Bitter attack on Solzhenitsyn

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33435, 17 January 1974, Page 15

Bitter attack on Solzhenitsyn

f.V Z.P..4. -Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, January 16. Before the stationing of uniformed guards outside the apartment of Alexander Solzhenitsyn today the Soviet Union gave widespread publicity to a top-level denunciation of the xvriter.

In treatment reserved for major policy statements, the] entire Moscow Press and : central newspaper.. in the country’s constituent republics reprinted a bitter attack on the Nobel prize-winner from the Communist Party organ, “Pravda.” The “Pravda” assault, published on Monday and issued in full by the official Tass news agency on its world services, described Solzhenitsyn as "a loathsome nonentity... literally choking with pathological hatred” for his country and people. But its final paragraph; has been interpreted by manv observers in the Soviet Union as an indication; that a move might now be made against the writer,] whose latest book on Soviet! prison camps just published; in the West has caused the] current campaign againstl him. . „ _ , The “Pravda ’ article con- 1

eluded: “Solzhenitsyn has merited that which he was zealously striving for — the fate of a traitor from whom all Soviet working people, every honest man on earth, cannot but turn away in disgust.” Although the writer has been called a traitor before, the formulation of the article—clearly the product of a high-level party decision — and particularly the concluding paragraph oppeared to suggest that firm measures were planned. I What form this action ; might take is uncertain, although it was thought unlikely he might be arrested and put on trial for anti-So-viet activities. Dissident sources believe that he might be forcibly exiled from the country. Similar action was taken in 1929 against Leon Trotsky, one of the top Bolshevik leaders of the 1917 revolution who was sent across the Soviet border into Turkey after losing a power struggle with Josef Stalin. But even if this action were taken, it would be likely to arouse a storm of ; protest abroad and damage ' immediate prospects for two jof the Soviet leadership’s main current preoccupations — detente with the West land the calling of a new I world Communist conference. I Western Governments — land many top cultural figlures — have indicated to ’the Kremlin that its intoler-

ance of intellectual dissent at home cannot help efforts to reach understanding on wider contacts between East and West, And Communist parties in several Western countries have expressed strong disagreement with Soviet handling of its dissidents and Solzhenitsyn in particular. Last week-end representatives of the Italian, French, Spanish, and Swiss parties said they were “hostile” to the ban on publication of Solzhenitsyn's works, although they said that they accepted that his views were “reactionary.” Later this month Communist parties from Western Europe are due to hold a conference in Brussels, at which the role of the intellectual in the modem world and the Soviet project for a new Communist conference will be discussed. Many Western Communist leaders are acutely conscious of the effect of the Kremlin’s handling of its dissident problem has had on the once strong hold of their parties on intellectuals, and they may be keen to avoid giving apparent support to the Soviet Union. An indication of the type of reaction the Kremlin could expect to any move against Solzhenitsyn came yesterday from an American author, Saul Bellow, who called on his fellow

intellectuals to back the Nobel prize-winner. Mr Bellow said: “Persecution of Selzhenitsyn, deportation. confinement in a madhouse or exile will be taken as final evidence of complete moral degeneracy in the Soviet regime.” Solzhenitsyn, in his first public statement since the publication of his new book “Gulag Archipelago,” said that an elderly and ill novelist was expelled from the official Soviet Writers’ Union because she allowed him to work at her dacha. His written statement, made available to Western correspondents, did not deal with the storm of official abuse that has broken over him since the Paris publication of his book about the Stalinist prison camp system. Instead, Solzhenitsyn spoke of the January 10 expulsion from the Writers’ Union of 66-year-old Lidiya Chukovskaya. There was no indication he was ready to break his silence about “Gulag Archipelago,” the furious Soviet official reaction to the book, or speculation on what action the Government might take against him. Solzhenitsyn said that he had “no doubt that the inspiring push” to expulsion of Miss Chukovskaya "was revenge that she has given me an opportunity to work in her dacha (country house) in Peredelkino.”

J Another reason for the action against her, he said, - was “to frighten others who - would decide to follow her i example.”, j Solzhenitsyn mentioned f that for three years he / lived at the dacha of the famous cellist, Mstislav t Rostropovich, and “for three 3 years they constantly and r cruelly harassed Rostropo--1 vich.” 1 Solzhenitsyn moved out of i the Rostropovich dacha last ’ year and stayed at another 1 dacha. His wife has a Moscow apartment but the , author has so far not been i granted a permit to live in 1 Moscow. 1 He has for some time been r staying at Miss Chukov- - skayas’ dacha in the writer’s 3 colony of Peredelkino just - west of Moscow. Miss Chukovskaya was i expelled from the union at a - 2} hour meeting and sources ’ said among the charges i against her were that she ) had “slipped into an anti- ) Soviet swamp.” t Among her actions was a j public defence of the dissi- ■ dent physicist Andrei Sakha- ■ rov, when he was under 3 official attack last autumn. ; Sources in the Moscow literary community reported ; that Miss Chukovskaya ac- ■ cepted her expulsion from F the writers’ union defiantly - and told her accusers: ; “You will all be forgotten, i but some day there will be ) streets named after Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov.”