Alexander Solzhenitsyn

[RedCeltic]

Who is Alexander Solzhenitsyn? (the man our latest reactionary took his name from) Here is an article I found with some facts about this anti-Stalinist who was persecuted by the Soviets.


Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-alive)

So many lies about Solzhenitsyn were planted by the Soviets that it is hard to know which criticisms are true. A common theme was that all his old friends, including his ex-wife, have disavowed him. In fact, these disavowals were true. But what pressures did the Soviets put on these people, all of whom had to remain in the Soviet Union? Perhaps they will someday be able to tell their real stories.
Another theme was that Solzhenitsyn is anti-Semitic. Many have gone over his works looking for any shred of evidence. If Jewish villains are disproportionately high in any anecdote this is immediately seized as evidence. If Jews are not mentioned at all this too is seized as evidence.
But Solzhenitsyn does not endear himself to strangers because he still behaves like a 'zek' (prisoner). He is dour, ever suspicious, ever on guard. He must be caught smiling. Otherwise for anyone but his closest friends he frowns or deadpans. But even inside his circle of friends he can be difficult. Some of his beliefs have become extreme. For example, he regards the giving of a gift as an imposition on the one who receives the gift. He argues that the giver imposes his taste on the receiver, robbing the receiver of his freedom.
He has many dislikes, which he indulges. He dislikes automobiles, luxuries, large cities, warm climates, noise, most things 'modern' and the West. He loathes all distractions, which to him include children and socializing outside the family. He is almost totally absorbed in his work. His next highest priority is himself but seemingly only to keep himself fit to write.
The only warmth that he reveals to the world is in the heroes and heroines of his writings…

[reagan lives]

I guess that's what the gulag will do to you. One more argument against socialism. Thanks, RedCeltic.

[El Che]

"One more argument against socialism"

How terribly short sited(and unfair) of you.

[Moskitto]

"The Soviet Union's 'massive crimes' are a big myth" -antitrot

1. What's his definition of massive
2. Depending on his definition, people like that are actually embarrasing to the rest of us.

[antitrot]

Thanks for the support! What I mean is that anyone who gives outrageous figures like "65 million" and then attributes them to Stalin is off their damn rocker!

I'm not interested in another debate but here's a little somethin on Solzhenitsyn:

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Another person who is always associated with books and articles on the supposed millions who lost their lives or liberty in the Soviet Union is the Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn became famous throughout the capitalist world towards the end of 1960 with his book, The Gulag Archipelago. He himself had been sentenced in 1946 to 8 years in a labour camp for counter-revolutionary activity in the form of distribution of anti-Soviet propaganda. According to Solzhenitsyn, the fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War could have been avoided if the Soviet government had reached a compromise with Hitler. Solzhenitsyn also accused the Soviet government and Stalin of being even worse than Hitler from the point of view, according to him, of the dreadful effects of the war on the people of the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn did not hide his Nazi sympathies. He was condemned as a traitor.

Solzhenitsyn began in 1962 to publish books in the Soviet Union with the consent and help of Nikita Khrushchev. The first book he published was A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, concerning the life of a prisoner. Khrushchev used Solzhenitsyn’s texts to combat Stalin’s socialist heritage. In 1970 Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature with his book The Gulag Archipelago. His books then began to be published in large quantities in capitalist countries, their author having become one of the most valuable instruments of imperialism in combating the socialism of the Soviet Union. His texts on the labour camps were added to the propaganda on the millions who were supposed to have died in the Soviet Union and were presented by the capitalist mass media as though they were true. In 1974, Solzhenitsyn renounced his Soviet citizenship and emigrated to Switzerland and then the US. At that time he was considered by the capitalist press to be the greatest fighter for freedom and democracy. His Nazi sympathies were buried so as not to interfere with the propaganda war against socialism.

