Famous Soviet dissident, author of The Gulag Archipelago describing how Communism, authoritarianism took over Russia and became the horrific USSR under the noses of good, ordinary people not sensing what was happening around them.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn On The New Russia
(This interview was first published as "Zhirinovsky Is An Evil Caricature Of A Russian Patriot--An Interview With Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn," by Paul Klebnikov, in the May 9, 1994, issue of Forbes magazine.)
Forbes Prologue: "For Americans, many of whom still tend to regard Russia through a Cold War-distorting lens, Solzhenitsyn's passionate defense of Russia makes moving reading.
He ends the interview on a somewhat cryptic note, saying that one day the U.S. will have serious need of Russia as an ally against a threat he refused to name. What threat? On other occasions, Solzhenitsyn has warned of an expansionist China, about resurgent Islam and other dangers from the so-called Third World."
"PK: Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski disagrees. He argues that the U.S. must defend the independence of Ukraine.
AS: In 1919, when he imposed his regime on Ukraine, Lenin gave her several Russian provinces to assuage her feelings. These provinces have never historically belonged to Ukraine. I am talking about the eastern and southern territories of today's Ukraine.
Then, in 1954, Khrushchev, with the arbitrary capriciousness of a satrap, made a "gift" of the Crimea to Ukraine. But even he did not manage to make Ukraine a "gift" of Sevastopol, which remained a separate city under the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. central government. This was accomplished by the American State Department, first verbally through Ambassador Popadiuk in Kiev and later in a more official manner.
Why does the State Department decide who should get Sevastopol? If one recalls the tactless declaration of President Bush about supporting Ukrainian sovereignty even before the referendum on that matter, one must conclude that all this stems from a common aim: to use all means possible, no matter what the consequences, to weaken Russia.
PK: Why does independence for Ukraine weaken Russia?
AS: As a result of the sudden and crude fragmentation of the intermingled Slavic peoples, the borders have torn apart millions of ties of family and friendship. Is this acceptable? The recent elections in Ukraine, for instance, clearly show the [Russian] sympathies of the Crimean and Donets populations. And a democracy must respect this.
I myself am nearly half Ukrainian. I grew up with the sounds of Ukrainian speech. I love her culture and genuinely wish all kinds of success for Ukraine--but only within her real ethnic boundaries, without grabbing Russian provinces. And not in the form of a "great power," the concept on which Ukrainian nationalists have placed their bets. They are acting out and trumpeting a cult of force, persistently inflating Russia into the image of an "enemy." Militant slogans are proclaimed. And the Ukrainian army is being indoctrinated with the propaganda that war with Russia is inevitable.
For every country, great power status deforms and harms the national character. I have never wished great power status for Russia, and do not wish it for the United States. I don't wish it for Ukraine. She would not be able to perform even the cultural task required to achieve great power status: In her current borders, 63% of the population consider Russian to be their native language, a number three times larger than the number of ethnic Russians. And all these people will have to be re-educated in the Ukrainian language, while the language itself will have to be raised to international standards and usage. This is a task that would require over 100 years.
PK: At the heart of all this is a central question: What about Russia and the U.S.? Are we historic rivals?
AS: Before the [Russian] revolution, they were natural allies. You know that during the American Civil War, Russia supported Lincoln and the North [in contrast to Britain and France, which supported the Confederacy]. Then, we were effectively allies in the First World War. But beginning with communism, Russia ceased to exist. What is there to talk about? The confrontation was not at all with Russia but with the communist U.S.S.R."
AS: ...The delirious, provocative and crazy declarations of Zhirinovsky do not have a foundation in the psychology of our wretched people, exhausted by 70 years of communism.
AS: If one looks far into the future, one can foresee in the 21st century such a time when the U.S. together with Europe will be in dire need of Russia as an ally.
PK: That is a puzzling assertion.
AS: It is puzzling only for those who don't look into the future and do not see what kind of new powers are arising in the world."
