Vol'noe slovo, No. 17—18, p. 3.
59 Vestnik RKhD, No. 106, p. 295.
oO Novyi zhurnul, No. 118. 1975, p. 227
61 Ibid , p. 220. Capital letters are the author s throughout
o2 Ibid p. 221.
t>3 Ibid.
64 Ibid. p. 223.
o5 Ibid , p 222.
66 Ibid., p. 227.
o7 Ibid., p. 224,
68 ??
b9 Ibid , pp. 221-2.
Ibid... pp 223-4.
Ibid , p. 202-3.
Ibid... p. 202.
'Petition to the Regional Synod, 1971', signed by the Priest G, Petukhov, che Archdeacon Varsonofii Khaibulin and the layman Fomin
Survey, No. 1, 1973.
Vol'noe slovo, No. 17-18, p. 166.
AS, No. 1108, p. b3.
Ibid., p. 64.
Ibid
Ibid p. 64.
Ibid , pp. 63-4.
Ibid, p. 64.
Documentary confirmation of this is provided by Osipov's declaration. 'Having in the past been an active oppositionist, 1 have now abandoned political confrontation with the regime, at the same time hoping that the regime will not destroy пае for my activity in the interest of national culture' (Vestnik RKhD No. 106, p. 295).
12
Enter Fascism: The Nation Speaks
The Deficiencies of "Our Wise Men "
While Veche was agonizing under pressure from its own readership's 'patriotic' passions, Slovo Natsii [The Naaon Speaks], a 'Russian patriots' manifesto',1 appeared in the san> zdat to sum up the mood of the 'patriotic masses' in the late 1960s and early '70s.
This manifesto not only attacked Osipov's liberal sympathies, but also ridiculed the theoretical basis of VSKhSON's programme. The anonymous 'Russian patriots' who were the signatories saw both as merely 'theatrical thunder and lightning addressed to the bureaucratic elite'.2 The manifesto goes on:
You say this elite neither represents the people nor any class of society, it represents only itself. But hold on there! Such thoughts have already been expressed at one time by someone who, admittedly, was not one of the best minds — P. N. Tkachev. This discovery worthy of Copernicus, that the Russian government supposedly hangs in the air and is supported by nothing but itself, by rights belongs to him. In his time, Engels justifiedly mocked this discovery, but perhaps now the situation has changed and what was untrue has become true? Alas, this has not happened. As before, in the reasoning of our wise men there are glaring deficiencies.3
The reader, who is already familiar with the VSKhSON programme will, of course, know which 'wise men' are being referred to. When we read further that, 'Democratic institutions do not carry with them the cure, but more likely the opposite, they aggravate the illness',4 and compare this with Veche's reader mail, we are forced to ask ourselves, Isn't the time of the ideologists of the VSKhSON and Osipov va cty — and, indeed, of imperial liberalism in twentieth-century Russia well and truly past? In reality, the 'patriotic masses consistently supported the heathens' over 'our w ise men
On tne Path to Worldwide Disintegration
The main threat,' the manifesto said, 'as yet understood by hardly anyone, remains a general one: degeneration, caused by biological factors that act faster the less attention is paid to them, is persistently eating away at the threadbare pseudo-truth about the primacy of so- called social factors over biological ones.'5 Moreover, Democracy, in its egalitarian form, is one of the consequences of degeneration and at the same time its stimulus.'6 Spineless Western democracy has brought misfortune to the world It has let the genie out of the bottle: the yellow and black races, whose liberation from colonial dependence 'indicates only the degeneration of once mighty peoples',7 are threatening to engulf Aryan civilization. 'If we don't take timely measures,' the manifesto warns, 'we could live to see the day when we will become mere pawns or, at best, passive observers in the battle between the black and yellow races for world supremacy. 8 'Somewhere on the path to worldwide disintegration a rampart will finally have to be erected 9
There is no point in arguing over what people should believe m The only thing which the reader might demand of these Russian patriots', as they try to articulate the darkest fears of then" readership, is that they be true to their own postulates and try to maintain some logical consistency between their assumptions and conclusions Where and how could this 'rampart' against 'worldwide disintegration' be erectcd? Where will the news of salvation come from? Not from Europe. 'The European peoples' life-forces are failing them.'10 France and Germany, we are told, are "today squeezed between two super-giants, whose very names are for some reason encoded'.11 Even without a key to the code, we know immediately who the super-giants are. One of them, the USA, is obviously completely unsuited to the role of building a saving rampart:
The representatives [of the Thud World ] sprinkled throughout American society plan pogroms ['pogroms' here means 'riots'] and acts of arson, they seize the platform which has been obligingly set up for them by 'iberals and firmly direct their efforts toward becoming the dominant class in America. When the Anglo-Saxons finally lose all sense of national pride and sink into the liberal slime, the whole enormous industrial potential of the USA could be transformed into a tool of the black race for achieving world supremacy.12
Compare this with the tirade in the letter to Veche cited earlier, in which Europe is declared 'an incorrigible harlot' and America 'her final, mad, nocturnal orgy' which can only end in death'. There can be no doubt who these 'Russian patriots' are speaking for in their manifesto.
So if Europe and America are hopeless what resources does Aryan civilization have left to defend tself against new barba lan icursions? Why — Russia, naturally.
Thus, by a circt tous route — \ .a crude racist speculation — these Russian patriots' return to their native soil and to the same theme that prophets of imperial nationalism, from the early Slavoph es to VSKhSON whom they despise, have never stopped repeating for a century and a half: Russia as the world's saviour. Is it not surprising that, however Russian nationalists have chosen to formulate the mortal threat to our poor world over the past 150 years, has somehow always been 'the West's life forces [that] are failing it', while Russia has these in such abundance that she is prepared to save it? Regardless of whether this threat came from 'unbelief' or 'parliamentarism', 'shopkeeper mentality' or 'Americanization of the spirit', 'the metaphysical essence of Communism' or, finally, 'biological degeneration', the sole hope for the world has invariably been focused on Russia.