Author: Barbara

If you know my work at all, you know I put a premium on being leadership literate – on being familiar with the classics of the leadership literature. As a member of the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School, I developed a course titled “Leadership Literacy.” And a few years after that I edited a book based on the course – an edited collection of the great leadership literature titled, Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence.

Working with the great leadership literature yielded two surprises. The first was that there IS such a literature! Who knew?! For all the many thousands of courses on leadership and management that have been developed over the last thirty, forty years, nearly none make serious, rigorous use of what I consider the core of leadership learning – the great books.

The second surprise is that this work has real world, practical, implications. To be sure, “Leadership Literacy” and Leadership Essential Selections are, unapologetically, in the tradition of the liberal arts. They are not of obvious, immediate use, nor are they intended to be. This is not, however, to say that they are unimportant – not by a long shot. One might even argue that at a moment such as this one, when the liberal arts – subjects such history, literature, and philosophy – are under attack for not being adequately practical, anyone with any interest in the world of ideas ought to protect with special zealousness any effort in which the world of ideas is the coin of the realm.

All this came recently to mind when I read a short piece in the New York Times by Harvy Fierstein. Fierstein, an actor and playwright long familiar in the theater, has a way with words and this time, for the first time, he flat out, without question was aiming to lead. He was aiming to stoke the flame of fury in order to get others to do something, as opposed to nothing.

And so he did. There is no question that in the space of one month Fierstein’s article, titled “Russia’s Anti-Gay Crackdown,” has galvanized the gay community and communities more generally and globally into taking a stance against recent Russian laws that are patently homophobic. Since Fierstein’s piece appeared, on July 22nd, the conversation about the situation has been nearly non-stop – the issue being what if anything to do about the 2014 Winter Olympics, which are scheduled to begin in February, in Russia.

Only time will tell if Fierstein’s screed will endure, if it will ever be considered a classic of the leadership literature. At a minimum though, it gives evidence yet again that just the right words at just the right time can be, of themselves, agents of change. Thanks in good part to this single article the issue will not now go away. The 2014 Winter Olympics have already been branded by Fierstein’s pen – which took on not only Putin but the rest of us as well, insisting that we stand up and be counted.

I close by quoting Fierstein directly:

“Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, has declared war on homosexuals. So far, the world has mostly been silent.… Mr. Putin’s campaign against lesbian, gay and bisexual people is one of distraction, a strategy of demonizing a minority for political gain taken straight from the Nazi playbook. Can we allow this war against human rights to go unanswered?…With Russia about to hold the Winter Games in Sochi, the country is open to pressure. American and world leaders must speak out against Mr. Putin’s attacks and the violence they foster. The Olympic Committee must demand the retraction of these laws under the threat of boycott…There is a price for tolerating intolerance.”

For several years I have argued that, in general, leaders are getting weaker and followers stronger. I continue to make the case for two main reasons. First, I am persuaded that to understand the way the world works in the second decade of the 21st century, it is as important to account for followers as leaders. Leaders have less power, authority, and influence than they did before, and while followers as I define them have no authority, they do have power and influence – which has tended in recent years to accrue. This applies across the board, to the private and nonprofit sectors as well as to the public one, and to China and Brazil as to the United States.

The second reason I continue to make my case is because in my view the leadership industry is misguided – misguided to the degree it is leader-centric, as opposed to holistic. Put directly, the days in which focusing solely or even primarily on the leader are dead and gone. Instead, at this moment in history change needs to be seen as being inclusive, not exclusive. Change is in consequence of the leader, and the followers, and the context within which leaders and followers operate.

By and large I have made my case at the national level – I talk about, write about, what is transpiring within a particular nation state. But it is impossible to watch the events of the last week – I refer particularly to the events in Egypt – without being struck, yet again, by how dated is the old leadership model not only at the national level, but at the international level as well. Here is the paradox. Egypt’s leaders, the Egyptian military, have been powerless to control events within their own country, except, literally, at gunpoint. At the same time American leaders – the president, the secretaries of state and defense, and several senators – have been powerless to control Egypt’s leaders, the self same Egyptian military. In other words no one is able to lead, in any conventional sense of this word, anyone else.

This is the stuff of a book not a blog. But let me make three quick, additional points.

