Angry Pygmies
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was one of the few giants of our age, a courageous witness against the irremediable evil of Communism and a prophetic voice against the dangers of amoral Western materialism.
He also used to be a hero of American conservatives. But the sort of men who now are exalted in "mainstream conservatism" have a somewhat different take on the Russian giant: They freely acknowledge his greatness, while forcefully denying his ideas have any relevance for us. Christopher Hitchens, in Slate, blasts the "ayatollahlike tones of his notorious Harvard lecture" and dismisses Solzhenitsyn as a "classic Russian Orthodox chauvinist," takes him to task for opposing NATO's war against Serbia, and implies he may have been anti-Semitic. (Hitchens also describes what Solzhenitsyn opposed as a "Stalinist system," passing over what Solzhenitsyn proved: that Soviet Communism was evil from the beginning, and that the mass murder and terror began with Hitchens' heroes Trotsky and Lenin).
Hitchens' intellectual colleague, Victor Davis Hanson, also wrote about Solzhenitsyn's passing, though he managed to say somewhat less about Solzhenitsyn than he did about the more burning issue of whether Obama is "the Hannah Montana candidate." About the great Russian, Hanson noted that "many Reaganite supporters of democracy grew to be more worried that he sounded ever more the ultra-Russian nationalist—with all the baggage that entails, from religious fundamentalism to anti-Semitism," and claimed that Solzhentisyn felt that "the proper antidote to both totalitarianism . . . and Western-style free market capitalism and individualism [is] a proud Czarist Orthodox, all-powerful state—something akin to what is fossilizing in Putin's Russia." (Hanson is obviously unfamiliar with Solzhenitsyn's oft-expressed admiration for local self-government).
So there you have the neocon worldview: Orthodox Christianity is bad, as is any suggestion that materialism is not the answer, much less opposition to forcibly spreading "the global democratic revolution" around the globe. Hitchens and Hanson's venting of their own grievances against Solzhenitsyn reminds one of nothing so much as angry pygmies fulminating against a giant, and the fact that these men now enjoy so much prestige among self-described conservatives tells us all we need to know about the intellectual vitality of "mainstream American conservatism" today.
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Mr. Piatak,
The title of your entry is perfect.
Whatever his faults may be, Hanson didn't adopt what he called the Reaganite take on Solzhenitsyn. His next paragraph is:
Grumpy Old Man:
No, I think that Hanson did adopt the view that he describes as both "Reaganite" and "conservative," labels Hanson certainly applies to himself. As I noted, he still regards Solzhenitsyn as a great man, in the paragraph you cite, but he also distances himself from Solzhenitysn's traditionalism.
Any serious conservative would fin it utterly preposterous to suggest that our own empire -- built upon 40 million murdered children, atomized civilian cities, and unrestrained consumer appetite -- currently rests upon a firmer moral foundation than did czarist Russia.
As to Hitchens, it's probably unbearable to him to hear somebody other than Chris Hitchens being praised as a defender of human dignity -- especially if that somebody is a believer in God.
He knows Solzhenitsyn's legacy is still too strong for him to attack directly, so he mingles in some pseudo-praise as misdirection, to gloss over the fact that it was indeed Orthodox faith and heritage that informed Solzhenitsyn's defense of human dignity.
The parts where he snipes at Solzhenitsyn are more to his point, however. His Trotskyism aside, I think it's clear that Hitchens still has higher regard for Stalinist Sovietism than for traditional Russia.
After all, at least Stalin didn't espouse a higher power or anything. And he did kill lots of priests.
Tom,
I'd like to second Bruce's comment on the title and applaud the point you are making about his critics. When I read many of the remarks on the passing of the great man in the MSM, it became obvious that many of the people who like to say that Solzhenitsyn was a Russian chauvinist, or an imperialist, that he hated the West, or what have you have never read the man's books and speeches, or at least have not read much or carefully.
Solzhenitsyn was a Russian patriot who criticized his countrymen many times out of what another patriot once called "suffering love" for his nation. But he defended his country from the kind of reflexive anti-Russian sentiment we see all too well among the neo-cons. Solzhenitsyn was a courageous man, but one who also had no regard whatever for the popularity of his views, celebrity, or wealth. And we should not forget the importance of his writing as art, which gets lost in the political wrangling that has followed his passing.
