ЛИ f wish to show by this is that the main question of Solzhenitsyn's Letter (What kind of authoritarian structure awaits us?) is entirely reasonable and that genuine dialogue with him may have still have been possible at the beginning of the 1970s. Unfortunately, this dialogue never took place. Consequently, in the Solzhenitsyn of the mid-1970s — the author of the 'Answer to Sakharov' published in From Under the Rubble10 — we already encounter a completely different, person, not the austere but well-meaning critic of the West who spoke of the prematurity of democracy m Russia and was open to opposing viewpoints, but the author of a precise and rigid conception that condemns Russia to the authoritarian yoke till the end of time This Solzhenitsyn 110 longer seeks an answer to the questions which previously tormented him He has found the truth He has come to despise heterodoxy. In so far as he sometimes does not hesitate to slander his opponents, to lie openly in the name of the cause he considers right, he no longer differs from his Moscow opponents 11 Unfortunately, the truth for which he is prepared to forsake even the most elementary norms of fairness, not to mention Christianity, turns out, as we have seen, to be no more than a reperition of old Slavophile maxims.
The Utopia of Enlightened Authoritarianism
In repeating these maxims, Solzhenitsyn, of course, observes all the trappings of our time, fashioning the image of the era he needs. First and foremost, he introduces the theme of the internal equivalence of both systems — democratic and anti-democratic. It turns out that these are simply 'two societies suffering from \ ices'.12 Their vices are different but their sentence is the same — death.
In other words, not only does 'anti-democratic authoritarianism have no future, but neither does democracy. Hence he devaluates freedom — intellectual and political — as the historical goal of the nation: 'The West has supped more than ts fill of every k'.nd of freedom, including intellectual freedom. And has this saved it? We see it today crawling on hands and knees, its will paralysed, in the dark about the future, spiritually tortured and dejected 13
So much for intellectual freedom. As for political freedom, with its inulti-partv parliamentary system, Solzhemtsyn sees n ;t only an 'idol'. He calls attention to its dangerous, f not mortal vices', which lead to a situation where 'the Western democracies today are in a state of political crisis and spiritual confusion',14 and concludes that, 'a society in which political parties are active does not rise n the moral scale.'15
But that's not all. Along with his dannnng critique of the West, Solzhenitsyn plays up the moral value of authoi ;tarianism. On this basis, the old Slavophile image of 'two freedoms' — one nternal and one external — which Solzhenitsyn has discovered anew for himself, arises and resounds ever more strongly Apparently, 'we can firmly assert our nner freedom even under external conditions of unfreedom 16 More than this, under authoritarianism 'the need to struggle against our surroundings rewards our efforts with greater inner success'.17
The implication is that, not democracy, but authoritarianism leads by the shorter path to inner freedom, which itself is declared to be the goal of the 'historical development of the nations'. From here it is but a single logical step to the statement, unexpected from Solzhenitsyn, that 'the state system which exists in our country is terrible, not because it is undemocratic, authoritarian, based on physica' constraint — a person can still live in such conditions without harm to one's spiritual essence.''8 However, if in democratic systems a person cannot live 'without harm to one's spiritual essence,' while in authoritarian systems one can, then which type of system is to be preferied? Which system is healthier for 'inner freedom' and 'moral elevation'?
his s the point to which Solzhenitsyn has come in the absence of any dialogue — to a justification of 'outward unfreedom'. Here, he repeats Aksakov's Utopia of 'enlightened authoritarianism', according to winch, on the one hand, the full range of powers over society are vested in the government, and, on the other, this is supposed to assist that society's 'moral elevation'.
The Hisioricai Validation
So how can the capitulation to authoritarianism of a man wjth the reputation of a great Tighter for freedom be explained? Like every self- respecting Russian writer, Solzheni+syn must have for this purpose a sort of histor cal justif cation. Tnose who have read the old Slavophiles would not have great difficulty in deducing it. But let's go to Solzhenitsyn's texts.
On the one hand, he says, Western democracy is unsuitable as a pattern and model for Russia's future because it stems from the secularism of European culture: 'This is mainly the result of a histoi cal, psychological and moral cr >is affecting the entire culture and world outlook [of Europe], wh Л were conceived at the time of the Renaissance and attained the peak of their expression with the e'ghteenth-century En>ghtenment.'19 On the other hand, the existing form of Communist authoritarianism in the Soviet Union is unsuitable as a pattern and model for Russia's future because of its non-Russian origin. The Soviet system is not, apparently, the product of Russian history, but the result of the fact that a 'dark whirlwind of Progressive Ideology [Marx ;m] swept rJ on us from the West'.20 Solzhenitsyn tells us that 'Soviet development is not a continuation of Russian development but a distortion of it carried out n a new and unnatural direction, hostile to her people.'21 Consequently, 'The terms "Russian" and "Soviet" . . . are not only . . not equivalent but irreconcilable opposites, completely excluding one another '22 In fact, 'For a thousand years Russia lived with an authoritarian order — and at the beginning of the twentieth century both the physical and spiritual health of her
people were still i'ltact 23
'Who is to blame7' is a traditional Russian question. 1 he whole Russian idea arose from the presumption of Russia's guiltlessness of her own misfortunes. In the seventeenth century the musketeers (strel'tsy) revolted because 'Germans are walking around in Moscow, spreading the habits of shaving and tobacco, to the detriment of all standards of common decency.'24 Whoever has read Katkov knows that the Poles are to blame. Whoever has read Sharapov knows that the Jews are at fault In our day, whoever reads Chalmaev or Antonov knows that it is the West. Even if we accept thxs mode ot thought — profoundly humiliating for the Russian people, depicting it as helpless, blind and ready to follow any foreign influence — a key question remains unanswered: Why did that 'dark wb.rlwim attack, not the West, which as we know has lived in uninterrupted 'historical, psychological, and moral crisis' since the sixteenth century, and where there is 'a passive feeling of doom in the majority', 'weakness of governments and paralysis of society s defensive reactions and 'spiritual distress passing over into political catastrophe, "5 but rather Russia, which did not pass through any fatal Renaissance, has not been in crisis, and in which 'at the beginning of the twentieth century both the physical and spiritual health of her people were sti 1 intact ' Why has not one putrid democracy in the world succumbed (apart from those dragged into it by force), but only authoritarian regimes — Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and so on?