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Warning to the West Page 2
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This was a system which was the first—long before Hitler—to employ false announcements of registration, that is to say: “Such and such persons must appear to register.” People would comply and then they were taken away to be killed. For technical reasons we didn’t have gas chambers in those days. We used barges. A hundred or a thousand persons were put into a barge and then it was sunk.
This was a system which deceived the workers in all of its decrees—the decree on land, the decree on peace, the decree on factories, the decree on freedom of the press.
This was a system which exterminated all other parties. And let me make it clear to you that it not only disbanded each party, but destroyed its members. All members of every non-Communist party were exterminated.
This was a system which carried out genocide of the peasantry. Fifteen million peasants were shipped off to their deaths.
This was a system which introduced serfdom, the so-called passport system.
This was a system which, in time of peace, artificially created a famine, causing six million persons to die in the Ukraine between 1932 and 1933. They died on the very threshold of Europe. And Europe didn’t even notice it. The world didn’t even notice it. Six million persons!
I could continue this enumeration, but I must stop because I have come to the year 1933 when, after all the facts I have named, your President Roosevelt and your Congress decided that this system was worthy of diplomatic recognition, of friendship, and of assistance.
Let me remind you that the great Washington did not agree to recognize the French Convention because of its savagery. Let me remind you that in 1933 voices were raised in your country objecting to recognition of the Soviet Union. However, this recognition took place and it was the beginning of friendship and ultimately of a military alliance.
Let us recall that in 1904 the American press was delighted at the Japanese victories and everyone wanted Russia’s defeat because it was a conservative country. And in 1914 reproaches were directed at France and England for having entered into an alliance with such a conservative country as Russia.
The scope and the direction of my speech today do not permit me to say more about pre-revolutionary Russia. I will only note that information about pre-revolutionary Russia was obtained by the West from persons who were either not sufficiently competent or not sufficiently scrupulous. I will cite for the sake of comparison some figures which you can read for yourself in The Gulag Archipelago, which has already been published in the United States, and perhaps many of you may have read it. Here are the figures:
According to the calculations of specialists, based on the most precise and objective statistics, in the eighty years that preceded the Revolution in Russia—years of revolutionary activity with attempts on the Tsar’s life, the assassination of a Tsar, revolutionary uprisings—during these years an average of seventeen persons a year were executed. The notorious Spanish Inquisition, during the decades when it was at the height of its murderous activity, executed perhaps ten persons a month. In The Gulag Archipelago I cite a book which was published by the Cheka in 1920, proudly reporting on its revolutionary achievements in 1918 and 1919 and apologizing that its data were not quite complete: in 1918 and 1919 the Cheka executed, without trial, more than a thousand persons a month! This was written by the Cheka itself, before it understood how this would appear in historical perspective.
In 1937–8, at the height of Stalin’s terror, if we divide the number of persons executed by the number of months, we get more than forty thousand persons shot per month! Here are the figures: seventeen a year, ten a month, more than one thousand a month, more than forty thousand a month! Thus, that which had made it difficult for the democratic West to form an alliance with pre-revolutionary Russia had, by 1941, grown to such an extent, yet still did not prevent the entire united democracies of the world—England, France, the United States, Canada, Australia, and other small countries—from entering into a military alliance with the Soviet Union. How is this to be explained? How can we understand it?
Here we can offer a few explanations. The first, I think, is that the entire united democracies of the world were too weak to fight against Hitler’s Germany. If this is the case, then it is a terrible sign. It is a terrifying portent for the present day. If all these countries together could not defeat Hitler’s little Germany, what are they going to do today, when more than half the globe is inundated by totalitarianism? I don’t want to accept this explanation.
The second explanation is that perhaps there was simply panic among the statesmen of the day. They simply didn’t have sufficient confidence in themselves, they had no strength of spirit, and in this confused state they decided to enter into an alliance with Soviet totalitarianism. But this is also not flattering to the West.
Finally, the third explanation is that it was a deliberate choice. Democracy did not wish to defend itself. For defense it wanted to make use of another totalitarian system, the Soviet totalitarian system. I’m not talking now about the moral worth of such a choice, I’m going to talk about that later. But in terms of simple calculation, how shortsighted it is, what profound self-deception it demonstrates!
We have a Russian proverb: “Don’t call a wolf to help you against the dogs.” If dogs are attacking and tearing at you, fight against the dogs; do not call a wolf for help. Because when the wolves come, they will destroy the dogs or drive them away, but they will tear you apart as well.
World democracy could have defeated one totalitarian regime after another, the German, then the Soviet. Instead, it strengthened Soviet totalitarianism, consented to the birth of a third totalitarianism, that of China, and all this finally precipitated the present world situation.
Roosevelt, in Teheran, during one of his last toasts, said the following: “I do not doubt that the three of us”—meaning Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin—“are leading our peoples in accordance with their desires and their aims.” How can this be understood? Let the historians worry about that. At the time, we listened and were astonished. We thought, “When we reach Europe, we will meet the Americans, and we will tell them.” I was among the troops that were marching toward the Elbe. A little bit farther and I would have reached it and would have shaken the hands of your American soldiers. But just before that happened, I was taken off to prison and my meeting did not take place.
