Solzhenitsyn

by Joseph Pearce

  Natalya betrayed further lack of understanding about her husband in her analysis of Candle in the Wind, this time in her failure to grasp one of his secondary intentions in writing the play. “The only thing I found unconvincing and superfluous”, she complained, “was the desire of Alex, the author’s stand-in, to put a stop to the development of science.”23 With a firm grasp of scientific principles himself, Solzhenitsyn had no desire that the development of science should stop. One of the purposes of the play was to point out that science, like every other field of human activity, was subject to ethical considerations. The abuse of technology, in this case bio-cybernetics, was always likely, indeed inevitable, if science refused to be restrained by ethics.

  The nature of scientific abuse in Candle in the Wind centers on the use of Alda, a lovable but over-sensitive and neurotic woman, as a guinea pig in experiments in “neurostabilization”. The result of this “brain-scrambling” is that Alda changes from being hyper-sensitive to insensitive, from painfully alive to comfortably numb. She escapes from suffering only by becoming less alive: the end result, as Solzhenitsyn was eager to stress, of “technological interference in the complex psychology of human beings. It is almost a discussion of a worldwide process, not so much an experiment on her. The rush, the onward push of technology destroys the human psyche.” Does this mean that Alda can be seen as an archetype of the modern world itself? “Yes, yes,” Solzhenitsyn stressed emphatically, “the modern world in the capacity as victim: the vulnerable part of modernity and the modern world.”24

  What then would have been the solution to Alda’s, and the world’s, neurosis? Did Alda need love not mechanisms? “Yes,” Solzhenitsyn replied, “the solution would have been spiritual.”25 A spiritual solution. Whatever one may feel about Solzhenitsyn’s spiritual alternative to intrusive technology, it is not, contrary to Natalya’s claims, “wholly negative”.

  If Natalya’s views on Candle in the Wind illumine the gulf separating her own aspirations from those of her husband, Solzhenitsyn’s descriptions of his “fictional” wife in the play are even more evocative of the sense of alienation in their marriage. Alex tells Alda that he was happy with few possessions and a tiny clay house before his wife appeared on the scene. “She was absolutely tireless and she was ashamed of our hut! She was ambitious as well and demanded that I erect a palace with a slate roof! She demanded that I earn more too. And that I take her to the city and the big stores.” He laments that his wife is typical of those who “think only of how best to grab and buy things and impress their neighbours” and attempts to explain why he is incapable of living that way: “To have to please someone, worry about someone, and let that determine my philosophy. I live only once and I want to act in accordance with absolute truth.” Accepting that as a husband he could never live up to materialist expectations, he adds: “My wife did a wise thing: she immediately found herself another husband who made good money.”26 Apart from the undercurrents of bickering, Solzhenitsyn’s purpose in writing the play was always that higher goal espoused by Pasternak two years earlier. Its principal concern is the meaning of life itself, the preservation of the light within, which is diminished by hedonistic materialism, nihilism, and the lust for life that is really a living death. Against this hell-bound path of least resistance are contraposed suffering—described by Alex as “a lever for the growth of the soul”—and poverty: “It’s not a question of how much you earn, it’s a question of how little you spend.”27

  Perhaps the play is summarized most succinctly by Keith Armes in the introduction to his translation of the English edition: “Solzhenitsyn attempts to persuade a reluctant world of the dangers of materialism and of the worship of science. In doing so he proclaims that Christian faith which was later to inspire the Easter Procession and the Lenten Letter.”28

  In spite of the suppression of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, the much-heralded cultural thaw in the Soviet Union following Khrushchev’s accession to power gave Solzhenitsyn hope that at last he could emerge from the shadows and his literature would see the light of day. “Finally, at the age of forty-two,” he wrote, “this secret authorship began to wear me down. The most difficult thing of all to bear was that I could not get my works judged by people with literary training. In 1961, after the twenty-second Congress of the USSR Communist Party and Tvardovsky’s speech at this, I decided to emerge and to offer One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”29

