Khodorkovsky's Correspondence with Dmitry Muratov (2.9.2012)

8/9/2019 Khodorkovsky's Correspondence with Dmitry Muratov (2.9.2012)

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From the correspondence of the editorial staff

with convict of the FKU IK-7 of the UFSIN for the Republic

of Karelia, town of Segzha, M.B. Khodorkovsky

He issimply afraid

of competitionWhen Putin says that hedoes not betray his own,

this is a fear of offending the silovikiwho are close to him

From a letter of the editorial staff to the FKU IK-7

of the UFSIN for the Republic of Karelia,

town of Segzha:

Dear M ikhail Bor isovich, We anxiously await your new lecture on the nationali ty question:

the readers are pestering us, weyou, counting on your, by Brodskys determination, free time in a

restricted space. The first variant of the text was good. Maybe welljust sti ck with it?

D. Muratov.

P.S. Mikhail Bor isovich, another question. Which, in your view, demands of the oppositi on,

demands of Bolotnaya Square, do you share? And who of the candidates for president would you be

prepared to single out? (the letter was sent and the response to it received pri or to the removal of G.

Yavlinskyfrom the elections).

Letter from the town of Segzha:

Dear Dmitry,

I send you greetings and regretfully report that my lecture on Liberalism and the nationality

question has disappeared somewhere in the bowels of our colony. If they dont find itIll rewrite

it.

At first glance it might seem that Putins strategists and I are thinking remarkably alike. If my

lawyers show you the draftsyoull be amazed.


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As we remember from the examples of a series of my articles on modernisation, questions of

logistics, without a doubt, play a first-order significance in my situation. However even in conditions of

the absence of real-time access to the mass information media the main difference between me and the

opponents consists of the fact that I, having taken this model further in my thought, have rewritten the

article anew, whilst they have remained with the old version.

Incidentally, now I wanted to write to you about another topic, albeit a closely related one.

In his articles and public appearances, Putin voices a large quantity of diverse thoughts on account of thedevelopment of the country and the state.

Many of them are not suitable, inasmuch as the result of their implementation has long been

known to specialists (for example, management in hands-on mode, the power vertical etc.). Some are

appropriate, and occasionally even useful.

Furthermore, theoretically the liberal opposition could even agree to implement much of what

hes spoken.

So wheres the problem?

Why is Putin allowing his own proposals to get talked into the ground?

Why is he so obviously not managing to accomplish the things he writes about?

To the deep regret of our current political elite, state administration this is a science with itsown laws, and not a talking shop for palace political scientists.

To think up a new model for running the country, one that is not known to science, but at the

same time would be workable,is a task beyond the strength of even a much stronger team than the one

that the current premier has at his disposal.

In such a manner, everything that they think of in the realm of state-building, either will not work,

or has been known for a long time already.

It is also known that an eclectic array of methods of state administration cobbled together from

various systems not only does not create a new system, it is simply non-functional. Even if you call it

sovereign democracy.

Therefore any perfectly decent Putinite undertakinglike, for example, the strengthening of therule-of-law state (let us note that Putin consciously strove for all 12 years to use the term dictatorship of

the law, and not rule-of-law state), the fight with corruption or the elaboration and conducting of an

appropriate nationalities policyeither does not work, or requires that the foundations of the regime be

changed for its implementation.

In such a manner, he declares something, starts doing it, and then runs headlong into the problem

of the arising of real political competition. Something for which he turns out to be not ready at all.

As a result, Putin gets scared and takes all the guts out of even his own initiatives.

I am not even looking now at the multitude of instances when these same initiatives are torpedoed

by the bureaucratic milieu inasmuch as they enter into contradiction with the interests of that same milieu.

What can we await as the result of all this after the elections?

From all appearances, Putin has already come to the conclusion that his principal support could

be the silovikistructures, as well as individual national republics. It is precisely this that has given rise to

the radical rises in pay in the police and other analogous agencies, it is precisely for this reason that little-

controllable federal transfers are being consciously implemented.

Apparently, such a policy will continue, although it does not in the least guarantee the readiness

of even these people to stand up and be prepared to take a bullet for a regime that society is dissatisfied

with. To add to that, the many-fold gap that is arising in the remuneration of labour of civil servants

(including the siloviki) and all the other the people who are paid out of the state budget (including

workers of non-raw-material state enterprises, teachers, public-utilities workers etc.) is going to give rise

to serious dissatisfaction in these strata of society, disposed as they are towards a constant increase in the

level of their well-being.


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From his side, it may even seem to Vladimir Putin that he is undertaking efforts to improve

relations with the middle class (whose growing numerical strength is becoming a serious electoral factor

with each passing year, even with each passing month).