But now, after a great delay, the same hand has thrown me out of the country and here I am. After a delay of thirty years, my Elbe is here, today. I have come to tell you, as a friend of the United States, what, as friends, we wanted to tell you then, but what our soldiers were also prevented from telling you on the Elbe.
There is another Russian proverb: “The yes-man is your enemy, but your friend will argue with you.” It is precisely because I am the friend of the United States, precisely because my speech is prompted by friendship, that I have come to tell you: “My friends, I’m not going to give you sugary words. The situation in the world is not just dangerous, it isn’t just threatening, it is catastrophic.”
Something that is incomprehensible to the ordinary human mind has taken place. In any case, the powerless, average Soviet people could not understand, year after year and decade after decade, what was happening. How were we to explain it? England, France, the United States, were the victors in World War II. Victorious states always dictate peace: they create the sort of situation which conforms to their philosophy, their concept of liberty, their concept of national interest. Instead of this, beginning in Yalta, your Western statesmen for some inexplicable reason signed one capitulation after another. Never did the West or your President Roosevelt impose any conditions on the Soviet Union for obtaining aid. He gave unlimited aid, and then unlimited concessions. Without any necessity whatever, the occupation of Mongolia, Moldavia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania was silently recognized in Yalta. After that, almost nothing was done to protect Eastern Europe, and seven or eight more countries were surrendered.
Stalin demanded that the So
viet citizens who did not want to return home be handed over to him, and the Western countries handed over 1.5 million human beings. How was this done? They were taken by force. English soldiers killed Russians who did not want to become prisoners of Stalin, and drove them by force to Stalin to be exterminated. This has recently come to light, just a few years ago. A million and a half human beings. How could the Western democracies have done this?
After that, for another thirty years, the constant retreat, the surrender of one country after another, to such a point that there are Soviet satellites even in Africa, almost all of Asia is taken over by them, Portugal is rolling down the precipice.
During those thirty years, more was surrendered to totalitarianism than any defeated country has ever surrendered after any war in history. There was no war, but there might as well have been.
For a long time we in the East couldn’t understand this. We couldn’t understand the flabbiness of the truce concluded in Vietnam. Any average Soviet citizen understood that this was a sly device which made it possible for North Vietnam to take over South Vietnam when it so chose. And then this arrangement was rewarded by the Nobel Prize for Peace—a tragic and ironic prize.
A very dangerous state of mind can arise as a result of these thirty years of retreat: give in as quickly as possible, give up as quickly as possible, peace and quiet at any cost.
This is what many Western papers wrote: “Let’s hurry up and end the bloodshed in Vietnam and have national unity.” (But at the Berlin Wall no one talks of national unity.) One of your leading newspapers, after the fall of Vietnam, had a full headline: THE BLESSED SILENCE. I would not wish that kind of “blessed silence” on my worst enemy. I would not wish that kind of national unity on my worst enemy.
I spent eleven years in the Gulag Archipelago, and for half of my lifetime I have studied this question. Looking at this terrible tragedy in Vietnam from a distance, I can tell you that a million persons will simply be exterminated, while four to five million (in accordance with the scale of Vietnam) will find themselves in concentration camps and will be used to rebuild Vietnam. And you already know what is happening in Cambodia. It is a case of genocide. Full and complete destruction, only in a new form. Once again their technology is not up to building gas chambers. So, in a few hours, the entire capital city—the guilty capital city—is emptied out: old people, women, children are driven out without belongings, without food. “Go and die!”
It is very dangerous for one’s view of the world when this feeling comes on: “Go ahead, give it up.” We already hear voices in your country and in the West: “Give up Korea and let’s live quietly.” Give up Portugal, of course; give up Japan, give up Israel, give up Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, give up ten more African countries. Just let us live in peace and quiet. Let us drive our big cars on our splendid highways; let us play tennis and golf unperturbed; let us mix our cocktails as we are accustomed to doing; let us see the beautiful smile and a glass of wine on every page of our magazines.
But look how things have turned out: in the West this has all turned into an accusation against the United States. We hear many voices saying, “It’s your fault, America.” I must today decisively defend the United States against these accusations.
I must say that the United States, of all the countries of the West, is the least guilty and has done the most in order to prevent it. The United States has helped Europe to win the First and the Second World Wars. It twice raised Europe from postwar destruction—twice—for ten, twenty, thirty years it has stood as a shield protecting Europe while European countries counted their nickels to avoid paying for their armies (better yet, to have none at all), to avoid paying for armaments, thinking about how to leave NATO, knowing that in any case America will protect them. These countries started it all, despite their thousand-year-old civilization and culture, even though they are closer to the danger and should have seen it more clearly.
I came to your continent; for two months I have been traveling in its wide-open spaces and I agree: here you must make an effort to understand the acuteness of the world situation. The United States has long shown itself to be the most magnanimous, the most generous country in the world. Wherever there is a flood, an earthquake, a fire, a natural disaster, an epidemic, who is the first to help? The United States. Who helps the most and unselfishly? The United States.
