Toward end, Solzhenitsyn embraced Putin's Russia and predicted America's overthrow by Communists

By Peter Finn

Washington Post / August 5, 2008




MOSCOW - In the last years of his long and stubbornly contrarian life, Alexander Solzhenitsyn finally found a political system he could embrace: Vladimir Putin's Russia.


"Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country, with a poor and demoralized people," Solzhenitsyn told the German magazine Der Spiegel in a 2007 interview, when Putin was still president. "And he started to do what was possible, a slow and gradual restoration. These efforts were not noticed, nor appreciated, immediately. In any case, one is hard-pressed to find examples in history when steps by one country to restore its strength were met favorably by other governments."

That Putin, a former KGB officer, should find an ardent champion among the most prominent victims of the agency he once served might seem bizarre. But Solzhenitsyn, who died Sunday at age 89, was always a very Russian puzzle: a brilliant curmudgeon, wrapped in heroism, inside a whopping ego. He was a man who exposed the murderous brutality of the Soviet Union but also lambasted what he saw as the spiritual vacuity of the West.

Solzhenitsyn had long signaled in his writing and speeches that the Russia of his dreams was no clone of Western-style democracy. It was instead a place apart from and suspicious of the West, acutely aware of its destiny as a great power and unique culture and steeped in the values of the Russian Orthodox Church and Slavic nationalism.

For the former dissident, who returned in 1994 after 20 years in exile to a country whose raw capitalism and marauding tycoons horrified him, Putin became the country's savior.

Putin, who now serves as prime minister, remembered Solzhenitsyn with equal affection...http://archive.boston.com/news/worl...ward_end_solzhenitsyn_embraced_putins_russia/




"...with all the exclamations and dire warnings, and subsequent demands for 'American' and 'NATO' action to thwart the supposed 'threat' by the Russians, under that evil genius Vladimir Putin, to use bloodthirsty Cossack troops to invade and conquer poor, little democratic Ukraine, Solzhenitsyn’s comments shortly before he died on August 3, 2008, demand consideration.

No one can accuse the great Russian writer of being an advocate of violence, aggression or war. His experiences, so brutally and so vividly recounted in his various semi-autobiographical novels dissuade any dispassionate reader from that conclusion. He had seen the open jaws of bitter Hell, and that Hell attempted not only to swallow him but destroy him and his soul totally. That the Soviet Hell—the Gulag—did not succeed, and that he emerged stronger for it, a man of resilient and unquestioned Faith, is a remarkable example of how true religious conviction and Hope can indeed overcome even the worst trials, both physical and spiritual.

When Solzhenitsyn came to the United States and gave his famous address at Harvard, June 8, 1978, it was met first by shock, then by a studied if respectful silence by many in the media. For in that speech he had taken target at some of America's showiest and most prized attributes:

"He attacked moral cowardice and the selfishness and complacency he sees in the West. Materialism, sharp legal maneuvering, a press that invades privacy, 'TV stupor' and 'intolerable music,' all contribute to making the western way of life less and less a model for the world, he said. 'A decline in courage,' Solzhenitsyn said, is the most striking feature of what he called 'spiritual exhaustion' of the West. 'The forces of evil have begun their decisive offensive, you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?' 'To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being…."​

And that was in 1978...." https://www.unz.com/article/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-ukraine-and-the-neoconservatives/

 

So how come Russia is threatening to use Cuba (a Communist country when last I enquired) to attack the US? Putin is a murderous thug who brags about killing and imprisoning his political enemies. The Cuban Communist Party apparently regards this monster as a political friend and regards the US as its political enemy and they are right to do so. If Solzhenitsyn had lived to see all Putin's political opponents murdered, imprisoned or threatened into silence, he would have had a few things to say and none of them pleasant.

 

I'm going to be charitable and say that you are just regurgitating old, boring Neocon talking points - that same ones that traitors and warmongers like Nuland and Company used when they violently overthrew the duly-elected President of Ukraine in 2014, leading to the present crisis.

