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From Under the Rubble
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Hardcover
First published January 1, 1975
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About the author
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
289 books4,092 followersalso known as
Alexander Solzenitsyn (English, alternate)
Αλεξάντρ Σολζενίτσιν (Greek)
Works, including One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) and The Gulag Archipelago (1973-1975), of Soviet writer and dissident Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, exposed the brutality of the labor camp system.
This known Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian best helped to make the world aware of the forced Gulag.
Exiled in 1974, he returned to Russia in 1994. Solzhenitsyn fathered of Ignat Solzhenitsyn, a conductor and pianist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksan...
Alexander Solzenitsyn (English, alternate)
Αλεξάντρ Σολζενίτσιν (Greek)
Works, including One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) and The Gulag Archipelago (1973-1975), of Soviet writer and dissident Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, exposed the brutality of the labor camp system.
This known Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian best helped to make the world aware of the forced Gulag.
Exiled in 1974, he returned to Russia in 1994. Solzhenitsyn fathered of Ignat Solzhenitsyn, a conductor and pianist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksan...
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 3, 2011
This book introduced me to Solzhenitsyn. Though he wrote only 4 of its chapters, most of them are dynamite. I continuously looked for this book when I lived in the Philippines; seldom successfully. One day I stopped in a textbook outlet: I almost had a cardiac arrest! There was a display of Philippine published copies on sale for $0.20!!! YES, I BOUGHT ALL 110 COPIES! My former roommate was giving an optional seminar at a Christmas conference in a few weeks entitled 'Liberation Theology.' I sold 100 copies of the book at the seminar for $0.25 each! (Apparently President Ferdinand Marcos had enjoyed the book and ordered a few 1000 copies printed!).
I strongly recommend this book at any price!
I strongly recommend this book at any price!
July 25, 2014
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to more deeply understand the difficulties Russia and the former Eastern Bloc are experiencing in their emergence from Communist dictatorship.
February 15, 2022
"What does it mean, not to lie? It doesn't mean going around preaching the truth at the top of your voice (perish the thought!). It doesn't even mean muttering what you think in an undertone. It simply means: not saying what you don't think, and that includes not whispering, not opening your mouth, not raising your hand, not casting your vote, not feigning a smile, not lending your presence, not standing up, and not cheering."
10/10 stars
A thought provoking collection of essays. These were by Russian dissidents who hoped to help push their own country and away from communism. The main ideas focus around a moral and religious revolution to create change. Sadly, we can see much of what they were fighting against all over the world today.
I want to find a copy for my own shelf, but they can be hard to come by. If you find one, don't hesitate picking it up.
January 25, 2015
I read this several years ago, perhaps in the mid-seventies. I remember it being an eloquent accusation of the Soviet Union's attempt to destroy a people's history, and with it, it's cultural identity. Good reading here.
January 19, 2021
Taken as his inspiration the 1909 publication of “Landmarks”, Solzhenitsyn in the book seeks to present scholarly, intelligent discourse on the state of the Soviet Union in the mid-1970’s. Solzhenitsyn is a towering figure…dissident winner of the Nobel Prize, he was a primary critic of communism and the Soviet Union, his homeland. In the forward, Solzhenitsyn writes, “The universal suppression of thought leads not to its extinction, but to distortion, ignorance and the mutual incomprehension of compatriots and contemporaries.” Solzhenitsyn strove against such oppression. Given what we know about the Soviet Union, to be outspoken was to be courageous, and the individuals who presented their works in this volume all deserve to be called courageous. He finishes the forward with, “If we wait for history to present us with freedom and other precious gifts, we risk waiting in vain. History is us -- and there is no alternative but to shoulder the burden of what we so passionately desire and heart it out of the depths.” This is a lesson that we can continue to learn from today.