His life is one all of us, especially those who might be called "paleo-conservatives," can learn something from.
As this country (US) and the EU more and more resembles the USSR and the fulfilled dreams of Marx- a worker ant society devoid of differences of race, sex, nationality, etc. Russia may be our only refuge in a few years to lead anything resembling a traditional life.
It appears that the Warsaw Pact just moved to Brussels and Washington and that its values will be foisted upon the dull-witted hedonistic masses there.
Excellent piece. What you describe leads me more and more to the understanding that the whole movement known as "American conservatism" was terminally contaminated from the beginning, , as much so as the Republican party that co-opted it. Remember that Gerald Ford, who was no neocon, stupidly sbubbed the great Russian.
Solzhenitsyn writes, "There was a multitude of Christians: prisoner transports and graveyards, prisoner transports and graveyards. Who will count those millions? They died unknown, casting only in their immediate vicinity a light like a candle. They were the best of Russia's Christians." The great man knew that all the revolutions since 1789 were against Christianity (and to a lesser extent Judaism). There is no point at which anyone like a hate-filled fly-speck on the atheist wall like Christopher Hitchens could intersect with the moral vision of a real conservative like Solzhenitsyn. Thanks, Tom, for being vigilant.
The fact that communism was installed on Russia organised and financed from New York primarily by Jacob Schiff and his bank shows that communism was a farce that it was a clever why to control a country by eliminating private property and running its economy through a central bank.
Most of the first soviet government consisted primarily of New York Jews.
Communism would not have gotten of the ground in Russia if it was not for western liberals and socialists like Christopher Hitchens in the west that propagated it and the fact that it was financed by high interest loans including Stalin’s 5 year industrial program from the Federal Reserve in the US
Christopher Hitchens is a notorious, pro-jewish Marxist fool.
He supports Islamic militants in the Balkans while denouncing it in Israel and protest over the Mohammed cartoon.
He denounces the bible for being anti-Semitic.
@7Clyde Wilson
Neo-cons are former communists who shifted to the right when society was getting fed up with left wing dogma and race riots and becoming more conservative black groups were becoming more nationalistic, etc.
@8John Willson
Since the French revolution most have been financed by the powerful Rothschild banking dynasty.
In the 20th centaury most political movement’s communism, civil rights, feminism, gay rights and open borders immigration have been lead by jews. Communism itself is an exclusively jewish political movement. Prof Kevin MacDonald has done some good research on this.
Great Column, Tom!
Per VDH:
"Yet many Reaganite supporters of democracy grew to become worried that he sounded ever more the ultra-Russian nationalist — with all the baggage that it entails, from religious fundamentalism to anti-Semitism."
Uh, really? Most of us "Reagan Supporters" - a pretty broad category encompassing 60 percent of the country in 1984 - think A.S. was a great man, a fine Christian, a very good writer, and a patriotic Russian. Note how VDH does his usual smear job. He brings all the usual scare words: "ultra-Russian nationalist", "religious fundamentalism", "anti-Semitism" with no proof. Of course, these words are never defined either.
A.S. was a friend of truth and the USA. All three children live here I believe. I've gotten of the constant Russian bashing by the Neo-cons. Its hard to find 2 countries who have less to fight about than Russia and the USA. Now that they've overthrown their communist imperialist masters, we have no beef with them.
Excellent Entry
After reading his remarks to Harvard I think it is wholly inadequate to describe him as simply an enemy of communism as many at National Review would like. His criticism of the West was filled with such wisdom and profundity, and to call him 'anti-communist' is a disservice. Solzhenitsyn's remarks about America and Europe are much more important to us than his criticism of the Soviet Union. I do not know much about his life or his writings, perhaps because of my youth, but I would bet that his powerful repudiation of the liberal philosophy would not be received too well today by either the mainstream right or left. A man who criticizes both communism and individualism will have no home in America (unless it be at Chronicles). I would ask Hanson and all the other men who share his mind: What good is replacing one form of materialism for another? Why is communism so bad and liberalism so good if they both share such hatred for Christianity and its traditions? Why do you not listen to the words of Mr. Piatak?
