Matthew Yglesias » The Solzhenitsyn Factor

Aug 19th, 2008 at 6:21 pm

The Solzhenitsyn Factor

What does it say about the state of American literacy that it’s taken this deep into the “cross in the dirt” controversy for the fact that this anecdote doesn’t actually appear in any of Solzhenitsyn’s writings to come to light? Instead of something Solzhenitsyn wrote, this is just something that Chuck Colson once falsely attributed to Solzhenitsyn. The recent controversy, meanwhile, seems to demonstrate that not nearly as many people have read The Gulag Archipelago as would like you to believe (including, it would seem, McCain himself).

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54

54 Responses to “The Solzhenitsyn Factor”

Kit Stolz Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
True enough, but keep in mind that The Gulag Archipelagois about 10,000 pages long, so it’s quite possible to have read it years ago, as I did, and not recall the anecdote, and still be unwilling to say for certain that it wasn’t in there…somewhere. Can’t remember everything. Especially with Google around to do it for us.
Kevin Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Hey – I, at least, started it. Got about a third of the way through before depression forced me to put down the book and pick up the vodka.
blah Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Those crazy Russians sure do like to write long books.
elle loco Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
What Stolz sez. But I do remember a tantalizing reference to what is clearly the basis of Stealth technology–and this in the early 1950s. And a great Russian proverb: “They bash in your face and say your were always ugly.” Pass the Stoly!
Paul in NC Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Including, apparently, you (and me).
Trevor Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
It’s not in there. A year or two ago I re-read (first time in h.s.) “A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich ” and read “The Gulag Archipelagois” for the first time. I’m not quite senil;e yet and I’d swear it’s not in there. Even if it had happened - I don’t think he would’ve been impressed by something like that. I think he would’ve regarded something like that as almost vulgar, a trivialization of something he felt a kind of primeval bond with. He fit no one’s idea of an anti_communist or a Christian.
Tom Nawrocki Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Does anyone else think this story has been weirdly undercovered so far? McCain stood up in a church on Saturday night and was asked to provide a personal story about his faith, and he told what appears to be a bald-faced lie. This from a candidate whose entire persona is constructed around his Straight Talk. Isn’t this kind of a big deal?

I firmly believe that if Obama had told an equally false story in that setting, it would have made it into the MSM by now, which would be discussing how the race was now over, and there would be calls for him to step down as the Democratic nominee. I’m not exaggerating at all.
carsick Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Not to be nit picky but it is possible that Colson may have heard it in a speech by Solzhenitsyn as opposed to read it.

Tom,
It’s a bit of an unprovable he said/she said situation and those don’t garner too much attention unless it’s included in a Corsi book and this time not even Corsi’s assertions are getting much traction.
Tom Nawrocki Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Have you been following Andrew Sullivan’s reporting on it? It’s about 99 percent certain that the story didn’t happen as McCain told it. Doesn’t that at least deserve some discussion?
Royko Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
If only Sinbad had been in the POW camp!
jg Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I’m waiting for someone to ask him for a story from his flying days before he was shot down and he tells us about the day he was inverted chasing a Mig.
Timetester Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Well, I guess since you didn’t correct the controversy it suggests you haven’t read either.
jg Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I’ve also never read the book.
I’m wondering how the fact that Solzhenitsyn never wrote it somehow means that it did happen to McCain. It seems that people are focusing on whether or not Solzhenitsyn wrote it as the controversial aspect of this story and so it’ll soon go away because no one really cares about that. I would think the controversial aspect is whether or not McCain is just making shit up since he can’t be called on it.
Neo Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Maybe Solzhenitsyn didn’t write it but Sen. Jeremiah Denton, also a Viet Nam POW, wrote something much like it.
Neo Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
One experience, he will never forget. Denton kept a cross, fashioned out of
broom straws, hidden in a propaganda booklet in his cell. The cross was a gift
from another prisoner. When a guard found the cross, he shredded it. Spat on
it. Struck Denton in the face. Threw what was left of the cross on the floor
and ground his heel into it.
“It was the only thing I owned,” Denton said.
Later, when Denton returned to his cell, he began to tear up the propaganda
booklet. He felt a lump in the book. He opened it. “Inside there was another
cross, made infinitely better than the other one my buddy had made,” Denton
said.
When the guard tore up the cross, two Vietnamese workers saw what happened and
fashioned him a new cross. “They could have been tortured for what they
did,” Denton said.
John B. Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Just to elaborate on Sullivan’s reporting on this: despite the fact that McCain has had numerous occasions to write about his captivity–including a 1970s (?) account of his 3 Christmases in prison–the earliest recounting by McCain of the cross-in-the-dirt story that anyone can find is from 1999.
Buzz79 Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Isn’t this also connected to the incident where McCain “remembered” naming the Steeler’s defensive line as his squadron mates? When for the previous 30 years it was the Packer’s line? For a guy whose entire life is built around the fact that he was a POW, he doesn’t seem to know much about what happened to him there.
llyonnoc Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Solzhenitsyn probably did not come up with the story since it would not be unusual for the guards in the Soviet Gulag to be Christian. I’d suggest that 90% of them were Russian Orthodox church members, at least in spirit.

