Alexei Navalny was allowed one book in his Siberian prison. He chose Fear No Evil by former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who joins us for an important conversation today to speak about his correspondence with Navalny and his own experience in a Siberian forced labor camp. Why did Navalny return to Moscow, and to certain arrest? What were his aims? What is it like to be held in what Sharansky refers to as his “alma mater” — solitary confinement? And given Navalny’s murder, has Putin’s regime etched another notch in its belt, or is it still doomed to fail, as Sharansky predicted long ago? We talk Putin, Hamas, liberalism and neo-Marxism with one of the greats.
Natan Sharansky is a former Soviet refusnik, an Israeli politician, author and human rights activist. In 1978, Sharansky was convicted of treason and spying on behalf of the United States, and was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment in a Siberian forced labor camp. Sharansky served as Minister of Industry and Trade from June 1996-1999. He served as Minister of the Interior from July 1999 until his resignation in July 2000 and as Minister of Housing and Construction and Deputy Prime Minister from March 2001 until February 2003. In February 2003, Natan Sharansky was appointed Minister without Portfolio, responsible for Jerusalem, social and Diaspora affairs. In November 2006 Natan Sharansky resigned from the Knesset and assumed the position of Chairman of the then newly-established Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. In June 2009, he was elected and sworn in as Chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel, a post he still holds. Natan Sharansky is the author of four books: Fear No Evil (1988), The Case for Democracy (2004), Defending Identity (2008), and Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People (2020).