One Word of Truth Can Move the World

In 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was re-arrested by the KGB. They roughly handled the Nobel Prize winning writer and brought him to the prison that in Moscow is known as the Gates of Hell. Because his great work, The Gulag Archipelago, had been published in Paris, the KGB threatened Solzhenitsyn with death. "Kill me," he said, "and the other volumes I've secured in the West will be published immediately."

The KGB was prepared for the writer's courage. So they threatened to kill his wife and his three fine sons and make it look like a traffic accident. Kill them, Solzhenitsyn told his captors. Frustrated, the Communist bosses of the USSR decided to kick Solzhenitsyn out of the country.

They reckoned that the West would soon tire of this severe prophet and his endless calls for courage in the face of evil. In the U.S., President Ford refused to meet with the exiled writer. His press secretary informed the media that the President did not see what he might learn from Solzhenitsyn. Columnist George Will agreed but noted it probably said more about Gerald Ford's ability to receive-rather than Solzhenitsyn's ability to impart-wisdom.

Solzhenitsyn crafted The Gulag Archipelago, his multi-volume indictment of the 70 year history of godless Communism in Russia, to document the tens of millions who had been cast into the Soviet slave labor system. Solzhenitsyn launched his books like missiles of truth from deep within Russia. Marxism-Leninism has never recovered. Solzhenitsyn showed how the USSR was "an empire built on bones." If, as the Russians say, "one word of truth can move the world," Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's millions of words of truth have helped to liberate the spirit of man by reminding us all what happens when "we forget God."

We should thank our Lord for giving us men of courage and genius like Solzhenitsyn. May his witness and his works inspire all who serve the living God.