I read with relief Mr.Piatak's column and the comments.There are some sane intellects left in America.I doubt Hitchens or Hanson have actually read much Solzhenitsyn...they seem to patter on from what they heard about his Harvard address.I frankly think "Cancer Ward" should be required reading for college freshmen...but others could propose equally great works.His critics....the pygmies...can chatter on.There is nothing more laughably irrelevant in contemporary Russia than the liberal Westernizers that Solzhenitsyn scorned.The revival of Russian tradition,patriotism and Orthodoxy is as much a part of his legacy as the exposure of Sovietism.Hitchens is an incoherent drunk who couldn't even respect Mother Theresa.Hanson is a classicist who fancied himself a military genius and has proven himself to be another blundering idiotic armchair general a/k/a a "neocon".
I first became away of Solzhenitsyn in the late sixties through to Russian language professors who were themselves native Russians. As I later learned more about him, I, as a child of the Cold War, began to see what he was describing as a verification of my cold-war understanding of the Soviet Union. But later, in a discussion with an old professor at another university, I was surprised to hear that professor say that Solzhenitsyn was perhaps a prophet from God, although she was unsure if God sent such emissaries into the modern world. By the time of this discussion, Solzhenitsyn was in the West. She added that we would know if he were a prophet if and when he became as rejected and even hated in the West as he had been by some in the Soviet Union. If her standard has any meaning, then he was indeed a prophet.
Norman Podhoretz states in his The Bloody Crossroads that there is no evidence whatsover that AS is tainted by antisemitism. This charge is becoming the last refuge of scoundrels.
For a proper perspective on Solzhenitsyn untainted by neocon ideological baggage and that always-simmering question of "is he or is he not" an anti-semite, see the obituary posted by George Friedman of Stratfor.com in Lawrence Auster's website.
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/011131.html
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's work from 2003: 'Two hundred years together' is seldom or never mentioned. The reason for this it that it deals with the role of the Jews in Russia, and points out that the so-called 'Russian revolution' was mainly a Jewish revolution, conducted by and for Jews. This subject is more or less taboo in the Western world today. 'Two hundred years together' has of course never been translated into English, and probably never will be. It is already taboo even to mention 'Two hundred years together' in the West today.
If Solzhenitsyn was an anti-Semite for writing that Jews lead the Bolshevik revolution then so is all the western intelligence reports at the time as well as Winston Churchill.
You only have to look at who ran the gulags, media and made up the government of the soviet satellite states.
http://www.russians.org/communist.html
If we are to categorise anyone an anti-Semite for writing critically about Jews that would include Napoleon, Thomas Jefferson, Harry S. Truman, Nixon, Mark Twain, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.
"So there you have the neocon worldview: Orthodox Christianity is bad, as is any suggestion that materialism is not the answer, much less opposition to forcibly spreading “the global democratic revolution” around the globe."...was written in jest (tongue in cheek), or some other unappetizing view on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. As the world's only buffer between the ever encroaching Islam and the "modern world" - (Roman Catholoc, Protestant Europe) - Eastern Orthodoxy is nothing more than a perishable commodity and neither party will be sorry to see it go away - anywhere (absorbed by Catholicism, absorbed by Islam), as long as it is gone from European soil. The ridiculous presumption that there is even a nano-second of Eastern Orthodoxy being anti-semitic is an age old Trojan Horse that never worked in the past - and will probably never work in the future. As far as Алекса́ндр Иса́евич Солжени́цын, we'd be foolish to think that Tolstoy and Dostoyefsky, Mussorgsky are the last of the Russian greats - there is more where that came from.
Andy Post 16
Is that E. Michael Jones vindicated?
Neo-con attack on the Orthodox Christianity is just an attack on the Christianity in general in disguise. That is for two reasons: because it gives the strength and backbone to hated Russians and because they do not dare attack openly other Christian denominations. They seem to hate Christianity because it does not surrender to materialism and is the moral supervisor in modern societies. It is clearly an obstacle to them, yet they do not shy away of using it when prudent. It should not escape to anyone, like it did not to neo-cons, that it is exactly that religious morality that carried this man on to prevail over all odds against the overwhelming crunch of Stalinist regime. It was materialist regime, treating people just like animals and it was people that lacked the faith in something better who failed and succumbed to it. That is because materialists believe in now only and justice is ideal if possible and not too costly. People like Solzhenitsyn are the true victorers over the communism. That is what neo-cons can not forgive him, because he gives the example how it can be done everywhere, here in USA too. And neo-cons are materialists. They will openly admire his posture to communism because it was and is prudent, not because they like it.
