Some thinkers have sadly concluded that the enchantment Nadezhda Mandelstam recognized in the word revolution, “to which whole nations have succumbed,” continues to bewitch intellectuals. In his argument with dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn accused him of having “contracted the squint characteristic of the age—viewing all revolutions with general approval.” This failing is not “personal,” Solzhenitsyn opined, but “is the result . . . of the general hypnosis of a whole generation, which cannot wake up abruptly” and learn the danger of revolutionism in its many forms. “No,” Solzhenitsyn admonished, “let us not wish either ‘revolution’ or ‘counter-revolution’ on our worst enemies.”
–––Gary Saul Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions ,And Why Their Answers Matter, 175
