Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 10 – Yesterday,
exiled Russian oligarch and opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky gave an
online press conference in which he said that a revolution in Russia is both “inevitable
and necessary, a declaration that has attracted broad attention in the Russian
segment of the Internet.
But he said a number of other
important things as well, and these have been summaried by Yevgeny Babushkin in
an article on the Snob.ru portal today as “The Eight Theses of Mikhail
Khodorkovsky” (snob.ru/selected/entry/101920).
Taken together, they form both a cri de coeur and a political program.
·
On the powers that
be:
“The decorative role of the government is clear to all. The president and his
entourage can use the means of the state without any control to buy loyalty,
make war and engage in various mega-projects or simply to line their own
pockets.” That pattern, he suggests, shows that Russia today has suffered “a
full-scale anti-constitutional turnover.”
·
On revolution: Given the lack
of honest elections, “the only means of changing power is revolution … the
issue is how to make this a peaceful one … Revolution is inevitable; it can and
must be peaceful.”
·
On the future: Russia needs new
centers of growth, better transportation, contemporary infrastructure and
modern industry. “All this is impossible without escaping from the isolation
which the authorities have driven us in order to keep themselves in power
forever.”
·
On the opposition: “The Russian
opposition undoubtedly must unite, but this will not be sufficient” until the
dictator goes.
·
On the Stockholm
syndrome:
As far as the love for Putin is concerned, a love which 90 percent of the
population of Russia feels, then this is the kind of love that the residents of
many countries in the world suffer from as do hostages seized by terrorists.
This is an ordinary situation.”
·
On love and
politics:
“Since my mother passed away in August,” Khodorkovsky says, he has “no
obligations before Putin.” But he isn’t interested in getting involved in
politics. “Unfortunately, the situation has assumed a form in which the
professional people who are involved in politics in the opposition now cannot
fulfil this function.”
·
On science and
Africa:
Russia cannot modernize or even hold its own if it doesn’t integrate with
technologically advanced countries, something the current Kremlin opposes. “The main problem in the middle distance is
the loss of technological schools, the loss of cadres, the loss of science, and
the loss of talented young people. Will be able to exist by selling natural
resources? Yes, we will be able: there are not a few countries which live that
way, most of them are in Africa.”
·
On security: Despite his
travails in the past, Khodorkovsky says, his “current situation seems [to him]
secure.”
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