The Russian challenge and the year 2000

Hough would have had far greater grounds for optimism had he been a contemporary of Sharapov in 1901, after Russia's second economic modernization (although Sharapov, of course, himself drew very different conclusions.) Even so, the second birth of heavy industry in Russia in the 1880s and '90s did not by any means bring liberalization, but rather two cruel counter-reforms which landed the country in a new era of historical and economic decline, ' hus, it would seem that the inability of economic modernization to .nfluence the archetype of political change in Russia is another of the fundamental patterns of her political behaviour.

Our analysis of the arguments of liberal sovietology therefore leads us to the same conclusion as our analysis of the conservatives' theses in America's Soviet debate that the argument lacks an historical dimension To put it more precisely, the novelty of the Soviet political phenomenon causes it to lose sight of all earlier Russian history as a source of information for judging Russia's present-day political potentialities. Liberal sovietology has deprived itself of the opportunity to register the long-established patterns of Russia's past political behaviour and cannot therefore offer a prognosis for her behaviour in the future. This is how the metaphor of the black box would seem to have arisen.

A new crisis

For these reasons, participants 11 the Western debate are helpless when it comes to explaining the phenomenon of the Russian Idea's rebirth in the 1960s While conservatives are inclined to view it as an alternative to Communism, liberals tend to neglect it as irrelevant to Russia's political future. For conservatives, it offers a solution to the fateful question: what would happen to Russia (and the world) if cheir policies were successful and the Soviet government fell? Liberals, on the other hand, cannot take the Russian Idea seriously because its very existence contradicts their postulate about the 'nevitabil'ty of Russia's gradual liberalization.

Suppose at the turn of the century America s Russian debate had been where it is now, would either conservatives or 1 berals of the nine have believed that Russian tsarism s calamity would turn out to be Russian Marxism's triumph? For the same reasons they cannot beheve in Dunlop's scenario today, with ^;ts threat of transforming Russian Marxism's catastrophe into Russian fascism's tnumph Neither the ideological approach of conservatives nor the liberate' geopolitical one can foresee and explain such a turn of events. It could, perhaps, be explained by conceiving of the Russian political dynamic, over the whole length of Russia's imperial existence, as a series of histoncal disasters. I call them counter-reforms; others may refer to them differently. But no matter what we call them, Dunlop's scenario would be quite at home within such a concept (just as the metamorphosis of Russian tsarism into a Marxist state would be). And this is by no means the only problem that cannot be solved by e-.rher of the two approaches that dominate the Western debate on how to deal w h Russia. They cannot, for example, explain the reason for the — at first glance totally unexpected — renaissance of the Russian Idea in the Communist USSR. Only a concept of periodic imperial decline (as clearly seen on Figure 1), which no economic modernization or genera .onal change can avert and which renders Russia particularly susceptible to counter-reform, is capable of explaining this rebirth, as a sympiom of new decline.

Why has Russia proved to be the sole country in Europe where, over the course of centui es, not one reformist attempt (and among these were some truly great reforms) has led to political modernization? Why have all Russ an reforms, without exception, been sooner or later reversed? Why was Russia the sole coni nental empire in Europe to remain intact after World War I, when all the others fell apart? Why, after World War II, when all the colonial empires in the world disintegrated, did Russia agЈ n prove to be the sole exception? How do the ideological or geopolitical approaches respond to these questions? They do not. These questions, central to an understanding of the Russian ponbcal system, it would seem, do not figure in the Western debate at all. Only Russian po tical history that poses these questions can answer them — if properly asked. Its answer puts the Russian challenge of the twen 'eth century into a grim and frightful relief.

Autocracy locked Russia into a kind of a historical trap from which she, as her entire past testifies irrefutably, cannot extricate herself on her own — without the intellectual and political support of the world community. Each of the three major sectors of her poj cal establish­ment — the reformist, the conservative and the extremist (revolution­ary—reactionary) — seems to be strong enough to neutralize the others. It was, one must assume, because of Ithis that a Russia of reform, the only one capable in princple of unlocking the trap, has been unable to fulfil her historical mission to modernize the nation. Every time a reform was about to do this it was swept away either by forces of conservatism or by those of extremism. There is no other source for it to get the additional intellectual and political weight needed for a decisive breakthrough, except the internat onal community.

Unfortunately, these lessons of Russian history have not yet found a place in America's Soviet debate. This is why neither the medieval passions of the conservatives nor the passive academic optimism of the liberals offers any kind of practical solution to the terrible problem of superpower nuclear confrontation. Negotiations have been tried as has refusal to negotiate. At times there have been agreements on arms control and at others there have been none. Detente has been tried as well as cold war In essence, all the conservatives' recommendations have been tried over the past four postwar decades, as have all those of the liberals. Nothing has worked The arms race and potential for confrontation have grown and put down deep institutional roots Now the whole cycle is starting from its beg nn.ig again: the liberals prefer new arms control agreements if not a new detente; the conservatives counter with an intensification of the arms race under the guise of strategic defence. The Western debate grows more and more reminiscent of a broken record where the needle keeps skipping over the same section of music again and again What, however, is the sense in repeating the same ineffectual strategies — on an ever growing level of technological complexity — thus prolonging the con­frontation into infinity? Isn't it time to learn from our own experience, even if only the elementary lesson that, in order to resolve rhis confrontation, what is needed is quite simply another kind of approach toward Russia and another set of strategies altogether '

I am speaking about a set of strategies winch would combine the activism of conservatives, though without ts aggressiveness and militarism, with the optimism of liberals, yet without its passivity and detached scholasticism, one aimed at preventing a new systennc crisis in Russia at the end of the twentieth century. These strategies will be discussed in detail in my concluding chapter. Suffice it to say here that not to react to the Russian Idea's resurrection is a dangerous course. This rebirth marks, just as it did in the past century, the approach of the same system с crisis for Russia in which, as we know from experience, 'there is no middle ground'. Whatever extremist ideology should win out in Moscow as the result of such a cnsis and no matter which avenue of escape the empire takes, things would end, as they did in 1917 and always have in such instances .11 Russia, with a new counter-reform — this time, one capable of transforming the country into a fascist nuclear superpower.

In 1903, the world did not take notice of the formation of the Bolshevik Party in Russia. Afterwards, 11 hmdsight, volume upon volume was written about it Only later did it become evident that this had been a key event for all subsequent world politics .11 this century. Unquestionably, the liberals and conservatives in the contemporary

Western debate do not see the formation of the Russian New Right as a key event of our time. Are they repeating the same error their predecessors made in 1903?

Notes

JoseDh S. Nye Jr., ed., The Making of America's Soviet Policy, Yale University Press. 1984, p. 4.

Ibid., p. vii. ^ .

Dokumenty sovetskoi vneshnei politiki, v. I, Moscow: 1957, p. 15.

V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 4th edition, v. 31, p. 274.

Leont'ev, Sochineniia, v. 6, p. 98.

Russkii vestnik, 1903, No. 4, p. 642.

Marshall Shulman, 'What the Russians Really Want', Harper's, April 1984, p. 69.

Ibid.

Timothy Co)ton, The Dilemma of Reform in the Soviet Union, Council on Foreign Relations, 1984, p. 99.

Ibid.

Ibid

Ibid., p. 79.

ф d. Testifying to the almost universal acceptance of this thesis by American liberals, S. Frederick Starr repeated it, quite independently but almost verbatim, a few years later: 'Soviet society is evolving in reform st d'rect^;ons through a momentum on its own. The old Stalinists are dying out, and their replacements are better educated and less insecure and dogmatic. The information revolution is proceeding slowly but making headway against the entrenched secretiveness of official life in Russia'. (The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 30 June, 1986, p 31.

See, for example, Alexander Yanov, The Drama of the Time of Troubles', Canadian-American Slavic Studies, vol. 12, No. Щ Spring 1978.

Jerry F. Hough and Merle Fainsod, IIow the Soviet Union is Governed, Harvard University Press, 1979.

Witt Bowden, Michael Karpovich, Abbot Payson Usher, An Economic History of Europe since 1750, American Book Co., 1937, p. 301.

7

My Hypothesis

As in the last century, contemporary imperial nationalism in Russia is composed of various different elements. Now as then, it has representatives in the official Russian establishment as well as among the dissidents who are irreconcilably opposed to that establishment. In the last century, dissident nationalism considered — and still considers today -- establishment nationalism t in this case Russian/ Soviet patriotism") an official lie. This none the less did not prevent Russian nationalism from itself becoming the regime s official "'deology in the era of Alexander Ill's counter-reform, fn other words, the interaction of the various components of imperial nationalism in Russia is governed by a dynamic all .cs own Its evolution has a structure. Given this, can we formulate an hypothesis to include this dynamic and structure in a concise and schematic way⁹ Can a single formula be found that would both explain the evolution of imperial nationalism and at the same time generalize the process of the degeneration of the Russian Idea n the last century to take

The Russian Idea arises as a nieta-ideology, i.e., as a pair of sub- ideologies, one 'upsta' s' and one 'downstairs' (let's call them the Establishment and the Dissident Right).

These two begin in confrontation with each other: at the first stage, the ideological sisters do not recognize their kmsh-p. The Establishment Right identifies itself with the establishment of the system, regarding its dissident sister not only as a competitor but also as a subversive ideology, and oppresses and silences its proponents The Dissident Right, for its part, identifies with the anti-establishment dissident movement, accusing its establishment sister of profaning Russia's national feelings and of exploring patriotism for its own ends. But inasmuch as both of them have a common enemy — the West and its agents in Russia, the Westernizers — and see the intensification of 'Russianness' as the only solution to the same historical challenge (the decline of the empire), deep down they sense their kMship, and this leads them — via a series of painful ideological and political metamorphoses — to a state of mutual accommodation. (Elements incapable of adapting are simply weeded out or become insignificant marg rial sects, as, for example, happened to Slavophiles of the immobile Aksakov cast' (or 'good nationalists', in Dunlop's language) who at the turn of the century were headed by Yu. Samarin. D. Shipov and V. L'vov).

Ill The aiiving motives of this adaptation differ for each of the two sub-ideologies according to different historical conditions. For the contemporary Establishment Right, the following are essential:

The intensificat m of political struggle within the establishment as the system degenerates.

Opposition to reform, which they see as undermining their privileges and as a threat to the empire, and a simultaneous unw. llingness to reconcile themselves to the state of political stagnation that is lead lg the country into decline. Under these conditions, counter-reform may seem the least harmful, if not the only, means to enable the empire to halt its decline and begin a new sj ral of historical ascendancy.

Counter-reform demands a raaical ideological shift to restore to the empire its former dynamic character, to gain the active co- opera» on and sympathy of the masses and parts of the intelligentsia, to ustify an intensification of production, and of family and cultural discipline, and to resurrect the militaristic expansionist dynamic.

Orthodox Marxism is on its last legs and is no longer capable of such a radial shift, and in no cond ion to justify the reinstitution of the ideological atmospnere of War Communism. It is also losing its internal onal potency, as foreign Marxists are turning their backs on the Soviet model. It can no longer secure the expansion of Russia's power.

A powerful and sophsnicated deological strategy is demanded by counter-reform. Where :'s the Establishment Right to obtain th s? As strong as it is in bureaucratic politics, it is helpless in the f eld of itellectual endeavour In fact, its only resource is to be found in its oppressed and exiled dissident sister. In this sense, it is truly 'vulnerable to the arguments of the intellectually more sophisticated' dissident nationalists However, it is selectively 'vulnerable', i.e., vulnerable only to those arguments which assist its own political strategy.

For the contemporary Dissident Right, completely different motives are essential:

(,a) 1 he intensification of ideological struggle within the dissident movement and inability to cope on its own with its main opponent in the dissident camp (Westernism). Its intellectual defeat in this struggle can be converted mto victory only with the help of the state (like the Orthodox church, unable to cope with heresy by the spiritual sword for centuries resorted to calling for help on the state's physical sword, and so became dependent on it.) The contemporary Dissident Right feels increasingly out of place in the ranks of the dissident movement, which rebuts its demands for leadership and thus deprives it of a base of support among the incorrigibly 'westernized dissident intelligentsia. (,b) The lack of real means to influence the masses ideologically (means of mass communication, mass nstitutions and so on, which are controlled by its establishment sister)

A hatred for the 'rotten' West, i.e., for the values and morals of Western culture, which represent the tangible embodiment of decadence and historical degradation. This hatred the Dissident Right fully shares with its establishment sister.

A readiness to sacrifice (for the sake of Russia's salvation') political and intellectual freedom which is programmed mto its political catechism. This helps the Dissident Right to overcome the emotional barrier of organic incompatibi'ity with native autocracy common to all dissidents.

(I-Nationalism), and thence to a militaristic-imperial, Black Hundreds, fascist-style nationalism that blends with the of! ;ial ideology in the process of counter-reform (F-Nat'onalism).

That is approximately how my hypothesis looked in 1975, when it was formulated for the first time in a paper 'Halfway to Konstantin Leont'ev. the Paradox of Solzhenitsyn'. delivered at the 7th National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) in Atlanta, Georgia. It was then based mainly on Solzhenitsyn's letter to the Soviet leaders, on his articles in the collection From Under the Rubble, on my personal — and rather sad — experiences of discussions with Russian nationalists, and on the historical model of Slavophilism's degeneration. I understood that to identify Solzhenitsyn with the Russian Right at the moment of his greatest fame as a world tribune and fighter against totalitarianism meant making my hypothesis sound more лке a sacrilegious prophecy than a dispassionate scholarly analysis. Since that time, however, I have collected enough documents to verify my hypothesis, which nas been gradually fleshed out with facts and itself become a fact of life. As the reader will see, the momentum in the Dissident Right has indeed developed according to script, that is, from L-Nationalism to 1-Nationalism This process, however, is still incomplete. The evolution of the Russian Idea continues. Some of the contours of F-Nat.onaJism, which, if one is to believe Dunlop, may be destined one day to become the new official ideology of the Russian empire, are already discernable. Yet it still does not exist as a comolete doctrine like the one developed by the third pre-revolutionary Slavophile generation: 'The path to Constantinople leads through Berlin'; 'Russia as the sole oastion of Christianity in the struggle against the worldwide Free­mason—kike conspiracy', and so on. In this sense, my hypothesis remains an hypothesis.

в

Caught in the Crossfire

The fate of the Russian Idea in the last century has long been my specialty. At the end of the 19b0s I defended a dissertation entitled The Slavophiles and Konstantin Leont'ev: the Degeneration of Russian Nationalism, 185b—9Г. I shall not pretend that I was guided only by scholarly interest, though even from a purely academic standpoint the theme was an explosive one: Leont'ev had been taboo in Soviet historiography since the 1930s and the study of Slavophilism had remained at a standstill for decades. The most notable aspect of my subject, however, was not ite academic potential at all; it was in Russian reality :self at the end of the 19b0s, when history seemed to come to life before our eyes.

It was as though 'from under the rubble' of moss-covered official ideology. Iresh new voices suddenly started to force their way through, proclaiming the need for a national rebirth', 'returning to national roots and Russia's salvation'. A new spirit swept through Moscow like a whirlwind. It arose spontaneously from below, like a force of nature, not orchestrated by the authorities, but rather, at times, directly opposed to them. At literary gatherings in people's living rooms, at clubs and universities, nervous old men appeared from nowhere, as if risen out of the ground, calling for a 'return home' to ^fhe shrines of our national spirit', and sullen youths, solemnly held forth about the land' and the 'soil' — as if they were 1830s Slavophiles come back to life. One of the most popular Moscow magazines, Moloduia gvardia [Young Guard}' joined this chorus with a series of powerful articles. Suddenly the impending extinction of the Russian village (the very thing which had so appalled me when, as a journalist, I had travelled across virtually half of Russia and which led rne to write my most bitter series of articles)¹ which was threatening to leave the cradle of the nation (the north-eastern part of Great Russia) horribly desolate, became a fashionable topic of conversation.

Suddenly, the intelligentsia began to spend their vacations in villages close to the graves of their ancestors instead of the popular resorts of the Crimea, Caucasus or Baltic. Young people started to wander around the dying villages collecting icons and very soon there was almost no intellectual's home in Moscow that was not decorated with symbols of Russian Orthodoxy. The writer Vladimir Soloukhin turned up at the House of Writers wearing a signet ring carrying the mage of the late emperor Nicholas II. A fervent demand arose on the black market for books written by 'counter-revolutionaries' and 'White Guardsmen' who had died abroad. Solzhenitsyn later summed up the mood of the time: 'It is a thoughtless delusion to consider the Russians the "ruling nation" in the USSR . . . Russians are the main mass of that state's slaves. The Russian people are emaciated and biologically degenerating, their national consciousness is humiliated and sup­pressed.'²

This natural concern for the suffering of one's own people would not have elicited anything but sympathy if strangely familiar and ominous voices had not suddenly broken into the general nationalist chorus. There passed from hand to hand a leaflet — one of the first 'swallows' of samizdat — entitled 'A Code of Morals', which had come out of the depths of the Moscow City Committee of the Komsomol. It was written by a noted Komsomol functionary named Valerii Skurlatov and contained such assertions as 'there is no baser occupation than to be a thinker, an intellectual'. It called for 'orienting our youth toward the mortal struggle' connected with 'the cosm'c mission of our people along with 'introducing corporal punishment for women who give themselves to foreigners, branding and sterilizing them'.³ At first, this seemed a sinister curiosity. But in the spring of 1968, when the arrest of the nationalist Fetisov group (whose ideas represented 'criticism of the Soviet system from a position of extreme totalitarianism and chauvinism')⁴ became known, there were no longer any doubts that the reborn Russian Idea was casting its dark chauvi, ist shadow. In the words of these dissident nationalists 'mankind's historical development was represented as a struggle between order and chaos, embodied in the form of the Jewish people, who had been creating disorder in Europe for two thousand years, until Germanic and Slavic principles — the totalitarian regimes of Hitler and Stalin — put an end to this.' Furthermore, A. Fetisov and his confederates saw 'these regimes as historically inevitable and posit ve phenomena'.⁵ (It is worth pointing out that these people - just like their role models N. Markov and Yu. Odinzgoev — were Russian Orthodox, i.e., vozrozhdentsy in Dunlop's present-day terminology, and therefore good nationalists'.)

Anti-Westernism

Thus, already at the end of the l%0s, the regenerated Russian Idea, 111 its most embryonic form, was clearly demonstrating that it had two roots. One of these was descended from Konstantin Aksakov's liberating anti-despotic Utopia, while the other was from Sergei Sharapov's mi'itant imperial fantasy. Despite their differences, however, both ihese tendencies were to find a common devil. Indeed, the origins of Solzhenitsyn s devil, as events soon showed, in no way differed from those of Fetisov's. Both blamed Western ideology-, rather than the Russian empire, for the Russian people's misfortunes. Some blamed the Western ideology of Marxism and the Bolshevik conspirators who managed to conquer Russia with its help. Others blamed Western Judaization', which threatened to visit chaos upon the world. Neither, however, noticed the logical flaw in their main argument

In fact, they had as little reason to blame the West or the Jews for the plight of the Russian peasantry as. say , Turkish nationalists al the turn of the century had to blame the Armenians for the impoverishment of the native population of the Ottoman Empire. After all, wasn't the Turkish peasantry, 'ike the Russian peasantry, 'that state's main mass of slaves'? Certainly, ts situation was dire, and it was tar worse off than the other peoples of the empire, particularly the enterprising Armenians. Turkish nationalists at the turn of the century had every reason to say, anticipating Solzhenitsyn, that the Turkish people within the Ottoman Empire are emaciated and biologically degen­erating. their national consciousness is humiliated and suppressed But they would hardly be justified in asserting on the basis of this that 'it is a thoughtless delusion to consider the Turks the 'ruling nation n the Ottoman Empire'.

Herein lies the very insidiousness of the traditional Eastern European continental empires: while the elite of the imperial nation dominates the empire, its peasantry is forced to shoulder the 'burden of empire' It would be just as absuid to blame W estern ideologies for this as it is to blame the Jews or the Armenians: it wasn't they who created either the Ottoman or the Russian empires. These empires were founded by Turks and Russians. The truth is something quite different, the Ottoman Empire disintegrated as a result of World War I, whereas the Russian one managed to prolong its existence after the destruction of tsansm.

