Lessons from Solzhenitsyn’s The Red Wheel

Indispensable during the Cold War, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s writings remain essential for our times and troubles. This, for a number of reasons. First, he is one of the handful of essential analysts of Ideology with a capital “I”. In his historical and literary writings, he vividly brings to light the modern Manichean form of thinking that divides humanity into good and evil camps and groups, thereby falsifying history, morality, and politics. As Ideology has continued to exist in transmogrified forms after its Marxist-Leninist version, he remains a sure guide into its dark labyrinths.