Among
the many tendencies of Russian thought, there is one which rightfully places
itself in the center of all the rest, whose influence and scope grows stronger and
stronger and which can be termed enlightened conservatism. Professing Christian
values, it tries to avoid the extremes of militant nationalism and at the same
time criticizes the position of the democratic westernizers - advocats of a
free market. In order to define the boundaries of this tendency, it is
sufficient to name the journal “New World”, which searches for a “third” path
between nationalistic and democratic publications. All the basic ideas of this
trend were expressed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first in “A Letter to Leaders”
[“Pis’mo vozhdjam”] and in the essays collected in “From Under the Rubble” [“Iz
pod glyb”], and then in the
reflection “Rebuilding Russia” [“Kak nam obustroit’ Rossiju?”], to which we will be referring.[1]
For
the writer, who is ever so sentimental towards language, the choice of an
important word is not accidental. Specifically on the outcome of a new
construction [pere-strojka], a
writer will propose at once to consider again the idea of an entire process,
switching it with the rebuilding [obu-strojstvo] of the country. The difference in prefixes turns the
historical conundrum of Russia on itself in so far as “ob” has the meaning of circularity and exclusivity: “obojti” (to go around), “obvesti” (to take around, surround), “obnjat’” (to embrace, envelop), “obustroit’” (to reconstruct, rearrange). And if the new
construction has not specified its goal, but just distanced itself from the
past, extensively striving for anything better, then with its understanding of
“reconstruction” as its basis [obosnovanie], the author will try to convey to the entire trend a self-exclusivity
and address it to the heart of Russia which “liberates itself for the sake of
valuable interior develpment, giving attention energy to itself” (the chapter
“A Word to the Great Russians”).
The
main category of Solzhenitsyn’s world view is self-limitation [samoogranichenie], which supposes a moral foundation for political and
economic decisions. “A stable society can be achieved, not on the equality of
oppositions, but on conscious self-limitation: on the fact that we are always
obliged to yield to moral justice... If only we could succeed in assimilating
the spirit of self-limitation and, most importantly, pass it on to our
children. Above all self-limitation is necessary for man himself, for the
balance and quiescence [nevzmutnost’]
of his soul” (the chapter “Self-Limitation”).
The
admirers of Solzhenitsyn do not notice this deciding moral instant as regards
“national greatness” and especially his criticism as regards “economic freedom”
and “integration with the West”. Here lies the dividing line between the three
main positions in contemporary Russian society, however they might call
themselves. One is the position of strength, national rallies and unity [“zaedinshchina”], leading to fascism. Another is the position of morality which forms the
guiding line of enlightened conservatism, requiring first and foremost firmness and balance from society. The
third is the position of unbounded economic development and formal legal
restrictions which is most clearly defined as liberalism.
In
this distribution of forces, the middle and intermediary position,
undisputably, belongs to conservatism. An intuition of the soil, an intensified
feeling for traditions and an idea of national rebirth remotely unite it with
fascism; a principle of tolerence, peaceableness, distrust of government and
the defence of the individual’s spiritual rights unite it with liberalism. It
would appear that specifically in this middle position irreconcilable trends
can be reconciled, joining in what is sometimes called a “cultural agrarianism”
[kul’turnoe pochvennichestvo], and
which Igor’ Zolotusskij has recently called “fruit-bearing conservatism”. The
combination of both definitions, on the whole, almost presents an image of the
garden of heaven - “fruit-bearing agrarianism”, where the soil [pochva], as can be supposed, bears fruit, and this fruit
fertilizes the soil. But in such an idyll, there for some reason cannot be
found room for just those fateful problems which all three trends are bound to
solve.
The
conservative trend, in distinction from the national and liberal ones, leans,
above all, on moral criteria. In this its strength as a societal movement is at
the same time a weakness. This is absolutely not because politics is doomed to
immorality and the conservative idea of self-limitation is “too good” for this
sinful world. Something is not all right with the very idea of self-limitation
as a guide to social and economic rebirth. It seems that appealing to the
internal nature of man, conservatism, less then all of them, takes this nature into account in its
social constructions. It is well known that marxism, having calculated the
economic paths to public property, miscalculates in one thing - the value of
human nature which requires private property and is at first ready to work only
for itself, and only later, having achieved well being, will it share with
others. Man has turned out to be “worse” then marxism figured, although specifically
thanks to this shortcoming did he remain whole and alive through the universal
slavery of equality [ravenstvo-rabstvo].
