for 1.5% of the global economy. With a role like that, we cannot compete with anyone. So the sequence has to be reversed: first we grow the economy, that makes citizens richer, they live better, they pay more taxes, the budget grows, and then we can spend more on the military-industrial complex. And that includes defending what we need to defend, naturally. - Still, if you became president and the head of the FSB or the Foreign Intelligence Service brought you secret folders, might you agree that Putin is right in the way Russia presents itself on the world stage now? - That’s complete nonsense. Secret folders exist about things like specific agents. There are no secret folders explaining how the world works, because we all already know that perfectly well. There are rich countries and poor countries, there are selfish countries, there are governments that naturally look after themselves, and there is international competition. The United States, for example, has much larger oil reserves than we do. Canada has much larger oil reserves than Russia. But until recently they even banned oil exports from their own territory, because it was выгодно for them to use us as a raw-material appendage. And if we run to them and say we are ready to be a raw-material appendage, they answer: okay, be one. This competition will always exist; everyone will try to squeeze wealth out of everyone else, there will be trade wars, there will be conflicts over the arms trade. And as president I will actively work to ensure that Russia has as much room as possible to pursue military interests tied to economic ones. But, I repeat, that is very much a function of the economy. If your country is poor, you will never have a strong army and no one in the world will fear you. In reality, no one fears Russia; it’s only domestic propaganda that tells people how frightened everyone supposedly is. Who is going to be scared when the average salary in Tagil is 30,000 rubles? That’s $500! If you told a worker at a U.S. defense enterprise that people at Uralvagonzavod earn that much, he would laugh. Or cry. Because that is what a country’s greatness is about, and that is what I would focus on first and foremost. - All right, Russia has no external enemies, or at least they would not be able to destroy Russia if you were elected. But what would happen to this entire Putin vertical of power when you became president? It’s a gigantic system: the security services, Medvedev, Sechin, Sobyanin, Timchenko, the Rotenbergs, Kovalchuk, and so on. And all of them have their own governors, mayors, controlled enterprises, spheres of influence. Surely they would stage a Maidan if Navalny became president? How would you stand up to them? - First of all, it’s wrong to call this system Putin’s. Putin simply made the system more corrupt. How is this system different from Yeltsin’s or the Soviet one? It is the state apparatus, and it exists and will continue to exist under any president. In that sense there is no reason to fear that if I am elected tomorrow, everything will immediately collapse. Nothing will collapse. And second, most importantly, some of these people will of course want a Maidan, because I will deprive them of billions of dollars. Of course, when Sechin at Rosneft buys himself a $180 million yacht and names it Princess Olga after his wife, when he pays himself a salary of 3.5 million rubles a day, I will tell him that first, you will no longer receive that salary, and second, I will put you in prison. Of course he won’t like that! But I have no doubt that I would get far more support than Putin in that same Nizhny Tagil when we send this whole thug-like gang of oligarchs and officials to prison through an honest and fair court. The state apparatus will reconfigure itself, and we have seen that in many countries—from Singapore to Georgia. Look at the Baltics—same Soviet people... - Ukraine? - Ukraine is a different situation; there, after all, a revolution did happen. And Ukraine is now practically in a state of war. But even given Ukraine’s terrible situation—war, unclear leadership, various Maidans—look at the pace of economic growth: even in that horrific hell it is higher than it is in Russia now. It’s hard to believe, but it’s actually true. In most cases, what we see is simply the story of humanity. When normal government comes in, starts sending normal signals, is not corrupt, leaves after four or eight years instead of trying to sit in office for 24 years, does not strangle newspapers—then things start working. A system of checks and balances does not allow the president to be corrupt. And that will work in Russia too. In principle, I believe the authorities’ well-known thesis that Russians will never have democracy, that they are not mature enough, is a typical manifestation of Russophobia. We are mature enough for all of it. And I do not believe Russians are stupider, more miserable, or lazier than Canadians or Finns. Absolutely not, and we can live the same way. - Previously you have repeatedly said that if you became president, you would not return Crimea to Ukraine. At the same time, Trump recently said that sanctions—which hit not only individuals but the entire Russian economy—would be lifted if Russia returned Crimea. You promise a minimum wage of 25,000 rubles and economic growth, but that will be difficult under sanctions. If there were no option of a new referendum for Crimeans or any other solution, and you found yourself facing a choice—either sanctions for another 30 years, or return Crimea— what would you choose? - That is a false alternative. Russia is under three kinds of sanctions, and the so-called Crimean sanctions are the smallest part of them. To lift the sectoral sanctions