Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Détente, Democracy and Dictatorship

T hird (enlarged) E dition

I ntroduction by D aniel J. M ahoney

P refaces and P ostscript by
I rving L ouis H orowitz and A rthur S chlesinger , J r.

First published 2009 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge

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Copy 2009 by Taylor & Francis.

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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2009011451

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich, 1918-2008.

Dtente, democracy, and dictatorship / Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
3rd enlarged ed.
p. cm.

Previously published: New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, c1980, under title Dtente.

Based on addresses delivered in 1975 in Washington, D.C. and New York, and in 1978 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4128-1030-2 (alk. paper)

I. Soviet Union-Foreign relations--1953-1975. 2. Soviet Union-Foreign relations--United States. 3. United States--Foreign relations--Soviet Union. 4. Soviet Union--Politics and government--1953-1985. 5. Civilization, Modern--1950- 6. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich, 1918- 2008. I. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich, 1918-2008. Dtente. II. Title.

DK274.S613 2009

327.47073--dc22

2009011451

ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-1030-2 (pbk)

The only meaningful comparison that one can make to the impact of Solzhenitsyns speeches during his famous visit to the United States is Winston Churchills famous Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri in 1947, in which he formally declared the beginning of the Cold War. While the Churchillian event was conducted, quite properly, in an abbey, under the most austere, collegiate auspices in the American Midwest, Solzhenitsyns speech, under the sponsorship of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), represented an almost typical Washington happening. As a study in contrasts, it would be hard to improve upon the introductory remarks of George Meany, with his carefree, working-class mannerisms straight out of Casey Stengel, and Solzhenitsyns classical nineteenth-century Russian oratory. One is tempted to declare: Only in America!

Solzhenitsyns opening speech in Washington, on June 30, 1975, can only be described as a cross between a Southern Baptist Convention and a chapter from televisions This Is Your Life. Solzhenitsyn was introduced to people (some from his past) who have also managed to escape the ferocious world of Soviet terrorisma sailor who had jumped ship, was returned and finally was permitted to leave under United States pressure, and a United States citizen who spent a number of years in the Gulag and is now a government employee, Alexander Dolgun. These people were brought together not so much because of shared interests, but because they had shared perils. The ceremonialism of the occasion was marked by the presence of a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, who offered the invocation and benediction, and several secular bishops and dignitaries, past and present, from the United States government, such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, William Rogers, Melvin Laird, and James R. Schlesinger. It was Kremlinology in reverse. Seating assignments became important to establish the hierarchy of power present, and one gossiped over the absence of Kissinger, as much as over the appearance of Schlesinger.

All of this background paraphernalia was neither unimportant nor incidental. With remarkable agility, Solzhenitsyn had become an American politician manque, traveling the length and breadth of the country, pumping hands, kissing babies and assuming a reverential stance before the proper monuments. He is sufficiently Westernized to know that sponsorship is legitimacy. The vocation of orator is not a universe of Wittgensteins making, i.e., whereof one does not know, thereof one does not speak. Rather, whatever one knows, be sure it gets listened to. That Solzhenitsyn did quite brilliantly and adroitly, by having his premiere effort sponsored by the AFL-CIO national office. It is, after all, the central organization of the American working class, and hence it is an organization whose roots touch the fabric of American life, and presumably is unlikely to be called reactionary in its essence. That, as much as what Solzhenitsyn said, must have upset President Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger, both of them have enough trouble with organized labor and a disorganized Congress.