Follow the link for a transcript of “Vladimir Kara-Murza on the Future of Russian Democracy.”
 

The Nemtsov Years

Kara-Murza grew up primed for a life of activism. His father, also Vladimir Kara-Murza, was a journalist during then-President Boris Yeltsin's brief preiod of democratic reforms. As a sixteen-year-old attending school in the Greater London borough of Harrow, the younger Kara-Murza similarly began working as a correspondent for a Moscow newspaper and other Russian media outlets.

His writing put him into the orbit of Boris Nemtsov, a liberal member of Russia’s parliament. A brilliant physicist whose career took a meteoric rise into politics after organizing protests in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Nemtsov had become a leading voice for reform and democracy in Russia.

The young Kara-Murza was taken fully into the gale of Nemtsov’s whirlwind. In 2000, he became Nemstov’s parliamentary aide just as the politician became Deputy Speaker of the State Duma. It was an exciting, but risky job. In 2004, Kara-Murza and Nemtsov co-authored an article titled, “Appeal to the Putinist Majority,” which ran in Nezavisimaya Gazeta and bluntly called out Vladimir Putin’s creep toward autocracy. Six years later, they were back again with an even more direct online petition, “Putin Must Go.”

The Kremlin’s response was predictable. Nemtsov faced a series of arrests in 2007, 2010, and 2011, events that would foreshadow and mirror Kara-Murza’s future experiences. Then on February 27, 2015, he was shot from behind and killed on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow, not far from Red Square.

Nemtsov’s death was felt immediately in Russia and around the world.

“Nemtsov was one of the most principled, charismatic, engaging, smart and funny politicians whom I have ever met,” wrote Michael McFaul in the wake of the murder. “He had the skills and charisma to have become a successful president – a successful democratic president.”
 

The “Black Prince” of Russia’s Democracy Movement

Following his mentor’s assassination, Kara-Murza— a surname meaning “black prince” in Tartar — immediately began organizing to try and bring justice for Nemtsov. Utilizing contacts in Washington D.C., he and former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov petitioned lawmakers to add individuals connected to Nemtsov’s vilification in the Russian media to be added to the Magnitsky List, a piece of sanctions and trade legislation Kara-Murza had actively supported and testified before Congress in favor of in 2012.

Then in April of 2015, mere months after Nemtsov’s death, Kara-Murza abruptly took ill following a lunch in Moscow. The resulting illness and organ failure that followed required Kara-Murza to be placed in a medically-induced coma in order to preserve his life. Official evidence remains inconclusive, but it is widely believed that the attack was a state-sanctioned poisoning. In 2017, he was hospitalized for a second time for the ‘toxic influence of an unknown substance.'

The threat was not enough to stop Kara-Murza. A year after recovering from his first attack, Kara-Murza released Nemtsov, a documentary tribute to his late mentor. In 2018, the Freeman Spogli Institute hosted Kara-Murza for a special screening of the film. 

After several years without incident, Kara-Murza was arrested in April 2022 outside his home in Moscow on charges of “spreading deliberately false information,” following remarks he made denouncing Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Reporting by The Moscow Times claims rape prosecutions in Russia are typically alloted sentences of three to six years. The Russian Criminal Code dictates that cases of drug trafficking are punishable between three and ten years, while murder is punishable by six to fifteen years. Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years.

“Our sentences are intentionally so absurd,” he told the audience at the Wesson Lecture. “The signal [to other Russians] is if you say what these people are saying, this is going to happen to you. It is understood. And not everybody is prepared to do that.”

But Kara-Murza was clear that public silence does not necessarily equate to support for Putin.

“Are there Russians who support Putin in his war? Yes, of course there are. And I'm ashamed of that. But are there also people who are against the Putin regime and against the war? Yes, and very many of them.”

He continued, “Do not take the lying facade of Putin's propaganda for reality. There are millions of people inside of Russia who are against this war, who are against this regime. Not many people are willing to go to prison for expressing those views; I think that will be true of any society. But there are many people who are allies of the free world inside of Russia.”

Going Back and Moving Forward

With all of this history in mind, Michael McFaul had a very simple question for Kara-Murza: “Why did you go back?”

