Everyone in Russia knows that anyone seeking justice in court is utterly defenseless. Such a person’s case is hopeless. Because if it has reached the courtroom, that means no real force stands behind them. In a country run by a criminal, disputes are settled through bargaining, power, bribery, deceit, betrayal, and other mechanisms of real life—not by some so-called law.
That was demonstrated brilliantly just the other day, when those declared traitors to the Motherland and betrayers killed several Russian army officers in full view of a stunned Russia in the morning, and by lunchtime had struck some kind of deal with someone and gone home to divide up suitcases full of money among themselves. And these were not metaphorical suitcases, but real ones. They were even shown on Russian television.
So once again, law and justice in Russia were shown their place. And it is anything but honorable. You certainly won’t find them in court.
In fact, the court has long since turned into nothing more than a venue where a citizen can at best deliver a speech without—and this phrase is repeated hundreds of times in the charges against me—“coordination with state authorities.” True, for those considered especially crafty, those who make too much use of courtroom arguments and the right of final statement, they first came up with closed hearings, and then with closed hearings held inside prison grounds.
Nevertheless, every opportunity to speak must be used, and now, addressing an audience of eighteen people, seven of whom are wearing black masks that cover their faces, I want not only to explain why I continue to fight the shameless evil that calls itself the “state power of the Russian Federation,” but also to urge you to do so together with me.
Why not? Perhaps you put on these masks because you are afraid of something human—something you still possess and that might show on your face if it were not hidden by a balaclava. For example, the prison guard standing behind me right now is supposed to know, by virtue of his job, what trials still await me. So I explain to him another criminal case, another upcoming trial, another sentence I am facing. Each time he nods, closes his eyes, and says, “I don’t understand you, and I never will.” Surely I have to at least try to explain it to him.
The question of how to act is humanity’s central question. Everything around us is so complex and so hard to understand. People have worn themselves out searching for a formula for the right course of action—for something they can rely on when making a decision.
I very much like the formulation of our compatriot, Professor Lotman, a Doctor of Philology. Speaking to students once, he said: “A person is always in an unforeseen situation. And in that moment, he has two legs to stand on: conscience and intellect.”
That is a very wise thought, it seems to me. And a person should stand on both of those legs.
Relying only on conscience feels intuitively right. But abstract morality that takes no account of human nature and the real world will degenerate either into foolishness or into atrocity, as has happened more than once.
But reliance on intellect without conscience—that is precisely what lies at the foundation of the Russian state today. At first, this idea seemed logical to the elites. Using oil, gas, and other resources, we will build a shameless but cunning, modern, rational, ruthless state. We will become richer than the tsars of old. And we have so much oil that ordinary people will get some crumbs too. By exploiting a world of contradictions and the vulnerabilities of democracy, we will become leaders, and others will respect us. And if not, then they will fear us.
But what happens is what happens everywhere. Intellect unconstrained by conscience whispers: take it, steal it. If you are stronger, then your interests always matter more than the rights of others.
Unwilling to stand on the leg of conscience, my Russia made several great leaps, shoving everyone else aside, but then it slipped and came crashing down, smashing everything around it. And now it flails in a puddle of either mud or blood, with broken bones, with an impoverished and plundered population, while tens of thousands of dead lie all around from the stupidest and most senseless war of the 21st century.
But sooner or later, of course, it will rise again. And it depends on us what it will stand on in the future.
I am acting, as it seems to me, consistently. Without any drama.
I love Russia. My intellect tells me that living in a free and prosperous country is better than living in a corrupt and impoverished one. And when I stand here and look at this court, my conscience tells me that there will be no justice in such a court—not for me, not for anyone else. A country without a fair judiciary will never become prosperous. Which means—and now intellect speaks again—that it is reasonable and right for me to fight for an independent court, for honest elections, to oppose corruption, because that is how I will achieve my goal and be able to live in my free, prosperous Russia.
Perhaps right now it seems to you that I am the madman and you are the normal ones—because you are not supposed to swim against the current. But it seems to me that it is you who have gone mad. You have one life, given by God, and what have you decided to spend it on? On putting robes on your shoulders and these black masks on your heads, and defending those who are robbing you as well? On helping the man who already has ten palaces build an eleventh?
For a new human being to come into the world, two people must agree in advance that they are prepared to make sacrifices. That new person must be brought into the world in pain, then cared for through sleepless nights, and then one day you get a dog with them. And then you walk that dog.
And in exactly the same way, for a new, free, prosperous country to be born, it must have parents—those who want it, who are waiting for it, and who are ready to make sacrifices for its birth, understanding that it is worth it. Not everyone has to go to prison. That is more like a lottery, and I drew that ticket. But everyone must make some sacrifice, some effort.
I am accused of inciting hatred toward representatives of the authorities and the security services, judges, and members of the United Russia party. But no, I am not inciting hatred. I simply remember that a person has two legs: conscience and intellect. And when you grow tired of slipping alongside this government, smashing your forehead—and your future—against the ground, when you finally understand that abandoning conscience will ultimately lead to the disappearance of intellect, then perhaps you will stand on the two legs a human being is meant to stand on, and together we will be able to bring closer the Beautiful Russia of the Future.