Alexander Solzhenitsyn

[paternos]

I'm not sure about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his book "The Gulag Archipelago."

I don't fully believe the stories that say millions of people died in Soviet camps, similar to what happened in the Holocaust. Solzhenitsyn's book talks about these camps, but then people use it to say over 10 million died. Where are all the graves if so many died?

This book wasn't just a story. It became a weapon in the fight between the USSR and the USA. It's like it set the stage for big political changes that happened 20 years later.

There's a group called Human Rights Watch that started looking into these Soviet camps in the 1980s. They say they fight for human rights, but they began by focusing on the Soviet Union. This makes me wonder if they had political reasons.

Here's another example: the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine. This commission makes me feel like politics are hiding behind concerns for people.

Even Solzhenitsyn winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970 and getting support from people like Jordan Peterson makes me suspicious. )

Today, Russia agrees with what Solzhenitsyn said, using it to show how different they are from the past Soviet Union. But back then, the Soviet government said he was lying. Could they have been a bit right? I think they might have been.

I don't agree with the simple idea that everything Soviet was bad.

So, what's the real story? Did Solzhenitsyn honestly tell his story, which others later used for politics? Or was his book a political move from the start?

My hypothesis is that he's not the hero people make him out to be, and the real story is probably not as shocking as what's often told.

 

[Caduceus]

Putin gave Solzhenitsyn an important medal/award and even visited him in person a few times.
Hardly think he would have done that if Solzhenitsyn were a fraud.

 

[Ember]

Putin gave Solzhenitsyn an important medal/award and even visited him in person a few times.
Hardly think he would have done that if Solzhenitsyn were a fraud.

Maybe Putin is a fraud too?



[Joking]

 

[Christos_NIKA]

There will never be any way to prove the actual number of dead in the gulags or those who were just "disappeared" in the night during Stalin's purges. When I lived in Russia, the Russians would show me parks where they said the ashes of those who vanished were strewn about. Who knows if it's true. They certainly believe that 40-60 million were murdered, but in the end only God knows. Along with the purges, the USSR suffered an unfathomable scale of deaths in WWI and WWII. They still haven't demographically recovered from the last century, which was topped off in the 90s with rampant alcoholism deaths and mafia executions. There are towns and villages in Russia which are basically 7:1 women to men, because the men are just gone. Russia deserves sympathy and understanding for its demographic collapse, not ridicule.

Speaking of Solzhenitsyn, here is some recommended reading. Public domain:

https://archive.org/details/200YearsTogether

 

[Iacobus]

I haven't read Solzhenitsyn's texts other than a few chapters of the Gulag Archipelago which were mostly discussing the psychological perversity of the USSR's sociopolitical climate with the secret police and the prisons and all. I've heard from a Russophile who I generally respect that there is some shady aspects to Solzhenitsyn but I haven't got any details from him. I've not come across anything personally that would cause me to doubt his bonafides as an Orthodox Anti-Communist.

Is he considered a key proponent of the claimed scope & scale of deaths under the Soviets? Or is his material quantitatively agnostic? There could be US vs USSR propaganda going on and perhaps some selective politicking where US took advantage of his material being anti-Soviet while preferring to sweep under the rug his calls to return to God & critique of the Jews in Russia.

 

[Christos_NIKA]

I am no expert on him, but Solzhenitsyn was widely respected and revered in the west, and hated passionately by the Marxists and Communists. That is enough for me to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was an intense and devout man who had a very hard life.

 

[N°6]

I believe that not all of Solzhenitsyn's books were translated to English and as shown above, 200 Years Together has been banned so I don't think he was a Cold War stooge of the CFR.

 

[paternos]

Putin gave Solzhenitsyn an important medal/award and even visited him in person a few times.
Hardly think he would have done that if Solzhenitsyn were a fraud.

I wouldn't regard Putin as a beacon of truth; as a politician, he has his own agendas. The narrative surrounding the Gulags serves to bolster his image, casting him in the role of a savior compared to past regimes.

There will never be any way to prove the actual number of dead in the gulags or those who were just "disappeared" in the night during Stalin's purges. When I lived in Russia, the Russians would show me parks where they said the ashes of those who vanished were strewn about. Who knows if it's true. They certainly believe that 40-60 million were murdered, but in the end only God knows. Along with the purges, the USSR suffered an unfathomable scale of deaths in WWI and WWII. They still haven't demographically recovered from the last century, which was topped off in the 90s with rampant alcoholism deaths and mafia executions. There are towns and villages in Russia which are basically 7:1 women to men, because the men are just gone. Russia deserves sympathy and understanding for its demographic collapse, not ridicule.

Speaking of Solzhenitsyn, here is some recommended reading. Public domain:

https://archive.org/details/200YearsTogether

Well, on the number of deaths that's just what the Jews say on the holocaust. (we will never prove the real numbers) It matters if 40-60 million were murdered in Gulags or that 200.000 died in work camps. The numbers you call are excessively high. Just like 7:1 villages, because the men are just gone. ..

