Posted on 08/08/2008 8:58:57 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's cantankerous side is exposed in a letter he sent to The Times in 1974, the year of his expulsion from the Soviet Union, that was never published in English because of its controversial content.
The letter, consisting of two closely typed pages in Russian, survives in this newspaper's archive, alongside the dissident's hand-written envelope.
Solzhenitsyn, who died on Sunday, wrote in his characteristic emotionally charged tone to vent his outrage at Zhores Medvedev, a fellow exile who became famous for exposing a serious nuclear accident in the Ural mountains in the 1950s.
The dissident, writing from his new home in Zurich, accused Dr Medvedev of being an apologist for the regime and of making public statements that served the Soviet empire better than the “whole Soviet propaganda apparatus”.
But Dr Medvedev, 83, told The Times this week that Solzhenitsyn's accusations were “absolute rubbish” and that the slurs were typical of an egotistical man who habitually cut off his friends when they ceased to be useful to him.
Speaking at his home in Mill Hill, northwest London, Dr Medvedev said that the letter was designed to generate a public row so the world would know they were no longer friends.
“It is not anger,” he said. “It is cold calculation - a normal episode in which I was insulted a little. I did write a book about him. Everybody knew that we were friends, so it would be unnatural for us to stop talking. So if he wanted to cut [communication], he would have to do something cruel.”
Solzhenitsyn claimed that his friend had made a “mockery of the truth” by declaring, in a radio interview a year earlier, that using the term “Soviet regime” was an unfair slur on the Soviet Union's elected government.
(Excerpt) Read more at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk ...
Is it just me, or does it seem that some people really go for the throat when certain people die?
It’s as if they can’t stand that someone might get some respect at their passing.
It’s kinda shameful IMO.
His letter reads acurately to me.
September 11, 1974
Sir,
For some time now Zh. Medvedev has been tireless in exploiting the confidence with which the Western public has placed in him as a reliable witness of and commentator on Soviet life.
In the summer of 1973 he declared in a radio interview (I quote from memory but almost word for word): “Do not use the expression ‘Soviet regime’; the word ‘regime’ always has a pejorative sense, while we have an elected government as in Western countries and it rules us on the basis of our constitution.”
For those of us listening to the radio in the Soviet Union this was of course a mockery of the truth. It was like a spit in the face, however pleasant it might be for some people in the West to believe that the most terrible dictatorship in the world was no more.
In the spring of 1974, during his tour of the U.S.A., Zh. Medvedev drew a reassuring picture of the cessation of political persecution in the U.S.S.R. Although this (false) picture evoked a strong protest among Soviet émigrés present, who leapt up to name a number of people recently arrested, it was natural for the Westerners to believe him: was it not, after all, the word of a man who had not so long before suffered himself?
Surely he would not betray those who remained behind or draw a false picture of their situation? Surely he would not mislead that same public in the world outside, to whom he owed his own salvation?
And now in Norway this distinguished and self-assured witness has announced that the practice of committing sane persons to psychiatric hospitals has ended, that “in the last year I do not know of a single case which could be compared with my own.” To be compared in what respect? In respect of the fear which gripped one’s heart? Or in respect of the speed and ease with which one’s case was ended? Or in the respect of all those other cases, of which dozens of names are known and thousands implied, of all those who refused to comply or surrender, those whom nobody knows, living in remote parts of the U.S.S.R.? Only recently - to quote one example - the world learnt that SVETLANA SHRANKO had been committed to a psychiatric hospital (and we do not know how she is being treated there) for a selfless effort to prevent the air of Ryazen being polluted by a factory built illegally by the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. For trying to protect the environment - into a psychiatric hospital!
It is amazing how Zh. Medvedev always knows how to say things which find favour with the Soviet Government, and how he says them in such a timely and clever way that the whole Soviet propaganda apparatus could not do it better. Is it not more beneficial both for those who live in freedom and for those who are oppressed that the mighty Soviet Government should not be annoyed, that one should never demand anything from it or accuse it of anything out loud, but that one should only ask it, quietly and humbly, to show some good will (which it has never manifested in any gesture of magnanimity towards anyone, unless forced to do so and then only on the basis of cold calculation)?
It would follow that the Nobel Prize should be awarded only to those persons to whom the Soviet Government will not object. And so the need would arise to discredit out national hero, Sakharov. According to reports of the speech Medvedev made recently at the Nobel Institute, he offered this comment:
“You must analyse and weigh up how great a contribution Academician Sakharov made to the cause of peace and how great - to kindling the flames of war.”
Let us ask rather who in the Soviet Union originated the idea of the relaxation of world tension. Who, without any thought for himself, hung around the court houses in the rain, was pursued by the police, and went on a hunger strike in the defence of political prisoners? And who played a decisive role in forcing the liberation of Zh. Medvedev himself?
A. Solzhenitstyn
Zurich
Anyone who is anti-communist or even non-communist is sinister to the Left.
That’s even worse.
Solzhenitsyn went even further up in my book.
While in recent times A.I.S. had taken a turn for the pro-Putin, I can say easily that he was right in the past and what he said here was right. The other guy sounds like a small person.
Thank you Norman. I appreciate you mentioning your take on this.
In fairness, there is some background to this story. The Medvedev brothers were active dissidents, but they were not anti-Communist dissidents the way that Solzhenitsyn, Bukovsky, and others were.
The Medvedevs were among those who believed that Stalin had corrupted the Soviet regime, while Solzehnitsyn and others believed—rightly—that Communism was corrosive and evil from its first day.
Yep, Trotsky was a “dissident” too.
You’re welcome, D1. Good night. :-)
(Let’s hope the Georgians kick those sacks of scumsucking ruskie SCUM outta there!)
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