Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A World Still Split Apart
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was/is one of the most important figures in the formative
development my political consciousness and humanitarian His epic documentation and
unsparingly lucid indictment of the crimes of Soviet communism, most notably with the
publication of The Gulag Archipeligo, will forever stand as both witness to the criminals who perpetrated them along with their complicit accomplices in the west who for ideological reasons enabled or ignored them. The three part ‘Gulag’ series will stand as one of the more courageous and dedicated efforts in realization of Ghandi’s maxim that what one must do is to ‘make the injustice visible.’
In recognition of Solzhenitsyn’s passing, Truthout re-published his famous and unfortunately still relevant speech to Harvard University from 1978.
This address is filled with highlights and salient points too numerous to excerpt. You can read the complete speech transcript Here.
I’ve also posted a review on the Gulag books from The New York Times dated from 1978. Some interesting stuff here, particularly the take on how no resistance movement can succeed without the harnessing of public opinion, which state power is always relentlessly trying to manipulate or suppress. Something to keep in mind as ongoing battles continue to be waged over the state of our own media and communications systems in our country.
But Solzhenitsyn harbors no illusions about what was possible in the way of resistance. He has set himself the task in “Gulag III” of setting down the history of the protests, hunger strikes, escapes and mutinies that occurred, but he knows very well how little they could achieve without the support of public opinion–something the Soviet state waged constant war on. “Without that behind us,” he writes, “we can protest and fast as much as we like and they will laugh in our faces!” And yet the protests persisted–and still persist–because human dignity required them.
