Alexei Navalny explains that he began investigating corruption in major state-owned and quasi-state corporations because he saw resources and revenues being concentrated in the hands of a narrow circle of people, while shareholders and ordinary citizens received nothing; his work was also driven by personal motives, as a minority shareholder who had suffered losses while managers and middlemen were obviously enriching themselves. He emphasizes that such work is inevitably political in nature, and contrasts his approach with that of the traditional opposition, relying not on rhetoric or participation in sham elections, but on practical investigations, lawsuits, and setting his own agenda. Navalny acknowledges that there are risks for those engaged in anti-corruption work in Russia, but sees them as part of reality, while attempts by the authorities to restrict the spread of information online and pressure independent platforms are ineffective and can only intensify public frustration and protest sentiment.
Text version
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We are recording an interview with the well-known
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blogger Alexei Navalny
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and thank you very much for your time and for
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agreeing
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to speak with us. I think this conversation
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will certainly be both interesting and useful for
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a great many people who are now
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following your work, including
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on
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the internet. In a certain sense, a defender
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of minority shareholders.
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In Russia, we have a small number
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of huge corporations that are, on the whole,
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under state
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control, with the state as the dominant
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shareholder, and all the affairs of these
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corporations are decided accordingly. Every one of us sees this, whether it is
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a manager of one of these corporations or even
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some grandmother living in Ryazan (a city southeast of Moscow).
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It would seem she is quite far removed from
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all of this, but everyone sees that
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these corporations—and the Russian economy in general—
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which is built around these
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corporations, are structured in such a way that
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a fairly small number of people
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grow rich and live lives of utterly
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staggering luxury. Meanwhile,
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the shareholders of these corporations, and ordinary
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Russian citizens, who are
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indirect shareholders in these corporations
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through the state, receive
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essentially nothing. Every day in
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the newspapers we read about scandals and
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multi-billion-ruble embezzlement schemes that
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are described completely openly and directly.
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Yet nothing happens. So I decided
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to do something very simple. I decided:
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if a crime is being committed so brazenly,
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openly, and obviously, why not simply
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try filing a lawsuit
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in court? Why not try writing
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complaints to the prosecutor's office, and so on? It is a fairly
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simple thing, lying right
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on the surface. It is just that before me, this was
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mostly something no one
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was doing. And my activity rather
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quickly attracted attention, simply because
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it was a kind of formalization of what
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everyone talks about. Everyone says: they stole
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a billion dollars. I say: they stole
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a billion dollars—here is my police report.
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And without any doubt, there was also
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a personal motivation here. It all started with money—
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money that was stolen
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directly from me. I invested
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my personal funds in the so-called
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blue chips, these largest corporations,
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mostly commodity companies, mostly oil companies.
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And when I invested my money and
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received neither dividends nor any increase in
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share value, while again, every
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single day I read in the newspapers how these
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people were buying football clubs, flying
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on private
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jets, enjoying fabulous
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parties in Courchevel (a luxury French ski resort), I understood
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that the money stolen from me
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was exactly the money with which they
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were living their glamorous, luxurious lives. And I
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do not understand how
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oil companies can pay me
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such tiny dividends, while a small
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offshore company, which exports the products of these
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companies, earns billions, and its
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head, Putin's friend Gennady
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Timchenko, makes the Forbes list. That is what
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became, in a certain sense,
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a matter of my own personal money, and I
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considered it a personal
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insult to me as a shareholder, since
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everything was so obvious.
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It would be hypocritical to think—and on my part it would be hypocritical
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to claim
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that my activity is not
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political. Corruption is the most important
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issue on the country's political agenda,
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the question of how
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oil is exported, how
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the proceeds from the sale of oil
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and gas are distributed—these are political questions. The fact that I
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investigate specific cases means these are
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absolutely political investigations, and
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politically motivated as well.
