It is wrong to glamorize a political hustler with five criminal cases against him, says the National Bolshevik leader – who claims street cred on account of having done real time.
You Guys Need to Go and See a Shrink!
Eduard Limonov on why Navalny became a hero of the bourgeoisie.
I pay a lot of attention to Navalny. I do.
In so far as this Navalny phenomenon appears as a hitherto unknown symptom of our time.
The hysterical affection of the Moscow intelligentsia for this man is mysterious and has no rational roots: all causes of affection are irrational.
Well, yes, I do have personal reasons for treating Navalny negatively.
How is possible for me to be nice to him when I’ve been given time and done it? After doing only one night behind bars, Navalny was magically released from gaol the following morning.
In 2011, I said that I would be a candidate for the Russian presidential elections in March 2012.
What happened next was that the annex of the Hotel Ismailovo, where, on the initiative of a group of a people a meeting was to have taken place as regards nominating me as a candidate, was surrounded by the police, who allowed nobody to enter the room.
I still held a meeting there on the hotel car park. As was expected, more than five hundred people came with their passports; they registered themselves in a bus, and the meeting took place.
The Central Election Commission did not register me as a candidate.
In order to have Navalny registered as a candidate for the post of Moscow Mayor, municipal deputies from the “United Russia” party, about which Navalny has spared few expletives over all these years, chipped in and provided him with 55 votes out of the 110 votes needed.
He was registered, and now he’s conducting his election campaign as though nothing had happened.
This is a man who has been branded with five criminal cases for fraud and embezzlement – five! And you have the nerve to say that all five of them were just dreamed up by the Investigative Committee? So as to suck at a finger you need to have at least a finger.
However, for some years now this man has been shamelessly engaged in private investigation – in investigation into corruption. And now he is presenting himself to Muscovites as a candidate for the post of their mayor.
In their yearning for a hero, the Moscow bourgeoisie does not want to notice the thickness of the crust of dirt that is stuck to this character.
After all these years, I should really like them to find their hero.
Do you remember how they rejoiced in ecstasy over the “musician Yuri” {Translator’s note: Soviet/Russian poet, rock musician, protester, critic of Putin}; all right then: Shevchuk – and how they all flocked around him for a whole season? By the way, the musician Yuri turned down the role that they were about to foist on him.
They so much wanted their very own hero, did the bourgeoisie! They have been waiting so passionately that they have accepted the first comer, and quite wrongly; for in a sense he is totally the opposite of the hero that they need.
They have taken on board an energetic rogue and a swindler.
But that’s just not possible!
No matter who promoted him and for whatever purposes, this is just not on, because this character is so unsuited to the role that he has been playing with pleasure.
In fact, they have taken on a petty thief, a businessman, and he has been almost elevated to the rank of saviour of the Fatherland.
His history is clear. He comes from an adept and skilled family of New Russians, in which everyone is a Jack of All Trades. Dad retired after serving 25 years in the army. (He must have been a good administrator in the Army.) The family comes from one of the richest districts of the Moscow region, Odintsovo.
The family did some buying and selling, got into any swindles that were in the offing, wove and plaited willow cane (Reminds you of Ilf and Petrov’s “Barnyard” office!) {Translator’s note: The “Barnyard” office appears in the novel “The Golden Calf” by I. Ilf and Petrov (1931), where a dummy firm is organized for fraudulent transactions. “Barnyard” has become a byword for the one-day firms and similar organizations established for a criminal purposes}, gets into any money making operations that are in the offing – from a subcontract with Russian Mail for delivering for the firm “Yves Rocher”, to Cypriot offshore companies. There are such families and such families continue to take pride in themselves operations.
The law tolerates them as long as they keep out of gaol.
However, a politician has no moral right to have such shady scams in his CV: he ought not to have them.
All the values in society have been violated because of the hysteria that surrounds Navalny.
And the values of democracy take priority. Democracy means equality of opportunity. But what kind of equality is there? None. 32 candidates got no help from the members of “United Russia”, but Navalny and Mitrokhin did. And Gudkov did as well in the Moscow suburbs.
When chance smiled on Navalny, the newly elected governor Belykh took him on board. Navalny happily clung on to to the source of his wealth. And arising out of this period in his life, we have at least three criminal cases: one involving “Kirovles”, another a distillery and the total disappearance of millions from the “Union of Right Forces”.
And you support him?
Well, you guys need to see a shrink!
