http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2011/12/01_a_3854582.

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gazeta.ru

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the yukos case

The country is starting to get weary of the

irremovability of the power
An interview with Mikhail Khodorkovsky
2.12.11 10:18
TEXT: Svetlana Bocharova, Roman Badanin
PHOTO: RIA Novosti

In a written interview, ex-head of YUKOS Mikhail Khodorkovsky has

declared to Gazeta.Ru that the return of Vladimir Putin for a third
term was demanded by the premiers entourage, which is not
convinced of Dmitry Medvedevs loyalty. The most famous Russian
prisoner considers the main risk after Putins return for a third term to
be the appearance of new problems for business and the economy,
and notes that the power in Russia is losing channels for an objective
assessment of the situation.

 Vladimir Putin, speaking about his return for a third term in an interview with the heads of the
three federal [television] channels, has declared that ordinary people, not straw men want this.
Does this correspond to what you are observing in your current surroundings? Is this topic
discussed in the colony at all, does it worry prisoners? What do ordinary people actually want,
are they ready for democracy or do they really need Putin?
In the course of the 11 years it has been in power, the current leadership of Russia was creating an
artificial picture of the world in the mass information media. This was being done in order to form public
opinion.
However, what was created as a result was a system under which the leadership of the country itself has
no place from which to get an objective picture of the mindsets prevailing in the country. A vicious
closed-loop circle has been created: television shows what the powers want to see, while the power
measures its own actions against a picture of the world drawn from the news programmes.
We already had this in the late-Soviet time, by the way. And we all remember what that brought the
country to.

The ordinary people are starting to get weary not so much of the powers
actions not everybody is correlating personal problems with the political
landscape yet, as of the irremovability of the persons at the countrys
steering wheel.
A banal weariness of the current persons is starting, a weariness that will inevitably grow into the political
activeness of the population. All the more so given that by virtue of objective and subjective
circumstances, the powers have fewer and fewer opportunities to maintain the rates of growth in
prosperity that a part of the population has become accustomed to.
If you are not in agreement with the premise that ordinary people want Putins return, then
who is really interested in this then? And why did this someone not want Dmitry Medvedev to
remain for a second term?
The retinue plays the king. The system of running the country today is built on a perverse principle of
mutual unlawful obligations one hand washes the other. Dmitry Medvedev is not drawn as deeply as
Vladimir Putin into the system of promises in relation to representatives of various siloviki and business
clans. Therefore, for the ruling elite and this is 100150 people who influence the adoption of
decisions, Putin is more comprehensible and predictable.
What can business expect from the new coming of Putin?
Problems. The investment climate is going to get consistently worse. Not because Putin himself is
going to be destroying business with deliberate intent. But once upon a time, having started the YUKOS
affair, he opened up a Pandoras box. And now his entourage perceives of entrepreneurship as a food
source. And Putin is no longer able to change this without the risk of losing power. In this lies the main
danger for the country emanating from him.
Would you be able to comment on the large-scale Occupy Wall Street protest actions that
began in the USA and have reached Australia already? Is this evidence of the turn to the left
about which you warned many years ago? What can the consequences of these actions be like in
the global sense? How reasonable are the demands of the protesters? Have they correctly
determined who is at fault?

