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• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-01194A000100840001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 19
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 8, 1998
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 18, 1974
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

25X1C10b
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FIVE YEARS OF CAPTIVITY WITH MY FRIEND SOLZHENYTSIN
[Article by Frederic de Towarnicki, verbatim interview with Dimitriy
Panin, with an introduction by Andre Brincourt; Paris, Le Figare,
French, 13 October 1973]
This document is not only unique and startling -- it un-
questionably bears witness to the essential: this altogether
human approach in an inhuman world, this revelation of the very
soul of Solzhenytsin, whose voice today shakes the consciences
of men.
It is a mirror held up between "The First Circle" and the
unimaginable reality, which gives us the living image of one of
the greatest writers of our time, the same who recalled, in his
Nobel Prize speech: "Often, in the suffering, swarming masses of
the camps, in the midst of a file of prisoners, when the line of
lanterns speared through the fogs of the freezing night, we felt
the uprush of the words we wanted to shout aloud to the world, if
only the whole world could have heard one of us."
It is indeed one of them who here helps us better to under-
stand the man in Moscow who has just launched an appeal to the
world, and who stands up today face to face with the Soviet Go-
vernment and the KGB in the name of democracy and human dignity.
Dimitriy Panin, a 62-year-old engineer, was for 5 years
Aleksandr Solzhenytsin's comrade in captivity in various camps in
the Soviet Union.
He is familiar to us in the character of Sologdin, one of
the heroes in "The First Circle."
Having married a Jewish wife, he was permitted to leave his
country in 1972, after spending 16 years in confinement there.
In this exclusive document, an account taken down by Frede-
ric de Towarnicki, Dimitriy Panin breaks a long silence and de-
scribes his friend Solzhenytsin in the very camp he used as the
setting for "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," and tells of
the prisoners' uprising in which they took part atthe peak of the
Stalinist era.
We are especially proud to be able to publish this eye-wit-
ness account. Dimitriy Panin is the living voice of the hero of
"The First Circle," and it is as if that terrible book had summoned
ghosts from the past the better to shout its truth.
L v I
I spent 6 years in detention with Solzhenytsin, 2 of them
in the camp described in "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."
We were friends, very close to one another. I watched him
during those years spent side by side, first from 1947 to 1950, in
"sharashka," a special KGB prison for scientists, and then in Si-
beria, in the Ekibastuz forced labor camp. It was there, in Janu-
ary of 1952, when Stalinism was at its height, that we took part
i that r r roar
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 volt AR T r~ reedhF ,&el a jR%9I49 : AA&P c 9g 9 4j "Op s3-
ing was to spread like an oil slick.
I am not at all surprised today to see Solzhenytsin standing
up to a whole system.
In 1940, shortly after the great Moscow trials, I had been
sentenced to prison for "anti-Soviet conversations." Under Stalin,
that was an everyday occurrence. Among comrades, we had talked
about the purges-, about the police terror, and about the regime.
One of those comrades had denounced me. I was sentenced to 5
years' detention, without a trial. ?
In 1943, while I was still serving my time, I was sentence
to an additional 10 years of detention for something fabricated out
of whole cloth and called "preparing for insurrection against the,
regime." Well, the alleged ringleaders in this "conspiracy" did ~
not even know one another. But that sort of thing was also stand-I
and operating procedure in those days.
That is how -- if you add up all the sentences passed on m
-- I came to spend 16 years in detention.
when I was freed, I was exiled _in perpetuity to
In 1953,
Kazhakistan-, then rehabilitated 3 years later under Khrushchev:
somebody had found out that the charges against me had not been
provedl The KGB, the political police, gave me a certificate say
ing that my case had been "definitely filed and disposed of for
lack of evidence."
Then in December 1947, I was sent to the Marfino "sharash-
ka," in the suburbs of Moscow. In that special prison, set up in
a former seminary, there were scientists and technicians working,
under Stalin's"orders, on improving secret listening devices for
the KGB. That prison is described in Solzhenytsin's novel, "The
First Circle." '
The First Meeting
The day after my arrival, I got up very early, and as I
was finishing my toilet in the washroom, I saw a young man in a
military cap coming down the stairs. He was around 30, and had
a very open, very Russian face, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
In the courtyard, I was immediately surrounded by the pri
soners, hungry for news about the various holding prisons in which
I had been kept during my transfer. In a way, I was their spoken
gazette of the concentration camp world. As I was speaking, I
noticed the young man I had seen in the washroom. Deep in thought,
he was strolling along the barbed wire barricade between two tall
linden trees, 20 paces up, 20 paces down, back and forth, back and
forth. -
The young man came up to me and introduced himself as Alek
sandr Solzhenytsin. He asked me a few questions, took me by the
arm, and we walked back and forth together.
Our time in prison together was to last from the early au-
tumn of 1947 until the end of January 1952.
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Solzhenytsin told me later that, when he first saw me dry-
ing my face on a towel, he was instantly reminded of Veronica's
veil.
"You looked like the Savior!"
Those were his very words; I am not making anything up.
Very soon I felt that he knew very precisely what he wanted.
His life was minutely organized. His prime concern seemed to be
not to waste a single minute of his time. He seemed tireless; you
would have said, on the contrary, that resting was a burden to him.
Solzhenytsin told me that the secret research office to which we
were assigned was still in the throes of organization; meanwhile,
he was the librarian. In those days, the library was set up in
the former seminary church, a huge place with a vaulted ceiling
that is described in "The First Circle." It later became one of
the prison dormitories, and it was where the famous scene of the
"trial of Prince Igor" takes place. That is described in the novel
too.
One detail not generally known is that Solzhenytsin's friend,
the one with whom he had been sentenced to 8 years for having ex-
changed letters in which they questioned Stalin's military talents,
had also been assigned to the sharashka. The two were inseparable.
We had even nicknamed them "Solzhenytsin Senior" and "Solzhenytsin
Junior." Sol;zhenytsin Junior was a charming lad, very nice indeed.
Sometimes he would come saw wood with me. But his nature was --
how can I put it -- a little simplistic, and it was sometimes hard
to communicate with him. Solzhenytsin dearly loved his comrade
in misfortune, and the two of them offered us an example of rare
friendship.
I very quickly saw that Solzhenytsin's dream, his heart's
desire, was to write. He had felt the tug of his vocation ever
since his school days. It was no abstract dream. His goal was
quite specific: he wanted to reconstruct and explain the cataclysm
that had befallen our country. How had it all happened? He saw
some of the causes in the early defeats in the 1914-1918 war, an
era that had fascinated him since he was at the university. His
father had seen'service in the ranks of General Samsonov, in East
Prussia.
Solzhenytsin Wanted To Learn Everything by Heart
I became aware of the enormous power of attraction Solzhe-
nytsin had over the other prisoners. He elicited frankness, and
those who talked with him told him absolutely everything. Their
confidences were to give him fuel for thought on the fate of human
beings and on our country's destiny.
In "The First Circle" there is an account of a conversation
I had with Solzhenytsin one morning as we were cutting wood. I
had been asking him about his literary plans. He replied, not with-
out a twinkle, that he was preparing himself by reading Lenin....
