Assault on Ideology: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Political Thought - Paperback

by James F. Pontuso (Author), Daniel J. Mahoney (Foreword by)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is almost a forgotten man, a relic of the Cold War, like some broken and discarded bit of the Berlin Wall. He is also one of the most important writers of the 20th century, and has had more direct influence on politics than any author since Jean Jacques Rousseau. At a critical time after America's loss in Vietnam, Solzhenitsyn stood as a towering moral force against a policy of appeasement towards an evil adversary. In this new edition of Assault on Ideology: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Political Thought author James F. Pontuso showcases the titanic thought that understood Marxism to be a vain and ultimately merciless effort to fulfill the Enlightenment dream of fully conquering and exploiting nature in order to establish a perfect and just society on earth. Solzhenitsyn's claim was that Lenin, Stalin, and the Russian people applied Marx's principles to the letter yielding horrific results. Pontuso traces the causes of the horrific events of the Great Terror beginning with Stalin's megalomania, back through the cruel precedents laid down by Lenin, to the ideology established by Marx, and ultimately to the philosophy begun in the Enlightenment.

Author Biography

James F. Pontuso is Elliot Professor of Political Science at Hampden-Sydney College.