Perhaps Alexander Solzhenitsyn saw the rise of The New World Order that Pres. George HW Bush described in his speech just three years before this interview? AS saw the writing on the wall. And perhaps, just perhaps, he saw the Russians, chastened by their experience under such a repressive regime built on propaganda would one day be an ally to freedom and liberty loving Americans and Europeans resisting the authoritarian regimes we are seeing ascendant across the western world today? Perhaps this is why Russia has been portrayed with as much hostility as it has been portrayed in recent years, perhaps why Trump was walled off from Putin, another leader committed to protecting his nation from self-destructive global interference? Past proves future?
er, you do know that "The Gulag Archipelago" was a work of fiction, even continued to say so on the book covers printed after this neo-conservative racist arrived in his version of heaven, where slavery is still legal under the constitution.
I've read that narrative from communists who claim the USSR was a wonderful place to live in, closest system of governance to utopia, ever. Interesting narrative. Not one I give credibility to.
I've taken in communist publications since I was a child growing up in south Florida. I'd tune into Radio Moscow in the evenings as it was broadcast from Havana to Miami. When I've gone back and listened to some old broadcasts the chimes that began the show were familiar echos from the past. I watched TASS evening news broadcast on my local PBS station after the national news ended. I read Pravda when I'd go to the public library. Not because I was an aspiring communist. But because I wanted to know what my nation's adversary had to say about my nation. I learned to understand propaganda very early in life. From those I was taught to disagree with and those I was taught to agree with.
I still read Marxist/socialist/communist publications to this day, from the smaller internet sites targeted at true believers to the English-language Chinese official publications. I've been trained by the top propagandists in the US in school, the military and my work of many decades. In the history of and the current practice of. Not a writer or producer of, but a reader and analyst of.
And I know that the US has been transformed into a Fascist governing model away from its constitutional foundations for more than a century. I reject both models. I embrace the constitutional model my nation long ago strayed from. Individual freedom and liberty as that foundational document enshrined. Not as the many laws, regulations, edicts and rulings laid on top of it have made a mockery of.
Ahh, I see, you're a devoted communist lemming, lacking critical thinking skills. Which makes my comment directed at others than you; someone incapable of processing. Buh-bye.
Famous Soviet dissident, author of The Gulag Archipelago describing how Communism, authoritarianism took over Russia and became the horrific USSR under the noses of good, ordinary people not sensing what was happening around them.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn On The New Russia
(This interview was first published as "Zhirinovsky Is An Evil Caricature Of A Russian Patriot--An Interview With Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn," by Paul Klebnikov, in the May 9, 1994, issue of Forbes magazine.)
https://www.forbes.com/2008/08/05/solzhenitsyn-forbes-interview-oped-cx_pm_0804russia.html?sh=606d45575f53
Forbes Prologue: "For Americans, many of whom still tend to regard Russia through a Cold War-distorting lens, Solzhenitsyn's passionate defense of Russia makes moving reading.
He ends the interview on a somewhat cryptic note, saying that one day the U.S. will have serious need of Russia as an ally against a threat he refused to name. What threat? On other occasions, Solzhenitsyn has warned of an expansionist China, about resurgent Islam and other dangers from the so-called Third World."
"PK: Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski disagrees. He argues that the U.S. must defend the independence of Ukraine.
AS: In 1919, when he imposed his regime on Ukraine, Lenin gave her several Russian provinces to assuage her feelings. These provinces have never historically belonged to Ukraine. I am talking about the eastern and southern territories of today's Ukraine.
Then, in 1954, Khrushchev, with the arbitrary capriciousness of a satrap, made a "gift" of the Crimea to Ukraine. But even he did not manage to make Ukraine a "gift" of Sevastopol, which remained a separate city under the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. central government. This was accomplished by the American State Department, first verbally through Ambassador Popadiuk in Kiev and later in a more official manner.
Why does the State Department decide who should get Sevastopol? If one recalls the tactless declaration of President Bush about supporting Ukrainian sovereignty even before the referendum on that matter, one must conclude that all this stems from a common aim: to use all means possible, no matter what the consequences, to weaken Russia.
PK: Why does independence for Ukraine weaken Russia?
AS: As a result of the sudden and crude fragmentation of the intermingled Slavic peoples, the borders have torn apart millions of ties of family and friendship. Is this acceptable? The recent elections in Ukraine, for instance, clearly show the [Russian] sympathies of the Crimean and Donets populations. And a democracy must respect this.