While the essays all differ in some respects, they all share the following sentiment. “Our present system is unique in world history, because over and above its physical and economic constraints, it demands of us total surrender of our souls, continuous and active participation in the general, conscious lie. To this putrefaction of the soul, this spiritual enslavement, human beings who wish to be human cannot consent. When Caesar, having exacted what is Caesar's, demands still more insistently that we render him what is God's — that is a sacrifice we dare not make!” Solzhenitsyn notes, “Was not the land given to the peasants during the revolution only to be taken into state ownership soon afterward (the Land Code fo 1922)? Were not the factories promised to the workers, but broth under central administration in a matter of weeks?” In fact, Solzhenitsyn shows that the intellectual argument that somehow Stalin betrayed Leninism is flawed. Stalin is the natural consequence of Leninism, in Solzhenitsyn’s view…a view bolstered by documented facts and logical conclusions. He later writes that self-awareness is needed, more than anything else. “Repentance is always difficult. And not only because we must cross the threshold of self-love, but also because our own sins are not so easily visible to us.” To repent is to be clear on the facts. How can one do this when the facts are hidden from view?
Vadim Borisov’s essay, “Personality and National Awareness”, was insightful and interesting. “This problem is sometimes oversimplified as the unscrupulous ‘disengagement’ of the intelligentsia from the people, as if it were a deliberate act. This oversimplification, however, ignores the entire tragedy of a dichotomy of which Russian writers from Dostoyevsky — nay, from Pushkin — to Blok have always been keenly aware,
For many Russians this ‘disengagement’ took place subconsciously and at first they were not subjectively aware of it at all. They lost their faith in God while at the same time retaining their love of the ‘people’ and often an altruistic desire to ‘serve’ it.
But in their minds, without realizing it, they substituted the social image of the people for the face of the people — since the people as a whole cannot be comprehended rationalistically and materialistically. Then they were faced with the fatal question (which could only be asked at all when the national personality was sick): who in Russia is to be regarded as the people? Naturally enough, in an agricultural country like Russia, it was mainly the peasantry who came to be called the ‘people.’
And it was to the peasantry that the intelligentsia decided to communicate their idea of ‘progress,’ enlightenment,’ and the ‘universal’ social forms that had developed in Western Europe.
But it was precisely the ‘people’ that proved to be most unreceptive to this salutary universal ideal, and its as in contact with them that the intelligentsia felt most ‘foreign’ in its own country. Suddenly the intelligentsia saw the Russian people as no more than a ‘reactionary mass,’ clinging stubbornly to their superstitions and loath to acquire the fruits of European enlightenment.
“Progressive’ Russian society swung to the belief that the Russian ‘people,’ in Nietzsche’s celebrated expression, was ‘something to be overcome’ — for its own good, of course.
That was the beginning of a process that in a revised form is still going on — the ‘salvation’ of Russia from herself, salvation through the renunciation of her national personality and the acquisition of ‘universal’ features.
With the increasing fragmentation of Russian society, the concept of the ‘people’ in liberal and populist thought became attenuated, until at length it degenerated into Marxism with its theory of class hatred.
Adopting a platform of hostility on principle to the concept of a national community, taking the sociological abstraction of ‘class’ to be the only reality, inscribing its banners with the slogan ‘the proletariat has no fatherland,’ Marxism became the consistent and pure embodiment of national nihilism.” There is so much to unpack in that passage. It rings of lived truth. It rings of a devastating history. It rings of something that could happen elsewhere. We can recognize it today.
Overall, while not an easy read, this collection of essays holds up well. While the situation is very different today - there is no Soviet Union, and most Communist countries have embraced a form of totalitarian dominated capitalism - a huge part of the population of the planet was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Attitudes change as history fades, and these arguments can come again in modernized form and language. We would do well to read documents such as this one, and think for ourselves what treading in similar directions might mean for our future.
See my other reviews here!
