Looking from the inside out

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918 to 2008) who was a writer born in Russia, and who, through his often-suppressed writings, helped to raise global awareness of the gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system. Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned in the Gulag during the period 1945 - 1956.

He authored numerous books some of which are:

·         The Gulag Archipelago

·         One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

·         The Cancer Ward

·         The First Circle

·         August 1914

*He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970

Much of what Solzhenitsyn has written or said sounds like good advice for Western Countries to seriously consider. Someone who has experienced the problems of a dominating state can do a better job of explaining the problems of such a state and offering suggestions on how to avoid or deal with it.

Some quotes from Solzhenitsyn

The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.

In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.

It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.

You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again.

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.