The Gulag Archipelago’ Than Roy Medvedev

he gulag arch nog medvedev

No one has better credentials to make a critique of Solzhenitsyn and his book ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ than Roy Medvedev. Himself a courageous dissident within the Soviet Union, Medvedev is an historian and author of the book ‘Let History Judge’. It was following efforts to have this work on Stalin published in the Soviet Union that Medvedev was expelled from the Communist Party in 1969. Medvedev was expelled from the Communist Party in 1969. He has been without permanent employment since 1971. This article, translated by Tamara Deutscher, is reprinted from New Left Review No. 85.

In this article I shall try to provide an tains many reflections and observations that evaluation of Solzhenitsyn’s new book. are profound and truthful, and others which The assessment can only be a brief and pre may not be correct, but are nevertheless al liminary one -- not merely because ‘Gulag ways born from the monstrous sufferings of Archipelago’ is only the first of three or millions of people, in an agony unique in four volumes of a single work, but also be the age-old history of our nation. No man cause even by itself it is too considerable to who left that terrible Archipelago was the be adequately appraised straightaway. The same as he who entered it, either in body book is full of frightening facts: it would and health or in ideas about life and people. be difficult to grasp even a much smaller I believe that no-one who has read this book number of them immediately. Solzhenitsyn will remain the same person as he was when describes in concrete detail the tragic fate he opened its first pages. There is nothing in of hundreds of people, destinies both ex Russian or world literature in this respect traordinary and yet typical of what has be which I can compare with Solzhenitsyn’s fallen us in the past decades. His book con work.

25 A certain I. Soloviev has written in left at large or even given various responsible ‘Pravda’ (14/1/1974) that Solzhenitsyn’s posts. In 1936-7 Bukharin was no longer a facts are unreliable, fancies of a morbid im member of the Politbureau, as Solzhenitsyn agination or mere cynical falsifications. claims, but was only a candidate-member This, of course, is not so. I cannot agree with of the Central Committee. some of Solzhenitsyn’s judgments or con clusions. But it must be firmly stated that But all these and a few other inaccuracies all the main facts in his book, and especially are insignificant within the immense artistic all the details of the life and torment of investigation which Solzhenitsyn has under those who were imprisoned, from the time taken. On the other hand, there are other of their arrest to that of their death (or in ‘shortcomings’ in the book which Solzhenit rarer cases, their release) are perfectly corr syn himself notes in the dedication: he did ect. Of course, in an ‘artistic investigation’ not see everything, did not recollect every on such a huge scale, based not only on the thing, did not guess everything. He writes, impressions of the author himself but also for example, about the arrest of repatriated on stories told (and retold) by more than and amnestied Cossacks in the mid-1920s. two hundred former prisoners, some inacc But the campaign of mass terror against the uracies are inevitable, particularly as Sol- Cossacks in the Don and Ural regions during zhenitsyn^had to write his book in com the winter and spring of 1919 was still more plete secrecy, with no possibility of dis terrible in its consequences. This campaign cussing it before publication even with lasted ‘only’ a little over two months, but many of his close friends. But the number it prolonged the Civil War with all its excess of these errors is very small in a work of es for at least another year, providing the such weight. My own calculation, for ex White Armies with dozens of new cavalry ample, of the scale of the deportations regiments. Then, too, there was the shoot from Leningrad after the murder of Kirov ing of 500 hostages in Petrograd which the in 1934-35 is lower than that of Solzhen ‘Weekly Review’ of the Cheka mentions in itsyn. Tens of thousands of people were two lines .....To describe it all, many books deported, but not actually a quarter of are still needed; and I trust that they will be the population of a city of 2,000,000. written. Yet I do not possess exact figures either, and base myself simply on fragmentary If ‘Pravda’ tried to argue that Solzhen reports and my own impressions (I have itsyn’s facts were untrue, ‘ Literaturnaya lived in Leningrad for over 15 years). Gazeta’ by contrast (16/1/1974) sought to It is also difficult to believe the