This is why I speak of the political system of autocracy as an 'historical trap'. Still it is incomprehensible why the West or the Jews should be blamed for this. Were they the ones who created Russian political tradition? Was it they who founded autocracy? The hollow - ness of the argument for shifting the guilt for Russia's misfortunes on to others makes it scarcely credible. At F.rst glance, it might seem to be a logical error, if not an aberration. But studying it more closely, the observer uncovers a method: the Russian empire and Russian political tradition are thereby relieved of responsibility for what has happened to Russia With the aid of such a logical sleight of hand it becomes possible to justify the ideological nucleus of the Russian Idea (that which unites the 'good nationalists' like Solzhen .syn, and the 'bac , like Fetisov): a return of the nation 'home', that is, a return to the age- old isolationist and imperial political traaiiion represented as the ideal of true Russian civilization.

It is therefore by no means a logical error to blame the West or the Jews for Russia's misfortunes. On the contrary, il is the foundation of the Russian Idea. Without this, Russian nat.ona .sm. as any other imperial nationalism, simply could not exist. It cannot be anything but anti-Western and anti-Jewish; it must be sure of Russia's golden age, of her blessed Utopian 'home', which was destroyed by certain alien and foreign elements, but to which Russia may return if she casts off the foreign yoke. For these reasons, Russian national - >m is incapable of fighting against Russian autocracy, despite all its rhetoric of liberation. In the final analysis, it must turn into a justification for autocracy and an apology tor empire. From the very beginning it was a 'new chain laid on thought', and in the 1960s, that very same 'duality', which the classic critique of the Russian Idea idem ified, was right in front of us.

Scholarly crossfire

However, even to come close to analysing of these enigmas of Russian nationalism was unthinkable without first clearing away the obstructions presented by the dogmas of the Marxist 'class approach'. Over the course of decades this dogma, presented like Moses' tablets, had transformed the study of Russian nationalism into an intellectual wasteland. According to the dogma, 'The Slavophile movement arose among landlords who wanted to prolong their rule based on old patriarchal foundations, serfdom and all those privileges which the existing order had given them.'⁶ This theory seemed indisputable — so much so that when I started the debate on Slavophilism in May 1969, at first I seemed to my adversaries of the Marxist old guard to be just a whipping boy who had foolishly stuck his head under the implacable axe of Marxist logic. 'Sham enigma' was how the ^first of my opponents' articles was emitted. Others accused me of defending a 'landlord serf-owner' deology, ^; nplying that I was not a good Soviet citizen (to whom else would it occur to defend such an obvious heresy?).

Victory over tins scholarly anachronism was not simple. I shan t dwell on it here, other than to say that when the debate was over only fragments remained of the fossilized dogma that had magiried 'tself alone capable of interpreting Russian nationalism. Of course, my efforts by themselves were not enough to achieve this. A whole group of experts who had long ago begun to doubt the dogma's scholarly merits picked it apart piece by piece and proved its falsity. What I did not understand then, however, was that by destroying the old dogma I was at the same time calling down on myself the fire of the new. So from that point on I was trapped in a crossfire. The representatives of the new dogma attacked me for just the opposite sin: because, in the process of fighting to destroy the old dogma, I had challenged their newly obta'iied harmony; because I had resurrected the spirit of the classical crtique of Russian nationalism; and because, finally, I had returned to the 'duality formula', from which the degeneration of the Russian Idea logically followed.

I enjoyed the fate of all those whose views do not fit neatly into any of the conflicting canons of the contemporary world The Marxists accused me of RussophJism and the Russophiles of Marxism. For the left' I was 'right' and for the 'right I was 'left'. This situation of being caught in the crossfire continued right up to the time I left Moscow — never to return.

The heat of the kitchen

Arrived in the United States, however, I did not have to wait long before I was again being called names — up until the publication of The Russian New Right in 1978, that is. This was a completely different kmc! of crossfire. On the one side were the representatives of the emigre faction of the Russian Idea and on the other were their academic fellow-travellers. Ironically, the former, unlike my Soviet critics, accused me of not being a good anti-Soviet citizen, while the latter accused me of, so to speak, academic insufficiency. The polemics of the 1970s, much more crude than the discussions of the 1960s, were none the less, in terms of content, unproductive. Not one of the principal questions of the Russian Idea's degeneration was even touched on. Let me с te a few examples.

Here's how Solzhenitsyn replied to my hypothesis on the structure of Russian national, jm's evolution:

Think about it: those who collaoorated with the National Socialists were condemned, but those who for decades collaborated with the Communists . . . those the West receives as' best friends and experts . . . Here's Yanov. He was a Communist journalist for 17 years, unknown to anyone — published in [the magazine] Molodoi kommunist and still lessei ones. And here, all of a sudden he is a university professor. He has already published two books analysing the USSR with a most hostile attitude toward everything Russian . . . The message of his books is: prop up Brezhnev with all your strength, support the Communist reg ne!⁷

As the reader sees, Solzhenitsyn responded to my arguments in exactly the same way as the Soviet press responded to his own, only in his case it was called — and justifiedly so — a smear campaign, while in mine it was used as a substitute for ideological c.scussion. Apparently, those representatives of the Russian fdea had nothmg of substance to contribute to the discussion. Thus it was left to the academic fellow-travellers to attack me. Here is an example of how this was done:

[Sidney] Monas seems to adhere to the view, first articulated by the historian P. N. Miliukov and lately resurrected (without attribution) by Alexander Yanov, that Slavophilism must degenerate, evolving in the direction of the Black Hundreds . . . The Miliukov—Yanov model is obviously inadequate.⁸

Considering that Miliukov, as we know from our study of the critics of the Russian Idea, was one of the last to join the general chorus of the liberal press at the time, and that the very term 'Black Hundreds' only appeared twelve years after Miliukov's lecture (so that he could not possibly have been the author of any model), it is obvious that this particular academic fellow-traveller has, unfortunately, intervened in the argument without having famailiarized himself with the facts beforehand. Even so, he has at least remained within an academic

framework Others did not.

'Yanov is an obliging propagandist of bankrupt socialist circles,' declared another fellow-traveller, 'and, apparently, a lobbyist for the so-called "Dnepropetrovsk group" '⁹ A third proposed ihat Yanov 'is trying to revise the usual Western view of Soviet disstdence [because] he is a Jew' ¹⁰ 'It looks as though', a fourth wrote, 'Yanov is lobbying for some group within the Soviet leadership (apparently the so-called "Dnepropetrovsk group"¹) which fears that t will be swept aside after Brezhnev leaves . . . Enough Enough of Yanov.'¹¹

Life, however, continued to take its course. It subjected my hypothesis to the critical test which гщ^г opponents had refused it. The degeneration of the Russian Idea becomes more obvious with each passing year. Only now I am wiser than I was f'fteen years ago. Now I know in advance that, with the publication of this book discussing the degeneration of the Russian Idea within the context of the Western debate on Russia, I shall, once again for the third time, be caught ,n a crossfire. Once again my views will not fit neatly into any of the conflict¹'ng canons. Conservatives will criticize my book because they still value the Russian Idea as an ally against Communism (and as a substitute for the answers they lack to the fundamental questions in che r own political strategy). Liberals will hold it against me because their abstract faith in progress and enlightenment cannot accommodate my hypothesis of the inherently catastrophic nature of the Russian imperial dynamic. Well, as they say in Russia, 'If you're afraid of wolves, don't go into the forest' (or as they say in the West, 'If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen').

Notes

See. for example. 'Trevogi Smolenshchiny' (Literaiumaia gazeta, 23 and 26 June 1966); 'Kostromskoi eksperiinent' (Ibid., 17 December 1%7); 'Kolkhoznoc sobranie' (Kotnsornolskaia pravda, 5 June 19b6). All these articles have been reprinted in English (International Journal of Sociology, Summer—Fall 1976).

'Kommuni7.m u vsekh na vidy, a ne ponvat', ['Communism is there for all to see, but isn't understood' ], Novoe russkoe slovo, 17 February 1980.

Politicheskii dnevnik, No. 18, March I9b6.

Khron ':a tekushchikh sobvtii [Chronicle of Current Events], No. 7, p. 17.

Ibid

Trudy biblioteki imem V. I. Lenina, Sbomik IV [Works of the Lenin Library, Collection IV], Moscow: 1939. p. 19°).

Posev. 1979, No. 4, p. 25.

Slavic Review, Fall 1981, p. 458.

Novyi zhurnal, No. 139, p. 265.

New Oxford Review, Dec. 1979.

Novyi zhurnal, No. 137, p. 173.

In Anticipation of the Year 2000

9

VSKhSON - Beginning of the Dissident R ght

The Liberalism of the VSKhSON

The VSKhSON was the first and, to date, only¹ relatively large underground organization in the post-Stalir st period to set itself the goal of overthrowing by force the e> sting state structure in the USSR.² As one would expect of conspiratorial organizations i 1 general, the VSKhSON had its own set oi by-laws, its own programme and its own methods of agitation and recruitment. It is not, however, the details of its day-to-day activity that interests us here (in fact, there is already a book in English devoted to the history of the VSKhSON).³

As to the organization's programme, it was based, as one m^;ght have expected, on irreconcilable hostility toward both traditional devils' of the Russian Idea: the 'soul-destroying despot'sm' of the native government and Western 'parliamentarism.' Yet, although the ideological thrust was the old one, the tactics differed. The VSKhSON proceeded from the assumption that 'the Communist world is disintegrating. The peoples have found from 1 tter experience that it [Communism] brings poverty and oppression, falsehood and moral decay.'⁴ But the VSKhSON programme was not only a propaganda document. It also called for 'a revolution of national liberation, directed toward overthrowing the dictatorship of the Communist o'.garchy.'⁵

Inasmuch as the VSKhSON considered Communism a phenomenon that was inherently anti-national and non-Russian, just as the "etrine governmental system' was for the Slavophiles, it assumed that the regime 'hangs in the air', without real roots in Russian society. ' le dogmatic grouping of the Communist class , it claimed, does not possess a broad social base among the people on which it could draw to organize serious resistance. Its utter defeat is predetermined.'⁶ Hence the VSKhSON conceived of the evolution as essentially amilitary coup: 'For total victory the people need their own underground army ol liberation which will overthrow the dictatorship and rout the oligarchy's security forces '⁷

Moreover, because Communism is presented as the ma.n threat to Christian civilization and the heart of Communism lies in Russia, obviously civilization can only be saved from wethin Russia. Since the fate of the world Communist movement will be decided in Russia',⁸ the future of the human race will be determined there as well.

After victory, the direct participation of society in the lite of the country must be realized by means of local self-government and the representation of peasant communes and national corporations — major unions of blue- and white-collar workers — n the highest legislative organ of the country⁹ . . . The state must be constituted as theocratic, social, representative, and popular ¹⁰

The theocratic character of the new state will be ensured by the creaiion of a special 'superv isory' organ — the Supreme Synod, which must consist of one-third members of the upper hierarchy of the church and two thirds of prominent representatives of the people, chosen for life.'¹¹ The Supreme Synod will have 'the right of veto over any law or action which does not correspond to the basic principles of the Social-Christian order.'¹² In addition, as the 'spiritual authority of the people', the Supreme Synod shall elect a Head of State — 'the representative of national unity'.

' he theocraac Social-Christian state so constituted must provide basic human rights and civil liberties', among which the following are prominent ■¹³

The lite and dignity of the person are inviolable.

All citizens are equal before the law.

Freedom of labour is provided for even-one by the right

of each citizen to land and to credit for the acquisition of

means of production.

No form of compulsory labour can be permitted in

Point 53: Point 56: Point 58:

Point 62,

Point 63: Point 64: Point 67: Pont 79:

regard to free citizens. Personal freedom is inviolable. All means for the dissemination of thought are free. There is freedom of assembly arid to hold demonstrations. The secret political police must be disbanded

It seems that everything Russian political thought had developed over the course of a century and a half, in its attempt to construct a specifically Russian and fundamentally non-Fluropean state, was brought together in this remarkable document. Here we find the

romantic conviction of Pavel Pestel' that 'freedom of labour' and, more importantly, freedom from unemployment can be provided by giving each citizen the right to land. Here too are to be found: the passionately held tenet of Ivan Aksakov that 'parliamentarism' is a means for professional politicians to usurp power; the postulate of Petr Tkachev that the Russian state has no roots in Russian society and that therefore the people can be liberated by a mihtary putsch; Vladimir Solov'ev's notion that the theocratic organization of society is the political embodiment of the Biblical commandments; Nikolai Berdiaev's declaration that both Western capitalism and Soviet Communism represent to the same degree fatal blind alleys in the history of humankind — paths to the triumph of the Antichrist; Fedor Dostoevskii's abiding faith that the world s salvation mill come from Russia. Yet just as revealing as what this encyclopedic collection of Russian liberal anti-Europeanism contains, is what it fails to address.

In particular, it does not mention the nationalities' question (which is especially surprising in a political programme for establishing the state structure of a multinational empire). Even worse, there's no mention of the need for a working mechanism capable of ensuring the actual realization of all the civil liberties cited earlier. After all, these basic freedoms are fully specified in the Soviet constitution too. However, without a working mechanism to realize them, in the form of an institutionalized political opposition, historically they have proved to be no more than fictions, empty promises. Where is the guarantee that the same thing will not happen with the promises of the 'new Russian revolutionaries'? In other words, what guarantees their liberalism? I stress that I do not doubt the liberal intentions of the authors of the VSKhSON programme — merely whether they were capable of carrying them out. Given that the VSKhSON already has a kind of official interpreter in the West — John Dunlop — it is worth examining his views more closely

What do the Russian people want?

Briefly, Dunlop believes that the VSKhSON represented the most promising wing of the Soviet dissident movement and carried within it the seed and prototype for a future anti-Communist revolution in the USSR. 'While the VSKhSON,' he writes, 'like the Decembr'sts, did not constitute a serious military threat to the exist ng order, the ideas it propagated — and continues to propagate — represent a formidable danger indeed.'¹⁴ For this reason Dunlop is certain that the further development of the dissident movement in the USSR will follow the model of the VSKhSON. He even goes so far as to predict this ¹⁵ As proof he cites 'the great s n.ilarity of the VSKhSON's views to those of Solzhenitsyn and h*s friends' ¹⁶ Furthermore, Dunlop feels enormous personal sympathy for the VSKhSON which serves him as a basis for yet another prediction. Although 'the VSKhSON's society would be more 'authoritarian than the Western democracies', t would nevertheless inevitably represent a marked improvement over the Soviet system , and that may very well be what the populace wants'.¹¹ I haven t the slightest idea how Mr Dunlop ariived at this discovery. My personal observation has been that different people out there want different things What interests us here is what the authors of the VSKhSON programme wanted. They, judging by the articles of their projected constitution cited earlier wanted freedom, not authoritarian­ism. Just like the Bolsheviks, they were sure that a society built according to their plan would be much freer than Western democracy, which they, again as the Bolsheviks, considered 'an unconditional evi.' , and not in the least free. The question then becomes, whether the new Russian revolutionaries were not just as mistaken as the Bolsneviks, and whether iheir programme would not doom Russia to new authoritarian slavery instead of the freedom they promised Unfortunately, Mr Dunlop doesn't tell us anything on this crucial question.

The Russian Patn

The programme of the VSKhSON is divided into two parts, one critical, the other constructive. The critical part, which takes up the bulk of the document (30 out of 48 pages) is of no interest to our analysis. Mainly it ;ust rephrases Milovan Djilas's The New Class However, the constructive section raises a fundamental question: namely, for the sake of what is the 'Communist oligarchy' in the USSR to be overthrown? The programme makes it clear that this is necessary in order to save humanity from both Communism and capitalism, which it sees as the immediate source of Communism.

Being a sickly child of materialistic capitalism, Communism has developed and perfected all of the harmful tendencies which were present in bourgeois economics, politics, and ideology . . . The component parts of Marxist-Leninist teaching were borrowed from

Western bourgeois theories Communism brought to its limit the proletarianization of the masses begun by capitalism.¹⁸

In a word, to paraphrase Lenin's classic remark, Communism is the highest stage of capita sm.

What interests us, though, is not so much this remarkable similarity to Bolshevik dogma as the belief that the primary source of evil in Russia is ot Western bourgeois origin. This fundamental feature of the VSKhSON programme entirely conditions its further development. Not only the economic structure of capitalism — its 'base', to use the Marxist terminology — but also its 'superstructure' prove unacceptable to the VSKhSON.

The Social—Christian doctrine of the state regards as an unconditional evil an organization of authority in which power becomes a prize to be competed for between parties or is monopolized by a single party. The party organization of power is in general unacceptable from the point of view of Social-Christianity.¹⁹

Why is the multi-party system, which, for all its drawbacks, is none the less still the best guarantee of personal freedom known to humanity, an 'unconditional evil'? The reason is obvious: because all the products of Western capitalism contain within them the immanent danger of Communism. It is for just this reason that the 'new Russian revolutionaries' feel that their vocation is to lead humankind on to a fundamentally different, Russian, path. The Russian essence of this path derives from the belief that, contrary to the asser ons of Western theoreticians, the centre of gravity for all conflicting forces in the world lies not in the realm of the struggle of democracy against authoritarianism, but in that of the struggle of metaphysical forces: God vs. Satan.

The cause ... of the dangerous tension in the world lies much deeper than the economic and political spheres ... a spiritual battle for the individual is going on. Two paths are before mankind: free communion with God ... or the denial of God, and then Satanocracy.²⁰

The Corporate State

The philosophical premises of the VSKhSON programme inevitably had to lead it to the right in the area of socio-po ical planning as well.

Thus, in proposing to replace the party organization of power with 'representation by corporations , the authors of the programme are, of course, only echoing the central idea of their teacher, Nikolai Berdiaev in his book The New Middle Ages. If it was Djnas who inspired the critical portion of the'r program, t was Berdiaev who inspired its constructive part.²¹ It was he who in 1923 contrasted Western parliaments — these outgrowths on the body of the people, with their fictive vampire-like lives, no longer capable of fulfilling a single organic function . . . [these] degenerative talk-fests' — with 'representation by real corporations'.²²

The matter is somewhat complicated by the fact that Berdiaev's tierce contempt for Western parliaments is reniin scent of Mussolini s pronouncements on the subject.

No one any longer believes in any juridical or political forms; no one gives a damn for any constitutions . . . We, especially Russia, are moving toward a unique type [of state], which could be called 'Soviet monarchy', syndicalist monarchy . . . The regime will be strong, often dictatorial. A elemental grass-roots force shall invest elective individuals with the sacred attributes of power . . . features of Caesarism shall predominate in them.²³

Even if Berd'aev hadn t directly referred to Mussolini, it would still be obvious who was his uisp'^ration, but he goes on to make this quite clear. 'Fascism is the sole creat've phenomenon in the political life of contemporary Europe²⁴ . . . Only people like Mussolini, perhaps the sole creative statesman in Europe, shall have meaning [in the future].'²⁵ Even if the new Russian revolutionaries, did not understand that they were repeating Mussolini's Fascist rhetoric directly (although, as we have seen, references to it are given openly in their textbook), at least they were consciously using Berdiaev's ominous interpretation of it Dunlop ought, therefore, to have known what a fatal role Berdiaev's most reactionary book played in the formation of the opposition consciousness of the VSKhSON. Indeed, he seems well aware of it 'The New Middle Ages', he writes, 'is a provocative work that has surprisingly never been translated into English ... It contains Berdiaev's program for Russia's emergence from the Bolshevik yoke ... A number of Berdiaev's ideas . . . were incorporated into the "constructive section" of the VSKhSON program.'²⁶

I must admit that of all Dunlop's commentaries 1 his is the one which is the most bewildering. First, are we to understand from it that not only 'the new Russian revolutionaries', but also Dunlop himself, seriously views Fascism as a programme for Russia's emergence from the 'Bolshevik yoke'? Secondly, could Dunlop have failed to notice that Berdiaev, in his 'provocative' book, flatly contradicts all the liberal promises of civil rights contained in the VSKhSON programme? 'I assert', writes Berdiaev, '[that] the Russian people ... do not want a Rechtsstaat [a state based on the rule of law] in the European sense of this word. [Russia] would sooner give Dirth to the An ichr ;t than to humanist democracy.'²⁷ For oetter or worse, humankind knows no other sense of the expression 'a state based on rule of law than the European one. Moreover, if the categorical denial of a state based on rule of law is, in Dunlop's opinion, merely authoritarianism', then what is Fascism? Third, and finally, inasmuch as The New Middle Ages was translated into English (and reprinted three times!) even f under a different title,²⁸ it is unclear why Dunlop should deny it. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that 'the new Russian revolutionaries' in their programme preferred the principles of the Fascist corporate state to those of the 'unconditional evil' of Westrn democracy and so revealed their projected revolution in a somewhat unexpected light.

