(b.December 11, 1918), a Russian author. He was imprisoned by Joseph Stalin from 1945\u201353. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, but was not allowed to leave Russia to accept it until the Soviet Government expelled him from the country, February 13, 1974. Alexander Solzhenitsyn proceeded to publish his telling book, The Gulag Archipelago, 1974\u201379, which won international acclaim.<\/p>\n
On June 30, 1975, while speaking in Washington, D.C., Alexander Solzhenitsyn stated:<\/p>\n
In pre-revolutionary Russia, during the 80 years before the revolution\u2014years of the revolutionary movement when there were attempts of the Tsar\u2019s life, assassination of a Tsar, revolution\u2014during these years about 17 persons a year were executed. The famous Spanish Inquisition, during the decades when it was at the height of its persecution, destroyed perhaps 10 persons a month. In the Archipelago\u2014I cite a book which was published by the Cheka in 1920, proudly reporting on its revolutionary work in 1918 and 1919 and apologizing that its data were not quite complete\u2014in 1918 and 1919 the Cheka executed, without trial, more than a thousand persons a month! This was written by the Cheka itself, before it understood how this would look to history.<\/p>\n
At the height of Stalin\u2019s terror in 1937\u201338, if we divide the number of persons executed by the number of months, we get more than 40,000 persons shot per month! Here are the figures: 17 a year, 10 a month, more than 1,000 a month, more than 40,000 a month! \u2026 <\/p>\n
Roosevelt, in Teheran, during one of his last toasts, said the following: \u201cI do not doubt that the three of us\u201d\u2014meaning Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin\u2014\u201clead our peoples in accordance with their desires, in accordance with their aims.\u201d How are we to explain this? Let the historians worry about that. At the time, we listened and were astonished. We thought, \u201cwhen we reach Europe, we will meet the Americans, and we will tell them.\u201d I was among the troops that were marching towards the Elbe. A little bit more and I would have reached the Elbe and would have shaken the hands of your American soldiers. But just before that happened, I was taken off to prison and my meeting did not take place.<\/p>\n
But now, after all this great delay, the same hand has thrown me out of the country and here I am, instead of the meeting at the Elbe. After a delay of 30 years, my Elbe is here today. I am here to tell you, as a friend of the United States, what, as friends, we wanted to tell you then, but which our soldiers were prevented from telling you on the Elbe.<\/p>\n
There is another Russian proverb: \u201cThe yes-man is your enemy, but your friend will argue with you.\u201d It is precisely because I am the friend of the United States, precisely because my speech is prompted by friendship, that I have come to tell you. \u2026 <\/p>\n
One of your leading newspapers, after the end of Vietnam, had a full headline: \u201cThe Blessed Silence.\u201d I would not wish that kind of \u201cblessed silence\u201d on my worst enemy. I would not wish that kind of national unity on my worst enemy. I spent 11 years in the Archipelago, and for half of my lifetime I have studied this question. \u2026 <\/p>\n
It is not detente if we here with you today can spend our time agreeably while over there people are groaning and dying and in psychiatric hospitals. Doctors are making their evening rounds, for the third time injecting people with drugs which destroy their brain cells. \u2026 <\/p>\n
You know the words from the Bible: \u201cBuild not on sand, but on rock.\u201d There has to be a guarantee that this will not be broken overnight. \u2026 <\/p>\n
Lenin\u2019s teachings are that anyone is considered to be a fool who doesn\u2019t take what\u2019s lying in front of him. If you can take it, take it. If you can attack, attack. But if there\u2019s a wall, then go back. And the Communist leaders respect only firmness and have contempt and laugh at persons who continually give in to them. \u2026 <\/p>\n
There are tens of thousands of political prisoners in our country \u2026 under compulsory psychiatric treatment. Let\u2019s take Vladimar Bukovsky as an example. It was proposed to him, \u201cAll right, we\u2019ll free you. Go to the West and shut up.\u201d And this young man, a youth today on the verge of death said: \u201cNo, I won\u2019t go this way. I have written about the persons whom you have put in insane asylums. You release them and then I\u2019ll go West.\u201d This is what I mean by that firmness of spirit to stand up against granite and tanks. \u2026 <\/p>\n
I would like to call upon America to be more careful with its trust and prevent those wise persons who are attempting to establish even finer degrees of justice and even finer legal shades of equality\u2014some because of their distorted outlook, others, because of short-sightedness and still others out of self-interest\u2014from falsely using the struggle for peace and for social justice to lead you down a false road. Because they are trying to weaken you; the are trying to disarm your strong and magnificent country in the face of this fearful threat\u2014one that has never been seen before in the history of the world. And I call upon you: ordinary working men of America \u2026 do not let yourselves become weak.3797<\/p>\n
In May of 1983, as he received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, Solzhenitsyn expressed:<\/p>\n
Instead of the ill-advised hopes of the last two centuries, which have reduced us to insignificance and brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can only reach with determination for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently pushed away.3798<\/p>\n
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in commenting on the forces precipitating our culture\u2019s decay, stated laconically:<\/p>\n
Man has forgotten God, that is why this has happened.3799<\/p>\n
Alexander Solzhenitsyn stated:<\/p>\n
If we don\u2019t know our own history, we will simply have to endure all the same mistakes, sacrifices, and absurdities all over again.3800<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(b.December 11, 1918), a Russian author. He was imprisoned by Joseph Stalin from 1945\u201353. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, but was not allowed to leave Russia to accept it until the Soviet Government expelled him from the country, February 13, 1974. Alexander Solzhenitsyn proceeded to publish his telling book, The Gulag … Continue reading “SOLZHENITSYN,
\nALEXANDER”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}