Alexander Solzhenitsyn, RIP

It is with some sadness that we note the death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, age 89, the famed Russian dissident and author.

It was Solzhenitsyn that gave world-wide notoriety to the horrors of Russian Communism, horrors that had been largely hidden from the world for decades.

Solzhenitsyn put a face to the multiple millions of persons who had been imprisoned, tortured, deprived of food and water, and forced to suffer in the cold by Soviet Communists. The West could no longer ignore the atrocities of the Marxist revolution and its aftermath. Solzhenitsyn had been there himself.

Solzhenitsyn also confirmed estimates that Joseph Stalin's regime in the USSR had systematically murdered upwards of 27 million Russians.

The life and work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn are a stark reminder of the dire consequences of totalitarian systems of government and the toll they take not only on human liberty but on human life as well.