that damage the economy, we need to fulfill the Minsk agreements, tell all this Ukraine business to go to hell, and say: live on your own. Then most of the sanctions will be lifted. The Crimean sanctions will remain forever, for the foreseeable future. They cannot be lifted; Crimea cannot be returned; there is no such mechanism. But those sanctions are not a major problem for the economy. Russia must stop participating in the war in Donbas. And all the money it spends on the war in Donbas should be spent inside the country. And in Crimea we will hold a referendum, and whichever way that referendum points, that is the direction we will move in. But as I have said many times, there is no quick solution to the Crimea problem, just as there is no quick solution to the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, Northern Cyprus, the northern Kuril Islands, the Falkland Islands, and so on and so forth. Crimea will simply be listed among all these territorial conflicts, of which there are many in the world. It is unresolved, but the main complaint European countries have against Russia is that they do not want to see war on European territory. When tanks stop firing on European territory, most sanctions will be lifted, and frankly they do not care much about Crimea. - Since 2011, you have repeatedly taken part in various blocs and coalitions and created your own Progress Party. But now you are a presidential candidate without a party. - The answer is very simple. Because they are afraid. The Progress Party takes part nowhere because it was liquidated. We demanded that it be registered four times, went through the entire registration procedure, and only on the fourth attempt, after three years, was it registered—and then three months later it was dissolved. If I had had a party, I assure you it would have been represented in the State Duma after the last elections. That is exactly why they are not letting me run now—never mind the party. The Kremlin now says Navalny cannot take part in the election, even though under the Constitution I can. Of course I would like to rely on a party structure, of course I would like to take part in all regional elections. I have no doubt that at least in the country’s key centers, this party would have had significant political representation. But they liquidated it. As I have already said, the nationalists have been crushed—they are not allowed into elections; democrats are not allowed into elections either, except in the form of Yabloko or PARNAS. So we are forced to do this (build a network of regional headquarters. — Editor’s note). In an ideal world, I would rely on the support of a party that was also actively participating everywhere in parallel. - Before the presidential election, there will be another Single Voting Day in September. Don’t you think you could try to gain additional momentum for the presidential campaign by running in some regional election—for example, for governor of Sverdlovsk Region? That campaign would definitely get federal coverage and bring you additional name recognition and ratings. - I want to take part in the campaign honestly, not for political-technological purposes. So I state clearly which campaign I am in and which office I am fighting for. Here in Sverdlovsk Region—and that is rare in Russia—there are quite a few popular politicians. There is Roizman, for example, and if they let him run tomorrow, he would win. There are other politicians who would beat Governor Kuyvashev, who is a very, very unpopular governor, essentially a Moscow appointee, and it is not clear what he actually does. So I would gladly support independent politicians running here in any election, although I am rather skeptical that they would be allowed to run. Because for Kuyvashev that would mean defeat. As for me, I do not want to play games; I want to act directly. - Over the past week, social media has been actively discussing an unexpected liberalization of the agenda in connection with statements by the Prosecutor General’s Office on Dadin and Chudnovets, and with the Kremlin’s intervention in the dispute over transferring St. Isaac’s Cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church. Many have started talking about a new thaw. What do you think this is, and how will the agenda change as March 2018 approaches? - It’s not a thaw, it’s sociology. The authorities do a great many incredibly stupid things. A new [presidential] administration came in and saw what absolute stupidity the previous Volodin administration had done. Have you seen a single person who agreed that Chudnovets was imprisoned justly? No. They saw that the Chudnovets case—which has nothing to do with politics at all—turns anyone who learns about it into a human rights advocate. They saw the same thing with Dadin. First they passed their idiotic law on solo pickets, and then they monitored public opinion—the FSO (Federal Protective Service) does that for them—and saw that even Putin’s core base, pensioners, were saying: “Are you idiots or what? You let Serdyukov go, but you jail a man for standing with a placard.” They realized that the Dadin case is very easy to use to criticize the regime. Because you can show anyone the contrast: here are Vasilyeva and Serdyukov, and here is a guy who stood with protest placards. And any person, whether they are for Crimea or against it, for Putin or against him, will say this is nonsense. The same with St. Isaac’s Cathedral. First they decided to do it because we’re powerful, and then they monitored public opinion and panicked. This government relies on polling and is always afraid of public opinion. Whenever they understand that, despite lies, propaganda, and television, on some issue—even