  In his speech to the Congress, Tvardovsky, editor of the literary journal Novy Mir, had spoken of the need to “show the labours and ordeals of our people in a manner that is totally truthful to life”,30 and even Khrushchev himself, in an attack on Stalin, had promised to erect a monument in Moscow “to the memory of the comrades who fell victims to arbitrary power”. “Comrades!” Khrushchev had implored. “Our duty is to investigate carefully such abuses of power in all their aspects. Time passes and we shall die, since all of us are mortal, but as long as we have the strength to work we must clear up many things and tell the truth to the Party and our people.”31

  Solzhenitsyn did not trust Khrushchev, still believing that his own emergence from the shadows would be very risky and “might lead to the loss of my manuscripts and to my own destruction”,32 but Tvardovsky’s words offered hope, and he decided to present the manuscript of One Day in the Life to Tvardovsky for possible publication in Novy Mir.

  On December 11, 1961, his forty-third birthday, Solzhenitsyn received a telegram from Tvardovsky inviting him to Moscow at Novy Mir’s expense. The dryness of the telegram concealed the delight with which Tvardovsky had read the manuscript. He had sat up all night reading it and declared to several friends the following day that a great writer had just been born. One friend recalled that he had never seen Novy Mir’s editor so enthusiastic as he was that day, insisting that he would do everything in his power to ensure Solzhenitsyn’s novel was published: “They say that Russian literature’s been killed. Damn and blast it! It’s in this folder with the ribbons. But who is he? Nobody’s seen him yet. We’ve sent a telegram. . . . We’ll take him under our wing, help him, and push his book through.” He told the novelist Vera Panova that “believe it or not, I’ve got a manuscript from a new Gogol”.33

  A year later Solzhenitsyn expressed his gratitude to Tvardovsky: “The greatest happiness that ‘recognition’ has given me I experienced in December last year, when you found Denisovich worth a sleepless night. None of the praise that came afterwards could outstrip that.”34

  At the conclusion of their meeting in Moscow, Tvardovsky insisted on drawing up a contract, stipulating the payment of an advance of 300 roubles to the author on signature, a sum equivalent to more than twice his annual salary as a schoolteacher. Solzhenitsyn had made his first major breakthrough as a writer.

  Natalya could not believe her eyes when she saw the terms of the contract and burst into tears. Meanwhile, in a spirit of euphoria, Solzhenitsyn wrote to friends that the reception of his manuscript had “exceeded my wildest expectations” and that “the whole thing has knocked me sideways”.35

  An unwelcome reminder that he was still walking on a knife-edge came at the beginning of 1962 when he returned to the offices of Novy Mir to hear the verdict on Matryona’s House. Although Tvardovsky liked the story, he feared that it was “a bit too Christian” for a Soviet journal. It was too subversive, and he dared not publish it. Nonetheless, he assured Solzhenitsyn that he wanted to publish it and stressed that he had no wish to browbeat his new-found prodigy into political submission. “Please don’t become ideologically reliable”, he quipped at the end of the meeting. “Don’t write anything that my staff could pass without my having to know about it.”36 It was clear that Tvardovsky and Solzhenitsyn were on dangerous ground, and both men realized that the courage of their convictions was being put to the test. As if to emphasize the point, Tvardovsky assured Solzhenitsyn that he was determined to publish One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and would do everything he could to overcome any oppositi
on he might meet along the way.

  Tvardovsky’s efforts to secure publication involved a complete circumvention of the normal channels that would, if followed, have resulted in the manuscript’s rejection. Instead, he sought the support of leading literary figures, eliciting favorable reports from them about the manuscript’s merits. He then showed these to some of his political friends, in the hope of persuading them that One Day in the Life could be used to bolster Khrushchev’s policy of debunking Stalinism. Solzhenitsyn was becoming a player in a dangerous game of power politics.

