Remember Solzhenitsyn’s Warning

August 5, 2008 | From theTrumpet.com

The great Russian Nobel Prize-winning author died Sunday. Here is a look
back at a critical message he had for the United States. By Gerald
Flurry

The Communist system of the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The world
was stunned.

Many people believe that Alexander Solzhenitsyn did more to bring down
that system than any other Russian.

He died in Moscow on Sunday at the age of 89.

Few people are aware of the flood of horror and bloodshed that started
after the 1917 Russian Revolution and continued until Stalin’s death in
1953. The Communist regime caused the deaths of about 66 million
people from 1917 to 1953—a period of 36 years! (That figure does not
include the 31 million who died in World War ii—about one fifth of their
population.) The Soviet Union was slaughtering its own people.

One prisoner by the name of Shostakovich gave this testimony: “I was

remembering my friends, and all I saw was corpses, mountains of corpses.
I’m not exaggerating, I mean mountains. … I’m grieving all the time.”

The revolution began with inspiring hope. That hope was drowned in a sea
of suffering and bloodshed. Russia became a massive graveyard.

Mr. Solzhenitsyn was a victim of the brutal Communist regime. He was in

the Russian prison system, the Gulag Archipelago, for eight years. After
that, he was exiled in his own country for another three years—a total of
11 years in prison.

He saw that prison authorities did not have serious communist or socialist
ideals. They were gangsters and thugs who had gained control of the
revolution. Stalin was the chief gangster.

Speaking Out

Solzhenitsyn began to think about the Russian Revolution while in the

Gulag. Before and after he was released, he knew that somebody had to
report the truth. Who would it be? He decided it would have to be himself.
It was his life that would have to be risked by writing about a prison
system that reflected a revolution gone mad.

In his autobiography, The Oak and the Calf, he said (emphasis mine
throughout),

At last I was beginning to see revealed the higher and hidden meaning of
that suffering for which I had been unable to find a justification, that sharp
reminder from the Supreme Reason which no mere mortal can at first
understand. This was why my murderous misfortunes had been sent to
me—to deny me all possibility, snatch from me any chance of lying low
and keeping quiet, to make me desperate enough to speak and act.

Solzhenitsyn believed that God had a hand in his suffering and in his
speaking out. Certainly he revealed the evils of Russian Communism more
than anybody else ever did.

His experiences made him desperate enough to speak out against what
some have called the greatest tyranny ever. In the midst of that suffering,
he developed character and values he would not compromise, even if
death were the result.

One man of incredible character changed history. Behind this character

was a strong religious morality.

“Once again, my vision and my calculations are probably faulty,” he

wrote. “There are many things which I cannot see even at close quarters,
many things in which the Hand of the Highest will correct me. But this
casts no cloud over my feelings. It makes me happier, more secure, to
think that I do not have to plan and manage everything for myself, that I
am only a sword made sharp to smite the unclean forces, an enchanted
sword to cleave and disperse them.

“Grant, O Lord, that I may not break as I strike! Let me not fall from Thy
hand!” (ibid.).

His life was seriously threatened several times. But he continued to write
books and speak out against Communist rulers. Here is what George
Steiner wrote in the New York Times Book Review, March 1, 1998:

To use a Shakespearian image: during the late 1960s and throughout the
’70s, Alexander Solzhenitsyn bestrode the world like a colossus. The
winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature in October 1970, his expulsion
from Russia in February 1974, the publication in the West of The Gulag
Archipelago the same year, made him not only the world’s most famous
writer, but a spiritual guide, a prophet, an exemplar unrivaled since
Voltaire or Tolstoy. His every movement, his most occasional
pronouncements, were the object of frenetic attention in the news media.
Crowds blocked the airports at which Solzhenitsyn arrived. In the “free
world,” Cancer Ward and The First Circle sold by the million; in Russia and
Eastern Europe, clandestine copies passed from hand to hand, keeping
fiercely alive “hope against hope.”

Communist leaders intensified their persecution. How did Solzhenitsyn

survive all this evil? Here is what Michael Scammel wrote in his book
Solzhenitsyn: “Solzhenitsyn’s moral purity, his absolute refusal to
compromise on fundamental issues, was his greatest asset, which gave
meaning to his life and work.”

In February 1974, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union. In

1976, he made his home in Vermont.

Then in June of 1978, Harvard, America’s most prestigious educational

institution, invited him to give its commencement address.