• The situation in Egypt is not singular. It is typical. American power has waned dramatically even in recent years, which means that the White House, the State Department, and even the Pentagon are generally unable to bend either individuals or institutions to their will. Russia’s president Putin has been unwilling to work with Washington on Syria, Iran, human rights, and Edward Snowden. China has refused to cooperate with Washington on a host of policy issues including trade, cyber-security, and intellectual property. Even Israel, arguably America’s staunchest (and most dependent) ally, chooses to go its own way, rejecting American blandishments to, for example, stop or at least slow the settlements.
• The American president is not only unable (easily) to lead leaders of other countries, he is unable completely to control what happens in the streets, people in other countries determined to take matters into their own hands. He is similarly unable to control small groups or cells, driven by their passions to go off on their own, outside the realm of formal authority, to conduct their own foreign policy – such as Al Quaeda. Finally he is unable to control individuals who are loners, individuals such as Edward Snowden, who single-handedly forced President Obama to change the conversation about privacy and national security.
• The American foreign policy establishment has been slow to understand how radical are the changes to which I here refer. It does understand that in 2013 the United States is “leader of the free world” in only the most limited sense. It does understand that in 2013 its still considerable military arsenal is usually useless. And it does understand that in 2013 the world is no longer uni-polar or even bi-polar – it is multi-polar. But what it seems to understand less well, much less well, is how important it is we deviate from leadership in foreign affairs as previously it was exercised. Leadership at the international level has little to do now either with power or authority. To the degree it can be exercised at all it is about influence – a different sort of skill set altogether.

The conventional wisdom is crime pays. The conventional wisdom is that in the wake of the nation’s most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression – a crisis brought on in large part by individual and institutional greed – nearly no one has been held personally or professionally responsible for what happened. Instead the rich got richer, the middle class dwindled, and the poor as usual got left behind.

I do not quarrel with this overarching assessment. The evidence confirms that what some allude to as “the filthy rich” broke away from the merely rich, that the middle class took a significant hit (it dwindled in size and income), and that the poor continue to struggle.

What I do however posit is that the picture is more complicated than what the conventional wisdom suggests. At least some of the high fliers are flying way, way less high than they did even a year ago. And slowly but certainly some stakeholders – especially the government and large, activist shareholders – are getting their pound of flesh. Hardly a day goes by without stories of one or another corporate executive having to pay the piper – if not necessarily in dollars, then in time and trouble, and in at least one other precious possession, reputation.

To make my point I provide two examples – both obvious as to be beyond dispute. But my overarching argument is far larger. It is that time will upend the conventional wisdom at least somewhat. Ten years from now we will be able to see in hindsight what we cannot easily see now – that a good number of corporate leaders were made to pay for their hubris and greed, if not, at least not necessarily, for crimes or misdemeanors.

First, the ever-newsworthy Jamie Dimon continues, well, to make news. For a long time he was seen as one of a handful of good guys – which is precisely why every time his company, JPMorgan Chase, is “in another pickle,” the press pounces. Here three recent headlines, the first two from the Huffington Post, the last from the New York Times:

• “JPMorgan Chase Nears Record Settlement Over Energy Market Manipulation Charges”
• “JP Morgan: We’re Being Investigated by DOJ Over Mortgages”
• “JP Morgan Reveals It Faces Criminal and Civil Inquiries”

An excerpt from the last of these articles, from an article written by Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess:

“…Once a darling in regulatory circles, JPMorgan has become a magnet for scrutiny in recent years, drawing attention from at least eight federal agencies, a state regulator and two European nations. The authorities are investigating the bank in connection with its financial crisis-era mortgage business and a $6 billion trading loss in London last year, among other issues. As the investigations drag on, the bank is racking up significant legal costs. To help cushion against potentially hefty payouts to the authorities, JPMorgan recorded a $678 million expense of additional litigation reserves in the second quarter, up from $323 million in the same period a year ago…..”

Second case in point is the previously reclusive, now pervasive wizard of Wall Street, head of SAC Capital Advisors, Steven A. Cohen. For years, most of us knew nearly nothing about Cohen except what was rumored – he was as brilliant as Buffet, as rich as Croesus, and as fabled for his collection of art as for his money. But, things change.. Now Mr. Cohen is a fixture of the financial pages; now his face is familiar to anyone who pays attention; and now his pursuit by the government is relentless. Here three recent headlines, the first two from the Wall Street Journal, the last from the New York Times.

