Solzhenitsyn: My Murdered Grandfather’s Voice

Yet for all his greatness and importance in bringing down the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn had become an irrelevance to the thrusting, new, oil-rich Russia of Vladimir Putin. In that lies a tragedy, because Russia has swung back from its infatuation with wild capitalism into what has proved to be a deeper longing for authority and order. Solzhenitsyn, once an idealistic Communist, understood better than most how power can pervert men and ideas. He saw himself as a prophet not just for Russia but for all mankind, and in his later years turned to denouncing the corruptions of capitalism and the dangers of liberalism. But for all his unfashionable conservatism, he believed adamantly in the value of human dignity—and that a State abdicated all moral authority to order society if it abused its citizens. Russia, for all its wealth, remains mired in corruption and injustice. With Solzhenitsyn's death it has lost its conscience, and is a poorer place for it.

Matthews is the author of "Stalin's Children" (available at Amazon.com).

© 2008