READ: Why are you staring at the table?

A dead Russian dissident has words for all of us, on the eve of Trump charging his critics with crimes.

Alexei Navalny knew what it meant to defy a dictator. The Russian dissident and opposition leader was poisoned, imprisoned, and ultimately died in captivity under Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia just last year. But before he was silenced, Navalny spoke often, and with moral clarity, about the true nature of authoritarianism. He called out the system of repression in Russia and, most importantly, the culture of cowardice the allowed it to exist in the first place.

I pulled an excerpt for you from his memoir, Patriot. I think you’ll understand why.

In Navalny’s closing statement at the conclusion of one of the Kremlin’s sham trials — in which the regime falsely accused him of a crime he didn’t commit in order to put a top critic behind bars — he offered one of the most stirring indictments of dictatorship in the modern era.

It wasn’t a speech to sway the court. The justice system had already decided his fate before he was ever charged or tried in court. Instead, it was a message to the millions of citizens who chose to look the other away. (In Russian parlance, to “stare at the table.”)

His warning was devastating. Tyranny doesn’t require mass participation. It just requires mass acquiescence or simply indifference. When people stare down at the table and say nothing — instead of speaking out — a tyrant can lock up his critics and destroy a nation’s institutions with ease.

This week, as we await word of Trump’s demand to charge his enemies with crimes, Navalny’s words echo louder than ever. Like Putin, our current president is trying to jail his critics. He’s already appointed loyalists willing to carry out illegal orders. And he doesn’t need to fire gunshots to rule by fear; all he needs are just enough people willing to look the other way.

Navalny’s words are a challenge to all of us. Read and share, please. Perhaps forward it to one person you think should read his words. And most of all, don’t stare at the table.

* * *

How many times in their life is someone who has committed no crime and who has not broken the law given the chance to deliver the final word? Never. Zero times. Well, if they’re unlucky, maybe once. But over the course of the last year and a half, two years if you count the appeals process, this is probably my sixth or seventh, possibly my tenth, “final word.” I’ve heard the phrase “Defendant Navalny, you have the chance to say a final word” on many occasions. I have the impression that with your final word—for me, for anyone, for everyone—come your final days. You’re always being asked to deliver your final word. I say this, but at the same time I see that these final days don’t come to pass.

And there’s one thing in particular that convinces me of this. If I were to take a photograph of the three of you [the judge and the two prosecutors], or better still all of you together with representatives of the so-called victims, those people with whom I’ve been dealing in recent times, it would show people with downcast eyes, staring at the table. Do you realize that you are all constantly looking down at the table? You have nothing to say. [Judge] Yelena Sergeyevna [Korobchenko], what’s your favorite phrase that you use constantly to address me? You know exactly what it is. Investigators, prosecutors, FSIN officials, civil judges, criminal judges, you all address me with one and the same phrase: “Alexei Anatolievich, well, you understand…” I understand everything; all except for one thing:

Why do you always stare at the table?

I am suffering under no illusions. I understand perfectly that none of you will suddenly leap up and overturn that table, nor will you say, “I’ve had enough of all this!” Neither will the representatives of Yves Rocher stand up and say, “Navalny has convinced us with his eloquent words!”

People are made differently. The human consciousness compensates for the feeling of guilt; if it didn’t, people would constantly be throwing themselves onto dry land like dolphins. It’s impossible for you to go home at the end of the day and say to your children or your husband, “You know, today I took part in the sentencing of someone who was clearly innocent. Now I feel really bad about it and will always feel bad.” We don’t do that, because we’re made differently. Either they say, “Alexei Anatolievich, you understand how it is,” or they say, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Or they’ll say, “You shouldn’t have messed with Putin,” as a representative of the Investigative Committee said recently. “If he hadn’t attracted attention to himself, if he hadn’t waved his arms around, if he hadn’t got in people’s way, more than likely everything would have just gone away.”

Nevertheless, at this point in the proceedings it’s very important for me to address those who’ll watch or read my final words. It is, of course, quite useless. Still, you people who stare at the table, this is effectively a battle taking place between those crooks who’ve seized power and those who want to change something. We are fighting for the hearts and minds of those who simply stare at the table and shrug their shoulders. People who, when all they need to do is not do something vile, they go ahead and do it anyway.

