The Liberal Solzhenitsyn

__"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Russian Nationalism" by David G. Rowley, in Journal of Contemporary History (July 1997), SAGE Publications Ltd., P.O. Box 5096, Thousand Oaks, Calif. 91359.__

When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, after his expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1974, thundered against the West’s materialism and waxed nostalgic for traditional Russian values, disappointed Western liberals swiftly dismissed him as a "Russian nationalist." Yet when he returned to his homeland in 1994, he was enthusiastically welcomed by Russian liberals—and denounced and vilified by right-wing "nationalists."

"What went unremarked in the [Western] debate over how liberal or authoritarian Solzhenitsyn was," writes Rowley, a historian at the University of North Dakota, "was the fact that he stood for something unprecedented in Russian history. He has consistently advocated a Russia by, of and for Russians; he wants the Russian nation to be congruent with the Russian state. It is pre-eminently upon this point that Solzhenitsyn differs from the Russian chauvinist right wing."

Nationalist leaders such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Gennady Zyuganov are the ones who are mislabeled, Rowley says. They are not nationalists, but imperialists who want to rebuild the old Soviet empire. Solzhenitsyn, by contrast, "is a staunch anti-imperialist." In his 1990 brochure, Rebuilding Russia, he urged that Russia give up its empire, though he hoped that Belarus and Ukraine, as well as certain traditionally Russian territories within other Soviet republics, would remain part of Russia. A critic of perestroika (he favored far more gradual change), Solzhenitsyn is now critical of the Russian Federation, which he calls "a false Leninist invention. Russia was never a federation."

"Solzhenitsyn’s support of democracy continues to be extremely limited and grudging," Rowley claims, amounting to "little more than support for a strong presidency and local autonomy." It is not so much his political principles that distinguish him from the right-wing chauvinists, according to Rowley, as his  conception of the Russian state. Solzhenitsyn "provides an alternative to the messianic concept of Russian imperialism that has underlain the traditional conceptions of Russian national identity," Rowley concludes. "A consistent and implacable foe of imperialism, Solzhenitsyn is a nationalist of a very modern and Western type." Indeed, Rowley says, his defense of modern nationalism may turn out to be his greatest contribution to his country. "If Yeltsin is Russia’s Cavour," he suggests, "Solzhenitsyn is her Mazzini."