Commentary
Yes, I know that one should not speak ill of the dead. But, to be honest, that is bull. In the Marxist movement, at least at its revolutionary end, political obituary has always been measured by and has reflected personal and political reality. The recently departed Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a class enemy of the Russian and international working class. Solzhenitsyn did not start that way but he spent a significant portion of his life, especially after his years in the Stalinist labor camps, as a conscious agent of Western imperialism or, at the end, an advocate of the virtues of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Look, we of the anti-Stalinist, pro-socialist left had our people in the gulags and the labor camps too. Practically the whole Trotsky-led Russian Left Opposition along with other pro-socialist tendencies forced into internal exile by Stalin and his goons got liquidated. For what reason? In short, because they opposed Stalin, yet stood on the grounds of the October Revolution and for waging a political fight in order to save the soul of the Russian socialist experience.
This eulogizing of Solzhenitsyn by Western imperial polemicists of their former ‘poster boy’ makes my blood run cold. Interestingly, once the object of Western imperial design, the demise of the Soviet Union, was accomplished, at least in the West, Solzhenitsyn was thrown on the scrape heap (aided by his personal reclusiveness, as well). Personally, I had half an idea that he was still up in Vermont when I heard the news of his death. I do not know what his ultimate place will be in the world literary pantheon? (Probably less than one might have thought about forty years ago, after he wrote Cancer Ward and the other novels, which did have some literary merit.) However, as a nasty political opponent not just of socialism but of modernism the headline says it all- no tears here.
No tears here.
ReplyDeleteAs is usually the case Renegade Eye has hit the nail on its head with his comment. Nothing needs to be added in regard to Solzhenitsyn.
ReplyDeleteWhile on the subject of gulags, labor camps and the general absurdity and treachery of the Stalinist apparatus if one wants a literary gem from our perspective then The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge is worth a read.
Moreover it is appropriate here to call to memory the Russian Left Opposition whose fate, for the most part, was also to be sent to the labor camps. All honor to their memory and their fight to save the Soviet experiment while under duress, especially their desire to serve the Soviet Union during the struggle against the Axis powers in World War II. And they didn't, as far as I know, whine about their fate. They did their revolutionary duty. Bravo, comrades.