>> charlie: welcome to the program. tonight an encore presentation of my conversation with mikhail khodorkovsky. >> but i had to deal with the problems in jail through resistance, and in prison there's only one game that you can play and that's your life. you can only stake your life. you can do a hunger strike that means you either need to put your life on the line, or they don't take you seriously. if you have put your life on the line and then you haven't held out till the end that's it. you are a nobody. i had to do this four times. i very carefully picked my

battles because, like any normal person, i didn't want to die, but i was prepared to go all the way each time and my opponents understood that. >> charlie: mikhail khodorkovsky next. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: mikhail khodorkovsky is here. he was until recently russia's most famous prisoner.

president putin pardoned him in december after more than ten years of imprisonment. he was an oligarch who became wealthy in the era of russia's post-soviet crony capitalism. when masked men arrested him at gunpoint ino three, he was russia's richest man and the chairman of yukos oil. he and his partner platon lebdev were convicted on charges of tax fraud and embezzlement in two widely publicized trials. they were trapped in a judicial vortex that answers to political not legal considerations, it was said. his story has come to symbolize russia's return to authoritarianism. in his second trial, he told the judge, your honor, much more than our two face are in your hands. here and now the fate of every citizen in our country is being decided. he's lived in self-imposed exile in switzerland since his

release. he launched his open russia foundation to challenge putin's grip on power. i am pleased to have mikhail khodorkovsky at this table pore the first time. welcome. >> hello. >> charlie: i looked forward to this conversation as you know since you and i met maybe six or seven months ago. tell me where you are today in your life as you see it. >> i have tried in the past few months to deal with some of the main tasks that i had to deal with in my family. unfortunately, part of these decisions were not in human hands but i still had the opportunity to say farewell to my mother and that, of course, was a big humanitarian gesture on the part of the russian authority. that's not usually in its

traditions. now i consider that i'm ready to start the next stage of my life. >> charlie: which will be? i have finished with business. i consider that i've achieved what i wanted to achieve in it, the plans that i had and now i can move on to civic activity. i consider it seffic activity -- civic activity as i have before although many in russia call it political activity. i don't object to that. okay fine, if you think i'm dealing in politics, you may do so. >> charlie: okay, but how would you define the specific things that you plan to do now? >> now the situation in russia is not very simple as a

consequence of all these national chauvinistic moods that have arisen in the country, a large part of the people have moved over to the side they see life in the way the current regime is propagandizing it to the public. those people who see the situation in another way have now become the minority. it's very important for that half year or year during which this situation will continue in the public consciousness, it's important that this minority during this period would not feel itself alone. in moscow, people do gather in rather large marches for peace and people can feel that they're shoulder to shoulder with someone who thinks like them. but if you take smaller towns, ones not as big as moscow then

the situation there is different, of course. the task of that movement the organization that i have created is to help people who hold a pro european position who are in favor of a creation of a law-based state in russia to not feel themselves outside of society. >> charlie: you understand lots of people want to know the answer to this question, will you go back to russia and personally challenge vladimir putin politically and in every other way you can? >> what i'm doing in any case is regarded by the current regime as a challenge. i don't know whether vladimir putin feels this challenge today. the move is not that powerful yet. but the regime as a whole certainly feels this challenge and we can even see this by when we conducted even our first

conference we conducted in eight cities all of those groups that took part in this conference were invited to the local fsb and they conducted so-called prophylactic meetings with them. as concerns returning to russia, here it's a question of choosing the most effective place for doing what i want to do. if i return to russia i will immediately, of course turn up probably under house arrest -- not in prison but now there's this new practice the russian authorities put their opponents under house arrest. so every six months our investigative organs with president putin extend the term of the investigation of one of the many yukos criminal cases. so i understand perfectly well that if i return to russia under current conditions i will not be free to act.