But
there is something that can be taken from marxism - it does not especially
scrutinize man, as it operates with collective units, classes and masses.
Contemporary conservatism addresses in particular an individual’s
consciousness, and absolutely does not substitute morality with laws of social
development. Just the opposite, social development should submit to the laws of
morality. Solzhenitsyn already wrote about this 20 years ago in the essay
“Repentance and Self-Limitation as a Category of National Life”[2]
- and since then he has not ceased to remind us: the hope of Russia today lies
in its capacity for self-limitation.
Do
our wishes really take reality in hand? No, rather reality takes our wishes in
hand. The entirety of communist and post-communist reality has inculcated
nothing but self-limitation into the Russians. In the endless lines and
bureaucratic degradations, in the insufficiency of goods and living quarters,
in the sufferings from the absence of laws and rights he has gone through all
the circles of hell and there has learned to limit himself. And Russia limited
itself, giving its essential and its best for the friendship of nations and
world revolution. And each generation put limits on itself, putting off until
later for the sake of the happiness of future generations. This entire system
was kept going by the self-limitation of many and the predatoriness of a few,
but who will the appeal to self-limitation agitate and attract now? People who
are limited in everything and who live at the lowest level of subsistence? This
appeal is useless to them, while others, who just gather the world about them
with other people’s limitations, are gladdened by such an appeal.
In
order to awaken society from becoming rigid, self-limitation is hardly able to
call up an interal shock, for that, rather, is necessary the energy of
self-realization, of personal interest. If self-limitation means: do not desire
your neighbor’s posessions - his lands, houses, wives - then it would be
impossible not to concur whith such an obvious conclusion from the tenth
commandment. But in order not to desire your neighbor’s posessions, I should
posess my own, and in order to posess my own, I should desire my own. This very
desire for ones own is the real
beginning of Russian renewal: the self-assertion of the posesser. And only as a
result of such a self-assertion can genuine self-limitation be achieved: a man,
being entitled to what is his, does not have a right to desire what is his
neighbor’s. To begin with self-limitation means to plunge all of society
into a condition of mutual dependence, predatoriness and lust, for a man who
does not posess anything of his own, is forced to limit himself in everything,
while gravitating to what is not his. Society cannot consist only of righteous
people, willingly indigent, and count on that; this is a sure path to the
multiplication of thieves and criminals. How and in what should one limit
oneself , if the indigent lack exactly that in which they should limit
themselves, that superstitious territory of “one’s own” in which they could
give themselves a firm boundary, and not cross over it [“da ne prejdeshi”].
Much
has already been said to the effect that only private property secures the
rights of the individual and puts a limit to government despotism. But private
property is not just a formal concept, in it is an emotional and moral truth,
which can never be realized without human enthusiasm, without love for oneself,
and consequently for one’s property. The highest of the commandments contains a
paradoxical wisdom within it: “love thy neighbor as thyself”. That is, love of
oneself becomes the standard of love for one’s neighbor - but who among us
knows what that is? who has managed to grasp the divine idea of “self-love”? For the least idea or care for
the self, for one’s home, was ridiculed and chastised under communism - and for
a long time before communism, in the ascetic and egalitarian sects of which
communism was the crowning achievement. “Property” [“sobstvennost’”], according to the very root of the word, is the
relationship with oneself (L. proprius, Fr. propre - own) [“s
samim soboj”] - incarnated, reified
love for oneself.
And
it is this paradox that takes part in the complicated economic relations of
western society where individuals at first practice loving themselves, with
difficulty build up their property, and give to others from their own, sharing
with their neighbors through the system of required taxes and willing
sacrifices. In the Soviet system everything was the other way around: people at
first gave everything they owned to the government, “limited themselves”, and
only then got from the government part of that which was due to them - that is
why the system collapsed. Communism, even in its deepest ethical motivations,
heard only the beginning of the commandment “love they neighbor”, but did not
hear the end of it: “as thyself”.
As a result “selfhood” [“samost’”],
deprived of the right to love and respect oneself, has turned into a celestial
burglar, stealing territories, belongings, “oxen and houses” [“voly i domy”] from peoples far and near alike, not to mention
one’s next-door village neighbors, the first victims of denunciations and the
liquidation of kulaks. This is the kind of hatred that abstract love for one’s
neighbor, unconfirmed by the concept of “love for oneself”, turns into.
