Courageous Defender

No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I'm ready to accept even death.

--Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1967)

Even in the face of official Soviet persecution, Russia's greatest living writer remains true to his credo. Last week the clandestine texts became available of Solzhenitsyn's statements before a committee of literary bureaucrats who sought to expel him from the local branch of the Soviet Writers Union in the town of Ryazan, 115 miles southeast of Moscow. "I am ready to accept even death, not only expulsion from the union," he told his accusers, who charge him with allowing his books to be published in the West. "Vote! You can vote. You are in the majority. But remember: the annals of our literature will still have something to say about today's meeting."

Stalinist Crimes. Solzhenitsyn spoke in his own defense at the Ryazan meeting, which took place two weeks ago. The leader of the attack on Solzhenitsyn was a hack writer named Vasily Matushkin. He conceded that he had never read Solzhenitsyn's novels The First Circle and Cancer Ward, which are banned in the Soviet Union because they are a devastating portrayal of conditions in Stalin's concentration camps. Matushkin, however, contended that the West uses the books "to throw mud on our motherland." "How do you explain that they so eagerly print you in the West?" he asked. "And how do you explain that they obstinately refuse to publish me in my own country?" retorted Solzhenitsyn, who insisted that he had forbidden the appearance of his works in the West. He added that "we cannot keep silent forever about the crimes of Stalin. These are crimes against millions and they cry out to be exposed. To pretend that they did not exist is to pervert millions of others."

Literary Unperson. The local union expelled him anyhow, and last week the executive committee of the Russian Writers Union in Moscow confirmed the expulsion order. As a result, Solzhenitsyn has become an unperson in the Soviet literary community. He is deprived of all the perquisites of union membership, including loans for needy writers, the use of vacation retreats, and freedom to establish residence anywhere in the Soviet Union.

He is, in effect, no longer able to earn his living as an intellectual. There is widespread apprehension in Moscow that he may be confined to an insane asylum, if he continues to speak out.

After the confirmation of his ouster, which was reportedly approved by the Politburo, Solzhenitsyn sent an open letter to the union in Moscow. "Wipe the dust off your watches," he wrote.

"They are running centuries behind the times. Throw open your beloved heavy curtains.

You do not even suspect that the dawn has risen outside."

He continued: "Hate, even racist hate, has become the sterile atmosphere in which you live. In this way, all sense of the oneness of mankind is vanishing, and this can only speed it toward its doom. It is time to remember that we belong first of all to mankind. Man is distinguished from the animal world by thought and by speech, which are free by nature. If these are suppressed, we become animals again. Free speech is the first requirement for the health of every society, including ours. He who does not want free speech for our country does not wish to heal it of its sickness, but only to drive it underground where it will fester."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.