anonymous persuade its readers that Solzhenitsyn’s report that Ordzhonikidze could talk to book contained nothing new. This is not old engineers with two revolvers on his true, either. Although I have been studying desk, at his right and left hand. To seize Stalinism for over a decade, the book told former officials of the Tsarist regime (not me a great deal that I had not known before. of course, all of them but mainly function With the exception of former inmates of the aries of the judiciary or gendarmerie), the camp, Soviet readers - even those who well GPU had no need to use random notes of remember the 20th and 22nd Congresses casual informers. Lists of such officials of the Party - know hardly one tenth of could be found in local archives and in the facts recounted by Solzhenitsyn. Our published reference books. In my view, youth, indeed, does not know even a one Solzhenitsyn exaggerates the number of hundredth of them. peasants deported during the years of coll ectivisation, which he estimates at 15 mill THE QUESTION OF VLASSOV ion. However, if one includes among the vic tims of those years peasants who died from Many of our newspaper have written starvation in 1932-3 (in the Ukraine alone that Solzhenitsyn justifies, whitewashes, not fewer than 3 to 4 million), it is possible and even lauds Vlassov’s Army. This is a del to arrive at a figure even higher than that iberate and malignant distortion. Solzhenit suggested by Solzhenitsyn. After Stalin’s syn writes in ‘Gulag Archipelago’ that the death, there were not ten but about a hund Vlassovites became pitiful hirelings of the red officials of the MGB-MVD who were Nazis, that they ‘were liable to trial for imprisoned or shot (in some cases without treason’, that they took up the enemy’s wea an open trial). But this was still a negligible pons and fought on the front with the des - number compared with the quantity of crim pair of the doomed. Solzhenitsyn’s own batt inals from the ‘security organs’ who were ery was nearly annihilated in East Prussia

26 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW - OCTOBER 1974 no comparative experience from which its our country. A great many of these acts of leaders could benefit. It was impossible to mass violence were quite unnecessary and weigh up every eventuality beforehand, and harmful to the logic and interest of the class only then take careful decisions. Events struggle itself. Such terror merely brutalised could be predicted at most for days or weeks both sides, prolonged the war and generated ahead. Fundamental decisions were made, further superfluous violence. It is unfortuna and methods of revolutionary struggle ad tely true that in the early years of the Revol opted or corrected, only in the vortex of ution, Lenin too used the verb ‘shoot’ much events themselves. Lenin was well aware of more often than existing circumstances dem this, and often repeated Napoleon’s maxim: anded. Solzhenitsyn cites Lenin, without ac ‘On s'engage et puis on voit’. No revolution tually distorting his words, but always with a can be made without taking risks -- risks of disobliging comment. Nevertheless, would defeat, and risks of error. But a revolutionary anyone today approve, for example, of the party is also risking a great deal if it does not following order sent in August 1918 by Len give the signal for revolution, when a revol in to G. Fedorov, head of the local Soviet ution is possible It is not surprising that in the province of Nizhni Novgorod: ‘No Lenin and his government committed a ser efforts to be spared; mass terror to be int ies of mistakes and miscalculations. The roduced, hundreds of prostitutes who have mistakes prolonged and exacerbated the intoxicated our soldiers, and former off Civil War. The miscalculations initially in icers, etc., to be shot and deported’.* creased the economic disarray in the count Deport - yes, but why kill women? ry, and delayed the transition to NEP. Len in’s hopes of an imminent European revol Such abuses of power must be regretted ution that would come to the technical and and condemned. Yet the terror of the Civil cultural aid of Russia did not materialise. The War did not pre-determine the fearful terror Soviet government went too far in restricting of the Stalinist epoch. Lenin made not a few democracy in our country. mistakes, many of which he admitted him self. There is no doubt that an honest hist The list of such errors and miscalculations orian must take note of his errors and abuses could be extended. But no cybernetics will of power. However, we remain convinced ever be able to prove that the armed uprising that the overall balance sheet of Lenin’s act of 24 October 1917 was historically a prem ivity was positive. Solzhenitsyn