Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn
(1918- )
"Roosevelt,
in Teheran, during one of his last toasts, said the following: "I do not doubt that
the three of us" — meaning Roosevelt, Churchill, and
Stalin "are leading our peoples in accordance with their desires and their
aims." How can this be understood? Let the historians worry about that. At the time,
we listened and were astonished. We thought, When we [Soviets] reach Europe, we will meet
the Americans, and we will tell them." I was among the troops that were marching
toward the Elbe. A little bit farther and I would have reached it and would have shaken
the hands of your American soldiers. But just before that happened, I was taken off to
prison and my meeting did not take place." (Warning
to the West, page 21)
"Something that is incomprehensible to the ordinary human mind has taken
place. In any case, the powerless, average Soviet people could not understand, year after
year and decade after decade, what was happening. How were we to explain it? England,
France, the United States, were the victors in World War II. Victorious states always
dictate peace: they create the sort of situation which conforms to their philosophy, their
concept of liberty, their concept of national interest. Instead of this, beginning
in Yalta, your Western statesmen for sonic inexplicable reason signed one
capitulation after another. Never did the West or your President Roosevelt
impose any conditions on the Soviet Union for obtaining aid. He gave unlimited aid, and
then unlimited concessions. Without any necessity whatever, the occupation of Mongolia,
Moldavia, Estonia. Latvia, Lithuania was silently recognized in Yalta. After that, almost
nothing was done to protect Eastern Europe, and seven or eight more countries were
surrendered. Stalin demanded that the Soviet citizens who did not want to return home be
handed over to him, and the Western countries handed over 1.5 million human beings. How
was this done? They were taken by force. English soldiers killed Russians who
did not want to become prisoners of Stalin, and drove them by force to Stalin
to be exterminated. This has recently come to light, just a few years ago. A million and a
half human beings. How could the Western democracies have done this?" (
