GAUCHE: OBITUARY: ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN

5 August 2008

OBITUARY: ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the novels of the Stalinist camps and, above all, The Gulag Archipelago were - are - crucial documents of the 20th century. More than anyone else, Solzhenitsyn was the witness, the truth-teller about how Soviet communism was a relentless, vicious, criminal, murderous regime - and he did it fearlessly. So what if he was a reactionary. RIP.

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'Moscow Gold? The Soviet Union and the British left by Paul Anderson and Kevin Davey is a fine little book you can read in a day. Anderson and Davey have taken advantage of the vast amount of research into communism since the end of the cold war. They wear it lightly, and refreshingly, are open about their political position. As members of the democratic left, they believe that communism was a disaster for left wing politics. It tied the left to tyranny and the lies and disillusion that went with it.'
NICK COHEN

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