What is Boris Berezovsky thinking? For someone who was once thought of as the ultimate Kremlin insider, he seems to have developed a knack for political goof-ups. For there can only be one political beneficiary from his latest escapade, and that is the very Russian government Berezovsky claims to have set in his gunsights.

You've got to hand it to him – the Energizer Bunny of the oligarchs just won't stay down. From his days at the court of former President Boris Yeltsin, to engineer of the 2000 presidential election campaign and, now, exiled self-styled crusader for democracy and free speech, he has always had a flair for self-promotion matched only by his ego. Since his falling-out with the government forced him to relocate to England, his attempts to revive his political influence may have all been abortive, but they certainly were entertaining.

But this one was hard to see coming – Berezovsky, apparently having awoken to reality and realizing that Liberal Russia has about as much political viability in Russia as a party appealing to teetotalling vegetarians, announced to the "patriotic" newspaper Zavtra that he would consider working with none other than the group he spent much of the ‘90s trying to keep out of power by means both fair and foul: The Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

Berezovsky, who has spent much of the past two years trying to convince an increasingly unreceptive West that President Vladimir Putin is a dictator-in-the-making, justified this possible stratagem by pointing out that, though he might not agree with it, the Communist Party is the only organized opposition political force in Russia.

Not surprisingly, this triggered quite a political bomb. Nobody could disassociate themselves from Berezovsky fast enough. First, Liberal Russia expelled him from its ranks. Then, Duma speaker and head of the Russia party Gennady Seleznyov announced that, unless Communist Party leader and People's Patriotic Union head Gennady Zyuganov made it clear that there would be no common ground between the Union and the oligarch – probably the biggest hate figure of them all for the Communist electorate – he would be taking himself and his party out of it. This would probably not be a good thing for the Communist Party, which already lost Seleznyov's membership earlier this year, but it would be great for the Kremlin.

This could all easily have been foreseen. Liberal Russia and the Communist Party occupy ideological antipodes. The only thing they have in common is their dislike of the current Russian government. Unfortunately for Berezovsky, the former is miniscule, and the latter will have nothing whatsoever to do with him.

One wonders if Berezovsky knows what he is doing? Anything that further emasculates the Communists is good news for the party of power. As for Liberal Russia, or any other party that is so foolish or so cash-strapped to get Berezovsky on board, his endorsement is virtually the kiss of death.

In short, Berezovsky is in a Catch-22 situation; to effectively oppose the Kremlin, he needs to work with some form of political organization. However, Berezovsky is so deeply disliked by both Russian elites and masses as a symbol of everything that was worst about the 1990s, that no such organization, except for the already marginal, will ever dare work with him.

Berezovsky has tried hard to show that he is, indeed, still relevant to Russian politics – and he is. But this relevance is probably not the kind he would like – his participation in any movement, party or cause is almost in itself enough to discredit it with the Russian public. And this is probably just the way the Kremlin likes it.

If Berezovsky really wants to do something positive to work against the authoritarianism of the Putin government, which he says he deplores, he has only one thing he can realistically do: Stay out of politics, and let others do the work.