thinks oth ature action, and that all the future misdeeds erwise. That is his right. In a socialist country, of Stalin’s regime followed from this fatal every citizen should be able to express his mistake by Lenin. For after Lenin’s death opinions and judgments on the activity of the party still had to choose paths explored any political leader. by no predecessor. Unfortunately, those who succeeded Lenin at the head of the party did not possess his wisdom, his knowledge, or THE EXAMPLE OF KRYLENKO his ability usually to find the right solutions for difficult situations. They did not make In his book Solzhenitsyn does not spare even minimal use of the opportunities which any of the revolutionary parties in Russia. the October Revolution had created for a The SR’s (Socialist-Revolutionaries) were rapid advance towards a genuinely socialist terrorists and babblers, ‘with no worthy and democratic society. Today we still re leaders’. The Mensheviks were naturally only main far from that objective. Stalin not only babblers. But it is the Bolsheviks whom did not ‘follow exactly where footsteps made Solzhenitsyn condems most fiercely; although before him led’. Such footsteps do not exist they were able to seize and hold power in in history. In fact, Stalin swiftly rejected the Russia, in doing so they gave proof of excess few guidelines left by Lenin in his last writ ive and needless cruelty. Among the Bolshev ings. ik leaders, Solzhenitsyn singles out in partic ular N.V. Krylenko, the Chairman of the In conditions of Revolution and Civil War, Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal and Pro no government can dispense with forms of curator of the Republic, the chief prosecutor violence. But even the most objective histor in the ‘show’ trials of the first years of the ian would have to say that already in the Soviet regime. Solzhenitsyn devotes nearly first years of Soviet power the reasonable two whole chapters to these trials (‘The Law limits of such violence were frequently over - a Child’, ‘The Law Matures’). Krylenko’s stepped. From the summer of 1918, a wave name also makes a frequent appearance in of both White and Red terror broke over other chapters.

27 General Steiner -- this episode is an indisput a hundred years after the arrest and exile of able historical fact. Nearly all the ‘Vlassov- Dostoyevsky, gave him ten times as many op ites’ were sentenced to 25 years’ imprison portunities for study of the various forms of ment. They never received any amnesty and human evil as the author of ‘The House of virtually all of them perished in captivity and the Dead’. There is no doubt that Solzhen exile in the North., I share the view that this itsyn has acquitted himself of this task as was too harsh a penalty for most of them. only a great writer would. For Stalin was far more guilty than anyone else in this tragedy. ‘Gulag Archipelago’ contains many pen etrating and accurate, although incidental, Solzhenitsyn has been accused of min remarks about Stalin’s personality. Solzhen imising the evil of Nazism and the cruelty itsyn considers, however, that Stalin’s pers of Russian Tsarism. It was not Solzhenitsyn’s onal role in the historical catastrophe which task to provide an account of the ‘German struck our country, and even in the creation Archipelago’, although he frequently cites of the Archipelago, was so unimportant that Gestapo tortures and the inhuman treatment many of these remarks are dropped outside of Russian prisoners of war by the fascists. the main text, relegated to parentheses and But Solzhenitsyn does not depart from the footnotes. Thus in the footnote on the pen truth, when he writes that Stalin unleashed ultimate page of the book, we read: ‘Both mass repressions, deported millions of people, before and during my time in prison, I too used torture and fabricated trials long before used to believe that Stalin was responsible Hitler came to power. Moreover all this con for the disastrous course taken by the Sov tinued in our country many years after the iet State. Then Stalin died peacefully - defeat of German fascism. and has the direction of the ship changed in the least? His own personal imprint on Naturally, in this respect the Russian events was merely a dreary stupidity, an Tsars could hardly equal Stalin. Solzhenitsyn obtuse vanity. For the rest, he simply foll tells us a great deal about Tsarist prison and owed where footsteps made before him exile in his work, as this was a frequent top led’. ic of conversation among the prisoners, esp ecially if there was an Old Bolshevik among Solzhenitsyn treats only very briefly them (prisoners belonging to the other soc in his second chapter the repressions of ialist parties had nearly all died