While the essays all differ in some respects, they all share the following sentiment. “Our present system is unique in world history, because over and above its physical and economic constraints, it demands of us total surrender of our souls, continuous and active participation in the general, conscious lie. To this putrefaction of the soul, this spiritual enslavement, human beings who wish to be human cannot consent. When Caesar, having exacted what is Caesar's, demands still more insistently that we render him what is God's — that is a sacrifice we dare not make!” Solzhenitsyn notes, “Was not the land given to the peasants during the revolution only to be taken into state ownership soon afterward (the Land Code fo 1922)? Were not the factories promised to the workers, but broth under central administration in a matter of weeks?” In fact, Solzhenitsyn shows that the intellectual argument that somehow Stalin betrayed Leninism is flawed. Stalin is the natural consequence of Leninism, in Solzhenitsyn’s view…a view bolstered by documented facts and logical conclusions. He later writes that self-awareness is needed, more than anything else. “Repentance is always difficult. And not only because we must cross the threshold of self-love, but also because our own sins are not so easily visible to us.” To repent is to be clear on the facts. How can one do this when the facts are hidden from view?
Vadim Borisov’s essay, “Personality and National Awareness”, was insightful and interesting. “This problem is sometimes oversimplified as the unscrupulous ‘disengagement’ of the intelligentsia from the people, as if it were a deliberate act. This oversimplification, however, ignores the entire tragedy of a dichotomy of which Russian writers from Dostoyevsky — nay, from Pushkin — to Blok have always been keenly aware,
For many Russians this ‘disengagement’ took place subconsciously and at first they were not subjectively aware of it at all. They lost their faith in God while at the same time retaining their love of the ‘people’ and often an altruistic desire to ‘serve’ it.
But in their minds, without realizing it, they substituted the social image of the people for the face of the people — since the people as a whole cannot be comprehended rationalistically and materialistically. Then they were faced with the fatal question (which could only be asked at all when the national personality was sick): who in Russia is to be regarded as the people? Naturally enough, in an agricultural country like Russia, it was mainly the peasantry who came to be called the ‘people.’
And it was to the peasantry that the intelligentsia decided to communicate their idea of ‘progress,’ enlightenment,’ and the ‘universal’ social forms that had developed in Western Europe.
But it was precisely the ‘people’ that proved to be most unreceptive to this salutary universal ideal, and its as in contact with them that the intelligentsia felt most ‘foreign’ in its own country. Suddenly the intelligentsia saw the Russian people as no more than a ‘reactionary mass,’ clinging stubbornly to their superstitions and loath to acquire the fruits of European enlightenment.
“Progressive’ Russian society swung to the belief that the Russian ‘people,’ in Nietzsche’s celebrated expression, was ‘something to be overcome’ — for its own good, of course.
That was the beginning of a process that in a revised form is still going on — the ‘salvation’ of Russia from herself, salvation through the renunciation of her national personality and the acquisition of ‘universal’ features.
With the increasing fragmentation of Russian society, the concept of the ‘people’ in liberal and populist thought became attenuated, until at length it degenerated into Marxism with its theory of class hatred.
Adopting a platform of hostility on principle to the concept of a national community, taking the sociological abstraction of ‘class’ to be the only reality, inscribing its banners with the slogan ‘the proletariat has no fatherland,’ Marxism became the consistent and pure embodiment of national nihilism.” There is so much to unpack in that passage. It rings of lived truth. It rings of a devastating history. It rings of something that could happen elsewhere. We can recognize it today.
Overall, while not an easy read, this collection of essays holds up well. While the situation is very different today - there is no Soviet Union, and most Communist countries have embraced a form of totalitarian dominated capitalism - a huge part of the population of the planet was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Attitudes change as history fades, and these arguments can come again in modernized form and language. We would do well to read documents such as this one, and think for ourselves what treading in similar directions might mean for our future.
See my other reviews here!
July 31, 2019
Wow, this was an expensive book to get hold of. Long out of press, but why?
It certainly is a relic of its time. A collection of short essays published in the 1970s by Soviet dissidents writing in the 1970s. It still holds up, as a historical snapshot - still a sledge-hammer blow to the late-state utopianist end-game.
I highly recommend reading the essays in order; the first two "As Breathing and Consciousness Return" by Solzhenitsyn and "Socialism in Our Past and Future" by Igor Shafarevich are enough to shatter any delusion that any utopianist idiology be it fascism, Communism or National Socialism will not end in totalitarianism and the destruction of the concept of the individual.