so, for now, it's more convenient for me to act from abroad. >> charlie: is there anything in your pardon that prevents you from returning? did you make a deal in any way in which you promised not to return to russia? >> no. i did not take any kind of obligations like that on myself. i spoke about how, after my release, i did, indeed need to leave the country, but because my mother was undergoing medical treatment in berlin, but no obligations to not return. i didn't take anything like that on myself. literally on my first press conference, i said that when i'm asked will i return to russia, i would like to address this question to the russian authorities. please there's a decision of the european court of human

rights that ac knowledges as unlawful the claims against me and on the basis the financial claims that if there's a legal opportunity in russia to not let me back out, so remove those. uncommonly quickly a session of the russian federation of the supreme court took place and the european court of human rights decision in my case and that of platon lebedev was refused. and this of course, is against what's written in our constitution. our constitution says a decision of an international court is binding in our country as a higher force but nevertheless, the authorities let me know in no uncertain terms that if i return to russia, i will not

remain free. >> charlie: so they want you not to come back by threatening you that if you come back you will be under arrest because they've got these other possible litigations having to do with yukos correct? >> yes exactly. i don't know what specifically they will come up with if i return to russia, but they've let me know in no uncertain terms that it's not over. >> charlie: there are those who would like for you to become a kind of mandela, you know a person who has been in prison who comes back and leads his country in a different way. is that a mantle you want to put ol'on your shoulders, this idea that mikhail khodorkovsky has come back to russia after having felt the state and imprisonment in the tradition of so many other russian dissidents?

>> for me, this somewhat more ambitious than what i am capable of doing. but without a doubt, there is in russia a large key proportion of my fellow citizens whose interests i do understand and whose interests i would like to defend and i would like to do that. these are those fellow citizens of mine who are in favor of a pro european path to russia's development. there's not all that many in our country even today but unfortunately they're not unified, they're not a single political force capable in those cases when we're talking about the interests of this group of people of jointly standing up

for these interests. i'm going to try to do something about this. whether i succeed or not, i don't know. >> charlie: do you have huge sums of money? did you put away a lot of money because you knew that the state may come down on you? you were warned to get out of the country so my question is is there billions of dollars that you now have access to that you can use in whatever political ambitions you have? >> i've got enough money, although billions of dollars, of course, it's not a sum like that. but i do have enough money to feel myself independent. at the same time, i would consider it incorrect to use the money that i have in order to solve political problems.

first of all, that would be dangerous for my supporters and people who think like me because the authorities in that case could have -- could apply sanctions towards them. but secondly, in principle, i feel it incorrect when people resolve general political goals without putting their own resources into these solutions. if there's a task that people feel that needs to be solved they give money for this. if people aren't giving money for solving a particular task then that means that task is not important for these people. >> charlie: is your argument with the russian system or with vladimir putin? >> i consider that the current problems with russia don't have to do only with a specific

person, with putin. he is, without a without, a representative of the system. he is, without a doubt a cornerstone around which this system is being -- is focusing more and more. by the way, this is the fundamental instability. but the problem is not just him. the problem is that russian society has not formulated the question properly for itself. the question is usually as follows -- if not putin then who? and this leaves beyond the scope of discussion the whole system itself. i think that the question should be posed differently. if not putin, then what? that's -- and what is a normal, law-based state with separation of powers with the transfer of powers to local government

authorities, that is the government that's closest to the people. regular elections to replace people in power through honest elections and if putin would agree to follow this path which, of course, i really, really doubt, but still if he did agree to follow this path, then there would be no personal aspects for me with this. >> charlie: in fact, you have told me before in private conversation you do not hate him. >> no. i, naturally, can't say that i love him, that i have good feelings about him. it's kind of hard for me to feel god about a person who has sent me to jail for ten years. but i am perfectly ready to leave all these questions

outside the scope of discussion. but unfortunately, even if i leave the personal outside the scope of discussion, we still are left with a problem that hasn't been solved namely putin does not want to give away power through honest elections. >> charlie: because power is his thing? >> well, i don't think that that was the case initially. he's dug himself into a situation where it's hard for him to love power safely -- leave power safely, and he has created in his head this notion that power in the country equals him, that he and his power are good fortune for russia. and i think that that is a mistake.

