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 wrhich 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