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Title: Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the Jews
Source:
http://www.thecivicplatform.com
URL Source: http://www.thecivicplatform.com/200 ... der-solzhenitsyn-and-the-jews/
Published: Nov 17, 2007
Author: Friedrich Braun
Post Date: 2007-11-21 17:40:20 by robin
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Keywords: None
Views: 487
Comments: 15
I just finished reading the French translation of Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together (2003) on Russian-Jewish relations since 1772 in two volumes (still no English translation available…”are we powerful or what?”). It’s both a quick and fascinating read; among other things, we learn that not only the October 1917 Revolution (really a just a well-organized, well-carried out Jewish coup) was dominated by Jewish agitators (a documented fact) but so was the 1905 Revolution (something I didn’t know). We also learn from the grand old man the awe-inspiring extent of the Jewish domination of the Soviet Union during its first two decades of existence, including its ruthless and murderous internal security system: Tcheka, OGPU, NKGB, and NKVD. A Russian in the hands of the Tcheka, etc. was almost certain to be in the hands of Jewish torturers and executioners. The litany of Jewish crimes committed against the long-suffering Russians (and other Slavic peoples: Ukrainians and Belarussians) and coldly listed by the author is simply nauseating and one should approach both volumes on an empty stomach. To this day there has been no acknowledgment on the part of international Jewry of Jews overwhelming support of the Bolshevik dictatorship during its first two decades. No asking for forgiveness. No reparations paid out to Russians. No chest-beating. No calls for repentance. No nothing…how un-Jewish that would be! Those few, rare Jewish voices who dared to speak about the Jewish role in the establishment of the communist terror machine in Russia were inevitably greeted with hostiliy and enmity by other Jews and told to shut their “self-hating” mouths. Another interesting aspect brought up by the author concerns the so-called era of “National Bolshevism” (a real misnomer) allegedly inaugurated by Stalin. Solzhenitsyn points out that Stalin was as much hostile to Russian interests as Lenin and Trotsky. How many millions of Russian peasants and Russian Orthodox clergy perished under Stalin? To speak of a Russian nationalism on the part of Stalin is simply laughable when one considers the the slaughter accompanying Stalin’s and Kaganovich’s collectivisation and religious persecutions. Additionally, Jews continued to be overrepresented at all levels of the Soviet bureaucracy (including their overwhelming participation in the administration of the Gulag system) during Stalin’s years at the helm. Furthermore, Solzhenitsyn speaks of his personal contacts with Soviet Jews and their typical detached relativism on all issues, including communist crimes with their tens of millions of victims. However, all that cool, intellectual relativism and reluctance to see the world in black and white terms would disappear in the blink of an eye as soon as Hitlerism was mentioned. Another example of Jewish hypocrisy highlighted by the author concerns the Jews admonishing of Russians (namely Solzhenitsyn) to reject global generalisations regarding Jews and aspects of the Jewish character at the same time that they would form and propagate the most negative opinions on the Russian character and how it was the Russians’ fault that the fundamentally noble communist experiment failed. Expressing generalisations about Russians while demandind from them that they abstain from seeing in Jews some distinct personality traits is very Jewish and pure chuzpah. Nothing is ever the Jews’ fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. One standard for the Jews, another standard for the goyim. 17 Comments »
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#2. To: robin (#0)
Solzhenitsyn and the Jews, Revisited by Richard Pipes. Still, Solzhenitsyn's book is a notable achievement in its attempt to place the "problem" of Russian Jewry in political and social perspective, and one that does credit to its author's reputation. If Solzhenitsyn does not quite succeed in exonerating pre-revolutionary Russia of responsibility for subjecting its Jewish citizens to uncivilized discrimination--after all, it was the only Christian country that in the nineteenth century still subjected its Jewish citizens to medieval disabilities--and even if he does not fully understand the latter's predicament, at least he absolves himself of the taint of anti-Semitism. This item is available on the Benador Associates website, at http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/141
Oy!
From http://www.reason.com/news/show/29241.html (August/September 2004 Print Edition) I was dismayed to read Cathy Young's unbelievably shoddy account of the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ("Traditional Prejudices," May). Despite a deceptively calm and authoritative tone, she engages in nothing less than character assassination. She eschews anything that resembles explication de texte and instead relies upon the prosecutorial-conspiratorial musings of Semyon Reznik. Even more damning, she ignores everything in Solzhenitsyn's writings that might militate against her claims. A reader of her column would never learn about Solzhenitsyn's condemnation of "scandalous restrictions" against Jews under the Russian old regime, his criticisms of the Russian state for its "impardonable inaction" in anticipating and responding to brutal anti-Jewish pogroms, his admiration for Pyotr Stolypin's efforts to end the Jewish disabilities, or his criticism of the White forces during the Russian Civil War for their inexcusable toleration of anti-Semitic violence and propaganda in territories under their control. Nor would a reader learn anything about Solzhenitsyn's principled rejection of fascism and all its works, or his moving and somber discussion in Chapter 21 of Dvesti Let Vmeste (Two Hundred Years Together) of the Holocaust unleashed against Jews on Soviet territory. Nor would one come across anything about Solzhenitsyn's admiration for Jews such as D.O. Linski, Iosif Bikerman, Michel Heller, Mikhail Agurski, Aleksandr Ginzburg, and Dora Sturman, nor about his highlighting of the "disproportionate" role played by Jews in the anti-Communist resistance of the 1960s and '70s. Perhaps most egregious is Young's claim that the author of The Gulag Archipelago is somehow not a true friend of human liberty, that he is instead a partisan of a "traditionalist" collectivism. She simply ignores Solzhenitsyn's eloquent defense of the rule of law and the importance of local self-government to a healthy and well-constituted civic life. More fundamentally, she shows no appreciation of the "personalism" that informs almost every page of The Gulag Archipelago. The portraits of freedom-loving individuals and indomitable souls such as the young Zoya Leshcheva, the defiant Anna Skripnikova, the committed escaper Georgi Tenno, and the religious poet Anatoli Silin are simply unforgettable. As any serious reader of Gulag will immediately discern, Solzhenitsyn is no collectivist. It is dishonest, and worse, to accuse this honorable man of the monstrosity which is anti-Semitism or to facilely dismiss him as an enemy of human freedom. Daniel J. Mahoney
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Recently Alexander Solzhenitsyn published a long book called Dvesti let vmeste, or Two Hundred Years Together, the first of two volumes devoted to the history of Jews in Russia from the third partition of Poland in 1795, when Russia, until then effectively without Jews, suddenly acquired one million Jewish subjects. It covers the years between 1795 and 1916. The follow-up volume will bring the story up to the year 1995.
Concluding with:
#3. To: buckeye (#2)
Richard Pipes
#6. To: Dakmar (#3)
Traditional Prejudices
Assumption College
Worcester, MA
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