• “SAC Hit With Criminal Case”
• “SAC Braces for Investor Exit”
• “Towering Fine for Naught, as the S.E.C. Tracks Cohen”

An excerpt from the last of these articles, from an article written by Andrew Ross Sorkin:

“… ‘We’re willing to pay $600 million because we have a business to run and don’t want this hanging over our heads with litigation that could last for years.’ That’s what Steven A. Cohen’s lawyer told a judge just four months ago to justify why Mr. Cohen had agreed to pay $616 million to… settle civil accusations that his firm was involved in insider trading without admitting or denying guilt…. But it didn’t work. The S. E. C., having been shamed by critics for making what seemed like a deferential deal, returned with a new civil action against Mr. Cohen individually on Friday, seeking to bar him from the industry.”

Neither Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Cohen will ever go hungry. In fact, no matter what happens, both men will be forever be fabulously wealthy – among the 1 % of the 1%. Still how you judge the quality of their lives depends on how you assess success. At a minimum, it can never be said of them they escaped from the mess they made unscathed.

Past Predictable:

Barack cancels his scheduled face-to-face with Vladimir. Couldn’t possibly privately sup with with a president who’s so publicly personally petty.

Future predictable:

No way in hell the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi will take place without political protest. At an absolute minimum, L.G.B.T. rights advocates will successfully lobby for some sort of silent demonstration, testimony to solidarity in sympathy with their cause.

No way in hell those Olympics in

Over the last 75 years, confidence in American institutions has waxed and waned. It was low during the 1930’s, during the years of the Great Depression, but after that things improved. The year 1965 was a high point, the great majority of the American people giving consistently positive evaluations of American institutions nearly across the board.

Since then, things have gone more or less steadily downhill. Our confidence in American institutions has continued to decline, even, or especially, during the last several decades. The numbers are grim, the long term trend being relentlessly down, with new lows recorded only recently for Americans’ confidence in schools, churches, banks and television news.

Media have been especially hard hit. Not only have old media had to contend with the decline in confidence, they have had to contend with new media, with on line media, which have threatened their predecessors to the point of near extinction.

All this came inevitably to mind yesterday, when the news came out that one of the most venerable of old media institutions, the Washington Post, was sold to one of the most original of new media moguls, Jeff Bezos. Of the media transitions concluded only recently – including the sale of the Boston Globe to John Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox – the sale of the Post was the most emblematic. Though Post stalwarts such as iconic journalist Bob Woodward put their best faces forward – saying how great it all was, that someone as perfectly wonderful as Bezos was now in a position to make the decisions – the fact of the matter is there was sadness that so great a paper as the Post had hemorrhaged so much cash and so much circulation it could not continue.

To most rules there is an exception – in this case is the New York Times. It is impossible to exaggerate each of the following: 1) how singularly superb remains the paper of record; 2) how singular sturdy remains the paper of record (it has stemmed the tide sweeping away other media family dynasties); and 3) how singularly nimble remains the paper of record (it has adapted to the changing times in spite of its own significant losses). It was, in fact, the New York Times Company that sold the Globe to Henry, having clearly concluded it should shed whatever was extraneous to concentrate on its core mission – a single publication to crush the competition.

For those of us old enough to remember a time when Americans were less cynical and not so jaded, it’s a relief that one of the greatest of all American institutions endures. The Times carries now as it did then “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” And it carries now, as it did not then, “All the News That’s Fit to Click.” The paper remains as it has for well over a century in the Ochs/Sulzberger family, which clearly considers the paper a national trust. Following industry trends, the Times’ weekday circulation has fallen. But, bucking industry trends, its website has emerged as America’s most successful. Each month it receives upwards of 30 million unique visitors – a feat in a media environment that is nothing if not hostile. And an exception in an institutional environment that is nothing if not depressing.

I eat meat. I use mousetraps. I swat mosquitoes. And I wear leather.

So sue me for being two-faced – but still I believe passionately in animal rights.

I bring this up for two reasons. First, a new film, “Blackfish,” and a recent column in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof titled “Can We See Our Hypocrisy to Animals?” both raise with fresh urgency the question of how “good and decent people” in the early 21st century can be oblivious to the unethical treatment of animals.

