Solzhenitsyn in Exile

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) wrote prose so searing to the conscience, so transcendent when spoken, so logically compelling that the only recourse of his Soviet enemies was to pull him apart limb by limb. Unable to do that because of his global status, Soviet officials used the classical tactic of exile. He had become, as the foreign policy analysts say, an existential threat to the Soviet Union. The Communist Party must have concluded that depositing him on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain would neutralize his threat. No longer would he be their tormented and harassed citizen. But that calculation only worked if Solzhenitsyn, in turn, exiled Russia from his own soul, put down his pen, and became a full-fledged national of a free country. That could not happen.