 

Those assassinations and attempted assassinations in the UK and in France, bad news.

And, of course, in Russia itself. Assassination of Boris Nemtsov - Wikipedia

Navalny who was poisoned but survived. Alexei Navalny - Wikipedia Also, one of their other dissidents.

It really is the Russian way, not meaning any offense to anyone, in saying this.

Yes, and currently, I don't have a lot of worry but nonetheless, worry over Communism in our country. Very sad.

Navalny above, opposition to Putin, did not call for outright handing Crimea back to Ukraine but he did want a truly fair election... not like with the little green men I think they were called.

I think the Oligarchs exercise very much a lot of control over there.

And Ukraine, de-nuclearized with the fall of the Soviet Union.

Those areas, Aizerbaijan, Armenia and even going back to the '90s wars in the Former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and so forth, problems that have gone on for a very long time, sorry to say.

But back to Russia, it's par for the course, but the poisoning of Litvenenko and others... too much to ignore.

Russia Fatally Poisoned Alexander Litvinenko In London, A Court Concludes : NPR

 

I don’t ignore them either. But there are plenty of people who would want Litvinenko dead in order to frame Putin. We need proof.

 

My view is not that I uniquely blame Putin. I think it is the system that they have.

No country should really feel the need to jail opposition politicians as Navalny has been. There's something wrong with that picture.

Slovakia saw that young reporter and his girlfriend killed. I forget if there was a direct connection to that government but however it happened, it brought the government down largely over that event. It was like the entrenched system.

In February 2018, journalist Ján Kuciak, 27, who was investigating the relationship of the Slovak mafia and the corrupt business world with the government, was murdered at his home, along with his girlfriend, Martina Kušnírová. The assassin’s confession revealed the nature of Kuciak’s work. A case that showed all the connections between the Slovak government and corruption and that caused a popular revolt in the street against the political class as had not been seen since the fall of communism. A 46-year-old human rights activist, environmentalist and LGBTI community defender ran for election in 2018 and won with 58% of the vote. It was Zuzana Caputova, the new president of Slovakia. The woman who convinced the Pope to visit her country for four long days that contrasts with the seven hours that the Pontiff spent this Sunday in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.

Zuzana Caputova, the president who convinced Pope Francis to visit Eastern Europe | International - News Europa (newsineurope.com)
​

The problem was endemic to the system, actually, the old Ukrainian system before their current president, Zelensky, apparently had big problems too. I have some idea of what we are dealing with.

It's really the system as opposed to just distinguishing one individual such as Putin but he is leading that government.

And Orban, I don't think he's corrupt, per that article on Hungary, they are at the forefront of what was the immigration crisis vs. Slovakia.

Good to discuss these matters.

That lady who leads Slovakia, I've read of her views. We will see. She certainly is not carrying the pro-life banner.

And Putin, after all, he's ex-KGB.

 

Just saw this, the former President of Ukraine, Poroshenko is having charges of treason brought against him in that country.

Defiant Poroshenko vows to fight treason charges — and Russia – POLITICO - News Europa (newsineurope.com)

And look at Belarus, another troubled place. Even if one were to say trouble in Kazakhstan and maybe Ukraine too, were due to Western agitators, hard to say that that in Belarus is nothing less than a dictatorship and didn't Russia help out their strongman? I think so and with elections in Belarus that were obviously farcical.

Russia Sends Troops to Belarus, Challenging NATO - Washington Free Beacon

 

The Litvienenko "assassination" was actually a case of a smuggling operation gone bad:

"As we all know Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned by polonium, a rare radioactive substance. The main narrative blamed it all on Vladimir Putin of Russia. The rationale rested on little other than because Litvinenko was a Putin critic. This was the quick line in mass media, and it was on all the typical war propaganda channels. Thanks in large part to Alexander Goldfarb, a stooge of exiled oligarch Boris Berezovskiy, twisted the tale of the poisoning into a ‘Putin did it’ cover up for a botched smuggling operation, by declaring this was Litvinenko’s belief in expressed death bed letter that he allegedly signed. Really? And he wanted you Goldfarb a biologist who worked for the Oligarch, not a lawyer, to witness this letter and read it to the media? Why were you even there? Akhmed Zakayev thought Goldfarb was CIA.