I have read all of Solzie’s works but it was so long ago I have no idea about much of what he wrote. To conclude I did not read it would be wrong. To conclude I don’t remember much of the specifics of what I wrote would be write.

McCain’s story has the ring of truth about it. He was keeping to himself all these years because it is so personal. Did you notice how he teared up after telling it. He was saving it until he appeared before an audience looking for signs of Christians in hiding. What’s the big deal about the story. There were lots of Catholics (they’re also some type of Christians) in Vietnam who were persecuted. So one of them sees an American Christian and flashed him a sign of the cross in the dirt. Big deal. What does it prove? That McCain should be president! I just don’t get it.
pattonbt Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
All I need to know about this story is based in politics. Whats been McCains weakness since his entrance into politics - religion. The fundies hate McCain with a passion.

This anecdote about the cross in the dirt (if it were true) is almost as golden as McCain’s POW status itself for a politician. No politician would deny their campaign such a tremednous story to show their religious bona fides. I just refuse to believe a politician would bury such a vote ensuring anecdote for 25 years, especially one which would so easily counter his greatest perceived weakness in his own party. Makes no sense.

So the fact that the first time McCain references this story is in 1999, at, oh, about the time he started to run for president and his religious bona fides were for the first time a serious liability, coupled with the fact that he was aware of such stories before from other sources (whomever they may be) and there are several thorough accounts of his time in captivity about his exact experiences at the time this event was supposed to happen and there is no mention of such a life affirming event then when the memories were at their freshest, there is no doubt this story is false.

I just want one brave journalist to simply ask - why not tell this story until 1999? If it was so life affirming, why not put it in thr record with all the other life affirming stories you recounted at the time of your release from captivity? Did you forget about it?

I mean, I know the answer - the same tired one McCain uses ‘I dont like to talk about my POW experiences for political purposes’, but I would like it be at least asked.

I mean if CNN can have segments on whether Obama is the anti-christ or is a secret muslin, this story could be given at least five minutes, especially sine the facts are fishy.
blah Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I heard McCain tell a different version. His buddy had a cross that he his inside his asshole for 5 years while they languished in the Hanoi Hilton. Then his buddied died of dysentary and gave McCain the cross. McCain hid the cross inside his own ass for 2 years. When they finally sent him back home from Nam, he found his buddy’s little boy and made sure that he gave him the cross.
Freedom Fry Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Reading is for sissies. Real men tell good fishing stories that only other real men understand.
Chris w Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I find anything about McCain unbelievable anymore, I mean the guy flip flops like a fish on issues and the press protects him like he is a god of some sort.He was at the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy,he crashed a few planes and got shot down and captured and sang like a bird in interrogation and made over 30 plus propaganda video`s, now that`s believable.The press will not cover this story because they don`t want to hurt his feelings or that they won`t be invited back for BBQ.
jb Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Can you elaborate on how you deduced that McCain has not read the story?

Also, isn’t this whole controversy about as pathetically contrived as it can get? I mean:

McCain: While I was being tortured during the Vietnam war, someone drew a cross in the dirt, and it helped comfort me in a dark time.

You all: You can’t prove a cross was drawn in the dirt, and it sounds like you might have plagiarized it from someone else, and you didn’t mention it until 1999, so it probably didn’t happen, you fascist fake!

