Rossen Djagalov is a LeftEast editor. There is little new in the debate taking place within the Russian left and around it whether to participate in the protests called by Navalny and his team. One has been hearing a version of it since last August on Belarusian material. A few years earlier, the issue was […]
Liza Smirnova is a journalist and left-wing activist In the events of January we have seen a new type of street protest in Russia. Now it is not only the Muscovite middle class, as in the previous wave of mobilization from 2011-2013. This new wave of protests has covered the provinces as well. Actions proceeded […]
Georgiy Komarov, member of the executive committeeof Marxist Union (Russia) The Russian Left should definitely try to adapt to new reality and not to stay aside from the protest. However, the devil is in the details. Alas, the rallies of January 23 were nowhere near a mass revolutionary movement. The rallies boast only tens of […]
Note from LeftEast editors: The article is complemented with the reproductions of the paintings of Rita Süveges. In her works, she inquires the possibilities of the representation of the capitalocene and the nature transformed by capital and labor. She is a member of xtro realm, an artist group, which is dealing with new-realist and ecological […]
Ilya Budraitskis, Moscow-based historian, political writer, and co-author of the Political Diary podcast Alexei Navalny’s arrest at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on January 17, minutes after his return to Russia, was not only the expected, but also the only possible reaction of the Russian authorities. At the beginning of this year, after the summer Constitutional amendments opened […]
Kirill Medvedev, activist of the Russian Socialist Movement, musician from the Arkady Kots Band, editor of Zanovo-media With his return, Navalny has taken an important step towards a new understanding of politics in Russia and a new round of politicization. Previously, there had been a fairly clear “division of labor” in protest: activists take risks motivated […]
Sean Guillory provides critical commentary on Russia’s past and present on his blog, Sean’s Russia Blog (https://srbpodcast.org/) No one is surprised, least of all Navalny himself, that the Kremlin finally decided to jail him (give him “real time,” in the Russian parlance). Killing him didn’t work, so physically removing him by other means was the […]
Ilya Matveev, a researcher and lecturer in political economy based in St. Petersburg and co-author of the Political Diary podcast At first, Navalny’s decision to return to Russia was bewildering. What did he expect to happen? The state had clearly decided to put him behind bars, disregarding international pressure (in any case, after the highly […]
Katya Kazbek, writer & translator, editor-in-chief of Supamodu.com Alexei Navalny is an indispensable investigative journalist, who has done a lot of fascinating and useful work to uncover corruption in business and personal lives of those who are connected to Vladimir Putin’s government. However, I find the centering of him as the opposition leader to be unnecessary […]
Note from LeftEast editors: This interview was originally published in Mérce, a left-wing news site in Hungary. It was conducted via e-mail and published on the occasion of Merkel’s departure from power, and to provide context for Hungary’s and Poland’s initial veto on the EU COVID19 recovery package. NL: For many Hungarians Germany is a […]