Great Russia

Suppose for a moment that the Russians really can be saved from the threat of 'satanocracy' only by the Orthodox corporate theocracy which the VSKhSON intended to bestow upon them. It should not be forgotten, though, that Russians make up only half the population of the USSR. Among the dozens of other nationalities included in the empire are some which are not Russian Orthodox, or even Christian. No plebiscite has ever been set up to establish whether any of these nations are especially inclined toward Orthodox theocracy. What fate awaits them in a 'society built according to the VSKhSON's plan' (so appealing to Mr Dunlop)? The programme gives no answer to this question at all. It doesn't even go through the formality of promising that the empire's non-Russian nations will have the right not to follow 'the Russian path', if they so choose. Point 73 merely states that the VSKhSON 'acknowledges itself as a patriotic organization of selfless representatives of all the nationalities of Great Russia.'²⁹

Where are the boundaries of this 'Great Russia' conceived of by VSKhSON; within those of the present Soviet emp^;re? What if the Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Buddhists iving withm its territory should not wish to recognize Orthodoxy as the ideology ot universal salvation, and theocracy as the mandatory form of political organization? According to Point 83: 'countries in which Soviet troops are temporarily stationed can be helped to national self-determmation on the basis of Social-Christianity.'³⁰ But what if these countries should desire self-determination on some other basis? Since the programme doesn't address these questions, we must seek out other sources of information to help shed light oil those issues about which the programme is obscure. In particular, we want to know about the attitude of key VSKhSON leaders toward certain national minorities. In the memoirs of В Karavatskii, a fellow-traveller, there is a revealing passage on the views of the organization э 'head of personnel Mikhail Sado: 'It is difficult for me to reconcile myself to the fact that anti-Semitic overtones slipped through in this mai s conversation Probably, this deeply rooted flaw in this uncommonly .ntercscmg individual was absorbed by him with his mother s nrlk ³¹

We find other evidence in the recollections of A. Petrov-Agatov, a highly controversial personage who has spent the greater portion of his lile in Soviet camps. There he met members of the VSKhSON whom he — like Karavatskii — considered 'the salt of the Russian nation' and 'the flower of Russian youth , and there he encountered virulent anti-semitism.

The Jewish question was sharply posed . . Having become acquainted with the Zionist Solomon Borisovich Dol nik . I suggested to Andrei Donatovich (Siniavskv) that we go visit him. 'Fine with me: Solomon Borisovich is a nice person. But I ask you to bear .n m.nd that the attitude toward Jews here is especially intolerant ' A rumour was even going around camp that Andrei Donatovich was a Jew. Incidentally, it wasn't just Siniavsky who was considered a Jew. Having seen my friendly relations with Dol nik, people also began to say' 'Kike! What kind of Petrov is he? Some kind of Freierman or Zilberstein. The scum have all taken Russian surnames.' Hatred of Communism was also identified with Jews. 'Lenin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Kosygin — all kikes', could be heard everywhere.³²

This is a very strange situation ndeed, where even hatred of the Soviet regime is based on a profound, instinctive, almost bestial ethnic hatred. Whereas the members of the VSKhSON saw the roots of Communism ui materialistic capitalism , the mass of prisoners invariably saw them in 'Jewish oppression', in 'the kiKes

In such a poisoned atmosphere, what would be the logical position of the leaders of a patriotic organization' clainrng to represent 'all the nationalities of Great Russia'? Obviously, the least they could do would be to distance themselves from street anti-semitism; after all, they did want to become the leaders of 'Great Russia'. Here, in the Gulag they encountered a kind of microcosm of the society they intended to lead along 'the Russian path'. If, even here, hatred of Communism was so closely intertwined with chauvinism and the pogrom-mentality of the Black Hundreds, think of the potential for an an⁺i-semi_ic explosion if they tried to install a theocratic Russian Orthodox state. For just this reason their reactions here are especially snjnif^:cant Judging from the evidence at our disposal, they not only fa led to come to the defence of the insulted and injured', which would be their Christian duty, and to distance themselves from the persecutors, but even the 'director' of their 'ideological department', Evgenii Vagin, persuaded Petrov-Agatov that 'all Russia's misfortunes come from the Jews.'³³

An analogous, even more ominous, story was recounted to me by Andrei Simavsky, who also served his prison term together with members of the VSKhSON and those 'close to them in spirit'. Once he put the follow ng quest'nn to one of them: 'What would you do with the Jews il you won?' The answer was easy: 'We would send them to Israel.' 'But what about the ones who didn't want to go?' Again the answer was simple: 'We would exterminate them.' 'What? AJong with their children?' gasped Siniavsky. 'Well, after all, Andrei Donatovich, who, when he is exterminating rats, thinks about their babies?'

A Marked Improvement over the Soviet System?

The VSKhSON programme includes among its liberal provisions that: 'The information med i . . . must not be a monopoly of the state. Censorship must be abolished.'³⁴ Further: 'All known religions must enjoy the right to preach and worship unhindered.'³⁵ Thus, the programme promises cultural and relig dus freedom of thought. But what aDout political freedom of thought? What would a VSKhSON government do with people such as S'mavsky or myself or, generally, with the traditionally 'heterodox' and — alas, equally traditionally — 'Westernizing' Russian intelligentsia? It's clear that this problem is no less poignant for the planners of 'Great Russia' than the problem of nationality. Essentially, it is the problem of the intellectual elite's position in the social order, of how new ideas are to be generated and the state's errors corrected. In short, it is the problem of the need for a political opposition, without which, as history has shown, the rational development of society is impossible. The authors of the VSKhSON programme did not yet call this intellectual elite 'educated shop­keepers', 'smatterers' or 'civilized savages', as their successors will. They promised merely 'not to take a hostile attitude toward those close in spirit [to the VSKhSON] but possessing a variety ot different programmes. The final choice ought to be made after the overthrow of the Communist dictatorship.'³⁰

Since it is more than likely that Siniavsky and I, along with thousands upon thousands, if not millions, of others, would not be judged close in spirit to the VSKhSON, what would the new military government propose to do about it? Would П apologize for causing a disturbance and go home in peace? Would it not, more naturally, place some of those who were 'more distant in spiru m camps or exile them abroad as other military governments have done in similar circumstances?³⁷ A discussion broadcast over Radio Liberty, in which Evgenii Vagin explained his credo more precisely, sheds some light on this question, albeit mdrectly.

Asked about a certain quotation from Dostoevskii, Vagin replied, 'As to the quotation you have cited, wheiher a Russian can be an atheist and to what extent the Russian nature is compatible with this, yes, in this sense I share Dostoevski's belief that to be Russian is to be Orthodox, and that religion is, of course, the profound essence ot the Russian person.'^3S But Dostoevskii, unlike Vagin, was not involved m devising plans for Russia's future political order nor did he Intend to become one of its leaders, as Vagin did For this reason we must be interested in the political meaning attached to his definition of 'the profound essence of the Russian person . For myself — unlike Dunlop — this issue is not merely an academic one, but bears directly upon my fate. What would Vagin's government do with me and those close to me in spirit — not Russian Orthodox (and consequently not Russians'), and politically heterodox to boot? Would t not be natural for this government — in the best of circumstances — to send me nto permanent exile abroad? But that's where I am already!

I was just paraphrasing a story told to me by Siniavsky. When he replied to his camp inmate ('who was close in spirit' to the VSKhSON) that he would protest against the genocide of those Jews unwilliig to leave the VSKhSON's 'Great Russia', his fellow prisoner told him, And we would stick you in prison, Andrei Donatovich So how woud Dunlop's promise of a 'marked improvement over the Soviet system' benefit Siniavsky either?

The Utopia ot L-Nationalism

I hope 1 have now provided enough evidence to convince the reader that the born-again Russian Idea was at its very inception permeated with anti-Europeanism, med -eval dreams of theocracy, and the fascist principles of a corporate state. But if so, how are we to explain all the liberal provisions in the VSKhSON programme: its declarations concerning the abolition of censorship and freedom of religion; how judges must be irremovable and answerable only to the law';³⁹ how 'the cultural policy of Social-Christianity proceeds from the recognition that living culture . . . can blossom only under conditions of freedom'?⁴⁰ In short, how can we explain all the things which compelled Dunlop to believe n 'the new Ruse an revolutionaries'?⁴¹ Is all this simply hypocrisy and political demagoguery? If not, how else are we to interpret this combination, in one and the same ideological conccpt, of 'freedom' and 'theocracy', of liberalism and anti-Europeanism, and of modern terminology and medieval ideas?

But exactly the same question could have been asked with regard to the political doctr'ne of the original Slavophiles, which in the same way — 130 years ago — comb led a sincere and self-sacrificing struggle against 'soul-destroying despot ;m' with a no less sincere revulsion for 'Western constitutions' ana 'the party organization'. My answer is that the inexplicable can be explained and the irreconcilable reconciled, but only within the framework of a Utopia — an ideological construct unrealizable in practice. Thus my argument with Dunlop concerns not what Russia would be Mke if the VSKhSON programme were to be implemented (since t could not be in the form in which it was conceived), but rather what was the real social functit n of th' nationalist utopi anism in the ideological struggle unfolding in the USSR. The function was obviously a dual one. On the one hand, the VSKhSON programme was conceived in all sincerity as an anti- Communist manifesto, as a passionate appeal for 'Russia's rebirth from under the yoke of Bolshevism'. As an open and unyielding opponent of the Soviet system, its function was to stimulate the oppositionist, dissident movement in the USSR. On the other hand, permeated as it was with anti-Europeanism and medieval poJ'tical attidudes, the VSKhSON programme inev^; ably stimulated the Right opposition, which is the main interest of this book

Five ideological events have conditioned the development of this Utopia:

Khrushchev's revelations of the totalitarian nature of the Stalinist regime at the XXth Party Congress.

The defeat of Khrushchev's reforms, leading to the conclusion that national regeneration 'from above' is impossible.

The lessons of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, wh ch seemed to demonstrate that a Communist regime is a form of latent civil war between the government and the people. (From this it followed that Communist governments 'hang in the air and that a slight revolutionary push is all that is needed to topple them.)

Milovan Djlias's book The New Class, which provided a theoretical basis for the practical lessons of the Hungarian uprising.

Khrushchev's liberalization, which created the conditions under which young Soviets could for the lirst brne become lam «liar with the books of Berdiaev, among these The New Middle Ages. which opposed to the Western (democratic) path of struggle against 'soul-destroying despotism' a fundamentally different 'Russian path'.

In fact, as history has shown, no such Russian path exists But the group of young people who gathered around the banner of the VSKhSON sincerely believed in it. However, this d'd not make them "new Russian revolutionaries , as Dunlop would have it, but merely run-of-the-nr'U Russian Utopians.

Summary of the VSKhSON

In conclusion, here is a summary of the ideas which the VSKhSON contributed to the formation of the doctrine of the Russian dissident Right in the twentieth century:

the Russian Idea, a tradition of 'free communion with God and the acceptance of His commandments'). Accordingly, the political struggle is desci bed as 'a spiritual struggle for the individual'.

Abandonment of the idea of revising the imperial structure of 'Great Russia', which is equivalent to an oblique recognition of imperial nationalism

Political intolerance, connected to the maximalist character of a doctrine wh ch is tantamount to ruling out political opposition in future Russia.

Latent anti-semitism, not obvious on the level of the official programme, but established by the evidence of eyewitnesses.

Notes

Unless one counts the emigre People's Labour Alliance [Narodno-Trudovoi Soiuz — NTS],

In February, 1967, just before it was decimated by the KGB, the All- Russian Social Christian Union for the Liberation of the People [VSKhSON] had 28 members and 30 candidate members.

John Dunlop, The New Russian Revolutionaries, Nordland Press, 1976.

'Vserossiiskii Sotsial'no-Khristianskii Soiuz Osvobo/.hdeniia Naroda' ['All- Russian Social Christian Union for the Liberation of the People'], Paris: YMCA Press, 1975, p. 33.

Ibid., p. 34.

Ibid., p. 61.

Ibid., p. 34.

Ibid., p. 61.

Ibid., d. 64.

Tbid., p. 74.

Ibid., p. 75.

Ibid.

Ibid., pp. 76-8.

Dunlop, op. cit., p. 223.

'One feels safe in predicting that in the coming decade we will witness new variants of VSKhSON's "Program" emerging in Soviet Russia', ibid., p. 198. This prediction has been published precisely a decade ago. Nothing of the sort emerged, however, in Soviet Russia.

Ibid., p. 198.

Ibid., pp. 197 — 8. Emphasis in original.

VSKhSON, pp. 32, 35-6.

Ibid., p. 63. Emphasis added.

Ibid., pp. 32, 61. It is true the programme contains the assertions that 'the non-Communist world will come out of the crisis by an evolutionary process' (p. 33) but this is in such flagrant contradiction to the remaining content that it appears to be an alien element in the programme. How can ' materialistic capitalism while it still remains capitalism — i.e 'refuses God', and does not accept the VSKhSON programme s demand for a 'spiritual struggle for the individual' — pro\ ide the world w ith a 'spiritual rebirth' instead of the satanocracv w hich logically derives from it''

Nikolai Berdiaev, Novoe srednevekov'e [The New Middle Age&fl Berlin Obelisk, 1924.

ibid., pp. 50-1.

Ibid., pp. 27, 53.

Ibid., p 28.

Ibid., p 78.

Dunlop, op cit , p. 62.

N. Berdiaev, Novoe srednevekov'e, p. 62.

N. Berdiaev, The End of Our Time, London: Sheed and Ward Aug and Nov. 1933, Feb. 1935.

VSKhSON, p. 61.

Ibid . p. 73.

Ibid p. 208.

A. A. Petrov-Agatov, 'Arrcstantskie vstrcchi' ['Prisoners' Encounters ], Grani, No. 83, 1972, p. 65.

Ibid., p. 64.

VSKhSON, p. 71.

Ibid., p. 73.

Ibid p. 61.

The 'civil and human rights promised in the programme arc bv no means intended to be introduced immediately after the \ ictory of the VSKhSON. Point 74 states that, 'state power, after the overthrow of the Communist dictatorship, shall pass o\er to a people's revolutionary government which wi'.l immediately effect the radical reforms w hose time has come'; only then 'shall the normal order of the state come into force' (ibid p. 77). But what will become of the intelligentsia in this fateful interval — in the period of dictatorship of a 'people's revolutionary government'⁵

Ouoted from the transcript of 'A Conversation about Dostoevskii betw een Kiril Khenkin and F.vgenn Vagin over Radio I.ibcrtv.

VSKhSON, p. 73.

Ibidjjpp, 65-6.

'While the society brought into existence [bv VSKhSON] would undoubtedly displease some Western libertarians . . . [nevertheless] were the Program put into effect, Russia would be able to breathe once again. The individual citizen would be free to sclect his profession, write and publish what he wants, move freely about the country, and travel abroad. He would be eligible for public office and could even, without hindrance, attend meetings and demonstrations and form unions, associations, and societies In his family life, he would be free from the long arms of the state . . . (Dunlop, op. cit , pp. 197 — 8).

10

Young Guardism': The Beginning of the Establishment Rrght

John Dunlop is perhaps correct when he says that 'the debate among contemporary NTeo-Slavophiles . . . could be deciding the future shape of Russia's society and government'. He is probably also right when he says, 'VSKhSON has encountered Veche. Their meet ng may yet bear unexpected fruit.'¹ I only wish to add that one should not om^;t the fact that the debate surrounding contemporary Slavophilism was by no means confined to the underground samizdat, but extended to the official press — to magazines, journals and newspapers with circulations of many millions. These public debates were at times no less stormy than those in the samizdat, and their influence on thinking young people may have been just as important as that of the VSKhSON or Veche. In other words, before the VSKhSON 'encountered' Veche, it encountered the phenomenon of Young Guardism. This encounter may also yet bear 'unexpected fruit'. In any case, the historian of the Russian New Right cannot afford to ignore it.

The first — and most significant — essay in Molodaia gvardia [Young Guard], marking the start of the Establishment Right in post- Stalinist Russia, occurred at the time of the trial of the members of VSKhSON. This was Mikhail Lobanov's 'Educated Shopkeepers',[2] published in April J968. It was followed in September of that year by Viktor Chalmaev's essay 'Inevitability'.

Educated Shopkeepers

To say that the appearance of Lobanov's essay in the official press — indeed in such an influential and popular journal as Molodaiu gvardia — was surprising is an understatement. It came as a great shock, 'he level of malice, venom and wrath wh ch the Soviet press usually reserves for discussions of 'imperialism' or similar 'external' themes was now directed, so to speak, inwardly. Lobanov had unexpectedly uncovered a rotten core at the very heart of the first socialist state in the world — and at the very height of its triumphant transition to Communism. He had discovered an ulcer certainly no less frightful than imperialism — in tact, much worse. It consisted in ihe "educated" person's spiritual degeneration, in the decay of everything human in him ² What is involved here .s not _,ust an Isolated psychological phenomenon, but a social one on a mass scale — the masses (all with advanced degrees) [being] infected with a shopkeeper mentality'.³ These masses, Lobanov claimed were being churned out by the 'flood of so-called education , which 'like a bark borer . . is gnawing away at the healthy trunk of the nation.'⁴ They are 'shnlly active in negating and are thus 'threaten'ng to disintegrate'⁵ the very foundations of national culture.

In short, unforeseen by the classical Marxist theoreticians and unnoticed by the ideologists of the regime, there had already developed in socialist Russia an established stratum of educated shopkeepers' which now represented the nation's number one enemy. Such was Lobanov's fundamental sociological finding

He attacked this enemy of the nation with all the passion an official journalist could bt mg to bear. True culture, he wrote, does not come from education, but from national* sources', — from 'the grass-roots of the people'. It is not the educated shopkeepers but the 'suppressed uneducated folk who gave birth to . . . the imperishable values of culture ⁶ As for the shopkeepers, 'They have a mini-language, mini- thoughts. mini-feelings — everything mini. And', he solemnly intones, '[the] Motherland is nun to ihem [too].'⁷

''[Translator's note' the Russian adjective natsional'nyi is used to express many more ideas than its F.nglish cognate 'national It can be used to refer to the people of a nation, nationalism, nationality, or even ethnic identity all at the same time. For example, the issue of the Soviet Union being made up of people of many different nationalities is expressed in Russian as natsional'nyi vopros and usually translated as 'the national question' or 'the nationalities question though ethnicity is clearly an important part of it as well.]

In the best traditions of journalistic toadyism, Lobanov goes on to illustrate his pc nt by denouncing people (both living and dead;, the stage director Meyerhold, shot by Stalin, and the contemporary stage director Efros. For some reason all of Lobanov's illustrations — all his corrupters of the national spirit' — bear unmistakably Jewish surnames. It s these Jewish elements that 'latch on to the history of a great people',⁸ which play the role of kind of enzyme among 'the diplomaed masses nfected with a shopkeeper mentality'.