before the 1937-8 (why give details of ‘what has al war). In such talks, prison and exile in the ready been widely described and will fre ‘ancien regime’ seemed like a rest-home to quently be repeated again’?) when the core those who were in camps in the 1940s. As of the party leadership, intelligentsia, off for the scale of repression...... In 1937-8 icers and commissars of the Red Army, and Stalin’s apparatus shot or starved to death in the majority of prominent economic ad camps and prisons as many workers, peas ministrators and Komsomol leaders, were ants and artisans in the course of a single liquidated in the cellars of the NKVD, and day, as Tsarist executioners killed in a year when the top State leadership together at the time of the 1905 revolution and the with senior ranks of the security apparatus, reaction which followed it. There is simply the diplomatic service, and so on, were no comparison. violently reshuffled. Solzhenitsyn comments, again in a footnote: ‘Today the evidence of I suspect that different readers will find the Cultural Revolution in China (also 17 that different chapters of Solzhenitsyn’s years after final victory), suggests in all book make the most powerful impression probability the operation here of a general on them. For me the most important were law of history. Even Stalin himself now ‘Blue Edgings’ (Chapter Four) and ‘The begins to seem a mere blind and superficial Supreme Penalty’ (Chapter Eleven). In these instrument of it’. the author achieves an exceptional depth of psychological insight into the behaviour It is difficult to agree with such a view of prison guards and their victims. Sol of Stalin’s role and importance in the tragedy zhenitsyn is profounder here than Dostoy of the thirties. It would, of course, be a mis evsky. I do not mean by this that Solzhenit take to separate the epoch of Stalinist terror syn is a greater artist than Dostoyevsky. I completely from the revolutionary period am not a specialist on literature. But it is that preceded it. There was no such precise clear that the Stalinist prisons, camps, transit or absolute boundary line either in 1937 as centres and exiles that Solzhenitsyn traversed many believe, or in 1934 as Khrushchev main 28 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW- OCTOBER 1974 tained, or in 1929 as Solzhenitsyn himself ible region of the archipelago, its geography, once thought, or in 1924, when Lenin died its structure, its social relations, its written and the Trotskyist Opposition was broken and unwritten laws, its population, its man up, or in 1922 when Stalin became the Gen ners, its customs, its potentates and subjects. eral Secretary of the Party. Yet all these In fact, Solzhenitsyn has no need of an his years, and also others, marked political turn torical background, for his Archipelago app ing points that were extremely real and ears on the map already in 1918 and there demand special analysis,. after develops according to a kind of intern al law of its own. This one-sidedness, occas Obviously, there exists a continuity bet ionally offset by a few very profound rem ween the party which took power in Oct arks, dominates the whole volume. Solzhen ober 1917 and that which governed the itsyn is, of course, perfectly entitled to USSR in 1937, in 1947, in 1957, and in treat his subject in this way. 1967 when Solzhenitsyn was completing ‘Gulag Archipelago’. But this continuity is Paradoxically, however, without ever not synonymous with identity. Stalin did really speaking of Stalinism and even purp not always follow in ‘footsteps made be orting to deny its legitimacy as a concept, fore him’. In the first years of the revolution Solzhenitsyn’s artistic investigation of one he certainly did not always follow in Lenin’s of the main sectors of the Stalinist regime, footsteps; in fact, even then, with every step helps us to comprehend the whole criminal he led the party in another direction. Outer inhumanity of Stalinism as a system. Solzh similarities marked very great inner divergen enitsyn is not correct when he contends that ces, and in some cases even polar opposites; this system has essentially survived to this and the road to these was in no way pre day; but neither has it disappeared complete determined by an inevitable law of history. ly from our social, political, and cultural A deeper and more scientific analysis of life. Solzhenitsyn has dealt a very heavy the events discussed by Solzhenitsyn in his blow to Stalinism and neo-Stalinism with artistic investigation, will in the future in- this book. None of us has done more in controvertibly show that even within the this respect than Solzhenitsyn. framework of the relations between Party, State, and society created