Navalny dies in prison, authorities say − but his blueprint for anti-Putin activism will live on

Putin inevitably won the election, with the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe observer mission commenting that due to irregularities and abuses the winner “was never in doubt.”

But nonetheless, Navalny’s efforts meant that a new opposition was in place and ready to take to the streets to fight election fraud.

Getting out of the electoral ‘ghetto’

Despite his arrest and conviction on fraud charges in 2013, Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow that year. In the campaign, he innovated electoral politics, recruiting young volunteers who met voters on the streets and in their apartment blocks.

Navalny won almost 30% of the vote – double that expected – and claimed that the only reason Putin’s hand-picked candidate, Sergei Sobyanin, had got above the 50% needed to secure a first-round victory was due to a falsified vote.

Navalny later articulated the real success, as he saw it, in an interview with fellow opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza: “We have shown that ordinary people – with no administrative resources, no corporate sponsors, no public relations gurus – can unite and achieve results at the ballot box,” he said. “We have shown that we are no longer confined to a 3% electoral ‘ghetto.’”

Navalny concluded: “For me, the most important result of this campaign is the return of real politics to Russia.”

During that 2013 campaign, my research team interviewed Navalny activists and observed the work in campaign headquarters.

These interviews underscored Navalny’s relationship with the people. Many of the volunteers rejected the idea that they were working for him. Instead, they were volunteering because they admired Navalny’s tactics. They liked his political style. They wanted change in Russia.

Navalny brought Russians alienated by Russian politics together and empowered them. As one campaign volunteer interviewed in our study argued, “We all were frightened before the first protest and even left a will before we joined the movement. But it was not a mob. There were people like us. The feeling we had in Navalny’s office was the feeling of being with people like me.”

Through the next decade, Navalny and his team continued to return political competition to Russia’s politics. They built local organizations that attracted support and found some success in Siberian cities Tomsk and Novosibirsk, despite the endless obstacles the Kremlin placed in their way.

Return from exile

The culmination of these efforts is a system Navalny developed in 2018 called Smart Voting. Through an online tool, the Navalny team encourages Russians to support any reform-minded candidates in elections and in particular directs voters to the candidate most likely to beat Putin’s United Russia party.

Research by Russian scholars Mikhail Turchenko and Grigorii Golosov shows that the tool has had a very significant effect on voters and increasing turnout, opposition votes and popular attention on elections.

Navalny’s efforts seemingly irked the Russian state and may have been the impetus of an assassination attempt against him by Russia’s domestic security agency, known as the FSB, in 2020.

Navalny survived Novichok poisoning only because international pressure forced the regime to allow him to be airlifted to Germany for treatment. During his recovery, Navalny used the attack on him to further his political activism and convey the regime’s growing brutality. He famously interviewed his would-be assassin to uncover the details of the operation.

Navalny’s return to Russia under threat of arrest in February 2021 kicked off the largest street protests – in support of the opposition leader – since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

These protests inspired a new generation of activists. They also marked new levels of police brutality against pro-democracy demonstrators in the streets and in the years since.

Handing on the baton

Since 2022, I have led a research team that has interviewed Russians who left the country in opposition to the war in Ukraine. Many participated in the anti-war protests of late February and early March 2022 and point to Navalny’s return to Russia as the origin of their own political engagement and activism.

As one respondent argued: “My civic position began to emerge. All this was close to Navalny, his movement, and his encouragement to notice something, to pay attention … I began to go to rallies, and became much more interested and aware of politics.”

While Navalny languished in prison camps following his arrest on charges of violating parole during his recovery in Germany, many of these activists in exile continued to operate outside of Russia, our research partners have found.

They support Ukrainian refugees and war efforts and participate in tracking down children who have been taken to Russia. They are active in anti-war demonstrations and support each other in exile.

This new generation of Russian activists – whether those in exile advocating for change or those risking their well-being in Russia to support anti-war candidates – is Navalny’s legacy, and I believe it is powerful.

Before his death, Navalny spoke directly to the generation of activists he inspired: “Listen, I’ve got something very obvious to tell you. You’re not allowed to give up. If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong.”

Regina Smyth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.