Advertisement

Solzhenitsyn critical of Russia, U.S.

MOSCOW, June 6 (UPI) -- Nobel prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn is berating Russia for its political system, and the United States for forcing democracy everywhere.

"We have had no democracy, (in Russia)," Solzhenitsyn said in an interview on Russian television. "I said it many times that we have nothing remotely similar to democracy."

Advertisement

Solzhenitsyn said democracy cannot be imposed from above, "by clever laws or wise politicians" but must be grown from the bottom up like a plant -- "democracy must begin at the local level, within the local self-government."

Instead of true democracy, Russia has "a political class," people who have become professional politicians, reported Novosti, the Russian government news agency.

The author of "Gulag Archipelago" also criticized U.S. policy.

Ten years ago, the United States "launched an absurd project to impose democracy all over the world," he said. "They first interfered with the Bosnian situation, bombed Yugoslavia, then Afghanistan, and then Iraq ... the U.S. must understand that democracy cannot be introduced by force, by the army."

Latest Headlines