{Originally published by George Kock on Dr. J and Mr. K}

The National Post marked the passing of the giant of human freedom, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, with some excellent commentary, especially this column by Robert Fulford.

But on Sunday evening, when news first came on the CTV of Solzhenitsyn’s death, I said to Mrs. K.: “Bet they get through the whole thing without uttering the word ‘Communism’.” And they did!

The anchor and reporter of course performed the obligatory scolding of “Stalinism” – even as they discussed all the suffering Solzhenitsyn endured in the…60s and 70s.

The news article alongside Fulford’s Tuesday column also mentioned Stalin several times…but never Communism in general. What’s up with that?

If it was all about Stalin, why was Solzhenitsyn such a threat to the Soviet state two decades after the monster’s death? His life is eloquent testimony that there was no such discontinuity in the minds of the perpetrators.

Solzhenitsyn himself travelled on a lengthy intellectual journey – one that would involve untold suffering and superhuman courage – from laying his life on the line for the Soviet Union, to opposing what he initially saw as the “excesses” of Stalin, to the realization that the camps were intrinsic to totalitarianism, that Communism required them, and that Communism itself was utterly destructive of humanity.

Solzhenitsyn learned this lesson on behalf of all humanity. So why have so many of today’s journalists and politicians unlearnt it?

Here’s what Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet top autocrat in the 70s, had to say about Solzhenitsyn (as cited in the Fulford column):

By law, we have every basis for putting him in jail. He has tried to undermine all we
hold sacred: Lenin, the Soviet system, Soviet power – everything dear to us.

If you’re going to trust a Commie thug (albeit one with an eye for Western dollybirds, as the infamous shot of Brezhnev leering at Jill Ireland or Jill St. John attests) on any subject, it’s this one: the brutalities of the predecessors were no outlier, no aberration. They were central: “dear to us.” Who could say it better?

Brezhnev showed a candour over what Solzhenitsyn represented, and of the regime’s continuity with Stalin, that’s lacking in today’s leftists and journalists.

But Brezhnev is long dead, and now his moral opposite passes from the scene as well. Meanwhile, the Left’s decoupling of itself from its sordid past is almost complete. There was no “Communist” state – just this one really bad guy called Stalin. Everything else was “Soviet”. And then came Gorbachev. None of it was “Communist” or even “Leftist”. Certainly, there’s no need to show such bad taste as to employ either term in these historical recollections.

I clearly remember long rows with my junior high social studies teacher, a Marxist of East European extraction, over the nature of Communism and the extent and meaning of its crimes. To his credit, he had the moral courage to have the class read Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

But even then the Left’s “narrative” was overt: blame all the bad stuff on Stalin and argue that “real communism” had never been tried and therefore shouldn’t be discarded. Even then the Left’s con persuaded a lot of people, at a time when the Cold War was in its third decade and the stakes should have been blindingly clear: the very future of civilization.

Now, everything is being made murky, even though the lessons of history are right at hand. And with the departure of amongst our greatest witnesses, our connection to the truth grows weaker still. Thus is the Left purified and absolved of responsibility – and free to try again next time.

Editor’s Pick by Liz from Three Bright Stars: This article hails from George Koch (Mr. K), a freelance writer who has a B.A. in philosophy and history (University of Alberta), and an M.A. in journalism (University of Western Ontario). His blog, which he co-publishes with “Dr. J,” is a good and varied read.