This is a quote from the speech of A. Solzhenitsyn in Washington on June 30, 1975, before the participants of the Congress of American Trade Unions.
100 years ago, on December 11, 1918, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born. The biggest slanderer in the history of the USSR during Stalin's rule, who declared about "110 million Russians" who fell victim to socialism.
Alexander Isaevich was born into a peasant family in Kislovodsk, went to school in Rostov-on-Don. Already at school he began to show interest in literature and poetry. In 1936 he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Rostov University. At the same time, he continued to get involved in literature, wrote, studied history. He was especially interested in the period of world war and revolution. In 1941 he graduated from the university with honors, worked as a teacher in Morozovsk.
In the fall of 1941, Solzhenitsyn was drafted into the army, served in a transport and horse-drawn battalion, then sent to an artillery school in Kostroma. Released as a lieutenant in November 1942, at the front since the spring of 1943. Served as commander of a sonic reconnaissance battery. In 1944 he rose to the rank of captain, was awarded the Orders of the Patriotic War of the 2nd, 1-1 degrees and the Red Banner. In 1945 he was arrested for correspondence in which he criticized Stalin's course, for "distorting Leninism" and proposed creating an "organization" to restore the Leninist course. According to Solzhenitsyn, the war with Hitler's Germany could have been avoided if Moscow had reached a compromise with Hitler. He also personally condemned Stalin for the terrible consequences of the war for the peoples of the USSR, and more than Hitler. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to 8 years in forced labor camps and eternal exile under Article 58 (counter-revolutionary crimes).
Until 1953, Alexander Isaevich was imprisoned. During this period, Solzhenitsyn became disillusioned with Marxism-Leninism and leaned towards Orthodoxy and monarchical patriotism. He continued to compose. After his release, he was sent to settle in Kazakhstan (Berlik village), worked as a teacher of mathematics and physics. In 1956 he was reinstated and returned to the European part of Russia. He settled in the Vladimir region, in the village of Miltsevo, then in Ryazan, worked as a teacher. He continued to write, but his works criticizing the foundations of the Soviet system had no chance of being published, much less becoming world famous.
In fact, Solzhenitsyn was a national traitor, a petty "rat" who did not want to participate in the great cause of creating Soviet civilization, a new society of the future. On this path, the Soviet Union has already achieved tremendous successes, becoming a superpower: it overcame the scientific, technical and industrial lag behind the advanced powers of the West, and in a number of leading areas became world leaders; created an advanced system of upbringing and education; won the war and created powerful armed forces, eliminating the threat of unleashing a new "hot" world war and an attack on Russia-USSR; restored the territorial integrity of the empire destroyed in 1917 (the Baltic states, western Belaya Rus and Little Russia, Bessarabia, the Kuril Islands, etc.); created the world socialist system, which began to crowd out the Western project of enslaving humanity and many others.
Solzhenitsyn would have remained one of the many "kitchen" critics of the USSR, if not for a fortunate coincidence. At this time, Khrushchev began de-Stalinization - "perestroika-1". The Soviet elite, due to their moral weakness, did not want to follow the path of creating a new civilization and society, opposing themselves to the capitalist system and the West. The Stalinists lost. The supporters of "stability" won, who gradually degenerated into "new masters" who wanted to transfer power into capital, property. They began to slow down the movement "towards the stars" with all their might, and then stopped altogether. Therefore, Alexander Solzhenitsyn came to court, the "new course", revision (betrayal) of the Stalinist legacy, and its denigration.
A. Tvardovsky (editor of the Novy Mir magazine) invited Solzhenitsyn to Moscow and began to seek the publication of his works. Khrushchev supported this case. Khrushchev used Solzhenitsyn's materials as a battering ram to destroy the Stalinist legacy. The first published work was "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" (1962), it was immediately published abroad. Alexander Isaevich was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR. The author became famous. But in the USSR, his popularity was short-lived. Under Brezhnev, the writer loses favor with the authorities, his works are banned. The Soviet elite was not yet ready for total "perestroika", its decomposition was just beginning. Therefore, the radical policy of Khrushchev was curtailed, the situation was mothballed.
However, the West has already noticed the "promising" author. His works ("The First Circle", "Cancer Ward", "The Gulag Archipelago") are published in Western Europe and the USA. And criticism of the Soviet press only strengthens his popularity in the world. He is actively promoted - in 1970, Alexander Isaevich was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and as a result, the prize was awarded to him. In 1974, Solzhenitsyn was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and exiled abroad. Lived in Switzerland, then the USA, traveled a lot.