As we try to analyse Lobanov's 'findings', we must not fail to take account of the fact they were made at :he height of the 'Prague Spring', which was seen 'upstairs' as the result of the seizure of key positions in the Czechoslovak in mass media by Jewish intellectuals. Nor must we forget that the 'signature campaign' (in the course of wHch hundreds of Moscow intellectuals, in large part Jews, signed their names to protest against re-Stalinization and the trials of Siniavsky and Ginzburg) had yet to die down in the USSR. From this standpoint, Lobanov's unexpected so . olog :al revelations can to some degree be explained. The regime suddenly saw itself faced with an acute threat from the educated strata of the population. A journalist eager to score points with his higher-ups therefore denounced this threat in an effort to w a the support of youth for his bosses.

But what ^;s so sti king about Lobanov's defence of the regime is its odd appearance. He does not appeal to Marx or to 'proletarian internationalism'; on the contrary, he aDpeals only to 'the national spirit' and to the 'Russian so^Jl'. H^;s article does not have the clicbe- r: [den look of a 'refutalion' by a Marxist hack, but rather resembles the anguished cry of a Russian terrified of what > nappening to his country, to his nation. Moreover, it ndirectly accuses the regime of not only allow. ng the forma; on of such a sin ^ter social phenomenon as a stratum of 'educated shopkeepers', but of bringing matters to such a dangerous pitch that, as Lobanov exclaims despairingly, 'the mini is triumphing!'⁹ In the Aesopian language which Lobanov uses, this means the bosses have gone blind: they do not see that the 'min^;' exists not just as a thing in itself but also as a kind of 'lobby' for the bourgeois spirit' which has conquered Europe and is now laying siege to Russia. Interestingly, as Lobanov sought to explain why the bourgeois 'mini' was so powerful and attractive to Soviet youth, he openly asserted, 'there is no fiercer enemy of the people than the temptation of bourgeois prosperity.'¹⁰ Follow ng this up, he exclaims (quoting Herzen), 'A bourgeois Russia? May Russia be spared this curse!'¹¹ An 'Americanism of the spirit' was what was conquering Russia, not just with the help of the seductive 'miri з' w.fh their refined manners and Jewish surnames, but also aided by the temptation of bourgeois prosperity'. (In place of this read 'the material well-being of the working people', which is the fundamental bulwark

of post-Stalinist Soviet .deology.)

In other words, the Soviet leaders themselves, by their orientation toward material prosperity and their promises that Communism will bring physical as well as spiritual 'satiety', are helpmg the bourgeois spirit to conquer Russia. 1 hey engage in tlirtation with America. I hey think their ICBMs will be able to defend them from the morial threat radiating from that country. They will not, Lobanov admonishes, he real threat is not American missiles, but rather the bourgeoisness of the 'American spirit'. This 'bourgeoisness' is not 'man s exploitation of his fellow man', but the lure of satiety. That is Lobanov's second 'finding'. Spiritual satiety — is the psychological [my emphasis] foundation of the bourgeois.'¹² But the social foundation of the bourgeois nature, of course, is material satiety — 'existence within the limits of the pleasures of the stomach ¹³ Lobanov launches a powerful invective against these 'gastric pleasures', against 'the pot belly,' drawing on quotations from Hugo and Gogol' and devoting almost an entire page to them.¹⁴

If the real threat to Russia is not missiles but 'satiety', then Lobanov's third — and most important — 'findmg' starts to appear rational: namely that the Americanization ot the spirit can be combated only by its Russrfication Here begins the, so to speak, 'constructive section' of Lobanov's program. This is also where his inevitable encounter with the VSKhSON programme occurs. Just like the VSKhSON, he starts from the assumption that 'the reason . . . for the dangerous tension in the world lies much deeper than the economic or political spheres'. It derives from the fact that 'a spiritual struggle for the individual is going on'. In other words. Lobanov also transfers the centre of the world drama from the struggle of socialism vs. capitalism to the metaphysical realm of spiritual confrontation. In the same way as the VSKhSON, he too predicts that 'sooner or later these two irreconcilable forces will collide with one another". But he gives the actors in this approaching mortal conflict different names: 'moral uniqueness and Americanism of the spirit'.¹⁵ (Incidentally, isn t Lobanov's 'Americanism of the spirit' the exact counterpart of the VSKhSON's 'satanocracy'?) It is true that Lobanov's 'moral unique­ness' is nothing like the VSKhSON's 'theocracy' (Lobanov believes in the potential effectiveness of the Soviet regime), but what interests us here is that Lobanov, like the VSKhSON, sees the only alternative to the world's ruination in a third, 'Russian", path.

Of course, noblesse oblige (and the censor too!), Lobanov's constructive recommendations do not go beyond suggesting that the regime seek its social powei base (a constituency, so to speak) not among the 'educated shopkeepers', but among simple Russians, peasants unspoiled by either satiety or education, unique — and in their uniqueness not subject to the temptations of world evil. 'These are the people', Lobanov concludes, 'who have saved Russia. Are they not the embodiment of the historical and moral potential of the nation? Is not our faith and hope to be found in them?'¹⁶

Cutting through Lobanov's rhetoric and emotional outbursts, we can reduce the 'constructive section' of his programme to the three main propositions:

The regime's social orientation should be Russified. (Reliance on the 'educated strata', on the 'diplomaed masses', represents the ruinous Western path, leading to the bourgeoisification of Russia; hence the regime's orientation toward universal secondary education and broadening the system of universities runs counter to the Russian spiri,:' and will lead to a deepening of the ciis s.)¹⁷

The regime's domestic political strategy should be Russified. (It is not 'material prosperity', wh ch lev. ably leads to 'American­ization of the sp rifl but spiritual Russification, that is the key to the nation's salvation.)¹⁸

The regime's foreign poucy should also be Russified. The country must be closed to alien cultural influences. Detente, from this point of view, appeared very much like a one-way street, an instrument for the 'Americanization of Russia's spirit'.

'InevitaDility'

Lobanov spoke mostly of the 'national sp rit' and of its 'corrupters'. However, the conclusions which seemed to follow from his article were so fundamentally opposed to the basic attitudes of the regime and the interests of a considerable part of the establishment that n practical terms no discussion of them was possible in the official press. Even in living rooms his article was spoken about for the most part in whispers. This torpid silence encouraged Molodaia gvardia to new exploits. Viktor Chalmaev's essay 'Inevitability' was met with a storm of indignation, not because it was less bold than Lobanov's, but because it seemed less immec ately relevant — because arguments about it could be portrayed as arguments about history rather than about the need for change in the currcm regime s social and political strategy. In fact, Chalmaev was attempting to lay the historiographic groundwork for Lobanov's conception of the Russific- ation of the spirit His aim was to persuade Russian youth of the historical inevitability of global confrontation between aggressive Americanization' and the only force in the world capable of resisting it — Russia.

The tone of Chalmaev's article is the same as Lobano\ s, but his vision of the future confrontation is even more apocalyptic He tells horrifving stories about 'the loss of many wonders of human civilization in the bourgeois world He argues (with the help of Ivan Bunin) that 'America is the first country • • • which, although enlightened, lives without ideas'.¹" He also inveighs against 'vulgar satiety' and 'material prosperity'.²⁰ But when he speaks with elation of the Archpriest Avvakum, (who, in the Muscovite tsardoni, performed the same function that Aksakov did in the Petersburg empire and Solzhenitsyn in the Soviet) as a 'Russian herald of the word of Christ, humbled before no one',²¹ when he speaks of the 'fluidity of the Russian folk spirit which in its development often runs ahead of the outward forms of the people's daily ives ,²² and — if that wasn't going far enough — adds that the 'official regime and the canons of the state ... by no means take Russia to her 1 mil'²³ — i must have tried the patience of the 'official regime'. It was not at all cleai whether, in Chalmaev's view, the 'fluid Russian sp-rit' had not already surpassed those very 'outward forms it was not supposed to, and had thereby 'run ahead m its development' of the 'canons' of the current official regime'.

Chalmaev was attacked — ferociously. 'The canons of the state' represented by a powerful clique of Marxist dogmatists (Soviet Preasthood, as I call them) gave the 'folk spirit' (in the person of Chalmaev) to understand that it was they who were still firmly ui the saddle and had no intention of yielding that position to any 'herald of the word of Christ — even a 'Russian' one. This was a kind of declaration of war between canonical Marxism and the Establishment Right — a fight to the death whose finale even now is far from clear.

Indeed, Chalmaev's interpretation contradicts all the Marxist canons. To him, Russian history is essentially that of the development and maturation of the 'national spirit:' — its preparation for the last decisive battle with Americanism, for another, more glorious Stalingrad where the Russian spit it will finally triumph over the bourgeois devil. N^To gulf exists between Soviet and tsarist Russia for Chalmaev. It is not revolutions or reforms which are the landmarks of his history, but rather the battles in which the 'Russian spirit' came of age: from Lake Chud, where Prince Aleksandr Nevskii routed the Germans, to the field of Kul kovo, where Prince Dmitrii Donskoi defeated the Tartars; from Poltava, where Peter I routed the Swedes, to Borodino, where Alexander I laid the beginning of the end for Napoleon; from Stalingrad, where Stalin routed the Germans — to an unknown but impending new Stalingrad. From his standpoint, the October Revolution was just another stage in the maturing of the Russian spirit, and thus by no means the epoch-making date of the birth of socialism. To him, the actions of Ivan the Terrible or Patriarch Germogen, for instance, were just as important as those of Lenin — all of them led the 'national spirit' to feats of greatness on behalf of the state. 'This is the history of the people', writes Chalmaev, 'who, sometimes by evolution and sometimes by means of revolutionary explosions, pass from one form of state and societal consciousness to another, more progressive one '²⁴

Even more important than any political event is the role of the church and of Russian Orthodoxy as an organizing and indoctrinating force in the triumphal progression of the 'Russian spirit'. Everything which for decades Marxist historiography had dismissed as the accursed tsarist past and opium of the people, and passionately attacked as 'reactionary' and 'backward', with Chalmaev now emerged into the foreground as the harmonious creative collaborat on of Russia's tsars and her church for the good of the nation and, ultimately, the Communist Party.

'The contemporary young person', wi tes Chalmaev, 'will probably be surprised at the fact that in the historical novels of recent years, such a large place has come to be taken by tsars and Grand Dukes, and along with them, but by no means inferior to them, patriarchs and other princes of the church, schismatics and anchorites.'²⁵ He explains that the 'greatly poetic' Patriarch Nikon, the 'anchorite patriot' Sergii Radonezhskii, and the 'patriot Patriarch' Germogen, together with others, embodied the 'spiritual power' of the Russian nation, its 'fiery transports and dreams', from which it 'forges . . . the foundation for feats on behalf of the state.'²⁶ 'A great country', he adds, 'cannot live without deep pathos, without inner enthusiasm — otherw.se it is seized by flaccidity and torpor.'²⁷ Moreover, inasmuch as the actual bearer of Russian history — the people — 'only once in a hundred years ... [is required to] rise to the occasion of a battle of Poltava or defence of Stalingrad',²⁸ someone must in the meantime keep alive their 'deep pathos' and 'inner enthusiasm'. The intelligentsia, the 'educated shopkeepers', are, of course, unsuited to this role But who does that leave, except tsars and princes of the church

In the efforts of Peter I and Ivan the Terrible, and in the attempts of the church reformers to modify for the good of the motherland the Byzantine idea of denial of the earthly world as man s greatest achievement, there is something majestic, which is an inspiration to our thought too.^:j

As we can see, there is really no great difference between Lenin and Ivan the Terrible, or between socialism and the reformers of the church — contrary to everything Marxist ideologists had been teaching Soviet youth for half a century'- Suddenly - in 1968 - the organ of the Central Committee of the Komsomol starts to exchange optimism for the sombre rhetoric of the church, trying to persuade Soviet youth that, all along, both of them have been working toward one and the same goal. But which goal? Where is the common denominator between Poltava and Stalingrad, between Lenin and Ivan the Terrible : Who would, even in jest, count Peter I among the buddcrs of Communism, or Lenin among the anchorites''

Here is where the grandiose vision of the 'Byzantine Idea'³⁰ enters in. It is this, it turns out, that all the titans of Russian history — its patriot-anchorites and its patriot-Communists — have jointly been working towards. Now we can understand Chalmaev's programmatic declaration that, 'the measure of true intellectuality and progressive- ness in our day is the struggle against the ideological opponents oi our Motherland';³¹ and that, 'Awareness of this uncompromising ideological divide is the historical inevitability of our time.'³²

According to Lobanov, 'the ideology of our country' is derived from the 'moral uniqueness' of the Russian nation. History helped Chalmaev to formulate this derivation more precisely. It proved to be 'Bvzantinism', through whose prism Russian history is transformed into a preparatory school for the next Stalingrad; and Byzantinism that helps to rekindle 'deep pathos' and 'inner enthusiasm , without which Brezhnev's Russia 'is seized by flabhiness and torpor

Chalmaevism

Lobanov's and Chalmaev's essays, accompanied in Molodaia gvardia by dozens of poems and short stories all devoted to the same resurrected 'land and soil' and 'national spirit' themes were an open challenge to the Brezhnev regime and its ideologists. The regime responded — not only with a hail of indignant articles, but also with a number of actions undertaken by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee. There was even a special session of the Central Committee Secretariat devoted to 'Young Guaraism'. (Brezhnev himself, according to authoritative sources, compb.med at this meeting that whenever he turned on the television, he heard only the ring ng of church bells and saw nothing but on on domes. 'What's the matter , comrades?' he asked 'What time are we living in? Before the Revolution or after it?') Finally, the regime responded by ous ng the editor-in-chief of Molodaia gvardia, Anatoli N konov. A special term — Chalmaevism — was coined and began to be used in ideological propaganda attacks.

However, nothing changed. The mountain had laooured and brought forth a mouse. Almost contemptuously, № konov was appointed editor- in-chief of the 'cosmopolitan' magazine Vokrug sveia [Around the World] — in the same publishing house as Molodaia gvardia but one storey higher. His place was ultimately taken by his former deputy, Anatolii Ivanov, an even more faithful henchman of Chalmaev's. Brezhnev's patience continued to be tried by the church bells and onion domes on TV. 'Chalmaevism' in poetry and prose continued to dominate Molodaia gvardia, and a new magazine of the 'Chalmaevist tendency' — Nash sovremennik [Our Contemporary] — appeared. Its editor-in-chief, Sergei Vikulov, did not even try to disgt 'se his sympathies. More importantly Molodaia gvardia dared to hit back — and was supported by Moskva and Ogonek [Little Fire].

Something totally unprecedented was happening: the impeccably obedient journalistic machine, which had worked faultlessly for decades, this time balked. The Propaganda Department of the Central Committee proved powerless to enforce the Secretariat's decisions. Everything seemed to be taking place in a kind of Kafkaesque world. The Cultural Department of that same Central Committee impudently denied that any decision on 'Chalmaevism' had oeen taken at all No terrible vengeance was visited upon them. Instead, a half-hearted, though noisy quarrel dragged on for years between two departments at the very top of the ideological tree. What this led to, we will see later.

The Defeat of a Marxist

The chorus of Marxist voices which attacked Molodaia gvardia was ultimately joined by the liberal Novyi mir. For fifteen years this journal had fought bravely with the orthodox Stalinist Oktyabr ', but now found itself in the same camp. In truth, everything went topsy­turvy when the black cloud of Russophilism appeared on the horizon In place of their good old enmity, familiar as the daily paper, seemingly irreconcilable opponents suddenly finished up on the same side of the barricades. What's more, they began to speak almost the same language — the language ot dogmatic Marxism Aleksandi Dement'ev, tn a lengthy essay, accused Molodaia gvardia of what it should have been accused of long before. He wrote:

Chalmaev speaks of Russia and the West in the language of Slavophile messianism rather than that of our contemporaries . Our scholarship . . . treats [this problem] above all as a struggle between the world of socialism and the world of capitalism . . . Underlying today's struggle between Russia' and the West' are not national, but social and class distinctions . . . [From Chalmaev's essay] it is but one step . . to the idea of national exclusiveness and the superiority of the Russian nation over all others, to an ideology incompatible with proletarian international­ism . . . The meaning and goal of life [for Chalmaev] are not in the material, but in the spiritual . . . [which] is an obstacle to the material and spiritual advancement of the Soviet peasantry.³³

All of this reinforced-concrete phraseology sounded impeccable, albeit trivial. Dement ev overlooked just a single blunder — so small that an outsider would not have even noticed t. The long essay contained a short passage with which Dement'ev effectively condemned himself — himself and not Chalmaev, a Marxist and not a heretic — to ideological extinction

'Chalmaev and Lobanov', he wrote, 'point to the danger of alien ideological influences. Will we be able to stand our ground, say, against the temptation of "bourgeois prosperity'" . . . Tn today's ideological struggle the temptation of ' Americanism" . . . must not be underestimated', Chalmaev asserts. Correct. But neither should it be overestimated . . . Soviet society, by its very . . nature, is not predisposed to bourgeois influences.'³⁴

That was it — and the death sentence was pronounced — not only tor Dement'ev but also for Novyi mir, which had heroically withstood the rabid attacks of all the Stalinist hacks, had published Solzhenitsyn and Sii iavsky, and had apparently stood unshaken as the sole bastion of liberalism in a stormy sea of reaction Now it fell It fell (what irony!) not because of Solzhenitsyn or Siniavsky, but because of an orthodox Marxist essay which sought to defend the purity of the Party's ideological vestments.³⁵ Dement'ev himself involuntarily

prophesied this distressing finale when he noted that, 'it is dangerous to find oneself in the hands of the violent, unrestrained enemies of "the educated shopkeepers" and passionate zealots of "the national spirit".'³⁶ Yea verily, as it turned out, it is quite dangerous — even for Marxists in Moscow.

Doesn't this mean that by protesting against the Russian Right Novyi mir struck the regime's most sensitive nerve (considering the balance of forces in it at the time)? This is perhaps most clearly to oe seen from the furious collective letter signed by eleven writers — including representatives of both orthodox Sta^l;nism and the Russian Right — printed in Ogonek under the title What Is Novyi mir Speaking Out Against?'³⁷ Their argument was simple and devasta ng:

Contrary to the zealous appeals of A. Dement'ev not to exaggerate 'the dangers of alien ideological influences', we continue to maintain that the penetration of bourgeois ideology among us was, has been, and remains a very serious danger . . . [which] may lead to the gradual replacement of the concepts of proletarian internationalism with the cosmopolitan ideas so dear to the hearts of certain critics and writers grouped around the journal Novyi mir.^iS

The ominous word 'cosmopolitanism had oeen pronounced.³⁹ To someone who is aware of the internal balance of ideological forces in the Soviet establishment (or one who merely knows who , who), this explains how representatives of the orthodox Stalinist r ght, such as M. Alekseev and V. Zakrutkin, came to unite with apologists of the new Russian Right, such as A. Ivanov or S. Vikulov. It also explains how Novyi mir had been able to stand up to Oktyabr' for so long. It was because the two factions of the right were div ded Up till then, the Russophiles had only stood by in amusement as the Stalinists and the liberals quarrelled and paid no attention to their deological expansion. Only when they joined forces did they bej n to sense their real power. This was the first action in the post-Stalinist era by a unified Establishment Right - a kind of historical experiment which demonstrated its extraordinary political potential.⁴⁰

It was now a matter of carefully and tactfully bridging the gap that separated the Russophiles from the Stalinists — of transforming the alliance of right-wing tactions from an ad hoc tactical union into a stable political force able to exert a continuing influence on the

strategic goals of tne regime.

After the enraged invective of the 'old guard' (Okiyabr') agamst Young Guardism, such an operation had seemed, in principle, impossible. Oktyabr' would never commit itself to such heresy as to say that the foundation and life-blood of the Soviet state was not the working class but the peasantry, or that the 'national sphit rather than 'proletarian internationalism', should serve as its guicing star — never in a million years. But Ogonek was more compliant It suddenly discovered that Lobanov's 'diplomaed masses' were essentially the same as Sofronov's 'rootless cosmopolitans' by another name. In other words, it seemed for a time that both factions of the Establishment Right at last understood that they had one common enemy

But very shortly they came under attack So long as it was a matter of common struggle against the liberal intelligentsia, ep>tomized by Novyi mi*J they were allowed to have their head. But the term diplomaed masses' did not include |ust liberals, A significant part of the powerful ruling faction of the Centre was also 'diplomaed' — and furthermore, considerably more nterestcd than liberals in contacts with the West (to say nothing of the fact that its 'cosmopoLianism' — its opportunities, so to speak, for the importation of "world evil' — were incomparably broader).