Wasn't it time for him to move out of the preparatory stage
in his work, to get down to writing at last?
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"Sanya," I used to urge him,,"stop all this reading. ou
already know more about it than you need to. If you keep on like
this, you will wind up nothing but a learned sage. Anyway, there
are no interesting books here. You've already got enough Plekanov
and Trotsky, and there is not much chance of your finding what you
need at the sharashka. Stop drying up your-mind. Part of you is
the learned man, the mathematician, the man given to method, to cal -I
culation,, to intellectual rigor", but don't forget the -artist: you
have imagination, you're inventive, you're creative. And that is
your real path. Otherwise the scientist in you is going to smother
the writer."
Solzhenytsin answered:
"You're right. I have done some thinking. Too often, I
take the scientific approach. Maybe this is what prevents me from
starting to write.
An excellent mathematician, Solzhenytsin had done some bril}
liant work at the physics and mathematics school at Rostov-on-Don.,
He had been one of the rare students to graduate from that insti-
tution with honors in every course. Endowed with a remarkable
memory, he was able to putlinto his ideas the same meticulous order
that prevailed on his desk and in everything he did.
It was right there at the sharashka that Solzhenytsin start d
to write. But, since it was impossibly dangerous to hide his manu
script, he composed verses which he found it easier'to remember.
He was desolate at the idea that he could not learn long passages
of prose by heart. Later on, I would see him making notes on
scraps of paper, which he would then tear up. The long poem he
wrote toward the end of 1949 or the beginning of 1950 was entitledli
"The Highway."
I shall never forget one day in spring. The ground had
dried, and a few _of us friends had spread our quilted jackets on
the grass.. As we lay there, we listened to Solzhenytsin recite
his poem. In his hand, he carried his ever-present roasry, which
he told as he read his verses to us. It was a very long poem, be-
cause he was always adding new cantos to it... So as to be able
to see the guards coming, we had taken places so that each of us
could comfortably survey one of the four cardinal points of the
compass.
Meanwhile, prisoners continued to flood in. Pretty soon
there were 250 of us, all dolled up in blue overalls which made us
look like so many paratroopers. A Kremlin regiment mounted guard
over us outside the prison. iInside, the sharashka literally swarmed
with spies. We were subject to continual shakedowns, and insecurity
was our way of life. When our working day was over, we would come,
back to the dormitories, and there would be our friends, so-called,
engineers, all of whom actually belonged to the KGB. Their main
assignment was to spy on us.
Most of the prisoners talked a lot of politics, trying to
find a reason for the misfortunes that beset our country. Such
discussions were extremely risky: should a planted spy denounce
us, we stood a good chance of getting another 25-year sentence, or
10 more years at the least. ' Solzhenytsin and I could talk only in
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 undritrones,FIS%JP94~~~ sei R-~PZ9r41'~94A@QU1~@@4QQOen
we were sawing wood, a scene admirably described in "The First
Circle."
Our friend with whom we liked best to talk was Lev Kopelev,
who figures: An the same novel under the name of Rubin.' I had met
him first, when we were in Butyrikiy prison in Moscow. He was a
fascinating person, a brilliant conversationalist, and a distin-
guished German scholar. I had spoken of him to Solzhenytsin.
Though Kopelev was neither an engineer nor a scientist, but a phi-
lologist, we decided to get him into our research bureau. Each of
us, Solzhenytsin and I, went to see the head of the camp, and we
craftily but insistently suggested Kopelev's name as tran*later
or librarian. We succeeded. Several weeks later, Kopelev arrived
at the sharashka.
At the time, even though he was one of Stalin's victims,
Kopelev was still a real Stalinist. Solzhenytsin used to start us
arguing, though he preferred to stay on the sidelines as a sort
of umpire. More and more, he was drinking in the stories and ex-
periences of his companions, and getting away from his reading.
At the time of his arrest, Kopelev was a party member. He
had been a political commissar during the war. Kopelev had a lot
to tell Solzhenytsin ahout the factional struggles inside the par-
ty, the shady side of collectivization, and so on.
In arguments with Kopelev, I was intransigeant. I found no
extenuating circumstances in the Soviet communist system. I had
seen nothing good, nothing sound in it whatever. I would lay out
my arguments, but Kopelev thought that all was for the best in that
best of all possible worlds. He has changed his mind since! I
used to try to change it then. Solzhenytsin would listen to us,
often without uttering a word. I had the impression that he was
keeping score. I would cite the extermination of millions of pea-
sants during the collectivization drive, and the famines that fol-
lowed year after year. I would remind Kupelev of the countless
purges, the terror, the chronic shortages. I would describe to
him the moral disintegration of the people, corrupted by a tight
system of police informers and tale-bearers.
I do not believe that Solzhenytsin found these conversations
very important. He did not like to take part in them, no doubt be-
cause they were all about Stalin and his crimes. He was already
a sworn enemy of everything connected with the Stalinist regime.
We became aware that he was far better informed than we on certain
key periods to which he had devoted considerable study, such as
the verbatim reports of the 14th jCongress of the:.. Communist Party
of the USSR. It was all perfectly clear to him, and he saw no
need to talk about it any more. Solzhenytsin did not enjoy long
talk sessions. He was not one of those Russians who like to lounge
about all night discussing the meaning of life. He gave every con-
versation in which he engaged a very concrete direction, asked
concise questions, and expected- people to give him clear-cut ans-
wers. I could tell by his expression when he wanted to change the
subject.,, or to drop it. He would be somewhat abrupt about inter-
rupting,'conversations he thought frivolous. Some of us would be
annoyed at that.
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He would get up, saying, "That's enough, fellows, I am
going back to-my c6rner to work."
l ~
I was used to this trait of his, and I used to try to be as
laconic as I could. At bottom, he was the club sage, and'
we listened to him. His demands were minimal: no noise. Then he!
would go back to his reading or writing.
Always this obsession with efficiency! Sometimes I would
say to him,, "Sanya, you have an engine where your heart should be.
Shift into neutral, and come talk with us."
An Actor of Great Talent
Something not generally known is that Solzhenytsin is an
actor of great talent. He had even thought for a while of becom-
ing one professionally. One of our "literary evenings" remains
in my mind as the best evening I ever spent. I had brought with
me in my ditty bag a copy of the collected works of Malakovsky,
and I had persuaded my two friends to read some of his poems.
Neither of them liked Malakovsky, but both of them read his poems
remarkably well. Solzhenytsin.did "The Bone Flute," and he li-
terally became another person. We saw him, usually so energetic
and eager, suddenly grey, gloomy, sullen: actual wrinkles appeared
on his face. Remember that the poem is about a morbid, obsessed
character. Besides, I believe Malakovsky always did have problems
with women, and Solzhenytsin was the very incarnation,oright before
our eyes, of a man who has no success whatever with the female
sex. I can see him now, depressed, tormented, his face drawn and
marked by suffering. You could feel that his bitter resentment
was turned on the whole world. And to think that he improvised
the whole performance, on the spur of the moment!
Solzhenytsin also had a very keen sense of humor. And when
he combjned that with his talent as an actor, he would have us dy-
ing of laughter.
