During the Cold War, opposition leaders like Václav Havel were able to point to the West as a guiding star. Navalny clearly hoped to do the same. But over thirty years after that conflict came to a close, Americans and Russians alike no longer wish to be forced to walk down an imaginary arc of history. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians already learned that such an arc goes on forever, until it is no more. It is a lesson they are unlikely to forget anytime soon...
