SOLZHENITSYN'S CRY TO THE SOVIET LEADERS:
Mills, Richard M. & Mills, Judith M.
the Soviet people, nowhere else- put out the light, and prayed for rain. measure and say that if there were, though satellite colonies provided con- The next day the flat across the...
...that he is appealing to the leaders' Russians and the other nationalities in As we lurch toward the ultimate consense of realism since they are hard- the Soviet Union...
...Spiritual growth does not, however, tual strength and an instinctive sense The solution is to abandon the West- mean that the possibility for resuming of justice and morality...
...The looking to a culture that predates all are forced to work and the family Baptist Alyoshka explains to Ivan that formal political organization and which structure suffers...
...In an essay on Solzhenitsyn While wishing to avoid the excesses (councils) would be particularly importwhich appeared in Paris in 1970 Fr...
...by Thomas P. Whitney idea of humanizing Marxism, or the between China and the Soviet Union...
...at a cost of Soviet Union-pretty much a loner, of the Los Angeles Times...
...And providing the police in- men who had made the Revolution in does in his Letter to the Soviet Leaders, formers...
...It may help to form from Orthodoxy...
...eled that story from the first fragmen9 August 1974: 436...
...At several cussion of which evokes strong emo- numbing season, that soporific summer junctures in its Solzhenitsyn remarks tions and disagreements among both and fall of 1972 when we all fell asleep...
...Additionally, the Western powers that be...
...They make a "good day" by virtue of his way to Ivan Denisovich and Spiridon...
...Harper & Row, $3.50 physicist Andrei Sakharov's enlightened The U.S.S.R...
...cal dismemberment of the U.S.S.R...
...The re- turned to "idealism" and "mysticism...
...The Letter can be considered as a This book is the story of how Bob contribution to the dissident critique RALPH MCINERNY teaches in the philos- Woodward and Carl Bernstein-now ophy department at the University of known widely as "Woodstein"-unravof Soviet politics...
...His discontent with the Stalin- resiliency which permits him to adapt itsyn's literary work, if underplayed, ist period is well evidenced in his liter- continually without ever betraying his and it paved the way for the full-blown ary works...
...In the Letter he has no preciate the pessimism and the acerbic of Biblical and Christian inspiration...
...but system" plainly did not work: Congress the leaders, and they would be joined has avoided posing the harder question did not check or balance, prosecutors in their intractability by a large number of how it is to be done...
...An cepts even these as fellow participants Union, ought to be developed ration- answer to the dilemma lies in other of in life...
...Foreign they coincided with those made in the stern warning to the Soviet leaders that nations have come in to carry off invalWest...
...of democracy he equally shuns tyranny ant in this context...
...a nation-people that permits Kostogloment, guided by Marxist dictates and The theme is further developed in First tov to love Russia despite his plight selfish concerns, takes no notice...
...He calls Solzhenitsyn the Russians have been accustomed to might berate Solzhenitsyn for not realizfirst national writer of the Soviet period...
...Conflicting interpreAmalrik, or Maj...
...He was told anism which the Russians experienced...
...To be sure, at each when the peasantry was left free to models of democracy are not attractive level of Soviet governance there is one develop itself...
...Forced collectivization suffering is a Christian good and that is perpetuated by the popular (peasant) and bureaucratization have led to gen- prison can be salutary: it provides the masses...
...The dissi- of perceiving things became clear when push to industrialize has placed undue dents' criticisms of Soviet reality were the Letter appeared...
...ment, are partisans of empire...
...Spiridon emern ideology of Marxism and substitute normal life is retained...
...By and Simon and Schuster, $8.95 South Asia-or is it superpower poli- large they have called for relatively intics, or some mixture of both...
...Without ples, but instead speaks the antiquated pollutions of history...
...Adam Ulam plaining himself to himself...
...General Grigorenko's tations of Marxism may precipitate war Tr...
...It is unlikely that Solzhenitsyn has asked a very old air brush from memory those languid the leaders would entertain the .thought question in the history of political days when CHEEP feinted us out of of abandoning the ideology which may thought-what is the best form of gov- our shoes, when the White House wove push them toward overcommitment on ernment...
...The mainland Chinese, for example, syn's work...
...throughh the centuries...
...He does so in a simple stateNow is the time to overcome both result of the medical treatment, he is ment approaching a folk proverb: the Tsarist and Marxist Russia's common left impotent...
...saw as inevitably leading to secularism), government of laws, not men...
...no longer seeks to recall the betrayed the mind and heart to race...
...The Russians, he says, have ally, according to sound ecological and his characters who managed to survive suffered enough...
...His position is unique did grind into action...
...would exist...
...CASSETTES that he had an "intuitive" sense of Again taking the middle ground, . on religious education, liturgy, Christianity very much like the Russian Solzhenitsyn maintains that freedom morality, sacraments, psychology folk in whom the Slavophils found does not mean complacency and licen- and faith, belief, prayer, social similar intuitions...
...camp) and survives...
...Which is to say, conscience fraught with possibilities that caused power...
...When the terror a human face, one may be permitted language of bourgeois democracy, began, the vibrations of the heroic pe- to say, there can be no socialism worth which in that context takes on a revoriod still in the air, these very same the name...
...of Time...
...won a stunning mandate for four more influence in Eastern Europe and physi- Like the other dissidents, but in his years...
...The main character, Nerzhin, acle cure...
...close at hand, within sight and sound...
...Yet he provides no means by which his tion, amnesty, marijuana and Tom EagEven more problematical are the sug- own radical ideas for transforming his leton, when-finally-Richard Nixon gestions of retrenchment in sphere of nation might be achieved...
...stitutional confrontation, it is easy to headed politicians...
...Wages are not Commonweal: 433 sufficient to support families...
...and they were the yard was empty, the house down the musicians, artists and poets would not same Soviet masses who made the street had been ransacked, the man at defect, flee, emigrate from it, even if Revolution in the name of the radiant the next workbench was unaccountably by doing so they knowingly place their new dawn and then walked away from absent, day after day after day...
...The metaphor of hav- ening list of reluctant sources, and ing one's cake and eating it too is much J. ANTHONY LUKAS, formerly of the almost doublehandedly kept the elusive New York Times, is senior editor of story alive...
...emphasis on economic progress to the easy for Westerners to accept when In it Solzhenitsyn has advanced a detriment of the environment...
...Conservatively inspiritual responsibility for his people...
...Circle: only a "zek" (prisoner) has an and which prompts the other cancer And, most detrimental to the moral immortal soul...
...It is this sense of a culture and eral demoralization, but the govern- opportunity to concentrate on the soul...
...which was unaffected, if not directly, then in the name of socialism, but quixotiis to say, to cultivating their gardens...
...He salvages from these because of the many shortcomings Sol- person whose word is law, and that is early years the soviets (councils) which zhenitsyn sees in them...
...Solzhenitsyn rejects tiousness, and order does not mean ar- action, ministry, Third World, the the West, its Marxism, its democracy, bitrariness and tyranny...
...positive concept of democracy, but he comments on Renaissance, EnlightenSolzhenitsyn thanked Schemann for ex- does have one of authoritarianism, but ment and on what Prof...
...C4 experience with democracy was limited at every level of governance those pow- P.O...
...identified with the Russian people, as the powers that be are self-appointed Send for your the moral basis of ' his authoritarian something very necessary to real au- FREE CATALOG political system...
...This can best be the period without losing their zest for moral strength in a more constructive done under the aegis of a benevolent life...
...Matryona in "Matrywith the Russian Soviet Federated Re- zhenitsyn at an impasse...
...Alyoshka and Nerzhin give no surprise to Western readers...
...endowed with great stamina and spirifoundations...
...Why...
...cremental modifications in the current J. ANTHONY LUKAS More interesting are what the reac- system...
...In Cancer bodies the very essence of this direct nationalism and patriotism...
...In publishing did not follow the evidence wherever of Russian nationalists (at home and his Letter he has staked out a unique it might lead, editors and reporters did abroad) who, quite unlike Solzhenit- place not only among the dissidents but not pursue the most important story syn's nationalism of ethnic retrench- also among the numerous critics of the of our time...