He Was the Only One Who Could Stand Up to the Guards
In 1960, when Solzhenytsin and I chose to leave for prison,
we were confined for 35 days alone in a cell of Butyrkiy prison.
Solzhenytsin spent those 35 days in inward recollection. He was
still working on his poem, "The Road." We spoke only during meals,
and in the evening, when I could see he was tired. It was in that
cell that I discovered the true extent of his talents as a mimic.
He would literally bring to life the people we had known at the
sharashka. One evening I was certain I should die laughing. He
imitated a telephone conversation between the head of the acoustics
laboratory and the MGB (later to become the KGB) agent. A-little
masterpiece of precision and servility. I could see again the very
expression of the lab head, and hear the unctuous flattery in his
voice:
"But of course, Comrade Shikin, yes, yes, and in a tick!
You can count on me!"
I said a while ago that it does not surprise me to see -Solt
zhenytsin standing up today to a whole system. At the sharashka,
he was the only one who could stand up to the guards or the camp
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commander, and demand that prisoners' rights be respected. He was
the only one who could cite chapter and verse of the regulations
and the law. The insistence with which he made his demands some-
times took a comic turn. For example, l e_ took a wicked de-light-in
r.omndipg the camp commander at roll call every evening, as a mat-
ter of principle, about the 5 grams of sifted flour which, accord-
ing to the regulations, was to be added to our rations. It must
be said that at the time we hardly needed it, since our status as
scientists made us privileged slaves.
Finally he won his case, and we got our right to that wret-
ched supplementary ration of flourl
Despite his dreadful plight as a political prisoner during
the Stalin era, Solzhenytsin got his way and won every time he
made a demand, if only over trifles of principle. And the security
people finally grew afraid of this troublemaker.
Another example: the business of the zlotys, "money confis-
cated at the time of his arrest"and whose value had since declined
to practically zero. As a matter of principle, he had been demand-
ing its return for 2 years, appealing his case right up to the Su-
preme Soviet, and he got it! We were all flabbergasted!
A miracle of courage and stubbornness, he forced the security
officer, just before his departure for the concentration camp, to
return his very rare book of Essenin's poetry, which he loved very
dearly.
This readiness to fight, this drive, have grown in 20 years
to a mighty power. I understand better why this man has taken upon
his own shoulders the heavy responsibility of the struggle for jus-
tice and human rights in an oppressive and totalitarian system
which I have no hesitation in calling Stalinist without Stalin.
Now I am going to tell you about a decision which may seem
incomprehensible: how, without conculting each other about it,
Solzhenytsin and I decided to leave our "gilded cage" for prison.
Of course, in the sharashka we were not exposed to the cold, not
forced to go on 20-kilometer marches through blizzards; we were
watched, though, and spied upon every instant, like fish in an
aquarium. Well, the two of us had only one and the same desire:
to carry on the struggle. We felt that here, in this "artificial
heaven"-for scientists, we should never do anything. Solzhenytsin
wanted to devote himself to his work. He felt that in the sharashka
he would not produce anything. There was no way to hide, to learn,
to be alone. We could no longer stand this lot as grey-matter
slaves. Solzhenytsin was to be assigned to the mathematics team.
The work day there was exhausting, the work-load such that it be-
came impossible to save the slightest scrap of free time. Besides,
our work, which was after all destined to work for the political
police and for Stalin's eavesdropping agents, was growing more and
more unbearable. "Filthy work?"
We did not work in the same laboratory. I had just built
a very complicated machine for telephone scrambling which, for
example, would have enabled Stalin to talk to Beria without fear
that their talk would be intercepted. Solzhenytsin, in the acous-
tics laboratory, had until then been working on the phenomena of
the Russian language, work which interested him on the linguistic
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 lev lppr9ieed I e R o?a}Siavin9g /to/ObreakA off his; re9search1fo84knotty
mathematical calculations and turn himself into a robot horrifie
him.
Those who clung to their gilded cages stayed on the job
wa-
til 1 or 2 in the morning. Solzhennytsin and I had consistently
refused to work any later than 11. One fact was hi
hl
g
y indicative
of this: Kopelev and I, who were considered "dangerous'prisoner "
were regularly transferred to the cells in But r
cow on eve
ti
l
n
ry na
ona
holiday -- May Day, the anniversary
of the
October Revolution, etc. Something like those political refugee
the French police send to spend a week in Corsica...
That was our state of mind in 1950.
Off to Prison
One day, during a noontime break, I was walking alone, se4k-
ing an answer to the questions I was aking myself. I prayed. for E
while. Suddenly I made a firm decision to set about getting out
of the sharashka. In April or May, I confided my intention;to S l-
zhenytsin=, adding that I had already started taking steps in that
direction. He replied that he had come to identical conclusions
on his own.
"We are going to go together," he said.
I want to stress once more that his decision to get himself
sent to a forced labor camp was wholly free and rational. We had
very few illusions. Ex-prisoners had often described for us what'
went on in the camps, and we knew what lay ahead for us: we shou d
be merely numbers, and all the rest of it... Actually, life in
that prison camp at Ekybastuz, one of the toughest, was to be far'
worse than that described in "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovic ."
For Solzhenyt-sin'softened the picture, so as to make his book a
little less offensive to the censorts eyes. And yet --'and here
is a paradox for you -- we wanted to go, so we would be freer.
We knew perfectly well what we stood to lose, but we also j
knew what we might gain. For Solzhenytsin, so much experience, SO
much new knowledge! To him, staying on at the sharashka was simply
selling his soul for one more mess of pottage.
In order to achieve my purpose, getting sent to the camp,
I had devised a tactic: I stopped working. Every morning there
was a call for volunteers to sweep out the courtyard. 'Usually,
the call was addressed only to workers, and had nothing to do wit
the engineers. I volunteered regularly: it was a kind of chal-
lenge. Often Solzhenytsin-would join me, and we spent several hap-
py days sweeping, getting a suntan, and chatting under the furious;
and nervous eye of the guards. On 19 May 1950, the second lieu-
tenant so well described in the novel shouted at -us to report to
the guardhouse, with our belongings. The die was cast.
were going to quit this ialcyon existence w
and the food, which hich
h wasp
on the whole, acceptable. It was a plunge into icy waters.
In the holding prisons, in the barred railroad cars, all
through that long journey Solzhenytsints gift for human contact
struck me even more forcefully than before. All thos
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ners, all those tragic lives! Solzhenytsin would listen to them
for hours, attentive and calm. Each of them knew that this man
was not asking them for the stories of their lives-with the idea
of using their words against them. All sorts of prisoners touched
him: ex-party members, priests, prisoners of war whom Stalin wan-
ted to get rid of, kulaks, workers, artists, and intellectuals.
We met several Russian emigrants who had been arrested in
the Baltic countries; some had come back from Paris to get them-
selves thrown into prison! Solzhenytsin was eager for the tiniest
details of their life in France: how wide the boulevards were,
what the cafes were like, what clothes they wore. I saw him in a
long conversation with some young peasants from Latvia oar Lithua-
nia who had fought the Germans in partisan units: others had just
stayed home on their farms, raising pigs, until somebody came to
arrest them.