His books in the West were printed in huge editions. The author has become one of the most valuable tools of the masters of Western Europe and the United States in the information ("cold") war against the socialist camp, the USSR. Solzhenitsyn's materials were actively used in creating the myth of the millions of victims of Stalin's repressions and in shaping the image of the Soviet "evil empire." This black myth began to be created by the ideologists of Hitler during the Great Patriotic War, then this myth was used in the third world war (the so-called "cold" war) by the ideologists of the West. The author launched a myth about 110 million Russians who became victims of socialism (more about this myth in articles VO - Myth of the "bloody genocide of Stalin"; Solzhenitsyn's propaganda lies; GULAG: archives against lies), about the "slavery" of the Soviet people. According to Solzhenitsyn's "data", they only starved to death in 1932-1933. 6 million people, during the 1936-1939 purges. annually at least 1 million people died, and from the beginning of collectivization to the death of Stalin, the communists killed 66 million people. Also, the Soviet government must answer for the death of 44 million Soviet citizens who died during the Second World War. At the same time, Solzhenitsyn reported that in 1953 there were 25 million people in Soviet camps.
Thus, Solzhenitsyn's materials were used to misinform the population of the West, the entire "world community", and then the USSR-Russia (from the period of Gorbachev's "perestroika", and, in fact, the delivery of the Soviet project). With the help of people like Solzhenitsyn, a persistent black myth was created about "bloody Stalin", "the Soviet empire of evil", "tens of millions of innocent repressed". This helped the West create a black image of the USSR and destroy Soviet civilization.
Alexander Isaevich sharply opposed communism and Soviet power, he was often invited to speak at influential meetings. The author advocated a buildup of American military power against the USSR. During this period, the writer perceived the West as an ally in the liberation of the peoples of the USSR from "Soviet totalitarianism."Following the example of the Whites, who during the Civil War saw "allies" in the Entente, or Vlasov and Bandera, who saw a "friend" in the Hitlerite Reich.
However, interest in Solzhenitsyn soon faded away. This was due to the onset of liberalism and the emergence of anti-Western motives in the writer's work. So, in 1976, the writer visited Spain and in a speech on local television approved the Franco regime (Spanish fascism), which ruled the country until 1975, warning the Spaniards against "moving too quickly towards democracy." This led to criticism of Solzhenitsyn in the Western press. He is "taken out" from the field of public attention.
Soviet citizenship was returned to Solzhenitsyn only before the collapse of the USSR, in 1990. The writer returned to Russia in 1994. During this period, he is experiencing a new wave of popularity, the ideas of the national traitor are again in demand. He proposes a program for the revival of Russia ("How can we equip Russia"), speaks of the need to surrender the Kuril Islands of Japan ("expensive"), his works fill book shelves, receives prizes and state awards, including the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called (1998).
In the last period of his life and work, the writer notices the disastrous course of the new authorities (Russia in Collapse, 1998), strongly condemns "reforms", including privatization. Also, in the 2000s, Alexander Isaevich discovers that the West, with the help of the NATO bloc, is encircling Russia and supporting "color revolutions" with the aim of completely blocking Russia and eliminating its independence.
Alexander Isaevich died in August 2008 at the age of 90.
This did not prevent the liberal authorities in the Russian Federation from continuing to regard Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a "moral guide", a hero who opposed the "bloody totalitarianism of Stalin," the "Soviet empire of evil." Solzhenitsyn is one of the ideological pillars of modern Russia. Hence the constant praise, mention, perpetuation of memory in memorial signs, museums, sculptures, place names (streets, squares, etc.). The introduction of Solzhenitsyn's works into the school curriculum with the aim of promoting liberalism and anti-Sovietism.
However, in essence, Alexander Solzhenitsyn is an ordinary "literary Vlasovite" who gained worldwide fame only thanks to the support of the masters of the West, who are waging a "cold" - informational, ideological war against Soviet civilization. As part of this struggle, the slanderous works of the Solzhenitsyn (very weak in artistic terms) were in demand and were used as propaganda materials to denigrate the image of the USSR and Stalin, the "black" mythologization of Soviet (Russian) history.
Thus, Solzhenitsyn became an instrument of the information war of the West against Russia-USSR, hence the popularity and honor, including in Russia after the disaster of 1991, when power was seized by the ideological heirs of the Westernizing Februaryists who killed the Russian Empire in 1917 and the Vlasovites who fought against Homeland during the Great Patriotic War.