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So yes, this activity is
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political, 100 percent. That is the first point. The second is
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regarding some kind of
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supposed popularity of mine—why has the format
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of my work received such
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support? I am not inclined to overestimate
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my popularity, but I
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think that the support I do receive
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is connected with the fact that I was one of the first people
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to move to a new format of work. That is,
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before that, the opposition movement
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consisted of various
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dissidents from Soviet times and from the early
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perestroika period, who were
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absolutely wonderful people, and they are
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absolutely wonderful people, but in
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the current situation they are completely
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irrelevant, outdated morally,
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physically, in every sense—their activity now
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looks completely archaic. Then there
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were
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and still are those kinds of
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liberals and democrats associated with the romantic
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Yeltsin period, who now, in
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retrospect, looking back, turned out not to be
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such great liberals, not such great
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democrats. And very many of them changed their colors
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or even now, while still proclaiming
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themselves liberals and democrats, they are quite
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openly supportive of Putin and even say
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that we do not need any free elections
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because in free elections
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the terrible
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fascists would mostly win. So that is the kind of
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opinion of the people from the 1990s; by now
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it has finally degenerated into
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simply some kind of
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empty talk. My own approach is based on the idea that
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you can, of course,
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rhetorically denounce the bloody Putin regime, but
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you have to do something practical in
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that direction. That is why I
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have focused on practical
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investigations, practical work,
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practical lawsuits, and everything I
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say is backed up by certain
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concrete actions. If someone
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says that these people stole and that
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crooks and thieves have gathered around Putin, I
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say roughly the same thing, but I
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back it up by trying to prosecute them
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through criminal proceedings. Whether it works or not,
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whether it succeeds or not, whether it works or does not work,
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is a separate question, but I do cause them
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problems, and people now seem to me ready
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to support politicians who
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create problems for this
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government. It seems to me that I have received
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some support in part because I do not
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play obviously meaningless games. If there
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were elections, I would without any doubt
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take part in them. But there are no elections
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now. That strange procedure
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that is called elections is not really an election
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at all; in it, you control
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nothing. And that is exactly why opposition
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politicians who are completely focused
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on getting a piece of paper from the Ministry of Justice
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and then running with that paper from the Ministry of Justice to
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the election commission and asking it
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to draw something for you there, or
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conversely, not to take away the votes
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that you rightfully received—that is not
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politics. It is more like running in
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some kind of race of laboratory rats through
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a maze built for them by those very
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Kremlin crooks. I do not want to be in that
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maze, and what I do, what I try to do, is
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create my own agenda rather than
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follow the Kremlin's timetable and its
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parties and so on. There are specific cases,
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and I deal with those specific cases.
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Taking part in this fake procedure from
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beginning to end is meaningless, and I will not
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be involved in
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it.
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I understand perfectly well what situation I am in.
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I can clearly see examples, including
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sad and even tragic ones, such as
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the case of Sergei Magnitsky
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and what could happen, and
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did happen, to people who were involved in
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investigating corruption. Therefore I
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assess the reasonable risk that
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exists; I am aware of it, but again, it
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is not an obstacle to my
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work. From the outset I understood these
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risks. I am doing all this consciously, in
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conditions where that risk exists, and I
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accept it. Well, you see, there is the moon,
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there is the sky, there is the sun, and there are risks. I
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live in this country and in this
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system, so for me this is not
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some major problem. I have never
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been threatened. It is hard to say whether there is
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danger or no danger; I take a philosophical view of
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it. I believe that any
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person in Russia who is engaged in
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something right and useful bears
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a certain risk. That includes journalists,
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politicians, public figures—anyone,
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really. There is even a certain irony in the fact
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that you, Radio Liberty (the Russian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), are asking this question,
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because the closest analogy to what
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is happening now—these DDoS attacks on
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LiveJournal—is what they used to do in
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the Soviet Union, when the so-called
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jammers were operating, and they jammed what
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they called enemy voices. That led
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only to the fact that any person in the Soviet Union
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as soon as they bought a radio receiver would immediately
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rush to try to tune in to that very Radio
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Liberty, regardless of whether
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they were actually interested in what was being said or not.
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It was something forbidden. Many years have passed now,
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but the authorities are acting
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just as stupidly. They are simply trying to obstruct,
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trying
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to jam, to temporarily stop these
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attacks on servers and so on, and
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to prevent information from spreading
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through LiveJournal and other social
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networks, not to let people coordinate there.
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But all this only leads to the fact that people
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who are, well, becoming politicized
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spread information, and these attacks in
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modern information society have
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extremely low effectiveness. And those people who before that
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had not thought about politics and
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viewed LiveJournal as a place where
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you could look at cats, dogs, or
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some pictures—they are irritated, and
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their irritation is growing precisely because
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they understand that some crooks in
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the Kremlin, using taxpayers’ money,
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are obstructing them, preventing them from looking at
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their cats, and I am sure that these
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utterly foolish attacks and attempts
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to interfere will only lead to
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a rise in protest sentiment