>> charlie: because of prison -- i mean how deep is the fear of going back to prison for you? you have been there. it robbed you of ten years. it robbed you of years with your family. it robbed you of other things beyond the things that you had to endure. talk to us about what you lost in ten years that you can never get back. >> well, of course in human life between age 40 to 50 50, that interval is not the worst part of one's life. and one could have spent it in a lot better way. of course time between when my

children were 4 years old and when my children are 15 years old, this is time that i would have loved to have spent with them. of course, my wife, my parents would have liked to see me more frequently. more frequently than the time they were allowed to do this in jail. i'm not talking about myself personally because i probably, in this whole system, i was probably the most stable element in this whole system. but i feel very bad for my family, of course. i feel very bad for the family.

and for me this loss that they bore over these ten years that's something that can't be returned despite the fact that i'm going to do everything to try to somehow return it. but still that's life. >> charlie: and the ten years in terms of the physical toll on you, was there torture was there -- i mean, you've talked about how cold it was and that was part of it, but you said this was not a gulag, yes? >> oh, yes, of course. russian prison is not the gulag. russian prison even in those ten years that i spent within their walls, things improved and only very recently this year was there a law that was adopted

or at least it was passed that makes the situation of prisoners worse. it actually allows security to beat them without any control. but still, this is not the gulag. i was able to position myself in such a way in prison that people treated me with sufficient respect. nevertheless, for this -- and not just for this -- i had to deal with the problems in jail through resistance and in prison, there's only one gain that you can -- only one game that you can play and that the your life. you can only stake your life. if you do a hunger strike, that means you need to either put your life on the line or they don't take you seriously.

if you have put your life on the line and then you haven't held out till the end that's it. you are a nobody. i had to do this four times. i very carefully picked my battles because, like any normal person, i didn't want to die. but i was prepared to go all the way each time and my opponents understood that and all four times they did compromise with me. >> charlie: what did they compromise on? >> one of the most lengthy stages of resistance was when my former employee visil alexanian (phonetic) who is very ill with age, they refused to transfer him to a hospital. i an other people, too, not just

me, but i and other people, we managed to get him moved to a hospital. there was also a very difficult situation when platon lebedev was thrown into the dungeon and we were told that he would sit there forever. there were a couple of other unpresentunpleasant situations when there was no way out except to do this, and that's normal in jail. >> charlie: but there were others who also participated in hunger strikes while you were there, not just you? >> of course. but it's hard for me to say to what extent these people were ready to go all the way. that's their choice and i never told anybody to join in because

your attitude to your own life is an extremely personal attitude. >> charlie: and how did you get to the point where you were willing to put your life on the line? what was the process? how did you come to the moment in which you said i have to do this? >> you know, i believe that there is someone who stands above us, higher than us. i believe that at some moment we all will need to give an answer for what we've done or have not done in life before him. and i believe that he does not have a good attitude towards suicide. so i needed to know will he understand why i did this or

not? when i felt he would understand me then i put my life on the line. >> charlie: what was the longest hunger strike you endured? ten days? >> yeah the usual was somewhere around 10 or 11 days, yes. one was unannounced 28 days. but the toughest one was not that. the toughest was the six-day dry hunger strikes, which means without drinking, also. i really thought that after six days of that i was sure that the end was near. >> charlie: and you were at peace with yourself? >> well, i was not afraid anymore, let's put it this way. you know it's interesting actually. later, after the authorities did compromise, i had to force

myself to start drinking again. i honestly didn't even want to drink. a dry hunger strike is when you refuse to drink. on the sixth day, you don't even want to drink. >> charlie: and what are you feeling? >> hallucinations. >> charlie: hallucinations yeah. after ten years, they released you. you have talked about this before, but not on american television. what were the conditions? how did that come about? that you were -- at the you discovered you would be -- that you discovered you would be leaving? >> i knew there were talks going on on this topic because my lawyers were telling me that such talks were going on. but i heard putin's talk on

