"Why I’m Leaving Mumford & Sons"

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A couple of days ago a fascinating open letter was posted by a musician, Winston Marshall, leaving a world-famous band (Mumford and Sons) not out of fearful deference to a censorious Twitter mob, but out of fidelity to conscience and his own moral integrity.  And the role of Solzhenitsyn in informing his decision is striking—and encouraging. In his open letter, Mr Marshall quotes Solzhenitsyn twice to great effect, especially the remarkable peroration of “Live Not by Lies!”

“So why leave the band?
On the eve of his leaving to the West, Solzhenitsyn published an essay titled ‘Live Not By Lies’. I have read it many times now since the incident at the start of March. It still profoundly stirs me.

“And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.”

For me to speak about what I’ve learnt to be such a controversial issue will inevitably bring my bandmates more trouble. My love, loyalty and accountability to them cannot permit that. I could remain and continue to self-censor but it will erode my sense of integrity. Gnaw my conscience. I’ve already felt that beginning.
The only way forward for me is to leave the band. I hope in distancing myself from them I am able to speak my mind without them suffering the consequences. I leave with love in my heart and I wish those three boys nothing but the best. I have no doubt that their stars will shine long into the future. I will continue my work with Hong Kong Link Up and I look forward to new creative projects as well as speaking and writing on a variety of issues, challenging as they may be.”
— Winston Marshall

"My Soul Demanded It"

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Patrick Kurp reviews BTM-2 in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

“But Solzhenitsyn’s conception of a writer’s job is utterly alien to that of most contemporary Western writers, for whom self-expression is uppermost. “Today’s United States and I,” he writes, “live at opposite ends of the twentieth century and on different continents.” In contrast to many American writers, for whom history is a myth, Solzhenitsyn mingles the roles of creative artist, documentarian, and Tolstoyan chronicler of human striving and folly. He brings to mind the image of a middle-aged Tolstoy who would write War and Peace and Anna Karenina according to the strictures of the older, moralizing Tolstoy, author of What Is Art? ”
— Patrick Kurp

Solzhenitsyn's American Millstone

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Scott Yenor has posted a powerful review of BTM-2 over at Law and Liberty. Inter alia, Scott shows just how prescient and discerning Solzhenitsyn was in analyzing and confronting the despotic encroachments of a “pseudo-educated" American elite.

“It is a great testament to Solzhenitsyn’s foresight that he saw Sovietizing perils for the West of his day, when it infected fewer institutions and less of life. The Western millstone has become its own Red Wheel in our late republic. Our freedom is still being ground down by our distinctive millstone. But perhaps there is still hope.”
— Scott Yenor

The Man Who Killed Communism

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Over at Crisis magazine, Regis Martin takes stock of Solzhenitsyn’s legacy.

“But leaving aside the necessary contributions of statesman of the stature of President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, not to mention the combined fire power of Pope St. John Paul II and the Holy Ghost, much of the credit for killing Communism belongs to the work of a single Russian writer, who, in the face of almost unimaginable hardship, set about dismantling the whole structure of lies.”
— Regis Martin