Could you deliver some sources for these numbers?

What do you mean with: Russia deserves sympathy and understanding for its demographic collapse, not ridicule.
This is a "holocaust argument", I can't question the numbers as the Russians are such victims?

@Iacobus From what I have read it is mostly qualitatively giving an insight in the mechanics and the minds. And it's "literature", not a research paper by a historian. (no numbers are called)

I believe that not all of Solzhenitsyn's books were translated to English and as shown above, 200 Years Together has been banned so I don't think he was a Cold War stooge of the CFR.

Good point. Would say that's a good indicator he's not a "Western shill"

 

[William Faulkner]

The current trajectory we are on leads one to believe that Solzhenitsyn will become an even more important literary figure in the 21st Century. I've always wanted to read 200 Years Together.

 

[Christos_NIKA]

Good point. Would say that's a good indicator he's not a "Western shill"

Some of you might not be old enough to remember, but back in the 70s, Solzhenitsyn was roundly blasted for his moralistic criticism of US society and government. He and his family lived an isolated hermetic life in a corner of Vermont, and was viewed by perceptive folk as being a great man of our time, but by everyday Americans he was viewed with suspicion and as an ungrateful weirdo. It was no surprise that after the fall of the USSR, he soon returned to live in Russia. I don't think he ever enjoyed living in the US.

 

[Vas Incrementum]

Some of you might not be old enough to remember, but back in the 70s, Solzhenitsyn was roundly blasted for his moralistic criticism of US society and government. He and his family lived an isolated hermetic life in a corner of Vermont, and was viewed by perceptive folk as being a great man of our time, but by everyday Americans he was viewed with suspicion and as a weirdo. It was no surprise that after the fall of the USSR, he soon returned to live in Russia. I don't think he ever enjoyed living in the US.

That reminds me of a story I read recently about a Muslim couple who converted to Christianity and moved to the US to escape persecution. In their own country they were evangelists working in secret, risking torture and death if they got found out. Despite that, after a few years in the US the wife turned to her husband and said, "let's go home, living here is like being in a Satanic lullaby".

She perfectly summed up in one sentence the addiction to comfort and convenience that has spiritually crippled so many of us in the West.

 

[Wutang]

In our part of the internet isn't a big test to see if someone is legit or not is whether they talk about the JQ? Solzhenitsyn has and he specifically said the Js were a big reason for the Communist takeover of Russia.

I've said that a big flaw in our scene is the reflexive contratarian attitude. There's a portion of people that automatically thinks someone who gets any degree of mainstream acceptance must be a shill.

 

[Blade Runner]

She perfectly summed up in one sentence the addiction to comfort and convenience that has spiritually crippled so many of us in the West.

This is one of the things that is fairly relativistic about the world, generations, and people. If you go from difficult survival to largesse, you'll either love it or hate it, and I think that is dependent on if you are a traditional person and know at least what Godliness is, even if you aren't all that good at acquiring it. Am I addicted to comfort? Possibly, but it's hard to know when you know only that which is a baseline around you. Right?

It's sorta like the old maxim, "One complains according to what he is accustomed." There is a plan for all of us, mired in our sins, even. I'm personally very skeptical of any really large differences in humans on a population or group level, though, in the sense that most people will act better or worse basically as a result of the immediate atmosphere. I commonly use the example of what I consider the idiocy of the common man, who let's say is poor. He acts like he is somehow more noble than the rich guy, when both you and I know that if the poor guy won the lottery, he'd all of a sudden become a "conservative" to keep his money, having previously been a communist when he had nothing. It's quite funny, in fact. Nammean?

 

[Bird]

Speaking of Solzhenitsyn, here is some recommended reading. Public domain:

https://archive.org/details/200YearsTogether

If you like to listen to the audiobook:

 

[JR5]

Personally I liked the Gulag Archipelago. I read all three volumes and it was an exhausting and not a pleasant read, and I had to force myself forward at many points. The story told rang true to me, although the numbers of dead may be wrong as there was mass censorship and it was impossible to derive real figures from anecdotes. The west capitalized on Solzhenitsyn's work in order to portray the Soviet Union as evil, but nothing suggests to me that he was ever part of the globohomo apparatus. Indeed, as others pointed out above he did write a book about the Jewish role in the revolution which was suppressed in the west, prevented from an English translation. If one is going to be reflexively anti-whatever is highlighted in the news one is going to be easily led astray as well; one must ultimately use one's own judgment to come to terms with things.

One of my favorite Solzhenitsyn quotes is as follows:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn’t change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.”

 

[jaguarcat]

I'd say take any claims by Solzhenitsyn and divide them at least by 2. A lot of his writing is creative fiction, I believe, but not completely fake either. His rare surname in Russian, by the way, literally comes from the word "liar". His name is likely not Russian and many believe he was a zionist. Not sure if it's true, his mother was from very wealthy supposedly Ukrainian family and lost wealth in the Revolution.