"the fact that these men now enjoy so much prestige among self-described conservatives tells us all we need to know about the intellectual vitality of “mainstream American conservatism” today."
Tom,
You are one of the few traditionalists left who has any fortitude at all---John Rao, Tom Fleming, Clyde Wilson and only a very few others. You get better and better at punching these guys in the face and I admire you for it. Just as all of us admire the single honorable man willing to take on three thugs at a time. Noble is what you are. Keep up the good work.
Some of the posts here mischaracterize Solzhenitsyn's views in "Two Hundred Years Together." Here is an interview he gave about the book.
The book as a whole has not appeared in English, but from secondary accounts it is much more nuanced and thoughtful than either those who accuse Solzhenitsyn of being simply an antisemite, and those antisemites who whould adopt him as one of their own would like.
It may be simple and satisfying to some to blame the woes of our civilization on one group, treating it as if it were a monolith, but as Thomas Fleming points out, the story is much more complex, and there's plenty of blame to pass out, in many directions.
A truly great man has passed on, but the name of Solzhenitsyn will live on long, long after his detractors have long since been forgotten.
Perhaps one day he will be considered a saint.
Aside from his heroism and fortitude, and the inspiration he leaves behind for Russians and Christians everywhere, his works most likely will become part of the literary canon.
The question now is, here in our modern materialist utopia, which is now repeating the history of the Soviet Union in many ways and even doing it one better in others, where is our own Solzhenitsyn?
". . . the fact that these men now enjoy so much prestige among self-described conservatives tells us all we need to know about the intellectual vitality of 'mainstream Amerrican conservatism' today."
Exactly. I would only add that this is largely why Republicans will be the big losers in the next few election cycles.
Good piece Tom. I guess that just leaves us paleos to honor a good and great man and writer. Everyone else is too busy grinding their own ideological axes, or too scared of the neocons or too obsessed with Obama-McCain to pay Solzhenitsyn the homage he is accorded.
Boy, was it that long ago the deliberate snubbing of Solzhenitsyn by Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger became a cause celeb of the Right and was one of the reasons for the entry of Ronald Reagan into the presidential campaign of 1976? How time flies.
Let's not forget that when Mr Solzhenitsyn looked for a home in exile, he chose one of the only two states that never embraced Stalinism in the voting booth.
Did he ever attend town meeting?
Don't count on the madness ending anytime soon with the tussles over oil pipelines in the Caspian and the small war in some place called Ossetia taking place.
Did he ever attend town meeting?
++++++++++++++ begin quotes +++++++++++++++++++
VPR's Steve Zind has more.
(Zind) Solzhenitsyn arrived here in 1977 at the height of his fame: A Nobel Laureate and a celebrated dissident who'd been banished from his homeland.
So when he came here, he brought not only his family, but a stream of strangers who wanted to meet him, interview him or just catch a glimpse of him. Phyllis Bont remembers...
(Bont) "The town was just inundated. When you walked down the street, you were stopped by people, particularly the press, wanting to get directions to his house.''
(Zind) To keep strangers out, Solzhenitsyn put up a fence on the nearly 80 acres of land he owned. It struck a few people as un-neighborly and it didn't sit well with some hunters and snowmobilers. So the writer appeared at the annual Cavendish town meeting and asked people to forgive him for any disturbance his presence had caused.
Phyllis Bont's husband, Gene, says Solzhenitsyn's words broke any ice that remained between him and the people in town.
(Bont) "When he came to the town meeting and explained, that just seemed to wipe out any sort of hesitancy about his being here."
(Zind) Townspeople protected Solzhenitsyn's privacy. The sign at the general store warned that there would be no service for shirtless or shoeless customers, and no directions to the Solzhenitsyns'.
The author's family was a familiar sight and his children attended the local public schools.
Solzhenitsyn left Cavendish to return to Russia in 1994...
+++++++++++++++ end quotes ++++++++++++++++++
I lived in Vermont less than a 30 minute ride from his house in Cavendish and I had no desire to invade his privacy nor did any of my friends. We knew where he lived and we knew he wanted to be left alone and, back in the day, Vermonters used to respect such men and their desires.