...Apparently, Solzhen- What can one make of Solzhenitsyn's Vladimir's (Orthodox) Theological itsyn sees himself as having found a political ideas...
...larly, Nerzhin's wife wonders if they the people be permitted to develop in Russia must release from her control will ever again resume their life to- their own way in the Russian Norththe satellite nations and the non-Russian gether: prison has crippled him...
...Simi- In the Letter Solzhenitsyn asks that trate on Russia's internal development...
...He at- Ideal for pastors and sisters, its technology and turns inward to tacks the existing Soviet political system DREs and teachers, high school and adult religious education groups, popular traditions, both political and for its arbitrariness in failing to observe parish councils and committees - ecclesiastical...
...have been present in Solzhenitsyn's natural wit and craftiness...
...he has east...
...It is also or even sometimes totally ignored, were strong sense of family and firm ties to pivotal to other aspects of his solution the adumbrations of a positive program the soil...
...It persecutes Rus- lead...
...Millions upon would the best of them feel compelled abandoned the "cadres" of the Revo- millions of victims: hardly a family to speak to power, not prophetically lution, and went back to sleep...
...Alexander Schmemann, Dean of St...
...And the proposals were tolerable the USSR is on the brink of a political uable natural resources...
...phils...
...Solzhenit- Ward's extended metaphor, Kostoglotov moral intuition when he solves the syn notes Stalin's success during World combats the cancer of Stalinism, under- problem of Stalin's morality, over which War II when he effectively substituted goes a cure (the hospital equals prison the more intellectual but less spiritual Orthodoxy and patriotism for Marxism...
...The major dissident CARL BERNSTEIN AND ductionism: Is it simply Marxism which writers have heretofore been underBOB WOODWARD is driving the U.S.S.R...
...He describes it as terminology, often doing so by saying akin to their idea of "law and order," an intuitive, even unconscious perception what they are not as in the case of while liberals will not particularly apof the world and man that grows out democracy...
...He is apt to Crewdson of the New York Times...
...The Letter has raised some funtions of the addressees of the Letter damental and sensitive questions, dis- How quickly we have forgotten that might be, the Soviet leaders...
...Although the Soviet Union is in the interests of his spiritual develop- those of Slavophil leanings to be Rusnow in ascendancy, its strength does ment...
...Russia's path of development neces- On the home front Marxism has left Dissidence entails two distinct fac- sarily should differ from Europe's...
...Solzhenitsyn is that he only partially clined American readers might find the He also marvels at the Christian nature clarifies the meanings of his political concept of authoritarianism somewhat of the literary works...
...as an example of the latter in which the values and will of the population, In his literary works Solzhenitsyn he manages both to misunderstand the the laws would be observed by the long searched for a moral outlook for workings of the jury system and not rulers, and independent centers of aulife and political organization and un- to appreciate the totality of the issues thority, particularly at the local level, beknownst to himself he really had involved...
...the name of a gorgeous vision of the and as in the case of Andrei Sakharov There was no way they could not splendid city could not have known (or Daniel, Sinyavsky, Amalrik, Bukhave known...
...Watergate and fastened instead on aborcommitment...
...Box 281 to an eight-month period in 1917-and ers are completely at the mercy of a Kansas City, MO 64141 even that version was a caricature of telephone call from the self-appointed Commonweal: 435 the raucousness of democracy...
...that counterrevolutionaries, act- and will grow longer), by invoking had just made the Revolution, created ing of course in the name of the Revo- the most ordinary principles of liberal a society unprecedented in history and lution, had been installed in absolute humanism...
...into increasing standably guarded and circumspect in involvement in the Middle East and their criticisms and suggestions...
...supports industrialization discussion of human progress...
...own way, Solzhenitsyn has answered It was, in short, a time when "the Here, one could expect no give from the question what is to be done...
...He consciously chooses a path sia's most valuable natural resource, not rest on the best or strongest of of isolation and deprivation...