Never has such a massively murderous government as the Soviet Union

been so deeply exposed by one man. And the West agreed with his
conclusions. But it didn’t end there. Solzhenitsyn also exposed America
and Britain! And we have rejected almost 100 percent of his severe
criticism. That Solzhenitsyn was so accurate in exposing communist flaws
should have made us do some serious thinking about his correction for the
West. But it didn’t. Today, Solzhenitsyn’s name is rarely even mentioned.

His Harvard speech sent shock waves throughout the West. Most
politicians, educational institutions and the media turned bitterly against
him!

This is a chapter in our history that we desperately need to understand.

Moral Poverty

Alexander Solzhenitsyn had a strong belief in God. In the Harvard speech,

“A World Split Apart,” he showed that we are condemned by our own
history:

The humanistic way of thinking, which had proclaimed itself our guide, did
not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man, nor did it see any task
higher than the attainment of happiness on Earth. It started modern
Western civilization on the dangerous trend of worshiping man and his
material needs. …

Thus gaps were left open for evil, and its drafts blow freely today. Mere
freedom per se does not in the least solve all the problems of human life
and even adds a number of new ones.

And yet in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its

birth, all individual human rights were granted on the ground that man is
God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally,
in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. … Two hundred
or even 50 years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America,
that an individual be granted boundless freedom with no purpose, simply
for the satisfaction of his whims. …

The West has finally achieved the rights of man, and even excess, but
man’s sense of responsibility to God and society has grown dimmer and
dimmer. … All the celebrated technological achievements of progress,
including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the 20th century’s
moral poverty, which no one could have imagined even as late as the 19th
century.

What happens when we make a foundational change in our belief about

the evil in man? As we put more and more trust in man, we push our
responsibility to God aside. This fatal flaw in our thinking is one that
destroys nations!

“Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh
flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:5).
Because we have placed our trust in man, we are under a dreadful curse.
The evidence is all around us!

As many child-rearing authorities condemn any spanking of our children,

we have seen an increase in unruliness and even violence and brutality to
the point of murder in our children and teenagers. There is evil in those
youthful thugs, in most cases, that was not dealt with properly in love and
discipline—God’s way.

Our families are upside down. “As for my people, children are their
oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead
thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths,” said the
Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 3:12). This is an end-time book of prophecy (see
Isaiah 30:8).

God warns against following our leaders who cause us to err!

Women rule our families. Our boys lack strong, masculine role models. Our
society is becoming more effeminate and female-dominated.

Young boys become frustrated and sometimes violent without proper

family guidance, especially from their fathers. Our forefathers had a much
more God-oriented family life; their faith in God was much stronger.

How much more do we have to be cursed before we learn the ugly truth
about our families?

Our people care little about the morals of our leaders today. That was not
the case even a few years ago. We don’t understand or even care that bad
morals destroy families. It is through the family most of all that strong,
godly morals should be taught!

Deceived About Human Nature

“The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make

society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals,” Solzhenitsyn
continued.

This tilt of freedom toward evil has come about gradually, but it evidently
stems from a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which man
—the master of the world—does not bear any evil within himself, and all
the defects of life are caused by misguided social systems, which must
therefore be corrected. …

Voluntary self-restraint is almost unheard of: Everybody strives toward

further expansion to the extreme limit of the legal frames.

As he says, we blame the social systems rather than our own evil human
nature. (Read our booklet Human Nature: What Is It?)

We are talking about thinking that makes or destroys individuals and

nations!

Here is why: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). This is the evil in man that
Solzhenitsyn discussed. The human mind “is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked.” And yet, in America and Britain, we usually reason
that human nature is good. That diabolical philosophy is destroying our
nations!

Imagine what our evil minds would do with no obligations and no laws in
society. As it is, there is usually no teaching of character to control our
thinking. We live in a world of fantasy and illusion. As a result, our society
is being fragmented. The mind of man—human nature—is “desperately
wicked.” We should be building God’s character by overcoming this carnal
mind—not trusting and relying on it! No nation can long endure on such a
vile foundation.

Can this Nobel Prize winner teach us about our own history?

Harvard began as a religious institution. Its number-one goal was to teach

character. Today character is hardly even an issue in education, politics or
the press. Harvard is certainly not a religious institution today. Even if it
were, most religions have succumbed to this fatal and false reasoning
about human nature also.
America has made radical, far-reaching changes from what our forefathers
believed. Those men repeatedly said that our Constitution could work only
if our people had character and kept the Ten Commandments.

Today we are lost in the present—rejecting the past and blind to the
future! We have lost the big overview. Our nations are like the Titanic,
speeding into the darkness, as we ignore the warnings from history and
prophecy.

