After a long silence jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky decided to address to Russian liberals in his letter to participants of the conference “Russian alternatives” that had place in Moscow in July 10. The text entitled "Morality and Justice" is available on the website of the All-Russian Civil Congress.
In his new message the convict tycoon doesn’t touch upon political or economical questions. This time Mikhail Khodorkovsky who has been already serving his sentence for 4 years argues the myths that govern the public consciousness and calls upon to appeal to the biblical morals.
According to him, the “unfair privatization of YUKOS” is one of such myths. “The political mistake of the privatization, as we now can apprehend, was a free circulation of privatized checks”, writes Khodorkovsky. “Funds were needed and these funds had to be closed and secured by state guarantees. People were absolutely unprepared to work on an absent stock market. Formally people swindled themselves, but it was our fault, since just we could have anticipated that.”
Other myths, like, for example, “and still they come”, Khodorkovsky called “nightmares of a not sober consciousness”. “It is especially ridiculous and sad to hear that in regions where just we came and not so long ago or concerning families of our nationals which have gone to Komsomol buildings or to defend our, yet common boundaries. That is quite clear if one takes pains to think about it. But in ordinary state a myth is acting”, writes Khodorkovsky.
The principal point of the message is an appeal to address to the biblical morals. “If only we want to change something in our country we need if not a myth than the truth beautiful like a myth”, he writes. “Such a myth (or, maybe, the truth) is represented in the Bible (however contrary to somebody’s opinion it could be). Its essence is that “it is bad to live immorally.”
An appeal to morals, argues Khodorkovsky, “it is the strongest and the most principal argument against an awful decile coefficient, against unjust courts and profitable budget in the presence of thousands of homeless children, in the absence of medicines. It is the only irrefutable argument against terrorism and revolutions as methods to solve political problems and against shutting up all dissenters”.
According to Khodorkovsky, the alternative of the morals is power, but, as he reminds, we have already passed through the building of the society with the help of power. “The result is one: content, careless faces on the first plan and ditches and ditches full of bodies in the background”, writes he. “If we go to the general happiness through the power once more, we’ll perish both as the society and as nationality.” In his opinion, democratic, rightful Russia can appear if only we renounce the “vulgar pragmatism” and begin living according to the conscience.
In the end of the letter Khodorkovsky excuses for his “excessively elevated" style and makes a conclusion: “When it is a question of money, one can argue pragmatically. But now we speak about lives and pragmatic arguments are useless. Now there is only Belief.” He adds that the problem of all nowadays liberals is that “for historical reasons they are not believers and don’t take the argument of the Belief seriously”.
It should be reminded, that during the proceedings on the so-called case of YUKOS the former president of the oil company Mikhail Khodorkovsky and ex-head of IFA Menatep Platon Lebedev were found guilty of fraud, tax evasion and sentenced to nine years imprisonment. YUKOS was bankrupt and purchased by a state-run “Rosneft” company. Khodorkovsky serves time at the remote Krasnokamensk Penal Colony in Siberia; and his sentence is to end in October 2011. If only he doesn’t face new charges.