in Russia under SOLZHENITSYN AND LENIN Lenin, Stalin effected sharp turns and fun damental reversals, merely preserving the Even when he was a Komsomol, Solzhen outward shell of so-called Leninist norms itsyn had his doubts about the wisdom and and the official vocabulary of Marxism- honesty of Stalin. It was precisely these mis Leninism. Stalinism was in many respects givings, expressed in one of his letters from the negation and bloody annihilation of the front, that led to his arrest and convict Bolshevism and of all revolutionary forces ion. But at that time he still never doubted in Russia: it was in a determinate sense a that ‘the great October Revolution was splen genuine counter-revolution. Of course, this did and just, a victorious accomplishment of does not mean that the Leninist period and men animated by high purpose and self-sacrif heritage in the history of the Russian Revol ice’. Today, Solzhenitsyn thinks otherwise, ution should be exempted from the most both about the October Revolution and about serious critical analysis. Lenin. It was not Solzhenitsyn’s purpose to study Here we shall deal with only two accusat the phenomenon of Stalinism - its nature ions, from among the great number that Sol and specificity, its evolution and presupposit zhenitsyn now levels directly or indirectly ions. For Solzhenitsyn, the very concept of against Lenin. Solzhenitsyn contends that in Stalinism is apparently non-existent, since 1917 Lenin was determined to force Russia Stalin merely ‘followed where footsteps through a new ‘proletarian and socialist’ rev made before him led’. In his book there is olution, although neither Russia nor the Russ nothing which one might call an historical ian people needed such a revolution, or were background. ready for it. He also maintains that Lenin mis used terrorist methods of struggle against his The work begins with the chapter entit political opponents. It is, of course, easy to led ‘Arrest’ - a device wherewith the author point to mistakes made by a revolutionary stresses at the outset that he will investigate 50 years after the event. But the first social and describe only the world of the prisoners, ist revolution was inevitably a leap into the the realm of the rejected, the secret and terr unknown. There was no precedent for it, 9Q by Vlassovite fire. But Solzhenitsyn does who survived; after victory, nearly all of not simplify the problem of Vlassov’s troops them were arrested and sent to swell the and of similar formations in the fascist army. population of Gulag Archipelago. Solzhen itsyn considers this terrible treason to its Among the multiple waves of Stalinist own troops to be the most odious single repression, there were for many of us one crime committed by the Stalinist regime ~ that constituted our own special tragedy. one unknown in the millenial annals of our For Tvardovsky, for instance, this was the nation. ‘It felt’, writes Solzhenitsyn, ‘that destruction of the kulaks. His father, a the story of these millions of Russian pris poor and conscientious peasant, a former oners would transfix me for ever, like a pin soldier in the Red Army, a defender of Soviet through a beetle’,, power, fell victim to it. He was deported to the Urals with his whole family. Only an acc ident saved his son: by that time he was al Hardly one tenth of our prisoners joined ready studying in an urban centre. This son Vlassov units, police sections, labor battal was to become our great poet. But at that ions, or ‘volunteered’ for auxiliary brigades time Tvardovsky had to disown his father. of the Wehrmacht. Most of those who did, He was to write about all this in his last poem genuinely hoped to acquire food and cloth ‘In the Name of Memory’. ing and then go over to the Soviet army or join the partisans. Such hopes soon proved For my own family, it was the repressions illusory: the opportunities for crossing the of 1937-8 that brought tragedy upon us, for lines were too small. the purges of those years struck especially at the commanders and commissars of the Red Army,, My father, a divisional command Solzhenitsyn does not justify and does er and lecturer at the Military Political Acad not exalt these desperate and luckless men. emy, was among those who were arrested But he pleads before the court of posterity and perished. Men like him were utterly devot the circumstances mitigating their respons ed to the Soviet State, to the Bolshevik Party ibility. These youngsters were often not and to Socialism. They were romantic heroes quite literate; the majority of them were to me as veterans of the Civil War, and I peasants demoralised by the defeat; in cap never believed that they were ‘enemies of the tivity they were told that Stalin had dis