Solzhenitsyn's book to me is more about the human condition. We experienced covid and saw how authority and people can act. His book only underlines this. Its hard to imagine its not embellished. It was written retrospectively. To me it rings true. Mostly because of my fellow human beings during covid and their pathetic capitulation to authority, or worse, their slavish obedience to or adoption of the fascist dictates of our overlords
I read an article which claimed Solzhenitsyn was a propagandist for the west - ages ago. I have not seen it since but will try to locate it because it was clearer by far than Prof Grover Furr.
Natalya Reshetovskaya, Solzhenitsyn’s first wife, publicly criticized the accuracy of The Gulag Archipelago. Her primary statements are found in:
"Sanya: My Life with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (1974): In this memoir, she argued that the book was not historical research but a collection of "camp folklore" and "raw material" her husband intended for future fiction. She claimed the West wrongly appraised it as the "solemn, ultimate truth."
Interview with Le Figaro (February 1974): Shortly after the book's publication, she told the French newspaper that the work was based on unreliable information and represented the "folklore of the camps" rather than actual camp life or the life of the country.
Obituaries (2003): Her views were summarized in her obituaries in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times following her death, which highlighted her contention that Solzhenitsyn exaggerated the conditions and relied on mythical accounts.
Not sure why people love Solzhenitsyn. What they think they know about him is propaganda which has been foisted upon them for particular interests.
The guy supported Franco's fascism among many other buried historical facts.
His books came about through support from Nikita Khrushchev. His and Robert Conquests claims are nothing but lies and exaggerations as documented through archival records which are purposefully ignored in the Western academic and media circles.
His books were widely published and catapulted in capitalist countries, as he became one of the most valuable instruments of imperialism in combating the socialism of the Soviet Union. His texts on the labor camps were added to the propaganda on the millions who were supposed to have died in the Soviet Union and were presented by the capitalist mass media as though they were true.
The methods Solzhenitsyn, Medvedev, Conquest and others used for deriving the numbers of those who died in labor camps were completely fraudulent.
In 1974, Solzhenitsyn renounced his Soviet citizenship and emigrated to Switzerland and then the US. At that time he was considered by the capitalist press to be the greatest fighter for freedom and democracy. His Nazi sympathies were buried so as not to interfere with the propaganda war against socialism.
In the US, Solzhenitsyn was frequently invited to speak at important meetings. He was, for example, the main speaker at the AFL-CIO union congress in 1975, and on July 15, 1975 he was invited to give a lecture on the world situation to the US Senate.
His lectures amounted to violent and provocative agitation, arguing and propagandizing for the most reactionary positions. Among other things he agitated for Vietnam to be attacked again after its victory over the US.
American journalists who dared write in favor of peace between the US and the Soviet Union were accused by Solzhenitsyn in his speeches of being traitors. Solzhenitsyn also propagandized in favor of increasing US military capacity against the Soviet Union, which he claimed was more powerful in ‘tanks and aeroplanes, by five to seven times, than the US’ as well as in atomic weapons which ‘in short’ he alleged were ‘two, three or even five times’ more powerful in the Soviet Union than those held by the US. Solzhenitsyn’s lectures on the Soviet Union represented the voice of the extreme right. But he himself went even further to the right in his public support of fascism.
After 40 years of fascism in Portugal, when left-wing army officers took power in the people’s revolution of 1974, Solzhenitsyn began to propagandize in favor of US military intervention, which, according to him, would join the Warsaw Pact if the US did not intervene. In his lectures, Solzhenitsyn always bemoaned the liberation of Portugal’s African colonies.
This supports the European/western misinterpreted historical account of that region for as long as written history is known. Scythian, Tartary, etc have all been sorely misrepresented in history books for ages.
It's next to impossible to get through to people who have such ill informed assumptions and need that propaganda to keep their belief in a fairy tale.
Another historical note:
After WW2 Stalin made multiple overtures for post-war peace and stability that were systematically rejected or ignored by U.S. leadership.
The framing of Stalin as an aggressive expansionist bent on world domination is contrived propaganda. He was a pragmatist primarily concerned with Soviet security and reconstruction.
Once Truman took office, the U.S. shifted toward an aggressive, anti-Soviet stance, framing Stalin's requests for a "buffer zone" in Eastern Europe as a threat rather than a defensive necessity.
The US wanted this "threat", needed this "threat" to justify its burgeoning military-industrial-complex and expansionist blood lust.
There are multiple historical instances where the Soviets sought to lower tensions like the 1949 Peace Pact Proposal when Stalin proposed a bilateral peace pact and offered to meet Truman directly in Europe to resolve differences. Secretary of State Dean Acheson publicly dismissed the offer as a mere "political maneuver," shutting down direct diplomacy.
Near the end of his life the famous 1952 Stalin Note was released where the Soviet premier offered to allow the reunification of Germany as an independent, democratic, and strictly neutral state. The U.S. and its Western allies rejected the proposal, viewing it as a ploy to stall West Germany’s integration into NATO. This rejection was a massive missed opportunity that locked Europe into decades of Cold War division. We live with that today as the expansion of NATO continues unabated.
And here we have people who have the audacity to say anything about Russia or Putin while the US/NATO forces have encircled Russia.
The US has around 40 permanent, major military installations across Europe, with NATO utilizing dozens of additional national bases along Russia's direct periphery spanning from the Arctic Circle down to Eastern Europe and the Black Sea.