The Press

Who has the power to lead us today? Where does the real authority lie?
Solzhenitsyn had some strong views on that subject in his speech.

Hastiness and superficiality—these are the psychic diseases of the 20th

century, and more than anywhere else this is manifested in the press. In-
depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press; it is contrary to its
nature. The press merely picks out sensational formulas.

Yet one would like to ask: According to what law has it been elected, and
to whom is it responsible? In the Communist East, a journalist is frankly
appointed as a state official. But who has voted Western journalists into
their positions of power, for how long a time, and with what prerogatives?

If we understood that we are the nations of Israel today, this problem

could be better understood. Whereas the Gentiles are prone to be led by a
dictator, we naturally degenerate to little or no government.

We are not truly ruled by those people we vote into office. The press has
the greatest power! But this is a symptom of a far deeper problem.

Ancient Israel—our forefathers—came to this same condition just before it

collapsed and was conquered by an enemy. “In those days there was no
king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges
21:25). The press had the most power then too—not the elected officials.
And soon, every person did what “was right in his own eyes.” There was
no real leadership. And there is almost none today. It is a terrifying reality!

What is happening today in America and Britain is what happened

routinely to our forefathers! We are making the same mistakes they made.

The book of Judges is a part of the former prophets. That means this is
prophecy for us today! But we pay little attention to history and even less
to Bible prophecy—until it is too late.

Why were our people so offended by Alexander Solzhenitsyn? Can we

afford to so rudely push aside the warning of a Nobel Prize winner—a man
of such deserved stature? A man who was forced to face the ugly reality of
his own land?
What Is Freedom?

Here is something else Solzhenitsyn said in that speech at Harvard:

The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make

society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the
West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

On the other hand, destructive and irresponsible freedom has been

granted boundless space. Society has turned out to have scarce defense
against the abyss of human decadence, for example against the misuse of
liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion pictures
full of pornography, crime and horror. This is all considered to be part of
freedom.

Solzhenitsyn accused America of losing our balance. We vigorously defend

human rights, but neglect human obligations, responsibility and character.

Are we free if we are in bondage to pornography? Or drugs? Or alcohol? Or

sleazy, violent, mind-bending television and movies?

Are young people free if they have virtually no restrictions? Would it be

freedom to drive our cars without any stop signs or signals?

Is it freedom to desert the little children we bring into this world? If we do

so, are they not destined to be in bondage to the evils of this world
without parental guidance?

These are questions that are not being answered. Our “free” societies are
descending into chaos and anarchy—individually and collectively.

There is no freedom without law! But whose law? Men have adopted many
foolish and dangerous laws. We need a perfect law. And that is exactly
what God gave us.

“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and

receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your
souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your
own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like
unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself,
and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he
was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man
shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:21-25). God gave us ten perfect
commandments to make us responsible. We must let the Ten
Commandments show us where we are in bondage.
Most religions are in bondage because they reject God’s law and call it
freedom! Men almost routinely think bondage is freedom—intellectually
and spiritually!

“While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of
corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in
bondage” (2 Peter 2:19). There are always deceived leaders who want to
give us “freedom,” but actually bring us into their corruption and
bondage. They want us to accept their anti-God ideas and rebellion.

Only the truth will set us free (John 8:32). And God’s Word is truth (John
17:17).

A Model Nation

Here is another statement made to the Harvard audience:

After the suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul
longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today’s
mass living habits, introduced as by a calling card by the revolting
invasion of commercial advertising, by tv stupor, and by intolerable music.

All this is visible to numerous observers from all the worlds of our planet.
The Western way of life is less and less likely to become the leading
model.

That is a remarkable statement. So few people realize that ancient Israel—

the nation of our heritage—was chosen by God to be a model nation for
the rest of the world! Israel was not a favorite people; it was chosen to be
an example nation to show how wonderfully God would bless an obedient
people. But Israel always rebelled against the greatest calling any nation
ever had.

Our failure today is far more horrendous. Solzhenitsyn abhorred our

example! Many other observers around the world still do. And they should.
It seems that everybody but our own people sees our deadly
degenerations!

Is it any wonder that Solzhenitsyn would have looked around for a model
nation after nearly 100 million Soviet citizens died in 36 years?

Mankind should have learned, from such murderous examples, that we are
incapable of ruling ourselves!

Now, with our nuclear weapons, we are about to face the worst disaster in
man’s history—World War iii with nuclear weapons. This is the pinnacle of
mankind’s “achievement”!
When that happens, man will finally begin to learn that only God can rule
over him.

