What Will Russia Be?

Will Morrisey with an in-depth review of BTM-2.

“In Between Two Millstones Solzhenitsyn blends several literary genres—autobiography, essay, and a touch of diary. Volume I consists of his memories from his first years of exile, following his departure from the Soviet Union in 1974, years in which he lived for a time in Western Europe before settling in Vermont. There, as Daniel J. Mahoney observes in his excellent Forward to this volume, “above all, he found a place to work” and “a serene and welcome home for his family.” His main work consisted of researching and writing The Red Wheel, a vast historical novel tracing the origins of first the Russian and then the Bolshevik Revolutions, beginning in 1914. His subsidiary work consisted of fending off both the blandishments and irritations of life in the great Western democracy, from speaking invitations to polemics to lawsuits—all swirling around him like mosquitoes in a Siberian summer. Whether great or petty, all of these activities centered on a central theme of his life: What will Russia be? What moral, spiritual, and political regime will replace the sordid rule of the Communists, by now in welcome but dangerous decline? These are the ruling questions of Volume II, which consists of Millstones parts two, three, and four.”