  On July 23, 1962, Solzhenitsyn raised the tension and the stakes by refusing to agree to various cuts that would have made the book more politically acceptable. These included a number of alleged insults to Soviet art and the discussions about religion centered on Alyosha the Baptist.

  Such were the waves that Solzhenitsyn’s manuscript was causing in the higher echelons of Soviet society that by September it had come to the notice of Khrushchev himself. He demanded to see it and, to everyone’s relief, liked it. He could see no reason why One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich could not be published. The news was greeted ecstatically at the offices of Novy Mir, and on September 16 the glad tidings were dispatched to Solzhenitsyn in a letter: “Now we can say that Ivan D is on the very threshold. We are expecting news any day.”37 With Khrushchev’s approval, it was surely a mere formality; the Central Committee would simply rubber-stamp the decision. Yet the days passed, and there was still no official go-ahead. Tvardovsky was on tenterhooks and is said to have threatened to resign if permission was refused. Finally, at midday on September 21, the long-awaited phone call was received. It was not, however, what Tvardovsky had either hoped or feared. Permission was neither granted nor refused but merely deferred. Instead, Khrushchev ordered twenty-three copies to be delivered by the following morning.

  Tvardovsky was thrown into a panic. He did not possess twenty-three copies, and it would be impossible to get that number typed up in a single night. The only option was a limited printing of the necessary copies. He rang the head of the printing department at the leading national newspaper, Izvestia, explained the urgency of the situation, and arranged to have four machines set aside from printing Izvestia that night and reserved for printing twenty-five copies of Ivan Denisovich.

  The copies were duly delivered next morning, and Khrushchev ordered that they be distributed to members of the Party Presidium. What transpired at the next meeting of the Presidium is not known for certain and has become a source of legend. It is clear, however, that Khrushchev met considerable opposition from hard-liners in the government who were strongly against publication. “How can we fight against the remnants of the personality cult if Stalinists of this type are still among us?” Khrushchev is alleged to have said.38 Another source reported Khrushchev as saying that “there’s a Stalinist in each of you; there’s even some of the Stalinist in me. We must root out this evil.”39 There were, in fact, more Stalinists at the meeting than Khrushchev cared or dared to admit, each looking for the opportunity to bring about his downfall. One by one, Khrushchev was alienating the powerful interest groups that dominated Soviet politics. His de-Stalinization was unpopular with all hard-line communists and particularly with the KGB; his emphasis on nuclear rather than conventional weapons had lost him the support of the military; and his administrative reforms had struck at the bureaucratic heart of the Party apparatus. Too much was changing too quickly for many sectional interests in the Soviet hierarchy, and it was only a matter of time before they struck back at the man responsible. Like Solzhenitsyn, Khrushchev was walking on a knife-edge. Two years later, in October 1964, he would be toppled in a bloodless coup and presented with his own resignation “for reasons of health”. For now, however, he still had a firm grip on power and forced through the publication of One Day in the Life, proposing the motion that authorized it himself.

  Having won this small though significant victory at home, Khrushchev was faced down on the world stage by President Kennedy, being induced to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba in October 1962 at the culmination of an international crisis that had brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn, still not even a published author, had gained many powerful enemies among the Soviet leadership, while enjoying the support of a Soviet President who was living on borrowed time. He was making his literary debut in dangerous circumstances.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TOO HOT TO HANDLE

  On Sunday, October 21, 1962, without a word of explanation, Pravda, the Communist Party daily newspaper, published “The Heirs of Stalin”, an anti-Stalinist poem by Evgeni Evtushenko, in which he warned against those Stalinists in positions of power who wanted to turn back the clock. It was a timely reminder that the winds of change were themselves inconstant, but the fact that Pravda had chosen to publish Evtushenko’s poem indicated that, for the time being at least, the winds were blowing in favor of the reformers.