There’s a well-known quotation—nowadays everyone loves to quote someone—from the well-known book To Slay the Dragon. “Everyone’s been taught to do bad things, but you, you swine, how did you end up being top of the class at it?” This isn’t addressed specifically to this court. There are huge numbers of people who are forced to do a vile thing, but then there are those (and this is the most common scenario) who do a vile thing without anyone coercing them or even asking them to. They simply stare down at the table and try to ignore everything that’s going on around them. And our struggle for the hearts and minds of the people who stare at the table is to explain to them once again that they shouldn’t just stare but confess to themselves that, sadly, the whole system of power in our beautiful country, and everything that’s happening, is based on endless lies.

I stand before you and am prepared to stand here for as long as it takes to show you all that I don’t want to put up with this lying—and I won’t put up with it. The whole thing is literally lies from start to finish, do you understand? They tell us that the interests of Russians in Turkmenistan do not exist, but for the interests of Russians in Ukraine it is necessary to start a war. They tell me that no one oppresses Russians in Chechnya. They tell me that no one oppresses Russians in Chechnya. They tell me that no one steals in Gazprom. I’ll bring you specific documents that prove that these officials have unregistered property and companies.

They say, “There’s nothing of the sort.” I tell them that we’re ready to take part in elections and we’ll beat you. We’ve registered our party and we’re working hard. They say to me, “That’s nonsense. We’ll win the elections and you won’t even be taking part in them, not because we won’t allow you to, but because you didn’t fill in the forms properly.”

Everything is built on lies, on constant lying, do you understand? And the more concrete proof of something that we present to you, the bigger the lies that we come up against. These lies have become the whole modus operandi of the state; they’re now its very essence. We watch our leaders give speeches, and we hear lies from start to finish, be it on important matters or trivial ones. Yesterday Putin said, “We don’t own any palaces.”

Yet we’re taking photos of three palaces every month! We publish them and prove it to the world. “We don’t own any palaces.” And we don’t have any oligarchs, either, who are constantly feeding off the state. Just take a look at the documents that show how the head of Russian Railways has registered half of the state corporations in Cypriot and Panamanian offshore zones.

Why do you put up with these lies? Why do you just stare at the table? I’m sorry if I’m dragging you into a philosophical discussion, but life’s too short to simply stare down at the table. I blinked and I’m almost forty years old. I’ll blink again and I’ll already have grandchildren. And then we all will blink again and we’ll be on our deathbeds, with our relatives all around us, and all they’ll be thinking about is, “It’s about time they died and freed up this apartment.”

And at some point we’ll realize that nothing we did had any meaning at all, so why did we just stare at the table and say nothing? The only moments in our lives that count for anything are those when we do the right thing, when we don’t have to look down at the table but can raise our heads and look each other in the eye. Nothing else matters.

It’s precisely because of all this that I’m in this rather distressing position. This cunning but distressing plan that the Kremlin has chosen in its battle with me, when they try not only to lock me up but to drag other innocent people into it. Pyotr Ofitserov with his five kids. I have to look his wife in the eye. I’m convinced that those whom they threw in jail after the protests on Bolotnaya Square hadn’t done anything wrong. They arrested them simply to try to scare me and others like me who are the leaders of the opposition. Now they’re going after my brother. He, too, has a wife and two children. Now they’re going after my parents. All of them understand what’s going on, and they support me. I’m very grateful to my family, but it’s just…

I’ll admit something: you can pass it back to them that, yes, it does bother me that innocent people get thrown in the same boat as me. And maybe this is wrong, but I’ll say it: they won’t stop me even by taking hostages. Because nothing in life can have any meaning if you tolerate these endless lies, if you just agree to everything, especially when there is no reason to. Just to agree for the sake of saying, “We agree.”