There are many things wrong with the “Putin did it” story. For one, there is no motive, even with Litvinenko being a critic of Russia, he was no threat whatsoever to Putin. The man worked with Chechen terrorists and the Israeli-Russian oligarchs. But assuming that there was a sufficient motive to kill him, think about this: Why would Russia use a very rare, very expensive, and easily traceable radioactive substance to kill him instead of some cheap poison or just shooting him? Why risk smuggling radioactive material into the UK which is an act of war? And why poison someone on the same day Britain signed an accord to make it easier for Russia to extradite high profile criminals. London has become a central hub for asylum-seeking Russians. The UK has not extradited a single person to face Russian court. Many oligarchs fled to the US and Israel because of their non-extradition status. Israeli-Russian Boris Berezovsky, the former oligarch and media owner, and Ahmed Zakayev, the Chechen leader who was arrested in the UK got a 50,000 GPB bail paid and then got political asylum both landed in Britain.

Yet this murder by radioactive poison scandal is exactly what the UK/US media would have you believe. They want to say that Putin had someone sneak into the UK with polonium and poison Litvinenko with it. It just isn’t plausible. It’s actually absurd. Why would the American media side with the man who worked for terrorists and who worked for one of the exiled oligarchs? Well first off these “Russian” oligarchs are primarily Zionist Israeli-Russians who acquired much of their wealth and techniques from the Israeli Mossad agent Marc Rich. Secondly they have business relationships with the Bush administration. The Israeli-Russian Oligarch Khodorkosky had dealings with Cheney, the Carlyle group, and with UNACOL. Boris Berezovsky is a business partner with none other than President Bush’s brother Neil Bush. Boris invests in Neil’s Ignite! computer software, and Neil Bush met with Boris even after he was a known felon. One of the most wealthy Oligarchs used to be Oligarch Khdorkovsky of Yukos oil. He was worth over 15 billion dollars rivaling Roman Abramovich the richest of them all. Khodorkosky was buying votes in the Duma. Putin cracked down on the oligarchs forcing many to flee and arresting and throwing Khodorkosky in jail.

Sibneft’s Boris Berezovsky just so happens to be the Israeli-Russian oligarch who lives in London who Litvineko worked for. Alexander Litvinenko who was formerly FSB fled to the UK to avoid court prosecution in Russia, worked for a shady Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky. Boris Berezovsky just so happens to be the Israeli-Russian oligarch who lived in London after fleeing the Russian judicial system for a multitude of crimes too long to list. He was on Interpol’s most wanted list. Here is the grand prize. After the US and UK press branded Putin with the poisoning despite there being Zero evidence, (something the US is very well known for now) investigators were tracking down the traces of Polonium in the UK. They detected traces of Polonium at Berezovsky’s office and residence! Now I do not know about you, but in my place of work, and certainly in my house, I do not have rare radioactive substances. Polonium is not something you just get at the market or pick up by accident walking through the park.

No experienced mob boss like Berezovsky would be dumb enough to murder an underling in such a manner either. Therefore his death was an accident. It was mostly likely it was a botched smuggling operation. Why was he moving such a dangerous substance? Did he need fast cash? Were they planning to create a dirty bomb? Such a “smoky bomb” would turn the Polonium into powder and kill anyone who ingested it.

Traces of Polonium were found on the planes that Litvinenko had been on. So I think we can deduce what happened. He was a mule. The questions remain, why did he have it?, Where did he get it? What was he going to do with it? Why was it in the offices of Berezovsky and Erinsys Ltd (Britain’s Blackwater)?