Thus what began as a relatively innocent coalition against Novyi tnir had to grow if it was to stabilize nto a political opposition to the cosmopolitanism' of the Brezhnev regime itself (which was infected to the marrow by bourgeois .deas of 'satiety'). The struggle against liberal cosmopolitanism' was related logically to the struggle against governmental, Brezhnevist, 'cosmopolitanism'.

I do not claim that the leaders of Russophilism necessarily had any clear conception of this. I only wish to note that when Molodaia gvardia published its third programmatic declaration in 1970 (Sergei Semanov's essay 'On Relative and Eternal Values') it did precisely what we have lust been talking about: it took a bold step toward meet^:ng the old guard half-way. However, it made the tactical mistake of executing this very clumsily.

Young Guard s Mistake

Certainly Molodaia gvardia was no stranger to, so to speak, sentimental Stalinist motifs. Dement'ev rioted, for example, the extraordinary nature of Feliks Chuev's poem about Stalin.⁴¹ But whereas Chuev's poem was a sinister but still minor episode in the evolution of Young Guardism toward Stalinism, Semanov's article was intended to lay the ideological groundwork for this evolution. It contained no fewer odes to the national spirit, songs of praise for the Russian soil, or denunciations of the educated shopkeeper mentality than Chalmaev's article. In it the October Revolution was described as a Russian national (in the sense of ethr c) achievement.⁴² Semanov declared that, 'in our society, sen ces to the Motherland are valued more highly than anything else',⁴³ and that the chief sin of Trotskyism was 'its profound revuls m for our people, their . . . traditions . . . the г history'.⁴⁴ But the main point of the article was its unprecedented assertion that, 'the turn lg point in the struggle against wreckers and nihilists took place in the middle of the 1930s', and that, 'it was precisely after the adopt^;on of the new Constitution that ... all honest working people of our country were once and for all welded into a un ;d and monolithic whole.'⁴⁵

After Khrushchev's revelations at the XXth Party Congress, the time about which Semanov is speal ng ('the epoch of 1937') was pronounced anathema and condemned to oblivion. Even according to official h tonography, this was the era of the Party's devastation. Here Semanov declared it the main part of the Revolution, wf^h put an end to the 'wreckers and nihilists' and marked the beg^: ming of 'the monolithic unity of our people'.

This was truly the kind of help the Stalinists could do without. By declaring that 'these changes exercised a highly favourable influence on the development of our culture',⁴⁶ Semanov was revising the decisions of the XXth Party Congress and trying to rehabilitate Stalin. His intentions in this sense were — from the Stal st standpoint — for the best, but their execution was terrible. A romant c, virtually Napoleonic, legend about 'our Genera iss no' is one thi lg. Open praise for the era of the 'old Guard's' mass murder is quite another Semanov reminded people of precisely what needed to be forgotten. With one blow he destroyed everything that had so successfully been started a year earlier by Ogonek, and put an end to the rightist alliance. He thus played right into the hands of the Propaganda Department. It is no coincidence that shortly after Semanov's art cle appeared, the Secretariat of the Central Committee held the session at which Brezhnev complained about the church bells, and Nikonov was fired.

In fact, it was through Semanov's article that the deologists of the Establishment Right revealed the bankruptcy of their situation: their inability to develop either a common ideological platform for a right- wing coalition or a common strategy for struggle against the 'diplomaed masses' and the 'cosmopolitan' Brezhnevist centre.

From the Propaganda Department's point of view, the situation was extremely simple. First Novyi mir had made a slip (with the Dement'ev article), as a result of w^rhich it became necessary to sack its entire editorial board. Now, Molodaya gvardiya too had made serious error, and the time had thus cnme to get rid ol its editorial board This was logical. It was in the spirit of the Brezhnev regime of 'stabilization which dealt .blows equally to the right and to the left The blow was dealt. The journal Kommunist fi~ed ,ts long-awa'ted salvo. The reader should understand that Kommunist never repeats itself. It does not deliver lectures or parcel out reprimands. It pronounces sentences — final and not subject to appeal. Its sentence was as follows:

V Chalmaev's essay 'Inevitability' . . . attracted attention to itself at once by its. if you will, utterly unprecedented . . . extra-social approach to history, its mixing together everything with everything else in Russian history, its attempt to place in a favourable light everything reactionary, right up to the statements of even such arch reactionaries as Konstantm Leont'ev,⁴⁷

These lines sounded iike a death knell for Chalmaev, but Kommunist went on to speak of 'Chalmaevism' and ot how,

these kind of authors, who have appeared primarily in the magazine Molodaia g\ardia, ought to have istened to the rational and objective things that were contained in [the] criticism of the article 'Inevitability' and several others in a similar vein. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Moreover, individual authors went still further in their delusions, forgelting Lenin's direct instructions on the issues which they have undertaken to judge ⁴⁸

Later in the art cle, following all the rules of Party inquisition, the writi lgs of those afore-mentioned individual authors' (including, of course. Semanov) were drawn together by Komtnutust to describe the magazine's 'line', and it was stated that this line 'lends the magazine a clearly mistaken slant'.⁴⁹ The same approach had been tried a thousand times, and a thousand times it had meant the end — whether of a writer, an eaitorial board, or an 'anti-Party group'. This time, as we have seen, it did not work. No end came — not for Chalmaev, nor the editorial board of Molodaia gvardia, nor even the mistaken slant

The Meient ev Affair

The Melent'ev affair concerns an episode connected with Young Guardism for which — as distinct from the cases of Chalmaev, Demen' ev and Semanov — I do not have any documentary evidence.

Indeed, such evidence could not exist because of the very nature of the case. It is based solely on talk, but talk originating with persons d 'ectly concerned with the affair.

Yu. Melent'ev was the director of the Molodaia gvardia publishing house (the magazine Molodaia gvardia was under his immediate supervision). At the height of the Molodaia gvardia campaign, the head of the Cultural Department of th Central Committee, Vasilii Shauro, as: gned Melent'ev to conduct the difficult negotiations with the Propaganda Department regarouig Chalmaevism and the reorgan­ization of Novyi mir. When there began to be siges of a convergence between the two factions of the P :ght, someone 'higher up' apparently decided the time had come to feel out 'the Boss' himself. For this unprecedented as; gnment a person of great courage and devotion to the rightist cause was needed. He would be risking, if not his head, at least his career, because it was known that in personal matters Brezhnev was merciless and somewhat vindictive. The ass.gnment was given to Melent'ev, who was then at the height of his career.

He obtained an audience with Brezhnev and spoke v ith htm for an hour. More properly, it was not so much a conversation as a monologue; Brezhnev just listened. Melent'ev spoke of how the mood among Soviet youth, the military and the patriotic intelligentsia was one of alarm. The penetration of Western ideology had reached dangerous proportions. It was already being reflected in the quality of recruits and the morale of the officer corps. The country was losing its military readiness. Many people felt that decisive measures needed to be taken. First, the whole programme of ideological work with Soviet youth had to be changed to introduce a truly 'patriotic' ndocti nation programme, like the one which helped win the war against Hitler. Failure to do this could have catastrophic consequences. Second, all contacts with the West had to be minimized. Third, more rigid ideological control had to be established over both the intelligentsia and some of the central staff of the Party, who were deeply infected by alien ideological influences. In general, Melent'ev proposed a programme of political isolationism and intellectual protectionism based on the struggle of the 'Russian spirit' against 'cosmopolitanism'. It was the programme of the Molodaia gvardia —Оgonek alliance laid out in

formal party terms.

We can assume that this was the time Brezhnev was considering his epoch-making turn toward detente. It may be that those who sent Melent'ev to him did not know this. On the other hand, perhaps they did know and were trying to prevent such a turn by offering Brezhnev an alternative. We have no way of knowing.⁵⁰ In any case, in its unfortunate timing and ill-conceived tactlessness, Melent'ev's visit can be compared only with Semanov's arlicle; it was, its, so to speak, organizational equivalent Brezhnev s reaction was harsh. After hearing Melent'ev out. he spoke only a few sentences, but among these was the following: 'There is no place for you even .n the Party, let alone the Central Committee.' Coming from Brezhnev, those words meant the end of Melent'ev's career or — more accurately — should have meant that The next day Melent'ev was removed from the Central Committee.

However, here we tind ourselves once again in the bizarre Kafkaesque world of the Brezhnev establishment The General Secretary's condemnation not only failed to put an end to Melent'ev's party career, but gave it new impetus. Melent'ev became Deputy Minister of Culture for the Russian Republic, and later Minister Who was behind him? We can only surmise that if a person for whom, in Brezhnev's opinion, there was no place n the Party, none the less rose to the post of Minister, then there must have been someone so powerful behind him that even Brezhnev did not find it worth his while to quarrel

Melent'ev's fate seems especially odd in comparison with that of another official of the Central Committee, who i 1 his day soared even h^;gher I have in mind A. N. Yakovlev, who for several years was the act ng head of the Central Commntee Propaganda Department — that is to say, was the Party's chief .deologist,

The Yakovlev Affair

Yakovlev, who stood on the left flank of the Brezhnevist Centre, was concerned not only with deological considerations, but also, one must assume, with personal matters. He was in effect performing the functions of a Department head though he did not carry that title He was too far to the left for that. His reputation carried along with it certain obligations. In order to justify his 'leftism', Yakovlev tried to move the centre of gravity of the Brezhnevist faction to the left. The most handy political lever for doing this was the struggle against Russopfplism As far back as 1968, Yakovlev had been trying to transform Russophiiism mto an object of political struggle higher up He was behind the crmcal salvo fired at Chalmaevism; he was behind the article in Kommunist; he was behind the session of the Secretariat at which the fate of Molodaia gvatdia s editor was decided.

However, at this point he ran into a brick wall. Resistance to the attack on Molodaia gvardia was coming from the Cultural Department of the Central Comm^tee itself Shauro was clever enough to deflect Yakovlev's attacks so that they did not pass from the realm of permissible ideological debate to the fatal realm of political deviation.⁵¹ After several years of unsuccessful manoeuvring and intrigue, and having tri ed all of the behind-the-scenes approaches and methods of inc rect attack, Yakovlev was compelled to stake everything on a single card. Like Melent'ev, he too put his career on the line; but un ^ke Melent'ev, he was well and truly burned.

The moment he chose for h*. attack seemed appropriate On the one hand, the 50th anniversary of the multinational Soviet Union was due shortly; on the other, detente with the West was n full swing. It was a matter of prov lg, rst, that contrary to Shauro's assertions, Russophi' sm was not a lyrical nostalgia for the rural past but a wholly political, anti-Marxist and even 'counter-revolutionary' pheno­menon; second, that Russophilism stimulated nationalist sen

On 15 November 1972, an enormous article by Yakovlev, taking up two newspaper pages, appeared in Literaturnaia gazeta under the title Against Anti-Historicism'. 'In essence,' Yakovlev wrote, 'there ; behind all this an ideological position which is dangerous in that objectively it contains an attempt to bring back the past.'⁵² As if this didn't go far enough, Yakovlev added, 'The polemics [of the Russophiles] deal not only with Chernyshevskii, but also with Lenin.' No one in the USSR — not even Stalin — had ever permitted themselves to argue with Lenin (or with Chernyshevskii for that matter) — except the Russophiles, that is. It follows therefore that Russophilism must be an extraordinary phenomenon, by no means confined to the 1 nits of permissible debate. One has to have lived one's life in the Soviet Un^;on to understand how ominous accusations such as Yakovlev's sounded — even in 1972.

To support his case, Yakovlev laid out a vast, truly alarming, panorama of the penetration of Russophilism into all fields of¹ terature and the social sciences — from 'Shevtsov's hysterical writings' to the Soviet Encyclopedia. He uncovered Russophilism in historiography, in belles-lettres, in poetry, in literary scholarship — everywhere. Very carefully, but persistently, he tried to present Russophi¹ ism as a diversionary alien ideology, of a kind unheard of since the destruct. m of all the Party opposition groups, which was especially dangerous in that it helped 'bourgeois propaganda' to spark off conflicts between the nationalities of the USSR It is well known wrote Yakovlev. 'what an active campaign is being waged by our class antagonists in connection with the 50th anniversary of the multinational Soviet state.'⁵³ Furthermore, unlike Dement'ev's, there were no slip-ups in Yakovlev's article; it was one huge, smooth, dogmatic monolith.

The Party's chief ideologist is not a Novyi mir author. One cannot reply to him by a letter in Ogonek. No one dared indulge in polemics with Yakovlev — no one. that is, except the samizdat journal — Veche (Assembly). In an editorial entitled 'The Struggle Against So-Called Russophilism, or the Road to Suicide for ihe State', it subjected Yakovlev to a devastating critique. Only the Dissident Right could permit itself a critique whose methodology was so elementary: You rely on Lenm? All right. Then be consistent Lenin wrote about national self-determination, about the 'smothering of the Ukraine So why don't you suggest, along the lines of Lenin, that we stop smothering the Ukraine' right now"⁵ And further: If comrade Yakovlev doesn't like the union of Central Asia with Russia, then why, on the occasion of its anniversary, doesn't he propose the dissolution of the Soviet Union? ⁵⁴ In other words, quoting Lenin as Yakovlev does can lead in Veche's opinion to 'suicide for the state,' and hence outright anti-Sovietism 'In 1918,' accuses Veche, the So\ iet Republic was reduced to the dimensions of the Muscovite kingdom during the time of Ivan III. This is what the Russophiles persecutor dreams of '^5S

One would think the chief Party deologist could hardly be toppled with arguments like this — let alone arguments that issued from a semi-underground samizdat journal. Nevertheless toppled he was. Like Dement'ev, he suffered for having written an orthodox Marxist article, a 'refutation of anti-Partv ideology. Who was behind the fall of this high-flying ideologist, suddenly demoted to the rank of ambassador (and sent off to Canada)? Once agani, we can only guess.⁵⁶ We know one thing though with his fall the campaign against Russophilism not only ceased being a political arena, but the arena was totally closed off Clearly, very powerful forces on high were concerned not to let the edi tonal board of Molodaia gvardia go under (the way the editorial board of Novyi mv did) and to assure ihat. the Establishment Right retained its forces intact for better times. These forces however, could not be allowed to remain a threat to the Brezhnevist Centre. The highly placed patron of Molodaia gvardia, Poliansk i was quietly dropped from the Politburo and ultimately shared the fate of Yakovlev (he was sent to Japan).

The true lesson of the 'Yakovlev affair was something entirely different. It was that someone would not allow the Establishment

Right to share the fate of the Establishment liberals, or let the Melent'ev affair end in the same way as the Yakovlev affa.r. Somehow, the editorial board of Molodaia gvardia, which was politically defeated, nevertheless retained its personnel, its position and its ideological ammunition What for? Only the future can answer that.

Summary of Young Guardism

Bringing to the centre of the contemporary world drama — in place of the struggle of 'socialism' against capitalism' — the conflict of 'spirits': the Russian vs. the bourgeois (which is embodied in 'Americanism').

Bringing to the centre of the contemporary Russian drama the conflict of 'the people' versus the 'diplomaed masses' of 'cosmopolitan shopkeepers'.

Recognition in principle of the Soviet system as potentially 'Russian' in spi it.

Latent recognition of the Brezlmevist reg me as oriented toward the 'diplomaed masses' and the bourgeois values of 'satiety and 'education', as 'cosmopolitan' and 'non Russian' in spirit, therefore not Soviet and the embodiment of 'flabbiness and torpor'.

An apocalyptic vision of the 'inevitability' of a final showdown between the 'Russian spirit' and 'Americar sm', which will complete the world's pre-history.

The necessity of completely changing the orientation of the regime, which is now 'flippant in its attitude toward the Motherland

An agreement to return to at least some of the values of the 'lost paradise' of Stalinism as the embodiment of the Russo-Byzanti ne tradition.

A distinction made for the first time, and in Aesopian language, between the Soviet system (positively 'Russian') and a particular Soviet regime ('non-Russian' in its basic orientation). Hence the

ilf in strategies recommended by the Dissident and Establish ment Right from the outset: whereas VSKhSON proposed replacing the Soviet system with a 'corporate state' via 'revolution from below', Young Guardism essentially proposed replacement of the pseudo-Soviet, in its view, Brezhnevist regime by a genuinely Soviet 'Russian' one via 'revolution from above'. (That is, in my terms, via a counter-reform).

Notes

John Dunlop, The New Russian Revolutionaries, p 221

Molodaia gvardia, 1968, No. 4, p. 297.

Ibid., p. 299.

Ibid., p. 303.

Ibid , p. 29b.

Ibid., p. 299.

Ibid., p. 296.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid , p 304. Emphasis added.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Щ Ibid.

II my analysis of the structure of the Soviet Establishment in Detente after Brezhenev (Berkeley, 1977) is even partly correet, and if withm the Establishment there are powerful groups (aristocratizing elites) who consider their 'pleasures of the stomach' (primarily Western in origin) as the highest value in life, then Lobanov's philippies probably reflect the reaetion of their puritanical Stalinist opponents.

Molodaia gxardia, 1968, No. 4, p. 304.

Ibid , p. 30b

Strange as it may seem, the politically stagnant regime of the last two decades may have actually taken some of the Young Guard s advice. Whereas at the start of the 19b0s, under a regime of reform, 57% of the graduates of Soviet secondary schools were allowed to matriculate at institutions of higher education, a decade later the figure had fallen to only 22%. (See Murray Yanowitch. 'Schooling and Inequalities', in Leonard Sehapiro and Joseph Godson cd. The Soviet Worker: Illusions and Realities, Macmillan, 1981 )

A regime of stagnation eould not have taken this adviee without denying its own fundamental tenets. Only a dictatorial regime, in a counter- reform situation, would be able to implement Lobanov's aseetie recommendation — yet another piece of e\ idencc to support the view that the Russian New Right is oriented toward counter reform

Molodaia gvardia, 19b8, No. 9, p. 271.

Ibid., p. 270.

Ibid., p. 2bb.

Ibid., p. 2b8.

Ibid

Ibid , p. 2bb.

Ibid., p. 2b5.

2b Ibid., pp. 2b7-8.

Ibid., p. 25b.

Ibid., p 2b8 And on p. 2b4. 'Onee in a hundred years — the ice of Lake Chud. the lush grasses of the fields of Kulikovo, Poltava, Borodino.'

Ibid., p. 2bb.

The 'Byzantinisrn of Russia is an idea of Konstantin Leont'ev. According to this concept, Russia is not merely a state: Russia is a separate world, a special civilization, which has inherited the world task of the Eastern Roman Empire — that of resisting the bourgeois West; or, as Lobanov would put it in the terms of the contemporary Russian Right, the task of crushing 'Americanism of the spirit'.

Moloda^fa gvardia, 1968, No. 9, p. 2b2. Emphasis added.

Ibid., p. 263.

Novyi mir, 1969, No. 4, p. 226.

Ibid., pp. 225-6.

I have heard more than once from members of the Central Committee staff that Dement'ev's essay was, if not the cause, then the pretext for the removal (in 1970) of Tvardovskii, the liberal chief of Novyi mir.

Novyi mir, 1969, No. 4, pp. 221 — 2.

These 'signatories', who not only were not punished for their joint letter

unlike in dozens of analogous cases which occurred at the same time

but even managed to topple Tvardovskii from his position were: Mikhail Alekseev, Sergei Vikulov, Sergei Voronin, Vitalii Zakrutkin, Anatolii Ivanov, Sergei Malashkin, Aleksandr Prokof'ev, Petr Proskurin, Sergei Smirnov, Vladimir Chivilikhin, and Nikolai Shundik.

Qgonek, July 19b9, No. 30. Emphasis added.

