One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world. ~ A Russian proverb
The birth centenary of Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), the legendary dissident writer of the erstwhile Soviet Union and a Nobel Laureate in literature (1970) was observed on December 11, 2018.
Karl Marx was born in 1818 and just after 100 years, Solzhenitsyn was born ‘to suffer wrong than to do wrong’ for a long period of his life. Since 2017 we have read articles on 50 years of the Naxalbari movement, 100 years of the Bolshevik Revolution, the bicentenary of Karl Marx, 100 years of World War I, not to forget the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi (1868-2018)
The so-called intellectuals of our country are by and large more interested in left-oriented politics. They are utterly confused after the collapse of Socialism in the Soviet Union and East European countries and the emergence of semi-capitalistic brand of socialism that is now practised in China.
The fellow-travellers believe that the dramatic change was the consequence of such conspiratorial reform as Glasnost (“openness”) initiated by the ‘renegade’ Gorbachov, the then KGB head and also the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU) during the 1980s. The fact of the matter is that the idea of Glasnost was not Gorbachov’s rather he only popularised the expression.
On November 12, 1969 Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in an open letter to the Secretariat of the Writers’ Union of the Russian Federation (RSFSR), a component of the Soviet Writers’ Union wrote, “Glasnost, forthright and total glasnost ~ this is the first prerequisite for the health of any society, including our own. Whoever does not desire glasnost for our country is indifferent to his fatherland and thinks of nothing but his personal gain. Whoever does not desire glasnost for his fatherland does not wish to cleanse it from diseases, but, rather to drive them inside, there to fester.”
We may or may not agree, no interpretation or investigation can reverse the course of history. On the contrary, if they, out of frustration, claim that the Solzhenitsyn-Sakharov-Gorbachov clique served the purpose of the CIA-initiated counter-revolution, nobody will be eager to argue with them. Let them live in their destined paradise. But we still believe that there must be some intelligent and sensible people in our country.
They have their independent judgment about Solzhenitsyn going through his eloquent and truthful writings wherein the author had depicted by his authentic experience of the toiling prisoners of the Gulag Archipelago and the slave labour camps and their tumour-like growth spread all over the ‘Soviet’ Empire.
But people may ask, ‘Why ‘Soviet’? Is it not a great lie?’ When the CPSU forcefully captured political power from the weak Russian administration in October 1917 raising the populist slogan “all power to the Soviets”, was not it a bluff ? Because after capturing power, in the 8th Congress of the CPSU held in March,1918, it was declared, “The Russian Communist Party must win for itself unbridled political mastery in the Soviets and practical control over all their work” (Bolshevik Revolution, Volume-1 by E.H.Carr).
At the end of the 1960s, Tvardovsky, the semi-liberal editor of Novi Mir, under the pressure of the higher echelon of the party, conveyed the party’s decision to Solzhenitsyn, “Because of your non-acceptance of the Soviet system, it would not be possible to publish your Cancer Ward.”
In reply to the letter, Solzhenitsyn wrote, “I am absolutely in favour of ‘that’ Soviet System which was truly existent only up to July, 1918”. After thorough investigation Hanna Arendt, a renowned scholar on social and political thought wrote, “The name ‘Soviet Union’ for post-revolutionary Russia has been a lie ever since.” (On Revolution)
Solzhenitsyn, in the concluding chapter of his Nobel Speech raised the question: “ What can literature do in the face of a remorseless assault of open violence? For in the struggle with lies, art has always triumphed and shall always triumph! Visibly, irrefutably for all! Lies can prevail against much in this world, but never against art.”
In the same chapter he reminded us that “violence does not and cannot exist by itself: It is invariably intertwined with the lie. They are linked in the most intimate, most organic and profound fashion: Violence cannot conceal itself behind anything except lies, and lies have nothing to maintain them save violence.”
On the day Solzhenitsyn was arrested, February 12, 1974, he released the text of Live Not by Lies. The next day, he was exiled to the West, where he received a hero’s welcome. It is evident that Solzhenitsyn had to struggle hard for a long period against the robust totalitarian regime simply because he was true to himself as a writer and couldn’t surrender to falsehood in the name of so-called ‘Socialist Realism’.
So, when he was compelled to leave his fatherland he was deeply concerned about the fate of his fellow citizens. Here, in this appeal we are amazed to find a unique and rare expression of profound political wisdom inspired by deep spiritual insight of Solzhenitsyn. There is no doubt about his vast contribution to literature.
One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and some other short stories were only published in Novi Mir after de-Stalinization. Other major writings ~ First Circle, Cancer Ward, Gulag Archipelago, Oak and the Calf and the particular short story Matriona’s House, which has a permanent place in world literature, could not be published in his own country.
The 6000 pages of The Red Wheel, written while staying in Vermont, USA, is Solzhenitsyn’s multivolume epic on the 1917 revolutionary cataclysm in the Soviet regime, as well as the events leading up to the revolution. In The Red Wheel, Solzhenitsyn ‘aims to bring to light the underlying complex meaning of “1917”, to uncover the multiple sources of the Soviet tragedy’.
Hence the book is philosophical historiography as well as literary art. Through these creative writings and his rare reflections in some important essays he has proved himself as a thinker of a high order. To understand Solzhenitsyn as a great thinker, this little piece of appeal is more than enough for our discussion.
He has analysed that the ruthless authoritarian state is based on violence, which is a means to achieve an end. That is simply a lie ~ a false ideology. It is very interesting to note that Mahatma Gandhi had reached the same conclusion just from the opposite angle. Gandhiji’s search for truth was an end in itself, as he chose non-violence as a means to an end.
Solzhenitsyn was acutely aware that fascism, Nazism or totalitarianism are all examples of gigantic collective power to ensure that people cannot defend themselves. If anybody wants to fight against the lies of the administration, he should start fighting against the “lies in himself”.
So, in his appeal, Solzhenitsyn, very categorically said, “The most accessible key to our liberation is a personal nonparticipation in lies. Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way. Let their rule hold not through me. Let us at least refuse to say what we do not think.
Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies !” So he emphatically suggested, “This is the way, then, the easiest and most accessible for us given our deep-seated organic cowardice, much easier than (it’s scary, even to utter the words) civil disobedience `a la Gandhi”. Many people are of the opinion that if Mahatma Gandhi would have to face Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin’s totalitarian terror by applying his weapon of non-violence, the consequences would remain ever unpredictable.
Solzhenitsyn suggested an exhaustive list of the possible and necessary ways of evading lies for the person who is basically honest and truthful, not greedy for money, power and position, not at all hankering after personal gains in any form.
An apparently renowned person, in the field of education, art, science, literature, music etc., must keep himself away from the close periphery of the Government, otherwise he will be a victim of his temptation and will be turned into a ‘caged bird’ like Maxim Gorky, who for his vacillation, ultimately forgot to fly in the open sky for the rest of his life.
It is valid not only in the totalitarian state; now it is also evident in the democratic country like our own, where we often see the party and the politicians in power and their ‘useful’ blind supporters, mostly shameless celebrities, viz; eminent poets, painters, theatre and film personalities, intellectuals are sharing the dais with an autocrat in disguise to be closely associated with the government for personal gains.
The writer is a commentator on social and political thought.