Kara-Murza’s response was equally simple: “Throughout the years he’s been in power, Putin has ruled by fear,” Kara-Murza explained. “And in an atmosphere like this, I think it is incumbent on politicians and opposition leaders to show that we should not be afraid. Because at the end of the day, it's up to each of us as individuals to choose to be afraid or choose not to be afraid.”

Looking at the trajectory of Russia through a historian’s eyes, Kara-Murza also sees where choices were made — both by Russia and the West — which helped set it on the path that allowed Putin to consolidate the amount of power he now has.

“There is a maxim that has been proven across different areas, continents, and different historical circumstances by countries that have successfully transitioned from dictatorship to democracy,” explained Kara-Murza. “When evil is not publicly reckoned with, publicly accounted for, and publicly condemned, it will return.”

In Kara-Murza’s assessment, these crucial elements of transparency and accountability were lacking in the tumultuous years of 1990s-era Russia.

“The window of opportunity was short. But it was there. And there were people who understood the importance of seizing that window. But the inertia of the post-Soviet bureaucracy proved stronger than urgency to turn the page on the totalitarian past.”

But Kara-Murza also believes the West holds responsibility in Russia’s failure to reform and thrive.

“The most powerful incentive for successful democratic and market reforms in so many countries of the former Warsaw Pact wasn’t about security guarantees or economic benefits; it was about the reaffirmation of their full-fledged citizenship in a civilized world, the promise of returning to the family of civilized nations. Russia never received that promise. Western democracies were unable or unwilling to fully embrace and welcome that nascent democratic Russia into its ranks.”

And the West is now living with the consequences of its failure to act then, says Kara-Murza. Without mincing words, he cautioned against growing sentiment to appease Putin in the name of trying to bring an end to aggression in Ukraine or stability in Europe.

“I hope the people who are calling for normalizing relations with Putin realize that they are calling for normalizing relations with a murderer. Because the regime we have in Russia today is not just a corrupt regime. It's not just an authoritarian regime. It's not just a repressive regime. It is actually a regime of murder, as led by a murderer in the literal sense of this word. Someone who is responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths in Ukraine, Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and someone who gives specific orders to personally assassinate his political opponents, like Boris Nemtsov and Alexei Navalny.”

The Next Window of Opportunity

But for Kara-Murza, history is about the present and future, not the past. In a global order beset with increasing uncertainty and democratic backsliding, Kara-Murza says preparations for Russia’s next opportunity for democratic breakthrough must begin now.

“There will be another chance for change in Russia,” he told the audience. “And judging from our past, it will come just as suddenly, swiftly, and unexpectedly as it did every time before. No one saw it coming then. And this is likely the way it will be next time. So we must not repeat our past mistakes. We must be ready.”

Ensuring democratic success in Russia is not just an altruistic project for the benefit of Russians, says Kara-Murza, but an essential step for long-term peace in Ukraine, Europe, and beyond.

“I'm fundamentally convinced that the only way we will ever have lasting peace, stability, and security on the European continent is with a democratic, successful, and peaceful Russia. That is the goal, and that's the goal we should be working towards.”

And while the road forward may be long and uncertain, Kara-Murza has hope and confidence it can be navigated with more certainty than it was in prior decades. Drawing on his own experiences of the last months, he concluded:

“What made the August prisoner exchange so historic was that these Western governments insisted it include not only their own citizens held hostage by the Putin regime, but also Russian political prisoners. They didn’t have to advocate for us. But they did. And to me, this is an amazingly strong signal of solidarity to all of the Russian people who are against this regime and against the war. It made clear that the free world understands that the real criminals are those people in the Kremlin, not those of us who were in prison for opposing them.”

Concluding, he said, “This miracle happened because of all of you. And that is the most powerful message we can send.” 

The full recording of Vladimir Kara-Murza’s Wesson Lecture, including his Q&A with the audience, is available below and on our YouTube channel.

The Wesson Lectureship was established at Stanford by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in 1989. It provides support for a public address at the university by a prominent scholar or practicing professional in the field of international relations. The series is made possible by a gift from the late Robert G. Wesson, a scholar of international affairs, prolific author, and senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Previous Wesson Lecturers have included such distinguished speakers as McGeorge Bundy, Willi DeClerq, Condoleezza Rice, Mikhail Gorbachev, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and Mary Robinson.