As a rule, these conversations interested me far less, and
Solzhenytsin reproached me for it. He used to tell me that he saw
these chance-met prisoners as models for future characters. For
him, it was really research, a kind of statistical survey of the
concentration camp universe, of the state of mind and the ideolo-
gy of political prisoners.
We were crossing Central Russia: we were in the Volga basin,,
somewhere in Mordovia. We were in a car that had'been specially
equipped to transport prisoners which was usually attached right
behind the locomotive, when the train stopped at a level crossing.
Solzhenytsin and I were lying down in the upper berth. Looking
out through the barred window, we saw a woman who looked old to us.
Actually, she must have been 40 or 45 at most. She had slanted
eyes: she must have been Mordovian or Chuvash. Dressed in rags,
she wore a patched black skirt, a man tattered jacket, shoes lone
trodden out of shape, and a scarf tied, peasant-style, under her
,chin. Solzhenytsin, struck by this apparition, grabbed my arm:
"Look!" Great tears were rolling down the woman's cheeks. She
was sobbing, even as she made the sign of the cross to bless the
prisoner car.
In the holding. prisons, many young prisoners who had just
been sentenced -- mainly Lithuanians and Ukrainians -- were to-
tally bewildered by the concentration-camp world. They saw us,
particularly me, with 11 years' experience in the camps, as a
seasoned veteran who knew all the ropes. And they would come to
me to ask for advice.
During the war, in other camps, I had made up some rules
for myself, which were, to me, the "prisoner's Commandments." There
were ten of them. The ninth was: have the appearance of a slave
but the soul of a fighter." And my tenth Commandment was: "Save
your soul and you will save your body too." In other words: Not
all the tricks of survival are good in the concentration-camp world.
Too much compromise inevitably leads to death of the spirit. To
-save your own skin at all :costs was the policy of the tale-bearers
who got other men murdered. No. Experience in the camps taught
you that those who shared, those who helped each other, those who
were capable of sacrifice and friendship, were the only ones who
could stand up under the trial. The egotists sometimes lost their
heads in the latrines, after committing manifold crimes for no-
thing.
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a prisoner who, before his arrest, had been .a teacher of Marxism
.
Perhaps, in hig inmost soul, he had understood it all, rejected i
all, damned it all. But to outward appearances, he-was still an
orthodox Marxist-Leninist. Solzhenytsin and I climbed down from
our upper berth to listen to him. The professor told us the tra-
gic tale of a Soviet economist whom the political police could no
manage to get anything on, until the da3f when, in Lenin's persona
library, his colleagues found a marginaij note in Lenin's own writ
ing saying, "This man is shit." That allowed them to liquidate
the man.
That macabre tale amused us. We had read Lenin, and we re
membered the humiliating expressions with which his writings were
peppered.
Our companion in misfortune had been not only aprofessor
of Marxism-Leninism. He had joined the party at 17, during the
October Revolution, and he had started his career as head of a
commission of the Cheka, the first Soviet political police agency
founded by Lenin. We saw that he had not the slightest doubts
about the verdicts he had signed or the-executions he had ordered
To hear him tell it, there was nothing whatever wrong with Soviet
society, which was governed by objective and Marxist laws of deve-
lopment. If something was not working right, it had to be blamed
on the war, or on imperialist plots, or to capitalist holdovers ir4
people's minds. He was firm as a rock.
For Solzhenytsin and me, he was a holiday for mockery. Wel
would ask him:
"How about agriculture? Booming, of course?"
And he would answer: "Comrades, the harvest this fall wil
be miraculous. This will be the end of the 'temporary difficul-
ties.' The Central Committee has just passed a 'new resolution.
Very soon, now, we are going to catch up with America, and pass itll.
Our mighty industry will produce tractors by the millions, etc."
And, for even more fun, we would get him to talk in the
style of official propaganda and of the Pravda editorials that had
nourished us from the cradle.
Together We Went Through the Prisoner Insurrection
The Ekvbastuz camp, in Kazhakistan, numbered 5,000 prisoner
when we arrived- there. I am coming now to the .extraordinary .insur~
rection Solzhenytsin and I went through together. In Stalin's day
a strike by prisoners in a special camp was an unthinkable event.
In this Siberian prison, what we called the "mitard" was a common
punishment: you were given 7, 15, 30 days -- nobody survived 30 in temperatures that went down to 20, 30, even 40 degrees below
zero, with nothing to eat-but hot water every other day and a daily
ration of 300 grams of black bread. Besides, you were locked up
in only your underwear.-
Here the conditions were a thousand times worse than at
the shsrashka. Solzhenytsin spent the first year working as a
mason, and the physical labor exhausted him. In the last 6 months
of our imprisonment, he was already suffering from cancer.
Approved For Release 1999/09/02 : CIA-RDP79-01194A000100840001-3
 Approved For Release 1999/09/02 : CIA-RDP79-01194A000100840001-3
Even sp, he was very productive, composing a huge number of
verses, twice as many, perhaps, as there are in "Eugene Onegin."
Almost 10,000 lines! His memory was incredible. He had devised
a special way to keep track of the number of verses he had written:
he. used a rosary! And sometimes you would see him fingering it,
making sure that his memory had not betrayed him.
"Mitard," solitary confinement, harrassment... The prisoners'
patience was running out. On 21 January 1952, when the thermometer
stood at around 30.below, they decided to storm the building where
the "mitard" cells were. After knocking down the planks of the
fence, they tried to knock down the bars. From..the watch-towers,
the snetries opened fire. Ten prisoners were killed, and 60 or so
wounded. Many of them were still groaning in the snow when the -
guards came to give them the coup de grace. The prisoners were
astounded. Next morning,. spontaneously, they refused to answer roll
call, and refused to go to work. They also called a collective
hunger strike. We were unanimous. The first day, the guards ran
up and flatly ordered us to stop.
Then they turned wheedling, begging us. They would say,
"Well, fellows? Why aren't you eating? Here, look.. The
soup is nice and hot."
We would answer them with oaths.
"Go screw yourselves! Murderers! You murdered our comrades!
You killed some of them with crowbars!"
Two or three days later, the non-corns got into it. Our re-
sponse had not changed: we would not work, we would not eat, we
would not leave our barracks. We demanded that the public prose-
cutor of the Republic of Kazhakistan come and talk to us; we
wanted to give him our complaints about the arbitrary way in which
punishment was meted out to us. A few days after that, the high
officials of the prison administration, accompanied by the public
prosecutor of the Republic of Kazhakistan, were there. They toured
the barracks, trying to persuade us to call off the strike. They
threatened us. But we would not be moved.
The camp leaders were literally in a panic. For us, another
day of the strike was nothing more than a little extra hunger.
For them, it was the change they would be sent to the firing-squad
by their superiors for failing to maintain order. A guard used to
mutter, "If Stalin finds out..." Five more days. When the prose-
cutor arrived, we adopted a technique for talking to him. The men
in the front ranks would keep silence, while the rear ranks shouted
all sorts of answers and retorts at him! Finally, we won. As for
the promises they made us -- double rations of bread, etc. -- we
knew perfectly well they would not be kept. But we had pushed the
machine off the track, if only for a little while. We had proved-
that even under the most terrible dictatorship that had ever exis-
ted in human history, the Stalinist dictatorship, we could resist
and struggle. We knew that our victory was also a victory of the
spirit, and that without it we'should not have survived.