“Blackfish” is about the wretched effects on whales (specifically orcas) of being kept in captivity. Like the 2009 Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove,” about the indecent acquisition of dolphins for use in amusement parks, “Blackfish” questions whether keeping any of these mammals confined for our own amusement is morally defensible. Kristof raises the stakes higher by taking on the bigger issue, certainly numerically, of how we can stand by and do nothing while billions of animals are suffering in factory farms.

Kristof is correct to point out that on animal rights there has been some progress. Since Peter Singer’s seminal volume, “Animal Liberation,” published in 1975, attitudes have changed, which explains why in this country, and in Europe, and even in China are now significant animal rights movements.

This brings me to the second reason I raise this now. The juxtaposition of the film and the column make this a right time to remind readers that whatever the progress that has been made, the bulk of the work remains to be done. Moreover this is the kind of work that gets done not from the top down, but from the bottom up. Public pressure is key – which is why animal rights depend on us. Animal rights – progress toward recognizing that animals have rights – depends on our willingness to put our money where our mouths are. Literally.

In 1927 Time magazine started an annual tradition it called “Man of the Year.” More recently this was changed to “Person of the Year who, “for better or for worse has done the most to influence events of the year.”

As I write in early August, I cannot of course know who will do what between now and the end of 2013. But the editors of the magazine might be hard pressed to find anyone between now and then who has done more to “influence events of the year” than the man who came out of nowhere, Edward Snowden.

Until recently, Edward Snowden was never known by anyone for much of anything. He was not in any case, by any definition, a leader. He was entirely without power, without authority, and without influence. But by leaking U. S. intelligence data he has become, “for better or for worse,” a person of great influence, a person who has changed the conversation at home and abroad. Leaders as conventionally defined – including the president of the United States, members of Congress, heads of various agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency – have had no choice to bend to the man from nowhere, to change course in response to what he did.

When I say that Snowden changed the conversation I do not exaggerate. To be sure, the tension between our privacy interests and our security interests goes all the way back, and after the attacks on 9/11 it heightened. Still, more often than not it was a simmering issue, not a burning one. More often than not neither the American government nor the American people paid the debate much mind.

Until Snowden. It’s fair to say that since Snowden’s renegade decision to reveal the vast scope of the NSA’s electronic surveillance, the debate over this issue has been revived and, to understate it, reinvigorated. Moreover the government, the Obama administration, has been forced to backtrack at near warp speed. The Justice Department just acknowledged that even in a terrorism prosecution it must tell defendants when sweeping snooping is being used to build a case against them. The administration just declassified and released documents that describe past violations by the National Security Agency of a secret court order. And James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, was caught lying to the Congress. Well, maybe not lying, exactly. Here is James Banford on the putative distinction between an outright lie and doublethink. “Following the revelations of the phone-log program in which the NSA collects telephone data – the numbers of both callers and the length of the calls – on hundreds of millions of Americans, Clapper switched to doublethink. He said that his previous answer was not a lie; he just chose to respond in the ‘least truthful manner.’ With such an Orwellian concept of the truth now being used, it is useful to take a look at what the government has been telling the public about its surveillance activities over the years, and compare it with what we know now as a result of the top secret documents and other information released by, among others, the former NSA contract employee Edward Snowden.” (New York Review, 8/15/13)

For once members of Congress veritably sprang into action, quick to take up the issues that Snowden’s revelations had brought to the forefront. The movement to crack down on government surveillance began with two Congressmen from Michigan, who normally are at odds, but not on this. In short order so many other members of the House rushed to join them, that a vote to defund the NSA’s telephone data collection program was just seven short of passage. The press was similarly beginning to question if it made sense to vilify Snowden, when it was he who revealed information that the American people arguably should have had in the first place. And, the American people themselves were largely in support of Snowden. Over 55% thought him a whistleblower and only 34 % a traitor – though this was before he was given a year’s asylum in Russia.

This moves us from domestic to foreign affairs. Snowden did not just change the national debate he changed the international one as well, particularly as it pertains to the relationship between the United States and Russia. One of my very favorites, Vladimir Putin, gave the OK for Snowden to get the protection of the Kremlin. So, what to do now? How should the Obama administration respond to yet another Putin snub, yet another embarrassing blow to the president’s now nearly forgotten effort to “reset” the relationship between the Washington and Moscow?

Whatever his ultimate fate – and in spite of his dubious decision to seek comfort from a thug – Edward Snowden has made his mark. It is impossible to imagine a simple reversion to what was – just as it is impossible to imagine the Obama administration will be spared the judgment of history by so aggressively pursuing those who leak government secrets that do not in any clear and obvious way aid the enemy.