Because he chose our state to live in, many of us experienced a surge of pride of place - despite the reality that many of us knew well that for quite some time the flat-landers had been moving in, gaining political power, and were busy wrecking our beautiful home .
But, at least we had a living Saint desiring to live amongst us and that was a reality that could not be ignored. I was SO proud of the folks of Cavendish protecting him the way they did.
Sean,
I was a young man, but I can remember being upset at the snub of A.I.S by Jerry Ford. Average, everyday Republicans in my hometown were annoyed by it. Reagan was outraged. Now at his death, we hear (except at Chronicles or Taki Mag) nothing but the party line "Russian dissident good, blah, blah, but then didn't like the USA, blah, blah, anti-semite?, blah, blah, Russian nationalist bad, blah, blah".
As you say, times have changed. And did McCain say anything about A.I.S's death? No doubt something perfunctory.
A. S. knew what 99% of American conservatives don't know; that 'tooth and claw' capitalism cannot be reconciled to a Christian-based traditionalism.
Spartacus, because Vermonters didn't try to profit from Solzhenitsyn's notoriety and protected his privacy, they deserve to be an independent republic again.
If the great Russian were to come to George Bush's U.S., he would probably be on the "terrorist watch list" and stopped. Of course, being on the list did not prevent Nelson Mandela from receiving homage from Congress.
Hi Tom
I appreciate your analysis of Solzhenitsyn's legacy, especially your sympathy for the Russian Orthodox traditions that he tried to uphold in his way. However, I think that his, in my opinion, overly naive praise of Putin and Russia's Orthodox 'revival' merits some further comment. I write this as a traditionalist Orthodox Christian.
I think one thing that paleoconservatives should be very careful about is what they say about countries like Serbia and Russia that are Orthodox by tradition but have only just come out of decades of Communist rule. It is tempting to praise them because the neocons attack them, but it is not necessarily true that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.
It is simply not the case that there has been a complete revival of traditional Orthodox society in these countries. Most people remain atheists, at least in practice; official Orthodoxy primarily serves as a nationalist banner. The hierarchy of the official Russian church is still dominated by KGB agents like Patriarch Alexy, aka Agent 'Drozdov'. Putin himself is, of course, a KGB man, and his rule has more or less seen the re-establishment of KGB control in the country, if not full-blown ideological Communism. That may come, in fact; Putin appeals as much if not more to the Soviet period than to the pre-revolutionary heritage of Russia. Similarly, the temptation to ridicule liberal interventionism in the Balkans should not blind us to the fact that the Serb leaders were for the most part either Communists, like Milosevic, or downright criminals, like Arkan, and certainly performed their fair share of atrocities. Serbs in fact are probably the least religious of all the 'Orthodox' nations today.
Solzhenitsyn seemed blind to the Soviet revival under Putin mainly, I imagine, because the strong support of Putin's government for the Moscow Patriarchate would have been inconceivable under Communism (even though the MP completely refrained from any criticism of the atheist government). Solzhenitsyn was, of course, a member of the MP, and not of the Catacomb Church, which consisted of those Orthodox who never accepted the Soviet government's demand for political obedience from the church hierarchy. This schism began in 1927, when a certain hierarch, Sergius, agreed to abandon criticism of the communists in return for official recognition. The other hierarchs were ordered to follow him; those that did eventually ended up in the Soviet MP, founded by Stalin in 1943, while the rest suffered total persecution and went into hiding (hence 'Catacomb' Church).
S did, it is true, make a name for himself in Russia, criticizing Patriarch Pimen in an open letter for his accommodation of the government's continuing discrimination and low-level persecution. This was one of the factors in his exile, in fact. But clearly the bulk of his criticism was aimed at the state's ideology, so when this at least appeared to change for the better, S was ready to accept any who made some show of leaving the old system, even if they had previously gave it whole-hearted support (like Putin and Alexy). This would not have happened had he taken a more uncompromising stance towards any cooperation with Communism. This was the stance of the catacomb Christians, and also of the former 'white' Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (consisting of that part of the Church that fled the country after the Revolution). Their recent union with the Soviet MP was a tragedy for true Orthodoxy, and a victory for Putin's neo-Soviet program.
Speaking of Russia:
Melos, Morals, Matryoshkas and Majorities: Of Sudetenland and South Ossetia