The great Russian dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn apparently died yesterday. He is justly famous for his stand against Soviet tyranny, and his willingness to endure KGB harrassment in order to express his viewpoints.
Nevertheless, as a post on the Reason Hit and Run blog points out, Solzhenitsyn's protest was not born from a love of freedom and democracy, but from an emphasis on a more religious, ethnic vision of totalinarianism. For instance, there is strong reason to suspect that Solzhenitsyn was anti-semitic. Also, in his later years, he was a strong supporter of Vladimir Putin's authoritarian rule.
Nevertheless, he must be lauded for his courage and the risks he took. There is a video biography available on the BBC News website here.
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