[rcocean]

Thanks for the link. I don't think a dispute about how many Jews were in the Russian revolution constitutes being a Jew hater. The Jews did form a disproportionate percentage of Russian revolutionaries. Maybe they were justified to do so.

I also think the people attacking him, on this issue, are playing with numbers. Of Lenin's top 4 lieutenants -3 were Jewish. Of the seven Politburo members after Lenin's death, 1 was a Georgian (Stalin), three were Jews (Trotsky,zinonov, kamanev) and two were Russians married to Jews (Bucharian and Rykow). The first president of the USSR (Svedlov) was a Jew.

I get a little tired of people getting smeared as anti-semitic. It's a serious charge. Hitler was an anti-semite, he actually killed Jews because they were Jews. We devalue the word when we run around charging everyone we don't like as an anti-semite.

[koba37]

To understand how Solzhenitsyn can be thought to be anti-Semitic is to be able to understand how subtle Russian anti-Semitism is. It gets lost in the translation, however, his language is what some in the States would call "coded" - a lot of inference. You may note I never said I believed he was anti-Semitic. His writing, essays, novels, etc., do have their place in history, however, it does not make him an infallable person.

And to be fair and balanced ( ;) ) - here's Solzhenitsyn discussing his book:

http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2002-51-9

Enjoy