tv -- there was a tv in the camp, of course, and the people who saw him together with me told me that then the talk was about when this would happen. i was convinced that this would take place very quickly because i know the style that our authorities function in and, indeed, i it was 2:00 a.m. in the morning i was woken up and told a car had come for me and i was about to be transported. the person who came for me told me that, even though he's formally taking me for transport to another facility, but he said, in the evening, you will be at home. what he didn't know was i was being factually deported to germany. >> charlie: which is where your mother was? >> in this time my mother had

gone lo the first stage -- through the first stage of treatment and had returned to russia. >> charlie: oh. but they nevertheless deported me to germany. that's a bureaucratic game if you will. >> charlie: what role did the germans play? >> i think they played an important role. because there wasn't any one single reason why putin decided to release me. he even had the alternative either he could release me or start up a third criminal case against me. thisthis was a very small window of opportunity when putin was thinking about the olympics and crimea was still nowhere on the

horizon. in those two months, if fact we were able to use these two months we had is thanks to people from germany, mr. ginsher and chancellor merkel. >> charlie: there were times you could have gotten out earlier. all you had to do was say i'm guilty. >> you know i didn't try but they offered. nobody ever talked about anything with me. but i was told publicly many times and once even president putin said this publicly that if mikhail khodorkovsky admits his guilt, then we are prepared to quickly and positively examine the question of his release. >> charlie: who did he say that to?

the press or someone -- did anybody follow up and say what did you mean or did you simply dismiss that at hand because you would never admit guilt in? >> i never even started discussing it because it was obvious for me that this is impossible. >> charlie: was it clemency or pardon that got you out, because you said authorities recognized your mother's illness. that's a humane thing to do. was it that? or do you think they just wanted you out of russia? >> the formal position of the authorities was that it's a humanitarian gesture. >> charlie: but it was... actually, i think that for the authorities, it was not very

acceptable to release me at the end of my term, that is scot-free without any further obligations, yet they were not comfortable starting out a third case because society -- nobody in society was looking at this as something just and fair anymore. so, in this situation when you don't, on the one hand, want to release a person without any strings when the term ends, on the other hand you don't want to start up an obviously unpopular case society is not going to support, the humanitarian aspect became a good way out for everybody. we need to understand that if i had remained in jail after the start of the crimean events

then, of course, i would remain there for life. >> charlie: why is that? because you didn't speak out? >> well, of course i wouldn't have kept silent but because the authorities in a situation when relations with the west are still already torn up has no point in having yet another headache in the person of me at large. >> charlie: you told me this in a conversation we had that someone from the outside had said to you -- and correct me if i don't remember this correctly -- they said to you mikhail, you have to come to this point, you have to assume you will never get out. that's the mindset you have to have. only then can you survive. correct?

>> this was my approach to psychological survival. i said to myself that i'm here for good and i've got to deal with my life as the life of an invalid limited restricted with more freedom than somebody sitting in a hospital bed. and i said, well, there are people who survive, who live, who have only one finger that moves, people totally paralyzed and they make scientific discoveries. how am i worse? >> charlie: there is also this -- when the second trial

came out and the question in the second trial and i quoted from that, many people look at that tas most eloquent thing you've ever said. what went into that public statement at the time of the second trial? i mean, which you defiantly spoke to putin and the russian system. >> i spent a lot of time thinking about what i should say because i understood that i am in prison for good and whatever i would say would make no difference on my fate. and at that point i decided i wanted people to understand why i am choosing such a fate, the

fate that i have chosen. it was very important that i be understood because i have friends out at liberty i have children out at liberty, i have my family out at liberty. and i didn't know, will i have another opportunity to tell them directly. so i said what i thought, what i consider. i tried to make it so that people would understand me. it seemed to me that i succeeded at this. >> charlie: you clearly did. when you came out, there were those who wondered about what the arrangement was, wondered whether you would come back to russia, wondered whether you would be politically active. you were careful to say you were not going to oppose putin and be politically active, that you were going to fight for the liberation of prisoners and you

