The correspondence of two corners

Abstract

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Commencement Address at Harvard produced, on an unprecedented scale, a reaction that one might term heartfelt confusion. The immediate response of the record-breaking assemblage, most of whom remained through a persistent drizzle, must be judged enthusiastic they interrupted him with applause no fewer than twenty-five times, by one count. Those present, however, could not fail to notice that the interruptions came, literally and figuratively, from different parts of the crowd, now from the left, now from the right, now from the center. The applause itself seemed tentative. At the conclusion of his remarks, however, Solzhenitsyn was ac corded a warm standing ovation. The subsequent reaction in the public print was similarly massive and disjunctive. American conservative editors, apparently surprised to have such good copy about the 'Communist menace' from an 'intellectual' of world wide reputation, gave a vigorous play to two or three paragraphs. Liberals were perplexed: how could an author with the proven humanistic insight and intellectual force of Solzhenitsyn speak as he had of humanism, of the En lightenment, of the American withdrawal from Viet Nam and of the precious freedom of the media? One even heard from the left echoes of the right wing taunt, 'Love it or leave it'. It is not the purpose of the remarks that follow to elucidate or comment upon Solzhenitsyn's speech, or to deal specifically with the response it elic ited. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn speaks with a moral certitude that is unique among the great story-tellers of our time, and one could not, in a few pages, do justice either to his message or to the curiously diverse reception it has met. It does appear possible, however, to make some very general comments upon a more general phenomenon, one of which Solzhenitsyn is a major and, for all his individuality, not entirely atypical part, namely, the recent en counter of the American intellectual and the Russian ?migr? intelligent. For nearly a decade now, a growing tide of emigrations, deportations, and defections has been providing American intellectuals with an opportunity for which many of them longed during the long years of Cold War the chance