Approved For Release 1999/09/02 : CIA-RDP79-01194A000100840001-3
 A?p -i4eIc*Wt999 2! 1A}R P3M 1~1 8 1 ez
on the waiting list for the next convoy leaving for the prison au !
thority hospital. Among the prisoners, who'loved him, there, was
a kind of tacit agreement: not to get him-into anything compromi-
sing, not to make him take unnecessary risks or superfluous ones.
We all had great respect for his work as a writer,, and we did not
want his departure for the hospital to be endangered.
Sometimes they would.let us watch a movie each week. Then,
came poi ?tica {police ime,_ land the days of summonses, interroga-
tions, an arrests. Nobody,LLfor that matter,"had any illusions on
this score. But, aware as we were of the exceptional nature of
what had happened, were sure that this uprising would become an
example for others to follow. And in fact news of the rebellion
made a tremendous sensation in all the other camps. Stalinism
was at its apogee. A precedent like this would give courage to
some 14 million other prisoners who were scattered in the forced
labor camps across the Soviet. Union.
During the interrogations, all the prisoners behaved with
dignity. On February, because I was considered the ringleader of
the revolt, I was arrested and transferred to an even more distant
camp. That was when I learned how much understanding there was
of our rebellion in the concentration-camp world: how many times,
in the holding prisons on the way, did we read on the. latrine
walls, "Hail to the heroes of Ekybastuz camp!"
An extraordinary thing is that we had not been punished fort
political crime. Our acts had been listed on the charge sheet as
"hooliganism" (hooligan means loafer, good-for-nothing). The pri-,
son administration had panicked, come completely unstuck. Out of
fear of Stalin, it had tried to play down the scope of the event.
That was where our victory lay.
I think that the profound base of the friendship that linked
ds, Solzhenytsin and me, during those 5 years of detention, was
faith, a very firm faith, faith as hard as iron. ' Maybe the feel-
ing that we were obeying God's will. Thanks to that faith, we did'
not know the meaning of fear.
An Appeal from Dimitriy Panin
Two men of genius -- Solzhenytsin and Sakharov -- in their
recent public stands, dared to speak openly certain truths which
many would very much like to hide. But, in the non-socialist
world, their statements have often been wrongly interpreted. Thisl,
is the result of the lack of information which prevails in many
quarters and, perhaps, also the result of a certain reluctance
to look facts in the face. s_.one who left the [r5SI iri I~~~ I
is is why-
think I can honestly say what is happeriirig there, - an-a that_
I take the liberty of emphasizing the following points:
1. Sakharov and Salzhenytsin are the two giants,. the two
spokesmen who have had the courage to say everything that is con-
stantly talked about by the people in the socialist countries in
millions of "mierofraternities" which spring up spontaneously.
These are little groups made up of members of a single family,
or close friends, or colleagues, comrades, often simple laborers
who completely trust each other. In "microfraternities" like this#
many citizens state their opinions and criticisms, and often do iti
even Agapra reo1 elGG-4en4*%/?91 -f4FA]?PPO1494A#O6V0 6 1-3
 sAPRfov tdsFO'. Re%g% 1RPR/4~192C2%4 RJ9toJigoaJa e81 cT. t. fie
gaps in information displayed by the men of good will in the West
who are concerned with Soviet problems. This is where those men
come in for merciless criticism and mockery, but always with bit-
terness and sorrow.
2. The voices of Sakharov and Solzhenytsin are certainly
among those which are warding off the danger of a third world war.
Two conditions emerge as necessary: - -
a. Freedom of information throughout the world, a stop to
the jamming of foreign broadcasts, as well as the establishment
of international broadcasts via satellites. It is vital. that such
broadcasts provide the Soviet man in the street totally objective
information on everything that is happening elsewhere. All the
critical analyses of the present socialist systems should be made
on a truly scientific basis, as should all proposals for a quest
for other economic and social structures.
b. Implementation of mutual surveillance in the socialist
and capitalist countries. All targets, factories, and storage
facilities should be subject to continuous control.
3. Sakharov and Solzhenytsin seek to improve the lot of
peoples deprived of their human rights. Both aspire to societies
that are more just, and that is why they attach extreme importance
to the value of the human personality, to democracy, and to civil
and religious liberties.
4. Their warnings must be taken with extreme seriousness
insofar as they concern the methods invented by Soviet psychia-
trists to commit dissenters to insane asylums.
5. They absolutely insist on the freedom of anyone so de-
siring to leave for another country, retaining his right to return
and without loss of citizenship or nationality.
Given this condition, Sakharov and Solzhenytsin would most
certainly have agreed to travel outside the USSR to increase their
knowledge of the West and to compare their thinking and their ex-
perience [with those of Westerners]. Geniuses belong to all man-
kind, not to any one nation.
I call upon all men of good will-to join their voices with
those of Sakharov and Solzhenytsin, and to support Solzhenytsin's
suggestion that the Nobel Peace Prize be given to academy member
Sakharov.
Approved For Release 1999/09/02 : CIA-RDP79-01194A000100840001-3
 roved. For elease.199 /09/02 ,aCIA-RDP79.0 19 , yne
o e e t e r vu t m'apprit qua le bureaud'6tu es
ent . eridre I Ila n de
CPYRGHT
CE document nest pas seulement sovietique et le K.G.B
unique et bouleversant -- ii temoi cratie et do la dignit
gne sans doute de ['essential a cette , n Dimitri Panine, 62
approche toute humaine, dans un monde .,.,pendant cinq ans 1'a
inhumain, cotta revelation de la personna- de captivit6 d'Alexan
M6 memo de Soijenitsyne dont la, voix,, divers camps do rUni
hommes.
nags do Sologdine,'
Premier Cercie
Ayant,epouse une 1
noun i
humaine.
ans, ingbnieur, fut ?
re Soijenitsyne darts
n sovietique.
C'est Is miroir tendu qui, entre Le Pre-'
uitte
a
s
apporte l'image vivante de:'1'un des plus q
y
seize p
grands ecrivains de ce .temps, celui-fa connu seeize documen
ce documen
meme qui daps son discours du prix Nobel ? ~ cueilli par Fredetic d
rappelait.v . Souvent,dansIs grouillement
4 - Panine rompt un to
k.1 P?n
e
colonne do prisonniers, quand is chains
des lanternes pergait Is brume do Is gelee `
du soir, montait an nous Is jaillissement
des mots qua nous- aurions voulu crier au
monde, si to monde entiet' avait pu enten-
dre Fun do nous. a
C'est bien I'm d'entre eux qui nous
permet ici de mieux comprendre I'homme
qui, a Moscou, vient de lancer un appel
imHet~-affronts aujourd'heid~~ vg ft"
avec Soljenltsyne,
dont deux dens Is camp
decrlt dans' Une journ6e d'Ivan
-Denissovitch
Nous 6tions amis, tree pro-
ches run de ('autre. Yet pu
t'observer au cours de ces an-
n6es pass6es cote A cdto,
d"ebord do 1947 A 1950, dans
une s charachka prison spa-
ciale du K.G.B. pour sclentifi-_
ques, puts en'Sib6rie,'au camp
do travaux forces de Ekibas-
touz. C'est iA, en janvier 1952,
elors qua Is stallnism9.6tglt A
son apogee, quo nous avions
pris part A cette extroordinaire
aventure quo fut Ia premiere
Insurrection gen6rale do d6te-
nus. Dana I'histoire des camps
de I'Unlon sovietique, cette
revolts devalt faire Cache
d'hulle.
