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I have been thinking about what comes after this current period of political fragmentation and infighting. And I wonder if the poisoning of Alexei Navalny in Siberia is of more historical importance than is currently being recognised.
Peter Pomeranzev argued in 2015 that the kind of postmodern political theatre that was emerging in Putin’s Russia was turning up in the West. In Russia an effective and unified opposition to Putin was being split into competing fragments as the Kremlin used media to
create a kind of fake and managed opposition which pushed into political extremes and internecine battles. Making them unpalatable to the general public and thus ineffective. Central to the telling of this story was the Kremlin master of spin Vladislav Surkov. Surkov’s role is
sometimes overestimated in the development of Putinism, and he is now on the outer in the Kremlin. However he seemed to grasp that media can be used to speed up the process already at play in contemporary culture of fragmentation and the development of tribes and story-worlds
which undermine the potential of what Benjamin Disraeli discovered as key to modern politics - an active and effective opposition. This ran in contrary to the belief of the early days of the internet, that the net would undermine authoritarian regimes. Surkohov and
others inside and outside of Russia knew that the opposite was true. It was a fantastic environment for disinformation to flow, multiply and metastasize. This was possibly even more true of the West, with its culture wars, identity battles, and disillusionment with the
institutions of liberal democracy. Navalny and the Russian opposition needed to find a way of unifying a fragmented opposition. At first he tried to ‘out nationalist’ Putinism, producing some xenophobic videos about immigrants. However, Navalny became the star of the Russian
opposition when he reinvented himself as an anti-Corruption campaigner. Corruption is rife, not just in Russia but globally. But anti-corruption doesn’t have the hip cut through and empathic triggers of identity politics. The Panama Papers were shocking, yet failed to gain much
resonance with the public because they lacked the all important video imagery that ensures virality in the digital sphere. Yet Nalvany hit upon gold. What if you linked hip imagery to corruption? He began producing stylised anti-corruption YouTube videos. Exposing the excesses
of Oligarchs and elites, complete with drone shots of their ill gained and ostentatious mansions and yachts. Here is his video exposing the wealth of Russian politician Dmitry Medvedev. It has 36 million views on YouTube alone.
Whereas the populist revolt in the West in both its left and right forms, has focussed more on culture war issues. Navalny discovered a more unifying form of populism based purely around anti-corruption. Something which could unite hipsters in St Petersburg &
farmers in Russia’s Far East. A resentment of financial and material self aggrandisement captured on video was hugely powerful. It gave the average person an insight to the ways in which power really worked. He was able to organise protests across the breadth of the vast nation.
This is not just happening in Russia, outside of the West through video, anti-corruption campaigners have discovered a way of gathering political opposition into a unified whole. The revelation that Navalny was poisoned with a high grade substance used only by
GRU Army intelligence means that, rather than him getting on the wrong side of a local oligarch, this hit was likely ordered by powerful forces at high levels of govt. Indicating that the form of opposition he has created is now deemed an existential threat by the Kremlin.
Thus I wonder when the culture wars raging in the West burn out and the endless fragmentation of battles over identity push us into a cultural exhaustion. Will the next big movement be a push against the material excess and financial corruption that exists at the highest levels?
Will a movement emerge, different to what see now, which reversed polarisation and creates a new kind of unifying dynamic. The economic effects of the pandemic, and a growing sense amongst emerging generations that they cannot get ahead will only lay more ground for such a
movement. Not so much a socialist or communist driven movement resenting wealth, but rather one focussed on exposing the ill gotten gains, and financial corruption of detached elites. I am speculating and could be spectacularly wrong. But maybe Russia is ahead of us again.
