In late November the Russian newswire Lenta.ru created a web platform for readers to address questions to Mikhail Khodorkovsky regarding his book, “Prison and Freedom”, co-written with Natalia Gevorkyan. He received over 130 questions. Lenta.ru has published the second part of Khodorkovsky’s interview. The English translation of the first ten questions and answers cited below. The First Part of the Q&As had been released shortly before the New Year and can be found here.

Q&As:

Vladimir [25.11 05:26]

Mikhail Borisovich – I would like to ask you the following question:

1. is it worth it to engage in politics in our time (when the kremlin is shutting off the opposition’s oxygen) – after all, the result under the current power is predictable in advance.  Perhaps it’s not worth advertising your political platform – then you won’t be confronted by our penitentiary system.  But on the other hand, if you don’t do anything – then the situation in the country will remain the same.  And how to act in today’s time – taking your experience into account.

2. And a second question – in recent years the kremlin has been descending into dictatorship, the parties represented in the duma don’t think much about Russia and its people, the orgy of corruption and thievery in the upper echelons of power, the collapse of production.  What do you think why don’t our government and president make use of their levers to establish order or is the current state of affairs fine with them?

I would like to wish you patience and health, the quickest possible release.

2. Vladimir, thank you for the wishes.  Before, the president was fine with the opportunity to control his entourage through their “little sins”.  There are so many of these “little sins” now that they are quickly destroying the power.  However, the president can’t do anything any more:  the system is living by its own laws, and the replacement of individual elements doesn’t change anything.  But he’s afraid to change the system.

Andrei [24.11 11:50]

Good time of day.  Mikhail Borisovich, what in your view must the model of Russia’s political setup be?  As a person who has experienced all the negative manifestations of the existing system (I’m afraid to make an error in classifying it) on the one hand, and as a strong executive on the other, do you consider that a democratic political system will be able to deal with the monster of a corrupt , geographically dispersed, thievish administrative apparat?  All the best to you.  Andrei

Anton Avdeyev [22.11 18:53]

Mikhail, I greet you!

Too bad that we can’t interact directly.  Thanks for the book.Subjectively, truthfully, courageously, distinctively interesting not only for the events , but for the situational assessments as well.

A question:

The conception of the development of a modern political order and society through the replacement of bourgeois elites – i.e. control over flows –is universally known(unimportant, through elections-evolutionarily or by a forced change -revolutionarily)

“Do you understand NOW that everything that concerns the situation in Russia 2000-2010-….. fits into this conception?”

And the second, “The evolution of Russia’s political consciousness is in need of a more lengthy and ‘gentle’ evolutionary process or are there ways of accelerating the raising of the level of this consciousness after all?”

(I see this with the participation of you and those who think as you do, among whom I include myself as well)

Good luck!

With respect,

Anton.

Thank you.  The democratic model for running a country (that is, political competition, an independent judiciary, an influential parliament) plus federalism and local self-administration (that is, transfer of the resolution of the greater part of questions closer to the voter) is the only working system for a large country at the post-industrial stage of development.  Others have not been thought up in the world, while this one is able to manage.  Better in some places, worse in others.

Vasily [25.11 16:19]

What is your attitude toward the possibility of reconostituting the Federation (on the basis of new subjects and a different separation of powers between the subjects and the centre) or perhaps the confederalisation of today’s RF?

Reconsideration of the powers of the subjects of the federation, of the territorial division of the country, is taking place constantly, and, it would seem, this is unavoidable.  Confederalisation (factually taking place in the North Caucasus) in our situation is nothing less than gradual secession, the result of the power’s inability to put right normal mutual relations of the peoples within Russia.  The danger of such a secession is that it will set a precedent.

Rednak [22.11 17:27]

Esteemed, Mikhail Borisovich!

How do you see Russia in 5 or 10 years?

Mikhail Noskov [23.11 10:55]

Esteemed Mikhail Borisovich!

How do you see Russia in 5 or 10 years, is there any sense in waiting for any thing or is it after all time to gather things and leave for wherever one can?

I will clarify the question.

I am a doctor of sciences, a professor at one of the higher educational establishments of Siberia, in publication activity I am in the top twenty out of 300 instructors, while my salary is 20 thsd. rubles.

A sense of my own dignity does not allow me to collect money from students.

Our beloved rector gets around 500 thsd. rub.

Minister Livanov is merely promising to establish order.

In hand – an offer to teach in Sweden or the RSA.

Who is at fault and what is to be done?

Russia isn’t going to look like Sweden in either five years or ten.  The ones at fault for this are we – educated citizens who were not able (who did not desire to be able) to build a normal power.  One can fight, one can adapt, one can leave.  Everybody chooses his own path.  And bears responsibility for his choice.

Yuri Semenovich [23.11 12:09]

Esteemed Mikhail Borisovich.

1. All right-THINKING people have already understood that the retreat from democratic principles that was allowed to happen in 1993 (to some body it seemed, that this was a temporary and necessary measure) has laid the foundations for the establishment of authoritarianism and for the disturbance of equilibrium in the branches of Russian power.

What do you consider then and now, did the power (Yeltsin) have another choice?

2. What form of governance do you consider to be the most optimal for Russia?  Which will of course require a change of the Constitution.