Aujourd'hui, ]s ne suis pas
AtonnA do volt Soljenltsyne te-
nir tote A tout uh systeme.
En 1940, peu apr6s lea
grands procAs de Moscou,
j'avais ate condamnO pour
- conversations antisovi6ti-
ques -. Sous Staline, c'6tait ba-
nal. Entre camarades, no!is
avions parse des purges, de to
terreur poticlAre,. du r6gime.
L'un d'eux m'avalt denonc6, Je
fut condamne A cinq ans do
detention, sans procbs.
En 1943. alors que je purgeais
encore ma Palms, 1'al et6
r-=,ndamne a dix ans do Men-
tion supplCmentaire pour une
attaire invent6e do toutes 06-
ces et baptls6e r preparation
d'insurrection contra is re-'
mme juive, ii a pu
1972, aprbs y avoir
a detention.
exciusif, recit re-.
Towarnicki, Dimitri
g silence at decrit
detenus a laquelle its participerent, a
I'apogee du stalinism .
pouvoir publier in to temoignage, Dimitri
Panine est la voix vante du hAros du
Premier Cercie, corn ssiice livre terrible
verit6. CPYF{C~ -Drtatcourt.
game r. e pretanaus -
teurs de ce ' complot - ne so
connaissalent memo pas. Mais
ce genre d'affaire aussi Atait
monnale courante A I'Apoque.
C'adt ainsl - an addition-
nent touies lee peines qui me
furent infiigdes,s -- quo j'-el
passe seize annies an d6tenn,
tion.
En 1953,' fors do ma libOre
tlon, ]a fus exile a perp6tuitA,
dans le Kazakhstan, at rAhabi-
ilt6 trots ans plus lard sous
Khrouchtchev: on avail d6cou
vert que lea tails qui m'6taient
reproch6s n'6taient pas prou-
ves I... Le K.G.B., to police po
Ittique, me donna alors in car-
tificat ; mon affairs ? 6tait
classee, faute de preuves
Donc, on novembre 1947, J'al
et6 envoys A la - charachka r
de Martino, dans .la baniieue
do Moscou. Dens cette prison
sp6clale, InstallAe dans un an-
cien seminaire, des savants et
des technicians travaillaient,
sur ordre do Staline, au per-
fecttonnement des bcoutes ss-
cretes destin6es au K.G.B.
Cette prison est d6crite dons
? Le Premier Cords r, Is roman'
de Soiienitsyne.
La
heveux blonds, Ies yeux bfeus.
Dana la cour, je fus aussitOt
ntourA par tee detenus, avides
e nouvelles sur lee diverses
risons do transit ou j'avais se-
urne pendant mon transfert.
'etais pour eux, en quelque
rte, tine gazette orals do
I univers concentrationnaire.
out an perlant, is , remarqual
jeune homme que j'avuis
percu dans lea lavabos, Plon-
e darts sea reflexlons. Il se
romenatt Is long des barbe-
l a, entre deux grands_ ttlleuls,
ingt pas on avant, vingt pas
it arriero...
Le jeune homme s'approcha
e mol, se pr6sonta ; Alexan-
re Soijenitsyne. 11 me pose
uelques questions, me prit
ar Is bras at nous Times qual-
ues pas ensemble.
Notre detention commune de-
ait durer du debut do I'au-
mne 1947 jusqu'A In fin de
j nvier 1952.
Soijenitsyne me dit plus tard
ue, lorsqu'il m'avalt vu pour
I premiere fois dons leg lava-
os, m'essuyant Is visage even
L no serviette, it aveit un Instant
ng6 au Saint-Suaire.
= Y. avais le vis
d
S
age
u
au-
premrere_ ur I
Ce furent see paroles, je no
re c' ',t - CPYRG ux rion Inventor.
rAs vita, is sentis quit so-
main a mon err - 11 tres exactement ce qu'tl
ves, is m'Atais lave b6s tbt, at u alt, So via Malt organis6e
comma is terminals ma toilette e - minutia* son principal
dens lee lavabos, je vie tin u I sembiait titre de no pas
jeune homme an capote mill- r re une souls minute do son
taire descendre t'escalier. Age t m s. II paraissait inlatigable ;
d'environ 30 ens, it avaft Is vi- fit dit, au contraire, qua Is
Pie
d'organisation ; an attendan
Atait btbtiothecaire. A c
Opaque, la bibliothr que 6
tnstatlee Bans I'ancienne Ag
du seminaire, in grand Ic
au plafond oglv6 decrit d
Le Premier Cercie y, Elie
Vint par to suits l'un des c
lairs du camp et c'est IA a
so d6roula in famous(') scl
du - jugement du prince Igo
6galement d6crite daps Is
man. -
PYRGHT
rose
4 If
9tte
tail
liso
Kcal
ens
la-
;or-
sue ,
3no
ro-
Deta(i gen6ralement Ign re,
I'ami do Soijenitsyne, celui a ec
tequei 11 avast Ate condamn A
Nutt ans do detention p ur
les lalente militaires de Stalls,
r avast Ate envoys lut etisal is
charachka. Tous deux eteient
Inseparables. Nous ies avi ns
memo surnomm6s Soljenits nit
Senior et Soijenitsyne Junior.
Soijenitsyne Junior Malt un ar-
con charmant, tres gentil, ar-
tois, II venait scier du boil a pc
mol. Male so nature btalt, com-
ment dire, in peu simpliste, et
la communication aver lui ar-
fols difficlie. Soijenitsyne ai-
ma(t beaucoup son compact on
de malheur at tous deux n us
donnaient I'ezemp(e dune a i-
J~ eompris trAs vice que is
rCVe> is dealt de Soijenitsyne
etait d'Acrire. Cette vocation it
i'avait depute I'6cole. Ce n'6tait
pas un revs abstrait. Son but
Atait pr6cis : reconstituer, x-
pliquer Is cataclysms qui ay it
frappe notre pays. Comm nt-
tout cola) 6tatt-il arriv6 ? It n
Ins premibres d6faltes de to
guerre 11.4-1218, une 6po us.
qui? Is fad' Wait depuls I'unty r-
site. ? Son pare avast combo to
genAral Samsonov, an Prus'.9
So ey tsyne er lcTdt
tout rondr - past
CCe3( ' . C,PYRGHT
tft constatai i'Immense no
tenus. it ; provoqualt to Ira -
chise, et 'see Interlocuteurs I I
racontaiert absolument to t.
Ces confessions allatent nou -.
rir see r6flexions sur Is destin
des titres; Is destin de not re
pays.
