Richard Pipes on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Submitted by Ludvikus (United States), Apr 25, 2022 at 14:38

Dear Dr. Daniel Pipes,

Instead of focusing on Cancel-Culture, which is a form of Sanctions (better than a nuclear war)
i want to point out that your wonderful intellectual father, Richard Pipes, and expert on the late Russian Empire and the subsequent Soviet Union, was critical of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. In fact, Wikipedia currently quotes you late father on his Russian fascist ways.

Why is that important? As the Soviet Union Communist system collapsed, it was reactionary Solzhenitsyn who took Russia back to the mythical "good old days" of the Tsar's Russian Empire. He was on excellent terms with both past Yeltsin Presidents. Russia in fact today is more or less what he advocated as a famous and influential anti-Communist. And he saw Belarus, Ukraine, and (Russian) Russia as One People. And part of that unity is based on the "spirituality" (according to him) of the Russian Orthodox Church (single-headed).

Putin has the "Pope" of Russia supporting him in his no-war (special military action) on Ukraine. I do not see much discussion in our "free" Western Press of the Religious Revolution that is now taking place in Europe - which also involves the Roman Catholic Pontiff in the Vatican.

I think that your readers would benefit much if you took the time and space to elaborate your wonderful father's views on Solzhenitsyn. Everyone in the West was enchanted by this Russian writer because he was so much against Communism. However, what Russia is now, with its essentially Anti-Americanism, can be found in the very traits which your late father saw in this Russian reactionary, who was not only against Homosexuals as non-Christians, but also Women, who belonged in Bed, the Kitchen, and babysitting.

I really think you are in an excellent place to explain how Russia and Putin are natural partners on the basis, let's say, of National Character." At the time that we freed our Slaves - 1860's - Russia just freed its Serfs.

Accordingly, look where African Americans were politically, culturally, and economically when former Serfs and their children or grandchildren joined the Russian Revolutions of 1905, and 1917. African Americans did not get their legal liberation from Racism until the 1960s with the passage of the Civil Rights legislation under Pres. Johnson in the 1960s. Ironically, it was the anti-Stalinist, Ukrainian Khrushchev, as head of the Soviet Union, who permitted the publication of Solzhenitsyn's "One Life in the Day of ...".

In brief, one should understand Putin in the context of Russia's History. War, and its Technological Took, like Canons, Tanks, Sanctions (Banking and Social Media), are essentially means to force the Ideology of Russia vs. its Arch-enemy, the West, especially, the USA. And on Homosexuality, for example, Putin, as Russian Orthodox, is with the Republicans.

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