Critics and fellow-travellers
It should now be clear to the reader why contemporary critics of the Russian Idea are much closer in attitude to Solov'ev and Trubetskoi than to Ilcruew or Chernyshevskii (or Western fellow-travellers). Moreover, they know something about the Russian Idea that Solov'ev and Trubetskoi could not have. They know about its transformation into Black Hundreds-ism and Fascism. They know that even with its last breath it blessed Hitler's crusade against Russia and Europe. It is for these reasons that they do not allow the liberating anti Communist rhetoric of the Russian New Right to push the 'tooth-gnashing obscurantism' of its political doctrine into che background. Understandably, they do not trust this rhetoric in the mouths of those who, like che first propnets of the Russian Idea, toss and turn between the same two hatreds.
When Western academic fellow-travellers applaud Solzhenitsyn ; passionate declamations of freedom, as He * zen and Chernyshevskii in their time applauded those of Aksako\ and when they gently chide him for anti-parliamentarism, contemporary Russian crkics see in the duality of his catechism the disastrous potenl al that Solov'ev and Trubetskoi saw in the duality of Slavophilism. They know that Konstantin Aksakov was replaced by Danilevskii and Leon' ev, and they fear that when today's Danilevskii and Leont'ev declare themselves the true spokesmen of the Russian Idea they will be replaced by a latter-day Sharapov and Skobelev. Moreover, as the reader of this book will soon see, in the compressed times we live in all these personages are already there, at the very heart of the Russian New Right. Its fateful evolution has already begun. The degeneration is gathering speed.
Denial of history
Of course, nothing on this earth is inevitable. Pernaps the coming degeneration of the Russian Idea can be prevented if an effort is made to do so. The attitude of Russian critics toward it might change if the New Right would admit its grave ideological heritage and acknowledge that its political doctrine is prone to degeneration no less than Marxism or Teutonophilism; if its spokesmen were prepared, frankly and dispassionately, to discuss the vulnerable points of their ideology, in order to try to ameliorate its weaknesses and offer new solutions to old problems; or, finally, if they would approach their own views with at least as great a degree of self-criticism as Russian neo-Marxists in Moscow and the emigre community do. They don't attempt to hide the fact that their initial catechism has become scandai.zed the world over. They seek dialogue and argument, in an effort to explain the reasons for its degeneration, to figure out its ideological and political mechanism and to offer new solutions. They would never try to follow Marx or Lenin mechanically, in the way Solzhemisyn repeats Aksakov and Shimanov repeats Leont'ev. Neo-Marxist doctrine has net become any more convincing becausc of this, but at least its critics are persuaded that they are dealing with sincere people who are prepared to defend their convictions in argument against criticism from outsiders or each other. Critics of neo-Marxism aren't presented with outmoded dogmas that are held up as the ultimate truth, nor are they declared to be cretins or scoundrels when they express doubts about Marxism.
By contrast, no one has ever heard a single word of self-criticism from any ideologue of the Russian New Right They are absolutely certain of the infallibility of their own moribund catechism. To get an idea of the style of their polemics, let us return to the jeremiad of V. Mikhadov quoted earlier
To summar ze everything that has been argued up to this point, one can plainly say that the Jewish yoke over the Russian people is an accomplished fact which can be denied or unnoticed only either by complete cretins or scoundrels who are completely indilfereni to the Russian nation its past, and the fate of the Russian people.
If you replace the word Jewish with the word Communist you will have the standard response of Russian New Right ideologists to their opponents.12
While they fiercely attack the degeneration of Marxism, they never speak about the degeneration of Slavophilism. They fulminate against Lenin but have nothing to say about Leont'ev. History, in their opinion, is good for exposmg the past failures of Marxism but ceases to exist as soon as the discussion turns to their own ideological roots. One of these preachers, V Maksimov, explained that the Soviet system isn't of 'materialistic, but rather metaphysical, origins and we must approach it as such. If we do not, Western civilization is doomed to extinction.'13 But didn't we hear this very same argument and the identical prophecy from Yu. M. Odinzgoev in 1921?
To find the perfect example of someone to whom Santayana's remark he who forgets history risks repeating it' would apply, one need look no further than the contemporary evangelists of the Russian (dea. I hey catcgorically deny their own past. But it is not, I suspect, out of forgetfulness or ignorance that they refuse to touch upon it themselves or let anyone else do so, but rather out of fear.
Russian extremism
If the critics of the Russian New Right cannot hope to receive a reply to their questions from the movement's ideologists, then perhaps their academic fellow-travellers will answer for them — even if they answer only the most essential of the quest. >ns. One of these is the following: if the old Russian Idea didn't save Russia from historical caiastrophe, as it solemnly promised to do and which was, щ essence, its very raison d'etre, why should we suppose that the new one will do any better? Why should we expect that it, like its spiritual mother, will not degenerate into Black Hundreds-ism and Fascism?
Indeed, the fellow-travellers try to respc id in various ways. One proposes as a guarantee against this metamorphos s the Orthodoxy of che Russian people;14 another emphasizes its presumed attachment to monarchy.15 What are we to make of these arguments, however, when we note that all the proponents of the old Russian Idea were to a man Russian Orthodox and all were attached to monarchy to the 1 tter end? By the same token, all pre-revolutionary Russian tyrants were just as Orthodox and, one must assume, just as attached to monarchy. But did this circumstance prevent the Russian po tical system from periodically falling into horrors of 'soul-destroy lg despotism', or prevent the metamorphosis of the old Russian Idea into Black Hundreds-ism? Did Orthodoxy and monarchy succeed in protecting Russia from historical catastrophe in 1917? Of course, the answer to all these questions is 'no
Alas, to an equal degree they failed to protect her between 1560 and 1580, when a cruel dictator, over the course of a quarter-century-long reign of terror, forced autocracy and serfdom upon her. They didn't protect her from catastrophe in the 1700s either, when another dictator forced total militarization upon her, transformed serfdom into legal slavery and placed a guards colonel in charge of Russ.4n Orthodoxy. They didn't protect her from Paul I's disastrous counter-reform in 1796 Nicholas I's in 1825, or Alexander Ill's in 1881 (any more than the Communist Party, I might add, which, under Soviet conditions, fulfils the traditional role of the Orthodox church, was able to protect Russia from the catastrophe of Stalinism in 1929).
Perhaps the problem is therefore not with Orthodoxy and monarchy, but in the theoretical foundation of all Russian extremist Utopias, whether Russian Marxism or the Russian Idea, both of which repudiate the doctrine of separation of powers. Maybe the spiritual power' embodied in the institution of the Orthodox church or the Communist Party is simply incapable of fulfilling the function of curbing an autocratic state. Perhaps that is the reason why the replacement of the Orthodox church by the Communist Party has led to no fundamental change in the prevailing patterns of Russian history. If so, then how can we reasonably expect things to be very different from the reverse operation, if the Comniur.st Party is exchanged for the Orthodox church?