Of course it is no coincidence that the letter was published in Ogonek, which was headed by the chief witch-hunter of the 'cosmopolitan' campaign of the late 1940s, A. Sofronov. Sofronov has an excellent feel for such things, and the fact that he considered it possible to intervene openly in the conflict suggests thai a showdown was in the air in 1969.

The Western observer should take careful note of this ep sode, which clearly indicates how effective a coalition of the right-wing factions within the Soviet establishment can be under certain cond lions, and not only in the struggle against 'liberalism'. It is clear that establishment 'liberalism' can exist only as long as the ruling centrist fac on iinds it convenient and politically safe to support it. We can therefore tentatively suggest that the rout of the old editorial board of Novyi mir to some extent represented a retreat by the centrists. It may be that Sofronov's feelings did not deceive him: it may be that he was not mistaken in thinking that his hour had come once again. Perhaps the rout of Novyi mir could — under the right circumstances — have served as a signal for a new 'anti-cosmopolitan' campaign.

This poem (a very sincere one, incidentally) speaks of a day when a Museum of World War II will be erected in Moscow: 'Let all who come in feel their dependence/On the Motherland, on everything Russian/There in the middle — is our Generalissimo/And his Marshals great.' Dement'ev commented venomously: 'Here we already have a notable attempt to combine an appeal to the "sources" with dreams of the future' (Novy mir, 1969, No. 4, p. 230) It is true that a motherland unconditionally tied to things 'Russian' (and not things 'Soviet') is Young Guardism, but 'our Generalissimo' in centre stage is already something out of another 'old guard' opera.

Molodaia gvardia, 1970, No. 8, p. 317.

Ibid., p. 316.

Ibid., p. 318.

Ibid , p. 319.

4b Ibid.

Komrnunist, 1970, No. 17, p. 97

Ibid., p. 98.

Ibid p. 99. Emphasis added.

The Melent'ev affair, which became partially known through Melent'ev himself, was for a long time a favourite subject of discussion in the corridors of the Central Committee and in circles close to it However to get an authoritative and unambiguous answer from the inhabitants of these corridors to the question, precisely who gave Melent'ev the authority for such an unprecedented move, proved impossible.

Shauro's tactics were constructed on the principle of hiding the political nature of Russophilism and depicting it as an exclusively cultural phenomenon. After all, what's so bad ahout young people being interested in their nation's past, or enthusiastically paying tribute to their roots in the Russian village? Shauro's position can best be described in the words of an authoritative scholar: 'In some Russian circles . . . there has been within the last decade something akin to a cult of the Russian past — the village tradition. Russian folk customs and art. and so forth . mainly cultural in character and 'on the emotional lex el (Commentary, August 1977, p. 42). If Yakovlev read this passage he would probably be convinced that it had been written by someone prompted by Shauro. One can imagine how surprised he would have been had he found oui that this was written not by one of Shauro's minions from the CPSU Central Committee Cultural Department, but by Walter Laqueur (whom I cited earlier for his penetrating explanations of the intricacies of 1920s emigre Russian nationalism). Unfortunately, as happened later with Pipes and Hough and virtually every other American expert, all his subtle political insight left Mr Laqueur as soon as he encountered the phenomenon of contemporary' Russian nationalism

Emphasis added. Twenty years before this sentence would have sounded like a direct accusation of counter-revolution. In Brezhnev's Russia such things had gone out of fashion But how else can a Soviet ear, trained to associate 'the past' with either tsarism or Stalinism interpret it, even now?

One must not forget the precariousness of Yakovlev's own position. As the official party ideologist, he bore personal responsibility for everything that happened on the ideological front Therefore, by laying his colours on thick, he ipso facto exposed himself to attack (which was probably successfully exploited by his opponents), hut the fact that he went this tar — even risking his position — indicates how seriously lie regarded the matter.

Vol'noe slovo, No. 9—10 p. 44.

Ibid.

Yakovlev was returned from exile by Andropov during his short reign, In July 1985, almost a decade and a half after his defeat, he finally managed to achieve what he could not under Brezhnev. At the XXVIInd Party congress, ln February—March 1986, he was made a Secretary of the

Central Committee in charge of Propaganda. Shauro was, needless to say, fired — another inc cation that the centre of gravity of the ruling coalition is moved to the left by what Gorbachev calls his 'revolution' and which is in effect a repetition of Khrushchev's desperate attempt to revitalize the nation and undermine the Stalinist foundations of Soviet economy and culture.

11

Veche: Loyal Opposition to the Right

The existence of Veche was undoubtedly a landmark in the history of the Dissident Right of post-Stalinist Russia. 'Fat' journals of public affairs, politics and belles lettres are an old Russian tradition, but being a fat typewritten journal of an oppositionist persuasion — with the editor's name and address on the cover and a more or less regular distribution in the USSR for almost four years — made Veche something truly phenomenal.¹

From the verv beginning its editorial board enunciated the principle of free and open discussion. Everything that had been accumulating over the course of decades in the minds and souls of those of a 'patriotic Russian persuasion poured out in its pages In this sense — as an barometer of the mood of the 'patriotic masses' — Veche's contribution was priceless. On the other hand, it was a sophisticated journal, published at a highly professional level and so demanding of the Russian intellect that the historical excursions of the VSKhSON and the Young Guards seem amateurish by comparison. Danilevskii and Khomiakov, Leont'ev and Skobelev, as well as all the other luminaries of the nineteenth-century Russian Right were subjected by Veche to exactitig analysis and interpretation in terms of current perspectives. The ecological, economic, architectural, city planning, demographic and literary issues that faced the country were all examined in depth.

Thus, Vcche as an historical source that offers roughly 2,000 pages of very serous material touching on virtually all aspects of Soviet life, deserves a special study in Us own right. It cannot be exhaustively dealt with in the space of this chapter. What interests me here is Veche's importance as an indicator of the political evolution of the Russian Dissident Right and as a remarkable, if unsuccessful, attempt to avert the movement's slide from L-Nationalism to F-Nationalism.

1 have no doubts that the editorial board of Veche and, in particular, its editor-in-chief, Vladimir Nikolaevich Osipov, were liberals (that is, representatives of L-Nationalism) so far as this is possible for imperial nationalists.² They fought honestly and bravely for their liberal values agi nst all the manifestations of the Black Hundreds' mentality — its anti-semil.sm, and chauvinism — which weighed heavily on them. Nevertheless they were defeated — and this is what seems to be the most significant point about Veche s four-year history. From its very inception it was forced to fight on two fronts — not only against the KGB (as is clear from the many declarations of Osipov and noted by all those who have written about the journal), but also against its own constituency, the 'patriotic masses' (a point which, to my knowledge, has so far not been noted by anyone). It is hard to say which of these fronts was the more aiff^:cult — the police persecution from 'above' or maintaining their liberal positions under very powerful pressures from 'below' (at least, the spl t in the editor al board preceded Osipov's arrest). In this sense, Veche s an excellent indicator of the very severe crisis through which 'iberal nationalism passed in the first half of the 1970s. For, desp e the liberalism of its editor il board, many of the prerequisites for a transition to F-Nat'onalism became rather clearly formulated on its pages. Moreover, the gloomy nostalgia that gr ^ped its audience, 'the patriotic Russian masses , and the yearning for the restoration of GiCtatorship, for crude restraint of 'non-Russians' and for a new Stalinist campa >n against 'cosmopolitar sin', found expression there as well.

In th's sense Veche s experience ^;s ur.que. Neither before nor since has there been a publication wf 'ch offers us such an opportunity to look at what is really go xig on 'down there' among the 'patriotic Russian masses', what they felt and how they reacted to a regime of stagnation, and how they themselves pictured the Russian Idea. It was a window on somethmg otherwise totally obscure — a pouit which no Western commentator has noted. L'kewise, they have Ibited to note the principle paradox of Veche: it had two faces, its liberal one having been gradually but inexorably squeezed out by a savage chauvinist twin.

Veche's Conception of Isolationism

In the 1960s, in the period of the VSKhSON and Young Guardism, the Chinese threat was not yet perceived as something of decisive importance for Russia's national survival. Therefore, the critical edge of rightist doctrine was directed against either 'Communism and capitalism' or 'Americanization of the spirit' Nationalist thought was dominated by the problem of 'Russia and the West . The world drama it sought to describe was that of the salvation of mankind from the poisonous products of the Western spirit, which were seen to be leading humanity into an abyss, Russia, with her Orthodoxy on the one hand and her 'moral uniqueness' on the other, was assigned the active, saving, messianic role in this drama.

There simply was no room for a Chinese threat in this carefully constructed picture: it had nothing to do with bourgeois satiety or •Americanism of the spirit' With the emergence of the Chinese threat, however, this portrait had to be redrawn.³ The same series of historical events that had prompted the ruling Brezhnevist Centre to develop a policy of detente toward the accursed West, prompted the Russian Right to develop an ideological alternative to that policy. This was a task of colossal intellectual complexity for which the ideologists of the Establishment Right, with their secondary-school level knowledge of history, were quite unsuited, Genuinely talented people were needed — real intellectuals, who in Russia have traditionally been found in opposition to the regime.

Inasmuch as Veche had declared itself an organ of a loyal opposition, it was compelled to observe certain time-honoured rules of the game practised in all the legal 'fat' journals, and to use the traditional style of analysis. This style, of course, was the technique of historical analogy- developed over the course of centuries by the Russian loyal opposition press to a point of supreme craftsmanship and filigree delicacy. Thus the main contribution of Veche to the development of an alternative strategy was made in the form of historical-phdosophical essays, among which the most notable was the unsigned article N. Ya. Danilevskii's Role in World Historical Philosophy'.

As the reader may recall from Chapter 3, Dar devskii was classical Slavophilism's first revisionist. His fundamental work, Russia and Europe, first published in 1871 during a period of crisis for the pre- revolutionary liberal nationalism, laid the basis for the strategic re­orientation of the Russian Right in the nineteenth century. Danjlevskii was a liberal nationalist, like Osipov himself Obviously, for all these reasons, an interpretation of Danilevsk must have seemed to the ideologists of Veche to be the most suitable vehicle for starling up a dialogue with Soviet leaders.

Danilevskii's main thesis, you may remember, was that there is no such thing as world civilization. There are only individual 'cultural- historical' types which have no more in common with one another than do different biological genera, such as fish and lizards, for example. At the core of each of these types are 'historical nations', which differ from non-historical ones in that, 'they have their own tasks . . . their own ideas.' For this reason, the 'political formulas wor ed out by one people are suited only to that people.'⁴

If Danilevski. had been consistent, he would have had to concede tne right of every nation to self-determination. 'Unfortunately,' Veche condescendingly notes, 'Danilevskii was far from sympathetic to every kind of uniqueness. Peoples who found themselves within Russia's state borders could not count on his tolerance.'⁵ Danilevskii explains this position in theoretical terms by claiming that, besides historical nations there are also, so to speak, ne'er-do-well peoples who for various reasons lack their national ideas and as a result wind up as merely 'ethnograpf с material'. In addition, there are nations who have already fulfilled their historical task and have died 'a natural death, by seri'le weakness (China)'⁶ and have thereby also become ethnographic material.

One of the main points in Danilevskii's revision of Slavophilism was his der lal of the principle of universal morality (which Veche mildly calls pragmaUsm'). Specif -;ally, he considered it inappropriate to apply rules of morality to nternational relations: 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth . . . that is the law of foreign poficy, the law of relations of one state toward another. The law of love and self- sacrifice have no place here '⁷ Thus, 'ndifferent cocxistence between nat'ons — or, in the case of conflicting interests, open enmity ('cold war , as we would say these days) — was raised by Danilevskii to the level of natural law. Under these circumstances it was, of course, permissiole to treat 'ethnographic material' like . . . well, material. By denying the existence of such a concept as 'the interests of all mankmd ⁸ and, Instead, asserting that the real and profound danger is prec;ely the enthronement ... of the idea of world civilization',⁹ Dan levakii advanced 'a complete program for a kind of isolationism'.¹⁰ Thus the conclusion that Veche led its readers to was that the Slavophiles were wrong (as was the VSKhSON) in considering Russia a tool for saving humankind from 'satanocracy'. Humankind is a phantom and there s nothing to save in it. What must be savea is Rusoja as an 'historical nation' which is destined to implement her 'idea'. What is this dea? Darilevskii had prov led the answer:'Russia cannot occupy a place in history worthy of herself and of the Slavs except by becoming the head of a special autonomous polit cal system of states . . . [and] serving as a counterweight to Europe.'¹¹

How did the political universe during the era of Danilevsk'i (and particularly of his epigones Nikolai Strakhov and Konstantin Bestyzhev-

Riumin) appear from the perspective of their 'pragmatic isolationist' doctrine? Basically, it was made up of three elements Russia, which must fulfil her historical mission; Turkey, 'the living corpse' which had long since become ethnographic material but refused to accept the fact, and was threatening to interfere with Russia s fulfilment of her historical role (unless she defeated Turkey, Russia could not become head of an autonomous system of states' or serve as 'a counterweight to Europe'); and the rotting cosmopolitan West, which, though doomed to become ethnographic material eventually, was nevertheless for the time being hindering Russia from crushing Turkey.¹²

Proceeding from this picture of the world, Danilevskii's political doctrine implied a very simple strategy: Russia must become strong enough that the West cannot prevent it from rout.ng Turkey; on the ruins of Turkey, Russia must build an 'isolated empire extending from the Adriatic to the Pacific Ocean; after sealing off the borders of this gigantic empire, Russia can wait patiently until ihe West, its boundaries greatly shrunken finally rots away under the pressure of its own internal decay.

It we compare how the contemporary political universe appeared to Veche. we find that it consisted of three elements: Russia, China, and the West. Moreover, the functions of these elements are the same as the earlier three. Specifically, the 'living corpse' China threatens to disrupt not only the execution of Russia s historical mission but also her Orthodox renaissance, while the decaying West \s preventing Russia from ridding herself of this threat. What is the strategy that logically follows from such a view of the world? Is t not exactly the same as the one that emerged from Danilevskii's doctrine? Veche proposed, it seems, not the pursuit of detente, but the acquisition of strength sufficient to prevent the West from interfering with the destruction of China and allow Russia an isolated and 'self-contained existence apart from the rest of the world, (Certainly, this appears to be the strategy proposed, based on the most significant historical- philosophical essay published 111 Veche.)¹³

According to Danilevskii, Russia could not become Russia — that is, realize her 'idea' — without first disposing of the Ottoman empire. According to Veche, Russia cannot become Russia wilhout disposing of the 'living corpse' of China. Thus it proved possible to combine traditional Slavophile hostility toward the West wnh an ant<-Chinesc orientation.¹⁴ To transform Russia into a gigantic, 'closed', 'isolated' empire where no outsider would dare to meddle, an empire that would live by its own 'political formulas as Л patiently waited for the West to turn into ethnographic material suitable for acquisition — such was the alternative to 'Europeanization' envisaged by the Old Russian Right in the 1870s This could also be the Russian New Right alternative to detente in the 1970s, at least, that seems to be the meaning behind its essay on Danilevskii once it is decoded according to the traditional rules of the loyal opposition press in Russia.¹⁵

Imperial Liberalism

■ he Western reader may be shockcd to learn that such a rigidly isolationist- mperialist plan for foreign pulicy could be put forward (even in coded form), not by the hawks of Russian nationalism but by its doves — people whom I si Lcerely consider the liberals of the patriotic' camp, and, more importantly, people who consider themselves liberals.¹⁶ To understand this paradox, one must first understand the paradoxical nature of the liberal nationalist conscious­ness. It does not include the same parallels between foreign and internal po cy which charactei ze the European way of thinking. We have already seen how Veche sharply d itinguished these policies from one another; we shall further see how it also counterposed them to each other. This s not a distinction that has been introduced by the twentieth-century Russian Right: it is a tradition in which Veche once again follows Danilevskii's lead.

This tradition proceeds from the concept (here we are following Veche's interpretation) that, n and of themselves, 'the po"tical demands, or more accurately, the hopes, of the Russian people are extremely moderate, since . . . they do not see authority as an enemy but relate to it with complete trust.'¹⁷ In other words, the character of the Russian people renders a political opposition out of the question. If, nevertheless, such opposition does exist, then it could only have come from abroad: 'everything we have which could be called parties depends on the intrusion of foreign and al m [inorodcheskikh] influences.'¹⁸ The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is a recommendation to the government to close the country to foreign influence and eliminate those alien influences already there. When this is accomplished, it will immediately become evident that in Russian society 'no anti-state or anti-governmental interest whatever exists.'¹⁹ Under these conditions, some relaxation in the areas of 'open government' and civil rights not only would be safe for the state, since (according to Veche s interpretation of Danilevskii) it could never lead to political opposition, but would also be extremely useful to it, since 'lack of openness in government and of constitutional guarantees of human rights hinders the realization of national goals ^2U In other words, the greater the degree of isolationism in foreign policy, the more liberalism can be permitted m Russia's internal policy; or, to put it another way, behind an Iron Curtain the Russian government could have absolute trust in its people. More importantly, 'the Russian periodical press, a power for good, is [under these circumstances] quite incapable of evil '²¹ These conclusions, we are told, are oased on the following properties of the Russian persorr hxs capacity for and habit of obedience, his respect for and trust in authority, his lack of a lust for power, and his distaste for interfering in matters where he does not consider himself competent.'²²

As for inter-ethnic relations within the isolated empire, these too, according to Veche, could be liberal, because of the special and exceptional traits of the Russian people as an historical natior and the nucleus of the Russian empire. Quoting Vladimir Solov'ev, Vechc asserts, Russia is more than a people . . The supra-ethnic significance of Russia can only flow out of the essence of the Russians as a people',²³ and, further, quoting Berdiaev, 'In the Russian nature there is, in fact, some kind of national unselfishness and will ngness to sacrifice unknown to Western peoples.'²⁴ This explains why the Russian empire had nothing in common with despised Western colonialism:

Russian history has been characterized bv the voluntary union of peoples with Russia . If it can be said that the Russian empire was maintained by bayonets, this was true only in the sense that Russian bayonets defended the outlands from the claims of cruel neighbours. Russia knew how to instil love for herself and this was the secret of her power.²⁵

In conclusion, 'whatever can be said about the role of non-Russians in the Russian Revolution', says Veche, 'or about the triumph of the non- Russian element in October . . . one thing can be firmly believed: the new Federation of Peoples [the USSR] was set up in Russian style.'²⁶ Once again, we find the two negative models of multinational societies characteristic of all Veche's thinking — the American and the Chinese — and the one positive model: the Russian. What is the American model? asks Veche, making use of Faulkner:

A new nation? No, only 'a mass of people who no longer have anything in common save a frantic greed for money and a basic fear of a failure of national character which they hide behind a noisy lip-service to a flag'.²⁷

What is the Chinese model? It is 'the destruction of every other [national] origin entirely',²⁸ and the compulsory Simcization of the whole populal on of the country, by means of forced marriages.'

The Russian empire, however, is something altogether different. The dominance of the Russian historical nation is based on its moral supremacy over the 'ethnographic material' of the 'outlands'. If the outlands correctly understand their 'ethnographic' nature, they will feel themselves drawn toward the Russians as their historical centre and source of h gher values: 'If the outlands see in the centre a concentration of culture higher than theirs, of higher . . . morality, national tolerance, kindness, and genero^ ty, then they will be attracted to it voluntarily.'²⁹ In other words, so long as the opposition of the outlands does not take on a poliucal coloration (and it will not be able to do so if 'foreign influences' at the centre are el ninated), Veche recommends the broadest possible cultural liberalism.³⁰

As we see, Veche somehow succeeds — at least in theoretical terms — in reconciling the irreconc able, preaching a rigid isolationism in foreign pol cy, combined v th I bera sra in internal affairs.

The Siberian Gambit

The liberal impel al[3] ;t strategy of Veche rested on a profound faith in the potential supremacy of the Russian nation over the entire world.³¹ Therefore, in Veche s opinion, the Iron Curtain between Russia and the West is not an end in itself, but rather a means toward a social, moral and religious renaissance within Russia.