And
so, ethics itself becomes the beginning of love for oneself. How on earth,
then, does it not happen that people do not devour each other in the assault of
everyone’s self-love and personal pretentions? Here the paradoxical ethics of mutual-limitation operates - liberalism, or what Solzhenitsyn
disapprovingly calls “equality of opposition”. The pretentions of one agent
only have space up to the point where the rights of another begin. And every
owner understands that when he encroaches on another’s property, he risks his
own, and “with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again”. This
is a moral equivalent of judicial law, generous to all types of individuals
while not frustrating the initiatives of others. No one is required to go
against one’s interest so long as he does not run into the border with someone
else’s - and so resilient interaction progresses in the growing expanse of the
market.
This
is why liberal economics can spread and spread while remaining liberal and not
seizing other’s power: It moves by the limitlessness of its own interests,
which are limited only by the interests of others. The solidity of western
society is supported by this mutual-limitation,
this “equality of opposition”. And only on the foundation of many years’
experience at mutual-limitation
can there develop a genuine need for self-limitation, not thrust on it from without, which, even for Americans,
who have gotten used to abundance, still does not come easily. But,
nevertheless, it comes, as is evident from their growing efforts at
self-limitation in relation with nature: not strangling or violating nature,
which is deprived of the human rights of partnership. And what is more, this
self-limitation is formed from a consideration of dependence, in so far as to
strangle nature means, in the final analysis, to strangle oneself.
Still,
one tenent of enlightened conservatism is that morality takes priority over
law. “A moral principle should stand higher than a legal one. Justice is a
conformity with moral law before judicial” (the chapter “Deliberative
Structure”). These two judgments, so soundly placed together, which crown all
of Solzhenitsyn’s work in fact contradict each other. If in fact the moral is
higher than the legal, then justice should be defined at first as a more
simple, judicial law, and only then as a moral law. Getting away from the order
established by Solzhenitsyn, so as to solve all social questions first and
foremost on the highest moral level, we will never make it all the way to
judicial law; and, on the whole, why is it “lowest” and not “highest”. Is not
this neglect by the law on behalf of the highest moral considerations the
typical feature of totalitarian regimes and is it not the ancient, neglected
misfortune of the Russian state system? And is it not by this highly moral model
that all current ruling structures worked and continue to work, where deputies
are set out on endless debates and denunciations about questions of good and
evil, in the process not getting any closer to producing self-acting
legislation?
Building
society according to the laws of morality is dangerous for both morality and
society itself. And what kind of moral law can be considered absolute for
society if even the simplest of them - “do not kill” - engenders endless
differences of interpretation. Does “do not kill” mean that the government
should renounce its military or armed police? Does not “do not commit adultery”
mean that an adulterer should be prosecuted, or exiled from the country? But
then what about “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone
at her”? In this lies the misfortune - that the substitution of legal order
with a moral one completely breaks up the foundations of society.
On
the other hand, to set up the life of society according to moral laws does not
mean reinforcing morality, but rather, just the opposite; it means taking away
its last foundations in personal freedom. If moral law is to be turned into a
civic requirement, what then will remain for the individual, for moral choice?
Here lies the essence of all the highest commandments, that they are applied
only to separate individuals and correlated with freedom of conscience. The
application of religio-moral categories to a nation or society made sense in
the days of the Old Testament, and only in relation to Old Testament peoples,
Christianity abolished this religio-moral jurisdiction of the peoples, having
turned, deep down, separate individuals towards their repentance, their self-limitation. We will be judged for our actions as
individuals, and not as representatives of one country or another. It is
impossible to imagine otherwise, as in a pagan blindness, that at the Last
Judgement the souls of nations or societies will stand forth.
Enlightened
conservatism appears to be distant from paganism, but a sort of Old Testament
ferment of popular spirit, a religious illumination of a popular idea, runs
tirelessly through it. How this corresponds with the Christian creed of a given
movement, still needs clarification by conservatism itself.
July
1992
Transl. Thomas Dolack
[1] Among the other authors who gravitate to this trend, with all of their individual differences, one can name V. Maksimov, I. Vinogradov, S. Zalygin, I. Rodnjanskaja, R. Gal’tseva, A. Latynina, A. Gulyga, I. Zolotusskij, I. Dedkov, Ju. Borodaj.
[2] Essay printed in the collection “Under the Rubble” (Paris, 1974).