The “Putin did it” smear case has never made sense. First of all, the amount of polonium 210 in play would have cost millions of dollars. That amount is too expensive to purchase and too large to go unnoticed if it were stolen. The only way to obtain such a quantity would be on a well organized black market that had a connection to a nuclear facility. It would certainly help organized crime if the nuclear powered supplier they received the Polonium from was not subjected to international inspections or part of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Such a country, (Foreign country A) which denied they even built nuclear weapons for decades, would certainly also deny selling their Polonium byproduct as well.

Is it possible to hide that from the press? Yes. The media would ignore this for the same reason the media ignores them stealing nuclear secrets and building hundreds of nuclear weapons in Dimona, then throwing whistle blowers who took pictures of their warheads, in jail.

Litvinenko was in Israel, where he met Leonid Nevzlin the CEO of Yukos shortly before he died. If you wanted to buy/steal radioactive material that would be the place. What was he negotiating with Nevzlin? We learned Alexander had been an informant in a case that led to the arrest of nine Georgina and Russian Mobsters in Spain, including Alexander Gofstein a lawyer for Yukos who apparently was laundering money.

The downfall began when Georgina Mob Boss Zakhar Kalashov was arrested in May 2006. The scam was similar to what the old Five Families of New York had done, when guys like Meyer Lansky took profits from illegal gambling businesses and funneled them into buying up real estate in Florida. In the European case, the mob was taking illegal funds and buying up real estate in Spain as well as making investments into legitimate businesses.

Litivnenko’s associates, Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi, who both had met with him the day of the poisoning, were also both hospitalized. They left traces of Polonium in Hamburg as they had taken the trip to Germany before meeting Litvinenko. It appears all three were involved in a smuggling operation, but for who?

Short answer: Russian Oligarch Boris Berezovsky’s employee Alexander Litvinenko died from over exposure to Polonium in a botched smuggling operation. That is why traces of it were at Boris’s house and on the planes Litvinenko was riding to and from Israel. The smear on Putin/Russia using a highly traceable 10 million dollar poison to kill a critic is about as plausible and rational as saying we have “British Intelligence” about Niger…. This transparent bogus lie was a quick and shamelessly sloppy explanation to cover up how and why this man in the UK had a radioactive poison in his body. Polonium only has a half life of 138 days.

Litvinenko had been in Israel to visit Yukos’s CEO, just shortly before he died. And it’s an open secret that Israel has nuclear weapons, the only place without nuclear safeguard or inspections. Traces of polonium were also on the British Airway planes that Litvinenko took to and from Israel. So it they would have the means, location, and the timing fits, but let’s just blame, Putin “The New Hitler” as Neocons have dubbed him?

Why the fuss about a conspiracy claiming that Putin put Litvinenko on a hitlist and poisoned him? Well as wacky as that story is, it was probably the best they could come up with on short notice. Boris knew once the police found out how Litvinenko died that there would be a lot of explaining to do. He also knew that if the investigation went forward that they could find more of this Polonium on his properties. So they just claimed the KGB was trying to kill them all.

This is not the first time that Berezovsky tried to pin a murder on someone else and claim that all the damning evidence pointing to him was a frame. There are the notorious cases (in Russia) of Ivan Litskevich and Vlad Listyev... https://www.unz.com/article/revisiting-litvinenko-what-really-happened/

 

Then, one has the attempted Skripal assassination. One can always come up with some counter explanation.

Skripal poisoning: Third Russian suspect 'commanded attack' - BBC News

Or the assassination in the Berlin Park:

Germany accuses Russia of Berlin park assassination - BBC News

Or the female journalist in Russia:

Russia: Prominent Journalist, Kremlin Critic, Shot Dead In Moscow (rferl.org)

Too many of these cases but to be fair, it's like the article says, how about this with Ashley Babbit in Washington DC, 1-6-2020.

Putin Asks Reporter If US 'Assassinated' Ashli Babbitt (townhall.com)

So, I try to look at all angles.

But what about Litvenenko's wife? So, this was a smuggling episode and she is wrong too?

Germany Finds Polonium Trail as Ex-Spy′s Widow Blames Russia | Germany | News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 10.12.2006

Too much smoke, really. I don't fault Putin as an individual but again, it may be the system but he's at the top.

