‘A TESTAMENT OF ASTONISHING POWER’
SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr Isaevich.
Pis’mo vozhdiam Sovetskogo Soiuza [Letter to the Soviet Leaders].
Paris, YMCA, 1974.
12mo, pp. 51, [1]; a very good copy in the original printed papers wrappers, signature to front flyleaf.
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Pis’mo vozhdiam Sovetskogo Soiuza [Letter to the Soviet Leaders].
First printed edition of a letter written by Solzhenitsyn in September 1973 to a number of upper-echelon Soviet officials - his last attempt to address the powers of the Soviet Union before his deportation in February 1974.
When it first appeared in English, printed in The Times on 3 March 1974, it was described as ‘a testament of astonishing power, with uncanny relevance to our own problems in the West’. Commenting on relations with the West, the war with China, the dead-end of civilisation, the situation in North-East Russia, internal development, and the Soviet ideology, Solzhenitsyn asserts: ‘Let us come to our senses in time, let us change our course!’