people’. owned and vituperated them; they found that this was true; and they knew that what awaited them was hunger and death in Ger For Solzhenitsyn, it was not his own arr man camps. est that was a profound personal tragedy, but the cruel and t rrible fate of the millions Of course, it is not possible to assent to of Soviet prisoners of war, his contemporar everything Solzhenitsyn says. For example, ies, sons of October, who had in June 1941 I feel no sympathy for a certain Yuri E. - formed a substantial part of the cadres of our a Soviet officer who consciously and without army. This army was routed and surrounded the compulsion of hunger went over to the in the first days and weeks of the war because Nazis and became a German officer in charge of Stalin’s criminal miscalculations, his inab of an Intelligence training centre. From Sol ility to prepare either the army or the country zhenitsyn’s account, it is clear that this man for war, his desertion of his post in the first returned to the Soviet Army only because week of war, and his prior destruction of ex of the complete rout of the Germans and perienced commanders and commissars of not because he was drawn to his homeland; whom there was now an acute shortage. Ab he banked on revealing ‘German secrets’, in out 3,000,000 soldiers and officers were other words securing a transfer from the taken prisoner in this debacle, and a further German Intelligence to the Soviet MGB. 1 ,000,000 subsequently captured in the The same figure was apparently also con ‘pincers’ at Vyazma, Kharkov, on the Kerch vinced that a new war between the USSR Peninsula and near Volkhov. Stalin’s regime and the Allies would soon break out after then betrayed these soldiers a second time the defeat of Germany, in which the Red by refusing to sign the international prison Army would be swiftly defeated. ers-of-war convention, depriving them of all Red Cross aid and condemning them to As for the violent battle which was fought starvation in German concentration camps. near Prague between major Vlassovite units Finally, Stalin once again betrayed those and German troops commanded by the SS

30 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REV IEW - OCTOBE R 1974 Of course, it can be pointed out that the and harmful. But it in no way follows from first years of Soviet power were the time of this that these Bolsheviks were equally the most desperate struggle of the Soviet unjust or cruel, or insensitive to human suff Republic for its very survival. If Revolution ering, before the Revolution — indeed that and Soviet power were necessary, then they they had not been inspired by the best of had to be defended against numerous and motives and by the highest of aims and id merciless foes; and this could not have eals. been accomplished without revolutionary- military tribunals and the Cheka. But even Solzhenitsyn understands the corrupting bearing all this in mind, it is impossible to influence of power. He describes with utter shut one’s eyes to the fact that many of candour how, after a hard and hungry year the sentences meted out in ‘court’ and out as an ordinary private, deadened by drill of court were unjust or senselessly brutal, and discipline, bullied by stripling officers, and that many extraneous, stupid and mal he forgot all this completely the moment evolent elements were active in the Cheka he himself became a lieutenant and then a and in the tribunals. Krylenko soon became captain. He started to develop a deep men one of the main ‘directors’ of this repress tal gulf between himself and his subordinates; ion, playing a role similar to that of the Jac he understood less and less the heavy burd obin tribune Couthon, who sent to the ens of existence on the front; he saw himself guillotine not only Royalists, but also sim more and more as a man of a different kind ple old women of 70 and young girls of 18, and caste. Without giving it a second thought, revolutionaries discontented with Robes he availed himself of all the privileges accord pierre, and the eminent chemist Lavoisier ed to officers, arrogantly addressed old and (who requested time to complete an imp young alike, harassed his orderly, and was ortant series of experiments before his exec sometimes so harsh to his men that on one ution - ‘We do not need scientists’, replied occasion an old colonel had to rebuke him Couthon). during an inspection. Solzhenitsyn confesses: ‘From the officer’s epaulettes that decorated Of course, Krylenko was not an isolated my shoulders for a mere two years, a poison exception within the ranks of the Bolshev ous golden dust filtered into the void between iks. But neither were all the leaders of that my ribs’. Moreover, Solzhenitsyn nearly be party