Thinker, Artist, Warrior
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David Deavel, co-editor of Solzhenitsyn and American Culture, reviews BTM-2 in City Journal.
“Today, as America seems more fractured than ever before, Solzhenitsyn’s reflections on how to restore Russia to a state of ordered liberty seem especially pertinent. No theocrat, he did believe, as he said in the Templeton Address, that the modern problem was that “Men have forgotten God.” But he also believed that piety was no substitute for hard thought, spiritual substance, and practical action. His reflections on the need for something more than “the Market” for “a nation’s life” are accompanied by an understanding of the kind of plurality of authorities that can ensure that government stays a servant of the people and not the reverse. Summarizing his booklet Rebuilding Russia, he noted that his principled proposals involved: “‘A Combined System of Government,’ consisting of a rigid vertical to run the state from the top down and a creative zemstvo [smaller local authority] vertical, working from the bottom up—various electoral systems (proportionality, plurality, and absolute majority)—and how to avoid the nation becoming exhausted, their lives in turmoil from these elections.””