As Breathing and Consciousness Return is reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn's earlier work "Cancer Ward" which ends with protagonist Kostoglotov visiting a zoo and concluding "Deprived of their home surroundings, they had lost the idea of rational freedom. It would only make things harder for them, suddenly to set them free".
As Breathing and Consciousness Return is a similar meditation: an ideation on the psychological repercussions of a repressed people were they ever to feel freedom for the first time.
I actually think this is a better publication than Solzhenitsyn's Archipelago; although I don't deny its level of genius and psychological analysis, I do question some of its professed authenticity. I'm saving my criticisms of what is a universally revered work for that book for a day when I have the hours to point out its internal contradictions.
It certainly is a relic of its time. A collection of short essays published in the 1970s by Soviet dissidents writing in the 1970s. It still holds up, as a historical snapshot - still a sledge-hammer blow to the late-state utopianist end-game.
I highly recommend reading the essays in order; the first two "As Breathing and Consciousness Return" by Solzhenitsyn and "Socialism in Our Past and Future" by Igor Shafarevich are enough to shatter any delusion that any utopianist idiology be it fascism, Communism or National Socialism will not end in totalitarianism and the destruction of the concept of the individual.
As Breathing and Consciousness Return is reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn's earlier work "Cancer Ward" which ends with protagonist Kostoglotov visiting a zoo and concluding "Deprived of their home surroundings, they had lost the idea of rational freedom. It would only make things harder for them, suddenly to set them free".
As Breathing and Consciousness Return is a similar meditation: an ideation on the psychological repercussions of a repressed people were they ever to feel freedom for the first time.
I actually think this is a better publication than Solzhenitsyn's Archipelago; although I don't deny its level of genius and psychological analysis, I do question some of its professed authenticity. I'm saving my criticisms of what is a universally revered work for that book for a day when I have the hours to point out its internal contradictions.
February 5, 2017
Summary:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn and six dissident colleagues who at the time of publication were still living in the USSR — six men totally vulnerable to arrest, imprisonment, or execution by the Soviet authorities — joined in the midseventies to write a book which surely remains the most extraordinary debate of a nation’s future published in modern times. Shattering a half-century of silence, From Under the Rubble constitutes a devastating attack on the Soviet regime, a moral indictment of the liberal West, and a Christian manifesto calling for a new society — one whose dominant values would be spiritual rather than economic. Personally edited by the Nobel Prize-winning author, fired by his own substantial contributions, From Under the Rubble articulates Solzhenitsyn’s most fervent call to action. His daring, and the remarkable courage of his colleagues, is testament to the seriousness of their demand for a revolution in which one does not kill one’s enemies, but in which “one puts oneself in danger for the sake of the nation!” With an introduction by Max Hayward, and translated under the direction of Michael Scammell. The contributors: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mikhail Agursky, Evgeny Barabanov, Vadim Borisov, F. Korsakov, A.B., Igor Shafarevich.
This book was published in 1977-- has the Soviet progressed? Has the dream of these men been realized?
It is interesting that in the book the men make a claim that "Christian" values what would really make a difference to the Russian people.
Pg. viii "The central premise of the collection is the problems of the modern world, Soviet as well as Western, can no longer be solved on the political plane. Instead, the quest for solutions must begin on the ethical level."
Pg. 4 " The transition from free speech to enforced silence is not doubt painful. What torment for a living society, used to thinking for itself, to lose from some decreed date the right to express itself in print and in public, to bite back its words year in and year out, in friendly conversation and even under the family roof."
The book talks about "forms of socialism" have always been here in one form or another:
Pg 28 "African societies have always lived by an empirical natural socialism, which can be termed instinctive."
"Socialism is a part of the religion of Islam and has been closely linked with the character of its people ever since that people existed as nomadic pagans."
