But Shimanov not only writes about politics: he Is also (as we have noted) the leader of the 'Ultras'. Before 1974 — that is, prior to the exile of Solzhenitsyn, the split in Veche and the arrest of Osipov — Shimanov's 'Ultras', though active in the Russian Club, remained somewhat in the background — a sort of a shadow cabinet. At that time the views of the 'Ultras' were too extreme for either the VSKhSON wing of the Dissident Right or the supporters of Veche, who (together with such em lent representatives of the Establishment 'Rusists' as P. Palievskii, V. Kozhinov, and A. Lanshchikov) dominated the Russian Club in the early 1970s. Among the highbrow liberal nationalists, the 'Ultras' even seemed to provoke a certain disgust.
I was therefore particularly surprised to find a programmatic article by Shimanov entitled 'Moscow: The Third Rome' in Moskovskii sborniK [Moscow Anthology] — a samizdat journal which, after the demise of Veche, attempted to replace it as an organ of the Dissident Right. The editor of Moskovskii sbornik was L. Borodin, one of the members of VSKhSON who had been arrested and served a term in prison. He wrote a brief introduction to 'Moscow. The Third Rome , stating that in his opinion 'Shimanov's point of view on some questions of the nation and of religion is today extremely popular among the nationalistically inclined Russian intelligentsia 4
One has to suppose either that the views of the former member of VSKhSON had undergone a significant evolution in the decade since the collapse of his organization, or that Shimanov's views in the mid- 1970s had become a force that could no longer be ignored (or maybe both are tiue). Whatever the explanation, there is no doubt that VSKhSON would not even have allowed a person holding Shimanov's views through its doors — and he certainly would not have been tolerated in From Under the Rubble. Moreover, his programmatic statements were not permitted in Veche. On 29 April 1973, Osipov wrote a rather stiff 'open letter' to him in which, while disassociating himself from the line of the 'revolutionist' (read VSKhSON) underground, he no less decisively repudiated the views of Shimanov.5 Thus, none of the factions of L-Nationalism recognized Shimanov and his 'Ultras' as belonging to them. For Shimanov to have advanced into the foreground of the dissident Right, and for Borodin to testify in flattering tones to the wide popularity of bis views 'among the nationalistically inclined intelligentsia,' meant that all these factions must have suffered a defeat — or had found their positions severely weakened. The wind must have changed m the nationalistic dissident movement. Perhaps the hour had arrived for the public appearance of F-Nationalism.6
Sources of the Coming Catastrophe
Shimanov's very existence as a political writer is an expression of the intellectual crisis through which Russia was passing in the 1970s. It is revealing to look at the way he himself describes this crisis:
The obvious collapse of the Communist Utopia, which cannot be covered up indefinitely and from which we must somehow emerge with dignity; the worthlessness of Western ways, which cannot attract any s> mpathy; the advancing industrial-ecological crisis, which compels us to search frantically for a path to a different civilization; the military danger from China . . . and the internal processes of bourgeoisification and spiritual and moral degradation, which must be resisted not with words ... all of this . . must push the Soviet regime, first to partial and half-hearted reforms, and then to decisive ones, in the face of the catastrophe threatening the state.7
If we try to formulate more rigorously the reasons for this advancing
catastrophe', we f;nd the following three sources:
The regime, by nature mobile, whose dynamism ii based on movement toward a clear and exalted goal, has lost its goal and consequently become immobilized Movement was first reduced to marching on the spot, then 'putrefaction'. The nation is disoriented and degraded, and hence dying in a spiritual sense. This is shown by the catastrophic drop in social and labour discipline, which undermines the vital'forces of the nation.8
The colossal sacrifices made by the people on the road to the supposed goal have lost their meaning. The Revolution, the Civil War, the Gulag, the deaths of mill'ons, famine and collectivization, World War II, self-sacrifice — everything which could be justified by the movement toward Communism — has proved to be meaningless. 'God s dead.' (This terrible conclusion, which the Soviet people instinct'vely reject and fear as much as their own death, is the basis of Shimanov's fearless doctrine).
In this situat'on of general confusion and putrefaction, the country finds itself in its worst crisis of its history — between cwo fires, Ch na and the WTest, equally dangerous and equally merciless. At present, the nation has nothing with which to counter this mortal threat.
Everybody despises the Russians'
Thus, according to Shimanov's logic, the time has come 'to save the Russian nation'.9 It is time for all Rus< ans, regardless of their station in life, to unite in a spiritual and intellectual effort to return their nation to power and glory. Shimanov bitterly resents, what to him s a fact, that 'everybody despises the Russians.'10 Indeed, his suffering is so great that it amounts to a national inferiority complex. To save Russia means, for Shimanov, not only to return his country to greatness and prosperity, but to transform her into the centre of humankind's spiritual history — to make her the leader of the world; to show that all the other peoples are inferior, and therefore not worthy of that responsibility; to show that Russia holds the key not only to her own destiny, but because she provides the solution to the crisis through which the world is now passing — to the fate of the whole human race.
To achieve salvation, Russia must rid herself of the three sources of
the advancing catastrophe Only by doing so, will her lost sense of purpose be returned, will meaning be restored to all the sacrifices the people have made, and will she be capable of withstanding China and the West But how is this to be done? The paradox of Shananov's answer to the challenge of history deserves special discussion
The Concept of History
Shimanov's historical doctrine proceeds from the premise that Christianity as a universal tool for sa\ ing the world has failec — that emerging into the world from the catacombs, it has been seduced by the glitter of material culture and has exchanged ts world mission for a mess of pottage and worldly power Having been seduced. Catholicism gave birth to 'the ulcer of Protestantism', which n turn bore the 'bourgeois era , which has overwhelmed mankind with the 'cult of profit and cold cash Finally, the bourgeois era begot the great and sinful mutiny of socialism. Hence, 'corrupted (European) Christianity is the thesis, socialism the antithesis, and the world can be saved only by a synthesis. (The immortal Hegel as interpreted by the popular textbooks of dialectical material.sm still triumphs!) But where is this synthesis to be found? It turns out that there .s one people which has been preserved by God and has escaped the corruption of Catholicism and the bourgeois ulcer. They were preserved in a temole, but in the rinal analysis blessed, way — bv sending the Tatars upon them to cut them off from the 'mighty Renaissance embrace' of Europe. Thus, alone among the nations. Russia is the only one to possess the true faah', and by a miracle to have preserved it from the bourgeois flood
Here is seen the basic methodological principle of Shimanov's historical doctime: when God wishes to preserve and purify his chosen people, he sends upon it a plague, a national disaster. Shimanov, having been fortunate enough to have discovered the modus opetanai of Providence, goes on to apply it to the history of Russia, He acknowledges that the Petrine reforms, the October Revolution and the Gulag were great calamities for the people, but urges us to see a Great Mystery and Divine Providence behind all the blood and squalor, behind their apparent meaninglessness. No, he says. The -nnumerable sacrifices of the Russian people have not been in vain: they are justified; they are steps on the road to a great goal and the price of the people's historical destiny. So, hold your heads high, Russians!