 This bears witness to the fact that our world has entered into a phase of changes. People are feeling
dissatisfaction from the way society is currently set up, they consider the system that has evolved to be
unfair. To the best of my knowledge, the demands of the protesters are not distinguished by any kind of
systemicity so far. They are coming out against the effects of the existing problems, and not the causes.
But in any case, these protests are an important signal that disproportions have evolved in the world that
must be resolved. How? I do not think that anyone has recipes already prepared.
Does the situation that the same kind of thing can be in Russia as well present itself as
absolutely fantastic? Is a revolt ripening in Russia and if yes, then in what strata of the
population?
In Russia they traditionally take a long time to hitch up the horses, but they ride fast. Mass protests,
even if the antecedent conditions for them are not evident now, should not be ruled out.
Of course, the slogans and the formats of the western countries are not relevant for us. But it is obvious
that the country is starting to get weary of the irremovability of the power. There likewise exists a certain
quantity of acute problems, insistently demanding resolution, but being ignored by the power. Any one of
them can theoretically provoke protests.
The experience of the Arab revolutions has shown that social networks can become a real
weapon. What do you consider, what might the role of new information technologies (Twitter,
Facebook, etc.) be like in politics in Russia and the world in the next few years?
To the best of my understanding, for the thinking part of society the internet is already not a
supplementary place for people to socialise and get information, but the main one. Real politics and
this is politics, where they argue, where there is competition, freedom of speech etc., have already
shifted into the online world. Whether social media will be a weapon or merely one of the tools of
interaction time will show.
Your oldest son is living beyond the border all of the years of your persecution. In his
interviews he was saying that you had advised him not to return, so as not to end up in the
number of hostages of the YUKOS affair. Now he is conducting a campaign to attract attention
to your fate abroad. Do you approve of his activity; can such a campaign bring benefit to you and
Platon Lebedev? Perhaps you have already felt some kind of impact from this campaign?
I am very grateful to my son for everything he is doing now so that attention to my problem would not
weaken. He has his own life, family, daughter, work, many concerns, and the fact that he is helping me
and Platon so seriously now, this is, among other things, also a sacrifice on his part. Of course, I
would prefer it if I could have the chance to shield him from this situation, but he is already an adult
person, and this is his choice.
What is the current young generation of Russians to do? Considering the state of the judicial
and all other systems, what is more correct to emigrate and try to build a life in another country
or to remain and strive for changes in Russia?
It is impossible to tell another person how he ought to live. To leave or to stay is a very serious and
individual choice. You are right that the country has such a vector of development that this kind of
question arises for very many young people. Here everyone decides for himself. I can not imagine
myself without Russia, although my example is hardly a good advertisement for believing in the
Motherland.
In an interview with Gazeta.Ru Grigory Yavlinsky declared that not only the countrys
leadership is guilty of what happened with you, but also the entire elite, which supported and
conducted reforms in such a manner that now any businessman can end up in your place. Are

you in agreement with him? How do you consider, are your former colleagues large
entrepreneurs worried because both society and the powers consider them common ordinary
thieves? Is there a chance to reconcile business and society at the current stage; is it worth it for
the business community to give thought to this? What way out of the situation would you
propose now?
With all the personal respect I have for Grigory Alexeyevich, I am not going to agree with him. I never
shared the worn-out assertion that in the 90s all entrepreneurs violated because it was impossible any
other way.
He is talking about a legislative vacuum, but jurists know: you can violate a law only if there is a law (the
so-called principle of legal certainty). Many did not violate the criminal law, among them I.

Indeed, any businessman can end up in my place. Only not for the reason
of total non-observance of the laws, but because objective grounds are not
a requirement for a criminal case and jail today.
They can lock up anybody, inasmuch as corruption and the ignoring of laws on the part of the power have
become total now. Of course, it could not have happened without the silent approval of society, which, to
a large extent in keeping with Soviet tradition, does not very much approve of someone elses success.
I saw and see the way out of this situation in the social responsibility and enlightening activity of business.
To some, perhaps, it still seems to this day that these are not proper functions for entrepreneurs, but you
are not going to change the attitude of society without them. I was trying to carry out these ideas myself,
but it was specifically the attempts to build a dialogue between representatives of business and the broad
strata of the population that became the main reason for the reprisals that were and are being perpetrated
against me. The powers are extremely not interested in the normalisation of relations between business
and society. After all, the non-transparency of these relations allows the powers, on the one hand, to hold
entrepreneurs in perpetual fear, and on the other to always have at hand an image of an enemy
responsible for all the failures in domestic policy.

http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2011/12/01_a_3854582.shtml

2.12.11 10:18
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