Vladimir Osipov and the Veche Group (1971-1974)

Much of the recent discussion of nationalism assumes, quite erroneously, that all the nationalists share an authoritarian, reactionary, and anti-intellectual ideology. Furthermore, in some western writing on the subject, nationalism is perceived as a force that could sweep away the existing regime and replace it with a proto-fascist government that might be more even hostile to the West than the Soviet leadership has been.1 But not all nationalists think alike. In fact, we can distinguish a number of different intellectual tendencies that can be called Russian nationalism, but have little else in common. Some of these nationalists have at times enjoyed the benign tolerance of the regime, but others have suffered political repression and spent long terms in the labor camps. An important representative of the repressed nationalists is Vladimir Osipov. He was the editor of the samizdat journal Veche, which proclaimed itself to be Russian, patriotic, and Slavophile in its orientation. Osipov is representative of a whole generation of dissidents who in the 1960's made the spiritual trek from MarxismLeninism to the nationalist idea. He had a typically Soviet education, and he was one of the young student radicals of the early 1960's. Like some other radicals of this period, he found that his aversion to the reality of Soviet life only strengthened his belief in Marxism-Leninism. Osipov, however, underwent a remarkable transformation during the term he served (1961-1968) for the crime of anti-Soviet propaganda. The dissident Leninist became a nationalist.2

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• The fate of Russian nationalism

  Peter J S Duncan•Religion in Communist Lands•1988

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