The following is a letter from the human rights advocate Sergei Kovalev in support of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The letter was also published on korpunkt.com and khodorkovsky.ru.

With the YUKOS trial, the power is engaging not only and not so much in judicial pillaging as in educational work. Which is not to say that it didn’t indeed pillage and divide up the oil company, stuffing billions into its pockets in the process. But what worried it and continues to worry it most of all in this affair is educational objectives — the updating, refinement, and universal introduction of the Stalinist political model.

There are several lessons to be taught here at once. And not only to society as a whole, but also specifically to its big-business stratum.