"Instead of blaming Russian conditions, he blamed the teachings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, arguing Marxism itself is violent. His conclusion is Communism will always be totalitarian and violent, wherever it is practiced. There was nothing special in the Russian conditions which affected the outcome."
This is an interesting quote. If you replace Marx and Engels with Mohammed, Communism with Islam, and Russian with say Iranian you end up with "something you can't say".
People can criticize communism in Russia today, or outside Russia in the past, but it takes real guts to do what Solshenitzyn did - criticizing communism when he knew it could result in incarceration or worse. It would be like someone in Iran criticizing Khomeini.
> This is an interesting quote. If you replace Marx and Engels with Mohammed, Communism with Islam, and Russian with say Iranian you end up with "something you can't say".
Which is again interesting, because it isn't true. You'll have to be pretty blinded not to see the main difference between Marxism and Islam - namely that the latter is a religion which can exists independently of a government, while Marxism in it's very core is a layout for a state.
It doesn't make sense to live as a practising Marxist in a capitalism society, but you can very well live as a practising Muslim in a Christian or secular society.
Way too many governments are using Islam to subdue their people in a totalitarian state, and they are helped by islamophobes in the west, who lend them legitimacy by claiming that it's just the way Islam is.
This is an interesting quote. If you replace Marx and Engels with Mohammed, Communism with Islam, and Russian with say Iranian you end up with "something you can't say".
People can criticize communism in Russia today, or outside Russia in the past, but it takes real guts to do what Solshenitzyn did - criticizing communism when he knew it could result in incarceration or worse. It would be like someone in Iran criticizing Khomeini.