SOLZHENITSYN

To the Editors of The Crimson:

The arrest and deportation of Alexander Solzhenitsyn should not surprise the world, as it is a logical outgrowth of the greatest assault ever mounted on the human spirit, which began under Lenin and did not cease with the death of Stalin. What should surprise us is the fact that while we are momentarily outraged by the injustice done to one great man, we forget or ignore the grinding tyranny under which Soviet citizens live every day. Defenders of Solzhenitsyn are properly legion, but who has defended Raiza Palathnic, Slyvia Zalmanson, Sinyavsky and Daniels, the four Jewish dissidents convicted last week to hard labor, the Estonians arrested yesterday for the crime of wanting to visit their relatives, the Crimean Tatars, current victims of Soviet genocide and the tens of millions of others whose names have not escaped, who disappeared without trace, as Solzhenitsyn himself testifies.

Solzhenitsyn does not live and write in order to vent his personal spleen against the Communist regime. "The Gulag Archipelago" was written to remind us that the concentration camps still exist and that millions continue to die in them, and to remind the U.S. of its criminal stupidity and moral fecklessness in failing to combat Soviet oppression of its people. Although Solzhenitsyn himself may now be safe, the Soviet dictatorship still remains.

To express our support for Solzhenitsyn and the Russian people for whom he is willing to die, the United States must immediately suspend all cultural and economic contacts with the Kremlin despots. To hope that these contacts might bring about a liberalization of Soviet rule in the face of last week's events is not only naive, but fatuous. To continue them merely serves to stain the honor of the United States beyond earthly redemption. Laurence Krute '74   Jewish Defense League   Stephen Rosen '74   Young Americans for Freedom