Socialism:
Abolished individual families pg 49-50
Pg. 53- "The basic propositions of the socialist world view have often been proclaimed: the abolition of private property, religion and the family. One of the principles which is not so often represented as fundamental, though it is not less widespread, is the demand for equality, the destruction of the hierarchy into which society has arranged itself. The idea of equality in socialist ideology has a special character, which is particularly important for an understanding of socialism. In the more consistent socialist systems equality is understood in so radical a way that leads to a negation of the existence of any genuine differences between individuals: "equality" is turned into "equivalence."
pg 55 ... "correlation between socialism and religion. They consist of identical elements which, in their different contexts, possess opposite meanings. "There is a similarity between them in their diametrical opposition," says Berdyayev of Christianity and Marxism. The idea of human equality is also fundamental to religion, but it is achieved in contact with God, that is, in the highest sphere of human existence. Socialism, as is clearly evident from the examples above, aims to establish equality by the opposite means of destroying all the higher aspects of the personality. It is this concept of equality to which the socialist principles of communal property and the destruction of the family relate, and it also explains the hatred of religion which saturates socialist ideology."
VERY INTERESTING:
Pg. 85 " We should strive toward the elimination of political parties as bureaucratic organizations with their own secretariats, propaganda channels and finances. The elimination of parties is perfectly feasible, first because in a decentralized society the central authority will confer no particular privileges, and second because psychological basis of the political parties will also disappear. The contemporary class structure of society; which fuels political antagonism, will disappear, as will the s0-called intelligentsia (as a social class, not as a spiritual entity), since the polarity between physical and mental work will be eliminated. And this the base on which all parties are built. There will of course always be groups of like-minded who can combine for the pursuit of certain common aims. The point is that the creation of special bureaucratic organizations with their secretariats, finances, and so on, is dangerous to society, whatever views their adherents propound."
pg 86 " The mass media must be freed from their commercial and propagandist character."
But I don't agree with the books solution to this--elected "censors"
The book talks about bringing about these changes through "repentance and self-limitation." as a society
Pg 192 " Today, as never before, a Christian initiative is needed to counter the godless humanism which is destroying mankind, and to prevent humanism from deteriorating into a nonreligious humanism. WE ARE TOO PASSIVE IN OUR ATTITUDE TO THE WORLD."
Pg. 249 "The moral health of their children is more precious than their careers ..."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn and six dissident colleagues who at the time of publication were still living in the USSR — six men totally vulnerable to arrest, imprisonment, or execution by the Soviet authorities — joined in the midseventies to write a book which surely remains the most extraordinary debate of a nation’s future published in modern times. Shattering a half-century of silence, From Under the Rubble constitutes a devastating attack on the Soviet regime, a moral indictment of the liberal West, and a Christian manifesto calling for a new society — one whose dominant values would be spiritual rather than economic. Personally edited by the Nobel Prize-winning author, fired by his own substantial contributions, From Under the Rubble articulates Solzhenitsyn’s most fervent call to action. His daring, and the remarkable courage of his colleagues, is testament to the seriousness of their demand for a revolution in which one does not kill one’s enemies, but in which “one puts oneself in danger for the sake of the nation!” With an introduction by Max Hayward, and translated under the direction of Michael Scammell. The contributors: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mikhail Agursky, Evgeny Barabanov, Vadim Borisov, F. Korsakov, A.B., Igor Shafarevich.
This book was published in 1977-- has the Soviet progressed? Has the dream of these men been realized?
It is interesting that in the book the men make a claim that "Christian" values what would really make a difference to the Russian people.
Pg. viii "The central premise of the collection is the problems of the modern world, Soviet as well as Western, can no longer be solved on the political plane. Instead, the quest for solutions must begin on the ethical level."
Pg. 4 " The transition from free speech to enforced silence is not doubt painful. What torment for a living society, used to thinking for itself, to lose from some decreed date the right to express itself in print and in public, to bite back its words year in and year out, in friendly conversation and even under the family roof."
The book talks about "forms of socialism" have always been here in one form or another:
Pg 28 "African societies have always lived by an empirical natural socialism, which can be termed instinctive."
"Socialism is a part of the religion of Islam and has been closely linked with the character of its people ever since that people existed as nomadic pagans."
