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.
AS, No. 1013, pp. 26-7.
Ibid., No. 1020, p. 18.
(bid., No. 1013, p. 22.
Ibid., p. 23.
Ibid., No. 1108, p. 37.
Ibid., No. 1013, p. 19.
Ibid., No. 1.108, p. 38.
Ibid., No. 1140, p. 168. Emphasis addea
Ibid., No. 1013, p. 15.
Ibid., No. 1020, p. 32.
Vol'nue slovo, No. 9-10, p. 184.
Ibid., p. 190. It would be possible to extract from a number of other readers' letters quotes ranging from simple informal юп ('Dear Sir: I want to call the attention of the readers of your journal to the Catholic danger in Russia, which has been growing as the contemporary elements of cosmopolitanism more and more seduce the consciousness of the Russian Orthodox people' (AS, No. 1140, p. 166)) to something like a philosophical tract ('The theory of a state based on the rule of law is by its origins exclusively pro-Western . . . The essence of the theory is in the separation and opposition of legislative and executive authority, which, in the opinion of theorists, leads to the democratization of the state. In practice such a separation results not in democratization, but instability . . . [and] perfect nonsense . . . Such a dialectic is not in the spirit of traditional Russian jurisprudence . . . [which favours] the concentral on in one state organ of both the legislative and executive functions' (AS, No. 1108, pp. 157 — 8)) to romantic reminiscences ('"For the faith, the tsar and the fatherland!" . . . this cry was the most sacred and most selfless. With it they died and hoped to receive the Kingdom of God . . . Remember the last war? "For the Motherland, for Stalin — forward!" And that too was sacred' (AS, No. 1013, p. 49)) and finally solemn prophecy ('It approacheth, the Pax Russica is already at the doors!' (AS, No. 1230, p. 159)). But the general tone and direction of Veche's reader mail did not, as we see, vary very much.