One is a telegenic billionaire turned dissident, and the other is a bunch of fog-sodden volcanic rocks at the edge of the earth. But the Khodorkovsky case and the Kuril islands dispute have more in common than meets the eye.
The Kuril islands, like Yukos, were strategic assets seized by an emboldened Russian state from an adversary that had tragically overplayed its hand.
Both were symbolic expropriations-as-restitution. Yukos was seized to show that the tide has turned, that Russia (ie the government and its domestic enablers) would now start to claw back the wealth that had been taken from it in the 1990s by private oligarchs. Whether or not Yukos was even the most egregious example of that trend did not matter – the point was the message.
Same with the Kurils. After the disastrous 1905 war and the horrors of WWII, the tide had now turned, making Russia a legitimate power in Asia, and the fact that the Kurils were never a part of Russian territory seized by Japan was equally irrelevant.
But just as both Kurils and Khodorkovsky were once effective metaphors for Russia’s resurgence, each has now become an impediment for Russia’s modernisation.
Unlike post-war USSR, which was a poor country punching above its weight and therefore requiring props like the Kurils to prove that it mattered, no one can doubt Russia’s credentials as a Eurasian power. What matters today is the volume of trade, not landmass; economic, not territorial, growth. Russia has worked hard grow its trade in the region and, being more secure in the post-Soviet order, no longer sees Japan as a militarily dangerous US proxy.
In fact, the only thing that stands in the way of a natural and mutually beneficial expansion of Russia-Japan relations are the Kurils. But there is no easy way to end the mess because any backtracking, no matter how sensible, risks looking like an abrogation of a previous victory, or of defeat, even if it ends up benefiting Russia.
Likewise, Khodorkovsky’s trial has long outlived its politico-economic purpose as well as its symbolic one. Like seizing the Kurils after WWII, arresting Khodorkovsky was the right thing to do in 2003 in terms of restoring the power of the Russian state, even if it was the wrong person for the wrong reasons and on trumped up charges.
He is probably innocent of most of the ridiculous accusations levelled against him, and there are doubtless oligarchs who stolen more. But he is definitely guilty of something, at least simply because there was just no clean way for anyone to go from the Komsomol into the oligarchy.
Above all, he was rightfully punished for violating another, not legally binding but more weighty contract: that the Kremlin would allow oligarchs to steal to their hearts’ content as long as they kept out of politics. When he threatened to oppose Putin politically, he deserved what he got: you can’t have your cake and eat it. Like Japan in the 40s, Khodorkovsky became overboldened by his previous victories and overreached.
Just as the victory over Japan, Khodorkovsky’s arrest and the ‘restitution’ of Yukos’s assets to the state, where they belonged before the 1990s, illustrated the rebirth of a viable Russian state after a decade of doubt about whether the country would even survive into the 21st century.
But whereas in 2003 the operating principle was the expansion of Russian statism just as in 1945 it was the expansion of Soviet borders, Russia’s political problem today lies no longer in proving its strength and viability, but its modernity and functionality. And in a modern, functional state, you’re not supposed to know the outcome of a trial in advance.
What’s most sad about the Khodorkovsky affair is that the only thing that keeps the man relevant is the trial itself. He has lost all his money and most of his power; like Japan, he presents no more threat to the state.
Yet however irrelevant and anachronistic, his sham trial, like the unresolved Kuril dispute, continues to hold Russia back simply because doing the right thing will look like defeat, even as victory was already achieved many years ago.