like him. Unfortunately, however, it came an officer in the NKVD itself: attempts is not only the most honest and courageous were made to persuade him to enter the men of their time who become revolution NKVD school and had further pressure been aries. A revolution, especially during its applied, he would have consented. Recalling ascent, also attracts people who are resent his career as an officer, he makes the merci ful, vain, ambitious, self-seeking, men of less admission: ‘I though4 of myself as a cold hearts and unclean hands, as well as selfless and disinterested person. Yet I had many stupid and obtuse fanatics capable meanwhile become a ready-made hangman. of anything. But all this is no reason to con Had I gone to school in the NKVD under demn every revolution and every revolution Yezhov, I would have been fully-fledged ary. under Beria’. Something else has also to be considered. If Solzhenitsyn changed so much during For the Russian revolutionaries, their great his two years as a junior officer, then what est test proved to be neither imprisonment is likely to have happened to Krylenko — nor exile in Siberia, neither reckless attack who in an even shorter period of time rose, under fire from White Guards’ machine- so to speak, from ensign to supreme comm guns, nor hunger and cold, but power and and in the Russian army and then became especially the practically unlimited power President of the Supreme Revolutionary of the first phase of the Soviet regime. It Tribunal, Deputy Commissar for Justice has long been known that power corrupts and Chief Procurator of the RSFSR? Although and depraves even some of the best of men. Krylenko had finished two academic courses It must be admitted with sadness that very before the Revolution, so much accumulated many Bolsheviks did not withstand the ord power made him drunk and stupid beyond eal of power. Long before their own destruct recognition. ion in the grinding machine of Stalinist per secutions, the same people participated in ‘It seems’, Solzhenitsyn writes, ‘that evil many acts of cruel repression against others, has its own threshold of magnitude too. A which in most cases were unjust, gratuitous man may balance and toss between good and

31 evil all his life, slip down, let go, lift himself in the first instance technicians and scient up again, repent, then fall into darkness once ists (workers, in Sc nitsyn’s view, only more -- but as long as he has not crossed a as assistants to tecnmcians in industry). critical threshold of evil, he may yet redeem But who would assume the moral leader himself, there is still hope for him. But when ship of such a society? His reflections the baseness of his misdeeds or the absolute make it clear that for him it is not a polit ness of his power reaches a certain point, he ical doctrine, but only religion that can suddenly crosses that threshold, and then he fulfil this moral function. Belief in God is abandons humanity. Perhaps then — there is the sole moral bulwark of humanity, and no return’. deeply religious people alone bore well - better than all others - the sufferings of ‘Let the reader who expects to find a Stalin’s camps and prisons. political indictment here, close this book’, writes Solzhenitsyn elsewhere. ‘Oh, if every But such thoughts are a surrender to thing were so simple! - if somewhere there Utopia, and they are not even very original. were dark men cunningly plotting dark Solzhenitsyn hits out violently against every deeds, and it were enough to uncover and sort of political falsehood. He rightly calls destroy them. But the line that divides good on Soviet people, and above all on Soviet from evil runs through every man’s heart; youth, not to assist or collude with lies. and who would destroy part of his own But it is not enough only to convince people heart?.....In the lifetime of one heart this of the falsity of this or that political doctrine; line is always moving, now compressed by it is also necessary to show them the truth triumphant evil, now yielding space to elsewhere and to convince them of its real awakening goodness. The very same man value. However, for the overwhelming major at different ages, in different situations, ity of the Soviet population, religion does of his life is often a wholly different person. not and cannot any longer represent such a truth. The youth of this century are scarcely At one moment, he may be near diabolic; likely to be guided by faith in God. Indeed, at another near saintly. But his name does without politics and political struggle, how not change, and we attribute all his actions could engineers and scientists ever undertake alike to it.’ In this profound remark, we can to direct the affairs of a society or its econ perceive at least part of the explanation for omy? Moreover, even if they succeeded, the drama and fall of very many Bolsheviks, what would prevent such a society from be who were by no means the smallest of cogs coming a dictatorship of technocrats? If in the early machinery of arbitrary rule, be religion were to gain moral dominance of fore they themselves became victims of society once more, would this not eventually Stalinist terror. reproduce the worst forms of theocracy? SOLZHENITSYN’S OWN PROPOSALS Referring to the repressions of 1937, Solzhenitsyn writes: ‘Perhaps 1937 was But if power corrupts and depraves men, necessary , to prove how worthless was the if politics is, as Solzhenitsyn believes, ‘not world outlook, which they vaunted, while even a form of science -- but an empirical they tore Russia asunder, destroying her field, which cannot be defined by mathem bulwarks and trampling her shrines’. Sol atical formula, subject to human egoism zhenitsyn’s allusions, as may readily be and blind passion’, if all professional pol guessed, is to Marxism. But here he is mis iticians are no more than ‘carbuncles on taken. It was not Marxism that was resp the neck of society preventing the free onsible for the perversions of Stalinism, movement of its head and arms’, then what and the supersession of Stalinism will in should we strive for, how can we build a no way mean the collapse of Marxism, or just human community? of scientific socialism. Solzhenitsyn is well aware of the fact, which he mentions on Solzhenitsyn deals with these questions another page, that the two-hundred-year- only incidentally, in parenthetic remarks, old savagery of the Inquisition, with its which are not explained or developed in det burning and torturing of heretics, was even ail. But it is clear from these brief comments tually mitigated by, among other things, that Solzhenitsyn considers the justest form religious ideology itself. of society to be one ‘headed by people who are capable of rationally directing its act To me, at any rate, Solzhenitsyn’s ideals ivities’. For Solzhenitsyn, such people are have very little appeal. I remain deeply con- 32 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW - OCTOBE R 1974 vinced that in the foreseeable future our of our country will continue to remain slow, society will have to be based on the unity partial and deformed, and spiritual giants like of socialism and democracy, and that it is Solzhenitsyn will be rare. Before his arrest, precisely the development of Marxism and Solzhenitsyn considered himself a Marxist. scientific communism that alone can permit After the terrible experiences described with the creation of a just human community. such implacable truth in ‘Gulag Archipelago’, Solzhenitsyn lost belief in Marxism. This is Technicians and researchers should have a matter of his conscience and his conviction. a greater say in our society than they enjoy Every sincere change of belief deserves resp today. But this in no way precludes a scient ect and understanding. Solzhenitsyn did not ifically organised political system. Such a deceive or betray anybody. Today he is an system would involve, in particular, abolition opponent of Marxism, and does not hide the of all privileges for public leaders, a rational fact.. limitation of political power, self-administrat- ion wherever possible, increased jurisdiction Marxism will not, of course, collapse for local authorities, separation of legislative through the loss of one of its former adher executive and judicial powers, restriction of ents. We believe, on the contrary, Marxism incumbency of political positions to limited can only benefit from polemical debate periods of time, full freedom of thought and with an opponent like Solzhenitsyn. It is expression (including, of course, religious obviously far better for Marxism to have conviction and practice), liberty of organisat adversaries like Solzhenitsyn than ‘defend ion and assembly for representatives of all ers’ like Mikhalkov or Chakovsky.* A ‘scien political currents, free elections and equal tific’ ideology which has to be imposed on rights to put forward candidates for all pol people by sheer force or the threat of force itical groups and parties, and so on. Only such is worthless. Fortunately, genuine scientific a society, free from the exploitation of man socialism has no need of such methods. by man and based on common ownership of the means of production, can ensure an unimp eded and comprehensive progress of all man kind, as well as of every individual. * Sergei Mikhalkov and Alexander Chakov So long as we have not achieved full social sky: leading functionaries of the Soviet ist democracy in the USSR, the development Writers’ Union.