Solzhenitsyn continued,

There are telltale symptoms by which history gives warning to a

threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, a decline of the
arts or a lack of great statesmen [Isaiah 3:1-4]. Indeed, sometimes the
warnings are quite explicit and concrete. The center of your democracy
and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and
all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating
havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system
quite unstable and unhealthy.

This is all done under the guise of freedom. It is a deadly deception and
we should know better. Unrestrained “freedom” is the most grotesque
kind of bondage. Is a heroin addict free? Most of those leaders promising
liberty are spiritually corrupt.

Are we a “perishing society”? The answer is a thunderous yes!

Mr. Solzhenitsyn knew that “history gives warning.” But today we are so
shallow that we almost ignore the subject. More and more of our
universities fail to effectively teach this vital subject.

That is why we don’t see and heed the thunderous lessons of history!
Great leaders of the past like Winston Churchill and Edward R. Murrow
believed that history was our most important subject. Most of our people
don’t know that today. Nor do they care to know. In fact, they usually
refuse to know.

We are going to pay some mind-splitting penalties for this attitude. It is

time to wake up!

How could Alexander Solzhenitsyn have been so right about the

Communist system and so wrong about the Western system—as most
Westerners reason? Are we so sure we’re right that we won’t even listen
to objective criticism? Why would Solzhenitsyn have even given such a
speech? All it got him was ridicule and scorn. Isn’t is possible he wanted to
help us save our nations from disaster?

He suffered as few people have in this modern world. And he learned

some profound lessons in the process.

Because we failed to listen to the warnings—especially God’s—we have

left God with only one option. He is going to get our attention the only way
He can!

Where Is Our Courage?

This Nobel Prize winner struck at the very heart of what makes a nation
great—or what causes a superpower to fall. He continued in his Harvard
speech,

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside

observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic
courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each
government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations.
Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and
intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire
society. There are many courageous individuals, but they have no
determining influence on public life.

Political and intellectual functionaries … base state policies on weakness

and cowardice. And the decline in courage, at times attaining what could
be termed a lack of manhood … [means] they get tongue-tied and
paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening
forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.

That last line truly disturbed many people! Mr. Solzhenitsyn stated a great
truth of history that has been demonstrated repeatedly, but that few men
have learned. It has been proven again and again since “ancient times.” A
radical decline in courage is a frightening symptom of the end of America
and Britain!

He was discussing the death of our nations! History thunders that he was
right. So does Bible prophecy. What a powerful warning!

America has suffered many foreign-policy setbacks in recent years.

Nobody fears the great American superpower anymore.

America is called the world’s only superpower. We do have the military

might. But Solzhenitsyn saw that we lack the will to use it.

In this world full of tigers, a superpower can’t resign or sneak off into the
night. Other nations know that if they can destroy a superpower, they
become a superpower themselves.

This is a sobering thought that America should realize!

A Broken Will

Solzhenitsyn made other condemning statements about the West, but

they were made over a long period of time. Mostly they were unnoticed or
ignored. But his speech at Harvard was different. On that hot summer day
in 1978, he had the attention of America’s intellectual elite. The press was
there, listening intently. A speech like that, so concentrated and focused,
and with such an attentive audience, could not be ignored!
Several years earlier, Solzhenitsyn said, “We see [the West] today,
crawling on hands and knees, its will paralyzed.”

This Nobel Prize winner spoke more forcefully than others. But haven’t we
noticed the many other critics outside Britain and America today? Many
nations slander us, ignore us, and treat us with contempt. Even our allies,
such as they are, consider us unreliable and are looking elsewhere for
support.

That kind of thinking would disturb us mightily—if we were a real

superpower! But we are too weak to be stung by such trends, much less
demonstrate to the world that they are wrong. The weaker our foreign
policy, the more an anti-American tide rises around the world.

Here is what Solzhenitsyn said in The Oak and the Calf:

Unmoved by all the misfortunes and threats that hemmed us in, I knew
that it was time: time to find some way of shocking the West into the
realization that it could not look after its own interests, that while it raged
implacably against the weak, it invariably lost, invariably surrendered to
rock-hard tyrants.

Today we see how the West has “surrendered to rock-hard tyrants” like
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president who continues to scorn
Western pressure to halt his nuclear program. We are going to see this
type of shameful surrender increase, as more and more tyrants storm onto
the world stage in the time ahead!

Still, America likes to nurture the illusion that we are the world’s only
superpower.

