Solzhenitsyn

The great Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died today, and if you read his works you'll miss him too. He was one of those characters who steps through the cracks that appear any any totalitarian edifice, and in this case his opportunity came when Krushchev denounced Stalin, and for a brief moment dissent was permitted. Out came The Gulag Archipelago, A Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward ... all wonderful books. I suspect we all have such cracks open to us at all times.

Solzhenitsyn was kicked out of the Soviet Union in the 70's and lived in the USA. His welcome wore thin as he criticized his hosts in a famous Harvard address and his book Warning to the West. He returned to Russia in 1994.

It was reading Solzhenitsyn where I first realized a difference between the two superpowers: in the Soviet Union, you can be imprisoned for writing something disagreeble. In USA you can write whatever you like, it just won't get published if it is disagreeable. The USA can last longer than the Soviet's 75 years because we have more pressure valves built in. Those pressure valves are being capped right now by the republicans and democrats.

I expected Solzhenitsyn to be a powerful figure in his last years, but so far he appears to be loved but irrelevant. He survived the Gulag because when first arrested he listed among his skills "astrophysicist," a lie. Later some order was given by Stalin to assemble all the Astrophysicists in a camp near Moscow to work on a secret project. Conditions were survivable and his lack of knowledge of astrophysics no bar to Soviet state prison employment. If his lack of aptitude became apparent, no one bothered to ship him back.

Seeing this great soul have little effect on post-Soviet Russia, I wonder if the price of his whimsical lie cost him influence in his later years. Are lies that expensive?

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