Changes

{{Anchor|Vlasov}}

{{Anchor|Vlasov}}

In Volume III Solzhenitsyn discussed the motivations of the Russian National Army (also known as the Vlasov movement) organized during [[World War II]] by the Germans and consisting of [[POW]]s from the Soviet Union.  The Vlasovites, led by Gen. Anatoly Vlasov to fight against the [[Red Army]] and liberate Russia from [[Soviet]] [[communism]], ended up in the gulag.

In Volume III Solzhenitsyn discussed the motivations of the Russian National Army (also known as the Vlasov movement) organized during [[World War II]] by the Germans and consisting of [[POW]]s from the Soviet Union.  The Vlasovites, led by Gen. Anatoly Vlasov to fight against the [[Red Army]] and liberate Russia from [[Soviet]] [[communism]], ended up in the gulag.

{{quotebox|Remember Lenin's words: "An oppressed class which did not aspire to [[Second Amendment|possess arms]] and learn how to handle them would deserve only to be treated as slaves" (Fourth Edition, Volume 23-, page 85). There is, then, reason to be proud if the Soviet-German war showed that we are not such slaves as all those studies by [[liberal]] historians contemptuously make us out to be. There was nothing slavish about those who reached for their sabers to cut of 'Daddy Stalin's head (nor about those on the other side, who straightened their backs for the first time when they put on Red Army greatcoats - in a  strange brief interval of freedom which no student of society could have foreseen).<br><br>These people, who had experienced on their own hides twenty-four years of Communist happiness, knew by 1941 what as yet no one else in the world knew: that nowhere on the planet, nowhere in history, was there a  regime more vicious, more bloodthirsty, and at the same time more cunning and ingenious than the [[Bolshevik]], the self-styled Soviet regime. That no other regime on earth could compare with it either in the number of those it had done to death, in hardiness, in the range of its ambitions, in its thoroughgoing and unmitigated [[totalitarian]]ism - no, not even the regime of its pupil Hitler, which at that time blinded Western eyes to all else. Came the time when weapons were put in the hands of these people, should they have curbed their passions, allowed Bolshevism to outlive itself, steeled themselves to cruel oppression again - and only then begun the struggle with it (a struggle which has still hardly started anywhere in the world)?...<ref>''Gulag Vol. III'', pages 565-566.</ref>}}

{{quotebox|Remember [[Lenin]]'s words: "An oppressed class which did not aspire to [[Second Amendment|possess arms]] and learn how to handle them would deserve only to be treated as slaves" (Fourth Edition, Volume 23-, page 85). There is, then, reason to be proud if the [[Operation Barbarossa|Soviet-German war]] showed that we are not such slaves as all those studies by [[liberal]] historians contemptuously make us out to be. There was nothing slavish about those who reached for their sabers to cut of 'Daddy Stalin's head (nor about those on the other side, who straightened their backs for the first time when they put on Red Army greatcoats - in a  strange brief interval of freedom which no student of society could have foreseen).<br><br>These people, who had experienced on their own hides twenty-four years of Communist happiness, knew by 1941 what as yet no one else in the world knew: that nowhere on the planet, nowhere in history, was there a  regime more vicious, more bloodthirsty, and at the same time more cunning and ingenious than the [[Bolshevik]], the self-styled Soviet regime. That no other regime on earth could compare with it either in the number of those it had done to death, in hardiness, in the range of its ambitions, in its thoroughgoing and unmitigated [[totalitarian]]ism - no, not even the regime of its pupil Hitler, which at that time blinded Western eyes to all else. Came the time when weapons were put in the hands of these people, should they have curbed their passions, allowed Bolshevism to outlive itself, steeled themselves to cruel oppression again - and only then begun the struggle with it (a struggle which has still hardly started anywhere in the world)?...<ref>''Gulag Vol. III'', pages 565-566.</ref>}}

In 2001, a [[Russia|Russian Federation-based]] patriot organization applied to the [[Russian Federation]]'s military prosecutor for a review of Gen. Vlasov's case,<ref>Valeria Korchagina and Andrei Zolotov Jr.[https://web.archive.org/web/20070928003436/http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=5830  It's Too Early To Forgive Vlasov] ''The St. Petersburg Times''. 6 Nov 2001.</ref> saying that "Vlasov was a [[patriot]] who spent much time re-evaluating his service in the Red Army and the essence of Stalin's regime before agreeing to collaborate with the Germans".  The military prosecutor concluded that the law of rehabilitation of victims of political repressions did not apply to Vlasov and refused to consider the case again. However, Vlasov's Article 58 RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic) Penal Code conviction for anti-Soviet agitation (ASA) and propaganda was vacated.  A memorial dedicated to Gen. Vlasov and the participants in the Russian Liberation Movement was erected at the Novo-Diveevo [[Russian Orthodox]] convent and cemetery in Nanuet, [[New York]].  Twice annually, on the anniversary of Vlasov's execution and on the Sunday following Orthodox [[Easter]], a memorial service is held for Vlasov and the combatants of the Russian National Army.  While Solzhenitsyn was a Red Army captain who served with distinction, by the personal stories of Vlasovites and what happened to their families in the decades before World War II under the leftwing ideology and regime, Solzhenitsyn came to understand why they took arms against the Red Army.

In 2001, a [[Russia|Russian Federation-based]] patriot organization applied to the [[Russian Federation]]'s military prosecutor for a review of Gen. Vlasov's case,<ref>Valeria Korchagina and Andrei Zolotov Jr.[https://web.archive.org/web/20070928003436/http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=5830  It's Too Early To Forgive Vlasov] ''The St. Petersburg Times''. 6 Nov 2001.</ref> saying that "Vlasov was a [[patriot]] who spent much time re-evaluating his service in the Red Army and the essence of Stalin's regime before agreeing to collaborate with the Germans".  The military prosecutor concluded that the law of rehabilitation of victims of political repressions did not apply to Vlasov and refused to consider the case again. However, Vlasov's Article 58 RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic) Penal Code conviction for anti-Soviet agitation (ASA) and propaganda was vacated.  A memorial dedicated to Gen. Vlasov and the participants in the Russian Liberation Movement was erected at the Novo-Diveevo [[Russian Orthodox]] convent and cemetery in Nanuet, [[New York]].  Twice annually, on the anniversary of Vlasov's execution and on the Sunday following Orthodox [[Easter]], a memorial service is held for Vlasov and the combatants of the Russian National Army.  While Solzhenitsyn was a Red Army captain who served with distinction, by the personal stories of Vlasovites and what happened to their families in the decades before World War II under the leftwing ideology and regime, Solzhenitsyn came to understand why they took arms against the Red Army.