A Russian “Political Technologist” Weighs in on the Arrest of Khodkorkovsky’s Lawyers

[the attached post was written by the editor of this blog, introducing RA's newest guest blogger, The Polittechnologist] One of the more sinister developments to come out of Vladimir Putin’s Russia recently is the concept of “political technology”. Political technologists have become one of the hottest and fastest growing new professions in Russia. More than mere spin doctors or propagandists, political technologists use every means at their disposal – fair or foul, no holds barred – to achieve the political results demanded by their political masters. Do you want to guarantee your party a 20% margin of victory in a local by-election even though it has never won in the district before? Hire a political technologist. Need to convince the country that an inconveniently popular political opponent is secretly a cross-dressing child molester? Hire a political technologist. Have to convince an impoverished populace that life is getting better by the day? Hire a political technologist. Don’t know how to transform a faceless former secret policeman into a sexy, charming, resolute, eagle-eyed and steel-jawed Leader fearlessly guiding the nation into the future from the prow of a submarine? You get the idea… We interviewed a Russian political technologist (polittechnologist) – anonymously, of course – to get his insights on the perplexing behavior of the Russian authorities in baselessly detaining four lawyers representing Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev as they were checking in for a flight to meet with their clients in faraway Chita. Our source had no problem coming up with a long list of possible motives without even giving the question any thought. In the context of today’s Russia – a place of lawlessness, cynicism, and impunity in the mercenary pursuit of political goals – it all seems perfectly logical. At the most obvious level, our political technologist believes that the detention served to unnerve the lawyers and remind everybody who’s the boss. The authorities wield enforcement power, which they can – and do – use whenever it suits them. And don’t use whenever this might be inconvenient or embarrassing. Another obvious benefit from detaining the lawyers was to have an opportunity to ransack and photocopy the contents of their briefcases at leisure – briefcases that contained confidential case-related documents ordinarily protected by the sanctity of attorney-client privilege. This incident occurred on the eve of the filing of new charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. It is obvious that a foreknowledge of how the defense intended to react to the charges would be of immense strategic advantage to the prosecution, which is not accustomed to dealing with its adversaries on a level playing field. One extremely curious fact about the incident, which did not escape the notice of our political technologist, was that the police allowed the lawyers to keep and use their mobile telephones while they were locked up in the mini-jail at the airport. In Russia, nothing like this happens by accident – it was obviously an intentional “oversight”, and the authorities wanted the lawyers to cause a furor. But to what possible purpose? This is where political technology diverges from political science in the same way that science fiction differs from ordinary fiction. Anything is possible in a land without rule of law; the only constraint is the imagination, and political technologists certainly don’t lack for imagination. According to our political technologist, the detentions were probably a “dry run” rehearsal of sorts, a “bench test” on a small scale in a safe and controlled environment, where there wouldn’t be any major repercussions if anything went wrong. Better to make mistakes now and have a chance to correct them than to fall flat on one’s face during some really important stage of the game. The power doesn’t like to look weak. So, what could they have been “testing”? Take your pick – in Russia’s culture of secrecy, nobody will ever know for sure: • Do the police respond quickly and efficiently to a political order that comes down from above? • Who are the first people the defense phones in a crisis? (Answer: human rights groups and the domestic and international press, all of whom immediately spread the news worldwide. By allowing the lawyers to make these phone calls during an insignificant incident, the authorities have now learned their “political technology” paradigm.) • Do they phone anyone in government – is there anybody still left in the halls of power whom they might still consider sympathetic to their cause? (If so, such people are clearly potential enemies and need to be removed from their posts.) • How does the press respond to such an event? Is the case still newsworthy? (Answer: thankfully for us, yes!) • Which “press organs” give the story the quickest and deepest and most objective coverage? (These are clearly a threat that needs to be neutralized.) • In what ways is the true story distorted by the time it hits the headlines? (Useful knowledge if you want to use the “press organs” you control to help “shape” reality for public consumption.) And, of course, if you keep doing outrageous things like this, they eventually stop being outrageous in the public consciousness, and become “normal”. So that when one day you need to illegally arrest someone really important to you, nobody will care or notice any more. As a final thought, our source adds that the campaign against Mikhail Khodorkovsky is vitally important to highly placed Kremlin officials. They and their political technologists have thought it through down to the last detail, and can’t afford for something to go wrong at a critical juncture. They have identified every risk they can foresee, but you can never foresee everything. A “dry run”, like a fire drill, is an opportunity for the political technologists to test out all the systems they’ve put in place and see if you’ve missed anything critical, such as unforeseen technical glitches or enemies lurking in the shadows. Can’t have that, can we?