I'm John Datchel, speaking to the editor-in-chief of Civitas, the Civitas Outlook,

which is the publication of Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

I'm speaking to the editor-in-chief, Richard Ranch, who is writing up a new book,

a collection of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's remarks, speeches,

addresses, Nobel Prize, address after he was thrown out of the Soviet Union in 1974.

Exile is the polite way of putting it.

And he retreated to Vermont, where he started to write about his experience in Russia and

what Russia had gone through in the 20th century.

It's important to recover that this is the Cold War.

There was never a moment on television in the movies, in books, in comic books, when the moment couldn't be called

up that the world would end because of atomic weapons. Never a moment. So Janitsyn understands that,

but at the same time, he's gripped by what he experienced in Russia when he wasn't free and what he viewed of

America's way of dealing with freedom.

The West is what he called us.

Richard, I remember being puzzled about Solzhenitsyn's what you'd have to say, unhappy

opinion of the West.

What was it?

What did he find that was inadequate to his vision when he was in the Goulog?

Yeah, and thank you.

Great, great question.

And I think this also has immediate resonance ongoing with our moment because it's the

inability, I think, of the West to properly

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