Socialism:
Abolished individual families pg 49-50
Pg. 53- "The basic propositions of the socialist world view have often been proclaimed: the abolition of private property, religion and the family. One of the principles which is not so often represented as fundamental, though it is not less widespread, is the demand for equality, the destruction of the hierarchy into which society has arranged itself. The idea of equality in socialist ideology has a special character, which is particularly important for an understanding of socialism. In the more consistent socialist systems equality is understood in so radical a way that leads to a negation of the existence of any genuine differences between individuals: "equality" is turned into "equivalence."
pg 55 ... "correlation between socialism and religion. They consist of identical elements which, in their different contexts, possess opposite meanings. "There is a similarity between them in their diametrical opposition," says Berdyayev of Christianity and Marxism. The idea of human equality is also fundamental to religion, but it is achieved in contact with God, that is, in the highest sphere of human existence. Socialism, as is clearly evident from the examples above, aims to establish equality by the opposite means of destroying all the higher aspects of the personality. It is this concept of equality to which the socialist principles of communal property and the destruction of the family relate, and it also explains the hatred of religion which saturates socialist ideology."
VERY INTERESTING:
Pg. 85 " We should strive toward the elimination of political parties as bureaucratic organizations with their own secretariats, propaganda channels and finances. The elimination of parties is perfectly feasible, first because in a decentralized society the central authority will confer no particular privileges, and second because psychological basis of the political parties will also disappear. The contemporary class structure of society; which fuels political antagonism, will disappear, as will the s0-called intelligentsia (as a social class, not as a spiritual entity), since the polarity between physical and mental work will be eliminated. And this the base on which all parties are built. There will of course always be groups of like-minded who can combine for the pursuit of certain common aims. The point is that the creation of special bureaucratic organizations with their secretariats, finances, and so on, is dangerous to society, whatever views their adherents propound."
pg 86 " The mass media must be freed from their commercial and propagandist character."
But I don't agree with the books solution to this--elected "censors"
The book talks about bringing about these changes through "repentance and self-limitation." as a society
Pg 192 " Today, as never before, a Christian initiative is needed to counter the godless humanism which is destroying mankind, and to prevent humanism from deteriorating into a nonreligious humanism. WE ARE TOO PASSIVE IN OUR ATTITUDE TO THE WORLD."
Pg. 249 "The moral health of their children is more precious than their careers ..."
January 5, 2026
Essays from the deep caverns of communism. Not all of them are of the same quality but all speak of high things like culture, the soul, religion, suffering, evil, and hope. Solzhenitsyn was especially good. Suffering purifies the soul. A paradox, no doubt. But it shows that evil will never have the last word.
July 4, 2016
"From Under the Rubble" was intended as a discussion and debate starter on the future of the U.S.S.R. In the foreword and his first essay of 4 (in this collection), Solzhenitsyn explores how, “over half a century of enforced silence” has left every mind in the U.S.S.R. deeply scarred by the “shackles” of propaganda and fear. He also insists that although (comparative) freedom of speech has recently come into existence again, the Soviet nation is in danger of not being freed from, “the lie forced upon us [by the State]”.
Taking Sakharov’s article, Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom as a starting point, Solzhenitsyn blasts, “many of the fundamental ideas” in it as being, “insufficiently thought out” and, in some cases, not honest or radical enough to initiate a proper discourse on the nation’s history. The main point that Solzhenitsyn took pains to blast open was the received idea that Stalinism (portrayed as a Bad Thing), represented a break from Leninist thought.
“Did it ever exist?”, asks Solzhenitsyn before delivering one of the most brutal and crushing verbal assaults on Stalin that it has ever been my pleasure to read. (No spoilers, I am not going to take the unadulterated pleasure from any of you). He then goes on to disprove the theory that Stalin’s policies broke with Lenin’s in any way except for “the ruthless treatment of his own party“.
Sadly none of the other essays struck a chord in quite the same way.
Shafarevich’s vision of a future Socialist system in which everyone is “‘militarized’ and turned into a soldier” of the state. A state in which punishments range from slavery, (“which plays an important role in the economy”) to, “the elimination of undesirables” left me cold as, whether by luck or design, Shafarevich has actually described a system not dissimilar to a certain country’s current political system.
