Translated material
Live not by lies!
Actual essay
"Live not by lying!" - That was the name of the essay of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, written in February 1974. It was a response to large -scale persecution of dissent in the USSR, searches, arrests of dissidents across the country, an attack on samizdat and tightening censorship, as well as a frantic propaganda campaign after the exit in the west of the Gulag Archipelago. The writer called on the thinking and conscientious part of the intelligentsia “not to support the lies consciously”, not to participate directly or indirectly in the wrong matters of the authorities, including not to vote for those who are not worthy of being elected. The society reacted in the resumption in May of 1974, the non-certificate “Chronicle of current events”, and in September-the famous “Bulldozer exhibition” of artists. This phrase Solzhenitsyn became an informal slogan of the human rights movement in the USSR. Today, after 37 years, it again becomes relevant
Once we did not dare to rustle in a whisper. Now we write and read the Samizdat, and even to each other, going on in the smokers of the Research Institute, we will click from the heart: why only they are not bitter, where they just do not pull us! And unnecessary cosmic boasting in the ruin and poverty of the house; and strengthening distant wild regimes; and inciting civil wars; And they recklessly raised Mao Zedong (at our funds) - and they will drive us on him, and we will have to go where are you going? And they judge who they want, and they drive the healthy people into the insane ones - all the “they”, and we are powerless. "
We are so hopelessly divided that for today's modest feeder we will give all the principles, our soul, all the efforts of our ancestors, all the possibilities for descendants - if only not to upset our dumplings
“Already the bottom reaches, the universal spiritual death has sucked on all of us, and the physical is about to flap and burn us and our children-and we still smile cowardly and babble-speaking:
- And what will we interfere?
We have no strength. We are so hopelessly divided that for today's modest feeder we will give all the principles, our soul, all the efforts of our ancestors, all the possibilities for descendants - just not to upset our frenzy existence. We have neither firmness, nor pride, nor heart heat. We are not even afraid of universal atomic death, we are not afraid of the Third World War (maybe we’ll hide in a click) - we are only afraid of the steps of civil courage! We just would not tear ourselves from the herd, do not take a step alone - and suddenly be without white loaves, without a gas column, without a Moscow registration. 
And we can - everything! “But we are lying to ourselves to reassure ourselves.” No “they” are to blame for everything - we ourselves, only we!
They object: but you really can’t imagine anything! They swallow our mouths, they don’t listen to us, they don’t ask. How to make them listen to us?
It is impossible to convince them.
It would be natural to re -elect them! - But there are no re -election in our country.
In the West, people know strikes, demonstrations of protest - but we are too clogged, it’s scary for us: how suddenly it is to abandon work, how suddenly it is to go outside?
Nevertheless, other fatal paths, over the last century, were discouraged in bitter Russian history - all the more not for us, and really - do not! Now that all the axes of their puffed up, when everything sown rose, we can see how they got lost, how those young, arrogant, who thought with terror, a bloody uprising and a civil war to make the country fair and happy. No, thanks, the enlightenment fathers! Now we know that the vileness of the methods is bubbled in the vileness of the results. Our hands - may they be clean!
So the circle is closed? And the exit is really not? And it remains for us only to wait inactively: suddenly something will happen?
But it will never fall from us itself if all of us all the days will recognize it, glorify and strengthen it, if we do not push off, although it would be from its very sensitive point.
From - lies.
When violence bursts into a peaceful human life - his face is burning with self -confidence, it carries like that on the flag, and shouts: “I am violence! Dismiss yourself, part - I will crush it! " But violence quickly ages, for a few years - it is no longer confident in itself, and in order to hold on to look decent - it certainly causes a lie in the allies. For: violence has nothing to hide, except for lies, and a lie can only hold violence. And not every day, not on every shoulder puts his heavy paw on his violence: it requires only the humility of lies, daily participation in lies - and this is all faithful.
And here lies the neglected by us, the simplest, most affordable key to our release: personal non-participation in lies! Let the lies cover everything, let him have a lie to everyone, but in the smallest the smallest: let him owns not through me! "
When violence bursts into a peaceful human life - his face is burning with self -confidence, it carries like that on the flag, and shouts: “I am violence! Dismiss yourself, part - I will crush it! " But violence quickly ages
”And this is a gap in the imaginary ring of our inaction! - the easiest for us and the most destructive for lies. For when people recoil from lies, it just ceases to exist. As an infection, it can only exist in public.
We do not call on, we did not ripen in the square and lumber the truth, to express out loud that we think - it is not necessary, it is scary. But at least we refuse to say what we do not think!
