ABSTRACT
On 14 january 1974 Pravda published an 1,800-word commentary headed “The Path of a Traitor,” setting out the government’s case against Solzhenitsyn in greater detail than hitherto. Solzhenitsyn was anti-patriotic, anti-Russian, and pro-German. Solzhenitsyn was under the direct control of his imperialist masters and had gathered his material for Gulag not in the Soviet Union but from working “in close contact and accord with the most rabid reactionaries and cold warriors.” On 2 February, Solzhenitsyn made public statement in reply to his critics, on the fourth Lydia Chukovskaya released an open letter in his defence, and on the seventh Roy Medvedev defended Solzhenitsyn in an interview. Solzhenitsyn and Svetlova felt themselves to be in a kind of limbo.
