From Unaer the Ruooie
As we saw in the last chapter, already m the early 1970s the liberal nationalists had turned out to be generals without an army. Yet the lessons of Veche., and of The Nation Speaks went unheeded. In the mid-1970s Ihe authority of Solzhenitsyn and the courage of his adherents made possible yet another (and probably the last) bright flash of national-liberal thought. Moreover, the collection of saniiz.dat articles From Under the Rubble without doubt represented, in terms of L-Nationalism, an intellectual advance over Veche. Since it did not have to observe the constraints of 'the loyal opposition^its authors were free of both the explicit pressure of Soviet censorship and of implicit dependence on the 'patriotic masses'. They had no need to resort to the traditional methods of allegory used by the loyal oppositionist Russian press or to speak to the reader through innuendo and association of ideas. Solzhenitsyn was right when he said, 'In fifty years there has not been irf the Soviet Union an anthology of such scope and seriousness that sets out basic problems and is so decisive in its treatment of them, in complete contrast to their official formulation.'3
The 'From under the rubble' current "of the national-liberal stream also had another characteiistic It aspired not only to independence from censorship (both 'from above' and 'below'), but also from its old teachers. Neither Danilevskii nor Khomiakov served as absolute authorities. The authors who published in From Under the Rubble were their own Aksakovs and Berdiaevs. They embodied the effort of the post-Stalinist Russian Right to stand on its own two feet and rid itself of the 'second-hand' character of VSKhSON and Veche. They created their own metaphysical, religious, social, and political concepts independently, and from square one. However, in so doing, they fell into the trap of what I would call 'the repetitive effect' in Russian history. For all its courage and literary vividness, the New Right did not re-invent gunpowder, as we saw from the comparison of Solzhenitsyn and Aksakov. All they did was to reach — on their own initiative and independently — conclusions analogous, if not identical, to those reached by their Slavophile predecessors a century earlier under what would seem to have been completely different historical conditions.4 Hopefully, this will become clearcr when we start to analyse the political views of From Under the Rubble's, chief author.
Evolution of a Doctrine
At the beginning of the 1970s, when Solzhenitsyn wrote his Letter to the Soviet Leaders, it seems that he was not at all convinced of the hopelessness of Western democracy or that authoritarianism should be Russia's eternal late. Discussion was still possible with Solzhenitsyn while it seemed he was in the process of groping for a political doctrine of his own. He himself said in the Letter, 'I am prepared to retract right now [his practical proposals] il anyone at all will offer not a wry criticism but a constructive path, a better way out, and, most importantly, a completely real one, by earthly means.'5
It is true that Solzhenitsyn's Letter to the Soviet Leaders has a chapter entitled 'The West on Its Knees,' in which the author speaks of 'an impasse on all sides' and even 'the ruinous path' of Western civilization. Nevertheless, he still believes that, 'it is still probable that Western civilization will not go under. It is so dynamic, so inventive, that it will survive even the impending crisis p In other words, although the West lives by 'centuries-old false notions', its case is not hopeless. For that matter, the Letter speaks of authoritarianism in a restrained and even rather questioning way: 'Thus, perhaps we should recognize that for Russia this patn Lthe struggle against authoritarianism] was mistaken and premature? Perhaps, in the foreseeable future, whether we like it or not, . . . Russia is nevertheless destined to have an authoritarian system? Perhaps this is only as far as she has matured?'7 I would argue that this is an entirely reasonable and pragmatic point of view, in which three points that I consider indisputable are expressed in a manner unfamiliar to the Western ear
Democracy is imperfect It needs further development, and s capable of such development
The transition from authoritarianism to democracy takes time. At present, Russia is not capable of it Therefore, withm the foreseeable future, she can be expected to remain authoritarian.
'Everything depends on what kind of authoritarian structure awaits us.'8
This last point seems to me the most important. In fact, even the militant Jeanne Kirkpatrick admits that various authoritarian political systems can critically differ from one another4 and thus a typology of authoritarianism .s possible. That Kirkpatrick. like Solzhenitsyn. reduces this typology to a black and white d;st\nction between Communist and anti-Commm st authoritarianism is another matter There is. however, a healthy kernel in her analysis. Russian autocracy for example, unlike, say, English or French absolutism, did not harbour the potential for transition to democracy and, in a series of counter-reforms, has been closing off the transitional path. Therefore it can be termed 'ant'democratic' authoritarianism. Meanwhile, European history (as well as Asian) illustrates that the transition from authoritarianism to democracy is possible both in principle and in practice. Consequently, as well as anti-democratic' authoritarianism there must also exist an authoritarianism one could define as 'non- democratic (i.e., in principle not blocking the path to democratic transition). If this >s the case, then the real problem which now faces both the Russian and the world intellectual community is to find out what are the possible paths for Russia's transition from an antidemocratic to a nor.-democratic authoritarianism, capable, in principle, of becoming a democracy. To do this, it is necessary to study, for example, what happened in Russia during the decade Khrushchev was in power, and what is taking place in Hungary arid China today, where the backbone of the Stalinist economic system (which is the essence of the Russian-Soviet model) is gradually being dissolved in the heat of constructive reforms.
Thus, if Solzhenitsyn did indeed begin the 1970s seeking 'a better way out, a completely real one, by earthly means', he had at his disposal the constructive experience of Russian (and Soviet J reforms, which, although they were not attempts to introduce democracy, did in fact offer strategies for moving the country in that direction.
Moving in the direction of democracy can thus serve as the criterion for evaluating any given oppositionist strategy, including Solzhenitsyn's own. Using this criterion, it would be relatively easy for us, having carefully examined European history, to discover where and how the actual process of limiting power and moving in the direction of democracy began. We would soon see that the motive force and principal agent behind this movement has always, and without exception, been the middle class, which is created in the turmoil of fundamental socio-economic change — that is, the very process that occupied Khrushchev in Russia and occupies Kadar in Hungary and Deng Xiao Ping in China today, even if this is not their intention, fn any case, without a strong middle class there can be no transition to democracy — that is the main and indisputable lesson of world history. If Solzhenitsyn had mastered that lesson, it would have become clear to him that his own proposal (to start the transformation of centuries-old Russian authoritarianism by appealing to the Soviet leaders' mystical 'Russian souls') is the least 'earthly' and least 'real' of all possible paths.