the third blow of the cascade...a letter to the KBG on 31 august 1973
'in my earlier letter, which your received on 3 july, i warned you that the farce of the gangsters was only too transparent, and that it would be more sensible to stop it. by its third, extremely unpleasant letter, your department has compelled me to give an interview to the press.
if you see ivan pavlovich abramov (head of KBG), plese pass this on to him.
the fourth blow, as a result of the KBG taking a copy of sol's gulag archipelago in leningrad, was that sol released the book for publication in the west.
according to a statement made by sol in leningrad at the end of august, the KGB confiscated a typewritten copy of his book the gulag archipelago, an investigation in several volumes of soviet prison camps from 1918 to1956, containing only authentic facts, the names of real places and the names of persons still living (more than 200 of them). the author fears that they will all now be persecuted for their testimony, given ten years ago, to the torments that they suffered in stalin's camps.
information as to the place in which the book was concealed was given by elizaveta voronyanskaya, who was interrogated by the KGB for five days and nights without a break. when she got home she hanged herself. 5 september 1973
349.'last..i had been fortunate:
i had come unscathed from the brink of disaster many times-
the problem with circle 96 (the first circle) a year earlier,
the unauthorized distribution of the oak and the calf six months before that,
when i had been denied light and air and the free use of my limbs,
when i could not rise quickly to my feet.
but now i was in the saddle,
at full gallop,
the moment was of my own choosing (some premonition had made me begin my campaign while all was quiet and there was no apparent need for it)
and others were galloping furiously beside me;
all we need do was turn aside slightly and have at them! this latest upset had come while a great historic upheaval was in progress:
europe was for the first time seriously alarmed and the hands of our masters were tied by their hope of an improvement in terms of trade with the americans, and by the european conference, so that before me there was smooth expanse of several months, begging me to act! whereas only a month ago i seemed to be 'putting my head on the block', i could now raise a defiant battle cry:
victory is ours!
with God's aid we shall yet prevail!
(note: the beginning of the end of solzhenitsyn's gold. we all lust for 'power' and 'freedom' and 'rights', not knowing that the genuine variety of these and all other 'blessings' can only be retained only by those who ARE suffering for truth..not WERE..)
...if i look back, it has been the same all these years, the same in all things. all the blows they have rained on me have only helped to break my chains, to set me free!
this is our assurance that they are doomed.
i heard the news on the evening of the third, and on the evening of the fifth i sent off not only an announcement that gulag had been seized, but orders to publish it immediately!
on the same day i posted my letter to the leaders. it could not have been more timely..i get carried away at such moments..my wife stayed my hand: it was pointless...
367.1 (speaking of his first wife and her current liaison with the KBG..)'whatever she might do on her new path, and for her new masters (she had not managed today's conversation at all well:she should have induced me to meet the geebees privately and, instead, we were 'awaiting' a publisher's offer; still, she had certain proof that i was not on the offensive, that i wasn't publishing gulag, that i was pacifically disposed)-whatever she might do in the future, i should not be able to isolate myself from it, to fling at her:
'that's all your doing! whatever she did i should be doing it with her...whatever evils poisoned the future their roots were in the past.
i had myself to blame.
in jail i could see righ through a man as soon as he entered a cell; yet
never once had i looked into the heart of the woman at my side.
i had allowed the evil to fester and flare up.
this is how we pay for mistakes in the neglected secondary sphere, that sphere which local party committees, in their holiday greetings to us, refer to as our 'private lives'.
378.1 (sol very strategic) 'for me, the purpose of the whole fight so far-i could see it now-was to secure a defensible base for attack in readiness for the next, the main battle, with flashing helms and clashing swords.
i could see where battle would be joined,
sketch out some of my tactical moves and how i must deploy my forces:
form a preliminary plan of operations....
..'if i had not published gulag till i got to the west, its destructive force wouldn't have been half so great...
389.1.. as it is, i am astonished to see how clearly its significance was realized:
'a burning question mark over 50 years of soviet power, over the whole soviet experiment from 1918 on...vorwarts
'sol tells the world the truth about the cowardice of the communist party...guardian
'the time may come when we date the beginning of the collapse of the soviet system from the appearance of gulag...frankfurter allgemeine
'so calls for repentance. this book can become the seminal work of a national renaissance if the men in the kremlin know haw to read it..deutsche welle
424..charged
'for...and for...you are charged under article 64.
that new code, eh? i don't know a thing about it. article 64-what's that , then?
treason!
sign here!
...i made a statement i had planned long ago:
'i shall take no part either in your investigation or in your trial.
you must carry on without me.
document 37 (while sol is in prison his wife remembers and find a statement he had previously written based upon the believe that the soviet government had no say over literature...types and sends it out for publication through 10 sources)..
'i declare in advance that any criminal proceedings against russian literature,
against any single book in russian literature,
or against any russian author
are improper and invalid.
if such proceedings are taken against me,
i will not go to the court on my own two legs.
i shall have to be delivered with my hands bound and in a black maria.
i shall not answer a single question put by such a court.
if i am sentenced to imprisonment, i shall only submit to the sentence in handcuffs.
in confinement, i who have already given the eight best years of my life to forced labor for the state,
and by way of wages contracted cancer,
will never do another half hour's work for the oppressors.
in this way i leave them the simple recourse open to all arrant bullies:
to kill me quickly for writing the truth about russia's history.
a solzhenitsyn
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment