Oh Dear God! Perhaps this is not the place to post this thread, but Comrades, you have no idea how much he meant to me.


I just heard the sad news tonight that Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn died on August 3, 2008. Comrades, I idolized this man, I even named 2 dogs after him. As you should know, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published under Kruschev for a short time, then they cracked down on it and the author again. He came to the US shortly after the first volume of the Gulag Archepeligo was published in the west in 1973, He finished voulume 2 and 3 after being banished here in 1974. I have read most all of his books, all 3 volumes of Gulag Archaepelago, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward, August 1914, the Oak and the Calf, but was too bored to finish the Love Girl and the Innocent - it was a play and I always have trouble reading those.

I am not exaggerating when I say that he was perhaps the most heroic man I think that has lived in these past 80 years. He was also a man with an incredible faith in God and in a way, I think he knew the nature of God in ways that most ministers do not. I can never forget some of the things he said in The Oak and the Calf, a book that in ways could be tiresome to read, yet held such profound thoughts and showed the moral courage that this man possessed. It was basically about the struggle to publish his and others works in the USSR. I will never forget this section where he and his wife were considering all the possible things the KGB or others would do if he were to do such and such. It was like someone considering all the possible moves in a chess game, a game that could mean life or death, or imprisonment. There was a real fear that the retaliation would come in the form of the KGB killing their child. They were not fearful of Solzhentsyn being killed, for at the time, they knew that the pressure on the Soviets by the West would not permit that. Yet after all considerations, they both decided it was more important to get the truth out even if it meant the life of their son. Now that comrades is courage. Yet you could see his faith in God and his hand all throgh the book it seems. I will never forget one line that basically went like "I thought I knew what God wanted, but I was wrong." In some ways that is such a simple, yet profound statement of faith.

Forgive me for being so long, but I was just so torn up to hear of this. God Rest Alexander Solzhentsyn.

Good sircomrade, this is perhaps the first time I've heard of this man, but you write in such a wonderful way of describing him. What a man, to publish a controversial book in the land of the KGB and the Soviets.

He was a very brave man, of course. The idea of writing so that people would <i>know</i> what happened. That those people would not be murdered and forgotten for the ease of their murderers. Notice that the left accuses America of imperialism and other atrocities but always manages to ignore mass murder. And this man did not. He was indeed a hero.

In his later years, back in Russia, he lamented for the old Russia--the patriarchal one based on the structure of the Russian village, which we would consider totalitarian in and of itself; as I recall he did not really object to Putin, for he is evidently just another Russian leader. But in his prime there was no one with a clearer voice about murders. And murderers.

Elliott, if you want a good, short introduction to Solzhentsyn, pick up a copy of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. It is a thin volume that speaks volumes. You can probably get it for under five bucks and give it a first reading in a single evening...but you'll want to go back and read it again after.

But to be a good Comrade, one worthy of the Inner Circle, read the Gulag Archipelago, all three volumes.... very long read though.

Cancer Ward is also an excellent read, and while based in part on AS own battle with cancer, was also alluding to the sickness of the society,

I recently started to read some of From Under the Rubble, but it seemed to tied to "local" issues that I was unable to bomprehend easily. I was sort of shocked to see him actually criticizing Sakharov, but I understood his reasons I believe. Actually, this book is a collection of writings from various authors, and since it was also written many years ago, some of the relevance seemed to be missing.

But no matter how you slice it, all good Comrades need to read some of this giant's work.

It was people like him and his contemporaries, and the steadfastness of Reagan, along with other forces as described by the Great Red Square, that led to the fall of the USSR,

History Channel has a series on the presidents. The one on Reagan was a hit-job. It remarked that some conservatives attributed Reagan with the fall of the Soviet Union, and then instantly trotted on sniffing pinks who said, "He was in the right place at the right time," which is a typical delusion of people who will never forgive Reagan for not needing their sniffing advice.

Commissar Theocritus wrote:History Channel has a series on the presidents. The one on Reagan was a hit-job. It remarked that some conservatives attributed Reagan with the fall of the Soviet Union, and then instantly trotted on sniffing pinks who said, "He was in the right place at the right time," which is a typical delusion of people who will never forgive Reagan for not needing their sniffing advice.

(Karakter off)
Yeah, and look at Clinton, he "saved" Bosnia. Also, there were about 4,000 military deaths during his first term alone, and this was during peace time!

Monica wasn't the only one to blow him. The entire press corps did too.

Commissar Theocritus wrote:Monica wasn't the only one to blow him. The entire press corps did too.

Haha. . . don't for get about Hillary good sircomrade.

