Ibid., p. 210.
Ibid., p. 206.
Ibid., p. 207.
Ibid., p. 209.
Ibid., p. 211.
Ibid., p. 165.
Ibid., p. 171.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 176.
Vestnik RKhD, No. 97, p. 6.
Ibid., p. 61.
See L. Borodin's article in Grani No. 96; V. Osipov's reply in 'Letter to the Editorial Board of the Vestnik RKhD', Vestnik RKhD, No. 106, p. 295; the letters of I. Ibragimov and K. Radugin in the same issue of Vestnik, p. 309—19; G. Shimanov's article in Arkhiv samizdata, No. 1132. This was, as it were, simultaneously a witches' Sabbath, a lament by the waters of Babylon, and a storm of prophesies. To give the reader some idea of the thinking of the authors of these refutations' I will cite only one extract 'In the 13th— 15th centuries, Russia, by shedding its blood, stopped the Tatar-Mongols. The civilized world was thus saved from conquerors who were obviously inspired bv dark forces. . . In the 17th century, the Russian people . . destroyed the Pretender, which made the wars of the epoch of the "time of troubles" . , a prefiguration of the struggle with the Antichrist . . . The pathos of the struggle w;th the Antichrist inspired the Russian people in the 1812 war as well . . Within the memory of the generations now living the sac: ificial fate of Russia was again fulfilled There are many indications that the Fascist invasion was not only a military but also a mystical ntervention, comparable to the incursion by the heirs of Genghis Khan in the 20th century [read, the Chinese] who are declaring their claim to the territories conquered in the Middle Ages by their ancestors. . Oithodox Rus' still exists . . . [and] will fulfil its religious destinv to the end' (Vestnik RKhD, No 106. pp. 311-12, 314).
Solzhenitsyn, Pis'mo . . . p. 7.
SSHR, Demokraticheskie al'ternativy. Achberg: 197b. p. 187.
Iz-pod glyb, p. 259.
Ibid., p 251.
4b Ibid., p. 255.
14
Diabolerie One
I trust that I have already provided the reader with enough evidence to judge that all the doctrines of the Russian New Right, even the most liberal of them, are distrustful of the intelligentsia. They suspect it of being dangerously inclined toward 'secularity' and 'Europeanism'. Even assuming they would allow the d :ferences of opinion in the area of culture that the:" proposals for Russia's future include, they none the less have no desire to permit political heterodoxy. They all ignore the crucial question of a polit :al oppos; ion.
Is it not fair to say then that Chalmaev's invective against sa ety and education, Antonov's call for a new cosmopoclass="underline" an campaign, the patrioi с masses' call for pogroms, the Osipov/Solzhenitsyn 'Siberian gamoit' (advocating the ex-urbanization and d( ndustrializa on of society) and The Nation Speaks manifesto's proposals for the 'ideological reorientation of the dictatorsh'p', are desp e their apparent differences, really all pursuing the same goal? That goal is to construct an economic and cultural model for Russia in which there would be no place for intelligentsia sympathetic toward the West — a model which would require their total removal from participation in the country's decision-making process and replacement by an alternati 'e elite composed of a certain 'truly Russian' combination of 'leaders' and 'semi-literate preachers of religio^L In tf s scenario, Russian Orthodoxy, as a national leologv, would once again constitute the most reliable barrier against 'heretical' European currents, as it did in Muscovite times. In this way the nationalists are trying to safeguard Russia, once and for all, from any new 'dark whirlwinds' springing from the West's 'satanocratic' tendencies. For as long as these tendencies possess such a powerful social ally within Russian society, any attempts to hermetically isolate the country, to immunize it against Western infection, would prove fruitless.
If our assumptions about the Russ an New R jht are correct, we disco\er in the consciousness of contemporary So\ let subscribers to the Russian Idea, the following logical progression
From the moment of us secularization the \\ est pro\ ed an easy prey for Satan
In the centuries that have passed since the Renaissance it has steadfastly fallen under the power of Satanocracy
The existence of Orthodox Russia w hich has fortunately avoided the might* Renaissance embrace of the West const.tutes the principal barrker to the total secularization and, thereby satanocratization of the world.
t.4) The West regularly unleashes 'dark whirlwinds on Russia, intended to undermine the source of her internal strength — which is her loyalty to Orthodoxy (.5) It does this tha^ugh secular demons who call themselves the intelligentsia.
Thus, though the general outlines of the problem are clear, the :echmcal aspects of Western satanocratic manipulation, its mechanism, so to speak remaned unexplored and obscure — that is. until the appearance of Solzhenitsyn s Lenin in Zurich. Here for the first time, a mass ve attempt was made relentlessl\ to expose the satanic nature of Lenin and the Bolshevik "dark whirlwind' that took hold of Russia w ;th the help of the demons" of the Russian intelligentsia poisoned by European'sm It :s for this reason that Lenin in Zurich, in an historical sense, represents the quintessence of the contemporary Russian Idea. In this respect :t was its most significant work until the publication of the second edition of August 1914 (which I shall discuss in the next chapter).
In pmciple, I seek to avord using Solzhenitsyn's literary works to judge h:.s political views Howe\er, what he has been writing since he left the Soviet Union seems to me closer to a series of political pamphlets than belles-lettres. In any case, that is the viewpoint from which I shall examine Leniti in Zurich here.
Lenin in Zurich
Lenvn is portrayed in this book as half Russian (or more precisely ore-quarter Russian by blood), and furthermore as despising Russia.1 " hat his goal, according to Solzhemtsvn, consisted in "completely dismembering Russia 2 is also readily clear But less obvious, at first glance, is why Solzhenitsyn makes him encounter a person who is not only his equal — in force of character, in his non-Russianness, and in bis hatred of Russia — but who even, by Lenin's own admission, is superior to him in all these respects. A born fighter, Lenin dod not know fear of anything or anyone. 'With this man alone he fell unsure of himself. He did not know whether he would be able to stand up to [him] as an enemy.'3 'Lernri knew the key to every Social Democrat in the world, knew the shelf to put him on,' and it was only this one who 'would not open, would not be put anywhere and stood across Lhisj path.'4
This person was a monstrous 'amalgam of theorist, operator, and politician'5 — the only one in the world who was stronger than Lenin m all respects — in his amazing far-sightedness, unparalleled political intuition and ability to see what no one else did. If he wished, he could deprive Lenin of everything he lived for — his position of political leadership. He had already done this once, at the time of the first Russian revolution in 190.5. Then, 'never straying for a moment, [he] had filled the road ahead and robbed Lenin of the will to go forward, of all initiative.'6 Tn that Revolution, Lenin had been bruised [by this man] as if he had stood too close to an elephant ... He sat at meetings of the Soviet, listening to the Hero of the Day, with his head in his hands.'7 He even had 'nothing to say from the platform of the Soviet', since 'everything was going ... so well' under the leadership of that other that 'there was no room left for the Bolshevik leader.'8