Dissident, Regimegegner, Nobelpreisträger. Archipel Gulag, ein gigantisches Werk. Dessen Kondensation, seine Quintessenz ist "Ein Tag im Leben des Ivan Denisovich" - leichter zu lesen und vielleicht sogar darum umso beeindruckender.
Der US-amerikanischePhilosophiedozent Jerry Salyer hat ein paar weniger bekannte Äußerungen Solzhenitsyns über den "Westen" für uns neu gelesen. Man sollte denken, Solzhenitsyn wäre als Dissident und Emigrant wider Willen begeistert gewesen von dem, was er in den USA und im freien Westen vorfand.
Dem ist mitnichten so. Denn Solzhenitsyn zählte zu den raren Menschen, die ebensowenig ideologisch dachten wie bestechlich sind.

>> Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevents independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life.

“The press has become the greatest power within the Western countries,” he also insisted, “more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?”

According to Solzhenitsyn it was no coincidence that Soviet Russia shared certain common problems with the West, for he saw socialism and liberalism as kindred ideologies.<<

Der ganze Artikel, den man sicherlich mehrmals lesen muss mit seinen vielen interessanten Zitaten und Hinweisen findet sich hier.