Solzhenitsyn, in 1974, gives his first news conference in the West since being expelled from Russia earlier in the year. From his home in Zurich, he famously called for a campaign of passive resistance to Communist rule and ideology. (AP)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn died two days ago but not before warning the West that we are approaching a major turning point in our history where a spiritual crisis will meet with the political crisis of today's world ~ and we will have to create leaders who are as great as the personalities who created America: Allen L Roland

Those words accurately summarize his literary creed ~ for  Solzhenitsyn, like Tolstoy or Dostoevsky before him, became a vital source of spiritual nourishment and the truth to his huge circle of readers ~ which eventually included myself. 

Despite the ban imposed on all his works after the publication of his masterful  A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), he was very widely read in his native Russia. He was also the only Russian writer to achieve the best-seller lists in the West  ~ and sold more than 30 million books in over 30 languages.

Not that fame or fortune held much temptation for Solzhenitsyn.  He was a fundamentally serious, ascetic individual, who distinguished himself with his capacity for enduring emotional and physical pain. As such, he spent much of his life in  self-imposed confinement but perhaps it was too uncomfortable for him to see what he witnessed in the world around him.   

After being expelled from Russia, where he survived nearly a decade in Stalin's gulag archipelago, he immigrated to America ~ only to shut himself away behind barbed-wire-topped walls in a remote mountain village in Vermont, the better to maintain his punishing working regimen and self-imposed isolation.

America was perhaps not the ideal destination for a man of Solzhenitsyn's stern moral temperament. If he had despised the heavy-handed Soviet rule, he came to loathe the West's "smug hedonism" in almost equal measure. This view did not endear him to America's  media, which lost no time in transforming  Solzhenitsyn into a bigoted, anti-social  and self-righteous ingrate. 

But Solzhenitsyn was ahead of his time and saw the West most clearly especially the potential of an oncoming spiritual crisis in combination with the political crisis of today's world.

He prophetically wrote of this in his WARNING TO THE WEST in 1974. ( Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. pg 79-80 )

"We are approaching a major turning point in world history, in the history of civilization. It's the sort of turning point where the hierarchy of values which we have venerated, and we use to determine what is important to us and what caused our hearts to beat is starting to rock and may collapse. These two crises, the political crisis of today's world and the oncoming spiritual crisis, are occuring at the same time. Your leaders will need profound intuition, spiritual foresight, high qualities of mind and soul. May God grant that in those times you will have at the helm personalities as great as those who created your country."

Let's keep that in mind when we vote for President in November of this year. 

Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/08/05.html

Freelance Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations    ( allen@allenroland.com ) 

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on  www.conscioustalk.net

 www.opednews.com/articles/SOLZHENITSYN-S-WARNING-TO--by-Allen-L-Roland-080805-802.html