In the US, Solzhenitsyn was frequently invited to speak at important meetings. He was, for example, the main speaker at the AFL-CIO union congress in 1975, and on 15 July 1975 he was invited to give a lecture on the world situation to the US Senate! His lectures amount to violent and provocative agitation, arguing and propagandising for the most reactionary positions. Among other things he agitated for Vietnam to be attacked again after its victory over the US. And more: after 40 years of fascism in Portugal, when left-wing army officers took power in the people’s revolution of 1974, Solzhenitsyn began to propagandise in favour of US military intervention in Portugal which, according to him, would join the Warsaw Pact if the US did not intervene! In his lectures, Solzhenitsyn always bemoaned the liberation of Portugal’s African colonies.

But it is clear that the main thrust of Solzhenitsyn’s speeches was always the dirty war against socialism - from the alleged execution of several million people in the Soviet Union to the tens of thousands of Americans supposedly imprisoned and enslaved, according to Solzhenitsyn, in North Vietnam! This idea of Solzhenitsyn’s of Americans being used as slave labour in North Vietnam gave rise to the Rambo films on the Vietnam war. American journalists who dared write in favour of peace between the US and the Soviet Union were accused by Solzhenitsyn in his speeches of being potential traitors. Solzhenitsyn also propagandised in favour of increasing US military capacity against the Soviet Union, which he claimed was more powerful in ‘tanks and aeroplanes, by five to seven times, than the US’ as well as in atomic weapons which ‘in short’ he alleged were ‘two, three or even five times’ more powerful in the Soviet Union than those held by the US. Solzhenitsyn’s lectures on the Soviet Union represented the voice of the extreme right. But he himself went even further to the right in his public support of fascism.

[RedCeltic]

Quote: from reagan lives on 12:33 pm on April 15, 2002
I guess that's what the gulag will do to you. One more argument against socialism. Thanks, RedCeltic.


When have I ever defended the Soviet Union anyway RL?

[b] Solzhenitsyn’s lectures on the Soviet Union represented the voice of the extreme right. But he himself went even further to the right in his public support of fascism.

This is the main point here... what a lousy person to use as your login name!!

(Edited by RedCeltic at 6:58 pm on April 15, 2002)

[deadpool 52]

Ah, I was just talking about this great man. His recent criticisms of Russian gvt are extremely insightful, but it shows all to well that Russia was no longer communist, not even socialist.
And how a man, accused falsfily of being anti-semetic, was sent to the same place with the Russian Jews . . . hahah . . . 'O wait I'm drinking in the irony of it' hahaha

Lolita was a great book, or was that Nabokov?
~_^

[Solzhenitsyn]

Ahhh, nothing like bashing Stalin apologists . . . except perhaps, the smell of commerce. So here we go.

The article from Antitrot comes from your good friends of the PLP (who say among other things that neither Stalin nor Yagoda commited any crimes against humanity). Talk about Neo-nazis being revisionist!

COMMIES COLLIDE WITH REALITY

PINKO MYTH: A.S. was arrested for supporting and actively aiding the Vlasovites.

HISTORICAL FACT: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested for writing a letter to a friend containing a joking reference to Stalin. Without trial, he was prosectuted sentenced to 8 years in the GULAG under sec. 58-10 of the Criminal Code. He spent 12yr in the frozen hell of the Soviet slave labor system. That is a FACT from the publicly released NKVD/KGB file on Solzhenitsyn. There is no mention of the Vlasovites in the file. This myth was generated perhaps because he stated that he felt sympathy for a Vlasovite being cruelly tortured by the NKVD in The GULAG Archipelago

PINKO MYTH: A.S. rejected the Soviet Government because he was a fascist.

HISTORICIAL FACT: Solzhenitsyn rejected the Soviet government because he had converted to Russian Orthodoxy while in the GULAGs. Religious principles served as the basis for his heroic stand against the Empire of Evil.

PINKO MYTH: A.S. renounced his Soviet citizenship.

HISTORICAL FACT: Solzhenitsyn was exiled after a manuscript of The Gulag Archipelago had fallen into the hands of the KGB. The Soviet Union considered having him executed for his defiance to their brutal regime, until pressure from the West shamed them into exiling him instead. The original exile order can also been seen in his file.

PINKO MYTH: A.S. supported all kinds of crusades against communism, i.e. allegedly supporting war everywhere around the globe.