Problem the libs have with their arguments about Reagan are the numerous KGB documents etc, that show how the SDI and their general fear of Reagan helped lead to them bankrupting themselves. But what I remember was all the democrats talking about how we should give up our nukes, that there was no way we could face Russia in a war with their massive tank and missile forces, That was all we heard in the years under Carter from Kennedy and many others.

Marshal Pupovich wrote:Problem the libs have with their arguments about Reagan are the numerous KGB documents etc, that show how the SDI and their general fear of Reagan helped lead to them bankrupting themselves. But what I remember was all the democrats talking about how we should give up our nukes, that there was no way we could face Russia in a war with their massive tank and missile forces, That was all we heard in the years under Carter from Kennedy and many others.

What fools, we have the greatest military in the world, at least when a Republican is in power. Why would we give up something like our nukes to get along with (appease is a better term here.) the Russian? Hmmm. . . ?

Because liberalism is a clan operation, something of taking sides. That's why they hate entrepreneurs. Some of them want to be masters, most want to submit to someone who can fill the void of panic that everyone has in the middle of his soul. Some people fill it with religion, and as long as it's a good religion, that's wonderful. We know what happens when that hole is filled with Allah.

Some people fill that hole with a secular religion, which changes daily. But notice that it's always about power and submission. The exchange of power. The mechanism is just the same as domination and submission; I just read a book on it because I recognized the mental mechanisms from travel books throughout the Arab world.

Think of the times that the moonbats' arguments have been proven wrong. Did they recant? No. They either denied it or twisted it. Or their favorite, "Why are you so angry?" Note that this is a deliberate rejection of thinking. They want to dominate or submit, and a lot of them are looking for a big statist daddy.

Yes, oh and the ". . . filled with Allah" haha. . . yes, we've seen the results of that. What I've found in life, is those who fill their life with sins of the flesh, end up very angry and very sad, where in the end, they perish as if they never existed.

Yes and no. If people are given to it, yes. But C. P. Snow, who was no fool, said that the happiest people that he knew in old age were those who'd had lots of sex. I am not sure about that.

One shouldn't be <i>given</i> to any pleasure of the flesh: sex, food, drink. But then one shouldn't be given to anything: work, ideology. My brother derives a strange pleasure from asceticism, although he could be tweaking me.

If you're given to anything then you'll never have enough. My personality is such that I try to make everything perfect for my total enjoyment and generally do a good job of it, planning everything. And things do go well by and large. But do I <i>really</i> have to travel with a Waterford tumbler?

A lot of it is I think that I do not, like the rest of the people here, have a family that relies on me. I would rather have liked to have been a husband and father, but no, not to be. What to do with that energy and time? I figure it's better to be given to tweaking Minerva, the program I wrote for my business, than to be given to fleshly pleasures. And a hell of a lot more dignified.

You raise very good points here good sircomrade, and yes, one should not be given it, but by the point you raise, one should, perhaps, make it.

Yes, because it won't drop in your lap. Some people get pleasure from denial--misers and other anhedonists. And you have to watch people who will use you when they have no reason to. In business I deal with a couple of women (Realtors) who were my mother's friends. I never got over being the smart kid with his hand up in school--very irritating and to these lazy women it was natural to let Theocritus do it and when I did they'd find something harder to do to make them money. I had to watch out that <i>they</i> didn't make my life miserable.

There are people who use your virtue against you as in judo your opponent uses your strength against you. A few people I've been involved with, in business and in love, have known what I was capable of doing, and what my character wouldn't let me do. I realized that when I was being used against myself, I had to stop being my own enemy. Which caused some raised eyebrows.

Commissar Theocritus wrote:Yes, because it won't drop in your lap. Some people get pleasure from denial--misers and other anhedonists. And you have to watch people who will use you when they have no reason to. In business I deal with a couple of women (Realtors) who were my mother's friends. I never got over being the smart kid with his hand up in school--very irritating and to these lazy women it was natural to let Theocritus do it and when I did they'd find something harder to do to make them money. I had to watch out that <i>they</i> didn't make my life miserable.

There are people who use your virtue against you as in judo your opponent uses your strength against you. A few people I've been involved with, in business and in love, have known what I was capable of doing, and what my character wouldn't let me do. I realized that when I was being used against myself, I had to stop being my own enemy. Which caused some raised eyebrows.

I know exactly what you mean. As a teacher of mine and I were discussing one day, we came to the conclusion of those in his class who chose to listen and learn got a better experience and actually got something truthful out of it. Those who slept in the class though (there were a lot of people who slept in this class, it was a Humanities class) were able to beat the system in a way, because though the grade said "A", did they really get anything from it? Probably not. I agree with you 100%, watch for those who use you, watch for those who can manipulate the situation, and watch for the ones who seek gain from your loss.