...How one reacts to the School, recognized both the national middle way, and that he calls authori- Letter very much depends upon who one and Christian character of Solzhenit- tarianism, several types of which the is...
...that emerges in the Letter...
...ternational missions-and to concen- left him unfit for normal living...
...He feels that with only a modicum peoples of the Soviet Union...
...His answer is that no one a nearly seamless cover story, when emia world scale but at the same time legit- form is best in practice because govern- nent Washington correspondents dutiimizes their rule...
...What is questionable is Solzhen- 00000 0000 roles...
...free people are often patients to look longingly to Russia's well-being of the people, Marxism is denied one because of the vain life they mushrooms and Russia itself for a mirmilitantly atheistic...
...that socialism had been sub- vedev, Ginzburg . . . the list is long truer-of the "good Russians," who verted...
...The and flowering during the Enlighten- mains arbitrary law only until that soviets are reminiscent of the suppos- ment, is experiencing a crisis...
...It must be by coincidence with or disassociate themselves from reporters like Sy Hersch and John that in March of this year Brezhnev his ideas and programs...
...to the point here...
...He has abandoned suffering as authoritarianism deriving its moral basis ably in the Slavophil-Populist tradition...
...Ivan Denisovich is never really con- character but need not be a permanent Some of these ideas should come as vinced by Alyoshka and manages to condition...
...However, as a agonize...
...In a Slavophil context the soviets election campaigns and court decisions None of this is authoritarianism, says can be seen as a modern manifestation which undermine the prerogatives of Solzhenitsyn, but its perversion...
...Their cultural an indication of how widespread arbiwere significant to decision-making then basis, formed during the Renaissance trariness is...
...Sandy Smith 35 billion rubles in the next five years very much a gadfly...
...and arbitrariness...
...in the Letter...
...Because so many a Notre Dame...
...Solzhenitsyn has, in effect, "gone to That Solzhenitsyn responded warmSolzhenitsyn, very much like Tol- the people" for his answer and this is ly to certain features of the early poststoy, seems to have been using his liter- at the very heart of his concept of revolutionary period is apparent in his ary works to try to sort out elements nationality...
...as essential to national unity and and, in effect, choses a longer jail term The "people" were considered by strength...
...it is an ideal typology of authoritarian- has chidingly called in another context He claims that Schemann gave him ism which does not necessarily corresa fuller perspective on himself and his pond to all forms of Tsarist authoritariunderstanding of his world...
...There tors, a critique of existing reality and implications of these anachronistic ways are internal management problems...
...The "cure" forced upon wolfhound is right and the cannibal failing-the readiness to engage in in- him as the only means to survival has is wrong...
...Nicholas Horrock of Newswith even greater expenditures in the week began to play out their appointed future...
...Also phone call from above comes in comedly communal societal organization of offensive are the excesses of "democ- municating to him the higher arbitrary pre-history so idealized by the Slavo- racy run riot" in the form of noisy law...
...The reinvigorated soviets found it...
...In each first dissident publication to have of some dissidents tended toward na- case the Soviet Union neglects her docaused concern and even alarm in the tionalism or Slavophilism, a striving mestic needs in the interests of an Western media in almost twenty years...
...measure and say that if there were, though satellite colonies provided con- The next day the flat across the court- writers and intellectuals, dancers and tingents as well...
...No creative lives in extreme jeopardy...
...As he under- American Catholic experience, its Christianity (which the Slavophils stands it, authoritarianism involves a ecumenism, death and dying, etc...
...fer as to how...
...an end in itself...
...Jack announced a program to develop agri- remain in the West what he was in the Nelson, Ron Ostrow and Bob Jackson culture in the R.S.F.S.R...
...and militarization in the Third World Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Letter is the Rarely was it noted that the ideas as part of its Marxist program...
...It is a nationalism based positive portrayal of Radovich in First of solutions to the moral problems he not on political structures but on a Circle who protests Stalinist perversions sees facing his nation...
...They were Dubcek and Allende spoke of "so- revolution by an appeal to first princia new race, uncontaminated by the cialism with a human face...
...Spiridon, the Love of nation and respect for its writings, although not in so systematic peasant in First Circle has a vigor and people is a constant theme in Solzena form...
...JUDITH M. gers raw with phone calls to a lengthhe envisages as necessary to avoid eco- MILLS teaches Russian at Fordham...
...ing that the Soviet leaders have already This-because he has freely accepted The great obstacle to understanding given up Marxism...
...The proposals for improving it...
...And if this is true of the that the dream had become a night- ovsy, Chukovskaya, Litvinov, Med"good Germans," it is as true-it is mare...
...Other the dissident movement cannot ever be All the President's Men readers will find oversimplifications, re- the same again...
...BOOKS SOLZHENITSYN'S CRY TO THE SOVIET LEADERS RICHARD M. MILLS, JUDITH M. MILLS Letter to the Soviet so long as they involved heightening and ecological crisis which has at its Leaders the role of the Soviet middle class as root the adherence to a no longer conALEKSANDR I. SOLZHENITSYN did the suggestions of historian Andrei structive ideology...
...He is the author of The can of worms is opened up in the Letter Priest (Harper & Row...
...of direction the process will be ecologmaining regions, roughly coterminous This argumentation could leave Sol- ically sound (cf...
...to return to the past in the belief that international mission...
...belief in a culture and a people...
...modern, technologically- and progress- Ultimately, to be sure, the system On the other hand, Solzhenitsyn and oriented world...
...nor it-just that, relinquished power, one asked after him...
...More], a journalism review...
...Like and asks for Leninist purity, as well One way out was proposed in A Day the nineteenth century Slavophils he is as in Nerzhin's enchantment with Spiri9 August 1974: 434 don's stories about the NEP period democracy...
...It is time to test their "national" principles...
...Women in the Life of Ivan Denisovich...
...Senators like Sam the leaders agree that the Northeast and because very few people will be able Ervin and Daniel Inouye...
...Because in the Soviet Union growing in faith...
...In an of a natural popular system of organi- governments...
...These Solzhenitsyn drew unmistak- setting...
...But that person's word reas part of his authoritarian rule...
...But only partially noticed, sense of self...
...For one thing, their tive, executive and judicial power and Dept...
...Perhaps, more than a half- lutionary resonance and at the same men and women pointed the finger, century after the Revolution, it is per- time measures the depth of an hislocked the door, closed the shutters, missible to apply a simple-minded torical tragedy...
...This very con- voyages for peace" to Moscow and tation would be the likely way for poli- servative stance carries him to a con- Peking, when the voters shrugged off ticians to eliminate the problem of over- demnation of revolutions as disastrous...
...thoritarian government is missing: there For Russians democracy is not a are no independent centers of legislaviable alternative...
...cally, absurdly, in utter desperation and to punching the clock and paying the There was no way the men and wo- surely without hope, as Solzhenitsyn rent...
...It permits Solzhenitsyn to sian Orthodoxy which Solzhenitsyn sees reaches his fullest potential in prison love Russia despite Marxism...
...Rather than abandon ments must grow out of the character- fully reported the President's "historic the ideology, some form of reinterpre- people being governed...
...Each of these men has a nationalism of August 1914...
...Is Russia her- ona's House" who would not poison public (the RSFSR), the largest of the self left incapacitated because she has roaches lest the cat be killed and acfifteen republics comprising the Soviet been forced to endure Stalinism...
...The the nation in no better a position...
...prosecutors Siberia must be developed, but they dif- entirely either to associate themselves like Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski...
...logical problems...
...How could he resist tak- the very laws which it has itself put on for everyone with an interest in ing the Russian national church, so the books...
...He cites the Ellsberg case authoritarian order laws would reflect zation among the Eastern Slavs...
...itsyn's belief that the Northeast can be But through that limp summer and developed by a truncated Russia alone, REVIEWERS fall of 1972, two men rang doorbells without foreign help, and by a village in the middle of the night, pored over structure with the low-level technology RICHARD M. MILLS teaches political financial records, wore their index finscience at Fordham University...
Vol. 100 • August 1974 • No. 18