In fairness, for anyone in a position of authority, this is a devilishly difficult call. Just today the State Department issued a heightened terror alert, a reminder if any were needed of threat. As well, the alert is itself testimony to how people with power as conventionally understood have become highly vulnerable to those without – to those like candidate for person of the year, Edward Snowden.

On this one I need hardly lift a finger. Actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein did my work for me.

What follows is an excerpt from his column titled “Russia’s Anti-Gay Crackdown,” as it appeared on July 22nd in the New York Times. The piece speaks for itself. But notice that Fierstein points his finger not only at Putin, but also at us. He wonders aloud if the world will continue to stay silent while Putin continues to punish what he deems “pro-gay.”

“Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, has declared war on homosexuals. [His] campaign against lesbian, gay and bisexual people is one of distraction, a strategy of demonizing a minority for political gain taken straight from the Nazi playbook. Can we allow this war against human rights to go unanswered?…

With Russia about to hold the [Olympic] Winter Games in Sochi, the country is open to pressure. American and world leaders must speak out against Mr. Putin’s attacks and the violence they foster. The Olympic Committee must demand the retraction of these [anti-homosexual] laws under the threat of boycott.”

While I agree with Fierstein’s every sentiment – I would offer a friendly amendment. If we wait for “world leaders” actually to lead, we will wait indefinitely. If we really want them to stand up and be counted, to stand up to Russia’s strong man, we ourselves will have to get out front. We followers will have to lead the fight for human rights in the future, as always we have in the past.

Item # 1:

The story of Egypt’s most recent revolution is not new. But there’s a level of detail in an article in the New Yorker, about how exactly events unfolded, that’s astonishing. (Peter Hessler, “The Showdown,” July 22.)

So how did revolution that toppled President Mohammed Morsi early this month start? Here’s what happened.

It began last April with all of five activists, ranging in age from twenty-two to thirty, who came up with the idea of a petition campaign to reject the Morsi presidency. Just two months later, by June, they had collected more than fifteen million signatures, each reputedly on a separate sheet of paper. Notwithstanding these astonishingly impressive numbers, the activists seemed still so amateurish that political elites across the spectrum never took them seriously. The American Ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, was typical. She gave a speech in the middle of the month in which she dismissed the activists’ efforts, “Some say that street action will produce better results than elections,” said Patterson. But, “to be honest, my government and I are deeply skeptical.”

On the last day of June, the small group of activists who had named themselves Tamarrod – it means “Rebellion” – publicly called for large demonstrations. I have to wonder if they had any idea of what they would unleash. Hessler writes the protests that followed were even larger than the ones that had toppled Mubarak two and a half years earlier. “Huge crowds filled Tahrir and the streets around Cairo’s Presidential Palace, and there were protests in every major Egyptian city, with plans to hold sit-ins until Morsi left. A military source said that as many as fourteen million people had participated, out of a population of eighty-three million.” Just one day after the protests started, the military issued an ultimatum: either Morsi would make concessions or he would be out. By July 5th Morsi was history.

Item # 2:

In the past two years, more than one hundred Tibetans have set themselves aflame in protest against Chinese rule. These numbers are not, of themselves, large. But they have spread across the Tibetan plateau, and they are growing. In 2011, a dozen Tibetans immolated themselves, most of them monks or former monks. In 2012, there were more than eighty, some of them monks and nuns, others nomads and students. The oldest of the self-immolators was in his early sixties, the youngest was fifteen.

Item # 3:

The Pope is in Rio and the demonstrations in Brazil have for now subsided. But every indication is that President Dilma Rousseff’s several attempts to placate the protesters have failed. More than a month after the demonstrations erupted – over everything from corruption to overspending on the forthcoming World Cup and Summer Olympics to police brutality to poor public health care to equally poor public schools – there is no sign that Rousseff’s government has been able even to begin effectively to address the nation’s woes. Brazil has long had one of the world’s highest levels of income inequality. So the rich have generally been protected against what’s gone wrong. But the poor and, more importantly, the middle class, have not. Despite Brazil’s especially impressive economic development in the last ten years, those other than the rich and powerful feel shut out. Even the middle class, despite their increased incomes, feels shut out of a system in which living conditions are more evocative of a developing country than a developed one.