I mean, attacking McCain on this subject just tells undecideds that you don’t have anything more substantial to attack him on. And you have a lot of very substantial things to attack McCain on. 1) He believes in Big Government, and Big Government’s ability to carefully manage our society to create a better world where everyone is equal, and where the Earth and the United States are cared for by an elite bureaucratic order of angelic, omniscient intellectuals who seek only to better mankind, without any thought of power or benefit to themselves, their friends or their families. 2) He is very comfortable taxing anyone and everyone who seems to be unfairly prosperous, in order to seem compassionate to the poor, even if that taxation reduces our ability to compete on the global stage, thus hurting the poor far more than the redistributed tax money helps them. 3) He supports the War in Iraq. 4) He supports the War on Drugs. 5) He is an old man.
kth Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Just read The Gulag Archipelago about a year ago myself, and didn’t remember the cross in the sand story (obviously, since it’s not there). And like the others, I wasn’t confident enough in the thoroughness of my reading to assert that the anecdote wasn’t there. But I remember the tone as being relentlessly bitter and acerbic (deservedly so, of course, given his subject). So I shoulda known that Colson/McCain’s story didn’t come from Solzhenitzyn, as it really recalls some shitty Christploitation flick put out by Billy Graham’s movie company rather than the unrelenting grimness of the classic work.
Steve Sailer Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
What’s really striking is how Solzhenitsyn couldn’t get his last book, the two volume “Two Hundred Years Together,” published in America, even though a translation of the first volume was out in Paris in early 2002. Even more striking is how nobody in the U.S. media ever talked about why the world’s most famous living writer couldn’t get published in the U.S.
Mike Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
I read it 30 years ago - don’t remember much except the vivid description of the ecstasy of a cigarette in the bitter cold.
Tom Nawrocki Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 12:48 am
I mean, attacking McCain on this subject just tells undecideds that you don’t have anything more substantial to attack him on.

I think there are several good responses to this:

1. This is at least as substantial as discussing whether the wounds that earned John Kerry one of his three Purple Hearts were superficial or not. Or discussing whether Al Gore started to wear earth tones on the advice of Naomi Wolf.

2. This is how elections are won these days. Do you think George Bush won a couple of elections by talking about anything substantial? Or do you think he won them by defining the character of his opponents?

3. McCain’s whole brand is Straight Talk. Don’t you think it’s significant if someone selling himself as ruthlessly honest stands up in public (in church!) and tells an elaborate, self-serving lie?

4. And where does it all end? How many times does McCain have to lie before we’re allowed to make a stink about it? If he says he invented the Internet, or that he can speak 18 languages, or that Barack Obama confessed to him that he was a secret Muslim, do we have to keep quiet about that too?
gswift Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Does anyone else think this story has been weirdly undercovered so far? McCain stood up in a church on Saturday night and was asked to provide a personal story about his faith, and he told what appears to be a bald-faced lie.

They’re probably still using the Reagan standards. I think he’s losing his marbles and doing the Reagan routine of confusing stories and movies with reality. Remember Reagan’s stories of liberating Nazi concentration camps and such?
west coast Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 1:25 am
I read “The Gulag Archipelago” years ago when it first appeared, and honestly don’t recall if the cross story was there or not. I’d be surprised if it was, if only because it doesn’t support the narrative of the book itself, but that’s far from authoritative.

But how pathetic is it that McCain can’t appropriate a real story, but has to resort to appropriating fiction created by Chuck Colson? Will McCain’s next crib be from Rowling or Hubbard?

And how doubly pathetic is it that the keyboard army with its Lexis/Nexis-Google-Wiki knowledge had to actually skim a book and check the Cliff Notes before realizing they were taken?

Oh, the humanity!!!
heiwa Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Colson isn’t the first. In 1994, it was part of this book:

Bible Oases: Spiritual Refreshment from Unlikely Places
By Ivor Powell
Published by Kregel Publications, 1994
ISBN 082543520X, 9780825435201
208 pages

page 56, the passage is available for viewing on Google Books.

It’s not any more true than when Colson said it, but he didn’t dream it up. That might have been Powell
YY Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 5:58 am
If it happened, how is it that it was a cross and not an “X”.
This sounds like a made up story, no matter to whom it may have happened, let alone a man running for office. Why does this remind me of Hillary’s ducking bullets story? These are just lies to embellish non-existent character qualifications.
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Angellight Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 7:16 am
The only one really getting information out to the people are the various blogs. MSM is in the tank for McCain because he will not interfere with their large profits. This story goes to credibility. Americans are tired of being lied to. After all we were lied into a war. We demand more from our politicians — truth, honesty, integrity? Is that too much to ask from someone who would be leading the nation? After all do we like being lied to from our spouse, lover, children? I think not. This is the same kind of relationship.
witless chum Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 9:57 am
The disgraceful part isn’t that people haven’t read “The Gulag Archipeligo” it’s that they have heard read/listened to Chuck Colson.
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August 20th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
According to Mark Twain, a “classic” is a book that everybody praises but nobody reads.
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