Harry Kasparov: The Manifesto of Good Putin

In the American publication , The Wall Street Journal in early March published perplexing the text of Mikhail Khodorkovsky , the author of which suggested Donald Trump to “start a business conversation with Putin” and, in fact, recognize the annexation of Russia of the Crimean Peninsula, as well as to consolidate the “neutral status for Ukraine” in exchange for Putin's departure from power.

This text looks especially strange, given the context of its birth. During the previous months, a situation has developed that favored the formation of the International Anti -Putin Coalition. It was possible to achieve significant success in the promotion of the Magnitsky List, which we started work on a few years ago with Boris Nemtsov and William Brauder: laws similar to the American “Magnitsky Act” were adopted by the parliaments of the UK and Canada. There were obvious signs that the Kremlin’s hopes for a “big deal” with Trump could be at least greatly exaggerated.

And in such a situation, a person, perceived by many as one of the leaders of the Russian opposition, invites the US President to take a compromise with Putin at the expense of Ukraine. Speaking with such proposals, Khodorkovsky looks almost a lawyer of Putin's Russia, formulating the conditions of criminal power by a civilized world. It is difficult to get rid of the feeling that Khodorkovsky seeks to help the Kremlin tear the compressed ring of international isolation. Of course, his statements will be happy to be picked up by the Kremlin agent in the United States and “useful idiots” from among the supporters of the “dialogue with Putin”. It is difficult to come up with the best gift to the Russian dictator, desperately looking for a way out of a constantly worsening international situation.

The degree of legal nihilism and cynicism is striking, comparable to the sad Munich conspiracy of 1938, with which Khodorkovsky discusses a transaction paid at the expense of the interests of a neighboring country. Even the most powerful state in the world, which are the United States, is not entitled to dispose of what does not belong to it - the Sudden and the territory of sovereign Ukraine.

In a certain sense, the text in The Wall Street Journal continues the line designated by Khodorkovsky in published a little earlier by the article on the “Russian Europeans” . In this article, Khodorkovsky puts the Putin system with a more or less true and very disappointing diagnosis and makes on this basis the conclusion about the perniciousness of the current course of the country and the need for changes. Next, he calls for a "round table" on the issue of transit of power and outlines the approximate composition of the participants of such a "round table".

The composition of the “round table” indicated by the author demonstrates not the readiness to cross through the “narrow interests” for the good of the country, but the consent (or even desire) to limit themselves to only superficial pseudo-reforms, because it is simply impossible to discuss any essential changes in the proposed format. The fascist of the Russian regime has already gone so far that it does not lend itself to any reform by definition. If we are really worried about the fate of our country, then we can only talk about the complete dismantling of the existing power structure. It makes no sense to discuss such dismantling with those who faithfully and truth to this regime. Accordingly, any “round table”, designed to develop a democratic transit mechanism, should begin with the recognition of certain axioms, including the need for lustration, deseving, “decagation”, etc. with those who do not recognize these axiom, the subject for discussion is absent as such.

Khodorkovsky-politician still has not realized that it was honest to be honest and follow moral principles not only in business

I foresee the objection: what about the successful experience of the "round table" in Poland, in which representatives of the communist authorities took part? The problem, however, is that a similar analogy between Poland (and other countries of Eastern Europe) of the turn of the 1980-90s and modern Russia is insolvent. By that time, the East European communist regimes had lost all support within their countries and kept afloat exclusively due to external power-the threat of military intervention from the USSR, similar to invasions to Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. By the end of the 1980s, the USSR has already weakened so much that its inability to maintain satellite regimes became obvious. The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, although visually and very different from the flight of Americans from Saigon, nevertheless also recorded a new geopolitical reality - the Soviet Empire was no longer able to maintain foreign policy expansion. Under these conditions, the communist leaders of Poland, realizing the inevitability of collapse in the most foreseeable future, were concerned, first of all, by self -preservation, which made them accommodating.

Such regimes go to negotiations only when they feel the inevitability of their death - the key to the success of the "round table" is the willingness of the authorities to discuss the conditions of their surrender. However, the situation in modern Russia is fundamentally different. Putin is today busy with the institutionalization of his reign as a lifelong and determining the next target for external aggression. What in these conditions the opposition can talk with representatives of the regime on the "round table"?! The stage when such a conversation was possible was passed in Putin's Russia, in today's political agenda there is simply no such topic.

The text of Khodorkovsky implicitly contrasts the “idealists”, whose firm commitment to high moral principles can, according to the author, can bring Russia into a new civil war, and “pragmatists”, whose flexibility, in his opinion, can prevent such a disaster. The problem with such logic, however, is that the opposition imposed by the Khodorkovsky reader is false. Ultimately, it is moral policy that is the most rational and most profitable. Khodorkovsky-businessman once admitted that after an attack on his own company Yukos, the international raider Kennet Darth, he realized that it was much more profitable in compliance with all the rules of transparency in compliance with all kinds of transparent rules than dubious schemes on the verge (and sometimes beyond the line) of the law. It was this understanding that helped him turn Yukos into one of the most effective companies in Russia at that time. It is sad that Khodorkovsky-politician still did not realize that it is honest to be honest and follow moral principles not only in business.

Turning to the "Russian Europeans", Khodorkovsky, it seems, does not quite understand the meaning of the concept of "European", which is not least of commitment to values, the central place among which is the rule of law. An attempt to close eyes to the unlawful nature of the seizure of Crimea and the principle of the rule of law are incompatible things, and without recognizing the supremacy the right to talk about the return of Russia to the European family of peoples is pointless.

Speaking about the need for changes, Khodorkovsky underestimates the scale and, most importantly, the qualities of the changes that Russia needs. When the Soviet regime collapsed, Russia did not finally break with the Soviet heritage, as a result of which a Chekist revenge became possible. In the same way, today the recipe for “changes in Khodorkovsky”, without the transformation of the fundamental foundations of Russian statehood, can lead to the fact that instead of the legal, democratic, European, in the full sense of the word, the state we will receive a slightly softened version of Putinism without Putin. It is difficult to call such an outcome by the triumph of rationalism.

Harry Kasparov - Russian politician, world chess champion, head of the International Council of the "Human Rights Protection"

Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the editorial office