Communists Dissidents

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Communists Dissidents

• Havel, Walesa, Solzhenitsyn

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Do Now Answer the questions.

• What does it mean to give a dissenting opinion?
• In the Soviet Union, what is something someone
  might have a dissenting opinion about?
• How do you think the USSR would try to deal with
  dissidents?

3
Alexander Solzhenitsyn Biography

• A solider, a Writer, and a critic
• born December 11, 1918 into a Cossack family of
  intellectuals.
• He graduated with honors in mathematics and
  physics but also took courses in literature at
  Moscow State University.
• A Soviet veteran of WWII, rising to the rank of
  captain of artillery.
• After the war he became a public critic of the
  Soviet government and was promptly arrested in
  February 1945 for an open letter he wrote that
  was critical of Stalin.
• He was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment,
  followed by internal exile in Siberia (Gulag).
• After his release he becomes a well known writer
  who is openly critical about the Soviet regime,
  for that he will be exiled from the country.
• In 1970 he is awarded the Nobel Prize for his
  literary works.

(www.jamestown.org )
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An Enemy of the People

• Alexander Solzhenitsyn is Branded an enemy of
  the people
• Sentenced to eight years imprisonment followed by
  internal exile.
• Discharged in 1953 after death of Stalin, exiled
  to the remote town of Berlik
• Developed internal cancer and almost died.
• In 1956, after Stalin had been dead for over
  three years, Solzhenitsyn was rehabilitated and
  allowed to settle in the Ryazan, in central
  Russia.
• became a mathematics instructor and began to
  write.
• In 1961, he submitted his first manuscript, One
  Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, to the
  authorities in hopes of being allowed to publish
  it.
• manuscript based on his own experiences.
• daily life of a prisoner in forced labor camps,
  under Stalin.
• the book was allowed to be published in 1963, in
  the middle of the de-stailinization process.
  Its description was the first of its kind, and
  its straightforward language and content spoke
  strongly to ordinary citizens and intellectuals
  alike. It produced a sensation both inside and
  outside the Soviet Union.

(http//www.cnn.com/)/
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A patient with a voice.

• With Khrushchev's fall in 1964, the period of
  cultural relaxation came to an end.
• Solzhenitsyn's works first came under official
  criticism, then were banned, and he was
  personally attacked in the Soviet press.
• Solzhenitsyn continued to write, but none of his
  works were published in in the Soviet Union after
  1966.
• "Cancer Ward" was denied publication, and the
  notes for the manuscript of his subsequent novel,
  "The First Circle," were confiscated by the
  secret police.
• "Cancer Ward," which details the cancer treatment
  of a released prisoner of the Stalinist camps
  (based on Solzhenitsyn's own experience), also
  compares the spread of cancer in the human body
  to the spread of totalitarianism in the Soviet
  Union.
• The manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet
  Union and published in 1968 by a New York
  publisher.

(http//www.cnn.com/)/
6
A treasonous man

• Solzhenitsyn was subsequently stripped of his
  membership in the Soviet Writers Union (1969) and
  was made a "non-person.
• His expulsion from the union increased his
  prestige in the West.
• In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for
  literature but did not go to Sweden to receive
  it.
• His publication in the West of the first part of
  his book "The Gulag Archipelago" in December
  1973, which provided an in-depth account of the
  Stalinist system of forced hard labor camps, led
  to his arrest.
• He was charged with treason and expelled from the
  U.S.S.R. (the first Soviet citizen to be expelled
  since early Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky).
• Although his Soviet citizenship was restored to
  him in 1990 by Gorbachev, he criticized both
  Gorbachev and his reforms. In 1994, however, he
  returned to Russia.

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(www.art-gf.com)
(www.time.com)
(www.conservativebookstore.com)
(www.nndb.com)
(www.mantex.co.uk)
(news.bbc.co.uk)
8
Lech Walesa Biography

• A Pole, a Worker, and a Revolutionary
• born September 29, 1943 in PoPowo, Poland.
• son of a carpenter.
• He worked as a car mechanic from 1961 to 1965
• Then served in the army for two years, rising to
  the rank of corporal.
• He was then employed in the Gdansk shipyards as
  an electrician.
• Organized the Solidarity Movement
• Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his
  work promoting freedom in Poland.
• In 1989 he was elected Polands first
  non-communist President, a position which he held
  until 1995.

(www.photius.com)
(http//www.cnn.com/)/
9
Solidarity
(www.solidarity.gov.pl)
First autonomous labor union in the Soviet bloc
it grew out of mass protests at the Lenin
shipyards in Gdansk, Poland, in the summer of
1980.
(www.cnn.com/)
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Solidarity

• In 1970 the shipyards were the center of a huge
  demonstration against the governments decision
  to raise food prices. Lech Walesa became actively
  involved in the protests and was arrested many
  times between 1976 1980.

• When the government again raised food prices in
  1980, more than 100,000 workers went on strike.
  Lech Walesa was quickly named their leader and
  soon chaired the Integrator Strike Committee.

(www.poloniatoday.com)

• In September, the Solidarity movement was
  officially formed and Walesa chaired the new
  organization of 10 million members. This role
  brought him immediate national and international
  recognition.

• In December 1981, pressure from the USSR caused
  the Polish government to outlaw Solidarity. In
  doing so, they arrested all of the unions
  leaders, including Walesa, but it was too late.
  Walesa was a Polish national hero, and his image
  continued to pressure a fading communist
  government.

(http//www.cnn.com/)/
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(www.ses.fi)
(www.chasque.net)
(nobelprize.org)
(www.achievement.org)
(www.cnn.com)
(i.timeinc.net)
(commons.wikimedia.org)
12
Vaclav Havel Biography

• a poet, Czech playwright, and political
  dissident.
• born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1936
• son of a wealthy restaurateur whose property was
  confiscated by the communist government of
  Czechoslovakia in 1948.
• studied chemistry and economics.
• served in the military for two years.
• became stage hand at a theater.
• wrote his first plays in the 1960s and gains
  popularity as a critic of communism
• After an extend sentence in jail, become a
  politician, seeking reform
• President of Czechoslovakia in 1989 till 1992.
• President of the Czech Republic from 1993 till
  2003.

(http//www.cnn.com/)
(http//www.cnn.com/)
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Opposition

• Havel wrote his first plays in the early 1960's,
  they were critical of the USSR.
• he ridiculed the arbitrariness of bureaucracy
  operating under police state regulations.
• he criticized government censorship at a writers
  congress.
• After the Warsaw Pact crushed the Prague Spring
  in 1968, the new regime banned him from all forms
  of theater work.
• He writes an open letter to the Czechoslovak
  party leader, warning him that the regime could
  not suppress individual freedom forever
• In the 1960s he was arrested many times and
  eventually sentenced to 4 and a half years in
  jail for his opposition work.
• In 1970s after his release from prison, he
  begins his political career, trying to spread his
  reformist ideals throughout Czechoslovakia
• He gained widespread recognition as a dissident,
  receiving the Dutch Erasmus Prize in 1986.
• In 1989 he is elected President of Czechoslovakia
  and helps reform it from the communist rule it
  had suffered under since WW II end of
  censorship and nationalization of property
• In 1991 he helps create Czech Republic, which he
  guides through a successful transition to a
  liberal, free-market system and NATO membership.

(http//www.cnn.com/)
14
(www.britannica.com)
(www.cojeco.cz)
(ndiaction.org)
(www.medaloffreedom.com)
(www.nytimes.com)