Author and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Russian writer and dissident, whose works delivered a damning indictment of the Communist system, spent years years in labor camps before being denied denounced as a traitor, and exiled.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn recently died near Moscow at the age of 89. He lived for decades in the United States, in Vermont.
The only book he was permitted to have published in the Soviet Union is, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." It is a slender volume, but
Solzhenitsyn is not know for slender volumes. But, this book caused an extraordinary change in Soviet literature and in the sense of confrontation with the Soviet government. He was the voice of that confrontation for a very long time.
When the Soviet government fell, Solzhenitsyn was offered a position in the new government, which he refused. He maintained throughout his return to Russia that Communism had never approached Democracy.
Guest Archie Barron, producer and director of the documentary "The Solzhenitsyns Take a Long Way Home," talks about Solzhenitsyn's life and return.
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