The 'Smatterers'
I am not a theologian, but an historian. I cannot judge whether the religious validation of the isolationist strategy is more convincing to young Russians than the historical one we have considered. I can only state that a group of talented young people have devoted themselves to attempting this task at the nsk of their freedom — and perhaps their lives. The passion and the polermcal fervour with which they do so indicates that within the complex and. to my knowledge, as yet unexplained phenomenon of the Russian Orthodox renaissance, a fierce struggle is underway. It is a struggle for the polnicul orientation of this cultural phenomenon by which Russia's future will, perhaps in considerable degree, be formed In a more general way, t can be said that a struggle is taking place for the political orientation of the next generation of the Russian intelligentsia. W ill it be liberal-ecumenical or authoritarian isolationist, Western (zing or Tatar-messiamc? In other words, will Russia play a responsible part irr the world political process or will it be a threat to that process, matur ng in isolation until the Day of Judgement, that is the Year 2000? Once again, the outcome would appear to depend on the answer to the basic question which has always dixided the Russian intelligents.a: Is Russia a European country, or should t seek ts own special path'? More specifically, pace Solzhenitsyn, whose answer has already been accepted by many. Was the catastrophe of October 1917 the result of Russian history or of a 'dark whirlwind' from the West?
In 1970 the journal VestniK russkogu khristiyansKogo dvizhema [Herald of the Russiun Chr stian Movement] published a series of essays by Soviet authors writing under pseudonyms and representing the liberal-ecumenical wing of the 'Russian Orthodox Renaissance'. In an essay by N. N. we read:
Bolshevism . is not a Varangian invasion, and the Revolution was not made only by Jews. For this reason the Communist regime is not an external force but an organic product of Russian life — a concentration of all the filth of the Russian soul, the whole sinful outgrowth of Russian history, which cannot be mechanically cut off and thrown away.35
V. Gorskii formulated this viewpoint even more clearly:
Overcoming the national-messianic consciousness is Russia's most urgent task Russia will not be able to rid herself of despotism until she abandons the idea of national grandeur. Therefore, it is not 'national rebirth' but the struggle for freedom and spiritual values which must become the central creative idea of our future.40
There can be no doubt that Gorskii here had touched on the contemporary Russian Right's sore point. The response that this provoked in the nationalistic samizdat press is scarcely cred э1е. For a brief I storical instant, all the factions of the dissident Right — isolationist and messianic, 'good' and 'bad' nationalists — united in a fit of -ndignation, forgot their disagreements and strove to wipe the author of th.; blasphemous 'am -Russian' appeal for a 'struggle for freedom' off the face of the earth. The enraged throng included a former leading member ot the VSKhSON (Leonid Borodin), both Os pov and his 'Antonovist' opponents from Veche, Gennadii Sh nanov (who will be discussed later) and, alas, Solzhenitsyn For anyone still n need of further proof that, all these figures developed cheir deologies from the same '.itellectuai source, then it was to be found here n th ts united front.41
But what had really happened? What is so terrible about an appeal for the abandonment of na.' onal messian'sm, and for a struggle for freedom and spiritual values? Is the Russian nation really be,rig oppressed by some other nation, rather than its own leaders? They, after all, arc also Russians, who even Solzhenitsyn assumes 'are not alien to their origins — to their fathers, grandfathers, and greatgrandfathers, to the expanses of their homeland',42 It should be obvious that the obstacle to the true reb th of Russia lies w ,tb a the Russian nation and not between Russia and other peoples. Moreover, is it not obvious that this messiar .sm (in the form of Marxism) is one of the cornerstones of that Ideology — that 'Lie' — which Solzhenitsyn has devoted his life to oppose? Nevertheless, the entire Russian R jht, including Solzhenitsyn, took Gorsk 's essay as a slap n the face.
But unlike others, Solzhenitsyn in his article 'The smattercrs' did not grieve, weep, or prophesy. Solznenitsyn struck, putting all his prestige and world renown into the blow. Solzhenitsyn lashed out not at the 'leaders' (with whom he was prepared to enter into a di ilogue), but at his own admirers. He attacked his former dissident all es, the samizdat thinkers, the intellectuals who were torturously seeking a way out for Russia (some of whom had earlier risked supporting him). He was merciless. He did not take account of the fact that, as Yulia Vishnevskaia wrote, 'when "The Smatterers" was written, Solzhenitsyn knew only too well that his prestige in "smatterer" circles was immense and that any crit .cism of his views would be interpreted as almost a collaboral on with the KGB. 3
When the VSKhSON programme was discussed, I noted the political intolerance of its authors, who were prepared to accept only those 'close in spirit' to themselves. But that was when the Russian Right was in its infancy. Only now — in the bloom of its young adulthood — had it become so overwhelmingly obvious that the Russ an nationalist frame of mind is organically incapable of accepting differences of political opinion. If these people ever come to power in Russia, there would be no flowering of thought', as Solzhenitsyn promises. No opposition would be tolerated, let alone any inti- Russian" one. Something else had also become obvious: if, from the Right's point of view, a 'dark whirlwind' from the West was at the root of all the calamities in Russia's past, then the European, anti- isolationist, anti-messianic orientation of ihe Soviet intelligentsia would be the logical culprit of all future disasters as well. Th s is why the Russian Right was so unfailingly united n their attacks on the intelligentsia in the early 1970s.
In introducing the contemptuous term smatterers into his article, Solzhenitsyn virtually denied the existence of a contemporary Russian intelligentsia, refusing to permil it either human dignity or a moral world outlook, and thereby isolating .t from the process of the country's spiritual rebirth'. 1 do not wish to dwell on the injustice of this verdict, or on the complete absence of logii it demonstrates (comparing the pre-revolutionarv Russ.an intelligentsia with the modern one, Solzhenitsyn is repelled by the former's 'self-sacririce', and by the latter s lack of it.). I wish to call the reader's attention to a d'.fferent and, from my point of view, much more ominous v n cumstance. Reading 'The smatterers' attentively, one cannot help oeing struck by opinions such as 'lack of education is not the greatest loss one can suffer in life',44 and recommendations for the creation of a new sacrificial elile' — a new nucleus of the nation, 'brought up not so much in libraries as on spiritual suffering'.45 Furthermore, it would seem that educational qualifications and the number of scholarly works published are utterly irrelevant', for we will go to the people alongside semi 'iterate preachers of religion'.46 Is there not in all this something very reminiscent of Chalmaev — something which leads one to the conclusion that Solzhenitsyn's 'smatterers' is only another name for Chalmaev's 'educated shopkeepers'? Let us recall that, according to Chalmaev, all the national feats ot heroism in Russian history were performed by 'preachers of religion' in alliance with the 'leaders' of Russia — and, furthermore, performed against the educated shopkeepers'.