wrote a book about that because you saw experiences in prison that demanded that you, in your own conscience do something. you saw people who were ready to commit suicide, you saw people, you know who had everything taken away from them and perhaps didn't have the strength that you have for lots of reasons to do anything. but why now? why not immediately when you came out of prison, other than you wanted to get to know your family again, you owed it to them to give them time before you gave the rest of us time? was it anything else? >> when i got out of jail, i very clearly told about all of the understandings and agreements that i had about all that i had written to president putin. i didn't conceal anything, and i

said everything totally publicly. in particular, i said that i had asked for time until the end of my formal release date to spend that time with my family. i don't know whether this was important for putin or not, but if i asked for this time for that, i intended to -- and i did -- spend it specifically on what i said i would. i needed this, my family needed this and this is that obligation that i took upon myself. >> charlie: there are those who look at the tradition of

dissidence in the soviet union and russia an i've mentioned some of the others as a long list and you know them well and their stories well, there are those who want you and wanted you to be more defiant, almost a martyr. are you aware of that? how do you feel about that? they want you to say more. my question might be can you say more? are you holding anything back for any reason? do you believe that you have been as defiant of putin and russia as you possibly can? >> there are two approaches to expressing your personal position. the first approach i say what i feel, and it's not important to

me how people react to my words. in order to remain a responsible person but to take such a position, you've got to be very confident that your soul has a very precise tuning fork that what you want to say is what needs to be said to people. i'm not a saint and i don't feel that my soul is such an absolutely precise tuning fork like that. i check what i want to say with reason. from the point of view of how this will reflect on those

people, on their interests -- those people who i consider important. and i've told you what group of people i consider important and i probably haven't said but i'll say it right now what interests i consider important. the interests are, of course the interests of my country. i check things with my reason and what my reason tells me i shouldn't say you're never going to hear me say publicly. >> charlie: you check with your reason -- tell me that again. you check with your reason -- >> i check what i would like to say with my reason for what kind of consequence will come from saying it, for those objectives

that i consider important. i am never going to go about lying, but to restrict myself in what i do say, i do that and i am going to continue doing that, based on the reasoning that i have just described. >> charlie: what is your fear? do you fear today for your life? do you fear further actions against you? do you fear there is only so far you can go? >> you know, after ten years i have crossed the line of being afraid for my life many a time. of course i'm not going to throw myself in front of a

moving train but to say that you can scare me with something, i would have a hard time saying that. at any rate, i don't feel any fear from my understanding of my vulnerability, my physical vulnerability. that's fate. nothing's scary about that. that said, of course, i do fear the steps that may threaten those objectives that i serve. i do not want for someone to

some day say that he could have done and should have done better but didn't because -- simply because, well, he didn't both tore think about it -- he didn't bother to think about it. they may say he didn't have enough talent. that's fine. i only have as much talent as i have no more. i only have so much strategic thinking as i have. but i'm going to try to do the best towards the achievement of my goals. >> charlie: there is this about you -- there was nothing about you before all this happened to you that would have predicted how you would respond,

is there? because people have said to me, i knew him as a businessman, and the strength he's shown, the values he's shown, the courage he's shown, i did not know was there. is this a case in which mikhail khodorkovsky simply had history thrust on him and he responded the way he did? in other words, this is simply a case of a man who became something beyond what he ever imagined because he had to? >> i think you are absolutely right. i have spoken with many people who took part if -- in combat.

nearly all of them at least those. who they were able to speak openly about it, told me that none of them knew about himself how he would behave in combat, until that moment arrived. we just don't know. and i think that within each of us, there is something that under certain conditions, forces us to jump into the water for a drowning person, or to run into a flaming house to save a person, and how deep this is and can this be taken out to the surface, will we succeed in doing so when the time comes when you need to? you're not going to find that

out until it actually happens. when i worked at the oil company and one of our oil tank farms went on fire, that's a very dangerous situation, and the firemen needed to run in there to prevent the fire from spreading. you need to go 150 meters in a special suit at a temperature of 800 degrees. some of the firemen decided to do it, and another part, even though they had been training all their lives for this, they couldn't do it. after that we started conducting training every year and those people who weren't able to cross that line, they stepped aside themselves, but none of them knew whether he could or he couldn't until he

