The Kurilous Case of Khodorkovsky: A Reply to Anatoly Karlin

I was honoured to have had my Khodorkovsky = Kurils post savaged by no less a man than Anatoly Karlin at Sublime Oblivion, and no snark intended!

While Anatoly may be a more incisive and high profile blogger than I, we both come from the broadly defined ‘left’ with a desire to correct the various lies and misconceptions spread about Russia in mainstream western scholarship and media. We both love the Exile, Seans Russia Blog, Poemless and A Good Treaty. So, because we’re basically on the same team, I should preface my rebuttal with the disclaimer that our disagreement falls largely under the ‘fetishisation of small differences’ rubric (remember the Monty Python skit about the People’s Front of Judea?).

Having said that, however, I think he is barking up the wrong tree with regards to the two issues.

Let’s face it: Russia just doesn’t need the Kurils. Russia might have the right to them, whatever that means, but they are useless. The strategic aspect is handled by Kamchatka and the fishing volumes can’t possibly be so earth-shattering either. Unlike Chechnya or any of the places Anatoly mentions, the Kurils have no separatist population, no ethnic conflict. They have no chance of being ‘the first domino’ in Russia’s territorial disintegration, simply because Russia can stop any secession pressures at will.

Does anyone really think that the Kremlin cares about setting a legal precedent for the Chechens/Ingush/Tartars etc? If the Chechens go and say: but you let the Kurils go, now let us go, will the Kremlin say, oh yeah, you got me. Good point, ok you can go too? No, it will bring in the tanks, as it has always done. As a realist, Anatoly ought to know that these things are done on a case by case basis with no rhyme or reason or moral-intellectual consistency, as the American position on the Kosovo/Abkhazia situation amply showed.

I agree with Anatoly that Russia has the stronger ‘legal’ claim to the Kurils than Japan, and also that Russia, being a stronger power than Japan, has no need to make any concessions. But then he goes on say that Russia is known for being an asshole internationally. So why not use the useless Kurils as a cheap trade for a better image? It would be a small price to pay to show the world that Russia is capable of making magnanimous gestures and that it is interested in good relations even with those countries that it could bully if it wants to.

Remember, Russia’s image problem has serious ‘realist’ implications: when the US wants to justify some anti-Russian position to its population/world opinion, all it has to do is say- how can anyone trust Russia? They only understand the language of force, etc. Russia must show that it understands a language other than force, and it willing to speak it to those weaker than itself. Besides, it will be harder for the US to persuade Japan to follow it in some anti-Russian folly, because Japan remains a democracy and certain decisions will have to be justified to a population that will have trouble going against a country that had given them such an unforgettable, emotionally charged gift.

Anatoly seems to want Russia to play by the same rules as the US: bullying its way around the world, trying people just as the US would hypothetically try bin Laden. But viewing the world as if it is a game of risk is boring and juvenile. I stand by my position that modern countries don’t use selective justice and that territorial accumulation is a thing of the past.

I can see the appeal of realism, and I have long despised the foreign policy liberals who think that international conflict is a matter of misunderstandings. But there’s something so retrograde, old fashioned, inflexible, cold-hearted, reductionist, uncreative and axiomatic about dogmatic realism. It all brings too many images of high school nerds playing Risk or one of those empire games on the computer. Of course, no leader can afford to ignore international power relations, but from the sound of his post, Anatoly would have had Russia stay in WWI too.

Instead, let’s be a little bit more creative and idealistic. That means, first of all, dispensing with Russian opinion polls regarding ‘territorial integrity’. Why don’t we also ask ‘the Russian people’ what they think of immigrants, Jews, Georgians and all matter of other gut issues. Or Chechnya. You’d get some pretty scary replies from the heartland.

It also means moving away from ‘territorial integrity’ altogether. The problem with realism is that it is obsessed with and therefore blinded by states and statehood, but that concept is becoming less and less relevant. States are yesterday’s news. I’m not just talking about the EU. I mean: what are states nowadays, in the age of neoliberalism? They have offloaded most of their responsibilities towards their citizens, they are increasingly powerless (if, more than anything else, also unwilling) to control financial flows. They remain powerful forces, to be sure, but they have lost their monopoly on international relations. And domestically, how do they really represent the interests of their people? And what are ‘their people’? Russia for the Russians? And if not Russia for the Russians, then what and for whom?

Smart people like Anatoly must take off their realist blinkers, put their Marxist lenses back on, and focus on the root problem – not interstate conflict, but globalised capitalism, of which the current Russian rulers are simply local franchisees.

As for Khodorkovksy, I was tempted to pick a fight over language but decided that, as a gifted writer living in 2010 and not 1950, Anatoly was surely only using such Stalin-vintage rhetoric as “conquest of the Kurils”, “destruction of robber-oligarch” and “hyenas trying to take on the wolf pack” ironically to get a rise.

I’m equally sure that in identifying me with Russian liberals of the SPS/Yabloko variety, he was just trying to provoke me into writing a response, and does not actually seriously think that I might hold some affinity with the odious Nemtsov-Khakamada brigade.

Anatoly made a great point in saying that an acquittal for Khodorkovsky would be an equal form of legal nihilism, as a state orchestrated acquittal would be just as flawed as a state orchestrated conviction. In that sense, there is no easy way out. But at least the bad PR will stop, and the investment climate would maybe improve.

But more substantially, I take issue with Anatoly’s dichotomy between business interests and state interests, which lies at the heart of the Kremlin-Khodorkovsky battle. He’s right in saying that petty commercial interests do often conflict with ‘national interests’, but what are those latter interests? Anatoly doesn’t define them.

But in Russia today, ‘national interests’ are little more than the interests of a small group of people connected to the government, gas/oil wells and strategic enterprises; who use the state mantle as a way of protecting their assets. Like the Republicans in the US, this group uses the ideology and rhetoric of nationalism, masculinity, family values, fear of immigrants stealing our jobs/women/culture, fear of (Muslim) terrorism, apocalyptic scenarios of state/population collapse, hatred of the decadent West/liberals etc etc to draw broad support from the blue collar, lower middle class people; this support compliments their natural constituency – the rich – and, with the military, creates a potent political tripod.

So, while we all want ‘Russia’ to do well and triumph against the ‘hyenas’ and ‘robber-oligarchs’, Anatoly seems to be defending just another clique of hyenas and robber oligarchs, only ones who happen to call themselves the Russian state rather than the ‘liberal opposition’. What’s the point?
Sure, 15 years ago, it made sense for us liberals/leftists/revisionists/whatever to ally ourselves with the Russian ‘state’ faction against the ‘liberal’ or ‘oligarch’ faction, because the former’s path to personal power and enrichment produced more positive externalities for ordinary Russian people than that of the latter two. But now, I’m not so sure anymore. I just can’t see how Putin+Abramovich+Chubais are any better than Khodorkovsky+Kasyanov.