HISTORICAL FACT: Solzhenitsyn advocated a more confrontational stance with the USSR. He argued that Western leaders were fooling themselves if they thought the USSR would actually keep the promises they were making. He favored military buildup in the US and predicted they're economy could not respond because the slave labor which built the Soviet economy had dried up. He did not favor worldwide conflict instead in insisted that Communism be cut off at the head. He was correct. The USSR collapsed after Pres. Reagan changed the US stance to a direct confrontational style (i.e. Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall!) and so did its satellite states.

PINK MYTH: A.S. is anti-semitic.

HISTORICAL FACT: The USSR tried to defame him in the eyes of the Russian people by calling him a Jew in the state run newspaper Pravada. After he denied being Jewish, the Soviet Union manufactured documents allegedly proving his antisemitism. They were later revealed as fraudulent documents by the Soviet Government itself.

PINKO MYTH: A.S. constantly tours Russia promoting a fascist post-modern world order.

HISTORICAL FACT: Solzhenitsyn has become a virtual recluse after making a few appearances on Russian TV. He now prefers to work alone writing his books.

BTW, Solzhenisyn won the Nobel Prize for Cancer Ward in 1970. It seems the PLP was too focused on propaganda manufacturing to check that GULAG was first published in 1973.

-------------

RedCeltic: If you want to call him a reactionary fascist that's fine. I'm am proud to wear Solzhenitsyn on my account name and have his picture as my avatar.

Other account names I rejected: Pinochet and Capitalist Pig among others.


(Edited by Solzhenitsyn at 12:22 am on April 16, 2002)

[Fires of History]

You rejected Pinochet? Why? You mean you don't set up rape camps too?

[Guest]

What has rape camps got to do with this all????

[Fires of History]

Nothing, just sort of laughing at Solzhenitsyn's 'heroes.'

[Solzhenitsyn]

I'll rephrase and jumble a couple of quotes from a truly great man:

My overriding concern is to defeat the foul baboonery of Marxism. If a Marxist revolution started in Hell, I'd at least post a few favorable references to Satan in this forum.

I'd considered Pinochet because I knew it would rile up a few of you wannabe mass-murderers.


(Edited by Solzhenitsyn at 3:30 pm on April 16, 2002)

[Moskitto]

I'd considered Pinochet because I knew it would rile up a few of you wannabe mass-murderers.

Calling people "Wannabe Mass-Murderers" is actually quite a good way of agitating people. If your only interest is agitating people, lock yourself in a room and never meet anyone from the outside. It's a good way of preventing a 6 foot carbon fibre rod being rammed through your skull.

[Fires of History]

Quote: from Solzhenitsyn on 8:19 pm on April 16, 2002

I'd considered Pinochet because I knew it would rile up a few of you wannabe mass-murderers.


We're all just living up to the CIA's example. It's hard, yes, it's hard, but one day we all hope to kill as effectively as the U$.

You really do generalize...jeez...

[Solzhenitsyn]

Quote: from Fires of History on 2:32 pm on April 16, 2002

We're all just living up to the CIA's example. It's hard, yes, it's hard, but one day we all hope to kill as effectively as the U$.

No, what's really hard is to turn an entire nation into one gigantic death camp like your Marxist brother Pol Pot did in Cambodia. Although it's a lot easier for Marxists to defend him or call the refugees' accounts of the slaughter a fairy tale, it seems: http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~sophal/romanticize.pdf



You really do generalize...jeez...


Ah, come on! It's just political debating.


(Edited by Solzhenitsyn at 6:49 pm on April 17, 2002)

[Moskitto]

No, what's really hard is to turn an entire nation into one gigantic death camp like your Marxist brother Pol Pot did in Cambodia. Although it's a lot easier for Marxists to defend him or call the refugees' accounts of the slaughter a fairy tale, appearently:

Pol Pot is not a brother of mine. I actually had an arguement with an anonymous member of Che-Lives as to why Pol Pot was more evil than Hitler. Pol Pot would have killed everyone on this forum, socialists and capitalists. If you want to claim people support mass-murderers without any evidence then I suggest you leave.

[Guest]

he provided a link with proof.