interesting read:
The cruel tyranny of ownership
A letter from the prison: Ex-Yukos-boss Mikhail Chodorkowski, the most famous Russian prisoner, has the word.
When in October 2003 Special Forces pulled him from his private jet, Mikhail Chodorkowski, the Yukos boss, was worth roughly 15
billion dollars. In the meantime it’s not just his personal possessions that have melted away. Just recently Chodorkowski gave up
his Yukos stock: the most famous Russian prisoner is not a businessman anymore. When the sentence in this political process will
be delivered, Chodorkowski may be facing 20 years in prison for tax evasion, fraud, conspiracy to create criminal organization and,
since recently, because of money laundering. Chodorkowski sent the following letter from the prison to the Russian newspaper
Wedomosti. Chodorkowski presents himself as a changed person. The separation from his wealth comes easy to him. SZ
The destruction of Yukos is now nearly complete. I have done everything I could to prevent personal animosities of the government harm
small shareholders, the simple employees and the whole country. Half a year ago I offered to give away my stocks, in order to cover the
demands of the internal revenues department against my company. This, however, was rejected. The authorities decided to use the laws
selectively, to introduce retroactively new legal standards and to put at risk the confidence of the commercial world towards the state.
The shamelessness of the measures, taken by the tax, police, legal authorities and the companies, close to the government, in addition the
pressure on managers and employees, all this leaves no doubt about the fact that the process was a fixed game. It is obvious that not only
political, but also business interests are playing a role here. The methods used damage the reputation of the authorities just as much as they
damage the business. But whoever cooked this goose, does not care about it.
Today the issue is not the fate of Yukos anymore. Probably the company can’t be saved anymore anyway. But the question is, what kind of
lessons the society and the country can learn from this case, which has turned into the most senseless and destructive event for the economy
of the whole Vladimir Putin's term in office. Yes, my fortune of 15 billion dollars that the magazine Forbes wrote about, has melted down
to nearly zero; soon nothing will remain. But I expected that and I asked only that the company is not to come to harm.
Today like then I am concerned about tens of thousands of shareholders, who believed that with Yukos their money would be in good
hands. Until recently they were right too. When I took over Yukos in 1995, the company had not paid any wages for six months and was
three million dollars in debt. Yukos operated in nine regions of Russia and produced 40 million tons of oil per year. The production was
dropping. In 2003 Yukos operated in 50 regions and produced annually 80 million tons of oil, paid high and regular wages and was the
second largest taxpayer in the land, contributing five per cent to the household.
Bureaucrats have triumphed
I would not like to go into details about the fantasies, that were necessary to invent the taxes, Yukos was guilty of evading. According to
Treasury Yukos would have had to pay more taxes, than it made in profits. But for me the loss of my wealth will not be intolerable. Like
many other prisoners before me I must be grateful for the prison. It gave me the opportunity to think about many aspects of my life. A large
wealth, I know this today does not automatically make you a free person.
As a part owner of Yukos I had to restrain myself - I kept mum about a lot of things, because an open word would have endangered my
possession. Therefore I had to take a lot. Not I controlled my properties, they controlled me. That’s why I would like to warn all young
people: do not envy those, who own large wealths. Do not think their life is simple. Possession creates new possibilities, but it lames
creativity, it waters down the personality. The tyranny of the possession is cruel.
I am a changed person, a normal human, a member of the elevated middle class, for which it’s not important to get rich, but to live. I no
longer fight for possession, but for myself, for the right to be me. Popularity and good contacts are unimportant. The only thing that counts
is you - your feelings, ideas, talents, your will, intellect and faith. This is the only correct choice: the choice for the freedom.
Naturally the events around Yukos are directly connected with power. The most important question is: what happens to the power once the
Yukos case closes? They say, people get the rule they deserve. I would like to add: any rule reflects the conceptions people have about the
nature of power.
Russia was always - and still is – at the borders of the civilization. It is a predominantly European country. Therefore European institutions,
that plan a division of power, are absolutely natural tour country. But on the other hand the Russian people are used to regard the state as
kind of a higher force. And losing his special irrational respect, so the lesson of history, leads to chaos, riot, revolution. Smashing Yukos
shows that bureaucrats are not controlled just by the interests of a all-powerful state. The bureaucrats know that the state machinery serves
their own personal interests. Therefore the case is not a conflict between state and business, it is a politically and commercially motivated
attack of one business (with bureaucrats as its representatives) on another one. The state is just a hostage to these interests.
According to this logic the bureaucrats decided today to waive the division of power. Their model requires that from now on politicians are
to stand on one level with the officials; political contents are to count as much as bureaucratic careers. Why do that? In order to mobilize the
people and lead them into a new historical upheaval? Nobody in the closer circle of the Kremlin, who believes his or her won words, would
agree to this goal. Even more, off the record they would maintain the opposite: If the division of power is abolished, than the bureaucrats
can eviscerate the country more easily and divvy up the spoils their own way.. That’s it. No genuine patriot will sacrifice his life for
bureaucrats, who have only their own interests on their minds. No true poet will write an hymn to their glory. No scientist will fight for
discoveries in an environment, that spits on his genius.
Quite soon a maddened crowd will remain as the only opponent to this voracious bureaucracy. It will go into the streets and ask: "You
promised us bread and games? Where are they?" You cannot wag a pack of administrative orders in front of the nose of such a crowd. We
will experience a ungovernable democracy with countless emergencies and suffering. And we must be afraid of it. Naturally I would like to
help our country to blossom and to be free. But I am also ready to endure it the power decides to put me into the prison.
I have honest compassion with those authorities, who believe they are rendering a service to the country. The way to hell is paved with
good intentions. They will notice that repression and the forced distribution of wealth do not fit a modern economic development. And the
bureaucrats will not limit their attacks to Chodorkowski, Yukos or the oligarchs – they themselves will eventually be among their victim,
and also all those, who devised this machinery.
My prosecutors know that there is not the smallest proof for my guilt. But that is irrelevant, since they could accuse me at any time me of
some another trespass. Somebody said to me that they wanted to lock me up for a long time, because they are afraid of my revenge. They
judge others as they judge themselves. Relax: I am not some Count Monte Christo. To breathe to spring air, to play with children, who go
to some normal Muscovites school, read good books - all that is so much more important that to amass wealth and settle accounts. For me
the times of the big money are past. Released from the load of the past, I want to work for the well-being of those generations, who soon
will take over the rudder of the country, for the future generations with new values and new hope.
from Sueddeutsche Zeitung› |
