Preparations for President Medvedev’s annual address to the parliament are in full swing, with input from many sources. Feedback on his recent article is also being considered, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s remarks.
Dmitry Medvedev has been reviewing feedback on his September article “Go, Russia!”, where he laid out an ambitious plan for national development and is personally reviewing the most interesting comments made by citizens. Tens of thousands of Russians have already submitted their ideas.
“A lot of people responded to the president's article and his invitation to take part in preparations for the address to the Federal Assembly. The president is meeting with various groups, entrepreneurs, and parliament factions. Of course, he personally studies responses that are of the most interest, that have been posted on his blog or voiced in the media and he also read a recently published article by Mikhail Khodorskovsky,” the President's press-attache, Natalia Timakova, told RT. “But unfortunately, I don’t know anything about his personal reaction to it,” she added.
Currently serving his sentence in a detention facility, former oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky responded to the President’s article and shared his views on the problem of Russia’s modernization in his own article for the Vedomosti newspaper.
Khodorkosvky has generally agreed with what Dmitry Medvedev has outlined as the most burning sides of the problem. But he has emphasised that “modernization cannot be ruled by one leader, even the most powerful, if he doesn’t have anyone to rely on.”
“Modernization cannot be carried out by one person alone. This process is beyond the strength of hundreds and even thousands of his followers from the bureaucratic camp,” Khodorkovsky says in his article.
“To my mind, to carry out real modernization, a full-scale social level is needed – a full-scale modernization class,” notes Khodorkovsky.
The population of this class should be no less than 3% of all working people, “which is, in our situation – no less than 2 million people.”