had to do it immediately. >> charlie: and that was your case too. how did you come to find out that that was within you to resist? was there moments in which you said, no, i can't go this far? i will not submit? >> no. you know, every moment i ask myself can i let myself to step back here? no. i can't retreat. okay. so there's no way out, then you've got to move forward. here, can i allow myself to retreat? if i can, fine, no problem, compromise. if i can't allow myself to retreat then if i can't sign an admission of guilt because that would put under threat people who are absolutely innocent of

anything who were then going to be told that your boss said that you're all thieves, well then you must be thieves. i can't allow myself to do that. so there's no place to retreat. so there never was any vacillations in my soul or anything like that. >> charlie: do you feel like a hero? >> no, of course not. you know, a hero is something that stands out. in prison, such people, at least in russian prison the kind of people who have to experience deep trials and tribulations because they can't do otherwise, there are a lot of people like that. maybe 10, 15% that's nearly

100,000 people are like that who refuse to take it upon themselves to sign a statement that they committed a crime that they didn't commit or who refuse to finger somebody else and ended up in jail themselves. like i said 10%, 15%, 100,000 people. i'm just one of those. yeah my case was a lot more louder. >> charlie: let me go back to russia. what the future for russia near and long term? >> today, the economic situation in the country is not very good. >> charlie: withstanding oil prices. >> yes, we're spending the resources we've accumulated. the reasons are understandable. right now the oil and gas industry has, for the most part, fallen under the political no, ma'amennonomenclature's's management

and the expenditures are growing the same way or faster. nevertheless, we still do have reserves. i think for some period of time there should be enough of them. afterwards, if prices don't jump up to $200 a barrel, i think that the authorities are going to have a harder time explaining themselves to the people why it is that the people shouldn't partake in running the government despite the fact that the authorities themselves seem incapable of providing them with constant growth in their standard of living. the social contract between the people and the authorities was just that, you ensure constant

growth in our standard of living and we don't meddle in running the country. >> charlie: you take care of politics and we have a good life. >> yes, exactly so. strategically, if we talk about the strategic future we understand that all authoritarian regimes, especially ones like this that aren't even based on an ideology but an individual person, are highly unstable because, in order to retain power such authoritarian leaders are forced to burn the field all around themselves, which is what putin is doing and when such a person leaves -- and we all leave sooner or later -- what will grow on this burnt field,

whether it's going to be grain or wheat is hard to predict. but the situation is not going to be easy that's pretty obvious. i fear that putin is going to bring the country to a crisis much more quickly than many would like. people, after all, do want to have a little bit more time to live not having to think about difficulties. >> charlie: what's the scenario for bringing the country to that place for putin? how does he, in your own scenario, come to a pointy he's failed -- point where he's failed and there is a consequence? >> there are three variants. the first scenario is he lives

till his natural demise the way brezhnev did. it's a sad situation but maybe not the worst for the country. >> charlie: a natural death. the second is also a rather sus -- customary one, the khruschev model and he and russians before him in a tougher or less tough form left as a result of a conspiracy within their entourage. it's unpleasant, but also not necessarily the most frightening. finally, the third way is a repeat of 1917 when a person brings the country to an

economic crisis, and we are certainly moving right in that direction, and when the question of power comes out, the question of what will be the power goes out in the street. and here russians don't hold back. we don't know how to. if we start that -- >> charlie: it's over. yes. >> charlie: and is that -- how long -- you believe that could happen in russia, the 1917 scenario? >> everybody understands that this is the worst of the scenarios, but that you can't rule it out. everybody understands that. >> charlie: the kind of thing we're seeing in hong kong today we saw in the arab spring, we saw in -- >> and what's the most unpleasant is nobody can ever predict this. it's just that suddenly it happens. >> charlie: and nobody can

ever predict the match that lights the fire. >> all of us in russia remember the story with the last dictator of rumania. a month before his downfall, really got a huge number of votes, and then literally a month later -- well, i don't know -- and that's it, it was over. he finishes and it's a frightful finish. nobody needs that. because in this situation, what can come to power is anybody at all. >> charlie: for more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com.

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