One would think that this elementary question would compel a truth-seeker at least to reflect. But is Solzhenitsyn seeking the truth — or only a justification for his political concept? If so, then he is seeking the impossible. Russian history does not confirm his outlook, .'his was proved, by those very same Slavophiles whom he so passionately defends yet so carelessly read. It was they, as we know, who called the alleged enlightened authoritarianism of the Russian Orthodox empire 'a governmental system rendering the subject a slave' and a police state'. It is true that m criticizing Russia's 'soul-destroying despotism', they too considered it the result of a 'dark whirlwind' from the West, only the villain of Russian history ia their time, naturally, was not Lenin with his Communism, but Peter I with his police state, allegedly copied from European models. That was when Aksakov believed the 'dark whirlwind' had descended on the Russian »and, while before Peter enlightened authoritarianism was in full bloom and 'both the physical and spiritual health of hei people were still intact.' bus who is right — Solzhenitsyn or his spiritual forefather? Is Lenin or Peter to blame for the dark whirlwind'? Who is really responsible for the destruction of Russia's enlightened author larianism?
If one is to beHeve Gngorii Kotoshkhin, who in the middle of the seventeenth century fled to Sweden and wrote a book about the horrors of pre-Petrine Russia, Aksakov and Solzhenitsyn are both wrong. How far back are we to go? Must we refer to the letters of Andrei Kurbski'. which unmask with explosive force the arbitrariness and ferocity of the rst Russian counter-reform in the mid-sixteenth century? Or to the Journal of Ivan Timofeevl Or to the History of Russia by Prince Shcherbatov, who described the second half of the sixteenth century as a time when 'love for the fatherland died out and its place was taken by baseness, slavishness, and concern only for one's own property'?26 Was this when Russia was 'morally elevated'? And if not then, when?
One thing that no Russ an conservative Utopian ever seems to have noticed is the autocratic nature of Russia's political system — that cursed 'anti-democratic' authoritarianism which doesn't allow the country to break out ol :ts vicious circle of reform and counter-reform, pilixig one bloody dictatorship on top of another. To look for a validation of 'enlightened' authoritarianism in this terrible history is to look for a ph osopher's stone
The Religious Validation
By no means are all these arguments and deliberations on the theme of Rus: an history academic. Current political strategies follow directly from them. If the So\ 2t system is indeed the result of a 'dark whirlw id' from the West, then it s a natural and even necessary for Russia to isolate herself. For the positivist Daniievskii (who raised isolationism to the status of a natural law of history), such 'organic' validation of the ;mperial-isolationist strategy was quite sufficient. Veche too found it saFsfactory, as we have seen. But for Solzhenitsyn's followers, both as people who profess Russian Orthodoxy and as politic ans, an organic h storical validation alone is not enough. They cannot allow themselves the luxury of accepting a positivist as a teacher. They also need an explanation from the metaphysical standpoint of Russ an Orthodoxy. How else are they to attract support tor the isolationist strategy from the growing numbers oi Russian Orthodox intelligentsia? In short, a religious sanction for iheir isolationist strategy is imperative to them. Can it be justified from the perspective of Christianity, which - whatever one may say - is *n is essence universal and for which - alas - there is, in principle, neither Hellene nor Jew? For this reason, we should not be surprised that the political collection From Under the Rubble should include passionate metaphysical tracts by Sol/.henitsvns young friends, aimed at a theoretical justification, in the twentieth century, of the authoritarian-isolationist strategy, in much the same way as Danilevskii had done one hundred years earlier
In his brilliantly executed essay 'The national renaissance and ihe nation as a personality', Vadim Borisov tells the dramatic story of ihe collapse of the myth of 'humanistic consciousness for which the freedom of individuals and the unity of the world as a whole are the alpha and omega."27 This myth, in Borisov's opinion, 'lacks an adequate rational basis',28 inasmuch as personality in ts oi'.girial sense is a religious and even specifically Christian concept 24 In general, the individual is ... a fragment of nature, self-contained and absolute . . . Personality, as opposed to the individual, is not part of some whole, it contains the whole within itself.'30 Not containing within himself the necessary 'whole,' the individual cannot claim the status of a personality. Luckily, on the other hand, something does exist which contains this 'whole' - namely, the 'nation as a personality'.31 the 'nation as a whole',32 without which the individual cannot have either autonomous significance or autonomous value.
This, says Borisov, is confirmed, in particular, 'by the events of the Pentecost where the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and they were endowed with the gift of speaking in different tongues.'33 Borisov does not assert that humankind — which is still n bondage to secular •humanism' — is already aware of all this. No, this 'is merely a theoretical fixture of Christian consciousness ' However, he is full of optimism inasmuch as 'every people must strive to realize its full personality,' and he is firmly convinced that, 'the nation is one of the levels in the hierarchy of the Christian cosmos, a part of Gods irrevocable purpose. 14
At the risk of profaning the metaphysical pathos of Borisov s tract, let us simply state its point as follows: humankind is quantified, so to speak, not by single individuals, as 'humanistic, consciousness' had naively assumed up to now, but by nations.
F. Korsakov's essay Russian destinies^in which discussion of 'the nation as a personality' is brought down from the metaphysical heights of the cosmos to the Russian Orthodox earth, is close in theme to Borisov s article. In a passionate, symbolic stream of speech, full of emotion — indeed, almost a poem — he explains the incompatibility of the 'God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' with 'the God of the ph osophers and scholars', since behind the mora' stic nonsense of the intellectuals', 'behind that modern humanistic phraseology', there is still the same 'devil with horns and hooves', the same 'form of the Antichrist'. The intellectual, in order to gain access to the Truth, must first of all renounce the need to understand — the freedom to think independently — which s, according to Korsakov, the same as pride, the first mortal sin. In other words, he must cease being an intellectual. Without tf s renunciation he can never believe that, 'the Orthodox Church is the only true church and that all the other Christians, as well as non-believers . . . are li\ ing in a state of untruth, enticed and deluded by the devil.'35 Further on we learn that the riddle of the uniqueness of the Russian natior is beyond understand ag, and that Russia differs fundamentally from 'the whole of the rest of the world, which exists within an entirely different, more open, framework'.36 All the obvious advantages of that allegedly free and open system are constantly nullifying themselves . . . whereas here tm Russia] everything remains with us.'37 In short, the Truth which is being sought 'merges' with the image of Russ a.38
Given my hopeless ignorance in questions of the hierarchy of the cosmos, I would not dare dispute either the interpretation of the Pentecost which Borisov offers us, or Korsakov's measure of the power of diabolical delusion, under wb ch 97 per cent of all mankind finds itself. I am interested only in the political function of the scholastic works briefly outlined here. In my view, tins function is obvious: it is to provide religious val.dation for the authoritarian- isolationist strategy and to demonstrate the organic incompatib ' ity of the intelligentsia with the credo of the Russian Idea. Let the West crumble ('the allegedly free and open systems null iy themselves'); let the intelligentsia with its humanistic phraseology perish ('the devil with his horns and hooves is ever behind it'). The Truth will remain because it is with us, because it is inside us, because it is Russia.