Solzhenitsyn's book to me is more about the human condition. We experienced covid and saw how authority and people can act. His book only underlines this. Its hard to imagine its not embellished. It was written retrospectively. To me it rings true. Mostly because of my fellow human beings during covid and their pathetic capitulation to authority, or worse, their slavish obedience to or adoption of the fascist dictates of our overlords
I guess that makes Gulag Archipelago and Solzhenitsyn
both false: are you sure about this?
Look into those too. Question everything.
I read an article which claimed Solzhenitsyn was a propagandist for the west - ages ago. I have not seen it since but will try to locate it because it was clearer by far than Prof Grover Furr.
Natalya Reshetovskaya, Solzhenitsyn’s first wife, publicly criticized the accuracy of The Gulag Archipelago. Her primary statements are found in:
"Sanya: My Life with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (1974): In this memoir, she argued that the book was not historical research but a collection of "camp folklore" and "raw material" her husband intended for future fiction. She claimed the West wrongly appraised it as the "solemn, ultimate truth."
Interview with Le Figaro (February 1974): Shortly after the book's publication, she told the French newspaper that the work was based on unreliable information and represented the "folklore of the camps" rather than actual camp life or the life of the country.
Obituaries (2003): Her views were summarized in her obituaries in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times following her death, which highlighted her contention that Solzhenitsyn exaggerated the conditions and relied on mythical accounts.
Not sure why people love Solzhenitsyn. What they think they know about him is propaganda which has been foisted upon them for particular interests.
The guy supported Franco's fascism among many other buried historical facts.
His books came about through support from Nikita Khrushchev. His and Robert Conquests claims are nothing but lies and exaggerations as documented through archival records which are purposefully ignored in the Western academic and media circles.
His books were widely published and catapulted in capitalist countries, as he became one of the most valuable instruments of imperialism in combating the socialism of the Soviet Union. His texts on the labor camps were added to the propaganda on the millions who were supposed to have died in the Soviet Union and were presented by the capitalist mass media as though they were true.
The methods Solzhenitsyn, Medvedev, Conquest and others used for deriving the numbers of those who died in labor camps were completely fraudulent.
In 1974, Solzhenitsyn renounced his Soviet citizenship and emigrated to Switzerland and then the US. At that time he was considered by the capitalist press to be the greatest fighter for freedom and democracy. His Nazi sympathies were buried so as not to interfere with the propaganda war against socialism.
In the US, Solzhenitsyn was frequently invited to speak at important meetings. He was, for example, the main speaker at the AFL-CIO union congress in 1975, and on July 15, 1975 he was invited to give a lecture on the world situation to the US Senate.
His lectures amounted to violent and provocative agitation, arguing and propagandizing for the most reactionary positions. Among other things he agitated for Vietnam to be attacked again after its victory over the US.
American journalists who dared write in favor of peace between the US and the Soviet Union were accused by Solzhenitsyn in his speeches of being traitors. Solzhenitsyn also propagandized in favor of increasing US military capacity against the Soviet Union, which he claimed was more powerful in ‘tanks and aeroplanes, by five to seven times, than the US’ as well as in atomic weapons which ‘in short’ he alleged were ‘two, three or even five times’ more powerful in the Soviet Union than those held by the US. Solzhenitsyn’s lectures on the Soviet Union represented the voice of the extreme right. But he himself went even further to the right in his public support of fascism.
After 40 years of fascism in Portugal, when left-wing army officers took power in the people’s revolution of 1974, Solzhenitsyn began to propagandize in favor of US military intervention, which, according to him, would join the Warsaw Pact if the US did not intervene. In his lectures, Solzhenitsyn always bemoaned the liberation of Portugal’s African colonies.
This supports the European/western misinterpreted historical account of that region for as long as written history is known. Scythian, Tartary, etc have all been sorely misrepresented in history books for ages.
It's next to impossible to get through to people who have such ill informed assumptions and need that propaganda to keep their belief in a fairy tale.
Another historical note:
After WW2 Stalin made multiple overtures for post-war peace and stability that were systematically rejected or ignored by U.S. leadership.
The framing of Stalin as an aggressive expansionist bent on world domination is contrived propaganda. He was a pragmatist primarily concerned with Soviet security and reconstruction.
Once Truman took office, the U.S. shifted toward an aggressive, anti-Soviet stance, framing Stalin's requests for a "buffer zone" in Eastern Europe as a threat rather than a defensive necessity.
The US wanted this "threat", needed this "threat" to justify its burgeoning military-industrial-complex and expansionist blood lust.
There are multiple historical instances where the Soviets sought to lower tensions like the 1949 Peace Pact Proposal when Stalin proposed a bilateral peace pact and offered to meet Truman directly in Europe to resolve differences. Secretary of State Dean Acheson publicly dismissed the offer as a mere "political maneuver," shutting down direct diplomacy.
Near the end of his life the famous 1952 Stalin Note was released where the Soviet premier offered to allow the reunification of Germany as an independent, democratic, and strictly neutral state. The U.S. and its Western allies rejected the proposal, viewing it as a ploy to stall West Germany’s integration into NATO. This rejection was a massive missed opportunity that locked Europe into decades of Cold War division. We live with that today as the expansion of NATO continues unabated.
And here we have people who have the audacity to say anything about Russia or Putin while the US/NATO forces have encircled Russia.
The US has around 40 permanent, major military installations across Europe, with NATO utilizing dozens of additional national bases along Russia's direct periphery spanning from the Arctic Circle down to Eastern Europe and the Black Sea.
But just who is this "I" doing all this questioning. Can the self examine the self. Serious people find that a much more fruitful pursuit.
But just who is this "I" doing all this questioning. Can the self examine the self. Serious people find that a much more fruit pursuit