* Alexei Navalny and Adam Michnik - Opposing Forces: Plotting the New Russia (Egret Press, 2017) – ePub

ALEXEI NAVALNY (1976–2024), Russian opposition leader and anticorruption crusader, and ADAM MICHNIK (b. 1946), Polish thinker and seasoned activist, take a walk in Red Square, Moscow, to talk about Poland's struggle for independence from the USSR, the collapse of the Soviet empire, and nothing less than the future of Russia.

From dissidents to solidarity, Michnik talks animatedly about battling the "salami" tactics of the old Polish communist regime. Step by step, beneath the Kremlin walls, Navalny is looking for parallels. How did a small group of opposition-minded Poles come to form a ten-million-strong political movement? "Our strength lay in our solidarity," says Michnik. Navalny knows what he's up against: "Putin's main weapon is his ability to bribe the population." But he also knows his fellow countrymen, for there is "no one in the country who approves of palace-buying officials." They pass by Lenin's tomb many times, searching for a way forward. When it's much easier to talk revolution than to actually make it happen, how do you breach the walls of the Kremlin?

Here was a clarion call. The blueprint for a new Russia.

On February 16, 2024, Alexei Navalny was murdered in prison in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. He was 47 years old. How long will the West continue to remain silent?


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