That Jew hating bastard Alexander Solzhenitsyn is done (finally!). He was a rabid anti-semite who blamed the existence of the Soviet Union on Jews. Was wither Lenin or Stalin Jewish? Nyet!!!!

If there is a life beyond this one, I wish it were exactly like the Gulag. Rot in Hell you Jew hating momzer.

See http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-world...a.Solzhenitsyn/

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob,

You could have been a little more informative had you wished. This is a philosophy forum. You know. Ideas. Information. That kind of stuff. Not just explosions of hatred and spite.

But I will grant that there is a there there with your complaint. Try this:

The anti-Semitism of Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Cathy Young
Reason magazine
May 2004

Michael

In addition to being a vicious and rabid anti-semite, the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn (better late than never, I say -- that is a meme) also lacked grace and gratitude. Prior to his return to Mother Russia, following the demise of the Communist State he dwelt in Vermont, USA. While living in his monastic retreat he wrote article and gave speeches saying how degenerate the West is, steeped in materialism. Russia under the Tzsars was un materialistic and one can see just how good life with in Mother Russia. Millions of Russians could not wait to get out and Go West. The U.S. inherited some of the result of Mother Russia's grace and wonderfulness. For example David Sarnfoff who founded RCA was a Russian immigrant to the U.S.

Beware of those who crap on materialism. They are among the enemies of the Human Race.

Solzhenitsyn was a nasty old bugger whose charm did not increase with his years. No lovable curmudgeon he. He was a nasty piece of work both young and old.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al

Thirty years ago I met a man who'd been in Nazi concentration camps, Neungamm and Belsen, total about nine months. He survived largely because it was a relatively short period, and he was young and tough. I spent about four hours talking to him about the experience. Just ~hearing~ him changed ~my~ life and the worst that ever happened to me was Catholic boarding school.

Solzhenitsyn spent 8 yrs in hell. That sort of experience changes a person. I can't and won't excuse S. for his dark side, his anti-semitism etc, but that wasn't ~all~ there was to him. I think you should be a bit more sympathetic to a man who achieved a great deal in his life, despite the huge efforts of a really evil man, Stalin, to snuff that life out.

Nicholas Dykes

Read this:

http://tollelege.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/...i-solzhenitsyn/

It might change your view of the man.

I have no patience with anyone who craps on those who give him shelter and comfort regardless of what he has suffered.

Ba'al Chatzaf♠

By ending the love affair with Soviet Communism in the eyes of western intellectuals and undermining the Soviet State (with Kruschev's help, using The Gulag Archipelligo to distance the regime from Stalinism) Solzhenitsyn probably did more to end the persercution of jews in Russia than any other person in there, no? At the very least he did a lot more good for jews by his contribution to ending soviet tyranny than he surely did bad through his possible anti-semitism which was no doubt of little over all influence.

Ah, wouldn't it be easy if everything were black and white?

Ba'al,

We had a long series of popular though rather simplistic movies over here all called 'Carry on...' If 'Carry on Judging' is your bag, so be it. We also had a police chief who said 'Forgiving is a way of forgetting.' I hold no brief for S. But, for me, what he suffered will always incline me to forgive. In my own work, for instance, I have been very critical of Karl Popper. But when I learned, very late, that he suffered from tinnitus -- a ringing in the ears that can drive one crazy -- I immediately wondered whether some of my harsher criticisms couldn't have been toned down. Tinnitus is a ~horrible~ condition to live with. Similarly, without saying S. was right or wrong, I think a fair-minded commentator should always bear in mind that deep psychological scars -- such as were inevitable in concentration camps -- can warp a a person's personality in ways that they would never themselves have chosen.

Nicholas

Dragonfly,

LOL...

There is black and white, but just not with judging Solzhenitsyn's work as a whole.

Also, there is black and white in Bob's head about him, but that is an issue of subjective value judgment, not fact.

Michael

I am in substantial agreement with both Matus and Nicholas. Solzhenitsyn was not a man I would have wanted to know or would have expected to like if I had known him, but Ba'al's attack is unjust not because he passionately resents Solzhenitsyn's anti-Semitism, as I also do, but because he ignores everything else about the man, including aspects at least as important, on the plus side of the ledger as an ignorant racism is on the minus side.

Barbara

A.S. was also an ungrateful wretch who despised and insulted the country that gave him refuge. That is bad manners and I consider that even worse than being an anti-semite. One should never repay bread and shelter with insult. A guest is not compelled to love or even like his host, but he should button up his mouth or sheave his pen.

Anti-semitism aside, A.S. glorified suffering. He was -glad- he was imprisoned and made to suffer. He was geateful to his tormentors (by his own word). See
http://tollelege.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/...i-solzhenitsyn/.

A.S. was a sick, perverted and thoroughly nasty man and I have no guilt in pissing on his grave. Good riddance to him.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I'm glad Alexander Solzhenitsyn published One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago. They made a dimension of the evil of the Soviet regime more evident to many.

The bad things you mention - they were also a part of Solzhenitsyn.

Bill P (Alfonso)

Bill P, Yours was a balanced and correct view of Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhentsyn helped end the Soviet Union. He can make a few mistakes.

Such as wishing to return to the days of the Czars and the Boyars. A.S. was NOT an advocate of liberty. He wanted the Czars back.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob,

I shall repeat, this is philosophy forum. Your position of loathing Solzhenitsyn has been noted and on record. Other people disagree and your outburst has far from persuaded anyone. So please, let us not have 50 gazillion posts bashing the same thing with little or no intellectual input, trying to convince by repetition of sheer hatred.

That doesn't work around people who think for themselves and never will.

Michael

And at great personal risk to himself, he had no way to know the regime change would embrace his work in an attempt to distance itself from Stalinism, he would have been justified in expecting to be immediately executed.

I knew an Israeli guy named David. Hated the goy. Once asked "The British? The heck have they done for the Jews". I punched him in the nose.

I would love to meet you Kolker.

Reviews of Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together say that he claimed that, even though many of their victims were Jews, many in the early Soviet leadership were Jews. Apparently it’s true (Trotsky, Yagoda, Kaganovich, etc.). What’s the point in caricaturing that into: Solzhenitsyn “blamed the existence of the Soviet Union on Jews.” You can almost hear Kolker breathing “all” right before “Jews.”

There’s a big difference between:

I see a lot of what I eat.
and
I eat everything I see.

Mark; Good post.

Edward E. Ericson has a great discussion of Solzhenitsyn in the August 9-10th Wall Street Journal.

Baal: The czars were better than the Soviets.

That they were. Joseph Stalin makes Ivan the Terrible seem like a pansy.

Ba'al Chatzaf