Volume 21, Number 10 · June 13, 1974
In Answer to Solzhenitsyn
By Andrei D. Sakharov, Translated by Guy Daniels
Letter to the Soviet Leaders
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, translated by Hilary Sternberg
Harper & Row, 59 pp., $3.50
Solzhenitsyn sent his letter to the Soviet leaders on September 5, 1973. Soon after he was deported from the USSR, it was published abroad,[1] and excerpts were read over the radio. I believe it to be very important that this statement by an author of such indisputable world-wide prestige—a statement which he undoubtedly considered carefully and which reflects his essential views on many basic social questions—be subjected to serious analysis, especially by representatives of independent thought in our country. For me, it is doubly necessary to offer a critique of Solzhenitsyn's letter because it contains several parallels to, and a covert debate with, certain of my previous statements on social questions—statements which I have since partially revised but which mostly still seem to me correct. But most of all, it is my disagreement with certain of the letter's substantive ideas that compels me to speak out.
Review, 3702 words
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