Modern Age - Summer 2014 - 26

MODERN AGE

The Red Wheel is Solzhenitsyn's lifelong
effort to comprehend the Great War's consequences for Russia and the world. He began
writing what he sometimes calls Knots in his
youth while still a Communist devoted to
Vladimir Lenin. Over the course of a lifetime, he rewrote, researched, and refined the
work.
The Red Wheel is concerned not only
with understanding historical events; it also
attempts to bring to light the ideas that
came to dominate Russia and the West as a
consequence of World War I. In the aftermath of the war, new antireligious principles
began to take hold: Communism, Nazism,
and secular humanism. In The Red Wheel,
Solzhenitsyn probes the effects of faith and
the lack of it; he transforms characters from
believers to the not-so-devout and from atheists to converts. In particular, this paper will
focus on four of the book's characters: two
real people-Vladimir Lenin and Tsarina
Alexandra Fyodorovna-and two fictional
inventions-Colonel Georgi Vorotyntsev
and Zina Altanskaya.
Solzhenitsyn is often characterized as a
Christian writer who, according to critics, is
so fully rooted and enmeshed in a religious
horizon that he is incapable of seeing beyond
its perspective. Solzhenitsyn is surely a religious thinker, but as is the case with all his
views, there is little that is simple or straightforward about his principles. Solzhenitsyn
is no more a religious fanatic than he is
an unreflective Slavophile. The Red Wheel
makes a devastating critique of the cronyism, ineptitude, and injustice of the tsarist
regime, especially when it went to war.
Commentators who label the author a
narrow-minded sectarian fail to consider
either his censure of religion or his complex
justification of faith. For example, Solzhenitsyn is critical of the principles of Leo Tolstoy.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Tolstoy
26

SUMMER 2014

was more than a noted author. To millions
of Russia's educated class, he was also a spiritual leader who counseled universal respect
for human rights, nonviolent resistance to
established authority, and passivism.
Solzhenitsyn criticizes Tolstoy's interpretation of Christ's message and argues that if
applied literally, the Christian maxim to love
thy neighbor actually undermines people's
spirit to resist evil (1.417, 548).3 Tolstoy contends that human beings do not and cannot
control history and that love of fellow human
beings is the best hope for social reform. The
two propositions are connected, for if people
cannot control history, they need not worry
about the consequences of their actions.
There is no reason to be prudent, since events
will run their course no matter. Thus, people
have a right and an obligation to obey the
commandment to love their neighbor and
not take violent actions against other human
beings, even to resist wrongdoing (1.341).
However, if, as Solzhenitsyn suggests,
human beings can influence the course of
history, then Tolstoy's interpretation of
Christ's love commandment is irresponsible.
It results in the acquiescence of moral people,
who embrace nonviolence, to the dominance
of people willing to use force. Allowing the
strong and violent to have their way surely
cannot be the goal of moral principles.
Hence, prudent opposition to malevolence
must not be abandoned.
Solzhenitsyn acknowledges that Tolstoy's
views are noble in theory. But, in practice,
they encouraged people to accept fate, which
led some in prominent Russian military
circles not to prepare adequately for war.
Tolstoy's teachings also created unrealistic
expectations about social reform, bordering
on naive perfectionism. Those ideals led
much of the educated class to hate all things
Russian. Even sensible reforms, such as those
of Petr Stolypin-Russian prime minister

Modern Age - Summer 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Summer 2014