3.  And the last one (about which I wrote earlier in a letter to you).

Since man himself is not perfected, almost no one can get through being tested by the power alone.  So maybe it’s better to have not a one-man president, but to elect a triumvirate, which is elected and then is in charge of the three branches of power.  But the most important decisions at state-wide scale is adopted on the basis of the opinion of all the members of the Top council of presidents (provisional name)?

After all, such a form at least some how mitigated the errors and imperfection of one personality.

Strength to you, optimism and faith in good, which will be victorious in Russia.

Yuri Semenovich

1. Thank you.  There was a choice, albeit a hard one.  We should have sacrificed speed of economic reforms in exchange for the establishment of a democratic system of governance.

 3. Your “triumvirate” can be correlated to separation of powers in modern-day political practice.  How to balance their powers, how to elect, how to change personnel – this is a topic for a special talk and public agreement.  An essential additional condition – the presence of real political competition.

svetlana [22.11 19:51]

Esteemed Mikhail Borisovich!

Before everything else, I wish you and your close ones health and patience!

1. What do you consider, does a people truly deserve that power under which it lives?

2. How many generations need to be replaced in Russia for it to stop being a “country of slaves”?

Thank you.

Sergei [25.11 14:40]

Those who are in politics today are a reflection of Russia’s society itself.  What do you consider, how many centuries are needed to change our society for the better?

Thank you very much, Svetlana.

1. About the entire people – I’m not sure, but the educated part of the citizens, without a doubt, bears responsibility itself for its fate and the fate of its children.

2. A “change of generations” alone doesn’t lead to anything.  The surrounding world depends on us, on those who live “here and now”.  Changes were begotten not by those who entered into the “land of Canaan”, but by those who resolved to leave the comfortable Egyptian slavery.

Alyona [22.11 20:46]

Esteemed Mikhail Borisovich!  There are two widespread points of view about the possibility of building a democracy of the western type in Russia.  Some consider that it is possible, having come to power, to attempt to build democratic institutions, and as for the people, they will be compelled to “pull themselves up” and adapt, the way Russians live beyond the border and oftentimes manage to achieve success.  Others, like, for example, Andrei Konchalovsky, consider that with the Russian slave mentality there is no point in hoping for democracy “from above”; one needs to evolutionarily and slowly try to work on the enlightening of the people, which must “become ripe” for democracy.  What point of view is closer for you?

Any changes in society are carried out by an active minority with the “non-resistance” (less frequently – with the conscious support) of the majority.  Of course, too big a break is dangerous, but the average Russian differs little from the average Brazilian or Pole.  And democracy is quite successful indeed over there.

Stanislav [23.11 00:02]

Esteemed Mikhail Borisovich!

1. Are you in agreement with Machiavelli’s assertion that all princes without exception are doomed to defeat because of their own inability to change their modus operandi in time and to adapt to the realities of the time?

2. Is today’s Russian power capable in principle of even a minimal renewal?

2. I believe Vladimir Vladimirovich would like changes, but he is already bound by thousands of threads, and for him to tear them signifies losing power.  Therefore there won’t be any real renewal before a regime change.  And the further things go, the more dangerous the loss of power becomes – there are more and more adversaries, and they are more and more radical.

Dmitry Ingal [23.11 09:54]

Mikhail, good time of day.

Taking the opportunity, I want to express my admiration of your courage.

I likewise express gratitude for the fact that you participated in these inquisitions with thoroughness, facts, proofs, and seeking the prosecution’s weak spots.  This is important for the country in the present and for our descendants in the future:  not empty demagogic distortions about the shortcomings and merits of Putin’s Russia, but concrete documents, clearly showing:there is/was no justice in Putin’s Russia.

Here’s the question I’ve got for you.  Do you still consider that Russia needs a “turn to the left”?  Does it not seem to you that responsible of the application of laws and the irreversibility of punishment will be able to stop corruption and the oligarchy and, in such a manner, have an impact on the property stratification of the citizens of Russia?

Thank you.

Thank you.  A “turn to the left” is an objective reality of society’s development at this stage.  And the turn is taking place.  While lamentations about the need for all that is good in place of all that is bad without changing the system of administration are simply idle chatter.  Changing the system of administration is tantamount to regime change.  The regime is resisting and wants to “have everything without changing anything”.

Mishenina, Irina [23.11 15:04]

Good day.  Mikhail Borisovich, once again I want to express gratitude to you for an excellent book.  Reading the most varied responses, comments about publications about you, I had very often run across questions about that same privatisation of the 90s, comments from people with hurt, with disenchantment in their voice.  I am convinced that after reading your book such people will be reduced by an order of magnitude.

Here is the question I’ve got:  after the absolutely dishonest elections to the St.duma on 4 Dec.2011, many were proposing to the opposition deputies, as a sign of protest, to relinquish their mandates or to withdraw from the St.duma in full, the entire party.  What do you think, would this have been effective and could it have led to new elections to the St.duma of the RF?

A second question:  what, in your opinion, needs to happen for early elections to the st.duma to take place, since the current st.duma this is an absolutely docile instrument of power, ready to execute every sneeze of the country’s president instantaneously.

Thank you for the evaluation of the book.

We don’t have a real opposition in the parliament.  Even the communists these days are completely “tame”.  It is impossible to defeat stagnation and corruption without political competition.  A political crisis is inevitable, while today’s “light-freezing” actions by the power are radicalising the situation.  At what moment the explosion will occur and why is impossible to predict, but the conditions are being created.

The continuation can be found on the Lenta.ru website