BORIS KAGARLITSKY, MOSCOW
A PAROLE THAT WAS NOT GIVEN
Mikhail Khodorkovsky is out of luck again. This time he was refused parole despite he had seemed to have good chances for it. The authorities made it clear that the situation could change and that there was every reason for hoping…
Being a state’s prisoner, the disgraced tycoon hoped that the new president of Russia would release him. The application for parole resembled an offer of prisoners of war exchange. But in exchange for Khodorkovsky’s discharge President Medvedev was supposed to be praised by the Western leaders and to be supported by the Russian liberals. Khodorkovsky’s discharge was a sure way to make Dmitry Medvedev look like a liberal.
New Russian President needed a good reputation indeed. When in the Kremlin it was decided to nominate Dmitry Medvedev for presidency, they sought to improve the relations with the West and to show the ‘liberal side’ of the current regime. This was immediately appreciated by some Russian liberals who were ready to admire the new leader’s slogan “Freedom is better than unfreedom” sounded discordantly to Putin’s tough rhetoric. While siloviki and nationalists, on the contrary, were frightened by that statement and possible reduction of their budgets.
Russian liberals were even ready to praise to the skies the former “bloody regime”. There was no need to change anything for it. There was a need only to supplement a couple of fine slogans uttered by the new leader with a finer gesture. For example, to discharge Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Medvedev could show a magic trick quickly turning the “bloody regime” into a democratic republic!
But the trick failed in spite of the spectators and performers’ hopes.
As ill luck would have it, the war with Georgia broke out at the wrong (or right) time. Though that war was to be nothing but a frontier conflict, nevertheless, it caused the avalanche-like process of political consequences. The U.S. Administration, which had a grudge against Russia for the hostilities in Georgia, toughened up the rhetoric towards Russia. The mass media hysteria in Washington caused the forming of a wide anti-Russian consensus between the Republicans and the Democrats. From then on, it makes no difference to the Kremlin who will become the next U.S. President. Any President will have to act sternly towards Moscow at the beginning of his term.
There is no point in flirting with the domestic liberal opposition against a background of the worsening of the relations with the USA. The oppositionists are not independent political force in Russia and they are of interest only because the Kremlin officials consider them representatives of the Western interests. If the Kremlin did not believe the liberals to be agents of foreign influence, the authorities would deal with them more disdainfully and would be harder on them. But as the foreigners are respected in Russia, the “agents of foreign influence” are esteemed to some extent.
The deterioration of the relations between Moscow and Washington makes the liberal opposition inefficient. Apparently realizing that or maybe simply being affected by their own propaganda, the liberals became really hysterical about the war in Georgia. The torrent of abuse and unsubstantiated accusations from the liberal mass media towards the Russian government can be compared only with the same muddy flow of the anti-Georgian propaganda from the Russian pro-government TV channels. However, there are significant differences here. In August the average people watched the Olympic Games rather than political programs. It is very good for emotional health of the nation that the war with Georgia took place simultaneously with the Olympic Games in Beijing: the national feelings were inoffensively expressed in the emotions of the sports fans.
The listeners to the “Ekho Moskvy” broadcasting station and the readers of liberal newspapers believe each word of their staff journalists like the Orthodox Christians believe a gospel revelation. That’s why they suffer from deep depression. Even the victories of the Russian team on the last days of the Olympic Games could not help those people to overcome it. Though, the proper Russian liberals should not support its national team. Russia’s ranking third in the Olympic Games should be regarded as an achievement of the “bloody regime” and, therefore, it can even worsen the depression.
Given the current situation, it made no sense for the Russian authorities to set Khodorkovsky free. In a period of liberal reforms Khodorkovsky’s release would be a gesture of good will, but after the armed conflict with Georgia this would be taken as a display of weakness.
The former head of Yukos will continue to be imprisoned until the Kremlin officials decide that it is time to implement liberal reforms again.
Boris Kagarlitsky is Director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements
August 28, 2008
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