“During my time in the camps, I had gotten to know the enemies of the
human race quite well: They respect the big fist and nothing else; the
harder you slug them, the safer you will be. (People in the West simply will
not understand this …)” (ibid.).

We refuse to understand because of our weak will!

There were many mistakes made in the Vietnam War. But we rarely ever
discuss why President Kennedy got us involved in the first place. The
president knew we were not taking a stand against the rock-hard
Communist tyrants at that time the way we should. He said, “We must
show some resolve to the Communists.” We did just the opposite in
Vietnam. And to this day we still haven’t shown them that “resolve.” And
what’s more, we are not going to in the future.

Herbert W. Armstrong said after World War ii, “America has won its last
war.” I agree completely. So does Bible prophecy.
What Is the Solution?

Let’s look at a prophecy that is for this end time. Leviticus 26 is called the
blessings and curses chapter. God promises blessings upon Israel for
obedience, curses for disobedience. Israel today is primarily America and
Britain. (You can prove this by reading our free book The United States
and Britain in Prophecy.)

“But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these
commandments … I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain
before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall
flee when none pursueth you” (Leviticus 26:14, 17). It’s a dreadful
condition to have God “against you.” “And if ye will not yet for all this
hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
And I will break the pride of your power” (verses 18-19). If we disobey
God, He has promised to break the pride of our power. That means we
would be a great power in the end time, but our will would be broken. That
has happened exactly as God prophesied!

And that is exactly the way Alexander Solzhenitsyn and others have
described Britain and especially America today.

God often agrees with our foreign-policy critics. Our weakness is directly
tied to the all-powerful God! That should cause us to pause and think.

Daniel prophesied that the words of Moses, like the book of Leviticus, were
for this end time (Daniel 9:13). Our broken will is just one of the curses
upon us.

Daniel was written for this end time (Daniel 12:4, 9). And he says the book
of Leviticus, which Moses wrote, is for the nations of Israel in this end time
as well.

Most people don’t even know who the nations of Israel are today. But
these prophecies indicate that God’s very elect would know and proclaim
to the world who they are. It is a critical job that must be done.

Why don’t we understand God’s truth and prophecies? Daniel says it is

because we won’t repent and turn from our sins. God would give us
understanding if we would just repent of our sins. God commands us to
turn to His righteousness and blessings. We will never understand who we
are and what is happening to us until we turn to God. That includes
religion.

The whole world is deceived (Revelation 12:9). Religion most of all!

“Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us:
for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we
obeyed not his voice” (Daniel 9:14). God is actually bringing all the evils
upon us because of our sins. And the Leviticus prophecy says the
problems will intensify until we repent or die!

That is what it means when it says God is “against” us!

Ezekiel is also an end-time book addressed to Israel. “Therefore thus saith

the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute
judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations” (Ezekiel 5:8). “I,
even I” am against you, God says. This repetition is to emphasize the
horror of the statement.

Who could be in a more horrifying state? God is going to punish us in the

sight of all nations!

“And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not
do any more the like, because of all thine abominations” (verse 9). Our
punishment will be the worst ever inflicted on any nation! (Matthew 24:21-
22; Jeremiah 30:7; Daniel 12:1). It will happen because of all our
“abominations.”

Our punishment is going to be the worst ever because our sins are the
most abominable in our history!

There is a great cause behind God’s punishment. “Thus shall mine anger
be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be
comforted: and they shall know that I the Lord have spoken it in my zeal,
when I have accomplished my fury in them” (Ezekiel 5:13). We are going
to get to know God. We don’t know Him today because Satan is the god of
this world (2 Corinthians 4:1-4). Mankind worships him rather than the
true God.

How grotesque can our deception be? Being so deeply deceived shows
that we refuse to accept God’s truth. People love living in deceit!

Future Filled With Hope

America, Britain and all the nations of Israel have failed God. Now God is
using spiritual Israel—His Church—to do His work. But God chose the
tribes of Israel to do His work, and He will yet choose them to lead all the
other nations to God!

“For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim
shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God. For thus
saith the Lord; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of
the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the
remnant of Israel” (Jeremiah 31:6-7).
Jacob (whose name was later changed to Israel) is going to be “chief of
the nations.” He will lead the world “unto the Lord our God.” Our nations
should be doing this now. But God is merciful and will still cause Israel to
fulfill His will.

Then Israel will have the respect and love of the world. It receives
contempt from many other nations today. An inspiring change is about to
occur. What a wonderful, loving God we have! •

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