Item 4:

Young people have been, under certain circumstances, delighted to work as interns. Even though interns are typically unpaid, a certain demographic has seen them as portals to better jobs, to paying jobs, at a later point in their lives. Now things are changing, at least slightly. Interns are fighting back, fighting against a system that many are coming to believe exploits them by failing to provide wages and, simultaneously, failing to provide the educational benefits that supposedly justify internships in the first place. While this is hardly a mass movement, attention should be paid when a group as bereft of resources as interns tries to wrest for itself some measure of power. Interns are now filing lawsuits – occasionally actually winning. (In June, a federal judge ruled that interns working on the movie “Black Swan” should have received at least a minimum wage.) They are drafting petitions. (Two students at New York University recently drafted a petition that called for the University to stop advertising unpaid internships. Within days, more than a thousand people had signed.) And Intern Labor Rights, which lobbies for the cause its name implies, is joining with other, similar groups, in countries that include Canada, France, and the Netherlands, to make common cause, to ensure they either get paid, or benefit from training that contributes to their professional development.

Item 5:

As a write, the Dream Defenders are in their seventh day. For seven days this band of protesters has been sitting outside the office of Florida Governor Rick Scott, demanding that he call a special session of the Florida legislature to review Stand Your Ground laws. In the wake of the searing national soul-searching that has been in the aftermath of the trial of Georg Zimmerman, the Dream Defenders figure he has a moral obligation to do at least this.

Some of you who read this blog must wonder why I’m so tirelessly interested in this man – so fixated on Putin particularly.

Two reasons, one somewhat personal, the other purely professional. The first is because my Master’s degree was in Russian and East European Studies – and I’ve never lost interest. The second is because Vladimir Putin is only the most recent in a long, long, long line of Russian autocrats – but he is the first to be tested in the 21st century. He is the first Russian leader to lead in a time during which, as I argue, leaders generally are getting weaker and followers stronger. Putin, moreover, is leader not of some minor nation, some national backwater, but of a major nation, with roots that are as long and strong in the West as they are in the East.

What we have had in Russia during the time of Putin – now well over a decade in duration – is an ongoing tension: between the old Russia on the one hand, and the new one on the other. This new Russia is not altogether democratic as opposed to autocratic. But increasingly it is filled with the young and and the restless (mainly middle class), who refuse to go gently, who refuse to bestow on Putin whatever it is he wants whenever he wants it. Put differently, in Russia, more than in any other country in the world, there is a palpable tension between the old leadership model and the new. On the one hand is Putin, who constantly testing the limits of his authority, pulling back only when he’s worried he’s gone too far. On the other hand is a potentially powerful minority of Russians who intermittently at least seem to be seriously fed up.

To be sure, Putin is not Stalin. Putin does not, does not generally dare terrorize his enemies by eliminating them. Nevertheless he is ruthless: he does not brook dissent unless he thinks he must.

The most famous of his opponents is a man about whom I’ve written before: Alexei Navalny. Navalny has been a thorn in Putin’s side for years: he has been Putin’s best known. most persistent, and, most intrepid critic, using new media and old persistently to poke at the Kremlin.

Just a few days ago it seemed Putin had finally got his man. Navalny was sentenced to a five-year term in prison, ostensibly for embezzlement. But guess what! Less than 24 hours after his conviction Navalny was set free! He was free at least temporarily, at least pending an appeal.

This raises the question of why? Why was Navalny released just when it seemed Putin had him where he wanted him, locked away long years? The answer is easy. No sooner was the verdict declared than all hell broke loose in Moscow. There was opprobrium from abroad, of course. Much more importantly though, was protest, large public protests, at home.

It’s important to understand that Navalny’s release in the immediate aftermath of his conviction is virtually unprecedented. It’s obvious then what happened: Putin and his henchmen ran scared. They got scared that the thousands who took to the streets to protest against Nalalny’s extended sentence represented a threat, a threat to the authorities themselves. Recent history has shown full well what can happen when an initially small group grows in size and in the level of its outrage – it spell big trouble, particularly for those in positions of power.

What happens to Navalny down the line is unclear. He says he’s running for political office, for mayor of Moscow. So either one of two scenarios is possible. The first is he ends up being put away, locked away for years to come. The second is he is allowed to go free, to continue his remarkably bold assault on Russia’s political system – and on the man who has come to personify it.