And what do we hear in reply? Reproaches, curses, “Yankee Go Home.” American cultural centers are burned, and representatives from the Third World jump on tables to vote against the United States at the U.N.
But none of this takes the load off America’s shoulders. Whether you like it or not, the course of history has made you the leaders of the world. Your country can no longer think provincially. Your political leaders can no longer think only of their own states, of their own parties, of petty situations, which may or may not contribute to success at election time. You must think about the whole world. When a new political crisis arises (I believe we have just come to the end of a very acute crisis and the next one might come at any moment), the main decisions will fall inevitably on the shoulders of the United States.
In my stay here, I have heard some explanations of the situation. Let me quote some of them: “It is impossible to protect those who do not have the will to defend themselves.” I agree with that, but this was said about South Vietnam. Yet in one half of today’s Europe and in three quarters of today’s world the will for self-defense is even less than it was in South Vietnam.
We are told: “We cannot defend those who are unable to defend themselves with their own human resources.” But against the overwhelming forces of totalitarianism, when all of this power is thrown against a country—no country can defend itself with its own resources. For instance, Japan doesn’t have a standing army.
We are told: “We should not protect those who do not have a full democracy.” This is the most remarkable argument of all. This is the leitmotif I hear in your newspapers and in the speeches of some of your political leaders. Who in the world, when on the front line of defense against totalitarianism, has ever been able to sustain a full democracy? You, the united democracies of the world, were not able to sustain it. America, England, France, Canada, Australia together did not sustain it. At the first threat of Hitlerism, you stretched out your hands to Stalin. You call that sustaining democracy? Hardly.
And there are other arguments (there have been a great many such speeches): “If the Soviet Union is going to use détente for its own ends, then we …” But what will happen then? The Soviet Union has used détente, is using it now, and will continue to use it in its own interests! For example, China and the Soviet Union, both actively participating in détente, have quietly grabbed three countries of Indochina. True, perhaps as a consolation, China will send you a ping-pong team. Just as the Soviet Union once sent you the pilots who crossed the North Pole. And in a few days there will be the flight into space together.
A typically well-staged diversion. I remember very well the time, June 1937, when Chkalov, Baidukov, and Belyakov heroically flew over the North Pole and landed in the state of Washington. This was the very year when Stalin was executing more than forty thousand persons a month. And Stalin knew what he was doing. He sent those pilots and aroused in you a naïve delight—the friendship of two countries across the North Pole. The pilots were heroes, nobody will deny them that. But this was a show to divert you from the real events of 1937. And what is the occasion now? Could it be an anniversary of that flight thirty-eight years ago? Is thirty-eight years some kind of an anniversary? No, it is simply necessary to cover up Vietnam. Once again, those pilots were sent here. The Chkalov Memorial was unveiled in the state of Washington. Chkalov was a hero and is worthy of a memorial. But to present the true picture, there should have been a wall behind the memorial and on it there should have been a bas-relief showing the executions, showing the skulls and skeletons.
We are also told (I apologize for so many quotes, but
there are many more in your press and radio): “We cannot ignore the fact that North Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge have violated the agreement, but we’re ready to look to the future.” What does this mean? It means: let them exterminate people. If these murderers, who live by violence, these executioners, offer us détente, we will be happy to go along with them. As Willy Brandt once said: “I would even be willing to have détente with Stalin.” At a time when Stalin was executing forty thousand a month he would have been willing to have détente with Stalin?
Look into the future! This is how they looked into the future in 1933 and 1941, but it was a shortsighted look. This is how they looked into the future two years ago when a senseless, incomprehensible, non-guaranteed truce in Vietnam was negotiated. Once again it was a shortsighted view. There was such a hurry to make this truce that they forgot to liberate your own Americans from captivity. They were in such a hurry to sign this document that some three thousand Americans were left there: “Well, they have vanished; we can get by without them.” How was this done? How can this be? Part of them, indeed, may be missing in action, but the leaders of North Vietnam themselves have admitted that some of them are still being kept in prison. And do they return your countrymen? No, instead of returning them, they keep laying down new conditions. At first they said, “Remove Thieu from power.” Now they say, “Let the United States restore a unified Vietnam, otherwise it’s very difficult to find these people.”
If the government of North Vietnam has difficulty explaining to you what happened to your brothers, your American POW’s who have not yet returned, I can explain this quite clearly on the basis of my experience in the Gulag Archipelago. There is a law in the Archipelago that those who have been treated the most harshly and who have withstood the most bravely, who are the most honest, the most courageous, the most unbending, never again come out into the world. They are never again shown to the world because they will tell tales that the human mind can barely accept. Some of your returned POW’s told you that they were tortured. This means that those who have remained were tortured even more, but did not yield an inch. These are your best people. These are your foremost heroes, who, in a solitary combat, have stood the test. And today, unfortunately, they cannot take courage from our applause. They can’t hear it from their solitary cells where they may either die or remain for thirty years like Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who was seized in 1945 in the Soviet Union. He has been imprisoned for thirty years and they will not give him up.