This is our path, the easiest and most affordable with our sprouted organic cowardice, it is much easier (scary to pronounce) civil disobedience to Gandhi.
Our path: not to support the lies consciously! Realizing where the border of the lies (for each it is still visible in different ways), to step back from this gangant border! Do not glue the dead bones and scales of ideology, do not sew rotten rags - and we will be amazed, how quickly and helplessly the lie will fall off, and what to be naked will be naked.
So, let everyone choose our timidity: whether he remains a conscious servant of lies (of course, not by tendency, but to feed the family, to raise children in the spirit of lies!), Or it was time for him to be shaken off with an honest person worthy of respect and his children and contemporaries. And from this day he is:
- henceforth does not write, does not sign, will not print a single phrase in any way, jerking, in his opinion, the truth;
- such a phrase will neither express the crowded conversation either from himself, nor on the cheat sheet, or in the role of an agitator, teacher, educator, nor in the theatrical role;
- Picturesingly, sculpturally, photographically, technically, will not depict, will not accompany, will not shift a single false thought, not a single distortion of the truth that distinguishes;
- will not lead either orally or in writing a single “guiding” quote from pleasing, for insurance, for the success of his work, if the quoted thought does not completely share or it does not apply exactly here; "
Our path: not to support the lies consciously! / .../ Do not glue dead bones and scales of ideology, do not sew rotten rags
” - will not allow himself to force himself to go to a demonstration or rally, if it is against his desire and will; he will not pick up, will not raise a banner, slogan, which he does not completely share;
- will not raise a voting hand for an offer that does not sympathize with sincerely; It will not vote clearly, nor secretly by the face, which considers unworthy or doubtful;
- will not allow himself to drive himself to the meeting, where a forced, distorted discussion of the issue is expected;
- Immediately leave the meeting, meeting, lecture, performance, film show, as soon as he hears a lie, ideological nonsense or shameless propaganda from the speaker;
- It will not subscribe and will not buy such a newspaper or magazine in retail, where the information is distorted, primary facts are hidden.
We have listed, of course, not all possible and necessary evasions from lies. But the one who becomes cleared - will easily distinguish between peeled eyes.
Yes, at first it will not be the same. To someone to lose their jobs for a while. Young people who want to live in truth, this will very complicate their young life at the beginning: after all, the responsible lessons are packed with lies, we must choose. But even for anyone who wants to be honest, there is no loophole left here: no one of us even in the safest technical sciences to wipe at least one of the named steps - towards truth or towards lies; in the direction of spiritual independence or spiritual lackey. And the one who lacks the courage even to protect his soul - let him not be proud of his advanced views, do not boast that he is an academician or a people's artist, a honored figure or general - so let him say to himself: I am a cattle and a coward, I would only be satisfying and warm.
Even this path - the most moderate out of all ways of resistance - will be difficult for us for the stuck. But how much easier than self-immolation or even hunger strikes: the flame will not cover your body, your eyes will not burst with heat, and black bread with clean water will always be found for your family.
The great people of Europe, who was deceived by us - Czechoslovatsky, did not show us how unprotected breasts even stand against tanks, if it has a worthy heart?
Will it be a difficult path? - But the easiest possible. A difficult choice for the body, but the only one for the soul. A difficult path, however, we already have people, even dozens of them, who for years withstand all these points, live in truth. "
And the one who lacks the courage even to protect his soul is not proud of his advanced views, does not boast that he is an academician or a people's artist, a honored figure or general - so let him say to himself: I am a cattle and a coward, I would only be satisfying and warm
“So: it’s not the first to enter this path, but to join! The easier and the shorter this way will turn out to be all of us, the more friendly, the thicker we will enter it! There will be thousands of us - and they will not be able to do anything with anyone. We will become tens of thousands of us - and we will not recognize our country!
If we are stuck, then it’s enough to complain that someone does not allow us to breathe-we do not give ourselves to ourselves! We will also bend, we will wait, and our brothers biologists will help to bring the reading of our thoughts and the alteration of our genes.
If in this we stream, then we are insignificant, hopeless, and this is Pushkin's contempt for us:
What are the herds of the gifts of freedom? /.../
Their inheritance from the genus to childbirth
Yarmo with Gremushki and Beach.
February 12, 1974
Source: Alexander Solzhenitsyn - Lenin in Zurich. Stories. Tiny. Journalism. (Series "Mirror - XX century") - Yekaterinburg. Publishing House "U-Factoria", 1999.