Throughout the collection of essays, snippets of ideas and ideologies that are still promulgated by certain groups sprang up. Pan-slavism and how being made to feel ‘Russian’ was a high honour for any nation (especially Ukraine), how the ‘intelligensia’ should now be classed and whether ‘the people’ should listen to them or remove them, the place of religion.
Taking Sakharov’s article, Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom as a starting point, Solzhenitsyn blasts, “many of the fundamental ideas” in it as being, “insufficiently thought out” and, in some cases, not honest or radical enough to initiate a proper discourse on the nation’s history. The main point that Solzhenitsyn took pains to blast open was the received idea that Stalinism (portrayed as a Bad Thing), represented a break from Leninist thought.
“Did it ever exist?”, asks Solzhenitsyn before delivering one of the most brutal and crushing verbal assaults on Stalin that it has ever been my pleasure to read. (No spoilers, I am not going to take the unadulterated pleasure from any of you). He then goes on to disprove the theory that Stalin’s policies broke with Lenin’s in any way except for “the ruthless treatment of his own party“.
Sadly none of the other essays struck a chord in quite the same way.
Shafarevich’s vision of a future Socialist system in which everyone is “‘militarized’ and turned into a soldier” of the state. A state in which punishments range from slavery, (“which plays an important role in the economy”) to, “the elimination of undesirables” left me cold as, whether by luck or design, Shafarevich has actually described a system not dissimilar to a certain country’s current political system.
Throughout the collection of essays, snippets of ideas and ideologies that are still promulgated by certain groups sprang up. Pan-slavism and how being made to feel ‘Russian’ was a high honour for any nation (especially Ukraine), how the ‘intelligensia’ should now be classed and whether ‘the people’ should listen to them or remove them, the place of religion.
May 12, 2016
In 'Memoirs of a Revolutionary' (Victor Serge), he mentioned this book and its value. It was a little hard to get a copy (mine is secondhand and was shipped from the US to the UK, where l got it sent to South Korea), but so glad that l did.
The papers are written by prominent intellectuals of the era who had been exiled. While some papers are brilliant, others are boring as hell. The first 100 pages (four papers) are exceptional and bring ideas/arguments to the table that i had never considered/heard before. After that, l had to skim more than read because BORING. I still give this book 5 stars because l believe that everyone should read the first four papers. So well are they written, every Bernie Sanders supporter would quake in her boots if presented with the arguments/warnings against socialism.
If you are a socialist, you should read this to get a better idea of your (corrupt) ideology. If you are a conservative, you should read this to shoot down your socialist friends/family. If you don't have any political leanings, you should read this book to help get some!
I will be reading the first four papers again and will try hard to memorize the arguments. No more losing at political debates for me!
The papers are written by prominent intellectuals of the era who had been exiled. While some papers are brilliant, others are boring as hell. The first 100 pages (four papers) are exceptional and bring ideas/arguments to the table that i had never considered/heard before. After that, l had to skim more than read because BORING. I still give this book 5 stars because l believe that everyone should read the first four papers. So well are they written, every Bernie Sanders supporter would quake in her boots if presented with the arguments/warnings against socialism.
If you are a socialist, you should read this to get a better idea of your (corrupt) ideology. If you are a conservative, you should read this to shoot down your socialist friends/family. If you don't have any political leanings, you should read this book to help get some!
I will be reading the first four papers again and will try hard to memorize the arguments. No more losing at political debates for me!
January 29, 2025
Hard to rate. There is within some remarkable ideas, beautifully expressed. I felt that much applies to us in the US at this juncture.
Some essays are over my head, as they relate to Russia and are responses to prevailing discussions of their time.
What I found useful for a future reread:
As Breathing and Consciousness Return
Socialism in Our Past and Future
Russian Destinies
The Schism Between the Church and the World
Does Russia Have a Future?
Some essays are over my head, as they relate to Russia and are responses to prevailing discussions of their time.
What I found useful for a future reread:
As Breathing and Consciousness Return
Socialism in Our Past and Future
Russian Destinies
The Schism Between the Church and the World
Does Russia Have a Future?
Read
November 27, 2013NC
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews