Patriot

I just finished reading Alexei Navalny’s memoir, PATRIOT. I waited for months and months to get this from the library but it was well worth the wait. I will also confess that this is not an easy book. It is not that it is difficult to read, it is that it is about a very difficult if not horrifying story of a very brave man.

The other reason it is a difficult read is because there are many things in this book that feel like a foreshadowing of what is happening right now in our own country.

If you are unfamiliar with Alexei Navalny let me share that he was a Russian opposition leader, a politician, an anti-corruption campaigner and many times a political prisoner. Much of this book is taken from his prison diaries.

But Alexei Navalny was also a son, a brother, a husband, a father and a friend. He was always proud to be a Russian and he deeply loved his country. He gave his life to fighting the corruption he saw that caused the Russian people to suffer while benefitting the powerful oligarchs.

Vladimir Putin considered him so dangerous to his regime that he tried to poison him, imprisoned him multiple times and is believed by many, to have finally ordered him to be killed. Navalny died in 2024.

Navalny’s memoir takes the reader through the story of his life and the story of Russian history, especially Putin’s ascension into power.

It was this passage that struck me so deeply and made me relate to (and fear) what is happening in our own country right now:

“ If you were to ask me whether I hate Vladimir Putin, my answer would be, yes, I hate him, but not because he tried to kill me or put my brother in prison. I hate Putin because he has stolen the last twenty years from Russia. These could have been incredible years, the sort of period that we’ve never had in our history. We had no enemies. We had peace on all our borders. The price of oil, gas and our other natural resources was incredibly high. We earned huge amounts from our exports. Putin could have used these years to turn Russia into a prosperous country. All of us could have lived better.

Instead, twenty million people live below the poverty line. Part of the money Putin and his cronies simply stole; part of it was squandered. They did nothing good for our country, and that is their worst crime against our children and the country’s future. I’m afraid that we’ll never again have such a well-fed, peaceful and happy period, and I cannot but feel regret for this and hatred for those who stole from us the possibility of enjoying it.”

I feel that Donald Trump and his cronies are stealing America from us. Through lies, corruption and breaking the law, America is being demolished. And as Navalny writes about his beloved Russia, this did not have to happen. Our country was in a very good position when Trump began his second term and if he loved America he could have made it even better. Instead, he set out to destroy it.

Yes, there are some who will stand with Donald Trump and lie to us about how great things are. They are not. There is more greed and graft and corruption than has ever been experienced in our country. And yet, our Republicans in Congress sit mute and send out letters and emails to their constituents proclaiming what a great job Trump is doing and how everything in our country is just terrific.

You do not have to look very far to know that things are far from terrific. Masked ICE agents violently pull people off the street. Immigrants who are in our country legally are shipped off to foreign concentration camps. Other countries offer bribes that make our President drool with delight.

This is not America. This is not the America that I grew up in nor is it the America I want to die in.

I do not have the courage of an Alexei Navalny. I cannot imagine enduring the suffering he endured while imprisoned and before. I am grateful for people who have his courage and resolve. We have a few in our country but we need more.

We each need to do whatever we can. Maybe it is just protesting in a blog. Maybe it is trying to help a family member or a friend see the destructive forces at work around us right now. Maybe it is calling our representatives in Congress and letting them know that we know a lie when we hear it. Maybe it is marching in the streets or standing in the rotunda of the Capitol and praying. We each can do something, even if it is just a tiny, tiny something. Maybe it is simply trying to love and speak up for those who we are being told they are unloveable—the immigrants, the poor, the disabled, the prisoners, trans people.

Reading Patriot is not an easy task. It will break your heart over and over. It will make you shudder at the cruelty. And yet, there is a lot to learn, a lot to ponder. I read it because I felt I needed to understand more and that Alexei Navalny deserved having his voice live on.