Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Why was His Final Book Never Translated into English?

Irish Savant
March 8, 2015

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Image-Quote

Of course you all know of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Who doesn’t?  Legendary Russian dissident during the Soviet era, prisoner in the gulags, starved, tortured, ostracised.  But never broken. He spoke truth to power like few have ever done. His novels such as The Gulag Archipelago, The First Circle and Cancer Ward were not only brilliant literature but offered the rarest of insights into the life of a dissident in the USSR.  He came to be regarded as one of the most eminent writers and philosophers of his age.  Which contributed to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 “for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature”.

Feted wherever he went, his books became international best sellers, translated into dozens of languages, the world was at his feet.  Then almost overnight it all stopped. He became a non-person. The transformation was virtually unprecedented in the field of literature. Why did this happen? Because Alex stepped on the Third Rail.  Well he didn’t so much step on it, rather dived on it full length. You see he wrote a book called 200 Years Together that traced the Jews’ colourful relationship with the Russian people and especially their role on the Bolshevik Revolution and its ensuing murderous tyranny.

He didn’t pull his punches.  He placed Soviet Jews centre place in perpetrating the worst mass murders of the 20th century. While acknowledging that some Jews also suffered under this tyranny he clarified that it was not as Jews per se, rather that they were in the wrong faction at the wrong time. Solzhenitsyn’s own estimate for the number of Christians (his word) who died was 60 million.

He documented all of this in meticulous detail…. names, dates, times. But he did something else, something more insidious and dangerous. Something that had strategic international consequences for the Tribe. For a start he shone a light on the extraordinary Jewish capacity to magic themselves into the position of victimhood irrespective of their actual accountability. This in turn depended on – as he pointedly noted – their uncanny ability to seize control of media outlets.  “There are pages of this history which one does not open without trembling. And these are the pages that are systematically and purposefully eradicated from the consciousness of the Jews.”

Other observations that cut to the bone included their practice of manipulating the legal framework to reflect Jewish interests. “Russian people are now confronted by a Jew both as their judge and hangman. Why was it that anyone who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Cheka could count with high probability on standing before a Jewish investigator or being shot by a Jew?” He meticulously debunked Jewish writers who sought to portray Soviet Jews as having no choice in what they did. ‘Just following orders’  How ironic is that? He carefully traces the ways in which Jews, both within the USSR and internationally, favoured and supported Jewish interests under the cloak of universalistic altruism.

Sound familiar?

I haven’t even begun to describe what he wrote in ‘200 Years Together‘ not least because I haven’t read it, only certain chapters.  So why have I not read it? Aha, therin lies a tale!  You see, Solzhenitsyn’s legendary status and guarantee of vast sales would in normal circumstances have had international publishers slavering at the prospect of getting their hands on the rights. But none did.  None wanted it. It was never published in the West. In fact, incredible as it seems it has never been formally translated into English! Given that English translations exist for almost every half-assed writing in the most obscure of languages the disappearance of 200 Years Together is mind-blowing. The author himself became a non-person just as he had in the USSR.

Think about it. It is, as I said, mind-blowing. What sort of pressure could have resulted in every Western publishing house, every Western TV company, every Western magazine being so fearful as to pass up a unique and hugely profitable publishing coup?  How exactly was this Jewish power exercised?  Was it overt, subtle, physical, financial….or what?

It truly is frightening.

Is it any wonder the American armed forces were afraid of commemorating the attack on the USS Liberty? Or that the country’s so-called legislators should prostrate themselves before their true rulers in the sight of all?