Therefore, this book's primary goal is to show the reader that Russia's impending crisis at the end of the twent ;th century is no less real than were those she underwent at the close of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. If Russia again fails to direct the national energy that has been bottled up by the political stagnatic n of the last decades into the channel of peaceful reform, as she has failed to do in the past, this crisis may result in the emergence on the world stage of a monstrous garrison-state nuclear empire far more dangerous and aggressive than today's skidd ig USSR.
Mikhail Gorbachev has his predecessors. Both at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, relatively young and dynamic leaders advanced to Russia's helm. Vasilii Golitsyn in the first case and Petr Stolypin in the second tried to avert the danger of a garrison-state counter-reform by ins .tuting bold reformist plans. They were both inventive and energetic ndividuals who achieved a great deal. But they lost in the end. Their opponents, the leaders of the garrison-state counter-reforms, won out, Peter in the first instance and Len 1 in the second.
Thus the second aim of this book is to show the reader that the possibility of a counter-reform in Russia at the end of this century or the beginning of the next is just as real as it was at the close of the seventeenth or the start of the twentieth centuries. Moreover, the ideology for a modern counter-reform is being ntensively developed and has been since the mid-1960s, both inside Rusr a and within the emigre community, by groups of intellectuals whom collectively I refer to as the Russian New Right.
The third and last, but by no means least, goal of this book is to show the reader that the key to understanding this peril — and consequently to avoiding it — lies in comprehenc ng the nature of the ideology of counter-reform as it attacked in the 1970s a decayed regime of political stagnation from the right.
This task is perhaps more difficult than the others, if only because in a conflict between a cynical police state and a handful of fearless opponents (as the struggle of the Russian New Right .; most often presented to the world) our sympathies are naturally on the side of the persecuted. If, in addition, one takes into account that at least the dissident (and emigre) faction of the Russian New I ght loudly proclaims its anti-Communism to one and all, then the sympathies of all the world's anti-Communists must also be with them. The fact that
I hey oppose a mediaeval system from a mediaeval position, that is, struggle not to dismantle, but rather revitalize it in a still more organic and aggressive form, might seem under the circumstances insignificant — particularly to those who espouse an ideological approach toward Russia. For, if Communism is the ultimate evil, then what could be worse? Unfortunately, neither the experience of Stalinism nor chat of Nazism has taught these people anything It is just such shortsightedness that makes it so difficult to understand the real function of the Russian New Right in the Soviet political system.
Try to explain, say, to American neo-conservatives that their support lor a Russian anti-Communist inspired by mediaeval ideas is more dangerous than Neville Chamberlain's appeasement at Mun.ch They will never understand you, nor could they be expected to. Eo comprehend what is at issue, one must first grasp Russian history as a perpetual struggle that has been going on for centuries between reforms striving to destroy the Russian autocracy and counter-reforms seeking to perpetuate it The ideological approach does not give one the opportunity even to glimpse the complexity of the issue — just as the liberals' geopolitical approach deprives them of the opportunity to see that the behaviour of Russia in world politics depends not so much on her imperial dynamics as on the character of the particular regime in power.
In other words, the role of the Russian Idea in the country's contemporary history simply cannot be understood by American intellectuals and politicians within the framework of their conventional approaches to Russia. The limits to their vision are rigidly set by these approaches, which invariably lack any historical dimension. Therefore* a book about Russian nationalism will not be properly received by them unless and until an alternative — that is, an historical — approach has acquired its legitimate place m America s Soviet debate. This is what I did not comprehend seven years ago when 1 was writing The Russian New Right
An Explanation to the Reader
It is true that the book received commentaries and reviews in many languages and, consequently, was discussed in many countnes of the world. Indeed, the list of responses it elicited, even leaving aside the storm of fury it provoked in the Russian emigre press, looks impressive.17 However, the function for which the book was intended, remained unfulfilled. This was partly my fault. I naively assumed that the tacts would speak for themselves, that documents work more effectively than intellectual stratagems, that examples are more persuasive than pi losophical concepts, and that the capacity of a free mind to accept new ideas s unlimited. I was very much n staicen.
As one who left a country dorr nated by state censorsh p, I believed that the problem ended there — that censorship was the only thing lin ting our v ew of the world. I now understand that there exist other, no less rigid limitations, which no one imposes on us from the outs de. We npose them on ourselves by our intellectual approach to problems and by the loj с of our struggle with opponents, which may have absolutely no relation to the problem at hand. That is why, in order to introduce into the public discourse a new set of ideas wh ch contradict the conventional approaches, one has to have someth lg more than facts. In the first place, the futility and shorts ditedness of these approaches must be pi nted out. Secondly, one must have an intellectual alternat've to offer
I am saying all this to 'my' reader since I assume that 'other people's' readers will already have long since slammed this book shut, never to open it again. I am saying this to my reader in order to explain why I have begun the ntroduct on to a book about the contemporary Russian reactionary opposition with an analysis of the obvious inadequacy of America's Soviet debate. Th ; simply reflects all that I have learned since 1978. It is also a promise not to repeat the same mistake. The Russian Idea will be examined here not only in the context of Russian intellectual and political history, but also in that of the American debate. I shall also address the question of what the West can do in order, in this nuclear age, to assist Russian reform rather than counter-reform.
The Lesson
There is still another reason why this book may succeed in achieving what The Russian New Right did not. The diss dent segment of the Russian New Right (I call it this to distinguish it from its establishment counterpart in Moscow) has given the Western public a series of instructive lessons in the intervening years. The most recent of these I shall now recount br' fly.
On 20 January 1981, the Governing Board of the Russ an National Union in West Germany addressed a congratulatory letter to the new president of the United States. The letter was a long one, but its essence was contained in its last paragraph: 'Communism in all its ideological and practical applications is the major and mortal enemy of humankind The paih of seeking conciliation with it leads to inevitable catastrophe. To avert catastrophe there remains one path still open - that of finding an alliance, an understanding, and an honest friendship with the Russian people' who, it iw said in another part of the letter, have nothing in common with the powers that be in the USSR, but on the contrary, represent 'the first and most suffering