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.