Solzhenitsyn's World: Ours, too — the commencement address at 25

National Review, June 2, 2003 by Jay Nordlinger

It was the most notorious commencement speech of the 20th century -- and probably the greatest. On June 8, 1978 -- 25 years ago -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stood up at Harvard and delivered "A World Split Apart." It featured an unsparing analysis of the West, and its spiritual health.

Let it be said that National Review was pro-Solzhenitsyn before pro- Solzhenitsyn was cool. Is it unquestionably cool now? Well, it is cooler, at least. We at NR had our criticisms, but we actually published the address, in our issue of July 7, 1978. When we laid out the title, we spaced the words "split" and "apart" on opposite sides of the page. Aren't we clever?

When I re-read the speech not long ago, I found it "more relevant than ever." That's a terrible clich?, but one I feel I can use unapologetically. The speech incorporates many of the things that make Solzhenitsyn great -- nearly unique -- such as his boldness, his deep consideration, and his devotion to the truth (certainly as he sees it).

He begins that way, doesn't he? "Truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter." He goes on to play his role of truthteller, no matter whom it discomfits. As Charles Kesler remarked in an essay later, "Solzhenitsyn was arresting because he spoke of the truth as if it were true." Lovely line, and insight, that. Kesler also quoted another great foreign friend of America, Tocqueville: "Enemies never tell men the truth."

Toward the beginning of his speech, Solzhenitsyn cautions against assuming that all men, everywhere, strain for liberal democracy, as we know it. Later, he says, "When a government starts an earnest fight against terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists' civil rights." You see what I mean about relevance. Solzhenitsyn also mocks the idea of "stability," when stability means nothing but continued oppression, with no boat-rocking from freedom- seekers. And try out this sentence: "Why and for what should one risk one's precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases as when the security of one's nation must be defended in a distant country?"

Perhaps most important in this address is the matter of courage -- and its decline. We should remember where we are, or rather, when we are. Nineteen seventy-eight was perhaps not the West's best year ever. Three years before, the helicopters had taken off from the embassy roof in Saigon -- despite President Ford's plea with Congress not to abandon the country that 58,000 Americans had just finished dying to save. This same President Ford, however, had denied Solzhenitsyn admission to the White House.

A year from the speech, the current president -- Carter -- would be in Vienna, kissing General Secretary Brezhnev. This is the sort of behavior that once led Bill Buckley to pen a column entitled "For Moderation in Osculation."

Solzhenitsyn states, "The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and of course in the United Nations." I love that "of course," before "in the United Nations." It is one of the most priceless little notes in the whole address (and very contemporary).

One can't help thinking what Solzhenitsyn would have made -- indeed, did make -- of his comments on courage after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. That was a strange and unexpected presidency. It could almost be called a response -- a favorable one -- to "A World Split Apart." And the United States has progressed a long way from the atmosphere of 1978. After the first Gulf War, President Bush the Elder proclaimed that we had "kicked the Vietnam syndrome." Now, we have . . . what? Kicked it again -- several times over -- to make sure it was dead?

Solzhenitsyn condemns Western officials for being unable, or unwilling, to apply "moral criteria to politics." Therefore, we "mix good and evil, right and wrong, and make space for the absolute triumph of absolute Evil in the world." Again, the advent of Reagan should have pleased the speaker -- even amazed him. That president applied moral criteria relentlessly, and so does George W. Bush, much to the disgust of many of his critics, hordes of them in Europe.

Reviewing the speech, I was struck by Solzhenitsyn's repeated use of that word, "evil." It must have fallen strangely on ears at Harvard in 1978. He must use it -- what? Eight times? Twelve? When Ronald Reagan said "evil," in an important speech during his first term, the roof practically caved in on him. People in all parts of the world denounced him for his simplemindedness, bellicosity, and primitivism. Henry Steele Commager said that no president had ever done worse. Today, of course, President Bush uses "evil," "evildoers," and the like freely. It doesn't sit well with a lot of people, even post-9/11.

Turn now to one of the most famous -- or infamous -- passages in the speech: "The human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits, exemplified by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music."