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Solzhenitsyn was arrested in 1945 because he wrote a private letter to a friend that criticized Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Freedom of Speech was not allowed in the Soviet Union, and when censors found the letter, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years of hard labor. Solzhenitsyn was "rehabilitated" after the death of Stalin and allowed to return to his home. He taught Mathematics at a high school and began to write novels. He wrote of his days in the prison labor camps and of the unfairness of the Soviet system. The Soviet government would not allow Solzhenitsyn 's novels to be published, but they were smuggled out of the nation and widely read in the rest of the world. In 1970, Solzhenitsyn received international recognition when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Solzhenitsyn was a voice too loud for the Soviet government to silence. The novel, The Gulag Archipelago was published to worldwide acclaim. Any attempt to silence Solzhenitsyn would be met with intense international criticism, so in 1974 the Soviet Union allowed Solzhenitsyn to leave. Solzhenitsyn was a courageous person who continued to write about the truth of the Soviet Union even in the face of prison or death. Many other dissident voices were not as fortunate. His writings must remind us that governments can treat their citizens cruelly and that we should listen to those who hold contrary opinions. We don't have to agree, but we have a responsibility to listen.
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