‘The world doesn’t know how to stand up to evil’

The case against unrealistic faith in the ‘beautiful Russia of the future’

Alexey Navalny’s death in an Arctic Russian prison has left a lot of Russians feeling utterly powerless. Even Navalny’s own exhortations to never give up now feel like cold comfort to many of his mourners. Journalist Shura Burtin has taken an even more pessimistic view: he believes that in Russia’s current situation, having a hopeful vision of the future is actively harmful. Burtin outlined his reasoning in an essay for Meduza, which we’ve translated into English. It’s been lightly edited for clarity.

Only in the wake of Navalny’s murder has it become clear how much we were living in hope of a “normal” future. We badly wanted to believe that everything happening around us was some kind of temporary mistake. Despite the voice of reason in our heads, we had a hazy image of this better future in our minds — and it was guiding our behavior. Navalny staked his life on this future and, by doing so, made it feel tangible to us. Now Putin has bluntly shown us that this future doesn’t exist.

I believe it’s important for us not to sink back into that illusion. In reality, the evil we’re facing is more horrific than we’re able to comprehend. Leaving flowers and posting photos of Yulia Navalnaya won’t make this future appear; all it will do is comfort us.

In the video where Navalny tells Russians not to give up, he speaks of the strength we supposedly have. I’m not so sure. Maybe he felt his own strength and was projecting it onto the rest of us. I think it’s important that we feel our weakness. To see clearly that we don’t have a future and that we’re very weak. To see how divided we are and how little we can do to help each other.

Hoping for anything remotely normal to happen with Russia in the foreseeable future is dangerous. We’re dealing with a very bad, malignant process that isn’t going to end anytime soon. Because Russia is an enormous country with a huge amount of power.

I think this murder was a message to the West. But I think Russia heard the message as well. For Russia, it sounded like this: “Traitors will be killed.” Putin had said this before, but the traitors in those cases were people who had betrayed his personal gang. This time, he means traitors to the motherland. And this isn’t some kind of order. It works differently: everyone at all levels has gotten the message that the guardrails have come off. Only three years passed between Kirov’s assassination and the Great Purge.

At a rally in Tbilisi over Navalny’s murder, some young women started chanting, “We’re not afraid!” I wanted to tell them, “You should be.” We’re locked in a cell with a psychopath, and we should be scared of him. We need to be clear-eyed about the fact that things are going to turn out badly, and not just in Russia. The war is most likely going to escalate. Strangely enough, when I heard about the murder, my immediate thought was that they’re going to capture Georgia — simply because they can’t stop. I suddenly realized that the Lithuanians, the Latvians, and the Georgians, who had panicked about the threat that Russia posed, had seen everything clearly, and I hadn’t. Because we were looking at it subjectively, from within ourselves, while they were seeing it objectively, from the outside.

Essentially, Putin is only worried right now about squabbles with the imaginary West. It’s clear that he also hated and feared Navalny, but he’s working out his issues with the West in his own head, within his delusions. He’s feeling great right now — everything is working out at the front. And he’s telling the West, “Hey, you assholes, you think there’s some other Russia, some Navalny? You thought you’d get to negotiate with him afterward? No, it’s me you’re going to talk to, you got that?” He needs them to cave in and respect him, and he’s going to raise the stakes and escalate the situation. There’s nobody to stop him. We don’t have the strength for it, and in reality, we never did. But the world doesn’t know how to stand up to evil, either. Putin’s madness is just one of its manifestations; war is creeping up from all directions, and we could easily be swallowed up by it.

Most likely, we’ll all have to save ourselves individually. The opposition is divided and powerless. Even in freedom, in exile, its members don’t try to do anything together; the opposition doesn’t try to defend the interests of the millions of Russians who have fled. And I can’t imagine a way to change this.

Right now, hope for the future does more harm than good. There’s no point in fooling ourselves: there are very few of us, and we’re very, very weak. The only thing we have is the present, and we’re in the middle of it. We need to realize that our situation is lousy and that we don’t know what to do.

When I heard about Navalny, I wanted to call everybody. Right now, that’s the only thing in my mind: to be closer to each other. To make a deliberate effort to be closer, to pay more attention to each other. To carefully consider what the person next to you might need. I think that now is the time to switch into emergency mode and to try acting differently. We need to consciously try to unite people around anything possible — even if it’s just cooking dinner together. It’s important not to close ourselves off, to be open to suggestions, and to trust each other.

When Russia started bombing Kharkiv, the cashiers in the few remaining supermarkets immediately became more attentive and polite, because they could feel that these people had just been standing in lines that could have been hit. That’s how we need to be. It seems to me that Navalny’s death is a sign not that we need to rush into battle (we’ll chicken out anyway) but that we’ve failed to do something important all along, and that’s why we’ve ended up so weak. Like we always do.

I don’t believe in pulling showy stunts during fascist elections, but it’s very important right now to support the initiatives of good people, even if they have a different perspective. We ought to impose a moratorium on bickering among the opposition — that’s just foolish right now. We’re very bad at supporting one another, not just in politics but in general. If we don’t want to die foolishly, then we need to learn. It’s clear that we’re used to living in normal life, where society doesn’t let you just disappear. In my opinion, we need to understand that the situation has changed.

I’m afraid that within a few years, it will become dangerous for the majority of my friends, who aren’t doing anything subversive, to stay in Russia. When Navalny was killed, my friend and colleague Andrey wrote a desperate post urging everyone who could to flee. The last line was this: “I still couldn’t bring myself to want to.” My dear Andrey, few people want to, but you’ll find it’s easy to want to as soon as you or your loved ones are in danger. It’s not about everyone leaving prematurely but about not being stupid — not letting the monsters devour even more people. Wanting to leave isn’t the issue — the issue is how to live abroad. This is very difficult for a lot of people; they need help. We need to think seriously about this while we still have time.

Our infrastructure isn’t great, but at least we have some. We ought to do more to actively help the organizations that are doing something. It doesn’t matter whom — we just need to be more actively involved in shared endeavors. And the organizations should try not to isolate themselves. The stronger our infrastructure gets, the more chances we’ll have. It’s good that people like Alexey Navalny and Yulia Navalnaya try to unite us, but in reality, relying on leaders to do this is harmful — it’s self-deception. Infrastructure is the only thing that works.

We need to write to political prisoners while we can. It’s important to restore ties with Ukrainians. It’s hard, but we need to try, to write, to call, to help. After the murder, a colleague from Kyiv whom I barely knew called me to offer his condolences, even though I didn’t know Navalny personally, of course. He said there’s a lot of stupid hatred in Kyiv, but that it’s important for him to say that he stands with us. And I’m terribly grateful to him.

It’s important to me not to forget the horror that struck me when I first learned about the murder. I think that was the moment when I saw everything for what it was.

Essay by Shura Burtin. Translation by Sam Breazeale.