a small one—they cannot turn the tide, they move in the opposite direction. - As the presidential election gets closer, will they change the agenda? - Their agenda is to hold on to power, because for them power means money and opportunity. In that sense it will not change. But dissatisfaction with this government will objectively keep growing. Can they do anything to increase support among the population of Nizhny Tagil? They cannot defeat corruption, they cannot raise wages, they cannot do anything. And in each specific case they will act situationally, according to opinion polls. - Do you have your own polling? - Yes, in fact back in 2013 we created our own polling service and wiped the floor with VTsIOM and the Levada Center, and everyone acknowledged that we were the best at forecasting everything. We conducted sociological research when we were testing our program... - What are Putin’s and Navalny’s ratings now, according to your data? - Lately we haven’t done that kind of quantitative polling with approval ratings, because 50% of the population still do not even know who I am. How could they, if television says nothing about me. So we need to get through some part of the campaign before measuring the effectiveness of our work. But the main thing we are recording is a kind of political emptiness. People all want something different. This whole support rating they talk about is really a rating of the absence of anything else. In polls people say, yes, I guess we’ll vote for Putin—not for Zyuganov or Zhirinovsky, after all. And when someone new appears, everything changes very quickly. We saw it in Moscow, we saw it here in Yekaterinburg when Roizman was elected, in Novosibirsk where the communist Lokot was elected, in Irkutsk Region. The authorities suffer defeats when someone new appears. That is exactly why their main strategy now is simply not to let people into elections. The agenda will change. They had a period of hyper-mobilization around Ukraine, around the war. But how long can they keep riding that? - Will Putin pull a rabbit out of a hat and dismiss the government before the election? - He has never done anything like that. It’s not his style. As a representative of a mafia-like system, he values personal ties, reliability, people’s personal loyalty. The ability, so to speak, to have a quiet word: “Dima, come to Gazprom, squeeze this out, and send Roldugin 2 billion rubles.” You can’t say that to many people. Even if you are Putin, tsar and emperor. There are only a few people with whom he can frankly, as they say, sort things out. A billion here, a billion there, this bit to a Cyprus offshore... - Still, he could persuade Medvedev to become a sacrificial victim, making him, say, rector of Moscow State University or Russia’s representative to the UN. - Those rumors have been around for quite a while. But I understand that despite everything, Medvedev is his chief confidant; Putin personally trusts him very much. Putin has never reshuffled personnel much; this loyalty matters enormously to him. How does he rule? Loyalty in exchange for corruption—you are politically loyal to me, and I allow you to steal whatever you want. Serdyukov is a perfect example. The Kremlin took a huge political hit by not imprisoning Serdyukov. Even though every old lady in the country demanded that Serdyukov be jailed, Putin did not jail him because he was a reliable man, by the code, by those mafia rules—he was one of their own, a proper guy. Why is Chubais, one of the most unpopular people in the country, still sitting in government? All those NOD activists (pro-Kremlin “National Liberation Movement” supporters) attack me over Chubais, even though he works for Putin. Because ever since their St. Petersburg mafia-style dealings, he has been a reliable person. Putin is like that—a leader of a corporate state. - Ilya Belous, a well-known patriotic activist in Yekaterinburg who staged a picket outside your headquarters, said on camera today that Navalny will lose the election and then stage a Maidan, refusing to recognize defeat. After the failure of the white-ribbon protest movement and the tightening of laws on rallies in Russia, do you think people would come out for mass protests? How possible is a revolutionary transfer of power in Russia today? - If the authorities are afraid of revolutions, then this is the easiest scenario for them to avoid. Let them allow everyone onto the ballot! People will not take to the streets if they see that I lost in a fair fight. There were debates, Putin won. Who would go into the streets? No one would go into the streets for a person—for me in particular. People go into the streets because of injustice. So it is the authorities who are creating a revolutionary scenario now by strangling everything, by crushing everything. In Ukraine, the main core of the Maidan was nationalists. And here the Kremlin regime is crushing our nationalists, who among others were militia fighters in Donbas, people like Strelkov. And former pro-Putin supporters will be among the most aggressive of those who come out into the streets. So it is precisely the Kremlin that is creating such a scenario. - Will you lead people into the streets, or prepare for the 2024 campaign? - It’s unfortunate, but it’s true: throughout Russia’s entire modern history since 2000, only public street actions have produced any results. From Kondopoga to Moscow, any injustice in the country is resolved, unfortunately, only by going out into the streets. Because there are no other methods. There are no parties, no trade unions, no major federal media. And when there is an injustice that I cannot resolve, I will go out into the streets, and I am sure many people will be there with me.