On trouye dans Le Premi
Cercie A rooit dune conve - -
sation qu J'al sue avec Solj
nitsyne, qr matin, tandis quo
nous acllprs du boss. Je I
questionn is our sea proje s
iittAraires, pl me r6pondit, no
saps hu our, qu'II e'y prep -
tell an its fit L6nine...
N'6talt-jripas temps- DC
 CPYRGHT
atolre d IIces travaux, do so'f fouifles aystAmatiques. tnstallft
'
InsbcuritO, . fluend, is
ettre en fib it ecrlre 9 i dams l
'.' Sant
lug qu'll
ues, to seras to wn Si'udlt flours, male qui,. an tOalitA -
ap
a touts apon, fi n'y a pea ICI partenalent au K.G.B. Lour t9
'
e Iivres', lnteressanta,
-Tu as , -che principals digit de nous es?
d18 amm a PlokhanoV at Trot "1 . nlnnnor_
sky, at to i o risques pas as lee
rouver A: ~ charachka ?. Na La plupart des ditenus oar
t
l
i
b
'
a
ent
eaucoup po
itique, c
ter
ossAche p a ton esprit, it y a #
? le math Omatl- 1 chalent A s'expliquer lea raisons
n tot Is vertt, d Ih 1 f , " t I
e
m
s
a
'. .
s
a ours M.
pp
ten. port A I mithode, eux S ,,
alculi, la rigueur d'esprit, 9 pays, Do tots debate Atalent
orals n'ou ie pas !'artiste ? to 4,, extrOmement rlsqu6s 3 at un
ea do I'irroginatlon, do la fan ti - " mouchard ? , nous avast de
ponces nous risqulons vingt
aisle, tog,un criateur, Eto'est - cinq ens do sine sulemen?
i6 to vraf '.rote. Simon Is sclen- taire, dix ens pour to moans.
tiflque 6t offers I'ecnvaln. ? Soijenitsyne at mol, nous no
8oljenit yne me repondalt ?pouvions parlor qu'A mi-voix,
? Tu a kaison. J'al r6flechl. quand nous Atlons blen sOrs
J'ol trop vent une approche d''Atr eeosouls, pendant
ample,` sciage
e
do sclent ftque. Cola m'empA- i' dumb ls, per eempl ' acting
Actherire. pout ?i re de commencer - Le Premier Cercie ?,
Excelle timathematicien, Sol-r Notre ems at Intentocuteur
jenitsyne Valt fait des Etudes pref6re italt Lev Kopelev, :de
brillantes is facult6 do phy- crit done to mAme roman sous
siques at a math6matiques de- Is. nom de Roubine. C'est mot
Rostov-su -jte-Don. it en 6tait qui revels connu Is . premier,
sorts oho earissime, avec des dons is prison do BoUttrki, A'
mentions dl toutes lee ma-:t MosCOU., C'etait un etre .pas-
tl6res. Do j4 d'une memoirs :re- J; slonnan4 un Interlocuteur brli.
marquobl ,!11 6taitcapable de lant. un gerrnanlste dfstingu6.
mettre des s sea Idles to memo , J'avais pane do lul -A Soljenit-
ordre pa alt, qui.,,rOgnalt sure syne. Bien quo Kopelev no fOt?
eon bureau It Clams toutbs sea :' ni ing6nieur ml , scientifiaue,
affairea. mats philologue, nous avions
C'est A la ? charachke ? . decide de Is faire venir dans
memo qua Soijenitsyne' se mlt< notre bureau d etudes.. Cha-
A 6crire. Mass comma If 6tall` cum do eon cote, Soijenitsyne
:impossible, dangereux, d6 ca- at mot, allions voir to;Ohef do
char un manuscrit, 11 composait camp pour lot auggerer avea
des vers qua so memoirs sou- Insistence at ruse to nom do
. valt plus facilement retenir. li s Kopolev comma traduoteur ou
as d6solait A I'tdee do no sou- blblioth6caire. Nous rdusstmes
voir apprendre par ? cmur de Quelques semaines plus lard,
longs morceaux de prose; .,Plus Kopelev errivait A Is ? ? she-
Lard, Is Is As prendre ,des:'no- rachka ?.
tae our des lambeattx, do pa A I'ipoquAi, Kopelev, bien quo
pier, qu'il d6chirait ensuite.',Le tldctlme do '.Stallne.,ktatt ?enoore,
long poems qu'il compose.vbrs -un Veritable stallnien.- Sollenit-
Is fin de 1949 ou Is debut', do ?6yne . provoqualt des disputers
1950 s'intitulait ? La Route ?, entre nous, pr6f6rant lull-mAme
'Jo me souviendrel toujours vo tenir A lAcart, iouant an
dune joumee do printemps. La '; quelque aorta Is r6le de l'ar-
' terra avail s6ch6, nous ?6tions ?bltre, Do plus an pluls, Ii pei-
r6unis entre amts et:avions mss ,'salt dens lea resits, I'expdrience
sur Is sot nos vestes ouat6es .de sea compagnona, at dAlals-
' Couches, nous ecoUtions Solje salt ? lee livres,
! nitsyne declamer son: poems Au moment do son arresta-
II avast A la ,main son eternal tion, Kopolev 6tait membre du
,chapelet quit 6grenait an nous Partl. Ii avast W commissaire
Ilsent see vers. C'etalt tin tres poiltique pendant Is guerre. Ko-
long poems, car do nouveaux' peiev avast beaucoup A racon-
chapitres Otolent venue sans, :.:ter A SolJenileyne to lutte frees
cease s'y ajouter... Afia do sur-. tionnelle ou self du Parts,- lea
veilter f'arrivi a dos garden-! dessoua des Is collectivisation,
, etc. _ me ou Is chef du camp an ex -
chlourme, nous nous 6tions median, Lune de nos tares
'places do fapon quo -Cho- Dane "lee discussions ever soirees litt$ralres. ? est restrbe geant Is respect des drolts
cum puisse ombrasser,du re- ' kopelev, J'etalt Intranslgeant. 'dens me m6moire comm. Ia. dAtenu. Lul soul savelt lour pa 4
Bard I'un doe es qu quatre-, polnta Js no irouvals pan au; regime meilleure soiree do me via. tar an as r6f6rant A des text
cardinaux.. r, communists sovl6tique des sir-: administratifs at uridl u
Entre-temps, fee detenus of ;'constances att6nuantes. Je`. prlsonnler Ayant epport art A dana. reoueii men do sac de vrbcis. L'Insistance doses re
fluaient Nous fOmes blent6t n'avais =rien observe an IuI de.: ?Maia?~ smdicationa rertatt noose u j
250, mantle d'une combinalson, ,positif, do valabte. J'exposais kovsky, j'evaia rOussf A persue- forme eons us p
I bleue qui nous donnait. I'ailure,- }: mss arguments. Ko rev. lull, dear mss deux smite do d6efa- 'pap exam p r
de parachutistea. tin r6girnenl', trouvalt quo tout emit pour Is' mar see vars. Its n'aimaient pas P ?? P'.sett un PPtin, '.stair, r
tins'. e, do reeler h chaq
s
du Kremlin nous gardalt A tax- y' mleux dens Is meilleur des ce pobte, mats tous doux It- rappel du soir, au Chef do earn A- ri
le, II I h A d i t t" bl
t
d
b
tut' dts?Ig-le, cease"' JournUe - de travail schev9e,
nous reveniona darts lea don
es.' Tu an sale dejA tnira_ ne,ia v -ratreuviona don
n an taut. st to corm ,lcamaradee, . sot-disant Ing6-
);'points, J'Avoquals I'extermina? bnergique, plain d'ardeur, n
I;~tion do millions de paysans au _ 10 Ames soudein grts, mo e, 'cours do Is collectivisation, leg ' pesanx . de veritables rides
famine qul s'ensulvirent. Je saturant our son visage. N'
reppelais Kopelev lea Innom- bliez pas quo dens Is poi
brables purges, la terreur, is fl a'agit d'un personnage me
dlsette eystimatique. Je lul d6- "Alf at obsAd6. D'silleurs, Is en is
cNVafa Is decomposition mar quo Malekovaki a toujours u,
rate de is population pourrie des probiAmes aveclea femur is
,,.per tin 'r6seau semi d'Indica- 'et Soljenitsyne Incerna}t pre I
tears de police, de delateurs. .siment devant nous un horn e.
