Soviet Downfall
This essay concentrates on two representatives of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and in the 1970s--Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The essay introduces the history of the dissident movement in the Russian Empire under the Tsars and in the Soviet Union under various leaders, mainly under Nikita Khruschev, Leonid Brezhnev and Michael Gorbachev. It presents the historical conflict of Slavophils and Westernizers that began in the time of Peter the Great and discusses its impact on Russian thinkers over the years. The essay proposes that Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov are representatives of two branches of Russian philosophy, modified with time: Slavophilism and Westernism. Solzhenitsyn is presented to be a person with Slavophilic tendencies, while Sakharov is presented to be an advocate of the Western model of development for Russia. The essay discusses their paths to dissidence and their opposition to the Soviet regime. It also provides a comparison of their views and ideas. The essay attempts to follow the chronological order of their lives. In the end it provides a brief overview of their recent actions, based on their ideas, drawn from Slavophilism and Westernism.
After his return to Russia it became evident that his views, though also opposing the previous Communist regime, were not the same as those of Sakharov. There he saw and experienced himself the plight of Ivan Denisovich in One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich and Oleg Kostoglotov in Cancer Ward. The Human Rights Committee was Sakharov's and his co-sponsors' other accomplishment. In November 1991 the Soviet Union, "the evil empire" that had kept the democratic and non-democratic world in fear and strain for almost seventy years disappeared. It was established in November of 1970 and in December of 1970 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn joined it as well. These differences went back to the old argument between the Westernizers and the Slavophils in the 1840s--1860s. At first Solzhenitsyn also welcomed the changes occurring in the Soviet Union. His reforms touched almost every aspect of Russians' life through the introduction of European styles and traditions which Peter I learned during his year-long stay in Holland and England. It was the first attempt to change the existing order in the Russian Empire. The Bolshevik Revolution was supposed to bring changes to many aspects of Russian people's lives. Solzhenitsyn publicly denounced Medvedev's detention but the actions of the two men stayed separate from one another. "[7] Being the eyewitness of the testing of the H-bomb had a great influence on Sakharov's thinking. "[19] Solzhenitsyn's fate has been quite different. But the views and values which he expressed in Moscow and Beyond remain valid: "The main and constant ingredients of my position are the idea that the preservation of peace is indissolubly linked to the openness of society and the observance of human rights, as formulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the conviction that only the convergence of the socialist and capitalist systems can assure a fundamental and lasting solution to the problem of peace and the survival of mankind. "[2] But even such reasons would have never been enough if the human beings in the oppressed countries stayed passive.
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Acceptance Essays
