Tolling The Death

The debate was torrid, the issue momentous. But even in the midst of last week's parliamentary debate over the country's economic destiny, many Soviet lawmakers could not tear their eyes from the newspapers in their laps. Here was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the exiled dissident, writing a polemic about the nation's current crisis in the pages of nothing less than Komsomolskaya Pravda (circ. 22 million), the mouthpiece of the Young Communist League. The 16,000-word text was also printed in Literaturnaya Gazeta (4.5 million), which only five years ago berated its author as "that vile scum of a traitor."

In recent years Soviet officials have permitted the publication of some of Solzhenitsyn's earlier writings. But no major new works have appeared in the Soviet Union since the master of Russian letters was banished for treason in 1974. And never before has Solzhenitsyn written about Gorbachev's Soviet Union.

Judging that at last it was possible to publish practically anything in his homeland, Solzhenitsyn finally spoke out from his home in Cavendish, Vt. Opening his piece with the potent words "The death knell has sounded for Communism," he dismissed the years of "noisy perestroika" as a waste that brought about an "ugly, fake, election system" with just one goal: preserving the Communists' power. Arguing that the Soviet empire "sucks all juices" from the Russian heartland, Solzhenitsyn called for the creation of a Slavic state comprising the republics of Russia, the Ukraine, Belorussia and the northern parts of Kazakhstan, which is mostly populated by Russians. The other republics, he wrote, should secede or be cut off.

Solzhenitsyn's plea will please some secessionists, though his concept of a "Russian Union" would hold little appeal for independence-minded Ukrainians. The article may also liberate him from his reputation as an advocate of authoritarianism. Though he maintained that democracy must grow "from the bottom up," he clearly endorsed the system. He cautioned, however, against excessive Western influence, decrying "degraded pop, mass culture ((and)) vulgar fashions."

Would he go back? Two of his conditions have now been met: restoration of his citizenship and access to his works for Soviet citizens. Among his outstanding demands is that the treason charges against him be formally dropped. But given today's climate it is conceivable that the author's next dateline might be Moscow.