(b.December 11, 1918), a Russian author. He was imprisoned by Joseph Stalin from 1945–53. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, but was not allowed to leave Russia to accept it until the Soviet Government expelled him from the country, February 13, 1974. Alexander Solzhenitsyn proceeded to publish his telling book, The Gulag Archipelago, 1974–79, which won international acclaim.
On June 30, 1975, while speaking in Washington, D.C., Alexander Solzhenitsyn stated:
In pre-revolutionary Russia, during the 80 years before the revolution—years of the revolutionary movement when there were attempts of the Tsar’s life, assassination of a Tsar, revolution—during these years about 17 persons a year were executed. The famous Spanish Inquisition, during the decades when it was at the height of its persecution, destroyed perhaps 10 persons a month. In the Archipelago—I cite a book which was published by the Cheka in 1920, proudly reporting on its revolutionary work in 1918 and 1919 and apologizing that its data were not quite complete—in 1918 and 1919 the Cheka executed, without trial, more than a thousand persons a month! This was written by the Cheka itself, before it understood how this would look to history.
At the height of Stalin’s terror in 1937–38, if we divide the number of persons executed by the number of months, we get more than 40,000 persons shot per month! Here are the figures: 17 a year, 10 a month, more than 1,000 a month, more than 40,000 a month! …
Roosevelt, in Teheran, during one of his last toasts, said the following: “I do not doubt that the three of us”—meaning Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin—“lead our peoples in accordance with their desires, in accordance with their aims.” How are we to explain this? Let the historians worry about that. At the time, we listened and were astonished. We thought, “when we reach Europe, we will meet the Americans, and we will tell them.” I was among the troops that were marching towards the Elbe. A little bit more and I would have reached the Elbe and would have shaken the hands of your American soldiers. But just before that happened, I was taken off to prison and my meeting did not take place.
But now, after all this great delay, the same hand has thrown me out of the country and here I am, instead of the meeting at the Elbe. After a delay of 30 years, my Elbe is here today. I am here to tell you, as a friend of the United States, what, as friends, we wanted to tell you then, but which our soldiers were prevented from telling you on the Elbe.
There is another Russian proverb: “The yes-man is your enemy, but your friend will argue with you.” It is precisely because I am the friend of the United States, precisely because my speech is prompted by friendship, that I have come to tell you. …
One of your leading newspapers, after the end of Vietnam, had a full headline: “The Blessed Silence.” I would not wish that kind of “blessed silence” on my worst enemy. I would not wish that kind of national unity on my worst enemy. I spent 11 years in the Archipelago, and for half of my lifetime I have studied this question. …
It is not detente if we here with you today can spend our time agreeably while over there people are groaning and dying and in psychiatric hospitals. Doctors are making their evening rounds, for the third time injecting people with drugs which destroy their brain cells. …
You know the words from the Bible: “Build not on sand, but on rock.” There has to be a guarantee that this will not be broken overnight. …
Lenin’s teachings are that anyone is considered to be a fool who doesn’t take what’s lying in front of him. If you can take it, take it. If you can attack, attack. But if there’s a wall, then go back. And the Communist leaders respect only firmness and have contempt and laugh at persons who continually give in to them. …
There are tens of thousands of political prisoners in our country … under compulsory psychiatric treatment. Let’s take Vladimar Bukovsky as an example. It was proposed to him, “All right, we’ll free you. Go to the West and shut up.” And this young man, a youth today on the verge of death said: “No, I won’t go this way. I have written about the persons whom you have put in insane asylums. You release them and then I’ll go West.” This is what I mean by that firmness of spirit to stand up against granite and tanks. …
I would like to call upon America to be more careful with its trust and prevent those wise persons who are attempting to establish even finer degrees of justice and even finer legal shades of equality—some because of their distorted outlook, others, because of short-sightedness and still others out of self-interest—from falsely using the struggle for peace and for social justice to lead you down a false road. Because they are trying to weaken you; the are trying to disarm your strong and magnificent country in the face of this fearful threat—one that has never been seen before in the history of the world. And I call upon you: ordinary working men of America … do not let yourselves become weak.3797
In May of 1983, as he received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, Solzhenitsyn expressed:
Instead of the ill-advised hopes of the last two centuries, which have reduced us to insignificance and brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can only reach with determination for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently pushed away.3798
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in commenting on the forces precipitating our culture’s decay, stated laconically:
Man has forgotten God, that is why this has happened.3799
Alexander Solzhenitsyn stated:
If we don’t know our own history, we will simply have to endure all the same mistakes, sacrifices, and absurdities all over again.3800