Veche s 'renaissance' plan, insofar as it can be assembled from isolated fragments, proceeded from the following postulates:

'Russia is to be saved by Orthodoxy. Russian Orthodoxy is indestructible. It is the work of God and a Russian can only be Orthodox.'³⁴ In this respect too, the West is doomed, of course, but for Russia all is not yet lost it is still possible to render her society Russian Orthodox — if not juridically, then at least de facto.

The restoration of peasant and Orthodox Russia is what will finally eliminate 'cosmopolitanism' within the country and create an elfec.tive screen against the West, with its corrosive urbanization and faithlessness. But is this possible m authoritarian Soviet Russia — and if it is, then how? 'The Soviet regime, as history shows, is capable of making concessions when military or economic circumstances demand it, but is organically incapable of sacrificing itself for the sake of moral principles It makes concessions only to preserve the main thing — power ³⁵ Is it then possible to combine 'moral pr: iciples' with nilitary circumstances'? These are the lines along winch Veche was thinking. What could compel the Soviet regime to make such very difficult and far-reaching concessions? Veche could see only one such opportunity: preparation for war with China.

When Stalin formulated his five essential conditions for military victory, he ranked strengthening the home front number one, the decisive condition. Why this and not improving the quality of weapons, for instance, or increasing the number of divisions? Because Stalin was dominated by a fear of his own people — and fear continues to dominate the present Soviet leadership, who are graduates of the Stalinist academy. This way, 'strengthening the rear' is turned into a magic formula which Veche sought to use as a stimulus for the realization of 36

From this point of view, Veche's proposal for creating a 'second Russia' in Siberia appears quite realistic The need to create a strong rear will compel the regime, which is powerless to establish it by bureaucratic Soviet methods, to bring about the voluntary colonization of Siberia. 'Millions of zealots' led by 'priests deprived of their status, dissenters deprived of work and publ ; careers'³⁷ would move on to unsettled lands in Siberia and transform them into a new Slavophile Atlantis; 'only Siberia can safeguard freedom, and the Fatherland, and Soviet aspir­ations.'³⁸

Hence, the divis on of Russia into urbanized European and peasant Siberian, Marx st European and Orthodox Siberian, forms the ba: s of Veche s liberal Utopia. It is a deliberate gambit. The new As at ; Russia ws. supposed to sacrifice — if only for the time be ng — its European ancestor: 'Siberia can be settled only if there exists a ngid po tical counterweight in European Russia.'³⁹

The gradual influence — and success — of the 'second Russia will one day change the situation in the European part of the country. A truly Russ an renaissance — the creation of hitherto completely unknown forms of peasant Russian Orthodox civ nation — would lead to the transformation of the whole country and ultimately to the triumph of the Russian 'cultural- historical type'.

All that would be needed, to make tf is happen, would be to awaken the Russian Orthodox peasant soul in the Soviet leaders, who, after all, also had 'if not a peasant mother, then at least a peasant grandmother' (and an Orthodox one at that). 'I do not think', Osipov declared, 'that there are no sobre minds with л the Soviet state apparatus.'⁴⁰

The Other Face of Veche

Experts may object that it was by no means only the isolationist doctrines of Danilevskii that inspired Veche, but also the messianic ideal of the Slavophiles and of Dostoevskii, and that the journal contains plenty of aggressive chauvinism and Black Hundreds material in the spirit of 'Chalmaevism', or even the National Socialism of Ivan Shevtsov.⁴¹ All this is true, but these are objections that should be raised with Veche, and its 'liberal' face. The liberal nationalist plans of Veche which have been considered up to now not only did not constitute the whole of 'patriotic Russian' public op/ »n of the early 1970s, they were not even dominant in it. The most nteresting statement of the 'messianic' point of view is Mikhail Antonov's article, •The Slavophiles'Teachings - The Highest Flight ot Popular National Sell-Awareness in the Pro Leninist Period', which Veche used to open its debate with its allies 'to the right'.⁴²

Antonov saw it as part of his object to demonstrate the 'opposition between Western and Russian views ... in all spheres of life'⁴³ and to expose the 'rootless cosmopolitanism' of the Russian (and Soviet) intelligentsia which acts as a harmful lobby for 'Western views . He intended to show that, 'Leninism has incomparably more in common with Russian Orthodoxy and Slavophilism than with Marxism and Catholicism',⁴⁴ and therefore 'only a union of Russian Orthodoxy with Leninism can yield an adequate world-view of the Russian people which will synthesize the whole, centuries-long Ufe-expcnence of the nation.'⁴⁵

As we have seen, the liberal wing of Veche — following Danilevski

regards the West as, so to speak, another species of the genus mankind. Therefore, provided there was an Iron Curtain, Russia would react to the West's 'decay' and its gradual transformation into 'ethnographic material' in a mainly contemplative way, with almost total indifference. Antonov relates to the West (and to the 'cosmo­politans' who represent it within Russia) with the undsguiscd hatred of a fanatical missionary calling for a crusade against inFdels. For him, 'the people and states of the West have outlived their age and are dying . . they shall inevitably soon perish; moreover, not by a sudden attack, but because its vital forces are dryng up. They are tired of living; the whole West is m a bi nd alley.'⁴⁶

The liberals ol Veche (together with Damlevskii) would reply to it thus: if Antonov thinks that the Western peoples have a 'false world view . . and they cannot in principle correctly conceive of the way out of their dead end',⁴⁷ such is the law of nature; we haven't the power either to help or to prevent it. Amen. Antonov, however, draws a very different conclusion. The 'false world-view' of the West seems to him so dangerous and infectious (almost like religion was for Lenin) that it draws the Russian people to the edge of the abyss as well Why? He speaks of the 'organic properties of the English character which render Anglican —Puritan circles eternal, incorrigible and sworn enemies of the Russian people.'⁴⁸ Hut the main danger — insofar as Antonov's rather incoherent article lends itself to rational interpretation

lies in the fact that these Anglican — Puritan circles are only a kind of executive organ for the 'false world-view', while i's essence is to be found elsewhere. It is no coincidence that, 'the founder of all contemporary Western philosophy — that religion without faith — was the Jew Spmoza.' It is also no accident that, 'the roots of the materialistic tendency in philosophy go back to the depths of the Jewish ethnic character.'⁴⁹

If one were to say that Dar levskii looked at the West as a 'dual foundation Romano-Germai. с cultural-historical type', then Antonov regarded it as a 'dual-foundation Jewish-Puritanical cultural-historical type'. The trouble is that one of these types — the Jewish — has wormed its way into the very heart of Russia. It maKes up the soul of the 'lumpen' whom Antonov despises (that is how, for some reason, Antonov refers to Russia's western :ed intelligentsia, whom Lobanov before him called 'educated shopkeepers' and Solzhenitsyn after him called 'smatterers'). This 'lumpen' stubbornly destroys mother Russia day in and day out, before everyone's eyes. Thus she must begin ridding the world of this devil's seed by eliminating it first at home.

To initiate this process, Antonov needs not Osipov's feeble kind of loyalty, but an act^; ^e alliance with the state — for the immediate restitution of the 'cosmopolitan campaign' that was interrupted by Stalin's death. A union of Len. sm with Russian Orthodoxy is needed to form the foundation for a restoration of Stalinism in order to deal once and for all with the 'lumpen':

At the present time, the same task arises in all areas of the life of the Russian people: to beat back the attack of rootless and cosmopolitan elements, to repel the Western forms, alien to its spirit, which have been foisted upon the people, and to return to age-old Russian origins, while assuring their further development.⁵⁰

He says, along with Khomiakov, 'History calls upon Russia to take the lead in worldwide enlightenment '⁵¹ But this will come later, after Russia has put its own house in order and 'the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome, a New Jerusalem, the embodiment of Leninist higher Truth and Justice on earth' has become central in Russia's world view.⁵² Then will come the turn of her world miss..m — to deal with the entire Jewish — Puritan 'lumpen' on a global scale.

All this theorizing and polemic must be gathered up, crumb by crumb, from a boring 99-page long article, overloaded wth quotations, which unrelentingly revises the classic postulates of Slavophilism, transforming it from a peaceful, liberal Utopian doctrine into a science of hatred Antonov does not call for any intellectual sophistries, any civil rights, any 'second Russia'; he bi ngs not peace, but a sword Such was the other — Antonovist — face of Veche.

The Capitulation ot National-liberalism

When we look at Vechc from the point of view of this internal conflict, we discover quite a paradoxical situation. While a group of 'staff political writers - highbrow liberals of the Osipovist school — were writing long, coded essays, skilfully formulating sophisticated historical analogies and developing complex plans for imperial liberalism and the 'Siberian gambit', their political constituency - i.e., their readership (and presumably followers) — were moved by quite different, 'Antonovist' visions and passions, It was not the idea of the Siberian gambit, but the problem of the 'aliens' that excited the reader who wrote the following: 'We Russians have become too used to hanging back, showing timidity, and effacing ourselves before foreign ruffians '⁵³ It was not civil rights, but quite the contrary — nostalgia for Stalin — that prompted another reader to ask 'Have you ever wondered why the Russian Orthodox Church was freer under Stalin? It is said that he even liked to talk to the Patriarch Have you ever wondered why all the churches held services for Stalin? They didn't hold services for the others, but they did for him.'⁵⁴ It wasn't the idea of imperial liberalism, but a fanatical hatred for 'cosmopolitan­ism' that agitated a thi^d reader: 'Cosmopolitanism is spiritual slavery

. Cosmopolitanism prepares the way for the Antichrist ,'⁵⁵ A fourth reader called not merely for loyalty to the Soviet regime, but for close alliance with it: 'Are Russian patriotism and a Marxist-Leninist world- view really incompatible? Didn't the soldiers ask to be cons.dered Communists before giving their lives for the Motherland? Who would dare call them non-Russians?'⁵⁶ A fifth reader's letter, far from Danilevskii's contemplative view of the 'sick West proclaimed 'Europe is an incorrigible harlot, and America represents its final, most insane, nocturnal orgy, after which there can only be disillusionment and ruin '⁵⁷

Veche s own constituency was rebelling against its national-liberal course. It was calling openly and passionately for a Russo-patriotic Antonovist course of action Bash the aliens and unite with the regime! In short, the constituency of 'Osipovist' Vechc turned out, in fact, to be 'Antonovist'; the mood of the 'patriotic masses' had gone beyond the intellectual L-Nationalism it evinced

Perhaps the saddest aspect of all this was that Osipov and his liberal collaborators blindly refused to recognize what was going on. When Osipov wrote that, 'Solzhenitsyn's letter, in its Slavophilism and patriarchal mood, will perhaps strike a deeper chord in the Russian heart than the democratic alternatives of the intellectuals',⁵⁸ he was unaware that he was signing his own death warrant. The Osipov who stated that, even the problem of civil rights in the USSR is less important . . . than the problem of ihe dying Russian nation'⁵⁹ was vanquishing the Os. )ov who, as ideologist of the loyal opposition, had generously extended his hand to Sakharov. The time of the VSKhSON had passed. Liberalism and nationalism were no longer compatible within the 'patriotic' heart. A choice had to be made one way or the other, the same choice Ivan Aksakov had been compelled to make a century earlier. There was still 'no middle ground' for a Russian nationalist in a critical situation. The Old Slavophiles learned this the hard way in the 1870s. In the 1970s, it was the new generation's turn. Those who could not make this choice were doomed politically — as Osipov discovered. He had perished — along with Veche's liberal wing — even before the KGB arrested him.

The best evidence of his coming demise is to be found in readers' letters to his own journal. But these were only the mild examples of criticism from 'below' The truly big guns are to be found in an article entitled 'Critical Notes of a Russian Man', which Osipov didn't even dare to print and whose anonymous author, in the course of attacking the contradict-ons of national-1 )eralism, openly accused Veche of 'ant: patriotism' and 'treason against all that is truly Russian and Slavic'.⁶⁰

The 'Critical Notes of a Russian Man'

The main th'ng the author of the 'Notes' demanded of Veche was logical consistency. If cosmopolitanism truly s the worst crime aga nst the Russ an people and humanity, then how can one fail to point out that its source is the cosmopolitan nature of Christianity itself? How can one demand a rehabiln at ion of Russ an Orthodoxy if Orthodoxy itself has historically 'played the role of Judas n relation to both Autocracy and the Russun nationalist consciousness or, as the Slavophiles called it, Nationality [narodnost']'?⁶¹ How can one forget about the 'traitorous role of Russian Orthodox cosmopolitanism, which paved the way for the Zionist cosmopolitans of our day'? 'If anyone now needs to rehabilitate Russian Orthodoxy', the argument proceeded, 'then first and foremost it is those who crcated it — the Zionists.'⁶² Here, of course, the author trots out ideas from the

Protocols of the Elders of Hon and presents them as irrefutable documentary support for his position.

For themselves, they created Judaism, according to which mankind is divided into people (only the Jews) and Goys . . Foi the Govs, Christianity and Islam were created — sister subsidiaries of Judaism L.td. called upon to keep all other peoples obedient before a master race or people, chosen by God (i.e., the Jews). The Goys, according to the Old Testament, are supposed to become slaves of the Jews by the year 2000.⁶»

From this vantage point, it naturally follows that

One's attitude toward Zionism is the litmus test which reveals either patriotism or treason. There is no in-between! Who ^:s not with us is against us! Who is not against Zionism in all its manifestations is against the Russians, against the Slavophiles, and against everything honest on this earth. In light of this, a journal, if it really wants to make itself Patriotic and Russian, rather than a bath-house dressing-room for Zionist dissidents, their unpaid agent, must seek to clarify that the main link in the entire chain of problems facing the Russian people is the struggle against Zionist domination. Once we have taken hold of this link (.and only this one) it will be possible to pull the whole chain of problems straight If we do not do this, by the year 2000 the Zionists will physically exterminate the Russian people along with all our problems.⁶⁴

From the author's point of view, the dilemma is simple a dramatic, mortal confrontation is going on m the world between Russia and Zionism They cannot coexist on the same planet. A Russian patriotic lournal, worthy of the name, cannot maintain its neutrality in this conflict Veche, m the author's viewpoint, is trying to do just this.

How can a Russian [believe in Veche's patriotism] when this journal offers its pages to such sworn enemies of the Russians and Russia as A. Sakharov and A. Solzhenitsyn? . . This journal mourns, togethei with the Zionist samizdat, for Yurii Galanskov . . . But who was Galanskov fighting for? For the same wicked enemies of Russia and the Russians — the Zionists, [he was fighting to get hold of] the records of the trials ot Zionist agents clad in the sheep's clothing of dissidents — Siniavsky and Daniel It is a disgrace to the journal to reprint the declarations of A. Sakharov, Shafarevich and the other assorted Zionist packs of scientists and pseudo-scientists who wail for freedom of the press . . . There, where this has been formally achieved (the US

England and other Western countries) the press is fully monopolized by Zionists. What kind of freedom of the press is that? No, better our Glavlit [Soviet censorship office] than that kind ot freedom!⁶⁵

For whom's Veche working, the author goes on to ask. For Russia or her enemies ?

he Zionist dissidents, with the state sponsorship of the US Congress and the governments of the other Western countries infected by Zionism, try by various means to undermine us from within, in order to pave the way for the children of Israel's world domination. Is this Russian Patriotic journal on the same path as them? Communism and the Soviet Regime (the whole socialist system) are now the only powerful barrier standing in the way of Zionism's march to its year 2000. The Russian people go their way, in the vanguard of the USSR and, consequently, of the whole socialist system. Without question, it is difficult for Russians to accept the chains of Zionist domination, but it is still harder for them to accept other Russians who stab them in the back . . . still harder when Russians professing the best of motives endeavour to put together a samizdat journal and then beat the trusting Russian folk over the head with a rock.⁶⁶

The hysterical tone of the passage is unimportant. What matters is that it clearly demonstrates how, in the 1970s, 'Russian patriotic consciousness' proved a Procrustean bed for liberalism (even the imperial sort). Neither naive faith in the possibility of freedom of speech behind the Iron Curtain ('the drive for objectivity and so-called freedom of speech leads to granting pages to full- as well as half-breed Zionists'⁶⁷), nor the idea of de-urbanization and de-industrialization ('We are not alone on the planet. If the Russian people reduce production, the Zionists u '11 smother them'⁶⁸), nor liberal Slavophilism ('had they [the Slavophiles] lived in our time, they wouldn't have sought to rise up aga nst the existing ideology and form of rule, but probably would have tended to defend them for the good of the Russian people'⁶⁹) — none of these find room here. The 'patriotic' reader has to be given a completely different idea of what constitutes a truly Russian journal.

[It ought] to publish materials about the worthlessness of the scientific works of Zionist pseudo-scientists. (Such efforts are already underway. The theoretical physic st 1 jpkin is in the process of proving that the Einstein cult was created by the talentless Jews in order to raise their scientific prestige. The same has been supported by Shevtsov.) To pub'ish materials about Zionist attacks against honest Russian people

.. materials about the comiption and decadence of Zionists materials about their mob gatherings outside synagogues . letters from the provinces about the outrages committed bv internal em'gres about the usurpation of housing in cities demand the jus: d-.stribution of apartments for the benefit of the native population pose questions to the organs of the office of the public prosecutor about the money Zionist elements use to acquire cars, dachas and so forth, pose questions about why in this or that office 70 or 90 per cent [of the employees] are Jew s. demand that the percentage of Jewish youths admitted to mst.tutions of higher education be ir. accordance with the percentage of Jews livng m the country (about one per cent).

Demand that this one per cent oe dispersed among all institutions and enterprises and under the slogan of equality for all. no advantages for those \чЬо could end up in Israel tomorrow

Recognize that the journal [IVcfce] . had a vague and objectively pro-Zion;st platform. Materials of an anti-Zionist character lent the journal merely the appearance of obiectivity . . . Therefore against ts will the journal compromised itself as an accomplice of the Zionists

Set out under the banner: Death to the Zionist Invaders' or 'All Hands to the Straggle Against Zionism'

The journal ought to be oriented not toward the religious bel.evers. who will not save Russia from Zionism by their prayers, not toward scum like Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn who need cosmopc'.itar.'sm more than [they need] the Russian people . . [but] toward honest party and Soviet workers and members of the military toward patriotically- minded cultural and artistic figures and other Soviet people

Communists and non-party members [alike] who carry weight with the administration.⁷*¹

Isn't it obvious that w th such a programme the patriotic reader would need not a Veche but a Russki: golos, not Vladimir Osipov, but Sergei Sharapov not opposition to the regime but alliance with it not national-liberalism but a call for pogromsTo its misfortune, Veche had opened a Pandoras box Among the savage winds that issued forth none was sympathetic. They all blew hard against Veche They beat ^;t to ground and condemned it to death — even before 'he KGB ntervened

Orthodox ana Heathens

A fellow-traveller of the Russian nationalists M Agurskii, who pubV.shed the 'Crtical Notes of a Russ^:an Man' in an emigre journal prefaced them with his own critical remarks under the title 'The Neo-

К а/л Danger m the USSR' He wrote 'Soviet racism comes out riot as atheism, but a.s a new form of heathenism, like [the way] National Socialism appeared ... It seems utterly obvious that the sole realistic alternative for those v/ho really do wish to regenerate Russian life on a лот basis would be the acceptance ... of that humanitarian program which Solzhenitsyn proposed m his Letter to the Leaders.'** In other A'ords, Agurskii counterposes the good Christian nationalists to the bad 'heather/ ones. We have heard this argument already from Dunlop. To his misfortune, Agurskii tries to be a little more precise. As an example, he narr.es, along with Solzhenitsyn, 'such Russian Christian nationalists as . ,. the Archdeacon Varsonofn .ⁿ

We will discuss -Solzhenitsyn's programme a bit later. As for the archdeacon, be appears to be a co-author of the so-called Letter of the Three'. Ir> terms of its Black Hundreds-style ferocity, this letter was fully comparable with the 'Critical Notes of a Russian Mar/, but, in contrast to the latter, it was published by О si pov himself, at Veche's very beginning (issue No. 3, 1971 ).^1г

before discussing the content of this letter however, it is worth relating one episode connected with it v/hich shows to what degree the editors of Veche — or at least its liberal wing — failed, unt.l the very end, to understand both how far they were estranged frorn their constituency and the dramatic nature of the warning they received. In his article 'The Rebirth of Russian Nationalism in Sami/.dat',⁷⁴ Pospelovsky described the 'Letter of the Three' as a sinister document, a deviation in the direction of nationalistic and religious racism. The editors of Veche responded They repudiated Pospelovsky's judicious criticism (or even, if you will, the tactful concern he showed for them;. They ridiculed him unrestrainedly, assuring not only their readers but also ^r\i would seem) themselves that this foreign observer was talking about trifles not worthy of attention- 'A single phrase provoked the indignation and all the accusations directed at the journal: in the preamble of the letter, the word "Zionism" is connected by the conjunction "and" v/ith the word "Satanism"/⁷⁵ A venial sin! It is not surprising that over the course of two years the journal found no opportunity to distance itself frorn such a trifle — a mere slip of the pen. However, I shall let my reader judge for him- or herself who was right in this argument, and bow good a Christian nationalist Agurskii's hero is, from the following extract from the Letter:

Wi must not be silent wberf the growing danger from the organized forces of broad Zionism and Satanism have become obvious to all. . . . The agents of Zionism and Satanism . are artificially creating friction

between the Church and the State with the aim of weakening both and are trying to poison society, particularly the intelligentsia and the young people, with ideas of anarchic liberalism and amoralism, and to destroy the very foundations of morality, the family, and the state.⁷⁶

Thus it is not disagreement in principle, much less antagonism, between the atheistic state and the Russian Orthodox Church which creates the conflict between them, but the machinations of an external force. (It should be noted that 'conflict' is not spoken of in the letter, but is replaced by the euphemism 'friction — and that even this friction is creatcd 'artificially.') This external force is called by name: Zionism and Satanism'. Even if there were no conjunction 'and would this actually make such a difference? This sinister force, by nature anti-Orthodox, simultaneously wages a 'hidden struggle against our state from within and without'.⁷⁷ In other words, the Soviet state and the Russian Orthodox Church have a common enemy.