I myself am nearly half Ukrainian. I grew up with the sounds of Ukrainian speech. I love her culture and genuinely wish all kinds of success for Ukraine--but only within her real ethnic boundaries, without grabbing Russian provinces. And not in the form of a "great power," the concept on which Ukrainian nationalists have placed their bets. They are acting out and trumpeting a cult of force, persistently inflating Russia into the image of an "enemy." Militant slogans are proclaimed. And the Ukrainian army is being indoctrinated with the propaganda that war with Russia is inevitable.
For every country, great power status deforms and harms the national character. I have never wished great power status for Russia, and do not wish it for the United States. I don't wish it for Ukraine. She would not be able to perform even the cultural task required to achieve great power status: In her current borders, 63% of the population consider Russian to be their native language, a number three times larger than the number of ethnic Russians. And all these people will have to be re-educated in the Ukrainian language, while the language itself will have to be raised to international standards and usage. This is a task that would require over 100 years.
PK: At the heart of all this is a central question: What about Russia and the U.S.? Are we historic rivals?
AS: Before the [Russian] revolution, they were natural allies. You know that during the American Civil War, Russia supported Lincoln and the North [in contrast to Britain and France, which supported the Confederacy]. Then, we were effectively allies in the First World War. But beginning with communism, Russia ceased to exist. What is there to talk about? The confrontation was not at all with Russia but with the communist U.S.S.R."
AS: ...The delirious, provocative and crazy declarations of Zhirinovsky do not have a foundation in the psychology of our wretched people, exhausted by 70 years of communism.
AS: If one looks far into the future, one can foresee in the 21st century such a time when the U.S. together with Europe will be in dire need of Russia as an ally.
PK: That is a puzzling assertion.
AS: It is puzzling only for those who don't look into the future and do not see what kind of new powers are arising in the world."
Perhaps Alexander Solzhenitsyn saw the rise of The New World Order that Pres. George HW Bush described in his speech just three years before this interview? AS saw the writing on the wall. And perhaps, just perhaps, he saw the Russians, chastened by their experience under such a repressive regime built on propaganda would one day be an ally to freedom and liberty loving Americans and Europeans resisting the authoritarian regimes we are seeing ascendant across the western world today? Perhaps this is why Russia has been portrayed with as much hostility as it has been portrayed in recent years, perhaps why Trump was walled off from Putin, another leader committed to protecting his nation from self-destructive global interference? Past proves future?
er, you do know that "The Gulag Archipelago" was a work of fiction, even continued to say so on the book covers printed after this neo-conservative racist arrived in his version of heaven, where slavery is still legal under the constitution.
I've read that narrative from communists who claim the USSR was a wonderful place to live in, closest system of governance to utopia, ever. Interesting narrative. Not one I give credibility to.
I've taken in communist publications since I was a child growing up in south Florida. I'd tune into Radio Moscow in the evenings as it was broadcast from Havana to Miami. When I've gone back and listened to some old broadcasts the chimes that began the show were familiar echos from the past. I watched TASS evening news broadcast on my local PBS station after the national news ended. I read Pravda when I'd go to the public library. Not because I was an aspiring communist. But because I wanted to know what my nation's adversary had to say about my nation. I learned to understand propaganda very early in life. From those I was taught to disagree with and those I was taught to agree with.
I still read Marxist/socialist/communist publications to this day, from the smaller internet sites targeted at true believers to the English-language Chinese official publications. I've been trained by the top propagandists in the US in school, the military and my work of many decades. In the history of and the current practice of. Not a writer or producer of, but a reader and analyst of.
And I know that the US has been transformed into a Fascist governing model away from its constitutional foundations for more than a century. I reject both models. I embrace the constitutional model my nation long ago strayed from. Individual freedom and liberty as that foundational document enshrined. Not as the many laws, regulations, edicts and rulings laid on top of it have made a mockery of.
Strawman. If you can't do better, why should I?
Ahh, I see, you're a devoted communist lemming, lacking critical thinking skills. Which makes my comment directed at others than you; someone incapable of processing. Buh-bye.
Name calling. Go burn a cross in someone's yard, as is your want.
Is your way, not mine. Communists are Satanic.