  In the favorable atmosphere of de-Stalinization, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich made its first public appearance. It was an instant success. Tvardovsky informed Solzhenitsyn that several thousand copies of the November issue of Novy Mir containing Solzhenitsyn’s novel had been diverted to the bookstalls set up in the Kremlin for delegates to the plenary session of the Central Committee. Khrushchev had announced from the platform that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was an extremely important work, which every delegate should read. Dutifully, they had all trooped off to the bookstalls to acquire a copy. Elsewhere in Moscow, it had sold out completely, despite the printing of several thousand extra copies, and was already a collector’s item.

  Solzhenitsyn’s popular success was accompanied by critical acclaim. Either the Soviet press genuinely shared the public’s enthusiasm for One Day in the Life, or else the reviewers were merely intent on following the current party line. Whatever the reason, reviews were universally positive. Konstantin Simonov, writing in Izvestia on November 18, 1962, declared that “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is written with the sure hand of a mature, unique master. A powerful talent has come into our literature. I personally have no doubts on that score.” Although Solzhenitsyn would doubtless have been flattered by such praise, he must have found some of Simonov’s other observations a little difficult to swallow. Worst of all was Simonov’s assertion that Solzhenitsyn “has shown himself a true helper of the Party”. Admittedly, Simonov had made the assertion in relation to the role that One Day in the Life was playing in “the struggle against the cult of personality and its consequences”,1 but, regardless of the context, Solzhenitsyn must have balked at any suggestion that he was helping to perpetuate the Party he had grown to despise.

  The incongruity of Solzhenitsyn’s position as a true helper of the Party was hammered home even more forcefully five days later when a review of his novel appeared in Pravda. The review was written by Vladimir Ermilov, a communist time-server who epitomized everything Solzhenitsyn detested. During the Stalinist purges, Ermilov had been a secret-police informer who had denounced many writers and intellectuals, consigning them to the very camps that Solzhenitsyn was describing. Now that the tide had turned against Stalin, Ermilov had turned with it, determined to remain in favor. Stalin was now the “enemy of the people” while Solzhenitsyn was a newly discovered hero, “a writer gifted with a rare talent, and, as befits a real artist, he has told us a truth that cannot be forgotten, and must not be forgotten, a truth that is staring us in the face”.2

  Whatever his attitude to official praise of his work, Solzhenitsyn surely received a degree of genuine consolation from the letters he began to receive from former prisoners.

  “You have taken a picture of quite a day. . . . Reading your story and comparing it with the camp, it is impossible to distinguish one from another. They are alike as two peas—the arrangement of the compound, the punishment block, and the attitude to the prisoners.”

  “I could not sit still. I kept leaping up, walking about an
d imagined all those scenes as taking place in the camp I was in.”

  “When I read it, I literally felt the blast of cold as one leaves the hut for inspection.”3

  Another former prisoner, after declaring that his own life was described exactly in the novel, recounted his riposte to “a loudly dressed lady with a gold ring” who had said that she didn’t like Solzhenitsyn’s novel because it was too depressing: “It’s better to have a bitter truth than a sweet lie”, he had replied.4

  “After reading it,” wrote a woman whose husband had perished in the camps, “the only thing left to do is to knock a nail into the wall, tie a knot and hang oneself.” A young female student who had lost both her grandparents in the camps could not even bear to read it, writing to Solzhenitsyn that she had flicked through it before being forced to put it down. Another woman, the wife of one who had died, expressed the grief more eloquently:

  I see, I hear this crowd of hungry, freezing creatures, half people, half animals, and amongst them is my husband. . . . Continue to write, write the truth, even though they won’t print it now! Our floods of tears were not shed in vain—the truth will rise to the surface in this river of tears. . . . My husband wrote to me from Taishet that one of his companions in misfortune would come to me some day and tell me about him, and give me a ring that he made for me there, in his place of torment. But nobody came to me, and now will never come.5