The list goes on and on. Russian Generals dying mysteriously, etc. etc.

Top Russian law official die in crash hours before GRU spies are outed | Daily Mail Online

 

I know it’s horrific. We can’t fathom the same actions in our own country. The way I see it, and don’t get me wrong, I’m pro republic and pro Constitution here in the U.S., except it’s not the same for Russia. It’s not in their culture. It’s never been. Putin is realistically the new Czar. And he’s at war. And you can’t fight a war against the CIA, and communists in Russia by acting like Thomas Jefferson. I listened to exorcist Fr Ripperger on his analysis on communism. When you get a chance look at his videos. He explains it better than I can. I do pray for the total conversion of Russia and Putin. Maybe soon we will see a kinder world.

 

Kind of you to be 'charitable' but it's no substitute for facing the truth. Putin and his gang of ex-KGB thugs knew that in a true democracy they would be facing some tough questions and probably prison time so they subverted the fledgling democratic institutions to take over the state and to rob the ordinary citizens of the state's assets. Putin doesn't hide the fact that he harasses and murders his opponents, he obliquely admits it and revels in its effects. A friend of Russia coming to power with the assistance of Russians adept at ensuring victory for their preferred candidate isn't quite the same as being 'duly elected'.

 

Csars are never duly elected. So far it’s all they have.

 

All a bunch of Neocon State Department nonsense. You should be ashamed for regurgitating that propaganda.

 

Perhaps people who act as Putin's puppets in the west should be ashamed. This man supports the Syrian regime that used Sarin gas on its own people including children. Do you know what Sarin does?
Perhaps you should read Putin's own words rather than mine. In his essay written and published last year, 'On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians', he states that Russia comprises Great Russia (the present Russian state), White Russia (Belarus) and Little Russia (the Ukraine) and that it should be one state with ONE RELIGION (Orthodoxy) and one language. It can't possibly be made clearer than that even to uninformed apologists for a fascist murderer and warmonger.

 

Steve, understand how you feel, because it’s what the mainstream media including CNN has been telling us for so long. But there is no clear evidence that Assad did this to his people. A lot of hearsay, but no real evidence. And after our own government lied to us about Iraq, nothing should surprise us about what our own State Department is capable of. They are experts on Wag The Dog. Peace.

 

I distrust the MSM as much as anyone and am not a dupe. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck - it's a duck. Putin is a fascist and a mortal threat to Europe.

 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...ld_declare_nato_membership_closed_147052.html

 

Obviously Putin has no intention of letting up the pressure.

https://www.aviationpros.com/aircra...cials-weigh-options-should-ukraine-be-invaded

Russian Troops Move into Belarus, DOD Officials Weigh Options Should Ukraine be Invaded
Jan. 19, 2022
By Caitlin Doornbos
Source Stars and Stripes (TNS)

Jan. 18—WASHINGTON — A State Department official said Tuesday that an invasion of Ukraine could now come from its northern border with Belarus after Russian troops were moved into that country for military drills.

The news comes as Russia has spent weeks moving troops to its western border with Ukraine. President Joe Biden's administration has been holding talks with Russian officials, who want a guarantee that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the NATO alliance. U.S. officials say diplomatic attempts to end the hostilities have not been productive.

"The reports of Russian troop movements towards Belarus ... are concerning," the State Department official told reporters Tuesday on condition of anonymity. "The timing is notable and of course raises concerns that Russia could intend to station troops in Belarus ... in order potentially to attack Ukraine from the north."

Chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that the Defense Department is still hopeful for a diplomatic resolution, but defense officials have gone over "various permutations" on how to get involved should Russia invade Ukraine.

"If there's another incursion [into Ukraine] and if our NATO allies request capabilities and support and resources for their reassurance, as part of NATO, we will be positively disposed to consider those requests," Kirby said.

The State Department official did not say how many Russian troops and equipment were moving into Belarus, but said they are being conducted "supposedly under the auspices of regularly scheduled joint military exercises."

"[Belarus President Alexander] Lukashenko has relied more and more on Russia for all kinds of support, and we know that Putin doesn't give them support for free," the official said.

Last week, the U.S. was willing to discuss changing the "scale and scope" of U.S. exercises in the region "if and only if there was going to be reciprocity on the Russian side," Kirby said Tuesday. However, the U.S. has not seen any signs of Russian scaling back.

The U.S. has not sent troops to Ukraine to assist against a possible Russian attack, Kirby said, though more than 100 Florida National Guard troops are now in the country on an advise-and-assist deployment to help train Ukrainian troops.

"They remain at work alongside their Ukrainian counterparts ... and we expect that that mission will continue," he said. "We're going to continue to watch the situation on the ground and if we need to make decisions for force-protection purposes, we'll do that."

For now, Kirby said there are no planned changes to the National Guard's mission or number of U.S. troops in Ukraine.

The State Department official said the movement of Russian troops is especially concerning given that a Belarus constitutional referendum coming in February "includes language that could be interpreted as paving the way Russia to garrison forces in Belarusian territory."

"These draft constitutional changes may indicate Belarus plans to allow both Russian conventional and nuclear forces to be stationed on this territory," the official said. "This would be a significant change for Belarus and such a step would present the challenge to European security that may require a response."

___

(c)2022 the Stars and Stripes

 

Exactly what the U.S. State Department wants. Another war. May God help us all.

 

The NLAW that is being supplied to Ukraine takes little time to train, can be fielded by basically anyone, and is unique in that it can be used from inside buildings and fired from windows unlike other anti tank weapons. Made by Saab. A great weapon for an insurgency. I hope that it does not come to that but if it does the people of Ukraine will give Putin hell.

https://www.ibtimes.com/massive-shi...s-arrives-ukraine-russia-moves-troops-3378782

Massive Shipment Of British Anti-Tank Missiles Arrives In Ukraine As Russia Moves Troops To Belarus
By Meera Suresh
01/19/22 AT 4:55 AM

Cargo planes carrying Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapons from the UK arrived at the Ukrainian capital of Kiev Tuesday amid reports that Russian has moved troops and weapons to ally Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine.

The U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) C-17 cargo planes carrying the shipment arrived as part of Operation Orbital, a British military's security assistance mission in Ukraine which began in 2015 following Russia's seizure of Crimea, reported The Drive.

"We have taken the decision to supply Ukraine with light, anti-armor, defensive weapon systems," U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Tuesday. "A small number of U.K. personnel will also provide early-stage training for a short period of time, within the framework of Operation Orbital before returning to the United Kingdom," he added.

Though Wallace claimed "they are not strategic weapons and pose no threat to Russia," the U.K. authorities did not specify what "anti-armor" weapons they are supplying to the Ukrainian military. However, a tweet by the Ukrainian authorities said aircraft were carrying Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapons (NLAW). A video accompanying the tweet suggests hundreds of such missiles may have arrived at Kiev.

Anti-tank weapons are considered an important equalizer for the Ukrainian military in any future large-scale conflict with Russia. This comes as reports say Russia has lined up tanks and armored fighting vehicles, as well as rocket artillery systems and short-range ballistic missiles along Ukraine's borders.

The Ukrainian military has also used American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles on Russian troops which they believe have a "significant psychological deterrent value making Russians think twice about attacking."

The RAF's massive shipment to Ukraine also underscores how war threat is looming over the region, with Ukraine at the receiving end. "We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said today.

Amid this, reports said Russian troops and hardware have begun arriving in ex-Soviet Belarus Monday for the “Allied Resolve” drills to be held near Belarus’s western border.

Though Deputy Russian Defence Minister Alexander Fomin was quoted by Reuters that the drill was just to "fine-tune the tasks of suppressing and repelling external aggression during a defensive operation," the West fears that an invasion is impending, as there seems to be no move from Moscow to deescalate the Ukrainian border.