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 journaclass="underline" 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: