Editing Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (section)

=== In the West ===

[[File:De schrijver staat de pers te woord, rechts naast hem Heinrich Böll, Bestanddeelnr 927-0020.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Solzhenitsyn with [[Heinrich Böll]] in [[Kreuzau|Langenbroich]], West Germany, 1974]]

On 12 February 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and deported the next day from the Soviet Union to [[Frankfurt]], West Germany and stripped of his Soviet citizenship.<ref name="NYT20080804" /> The KGB had found the manuscript for the first part of ''The Gulag Archipelago''. U.S. military attaché [[William Odom]] managed to smuggle out a large portion of Solzhenitsyn's archive, including the author's membership card for the [[Writers' Union]] and his [[World War II|Second World War]] military citations. Solzhenitsyn paid tribute to Odom's role in his memoir ''Invisible Allies'' (1995).{{cn|date=October 2024}}

In West Germany, Solzhenitsyn lived in [[Heinrich Böll]]'s house in [[Kreuzau|Langenbroich]]. He then moved to [[Zürich]], Switzerland before [[Stanford University]] invited him to stay in the United States to "facilitate your work, and to accommodate you and your family". He stayed at the [[Hoover Tower]], part of the [[Hoover Institution]], before moving to [[Cavendish, Vermont|Cavendish]], Vermont, in 1976. He was given an honorary literary degree from [[Harvard University]] in 1978 and on 8 June 1978 he gave a commencement address, condemning, among other things, the press, the lack of spirituality and traditional values, and the [[anthropocentrism]] of Western culture.<ref name=harvard>{{Citation|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document060603.asp |title=A World Split Apart |series=Harvard Class Day Exercises |date=8 June 1978 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030608093915/http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document060603.asp |archive-date=8 June 2003 }}</ref>  Solzhenitsyn also received an honorary degree from the [[College of the Holy Cross]] in 1984.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Clendinen |first1=Dudley |last2=Times |first2=Special To the New York |date=1985-06-25 |title=SOLZHENITSYN SECLUDED AS WIFE BECOMES A CITIZEN |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/25/us/solzhenitsyn-secluded-as-wife-becomes-a-citizen.html |access-date=2025-01-03 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

On 19 September 1974, [[Yuri Andropov]] approved a large-scale operation to discredit Solzhenitsyn and his family and cut his communications with [[Soviet dissidents]]. The plan was jointly approved by [[Vladimir Kryuchkov]], [[Philipp Bobkov]], and Grigorenko (heads of First, Second and Fifth KGB Directorates).<ref name="Andrew">{{Citation | author1-link = Christopher Andrew (historian)| last1 = Andrew | first1 = Christopher | author2-link = Vasili Mitrokhin| last2 = Mitrokhin | first2 = Vasili | year = 2000 | title = The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West | publisher = Gardners Books | isbn = 978-0-14-028487-4 | pages = 416–419}}</ref> The [[Ambassadorial residence|residencies]] in [[Geneva]], [[London]], [[Paris]], [[Rome]] and other European cities participated in the operation. Among other active measures, at least three [[StB]] agents became translators and secretaries of Solzhenitsyn (one of them translated the poem ''[[Prussian Nights]]''), keeping the KGB informed regarding all contacts by Solzhenitsyn.<ref name="Andrew" />

The KGB also sponsored a series of hostile books about Solzhenitsyn, most notably a "memoir published under the name of his first wife, Natalia Reshetovskaya, but probably mostly composed by Service A", according to historian [[Christopher Andrew (historian)|Christopher Andrew]].<ref name= Andrew /> Andropov also gave an order to create "an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between Pauk{{Efn | KGB gave Solzhenitsyn the code name ''Pauk'', which means "spider" in Russian.}} and the people around him" by feeding him rumors that the people around him were KGB agents, and deceiving him at every opportunity.  Among other things, he continually received envelopes with photographs of car crashes, brain surgery and other disturbing imagery. After the KGB harassment in [[Zürich]], Solzhenitsyn settled in [[Cavendish, Vermont]], and reduced communications with others.  His influence and [[moral authority]] for the West diminished as he became increasingly isolated and critical of Western individualism. KGB and [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]] experts finally concluded that he alienated American listeners by his "reactionary views and intransigent criticism of the US way of life", so no further [[active measures]] would be required.<ref name = Andrew />

Over the next 17 years, Solzhenitsyn worked on his dramatized history of the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]], ''[[The Red Wheel]]''. By 1992, four sections had been completed and he had also written several shorter works.{{cn|date=October 2024}}

Solzhenitsyn's warnings about the dangers of Communist aggression and the weakening of the moral fiber of the West were generally well received in Western conservative circles (e.g. Ford administration staffers [[Dick Cheney]] and [[Donald Rumsfeld]] advocated on Solzhenitsyn's behalf for him to speak directly to President [[Gerald Ford]] about the Soviet threat),<ref>{{cite book| last1 =Mann | first1 = James | last2 = Mann | first2 = Jim | title= Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet|url=https://archive.org/details/riseofvulcanshis00mann| url-access =registration |year=2004|publisher=Penguin |isbn = 978-0-14-303489-6 | pages= [https://archive.org/details/riseofvulcanshis00mann/page/64 64]–66}}</ref> prior to and alongside the tougher foreign policy pursued by US President [[Ronald Reagan]]. At the same time, [[Liberalism|liberals]] and [[secularism|secularists]] became increasingly critical of what they perceived as his reactionary preference for [[Russian nationalism]] and the [[Russian Orthodox religion]].{{cn|date=October 2024}}

Solzhenitsyn also harshly criticised what he saw as the ugliness and spiritual vapidity of the dominant [[popular culture|pop culture]] of the modern West, including television and much of popular music: "...the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits... by TV stupor and by intolerable music." Despite his criticism of the "weakness" of the West, Solzhenitsyn always made clear that he admired the political liberty which was one of the enduring strengths of Western democratic societies. In a major speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in [[Liechtenstein]] on 14 September 1993, Solzhenitsyn implored the West not to "lose sight of its own values, its historically unique stability of civic life under the rule of law—a hard-won stability which grants independence and space to every private citizen."<ref>[[#Ericson2009|Ericson (2009)]] p. 599</ref>

In a series of writings, speeches, and interviews after his return to his native Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn spoke about his admiration for the local [[Self-governance|self-government]] he had witnessed first hand in [[Switzerland]] and [[New England]].<ref>"Russia in Collapse" in [[#Ericson2009|Ericson (2009)]] pp. 480–481</ref><ref>"The Cavendish Farewell" in [[#Ericson2009|Ericson (2009)]] pp. 606–607</ref> He "praised 'the sensible and sure process of [[grassroots democracy]], in which the local population solves most of its problems on its own, not waiting for the decisions of higher authorities.'"<ref>{{Citation | author-link = Bill Kauffman | last = Kauffman | first = William 'Bill' | date = 19 December 2005 | url = http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/dec/19/00016/ | title = Free Vermont | newspaper = [[The American Conservative]] | access-date = 26 January 2011 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101026132450/http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/dec/19/00016/ | archive-date = 26 October 2010 | url-status = dead }}</ref> Solzhenitsyn's patriotism was inward-looking. He called for Russia to "renounce all mad fantasies of foreign conquest and begin the peaceful long, long long period of recuperation," as he put it in a 1979 BBC interview with Latvian-born BBC journalist Janis Sapiets.<ref>{{Citation | last = Solzhenitsyn | first = Aleksandr I | title = East and West | place = New York | publisher = Harper | series = Perennial Library | year = 1980 | page = 182}}</ref>