Je erols quo pour Soljenit~' qui We aucun susses sup a
eyne, %Co n'etalt pee IA. des' du sexe faminin. Jo to vois ,'.conversations aerieuses. it n'at core d6prim6, vaxA, to visa eio
malt pas y participer. sans marque par Is souffrance. n
doute. parse qu'elles tournaient sentalt quo as hargne an eutour do Staline at do sea ?lalt ou monde entier. Et d s
crimes. 11 itait dejA un adver- qu'il improvisait I
salre convaincu de tout co qui
Atalt tie au regime stalinlen. Soljenitsyne avast .d'aille a
Nous nous aperg0mos quit un Sens tres algu de I'humo r,
Connalssait bien mieux qua Et quand oelui-ci so conjugu it
sous, certaines epoques crucia- Sues son talent d'acteur, it no a
lee, qu'll avast 6tudl6es, par faisalt moon, do rtre.
example leg st6nogrammes P r . ? . r 19 j
du XIVe Congres du Pertl corn-
muniste de W.R.S.S. Pour lull,
tout etalt. Clair at nut besoin a savour
n'6tait den discuter. Soijenit- g
sync n'appreclalt pas lea longs affronter tee
palabres. II - n'etait pas, comma
.ces Russes qui aiment, afleles,. garI o?C tour e'
discuter du sans de Ia vie des
mutts entieres. lI Imprimaft A E" 1'990, quand Sofjeoft
toute conversation tine orien- at mot ehoistmes de pertir p ur
.tatlon blen concrete, posalt des Is begne, sous restAmes Wan a-
questions concises at attendait cinq jours souls done une c 1-
qu'on lul fournlsse des rOpon- : lute do Is prison do Bouti U.
see claires. Jo voyals A ['ex. e:es trente-cinq )ours, Sol e-
presslon do son visage Is me- nitsyne lee passa repife sur I i-
ment oO 11. avalt enyle dp chan- memo It continuait A cos
ger de eujet, do couper,court se son po6me ? La Route
11 Intertompalt afore un pea Nous me portions quo pond M
brutalement. lea Conversations lee repas, at to eoir, quand Jo'
gull jugealt vhlnes. Certain., an Is voyais fatigue. C'est d is
;Atalent vexes. cette celfule quo je dAcouv is
II se levalt,',ijliant': -. toute I'6tendue do son tai nt
? Ga rufflt, lea gars,. Jo Vals d'imitateur. ii faisalt litters 06.
alter travaifier.dans man coin.'. mint revlvre [as personnag is
Mot, Je'm'6tais habitue A ce , .quo nous avions ? connue A Ia.
trait de carsetere at J'essayals ` ? charachka .?. Un soir, is cr s
d'Atre tpconique au maximum. ' 6touffer de rtre. 'It Imita u e
Au fond, c'dtait tut Is maitre du : conversation t6l6phonique
local at nous I'ecoutions. Sea tre to :chef du laborato a
exigences 6talent minimes : no d'acoustique at Is represent it
pas faire de bruit, II so remit- : du M.G.S. (1). Un petit ch t-
tait atom A lire ou A 6crlre. d'oeuvre d'exactitude at de s r-
Toujours cette obsession do' vilit6. Je revoyals '.'express'.
I'efficacit6 111 m'arrlvait de iul m6me du chef, J'entendais -
dire : ? Santa,. to as tin moteur basso flatterle do as voix
A is pleas Cu caur. D6brays, Mats certainement, cam
at viers discuter av?c'nous. ? rade Chikine, ce sera fait, o i,
out, at au quart do tour 1 V04 a
11 alttai>r+F3' oouvez compter stir moll I ?
I'll 'it tout A rheure 4-
grand to @i'i$ voir Soljenitsyne tenlr tWte, Chose gen6ralement Ignores, Jourd'hul. A tout un systame,
Soljenitsyne eat in actaur do ' me aurprend pas. A is craclLa ,- it Otalt I
A
a
f
en a ang e- sa an VV-014u- erran
e
rrton
a
de is pfison,ea. n tae cina grammes do faring
,terieur noun,_la charachke ? ynxrif puts 1 J'eaaayaia slots de _les poAmes_ Soijenitsyne debts--' -
 CPYRGHT
at Is mq~
ieee Q i; selbn '1. giement, a le do fiberta Par $fid sermons qui Haut rttertdait ~"" s up tno re en
Ida qu #
valent Sire eloutNpipc>wvectirelea~seeitH~9tsf~9/0 ,rm t r t . 0 A AQ..~~ a ren-
urritur 11 . fact - bien, dire fin de temple, sox services
'amore bus tier' avions gubre ? ? d'6coute do Staline at de Is po- t- r6olltb, Is vie dens ce bagne. centre 1'esqufsse de tutu a per
stir, titre aituati0l do sCien pee poiltique devenalern do !d'Ekibastouz,Jun des plus durs, tonnages, C'6talt pour 1 it one ;sorts
;t iques Isant do noun des so-. ((plus an plus Insupportables.` est d6crlte done 4 one Journ6e d bitable tstistiqua deny rivers
-` eves p iVll6gi6a~ ~, a? E. Du sale trevalI "'Oven Denisspvltch ?. Car Sol- concentrationnalre, de 1'6tat.4
_ nns ne travalilions pas dens.; Wbenrit, at de l'IdAninni des
Al
use '61 Indus oUmos crest a "'?" -- pour renare 5Vn I1.rv i,1V1110 V..O....1 pvn"yvv..
tte m Iheureuse ration -sup, `do construUe une machine trAa lnaoceptable aux eux do leg
complexe de SroulUago t616pho Y Nous `traveralons to u8sle
lomenta ro de farina I . T censure. Pourtent -- at' Seat ; centrale, e'6tatt dana is assin 4
ninue out auratt perils par'.,.r.r1..>