I shall never agree with the system that’s been constructed in our country, because this system is designed to rob everyone who’s in this courtroom right now. Everything’s been set up in such a way that what we have now is a junta. There are twenty people who’ve become billionaires who control everything, from state procurement to the sale of oil. Then there’s a further thousand who are feeding at this junta’s trough. No more than a thousand people, in fact: state deputies and crooks. There’s a small percentage of people who don’t agree with this system. And then there are the millions who are simply staring at the table. I’ll never stop my fight with this junta. I’m going to continue fighting this junta, by campaigning and doing whatever it takes to shake up these people who are staring at the table. You included. I’m never going to stop.

I have no regrets about calling on people to take part in an unauthorized demonstration. I mean the demonstration in front of the Lubyanka, which was the start of all this. Yes, I acknowledge that it didn’t succeed. But I don’t regret for one second that I did it. I don’t regret for one second that I set out to do battle with corruption. A few years ago my lawyer Vadim Kobzev told me something that I’ve never forgotten. He said, “Alexei, they’re bound to put you in jail. You stir things up so much that they won’t stand for it. Sooner or later they’re going to put you in jail.”

Once again, though, our human consciousness comes to terms with this. You can’t carry on with the idea in the back of your mind that they’re going to put me in jail. I simply put it out of my mind, yet at the same time I’m aware of everything that I do. And I can tell you that I don’t regret a single thing I’ve done. I shall keep calling on people to take part in collective action, including carrying out the right to freedom of association.

People have a legal right to rise up against this illegal, corrupt power, against this junta that has grabbed and stolen everything it could, that has siphoned trillions of dollars out of the country in the form of oil and gas. And what benefit have we gained from all this?

I’m going to repeat in this court the final words that I said at the end of the Kirovles case. Nothing’s changed since that time. By staring at the table, we’ve allowed them to rob us blind. We’ve allowed them to invest this stolen money in Europe somewhere. We’ve allowed them to turn us into cattle. What have we gained? What have they paid you while you’ve been staring at the table? Nothing! Do we have health care? No, no health care. Do we have education? No, no education. Have they provided us with good roads? No, they haven’t given us good roads. Let’s ask the secretary how much they earn. Eight thousand rubles a month. Maybe 15,000 with bonuses. I’d be very surprised if court ushers receive more than 35,000 or 40,000 rubles a month.

The paradox is that dozens of crooks every day rob us and you blind—and we allow this to happen! Well, I’m not going to stand for it. I say again that I’m going to remain on my feet however long I have to, be it one meter from this cage, be it one meter inside this cage. I’m going to stand tall. There are more important things in this life.

I want to say it again: the trick worked, with my family, with those dear to me. Nevertheless, don’t forget that they support me in everything. But none of them intended to become political activists. So there’s absolutely no need to send my brother to prison for eight years, or, indeed, to send him to prison at all. He didn’t want to be involved in politics. You’ve already caused our family enough pain and suffering because of this. There’s absolutely no need to take it further. As I’ve already told you, taking hostages won’t stop me. But at the same time, I fail to see why the authorities think they have to kill these hostages now.

Maybe this is going to sound naive, and I know it’s become the norm to laugh ironically and sneer at these words, but I call on absolutely everyone not to live by lies. There is no other way. There can be no other solution in our country today.

I want to thank everyone for their support. I call on everyone not to live by lies. I want to say loud and clear that they may put me in isolation, they may imprison me, but someone else will rise up and take my place. I haven’t done anything unique or difficult. Anyone could do what I’ve done. I have no doubt that there will be people in the Anti-Corruption Foundation and others too who will continue in the exact same way as me, whatever the courts decide—the courts whose only purpose is to give the appearance of legality to this process. Thank you.

P.S. WHAT’S HAPPENING ON TREASON

A few things to put on your radar screen.

1. Recap: The Weekly Wednesday Coffee - For paid subscribers, you can watch the Weekly Wednesday Coffee from yesterday, with surprise guest appearance from former GOP Congressman Denver Riggleman.

2. Today / Thursday (12:30p ET) - The Ink with Anand Giridharadas - I’m really looking for to catching up with Anand Giridharadas, so tune in. We will discuss the Comey news and more on his Substack.

3. Friday (5pmET) - Sue Gordon is back! - Donald Trump’s former spy chief — Deputy Director of National Intelligence

   Sue Gordon
   — is back on Substack LIVE with me this Friday to speak out about Trump’s most recent abuses of power. You can join here.