If so, this is a possibility that the Russian New Right certainly did not build into its game plan for the year 2000. Convinced that the West is Russia's eternal enemy (or, as Brzezinski would put t, permanent geopolitical adversary) — not to mention its being in the service of the Antichrist and upe for Orthodoxization — the Russian New Right underestimates the compassion, the generosity, the powerful instinct for self-preservation the West possesses and, above all its overwhelming intellectual power. In so doing, it has overlooked twro important phenomena which ndeed set the current situation apart from all Russia s prior experiences of reform.
The first of these is, of course, the very age we live .n — the nuclear age. This alone would make the West think twice before followi ig Pipes s or Brzezinski's advice and entering into the kind of relentless confrontation with the USSR needed by the Russian New Right to bring its game plan to fruition.
The second phenomenon overlooked by the New Right may be still more important. I reler to the unprecedented concentration of knowledge about Russia accumulated .n Lhe West over the last century, and having found expression in the equally unprecedented phenomenon of sovietology. So great is this knowledge, as many professionals in the field are aware, it surpasses n many nstances what Soviet politicians, economists and sociologists themselves know about the performance of their own system. Thus, a superior knowledge of Russia (combined with relative immunity to mediaeval ideological aberrations), which led to Herzen s success a century ago, is being repeated now on a much grander scale. Indeed, some things do appear to have changed at the end of the twentieth century. These changes may even be decisive, if only we learn how to use them.
The Necessity of Reform
Of course, the parallel between The Bell and sovietology shouldn't be taken too literally. It is strictly functional. Although Herzen was called a Westernizer by his enemies and was as free from mediaeval ideological aberrations as any Russian could be. he still was a Russian emigre, a passionate political writer, a philosopher — one whose heart ached for Russia. In total contrast, sovietology comprises a motley group of academics trained to observe and analyse their subject rather than weep for it, let alone build strategies for reform. It is only the fact that we live in the age of the intercontinental ballistic missile that may compel sovietology to perform the same function as Herzen once did For if a new disaster strikes Russia 111 the nuclear age. sovietologists may not only find themselves without a job, they may even end up unwilling actors in the tragic finale of Russia's political drama. Perhaps this sobering thought will lead Western experts down the same path that Herzen's aching Russian heart once led him. Perhaps its traditional academic detachment will be discarded for the sake of survival.
For Herzen, to support the cause of reform within a hated tsarist empire was no small matter either. He had to violate some unwritten but strict emigre rules, as anyone who is fam iar with the standard reactions of Russian emigres to the present Russian reforms will understand. These people hate everything Soviet w;th a passion, reform included, just as Herzen hated everything tsarist. Before he and his friends at The Bell were able to offer, in place of the traditional emigre curses, their support to a reformist regime they rac 'caHy had to reform themselves. There are also other parallels between the reformist situation of the mid-1980s and that of the early 1860s.
By the mid-1980s most sovietologists were agreed that what Russ i needs is a thoroughgoing change, radical reform, and at the very least an end to the Brezhnevist era of stagnation, social decay and cultural paralysis. The Russian leadership also agrees with this enthusiastically. In this sense, the mid-1980s are repeating the early 1860s, when for the first time in imperial history the judgement of the imperial leadership coincided with that of reformist outsiders. Moreover, the imperial leadership of the mid-1980s does not explain what it means by 'radical reform'; nor did the leadership of the 18b0s. The reason, one may surmise, is that, despite its confident reformist language, the leadership — now as then — simply does not know what it really means by 'reform'. That is bad enough. What is worse s that Gorbachev, like Alexander II (and, for that matter, Khrushchev) s quite confident that he does know. In reality, he reacts to the situation at hand His policies are shaped more by the usual antagonistic response to the policies of the preceding rcg.me than by any clearly devised reformist game plan. His policies are as lacking it! strategy as those of the reformist emperor of the 1860s. But this should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied political change in Russia or watched its previous reformist attempts.
More importantly, the reformist outsiders of today — the sovietologists — also cannot agree on what they mean by radical reform in the Soviet context. Deep ideological schisms, party Rivalries and the intellectual inertia of the Brezhnevist decades all conspire to deprive sovietology of its ability to confront the Russian challenge directly, in this new and much more sophisticated phase Indeed, it would seem that sovietology is as much in need of radical reform as its unfortunate subject (just like Herzen and his friends in London in the 1860s). It cannot any longer allow itself to trail behind the Russian New Right in intellectual sophistication as it d'd through the Brezhnevist decades.
So far, as we saw from our brief survey of American game plans, the reformist outsiders of the 1980s are not doing very well. In fact, they are falling behind even the imperial leadership, which has already shown considerable flexibility, if only in repudiating the policies ol the past regime. Like Khrushchev in his early days, the imperial leadership of the mid-1980s has shown ingenu ity and dynamism n two major areas open to immediate improvement — agriculture and foreign policy In a Moscow trying to shake the dust of Brezhnevist torpor off its feet, a cultural thaw is also gaining momentum. In contrast, sovietology is running on the spot. Its own de-Brezhneviz.at'.on hasn't even begun yet Some of the supposedly enlightened outsiders still behave like unwitting allies of the Russian New Right. Others are slow in confronting them with an alternative game plan The very idea of using a Herzen-hke phenomenon in a Herzen-hke fashion is foreign to them The cause of championing the Russ.an middle class, of putting their ntellectual weight behind an attempt to make Russian reform rreversible this time, is as far from them as ever. Yet despite all this, there undoubtedly exists the potential for a new and much more influential Herzen.
Another way in wh.ch the current situation resembles the early I8e>0s is that Poland is still ar imperial province and still the powder- keg of Europe, In a few years' time it may once again explode as it did in 1863. It was this explosion that destroyed Herzen's credibility and ultimately Russian reform. It is known that Herzen, believing the Pol.sh uprising to be premature, used his considerable influence with the Poles in an attempt to persuade them to postpone it Of course, he failed Poland was as unpredictable then as it is today.
The 1860s Russian reform failed, and in due time was reversed by a counter-reform. Once more, the Russian imperial leadership proved that it didn't know how to go about the business of reform. As soon as the influence of reformist outsiders vanished, the reform was doomed, making counter-reform, in the final analysis, inevitable.