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.