ABSTRACT
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Karl Marx both believe that modern man is captive to a condition of false freedom. Marx's solution to the problems of egoism and alienation is an external one; that of Solzhenitsyn is a profoundly internal one. Solzhenitsyn affirms that a central aspect of overcoming egoism is the ability to love others. It is love which permits man to escape the prison of self--an internal prison from which Dostoevsky's "underground man," the archetype of modern man, cannot escape. Solzhenitsyn is a conservative who believes that genuine freedom and community can flourish only on the basis of civility and tradition. Solzhenitsyn’s concern for man's inner freedom is related to what Professor Richard Pipes of Harvard University has characterized as the "autonomous man" tradition in nineteenth and twentieth-century Russian thought. For Solzhenitsyn, the Russian nation is a very real and worthwhile entity; it plays a vital moral role and nurtures the traditions without which no individual can sustain himself.