But the authors of the letter assert that there is also a more positive reason for the proposed alliance between church and state: they share common goals. The goal of the church ('the salvation of mankind from sin and its consequences') is essentially the same, in their view, as that of the Soviet state ('the struggle against the forces of destruction and chaos'). If. however, the goals of the Soviet state (which is represented in its 'struggle against the forces of destruction and chaos' by a special agency commonly known as the KGB) coincide with those of the Russian Orthodox church, and if they have a common enemy, then does not their alliance amount to a kind of division of labour between them? What cannot be done by the physical sword of the KGB can be done by the church, as the 'moral force and bulwark of the state in ts noble struggle'.⁷⁸

The letter also considered what might happen if the state and the church do not unite in this struggle. Here the authors present a hideous picture of wild excesses by 'agents both inside Russia and 'in the Zionist centres of ihe countries of the West, primarily the USA, where the church of Satan functions'.⁷⁹ These 'agents', of course, 'are trying to corrupt our people.' Mot only are they poisoning people's minds with 'cosmopolitanism' and 'doubts regarding all spiritual and national values' (as reported by the Young Guards and Antonov), but in addition they are responsible for 'spreading perversion and drunkenness' and even for the increase in abortions' But the list of their offences does not end there: they also encourage 'indifference towards the execution of family, parental and patriotic duties' as well as promoting 'hypocrisy, faithlessness, lies, money-grubbing and all other vices'.⁸⁰

Clearly, absolutely everything bad that takes place in the USSR results from the fact that the KGB has not exercised adequate surveillance over the 'agents' of Zionism and Satar .sm. This is not because the KGB is not vigilant enough (perish the thought!), but because it does not have the church as a rel ible and faithful ally and to act as a 'bulwark'. Hence it is as clear as day that, 'one of the prmary tasks of our time is to search for practical means of convergence [of the church] with the state'.⁸¹

How far the Russian Right had come in less than a decade! It no longer called, as VSKhSON did, for 'the destruction of the ol.garchy's security forces'. On the contrary, the authors of the 'Letter of the Three' publicly offer themselves as ass -.tants to those same secret police. But most importantly, this letter came from people who are by no stretch of the imagination heathens, but good servants of the Russian Orthodox church, and it was signed by the same Archdeacon Varsonofii whom Arguskii contrasts with the 'heathen' author of the 'Critical Notes'

All these views were taken up by the editors of Veche, who, in one of their last issues, rebuffed Pospelovsky and excused the letter's invectives against 'Zionism and Satanism' as a slip of the tongue, or at worst a grammatical error. But it was no error; it was poucy — the militant policy of the Black Hundreds, the alternative to the national- liberal programme of Veche. This was now the policy withm Veche — no longer outside it. Verily, two souls lived in the soul of one: its rebuttal of Pospelovsky was Veche s testimonial to its own capitulation.

Summary of Veche

The transition from an open political confrontation with the regime (possible in the USSR only in the form of an underground anti-governmental organization — e.g., the VSKhSON) to the status of a loyal opposition, i.e., the first revision of L-National- ism.⁸²

The adoption as the basis for this revision of the postulate that the USSR is potentially in the same situation as Nazi Germany, that is, facing struggle on two fronts — against the West and China.

The consequent division of Veche s political position into two parts: passive opposition to the regime's internal policy and active support of it 'in the face of the external threat'.

An attempt to work out a 'Siberian gambit' as an imperial- isolationist strategy alternative, combining the anti-Western

tendencies of the Russian New Right with an anti-Chinese orientation.

1.5) An attempt by means of this isolationist strategy to preserve the basic values of national liberalism. This effort ended n the split of the editorial board into a liberal 'Osipovist' faction, which limited its support of the regime to the area of foreign policy, and a 'Russo-patriotic' one, which strove to develop the pre-conditions for total collaboration with the regime.

(b) The realization by the Russo-patriotic faction of the impossibility of combining nationalism with liberalism and a call for the renewal of the 'cosmopolitan campaign' as the ideological basis for restoring dictatorship.

Notes

Of course Veche deelared itself an organ of the 'loyal opposition and promised not to touch upon political matters. It proceeded from the premise thatfjwe must convinee the administration that the existence of a loyal opposition does not harm the Soviet state but is of benefit to it Veche was supposed to be of benefit to the regime for the following reasons: 1. A loyal opposition is a defence against the self-perpetuating bureaueracy from whose arbitrary action the leaders' suffer no less than working people . . .' 2. '[This opposition] guards against the possibility of the emergence of a personal dictatorship (Vol'noe slovo, Posev publishers, No. 17 — 18, p. 6). Nine issues of the journal under the editorship of Vladimir Osipov appeared between January 1971 and March 1974, after which a bitter struggle within the editorial board resulted in a split accompanied by strident accusations and eounter- aeeusations. Osipov and V. Radionov issued two numbers of a new journal, Zemlia [Soil], while A. Skuratov and I Ovchinnikov put out the tenth issue of Veche. By the end of 1974, Veche and Zemlia had ceased to exist. At that time Osipov was arrested, and later sentenced to eight years detention There is an interesting eoineidence here that, to the best of my knowledge, has gone unnoticed by Western observers: the KGB embarked upon its suppression of Veche m 1973, at the same tune as the influence of Polianskii and the Establishment Right began to decline.

Hardly any Western observer doubted the liberal nationalism of Osipov. See, for example, the article by D. Pospelovskv (Survey 1. 1973, p. 64). See also the statements by Osipov himself m Veche No. 1 (Arkhiv Samizdata [hereafter cited as AS], No. 1013) and No. 7 (Vol'noe slovo, No. 17—18) or his protest against the aecusation of anti-semitism in an interview with Dean Mills, Moscow correspondent of the Baltimore Sttn (Vestnik RKhD, No. 106, 1972).

Osipov started m on this task with the following graphically eloquent passage: 'The specific character of the Chinese threat eonsists not in its military potential, but in the enormous advantage of geographical position and human reserves. Our surplus military potential shackles our own feet. We cannot make a move in an Eastern war. When the Chinese say that they will drown the enemy in a human sea, they are by no means bragging. This sea is always increasing, and with each year the hour comes closer when it will overflow and come rolling [towards us] in a dense wave across the w Je open spaces of Siberia' (Vol'noe slovo, No. 17 — 18, p. 9). On 25 April 1972, in an interview with Associated Press correspondent Stevens Browning, Osipov spoke of the necessity of 'the appeal to a national ideology': 'In the face of the advancing threat from Communist China and the unceasing enmity of cosmopolitan capital, Russian society does not wish to show itself ideologically impotent' (AS, No. 1599. p. 14).

Vol'noe slovo, No. 9-10, p. 9.

Ibid., p. 31.

Ibid., p. 11.

The denial of universal morality flowed directly from the rejection of the concept of world civilization. Why should lizards sacrifice themselves for the sake of fish? Danilevskii's pupil Konstantin Leont'ev spoke of this even more openly: 'There are no humane states . . . They are ideas, embodied in a certain social structure. Ideas do not have humane hearts; they are merciless and cruel' (K. Leont'ev, Sobranie sochinenii, v. 5, p. 38). I do not contend that in their day-to-day activities states are gu ded by philanthropic principles, but they at least do not try to make a virtue out of necessity.

Vol'noe slovo, No. 9-10, p. 18.

Ibid., p. 22.

Ibid., p. 36.

Ibid., p. 37.

It is significant that it was not until the fourth edition of Russia and Europe, in 1889, that the book became really popular. This was after the 1878 Congress of Berlin (as well as Alexander Ill's nationalist counter- reform in 1881), when Europe had, so to speak, robbed Russia of the fruits of her victory over Turkey in the Russo—Turkish War (1877 — 8) — thus repeating by diplomatic means the outcome of the Crimean War (1853 — 6). TTtat would also explain the unusual popularity of Dai levskii in the 1880s — he had proved to be a prophet, essentially predicting the results of the Berlin Congress.

The importance Veche assigned to the essay on Danilevskii was clearly emphasized in its response to Pospelovsky's article in Survey (1973, No. 1): 'As to national messianism, we would like to note the following. Besides the early Slavophiles and Dostoevskii, who really preached this idea, there was also in Slavophilism N. Ya. Danilevskii, who repudiated any [form of] national messianism ... In issue No. 6 of Veche, there was an article on the views of Danilevskii which Pospelovsky, unfortunately, did not read' (Vol'noe slovo, No. 17—18, p. 169). There can hardly be any doubt that in this passage the 'isolationist-pragmatic' ideologists of Veche are defending their position, not so much from Pospelovsky as from the pressure of their own 'mcssianist' readers. Answering Pospelovsky could only be an excuse for them to respond to forces much

more dangerous to Veche than Survey In any ease, it is clear that Veche did not want to identify itself with the messianists

It is interesting to note that Vcchc's interpretation of Danilevskii was entirely original. In any event, it decisively diflers from the generally aeeepted Western aeademie interpretation expressed by Robert F,. MaeMaster in his Danilevskii: A Russian Totalitar.au Philosopher (Harvard University Press, 1967). MaelVlaster foeuses on the 'war element in Danilevskii's teachings and downplays the decisive 'isolation­ist eleinentL thereby depriving himself of the opportunity to reeoneile Danilevskii's 'liberalism' with his 'totalitarianism'. MaeMaster fails to see even the existence of'imperial liberalism'. It is true that Danilevskii predicted a feroeious struggle between Russia and Europe o\er Constantinople. For Veche, of eourse, the problem of Constantinople no longer existed. Therefore they shifted the 'war element to the Sino— Soviet border and thus depieted it as only a fragment in Danilevsk.'s overall isolationist strategy. There is a eertain irony l the faet that Veclte's interpretation, in spite of its openly polii.eal and elearly non-seholarh goals, is in a position to explain Danilevskii's liberalism mueh more logieally — and eonvineingly — than MaeMaster's pureh aeademie approaeh.

I, for one, who for many years worked in this press and wrote dozens of artieles in its Aesopian language, eannot find any other mean,ng in this essay. Furthermore, the same thing can be proved by purely deductive methods. In an important programmatic declaration, Osipo\ promised, on the one hand, loyalty to the existing system , and on the other 'support for the state in the faec of external threats" (Vol noe slovo, No. 20, p. 6). As we ean see, in the field of foreign policy he did not intend to eontine himself to passive loyalty In another programmatie declaration Osipov stated: 'Whether the existing system is viable or whether it is doomed to a transitory role . the position of Russian patriots remains unchanged, sinee we will not take upon ourselves the boldness or the impudenee to oppose our own social plan to that of the existing system . . . We remember that no matter how the politieal destiny of Russia may have developed, national interests are primarv, supra-soeial, and eternal (ibid., No. 17-18, p. 151. This means that, unlike VSKhSON, Veche did not intend to propose an alternative to the Soviet order (as a soeial system). Nevertheless, Osipov's declaration leaves open the field of strategic recommendations — i.e., the proposal of foreign poliey alternatives whieh might promote the realization of the 'primary national interests. From this standpoint, three possible alternative strategies emerge in the eoncept advaneed by the author of the artiele on Danilevskii fa) Russia may agree to stay just one among the great powers of the contemporary world (m the final analysis, this is what detente with the West leads to); (b) Russia may seek world domination (this is what the founders of Marxism suspeeted Russia of seeking: 'Panslavism', wrote Engels, 'is a fraudulent plan of struggle for world domination' |Mar\ and Engels, Sochmenia, v. I, p. 185], and it is why — sueh are the ironies of history ! — Marx and Engels were fanatieal proponents of a general European erusade against Russia; in the modern parlanee, they were eertainly hawks); (e) Russia may seek to establish an 'isolated' empire over most of the Eurasian mainland, as Danilevskii suggested (this empire — a federation, according to Danilevskii — 'must embrace all countries and peoples from the Adriatic to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic Occan to the Archipelago . . . under the leadership and hegemony of an integral and unified Russian state' (Vol'noe slovo. No. 15, p. 38)). With which of these alternative strategies does Veche's sympathy lie? It rejects (a), following Damlevskii's argument that, 'Russia is too great and mighty to be only one among the greal European powers' (ibid., p. 37). It considers (b) Cagain following Dar'levskii) to be unnatural — that is, not in accordance with the theory of 'cultural- historical types'. What is left then but the imperial—isolationist strategy (с)?

In the same interview with Stevens Browning, to the question 'What is your attitude toward the "democratic movement"?', Osipov replied, 'Very sympathetic. Veche and the "democrats" jointly embody the Slavophile principles on internal policy — national and liberal.' (AS, No. 1599, p. 16).

Vol'noe slovo, No. 15, p. 27.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid., No. 20, p. 5.

Ibid., No. 15, p. 27.

Ibid., p. 28.

(bid., No. 17-18, p. 27.

AS, No. 1599, p. 7.

Vol'noe slovo, No. 17- 18, p. 26.

AS, No. 1599, p. 6. Emphasis added.

Ibid., Unable to find this quotation from Faulkner, I asked mj readers, in the footnotes to The Russian New Right, for assistance. Josef Skvorecky from Toronto informs me that it comes from the novel Intruder in the Dust (Modern Library College Edition, p 156; and is spoken, not by Faulkner, but by one of his characters, the lawyer Gavin Stevens. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Skvorecky as well as ihe many other readers who responded to my request

Ibid

Vol'noe slovo, No. 17-18, p. 27.

As far as traditional 'Great Russian nationalism', which could serve as a barrier to such liberalization, is concerned, in Veche s view, it simply docs not exist nor ever did. The Russian empire never was a 'prison of peoples', as the liberal and Marxist myth holds. On the contrary, it was alw ays a fraternal union of nations which were attracted to Russ* i because of the protection she offered them ag; nst Aeir greed}- neighbours. The only basis for the myth about Russia as a ■ ison of peoples' were the 'foreign admixtures' - the Germans, Poles and Georgians, who ruled the empire from time to time: 'Is it appropriate to spcЈ : of a Great Russian nationalism? Is it truly Russian? Who were ts b.arers? The bureaucratic apparatus of the post-Petrine monarchy, saturated through and through with Germans? Djugashvili and Dzerzhinskii?' (AS, No. 1599, p. 9).

The discussion is once again aoout the old Slavophile convction that the

moral superiority of the Russian people consists in their apolitical character

32 Vol'noe slovo, No. 17-18, p. 30.

Ш Ibid., p. 29.

AS, No. '1013, p. 51.

Vol'noe slovo, No. 17 — 18, pp. 10—11.

I have no doubt that Veche s fear of China was absolutely sincere One of the members of the editorial board grimly told me in private how he dreamt at night of the Chinese in Siberia Thus, did Veche not only try to manipulate the Soviet leaders' fear of the Chinese menace but they themselves were scared to death of it

Vol'noe slovo, No. 17-18, p. 9

Ibid., p. 10.

Ibid Subsequently, as the reader will see, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was to borrow this pivotal proposal of Veche's and publish it (without citation, unfortunately) in his well-known Letter to the Leaders — a fact w hich as far as I know, has not been noted by any of his biographers.

Vol'noe slovo, No. 17-18, p. 10.

To cite only one example: 'You can argue with Shevtsov about the evaluation of the force and role of Zionism in the USSR, but w hat does hostility toward the intelligentsia have to do with it? Are Zionists the only intellectuals in prescnt-da> Russia? Isn't Shevtsov himself the same kind of intellectual as . . the active membership of the Communist Party, or the Soviet government?' (ibid., p. 46). For more detail on the doctrine of I. Shevtsov, see my Detente After Brezhnev (pp. 51 —5) See also the statement of the editors of Veche (in response to a letter by Mikhail Agurskii) in which 'the conquests of Peter and Catherine' are described as 'the restoration of Russian lands usurped by Sweden and Poland (Vol'noe slovo, No. 17—18, p. 148). What is being referred to here is the seizure of the Baltic area and the partition of Poland In addition, Soviet Jews are blamed for 'living under the best matei al conditions' and claiming a privileged pos.tion in . . . Russia' (ibid., pp. 149-50).

M. Antonov was a member of the so-called Fetisovist group, which was openly pro-Stalinist and pro-Fascist, and which was usually included b} observers in the 'national Bolshevist tendency. Antonov's length}' article took up a considerable portion of the first three issues of Veche. At the end, the editors added the caveat that 'the personal opinions of the author differ to a considerable degree from those of the editorial board,' and printed an article entitled An Opponent's Opinion' which criticized certain of Antonov's conclusions. Nevertheless, the fact that the editors of Veche found it possible to give Antonov's article such prominence; that they did not raise any questions concerning the author's view of the West', which constituted the core of his analysis; and, finally, that they described Antonov as 'a follower and propagandist of the ideas of the remarkable Russian scholar and public figure A. A. Fetisov' (AS, No. 1013 p. 45), shows that the Antonov's views represented such a strong sector of 'patriotic Russian' public opinion that it was impossible for Veche to ignore. (Fetisov was a man who left the Communist Party in protest against de-Stalinization.)

AS, No. 1013, p. 25.

Ibid., No. 1108, p 45.

Ibid., p. 39. Emphasis added. Lenin wrote the following about religion: 'Any idea about any godl lg, ox any flirtation with a godling, is the most inexpressible rottenness . . . the most dangerous rottenness, the vilest kind of infection' (O religii i tserkvi, [On religion and Church.] Moscow: 1977, p. 31). On this basis I appeal to the reader to consider the mind- boggling complexity of the task which — through Antonov — the Russian New Right, for the first time, set itself, in seeking this union of Orthodoxy with Leninism. Personally, of course, Antonov met with complete failure, but his idea is alive and well in the 'patriotic masses' and in the minds of its ideologists. Who can know what metapmorphcses and forms of express эп lay ahead for it? If its real essence lies in a detente between what I have termed the Soviet welfare system of economics and the Russian Orthodox Church, then why should this not be realizable? Serfdom is theoretically incompatible with Christianity; nevertheless, a functioning detente between the two managed to work in Russia for a few centuries.