It may seem Putin controls the Russian state personally. The reality is more dangerous. By Yana Gorokhovskaia

By Dilip -
Alexei Navalny, a well-known critic of the Kremlin, is currently receiving treatment in Germany after becoming severely ill on a flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk. Staff members travelling with him claim he was poisoned, possibly as a result of drinking tea at the airport lounge before takeoff. Although Navalny is not Russia’s only pro-democracy activist, he is a uniquely important oppositional force. His suspected poisoning, which simultaneously stunned observers and fulfilled long-held fears, sheds light on a system too often portrayed as a centralised monolith under Vladimir Putin’s personal control. The reality is more complicated – and much more dangerous.
Navalny is equal parts activist, investigative journalist and politician. His Anti-Corruption Foundation has produced dozens of reports detailing the extensive property holdings of Russia’s political elite, which have been viewed millions of times on YouTube and drawn tens of thousands of people to the streets across the country in protest. He has also overseen a number of projects that help to empower ordinary Russians vis-a-vis the political system. The most recent is the “smart voting” system, which strategically coordinates the votes of opposition-minded individuals in specific electoral districts in order to defeat regime-backed candidates. Early assessments of the platform suggest it worked well in the 2019 regional elections. 

In addition to these projects, Navalny has run western-style electoral campaigns relying on crowdfunding and armies of enthusiastic volunteers. In 2013, he came in second in Moscow’s first mayoral election in a decade. In 2018, he was barred from the presidential election for dubious reasons, despite having opened fully staffed campaign offices in every one of Russia’s regions. Navalny’s long and very public career as a Kremlin critic has led some to wonder: how can he do what he does and still be alive? He was apparently asked about this very issue by activists in Siberia before he fell ill....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/25/alexei-navalny-putin-russian-activist-russia
Alexei Navalny, Russian opposition figure, unconscious in hospital
Simon Tisdall: Putin, a criminal and incompetent president, is an enemy of his own people
Book Review: Inside the Stalin Archives, by Johnathan Brent (2009) // Books from "Annals of Communism Series", Yale University Press
Review essay - What’s Left? Sheila Fitzpatrick reviews 5 new books on the Russian Revolution
Book review: Midnight in the Century by Victor Serge – life in the Stalinist Soviet Union // Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge – review
Book review: - The Conscience of a Revolutionary
Alec Luhn - Gulag grave hunter unearths uncomfortable truths in Russia
100 years of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution March 8 (February 23), International Women's Day
Anil Nauriya - Indian Struggles in 1917 : On the eve of the Russian Revolution
State memory: 1917 and Russian memory politics. By MANFRED SAPPER and VOLKER WEICHSEL
The legacies of 1917 Orlando Figes & Daniel Gascon
Madhavan Palat: Utopia and Dystopia in Revolutionary Russia
The Bolshevik Heritage. By Dilip Simeon
Alexander Rabinowitch: The Bolsheviks Come to Power in Petrograd: Centennial Reflections
Marcel van der Linden: Why Leninism and Bolshevism Are Not the Same
Jairus Banaji: A Hundred Years After October Revolution, Rethinking the Origins of Stalinism
The Soviet Retreat From the Emancipative Ideas of 1917. By Arup Banerji
Mar 8, 1917: February Revolution begins in Russia
Hari Sankar Vasudevan (1952 – 2020). A tribute by Madhavan K. Palat

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