Modern Age - Summer 2014 - 25
ESSAY
WHY WE NEED GOD
SOLZHENITSYN'S THE RED WHEEL
James F. Pontuso
I
n his 1983 "Templeton Address," the
controversial Russian writer Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn blames many of the atrocities
of the twentieth century on one cause: "We
have forgotten God," he proclaims.1 Prior
to making statements about God's place in
human life, Solzhenitsyn was admired in the
West as a dissident who staunchly defended
freedom against Communist totalitarianism.
But his remarks on the need for divine guidance turned many commentators against
the Nobel Prize-winning author. Instead of
a freedom fighter, he was branded a zealot,
an anti-Semite, and a Russian Orthodox
chauvinist.2
Although Solzhenitsyn explains the social
consequences of abandoning God in the
"Templeton Address" and elsewhere, it is
only in his artistic creations that he fully
examines the human soul's longing to be
connected with something beyond the mundane. Perhaps it is through art that we most
clearly see the human desire for something
higher that gives purpose to existence. Most
notably, Solzhenitsyn raises the issue in The
Red Wheel-his multivolume investigation
of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and
the subsequent rise of totalitarianism.
For Solzhenitsyn, World War I was a
pivotal event in world history. The brutality
of the war vanquished optimistic hopes for
progress that had been so prevalent at the
beginning of the twentieth century. The
massacre gave credence to radical, antiestablishment, and nihilist doctrines. The collapse
of Austria-Hungary not only undermined
the balance of power in Europe; it also
caused fierce nationalistic and revanchist
struggles. Germans felt betrayed and victimized by the punitive postwar settlement
and turned to extremist doctrines to indulge
their grievances. Most important, the Bolshevik Revolution-itself an outgrowth of
the war-not only established in Russia
the worst tyranny in history, but the reaction to it gave perverse credibility to Fascist
and Nazi claims of a "Jewish-Bolshevik
conspiracy."
James F. Pontuso is Charles Patterson Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs at Hampden-Sydney
College. He has written or edited six books, published more than eighty articles, reviews, and essays, and taught
or lectured in a dozen countries.
25
Modern Age - Summer 2014
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