Solzhenitsyn Book Infuriates Russian Jews

News Max ^ | Jan. 25, 2003

[Nachum]

"But in the camps where I was kept, it was different. The Jews whose experience I saw - their life was softer than that of others."

All except for my Russian Jewish friends who were tortured or died in the camps.

[PaulJ]

"If Solzhenitsyn writes that there were many Jews in the NKVD, it will increase the passions of anti-Semitism, which has deep roots in Russian history. I think it is better not to discuss such a question now."

I guess PC is not just a US phenomenon.

[Alouette]

But in the camps where I was kept, it was different. The Jews whose experience I saw - their life was softer than that of others."

I read THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO, and also THE FIRST CIRCLE, Solzhenitsyn's novel based on his own experience. He bragged that he was able to get his poor little dissident self assigned to an "island of paradise", a "Club Red" for scientists and academics. In the camps where he was kept, EVERYONE had it easy.

Here is a memoir of a Rabbi who survived the Gulag, and he did not have as comfy a vacation as Solzhenitsyn.

[Argus]

Solzhenitsyn's writings always need to be taken in their full context. His enemies have used selective quotation to accuse him of anti-Semitism before, without justification.

The fact that many of Lenin's collaborators in the Bolshevik Party, and in the Russian and European revolutionary movement generally, were of Jewish origin is indisputable. It's worth noting as a historical anomaly with readily identifiable causes. It is not anti-Semitic to point this out, unless one veers into Nazi ravings about "Judeo-Bolshevism". I doubt very much that this is Solzhenitsyn's thesis.

Now Stalin - there was a real anti-Semite.

[cynicom]

Solzhenitsyn is totally correct. One of the first laws promulgated by the communists was a law making anti-semitism a crime.

[aristeides]

I guess PC is not just a US phenomenon.

But it seems to be more virulent here. I checked a couple of weeks ago, and French and German translations of the first volume of this two-volume work are available from amazon.fr and amazon.de. The French translation appeared in March 2002. Yet no English translation seems to be available, not here in the U.S., not in the UK, nowhere. Got to wonder why is that.

[Nachum]

Totally correct in saying that Jews in the camps had it easier? That is utter nonsense.

[riri]

Well, I guess the Jews that survived camps did have it easier than those Jews who perished in the pogroms.

[A. Pole]

"If Solzhenitsyn writes that there were many Jews in the NKVD, it will increase the passions of anti-Semitism, which has deep roots in Russian history. I think it is better not to discuss such a question now."

Solzhenitsyn is fanatically committed to the truth, no matter if it is pleasant or not , or what are the consequences. I think that he believes that truth is the path to God. He must be a very difficult person in his private life.

[cynicom]

He did time, I will have to accept his word.

[A. Pole]

"If Solzhenitsyn writes that there were many Jews in the NKVD, it will increase the passions of anti-Semitism, which has deep roots in Russian history. I think it is better not to discuss such a question now."

Hmm, almost every person in Eastern Europe knows about NKVD and early Bolshevik regime. I do not think that this can be the key point of his book.

Solzhenitsyn is fanatically committed to the truth, no matter if it is pleasant or not , or what are the consequences. I think that he believes that truth is the path to God. He must be a very difficult person in his private life.

I do not understand how he was able to find a woman willing to marry him?

[TexanToTheCore]

The participation of Jews in the prerevolutionary and postrevolutionary Bolshevism is well documented by Robert Conquest as well as others. Many Jews felt, as they do now, that they were the underdogs and tended to gravitate to underdog political movements. There is nothing new to this information.

[Bahbah]

"Yevgeny Satanovsky"

Not a very felicitous last name, IMHO.

[Burkeman1]

Agree. There is nothing new here that should be considered controversial.

[RKV]

I recall that Solzhenitsyn divorced and re-married.

[Maigret]

Solzhenitsyn is fanatically committed to the truth, no matter if it is pleasant or not , or what are the consequences. I think that he believes that truth is the path to God. He must be a very difficult person in his private life.

I'm sure you are right on both scores, must be why I love him so much.

[Nachum]

And what about my friends who "did time"? Is their testimony untrue because Solzhenitsyn wrote a book? How many Jews would have had to go to Siberia, or Lefertovo prison to satisfy one who takes this man's word?

I have plenty of people I can bring forward who suffered horribly in the camps. Just as much as anyone else. This is my experience. Jews suffered just like everyone else under the communists. What about the Jews that died in Pogroms, did he mention them in his book? Did he mention the mobs that slaughtered men, women, and children? Did he mention Baba Yar? Did he mention a special Soviet "Jewish" secret police, dedicated only to sending their fellow Jews to prison or worse?

Jews were systematically sent to Siberia for nothing more than practicing Judaism. They were tortured for teaching Judaism. They were executed for saying anything in public about it. Did this author mention those people? Solzhenitxyn knew nothing of this, and now he is an expert? I take his word for nothing about the plight of Soviet Jews. Not because he is hateful, only because he is ignorant.

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

To explain the actions of the Kiev cheka [secret police - forerunners of the KGB] only by the fact that two thirds were Jews, is certainly incorrect.

Right. It would be like blaming the Germans for the Holocaust just because the Camp guards tended to be Germans. (ROFLMAO)

I believe that the Soviet Jews could be classified into 3 main groups: the Mensheviks who were the leftists non on Lenin's side (the Bolsheviks). Then, the Bolshevik Jews themselves were split between the followers of Trotsky who advocated spreading the revlutionary terror world-wide and the followers of Stalin who were happy with the 'go slow' method of fully terrorizing the Russian first. The Stalinists, as they happened to be in control until the 50's, tended not to be very kind with the Jews who seemed to be follwing Trotsky.