Khodorkovsky show goes on

The political show known as “MBX,” a Russian acronym for Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky, is underway. In fact, it has been tagged as Truman Show 2. Lots of responses on websites, yet not enough context to state the case to the public. Below are two quotes. Both are large but relevant and material, I believe. The first one is from Volodymyr Korolenko’s memoirs. He is serving a term in prison and bailiff Denysiuk is transferring him to another penitentiary:

“Finally a carriage drove into the yard. I was summoned to the office and given my belongings and money. I got in the carriage together with Denysiuk. The man kept sighing on the way. I asked him where we were going and he heaved another sigh by way of response. I asked him: ‘Why are you sighing? I think I’m the one to sigh about my immediate future.’ ‘Who knows,’ he replied melancholically, ‘this time I’m escorting you, but you could be escorting me in a month from now.’”

The second quote is from Solzhenitsyn’s First Circle:

“Berkalov was an old artillery engineer, he invented that BO3 – a wonderful gun, fantastic velocity. Well, he too was sitting in a special prison one Sunday, darning his socks. The wireless was on and the announcer said: ‘Berkalov, Lieutenant-General, Stalin Prize, First Class.’ And Berkalov had only been a major-general before his arrest! Imagine! Well, he finished his darning and started frying pancakes on a forbidden hot-plate. The warder came in, confiscated the hot-plate and went to report him to the governor – three days in the punishment cell. Just then the governor bursts in and says, “Berkalov! Get your things, you’re going to the Kremlin, Kalinin has sent for you!’ Where else could it happen but in Russia?”

Something is wrong with the closing phrase, it just doesn’t sound right. But of course! Solzhenitsyn hated Leo Tolstoy. “Where else could it happen but in Russia?” This betrays Solzhenitsyn’s professional envy. Solzhenitsyn wrote about the Russian elite, not about the Russian in the street, because he believed he belonged with that elite and wanted to be a prominent member of it. For him Mandelstam’s death “with the crowd and the herd” was plebeianism, period.

As for Korolenko, he never craved that elite membership and never had it. He lived to see Soviet rule, realized what it was all about, and that his bailiff Denysiuk was right: those who threw people behind bars would eventually find themselves in jail.

Solzhenitsyn got what he wanted. He became a member of the elite. Whether or not that status made him happy doesn’t matter.

Where was I? Right. Like they say, all that glitters is not gold, just as certain things held in disgrace should actually be held sacred. This is also true of prison inmates, especially so in regard to Khodorkovsky and his release from jail that started putting an end to the legend about Russian Mandela. Russians, as usual, sought parallels in South Africa and ignored their history. The scale of repressions, tens of millions killed in the GULAG camps and by man-made famines overshadow the fact that serving a term in tsarist – and later Soviet – Russia was part of the relationships between those in power (under the tsar or CC CPSU General Secretary) and the ruling – or disgraced – elite.

There are lots of emotion-packed comments boiling down to “Khodorkovsky has won!” Great, but has anyone bothered to ask him what he was fighting for, if at all?

In fact, the man made a deal with President Putin who pardoned him and thus made him a member of a special kind of elite – not the ruling, opposition or blacklisted one, but one that is keeping its distance from the proverbial powers that be. Pichugin and Lebedev who refused to testify against him in court are still in jail, with his knowledge and consent. No room for them in this elite, the more so that Khodorkovsky is now a member of an international elite, owing to the dedicated effort of German ex-foreign minister Genscher who did his best to make a deal [with President Putin] that concerned only Khodorkovsky. The West doesn’t give a hoot about all those others who were thrown behind bars after unfair court hearings. The West needs movie stars rather than extras.

There are countless such examples in Russian history under the tsars; also under the Stalin regime. Solzhenitsyn in his Fist Circle uses actual life stories, including that colonel who survived the living hell of GULAG and found himself in a top secret Soviet structure. The same was true of such prominent figures as Korolyov, Tupolev, Rokossovsky, and other scientists and army generals.

Those who were released from prison camps under Stalin were reinstated and even promoted, but none would have been released, had anyone tried to seek justice for any fellow inmates. Khodorkovsky is no exception from the rule. Those who were released from jail/camp later, in the course of a mass rehabilitation campaign, mostly failed to restore their former status. The new tsar was forming a new elite and even deigned to rehabilitate what was left of the old one.

All those businessmen and managers who are still behind bars after hostile take-overs and rigged court hearings (some 300,000) stand no chance of having justice restored.

Of course, all this sounds very much in contrast with the oohs and aahs of the current progressive Russian intelligentsia. They insist on keeping the Symbol (yes, in the upper case!) and realities be damned.

What is this Symbol all about? Mandela? A world-known figure whose reputation leaves many questions unanswered. Let’s face it: he was a terrorist. Does Khodorkovsky have his GULAG Archipelago? OK, we can’t expect too much from him. There is no H-bomb, but there is his business worth billions of dollars. Check. Has he written any articles about progress, peaceful coexistence and individual freedom? He hasn’t. Instead, he is known to have wholeheartedly supported Russia’s invasion of Georgia and recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And well he might, considering that the Menatep Bank became the key financial institution in the early 1990s to support the Abkhazian separatists. It was established in Sukhumi and guarded by Russian troops. There was no option.

Last but not least. After being released from prison, Khodorkovsky’s statements leave no doubts about his support of Russian nationalism – which can only be imperial. Where else could it happen but in Russia?

All these arguments make little sense because they belong to a different, past epoch and culture. For Khodorkovsky the fact that he has become a mass culture star is number one on his agenda. Under the Soviets, prisoners of conscience, people in exile or on black lists were kept secret. Today we have media reports about Khodorkovsky’s daily meals while in prison, his relations with other inmates and prison administration, the way he celebrated the New Year. The MBX show began with his arrest, not with his release from prison.

As a mass culture star, Khodorkovsky has become Putin’s double after the president’s pardon. In other words, the mechanism of forming and rejuvenating the Russian elite remains the way it was centuries back, even if upgraded, including modern communication technologies.

The German Establishment needed precisely that kind of Khodorkovsky[-Putin] double. Germany has become the leader of United Europe. The Obama administration’s weak and slurred policy allows Germany to enhance its status.

Alexander Rahr proudly declared that Khodorkovsky’s release from prison demonstrated the special abilities of German diplomacy, that German diplomats could serve as mediators between Russia and the West.

As for Alexander Rahr, the man belongs with those intellectual go-betweens who are actually Kremlin agents of influence. The same is true of Dimitri Simes in the US, Nikolai Zlobin in Russia, and Dmitry Vrubel in Germany. These people penetrate the political and artistic establishments.

Very likely, Mikhail Khodorkovsky has become such a mediator and agent of influence. His recruitment might become the biggest landmark in Vladimir Putin’s career, considering that it was not for money but for lofty motives – unless one considers the losses sustained in the YUKOS case and the maintenance of prisoners, but he doesn’t have to pay for all this out of his pocket, does he?

Khodorkovsky has started building Putin’s shining image by describing the most dubious details in the YUKOS case as excessive deeds on the part of local managers, as well as by urging Yanukovych to emulate Putin’s example and release Yulia Tymoshenko from jail.

It is also true that Putin and Khodorkovsky can’t make a tandem. They are too different. Putin’s move is perfectly in accordance with the Kremlin rules of the propaganda game.