However, our future president does not desire to offend his silovikimilieu, or, to use his own

terminology, he does not betray his own, no matter how ineffective they may be. Even more important

he is afraid of real political competition. As a result his steps are going to be merely an attempt to

confuse people.The literacy of these people, which is underestimated by the power, will render such a scenario,

so habitual for Putin, ineffective. And then hell be astonished as to why the disgruntled burghers dont

understand him and dont accept him.

In general, by the autumn of 2012, the very latest by the spring of 2013, the power is going to

switch over to the familiar mechanism of putting out fires by pouring money at them, and surgical-strike

repressions against the opposition.

Such an unsustainable situation could hold out for a year, or even two, until an unexpected crisis

puts an end to it.

Speaking about the tactic of the new opposition, I deem that the demand for re-elections of

parliament in a year or a year and a half after 4 December 2011is right. The country needs a total andhonestly elected parliament, and it must without fail be a legitimate one.

The changes proposed to electoral legislation could be just a ploy aimed at transforming URs

30% into a parliamentary majority.

Standing as a separate question is the lack of understanding by the power of the essence of the

relations between the federal centre and the regions and the attempt connected with this lack of

understanding to take all the guts out of the resurrected idea of introducing direct gubernatorial elections

by way of retaining the so-called presidential filter.

Such a thing must not be allowed, inasmuch as such tricks is going to be taken by society with

even greater irritation, and this means they will undermine the possibility of constructive dialogue within

society.When we speak of the possibility of a alliance of the liberals with the nationalists it is

important to understand just what nationalism is. If in the given situation we are speaking of

chauvinists or even more so of nazis, championing the idea of ethnic superiority, then here no alliance is

possible for any normal person.

Our grandfathers expressed themselves quite unequivocally in 1945 with respect to this question.

But if nationaliststhis is those who champion the idea of the right of a nation to self-determination, the

equality of the rights of nations within the framework of a single state (including the right of ethnic

Russians to self-administration and cultural distinctiveness), then I dont see anything sinister in an

alliance with such people.

I should note: it is precisely thus that nationalism is understood by European political science, it

is precisely such nationalism that has already walked arm in arm with liberalism in the period of the

collapse of the colonial empires and during the times of the velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe at the

end of the 80sbeginning of the 90s of the last century.

For a liberal one thing is important human rights are primary, inalienable and not subject to

substitution by any surrogate.

The elections of the president in Marchthis is a struggle of symbols, and not real elections by

the people of their guarantor of the Constitution.

It is importantto strive to attain the conducting of honest elections.

It is importantto attain the conducting of a second round.

It is important to show which way we want to go, inasmuch as the main thing will be what

comes after the elections.


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For me Grigory Yavlinsky would be a good symbol. The rest of the candidates need to

demonstrate in the time that remains which way they are symbols of. This includes Prokhorov, and

Mironov, and Zyuganov.

With deep respect,

MBK

Letter from the editorial office: Dear Mikhail Borisovich, There is much talk amongstpoliti cians about your, Platon Leonidovichs and the Yukosites release. In my opinion, there is

already a rivalr y going on for fi rst place in this question. What is your own attitude towards the fact

that you have become a resource in the pre-election race?

Respectfu l ly, D.M.,

Novaya.

P.S.

...Not only

my own fate!Letter from the town of Segzha: With understandable interest, perhaps somewhat

belatedly, I familiarised myself with a fragment of President Dmitry Medvedevs talk with the students of

the MGU [Moscow State University] faculty of journalism that concerned me personally. I likewise read

the opinion of my lawyers, other jurists and human rights advocates on account of the possibility of a

pardon and my reaction to such a possibility. Its all very informative.

I thank the unindifferent young people for the attention to my fate.

I thank President Medvedev for the expression of empathy and the thoroughly expected answer.

I thank the Presidential Expert Council which, perhaps, has made the existence of legal flaws in

the Khamovnichesky court verdict more understandable.

Without a doubt, I am going to be using all the opportunities afforded by the judicial system for

getting a legally just decision, despite the profoundest doubts in its ability to cleanse the case of the

political component on its own.

In this sense the amnesty recommended by the Presidential Council, not ruling out the

conducting at the same time of painstaking work with respect to changing the established practice

of the application of the law, seems to me to be the most correct approach to the problem, on the

resolution of which depends not only my own fate, but also the lot of a multitude of people who

have fallen into the grindstone of a depraved system.

Documents

Khodorkovsky's Correspondence with Dmitry Muratov (2.9.2012)